Liberal Arts Blog — Monasteries VII — El Escorial: Monastery, Palace, Cathedral
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Today’s Topic: Monasteries VII — El Escorial: monastery, palace, cathedral
El Escorial, located in the Guadarrama mountains in central Spain, just 28 miles northwest of Madrid, is the only monastery I know of that was also a royal palace. Not to mention a cathedral and a library. It was built by Philip II of Spain (1527–1598), the most powerful monarch in Europe at the time. To his fans he was a pious workaholic, to his detractors he was a cruel despot. He saw himself as a defender of Catholicism against both heretics (that is Protestants) and infidels (Ottomans). His arch enemies were Queen Elizabeth of England, William the Silent in the Netherlands, and Suleiman the Magnificent. The Philippines are named after him. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE MONASTERY — from “Hieronymites” (1584) to Augustinians (1885)
1. Originally, a community of the Order of St. Jerome, also called the “Hieronymites” who lived according to the “Rule of St. Augustine” (the oldest of Western monastic rules). St. Jerome was known as a hermit and as a scholar and is usually depicted in Western art either in his study or in the wilderness. His greatest claim to fame is translating the Old Testament into Latin from Hebrew.
2. Founded in the 14th century, the Order of St. Jerome had 25 monasteries by 1415 and and 48 by 1835 when they were suppressed by the Spanish government. Today, there is one community of monks remaining but 18 communities of nuns (17 in Spain, 1 in India)!!!
3. Since 1885, El Escorial has been home to a community of Augustinian monks — an order that now has about 3000 friars globally, about 2000 of them priests. In the US, the Augustinians are renowned for their educational institutions — including Villanova University outside of Philadelphia as well as high schools such as Malvern Prep in Pennsylvania, Carroll School in Washington DC, and Austin Prep in Reading, Massachusetts.
THE LIBRARY, BASILICA, PANTHEON OF THE KINGS
1. The Pantheon of the Kings includes marble sepulchers of 26 Spanish kings and queens (both Hapsburgs and Bourbons) from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–1558) to Alphonso XIII (1886–1941).
2. The library collection ranged from the “profane” (eg. Geography, History, Botany) to the exalted (theology, geometry, mathematics). The great hall of the library is 55 meters long, 9 meters wide, and ten meters high.
3. At the center of the El Escorial’s complex of buildings is the cathedral, notable for a chapel with a white marble crucifix by Benvenuto Cellini, unusual in that Christ is “fully nude.”
PHILIP II — King of Spain (1556–1598), King of England (1554–1558); King of Portugal (1580–1598)
1. Often forgotten factoid: Philip was married to Queen Mary I of England for four years, until her death. Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. She was the half sister of her successor, Queen Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
2. Philip was also King of Sicily and Naples, Duke of Milan and the Lord of the Seven Provinces of the Netherlands.
3. He presided over the beginning of Spain’s “Golden Age” fueled by the wealth flowing from the conquest of the Americas, but his wars were so costly that Spain defaulted on its debts five times between 1557 and 1596.
NB: The Spanish “Siglo de Oro” (Golden Century) was from roughly 1550 to 1650. This was the era of Cervantes and the playwright Lope de Vega, of El Greco and Velazquez. Philip II was its great patron. Perhaps the greatest work of history ever is Ferdinand Braudel’s “The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II” which, ironically, stresses the importance of long term social, economic, and cultural forces rather than events and personalities.
FOOTNOTE — the Valley of the Fallen (Valle de los Caidos) and Franco’s exhumation
1. Just a few miles from El Escorial is a massive monument to those who died on both sides during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The complex includes the world’s tallest Christian cross, a basilica, and a large Benedictine monastery, as well as the remains of over 30,000 victims.
2. Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. was buried there from 1975 to 2019 when a Socialist government had his body exhumed and reburied in the El Pardo cemetery in Madrid.
3. The abbot of the monastery objected to the exhumation as a violation of sacred space. The entrance of the security forces into the church was “non-consensual.”
Monks at Valley of the Fallen denounce irregularities around Franco exhumation
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