6 October

lecture series
SANCTUARIES IN ESTELLA LAND

Sanctuaries, pilgrimages and devotions in the district of Estella

D. Gregorio Silanes Susaeta
PhD in History and high school program-graduate in Religious Sciences

We will begin by trying to define what a sanctuary is. A sanctuary is a place considered sacred for the manifestation of the divine, for the presence of burials, relics and/or images of saints or for having a connection with events considered supernatural. It should be noted that shrines in general do not all have the same importance: some are more "prestigious", because they have more importance than the purely local or house important relics, and others, most of them, are more local, such as the small hermitages in the villages. According to this I have allowed myself to draw up a classification of the sanctuaries of Tierra Estella according to their importance, which like all classifications is subjective, but can serve for our purpose:

• The large monasteries (especially Azuelo and Irache).

• Sanctuaries of regional or supra-regional importance.

• Local pilgrimage centers of a regional nature

• Local sanctuaries in each village (usually small hermitages)

The great monasteries

The great monasteries (especially Azuelo and Irache) had prestige for the preservation of important and abundant relics. They were centers of pilgrimage. The monastery of Irache housed the remains of Saint Veremundo, abbot, very venerated in Villatuerta and Arellano, as both localities dispute to be the cradle of the saint. In the 17th century, Saint Veremundo was also venerated by other towns of the merindad and especially by the valley of "San Esteban" (Javier Ibarra says that the document refers to the valley of Yerri), who went on pilgrimage every March 8 - Saint Veremundo's feast day - to the basilica of the Holy Cross of Monjardín and celebrated the mass of the saint with the commemoration of the Holy Cross. This information is collected in a report on the cult of St. Veremundo that the bishop of Pamplona, Prudencio de Sandoval, ordered to be made in 1614. The saint was also called upon in case of dangerous storms that threatened the fruits of the fields, as stated in the aforementioned report . And already in 1763, Father Hiebra, monk of Irache, wrote the following: "in the twelve years that I have lived in this monastery, I have never seen that the stone that has begun to fall many times, has done special damage in the enclosures of the house, as it has come with time to take the relics to the cloister".

Another important sanctuary of the merindad of Estella was the monastery of San Jorge de Azuelo. Fray Juan de Salazar, Benedictine in Santa María la Real de Nájera, contemporary of Fr. Prudencio de Sandoval (end of the 16th century and first third of the 17th century), says of it in his manuscript graduate Náxarailustrada: "The monastery of San Jorge de Azuelo, formerly one of the most important abbeys in the kingdom of Navarre and at present one of the most qualified priories of Santa María la Real de Nájera [is] one of the most famous and frequented sanctuaries in that kingdom as well as in the neighboring ones".

One of the attractions of this monastery was undoubtedly the possession of abundant relics on a scale comparable to that of the monastery of Leire itself. Among them are those of the Holy Thorn, Saint George, Saint Martin of Tours (bishop), Saint Millán de la Cogolla (abbot), Saint Pantaleón (martyr), Saint Engracia, Saint Águeda, Saint Eugenia and Saint Eulalia (virgins and martyrs) and those of other martyred saints of the first centuries. Of course, the monastery of Azuelo kept a great relic of Saint Gregory Ostiense. Also of Saint Eulogio (martyr), of Saint Felices, of Saint Fortunato, Saint Aquileo... But the remains to which a greater veneration was paid corresponded above all to a local and agricultural saint: Saint Simeón de Cabredo, whose relics were transferred to a precious ark, where they are venerated, in 1603. On the day of the transfer, the following parish crosses, councils and places were present: Aguilar de Codés, Cabredo, Torralba, Espronceda, Desojo, Armañanzas, Torres, El Busto, Melgar and Sansol. The new reliquary-chest had been paid for by seven of these towns and seven carvings adorn it with their parish dedications: Saint Mary for Armañanzas, Saint George for Azuelo, Saint James for Cabredo, Saint Mary again for Desojo, Saint Andrew for El Busto, Saint Zoilo for Sansol and Saint Andrew again for Torres del Río.

