Nuestra Señora del Fresdelval Monastery, Burgos

Description

The Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Fresdelval is located between the towns of Villatoro, Quintanilla de Vivar and Villayerno Morquillas (Burgos). It was erected over an ancient hermitage linked to Recaredo and rebuilt at the end of the 14th century by the major adelantado of Castile, Pero Manrique. His son, Gómez Manrique and his wife, Sancha de Rojas, promoted the conversion of the sanctuary into a Hieronymite monastery (Prieto y Lucía, 2020). The first stone was laid on March 25, 1404, and in a few years the extensions were undertaken that transformed the hermitage into a temple of greater dimensions, with a presbytery destined as a family pantheon. Between 1405 and 1410 the main works were carried out, including the nave, the chancel and the cloister, under the direction of the master Brahen, a Moorish documented in Burgos. After the death of Gómez Manrique in 1411, Sancha de Rojas continued the project. Throughout the 15th century it received important donations from the Manrique and Rojas lineages, who turned it into an outstanding center of devotion (Prieto and Lucía, 2020).

Bibliography

• PRIETO SAYAGUÉS, Juan Antonio y LUCÍA GÓMEZ-CHACÓN, Diana (2020): "La fundación y las primeras décadas del monasterio de Fresdelval. Memoria, benefactoría y devoción jerónima en la Castilla bajomedieval", vol. 38, nº 2, Studia Historia. Historia Medieval, pp. 239-262.