Route of the monasteries

In the northeast of the province of Pontevedra is the municipality of Silleda, through which the river Deza flows. The monastery of the same name is located in Carboeiro . The beauty of the site was the main reason for choosing it. The monastery can be seen from a bird's eye view, elevated and almost embraced by a pronounced meander of the river. It was founded in the second third of the 10th century.

The first house was used to house the primitive community of cenobites. Construction began in the 11th century, but it was in the 12th century that the monastery saw its patrimony increase steadily. Before reaching Carboeiro we find the so-called "ponte do Demo" (Devil's Bridge), where assaults, crimes and other offences took place. This bridge dates back to the 16th century and was for centuries the only means of communication between the villages of Silleda and Vila de Cruces.

The church has an ambulatory at the chancel separated from the presbytery by a pointed arcade at the bottom, but with semicircular arches through which the light penetrates at the top, a symbol of divine grace for those who approach this sober and stony interior.

Carboeiro was the centre of agricultural exploitation and control of a territory. The monastery of Carboeiro was declared a National Monument by Decree on 3 June 1931.

On the heights leading to the O Candán mountain range, to the west of the Deza, is the monastery of Aciveiro, in the municipality of Forcarei. Today it has been completely rebuilt to serve as an inn with two beautiful and simple gardens, and the church, with its outstanding walls and buttresses.

The landscape is dominated by greenery. The holly trees that existed centuries ago(acivros) may have been the origin of the name of the place. Winter snows cover these heights with a certain frequency, which allowed the monks to receive income from the use of the snowfields that were in their jurisdiction, which were located in the places of Fixó, Millerada and Forcarei.

An inscription on one of the walls of the church indicates the year of its foundation, 1135, which again places us in the century of the expansion of the Benedictine order in Galicia, royal donations and the rise of monasticism.

As in other cases, some of the abbots of Aciveiro were members of the Galician nobility of the time. Visitors can combine nature with art and history with legend. The monastery of Santa María de Aciveiro was declared a National Monument by Decree on 3 June 1931. It also belongs to the European Network of Cistercian Abbeys and Sites and is a member of ACIGAL (Association of Cistercian Monasteries of Galicia).

The Monastery of A Armenteira, of Bernardine nuns, is located in a fertile valley in the municipality of Meis. King Ferdinand II of Leon endowed the monastery with several properties. It was also originally endowed by the Froilaz family. The community of monks of this monastery had to abandon it in 1837. The reconstruction of this building has its origin in an idea of Carlos Valle-Inclán, motivated by his father's work Aromas de leyenda: versos en loor de un santo ermitaño (Aromas of legend: verses in praise of a hermit saint).

And the legend associated with this monastery could not be missing, the dream that Ero and his wife had while they were sleeping: not having had children, the Virgin Mary assured them that they would have them and in abundance. A few days later they decided to found two monasteries, one for women and the other for men. The cantiga of King Alfonso X takes up the legend of the matrimonial dream and makes it bigger; for he has Ero, tired on a certain occasion while walking through his rural possessions, lay down under a tree to sleep for a while... This while turned into a very long sleep that lasted 300 years, so that when he woke up he found a beautiful monastery built that he had intended.

The monastery of A Armenteira was an important promoter of vine cultivation. Once again, an example of a spiritual centre that becomes an economic emporium for a more or less extensive region. The surviving church has a façade in the purest Romanesque style. Inside, we find three naves; the central one is formed by pointed arches that support the vault, while the side naves have semicircular arches.

The cloister is enclosed by ribbed vaults decorated with keystones. The Monastery of Santa María de A Armenteira was declared a National Monument by decree on 3 June 1931.

On a kind of "poyo" or plain high above the Pontevedra estuary is the monastery of San Xoán de Poio which, since the end of the 19th century, has been occupied by Mercedarian monks, although it was a Benedictine monastery when it was founded. The oldest written record of the existence of the monastery of Poio dates back to the 10th century (year 942). In the 18th century, Father Sarmiento, after climbing Castrove mountain on one occasion, wrote: "in all my sea travels, from O Ferrol to A Guarda and Tui, I have not found a more beautiful viewpoint than this site of Castrove... You can see all the best of Galicia".