San Simeón de Cabredo was the patron saint of the farmers of the valley of Aguilar and the annual pilgrimage was held in the seventeenth century every year on July 1. The procession was attended by the people of the aforementioned villages. There was a brotherhood of the saint founded by the abbot of Nájera and ordinary of the parish and hermitages of Azuelo, Fray Diego de Venegas, on September 26, 1626.

Although he was outside Navarre, when speaking of devotions and pilgrimages of the merindad of Estella, one cannot fail to mention Saint Faust the farmer, whose incorrupt body is preserved in the parish church of Bujanda (a village in the Cuadrilla de Campezo, Alava). He is an important saint, protector of the fields and crops, who is even the patron saint of one of the parishes of Tierra Estella, that of Ancín. The people of Zúñiga, Cabredo and Marañón used to go on pilgrimages to Bujanda in the month of May to venerate his relics and it is known that there was a Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love dedicated to his name in Eraul, of which the toponym has remained in the Peñas de San Fausto.

Every year many towns around and further away would concur with their litanies to venerate Saint Faust to ask him for protection from illnesses and especially from demonic obsessions, achieving through his intercession to be free from them. The farmers also asked him for water and good weather. Saint Faust was considered the protector of mountains and crops. In 1614 the visitor of the bishopric of Calahorra and La Calzada granted permission to open the ark where the blessed body is buried during the cloudy storms that usually occur. Less known is the fact that this saint is also a special intercessor for sterile marriages. His feast is celebrated on October 14.

As can be appreciated from what has been discussed so far, we can see the existence of a multitude of local advocations of an agricultural nature in the merindad of Estella (and in the kingdom of Navarre in general) prior to the generalized cult of Saint Isidore the farmer, who would later become the patron saint of the farmers (from the 17th century onwards and, above all, in the 18th century). In the kingdom of Navarre, among the patron saints of farmers prior to St. Isidore, we would have, for example, St. Lambert (in Pamplona), St. Simeon of Cabredo in the valley of Aguilar, St. Gregory Ostiense in Berrueza and many other places, and St. Faust the farmer.

Sanctuaries of regional or supra-regional importance.

They are basically two: the basilica of San Gregorio Ostiense de Sorlada and the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of Our Lady of Codés. The first of them even had a national transcendence, which began to gain momentum from the sixteenth century. Before the end of that century, the biographer of St. Gregory, Andrés de Salazar, informs us of 56 towns in Navarre, La Rioja and Aragon that had made a vow to the saint and paid an amount to the "house and church of St. Gregory" for the water blessed for the fields. With time, the devotion to Gregorio Ostiense increased. It is well known the trip of the reliquary of the head of the saint in 1756-57 practically all over Spain. Juan José Barragán Landa discusses this in detail in his article Las plagas del campo español y la devoción a san Gregorio Ostiense, published in 1978 in "Cuadernos de Etnología y Etnografía de Navarra", which can also be found at available on-line.

Particularly noteworthy is the vow made by the city of Tortosa, from where they came expressly to Sorlada in search of the blessed water. sample of the devotion of this city is the following song from Tortosa: "Your mercies shine / in compelling the locust and the caterpillar / to flee / and in giving rain in drought / and for the storms / you are the celestial iris: / Defend us Saint Gregory, / from locusts and all evil".

The importance of the saint in Catalonia was very important, not only as a protector of the countryside but also as an advocation against insect bites and eye ailments of any kind subject.

Another sanctuary of supra-local transcendence would be that of Our Lady of Codés, which has also been discussed in detail in this lecture series. The Virgin of Codés was venerated above all in Navarre, Alava and La Rioja. Gerardo López de Guereñu says that this dedication is of great devotion in Alava. Many pilgrims from the towns of La Rioja Alavesa came to the sanctuary of Codés and many inhabitants of the Mountains and the Llanada remembered her at the hour of her death and ordered in their wills that masses be said in suffrage for her soul. The Virgin of Codés was sample effective in curing diseases, sores, bruises and infections by means of cloths blessed by the chaplain of the sanctuary that were placed in the form of a cross on the sick part. In 1568 in the book of accounts of the Council of Bernedo appears the position of a real "that was given to a man who went to Our Lady of Codés to bring some bandaged cloths to put them on a gypsy who was wounded in this town in the hospital.

