Monastery of Leyre

The Monastery of San Salvador de Leyre is the oldest monastery in the northern Spanish region of Navarra. It is located about 50 km southeast of Pamplona in Yesa at the foot of the Pyrenees above the valley of Aragón.

The Year of the monastery is unknown. In the year 848 it was by St. Eulogius of Cordoba, Mozarabic preacher and ascetic, visited and described in a letter to Wilesindo, Bishop of Pamplona, ​​as a community of God-fearing men. To serve an important religious leaders from the Muslim south as the target for such a dangerous journey through the whole of Spain, it must have been at that time an important spiritual center. From about 860, after the occupation of Pamplona by the Moors until 1023, it served as bishop of the diocese. With the transition to the Cistercian Order it assumed in 1269 the mother monastery of La Oliva from the filiation of primary Abbey Mori Moon.

The first three kings of Pamplona, ​​Íñigo Arista († 851/852 ), García Iñiguez († 882 ) and Fortún Garcés ( † after 905), are buried in San Salvador de Leyre.

During the desamortización from 1798, the Spanish monasteries were dissolved and the Cistercians in 1836 expelled from Leyre. Since 1954, Benedictine monks here live from Burgos, who provided for the rehabilitation of the now dilapidated complex, and again took up the practice of Gregorian choral singing.

The crypt of the monastery church of Santa María de Leyre, on the vault rests the whole Church, and was at once grave place of the kings of Navarre, dates from the 9th century, the church itself, built in Romanesque style, was consecrated in the 11th century. The west portal of the 12th century is regarded as a masterpiece of the late Romanesque period. The western part of the church was completed until the 13th century when the Cistercian Order had already taken over the convent, and has with its ribbed vaulting characteristics of early Gothic. The cloister is no longer available. The abbey buildings date from the 17th and 18th centuries.

As a well-known personality of the Monastery of Leyre applies Abbot San Virila. He is said to have fallen while meditating on the Trinity by the song of a nightingale in a sleep and wakes up again only after 300 years ( a modification of the Seven Sleepers legend).

In the area of ​​the monastery there is a hotel and a restaurant, but no hostel for pilgrims.

Pictures

Tympanum of the church portal

Interior of the Church

Entrance to the crypt

Crypt of the monastery church

Part of the monastery building

Monastery buildings and Sierra de Leyre

General view of the monastery of San Salvador de Leyre