In 1890 the Mercedarian monks moved to the monastery of Poio, which was in very poor condition as a result of the neglect it had suffered since the 1830s. Classes were taught in the monastery premises, the library was recovered, the church was renovated and on 24 September 1959 work began on the construction of the new building. The aim was to establish a major seminary, although in the end it was decided to use it as a guest house.

The façade of the church is an example of the Baroque style and is made up of three sections, while the interior is covered by a large barrel vault finished in 1708. In the chapel of Christ, the sarcophagus of Saint Trahamunda from the 6th century is preserved. The main altar piece is a 17th century Baroque work with Solomonic columns, an abundance of ornamentation and images of saints, including the Virgin of La Merced and Saint John the Baptist. But there is a jewel that no other monastery in Galicia has: its library.

In the cloister of the Cruceiro or Orange Tree cloister is the monumental mosaic of the Way of St. James, designed by the Czech artist Antoine Machourek (1913-1991). It is 80 metres long and 2.5 metres high (200 m2). The monastery was declared a National Monument on 13 August 1971.

Near the mouth of the river Lérez, in Pontevedra, stands this monastery, which has the peculiarity of a gallery with double arches attached to one of the walls of the church. It is still the destination of a pilgrimage held every year on 21 March in memory of the miraculous fame of Saint Benedict. There is controversy over the year of its foundation , as Father Yepes speaks of the end of the 9th century, while Father Flórez puts it back to the beginning of the 10th century.

In the specific case of Lérez, during the mandate of Fray Benito Gesto, the altarpiece of the main altar of the church was built. The golden colour contributes to the magnificence of this altarpiece, which, like others from the Baroque centuries, attempts to show the power of the Church over the infidel and Protestant world. This altarpiece, which contains the image of Saint Benedict and whose work is dated by some to the beginning of the 16th century, and the others, are considered to be part of the great work of craftsmanship and art that was carried out in this monastery.

There is a small chapel dedicated to Saint Benedict before the monastery church, which was under construction between the 17th and 18th centuries. The courtyard, part of the cloister and the main staircase date from the 16th century, according to the work El monasterio de Lérez y su Colegio de Artes, by Crisanto Rial López. The refectory, kitchen, chapter house, library and part of the cells are also preserved today. A special lamp containing the saint's miraculous oil is constantly burning in front of the image of Saint Benedict.

The façade of the church is sober, reminiscent of the neoclassical rather than the baroque style, and above the door is the image of St. Benedict in a niche. The monastery was declared a National Monument on 21 June 1946.

As the Galician estuaries gradually recede to the north and the rectilinear coastline becomes more like the Portuguese one, we find the municipality of Oia, with its monastery on the edge of the sea, the protagonist of some events of defence against Atlantic piracy. This place seems to have been chosen by the monks as the antithesis of placidity; rather as a metaphor for the divine fury in the face of sin, represented by the gigantic waves.

Some sources refer to the foundation of the monastery of Oia at the beginning of the 10th century. Periods of economic prosperity followed periods of crisis, as a result of the decline in trade due to the wars with Portugal in the 17th century, bad harvests or poor administration, generally coinciding with the short terms of office of the abbots, which were concentrated between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, shortly before the disentailment and eviction of the monks.

At the beginning of the 20th century, with the end of the Portuguese monarchy and the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portugal, they took over the monastery and founded a college there. During the Second Spanish Republic the Jesuits were expelled. The interior of the church is extraordinarily solid, with the ribbed vaults forming rich decorative filigree patterns.

One of the monastery's cloisters is a masterpiece of stonework, with semicircular arches leading to the central courtyard and ribbed vaults rising from elegant corbels. Today the monastery and its outbuildings are privately owned. The monastery was declared a National Monument on 3 June 1931.