The Virgin of Codés was also highly venerated in Logroño. As an example of this affirmation, some neighbors of that city, Don Diego Jacinto Barrón and his wife Doña Jacinta Ponce de León, paid for the enlargement of the sacristy of the sanctuary in 1643 (which in the 18th century would be demolished to build the one that exists today). The successive hermits of Codés went around the houses of the lands of Navarra, Álava and La Rioja collecting alms in kind for the works and the cult of the sanctuary in the three demarcations.

In 1677 a son of Sansol, Don Sebastián de Mongelos, ecclesiastic of degree program, who became a titular minister of the Inquisition and who held at that time the dignity of canon archdeacon of Valpuesta, of the Holy Church Cathedral of Burgos, offered for the sanctuary of Codés a third of all his goods. 

But devotion to the Virgin of Codés was not only in the nearby provinces, but also in the overseas viceroyalties, most certainly emigrants from these lands who went to America. For example, in 1675 a silver lamp arrived from Mexico, offered by Don Jerónimo de Calatayud.

Local pilgrimage centers of a regional nature

In some villages of the merindad there were sanctuaries that exerted a particular attraction towards the towns in the same valley. This is the case of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of San Bartolomé de Oco/Abáigar, where the people of Valdega (except Learza) gathered and which housed a confraternity that came to have several thousand members. This confraternity offered the brothers the possibility of taking part in 212 masses throughout the year and was responsible for carrying twelve axes to the funeral of each brother in his home town.

A local Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love where people from all over the region went on pilgrimage every June 29th was that of San Pedro de Sansol. In the 18th century this pilgrimage must have been very popular. It had a documented brotherhood since the 13th century (the period to which the monumental image of St. Peter that is preserved in the choir loft of the parish church of Sansol belongs). Brothers from many nearby and more distant towns (Sansol, Desojo, El Busto, Los Arcos, Lazagurría, Mendavia...) belonged to it. 

Other hermitages of regional character were the one of San Antonio de Padua (in Guembe), of the XVII century, to which people of the whole valley of Guesálaz went, the one of Ntra. de Legarda in Mendavia, where it is known that people from Torralba del Río went on pilgrimage in 1586, that of the Virgen de Gracia in Cárcar (which celebrated its feast on the second day of Pentecost and was also attended by people from San Adrián and Lerín), the basilica of the Santa Cruz de Monjardín (as mentioned before)...
 

Local sanctuaries in each town

Finally, we should mention the sanctuaries or hermitages of a more local character, which existed in practically all the towns. Although in seven of the smallest places, if we take into account the work of Tomás López Sellés, none are located Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love. These are: Larrión, Gollano, Orendáin, Soracoiz, Zabalza, Arandigoyen and Muru de Yerri. As a counterpoint we have the case of Viana where 40 hermitages were counted (27 in Viana, 7 in Aras and 6 in Bargota). By the way, in the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of San Miguel de Viana there was a tradition that St. Paul the Apostle had evangelized there (at least in the 16th century when a registration was discovered -which is no longer preserved- that said that a certain Paulo had preached in that place). The Geographical and Historical Dictionary of Spain of the Royal Academy of History of 1802 already warned of the falsity of this fact.

I have taken the liberty of classifying these sanctuaries by establishing some general guidelines:

- Hermitages dedicated to the Holy Cross and Calvaries. Sometimes they belonged to the brotherhoods of the Vera Cruz, as in Marañón or Lodosa. They used to go in procession on May 3 (Invention of the Holy Cross) and September 14 (Exaltation of the Holy Cross), as was the case in Baquedano, Munárriz, Andosilla, Aras (to the holy Christ of the humilladero), Mendaza (to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love del Calvario), Abáigar, Artazu.... Sometimes they also made rogations on the day of St. Mark (with the major litanies) and the three days before the Ascension (with the minor litanies), as in Marañón, or in Genevilla (where they only went on the day of the Ascension). 

