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Monasterio de Armenteira

Category: Monuments | Zone: Val do Salnés

Armenteira
Meis

GPS:
north: 42° 31' 0.0012"
west: 8° 41' 60"

The Mosteiro de Santa María da Armenteira was declared as historic-artistic monument in 1931. The lands of the monastery are surrounded by a wall where we can highlight the Baroque doorway that gives access to the atrium located in front of the church and monastery façade. Two circular buttresses ending in a conical shape mould the entrance arch.

The doorway ends in a cornice and a bas-relief located over the arch that reminds us of the legend of San Ero, the founder of the monastery. The main façade of the monastery (with two different floors and with simple balconies and windows distributed in a disorganized way) is leaning against the church and, together, they form a right angle. The entrance leads us into the barrel vault lobby made of stone where we can find the stairs that lead to the rectorial house to the right and the passage to the monastery main stairs to the left. The access to the cloister, the centre of the entire monastery, is done through the door on the left of the façade. Its construction started in the Northern wing in 1575 and it was finished in 1677. Due to this long period, there are many differences between the four wings. The West gallery is the most colourful of them all, as their vaults have hanging keystones. Every wing has six arches, Gothic vaults and short and semicircular arches. The upper floor of the monastery was built in 1777 with four lintel windows in each wing and it was separated from the lower floor by means of a cornice.

The monastery church, built between 1162 and 1212, is a unique example of the 12th century monastic architecture. It is a Cistercian church characterized by its austerity and simplicity. Although the Gothic style starts in the epoch of the construction of the church, it is mainly Romanesque and we can distinguish four different parts in it: the façade, the naves, the transept and the head, which is, at the same time, made up of three apses preceded by an straight part.

The façade: it is divided in three sections by solid buttresses that allow us to identify the three naves that make up the church from outside. In the Northern section, there is a door with a semicircular arch, over which we can see a long, narrow, double-shed window. The monastery façade is leaning against the Southern section of the church. There are two spiral staircases on each side of the façade. The central stretch is divided into two bodies. The lower one holds the trumpet-shaped main door that has six semicircular archivolts with chequered decoration, except for the last one with horseshoe decoration. The archivolts are resting on columns with monolithic and smooth shafts, with a polygonal column every other cylindrical one. The capitals have vegetal motives and the bases rest on cubic plinths decorated with eight-pointed stars.

There is a rose window on the upper part of the central stretch. Its aim is that of lighting up the central nave. It has marked geometrical features and it is made up of a circular nucleus. Eight very tight lobes open themselves towards that nucleus and there are concentric circles around them.

The naves: the church is made up of three naves. The central one, which is nearly double in width and taller than the aisles, is covered by pointed barrel vaults held with pointed vault arches with prismatic section. The cruciform piers with sharp arrises divide the nave in four sections and they are settled on cruciform bases. The aisles are covered by arris vaults. Outside, on the Northern part, four buttresses run across the longitudinal body of the church dividing it into another four sections with a narrow and long window each section. They increase in size as we go away from the head of the church.

The transept: it is located after the head and it is made up of a central section (the highest part of the temple) and the arms. The crossing area is externally covered by a pyramidal roof that hides the spherical shape of the dome inside. There is a semicircular, arched, double-shed window on each side. Each window is framed by buttresses that run up to the cornice. The Northern arm of the transept, which ends in a gable, has two buttresses and the door known as the door of the dead, because it gave access to the graveyard, is located there. Inside, the most highlighted elements are the pointed barrel vaults and the ribbed dome starting from conical pendentives and the liernes that draw a square in the central area when they cross each other.

The head: it is made up of three semicircular apses preceded by a straight part. Externally, the central one stands out between the two other apses and it is divided into three sections by two buttresses. There is a narrow and long window under a semicircular arch in each of the sections. There is a small rose window made up of a circular nucleus surrounded by six lobes and inscribed within a square on the highest straight section. Inside, the straight section is covered by a pointed barrel vault and the apse hemicycle is covered by a vault. The access to the three apses is done through pointed arches, among which the triumphal arch of the central apse stands out.

Localition: The church is located at the parish of A Armenteira, at the place called Vilar.