Mark McCarthy
Active Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- CF 2014 2015
Lourdes 2 SdC 2016
Sarria 2 SdC April&Oct 2016 & (April 2018)
Camino Baztan June 2017
While on lockdown, I was wondering if we could start a daily post of Camino trivia (history and background). As a start here is some background on the monastery next to the wine fountain at Irache:
"The abbey at Irache was one of the oldest Benedictine monasteries in the world with its foundations believed to date back to the eigth century. The first formal records date the monastery back to 958. It first became a pilgrim's hostel in 1053 which is over a century before the pilgrim's hostel in Roncesvalles was founded. Between 1544 and 1824 the monastery was home to a university which in its prime rivalled the likes of Salamanca and Valladolid. The Benedictines vacated the monastery at the end of the First Carlist War in 1839. The monastery remained empty then till 1887 with the exception for a period during the Second Carlist War when it acted as a field hospital. From 1887 till 1984 the monastery acted as a seminary. In 1986 it came back in to state hands. In 2010 it was handed over to the Spanish Tourism Institute with the plan to turn it in to Parador (Paradors are state run 4 or 5 star hotels based in national monuments). Unfortunately, the transformation into a parador has not yet happened.
There has been a long tradition of generosity from this particular monastery dating back to its most famous and generous abbott San Veremundo. Among its kindest traditions, was the tradition that when a monk died, on top of all the masses and prayers offered for their deceased brother, that the monks would invite in and feed 30 poor people on the day after he died and that for the following 30 days they would invite in a poor person each meal time to feed them what would have been the dead monk's portion.
There has been a long tradition of generosity from this particular monastery dating back to its most famous and generous abbott San Veremundo. Among its kindest traditions, was the tradition that when a monk died, on top of all the masses and prayers offered for their deceased brother, that the monks would invite in and feed 30 poor people on the day after he died and that for the following 30 days they would invite in a poor person each meal time to feed them what would have been the dead monk's portion."
Please feel free to add any more background or historical trivia about the Camino.
"The abbey at Irache was one of the oldest Benedictine monasteries in the world with its foundations believed to date back to the eigth century. The first formal records date the monastery back to 958. It first became a pilgrim's hostel in 1053 which is over a century before the pilgrim's hostel in Roncesvalles was founded. Between 1544 and 1824 the monastery was home to a university which in its prime rivalled the likes of Salamanca and Valladolid. The Benedictines vacated the monastery at the end of the First Carlist War in 1839. The monastery remained empty then till 1887 with the exception for a period during the Second Carlist War when it acted as a field hospital. From 1887 till 1984 the monastery acted as a seminary. In 1986 it came back in to state hands. In 2010 it was handed over to the Spanish Tourism Institute with the plan to turn it in to Parador (Paradors are state run 4 or 5 star hotels based in national monuments). Unfortunately, the transformation into a parador has not yet happened.
There has been a long tradition of generosity from this particular monastery dating back to its most famous and generous abbott San Veremundo. Among its kindest traditions, was the tradition that when a monk died, on top of all the masses and prayers offered for their deceased brother, that the monks would invite in and feed 30 poor people on the day after he died and that for the following 30 days they would invite in a poor person each meal time to feed them what would have been the dead monk's portion.
There has been a long tradition of generosity from this particular monastery dating back to its most famous and generous abbott San Veremundo. Among its kindest traditions, was the tradition that when a monk died, on top of all the masses and prayers offered for their deceased brother, that the monks would invite in and feed 30 poor people on the day after he died and that for the following 30 days they would invite in a poor person each meal time to feed them what would have been the dead monk's portion."
Please feel free to add any more background or historical trivia about the Camino.