- Hermitages dedicated to the patron saints of the towns, such as that of the Virgen de la Cerca in Andosilla, that of Legarda in Mendavia, that of the Virgen de Gracia in Cárcar, that of Ntra Sra. de Nieva in Dicastillo, that of the Virgen de las Angustias in Lodosa (which also had its brotherhood), that of the Virgen de Mendía or Ntra. Sra. de los Remedios in Arróniz, that of the Virgen de Leorin in Morentin de la Solana, that of the Virgen de Mendigaña in Azcona...

To these Marian hermitages of the patron saint also used to go in procession the different towns making rogations. This is what they did in Dicastillo to the Virgin of Nieva on the day of St. Mark (April 25) where they went in procession singing the litanies to the mountain called El Castellar, where the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love was located. The people of Arróniz made rogations to the Virgin of Mendía on March 12 (St. Gregory the Great) and on May 9 (St. Gregory Ostiense) when the fields were blessed with the water of St. Gregory. 

- Hermitages dedicated to different saints:

1) Saint Roque. Together with Saint Sebastian, he was an advocate against the plague. The story, more or less legendary, says that he was born in Montpellier at the end of the thirteenth century or in the fourteenth century and, being a pilgrim to Rome, he traveled through Italy dedicating himself to cure all those sick with the plague. He himself fell ill and, being prostrated, survived thanks to the dog that accompanied him on his pilgrimage and brought him food every day. His cult was very popular in the 16th century. As he was an advocate against the plague, he was much invoked and had hermitages dedicated to him in Aras and Lezáun. But above all he will be venerated in the altarpieces of the parish churches. 

2) Saint Sebastian martyr. He is the other great advocate against the plague. Martyr of the time of Diocletian, he was a Roman soldier who refused to renounce his faith and was assaulted by his military companions. Despite this he survived, however he could not survive the plague that ravaged the military camp at that time. San Sebastian is invoked for the first time as an advocate against the plague in the great Roman plague of the year 680. His cult in Navarra as an intercessor against the plagues seems to begin in the 15th century and will become popular especially in the 16th century. There were hermitages of San Sebastián in Allo, Asarta, Gastiáin, Los Arcos (where he had his brotherhood and celebrated a solemn feast on January 20), Muniáin de la Solana and Abárzuza.

3) Saint Barbara, martyr in the 3rd century. The legend of this saint says that Barbara's father was a pagan and had planned her marriage to another pagan. But she had decided submit her virginity to God. Her father tried to persuade her to abandon Christianity. When that proved impossible, as punishment, he locked her in a tower. Barbara prayed to the Lord in such a way that lightning fell from heaven and killed her father and then a great thunderclap was heard. This is why Saint Barbara is a protector against storms. Her hermitages are usually on promontories or high places as in Lezáun, Mañeru or Abárzuza. We also find hermitages of Saint Barbara in Galdeano, Metauten, Cárcar, Estella, Munárriz, Muzqui, Lerín, Oteiza de la Solana and Murillo de Yerri. There are at least 12 hermitages dedicated to Saint Barbara in Tierra Estella.

4) Saint Blaise, bishop and martyr. He was the advocate against throat ailments. Legend has it that when he was being taken to martyrdom he saved a child in his mother's arms who was choking on a fish bone. There were Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of this saint in Ollogoyen, Ubago, Cárcar, Dicastillo, Artavia, Lodosa, Los Arcos (Romanesque, leaving towards Sansol), Riezu.

5) San Miguel. He was very popular. In Tierra Estella there were at least 33 hermitages in 33 towns with this dedication (which was approximately a third of all those dedicated to this archangel in Navarre, which exceeded one hundred). The case of the valley of Guesálaz is especially noteworthy, where there were hermitages of St. Michael in most of its villages.

6) Saint Quiteria. She was the advocate against the evil of rabies and there were hermitages at least in Viloria (valley of Lana) and in Goñi.

7) Santa María Magdalena. Some of these hermitages are very old, such as the one in Mues, with a Romanesque apse. The cult of this saint must have become popular in the 12th century, brought to this side of the Pyrenees by Burgundian knights who helped in the reconquest of Alfonso the Battler. According to the Golden Legend, the remains of this saint are deposited in the temple of Vezelay in Burgundy. With the reconquest of Tudela or Tarazona, temples dedicated to her were erected in these two cities, probably due to the influence of the knights. There are hermitages of this dedication in 9 towns: in addition to Mues, Azanza, Gastiáin, Lodosa, Echarren, San Adrián, Labeaga (whose Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love was called Santa Gema or Magdanena), Villamayor de Monjardín and Grocin. In Navarre there are a total of 24 hermitages dedicated to the Magdalena.

