Introduction

The Benedictine monastery of Santa María la Real de Irache, one of the most important in Navarre during the average and Modern Ages, is located in the municipality of Ayegui, in the valley of La Solana, belonging to the district of Estella. Its foundation dates back to the conquest of the castle of Monjardín in 908 by the monarch Sancho Garcés, documenting the existence of the monastery in the middle of the X the abbot Teudano. From the mid-11th century onwards, the monastery grew in importance, thanks to numerous favors and donations from the monarchy and the nobility, as well as its integration and prominence on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, with the monarch García el de Nájera founding a hospital in the monastery to house pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, the first of its kind in the whole of Navarre subject A period of splendor that culminated under the abbot of San Veremundo, who governed the destinies of the community during the second half of the 11th century.

The moment of economic splendor that the monastery experienced between the 11th and 12th centuries, the most important and prestigious of the kingdom, together with that of Leire, made it possible from the middle of the 12th century to undertake the construction of the church that has survived to the present day, one of the most notable constructions of Navarre's medieval architecture, embellished by a set of Romanesque figurative reliefs of great quality. However, in the thirteenth century it fell into a great decadence, both spiritually with the relaxation of the rule, and materially with the neglect of the monastic dependencies, a status that was aggravated in the fifteenth century by the civil war. 

The arrival of the fifteenth century allowed its spiritual, cultural and artistic recovery, which lasted until the sixteenth century, highlighting the organization of a high school of Theology, existing in 1539, from which in 1569 emerged the University of Irache, which functioned until 1824. The medieval monastic dependencies were transformed during successive campaigns, rebuilding the monastery according to the fashions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Between 1540 and 1586 the lower cloister was undertaken, and in the last third of this century the sacristy and conference room were also built, followed by the upper cloister completed in 1589. The interventions also affected the Romanesque church, with the construction from the last quarter of the century of the choir at the foot, the reform of the western façade with the finishing of the Herrerian tower completed in 1609, as well as the new covering of the dome of the Wayside Cross. In the course of the 17th century, another large Baroque building was added at the foot of the church and in front of the Renaissance monastery, the seat of the university programs of study .

As a result of Mendizábal's disentailment in 1839, the monks were exclaustrated and their possessions were auctioned off. The monastery was used as a Carlist hospital during the war of 1872 and 1876, and from 1877 to 1984 it became the headquarters of the order of the Pious Schools. It was declared a historic-artistic monument in 1877. Since the forties of the 20th century, the Institución Príncipe de Viana has carried out successive restorations, which have allowed a better preservation of the medieval, Renaissance and Baroque monastery, currently empty and unused.