8) Saint Bartholomew, apostle. There are at least 13 hermitages in the merindad of Estella. Concretely in Desojo, in Torres del Río, in Mendavia, in Andosilla, in Aguilar de Codés (Romanesque)...

9) Saint Christopher. He was another quite popular saint judging by the issue of hermitages dedicated to him. There are at least 23 in Tierra Estella (almost half of the existing ones in Navarre, which are around fifty). The one in Cirauqui, located on Mount Eskintza, which even had a house for the hermit, is noteworthy. It should also be noted that in the valley of Yerri a few villages had Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of St. Christopher, namely Lezáun, Ibiricu, Murugarren, Villanueva or Zábal.

10) Hermitages of San Gregorio Ostiense. There was one in Morentin de la Solana to which they logically went on May 9 and went in procession singing the minor litanies, for the Ascension. In Lodosa there must have been a pilgrimage to Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love , near that of the martyr saints Emeterio and Celedonio, where Saint Gregorio is currently venerated. In Irurre they also went on pilgrimage to their Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love on May 9th and in Iturgoyen they made a pilgrimage that day to their Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of Our Lady of the Way.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love of San Jerónimo in Salinas de Oro is very interesting. The "Diccionario geográfico histórico" of the Real Academia de la Historia of 1802 tells us, of this town, that

"there is a basilica of San Jerónimo, in which a stone set in silver is venerated, which they say to be the same one with which the Saint wounded his chest in the fervor of his penitence. The Duke of Granada has put this relic as the head of Mayorazgo and appoints the rural abbot of the basilica, which is a place of great devotion and crowded, especially by those who suffer from blood flow".

On some occasions friction has been documented between the patron of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love who was the lord of the Palace of Salinas de Oro and the hermit of es Shrine of Our Lady of Fair Love with regard to increasing devotion to it. In 1664, Fr. José de Lefevbre y Borbón, a personage of the bastard line of the royal line descended from Antonio de Borbón, was a hermit here.

THE SANCTUARIES OF THE CITY OF ESTELLA

We are going to conclude this lecture making a minimum reference letter to the sanctuaries of the capital of the Merindad, Estella.

The sanctuaries listed by Don José Goñi in his Historia eclesiastica de Estella are the following: Marian sanctuaries, Nuestra Señora del Puy and Nuestra Señora de Rocamador; and hermitages: San Felipe and Santiago, San Millán in Montejurra (of Ayegui), San Emeterio (only mentioned in 1193), San Tirso de Oteiza, which in modern centuries was owned by the parish of San Pedro de la Rúa, San Cibrián, San Esteban, San Millán de Estella, San Lorenzo, Nuestra Señora de la Gallarda (this was an image venerated above the portal de la Gallarda, advocate against tertian fevers), Santa Ana and Santa Bárbara.

To finish I would like to include the quotation of Richard Ford, an English traveler, Hispanist and draftsman who visited Navarre, well into the 19th century, and who in 1845 wrote the following:

that the people of these lands are very given "to pilgrimages to the mountain tops" where drinks "are used with exemplary devotion. And how chosen are those high places, how the fresh air fills with joy, how the views delight, how, as we ascend, the earth is left below, while we ascend as to heaven! And then, with what appetite do they all descend, and how sweet is the sleep when the conscience rests at ease and the body is fatigued by this combination of devotion and exercise!".

REFERENCES

BARRAGÁN LANDA, J.J.: Las plagas del campo español y la devoción a san Gregorio Ostiense in "Cuadernos de Etnología y Etnografía de Navarra", 29, 1978, pp. 273-298 [ https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/144622.pdf ]
GOÑI GAZTAMBIDE, J.: Historia eclesiástica de Estella, Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, department de Education y Cultura, 1990 (2 vols.).
IBARRA, J.: Historia del Monasterio y de la Universidad literaria de Irache, Pamplona: La Acción Social, 1939.