Claustra

Authorship

Antoni Albacete i Gascón i Margarida Güell i Baro

Name

Santa Maria de Valldonzella

Chronological data

existencia comunitat c.1200 / Cistercenques 1226

Orderse

Cistercenques
De 1225 a 1250
De 1275 a 1550

Related Communities

Santa Maria de Montsant / Bonrepós
Santa María de Vallbona de les Monges

History of the Community

Santa Maria de Valldonzella, despite its inconstant early history, is one of two Catalan Cistercian nunneries that is still operating today.

The first community was established at Santa Creu d'Olorda near Molins de Rei, not far from the city of Barcelona, in the first half of the thirteenth century, though it seems that there was already a community of religious women at the site before the community became Cistercian. Preparations for the settlement of the site as a Cistercian nunnery began in 1226, when Berenguer de Palou, bishop of Barcelona, and his chapter, gave the church of Valldonzella to the Cistercian Order, to found there a house of White Nuns that was to be subject to the authority of the abbot of Santes Creus. In November of the year 1237, the community of Cistercian nuns was installed at Valldonzella.

Circumstances dictated that the nuns of Valldonzella were to abandon their abbey less than three decades after its foundation: between 1259 and 1262 a series of revolts led by the nobility against the king left the region unstable and the nunnery insecure, to the point that the nuns were repeatedly forced to seek refuge away from their convent. In the end they abandoned the site altogether and resettled in a new place, closer to the city of Barcelona, at Creu Coberta, a move authorised and supported by Janume I, the site having been given to them by the cleric Arnau Alemany. Building work at the new location was underway by the end of 1263 and the nuns moved in on 27 October 1269.

We know the names of several of Valldonzella’s abbesses, including Maria Ricarda, who was head of the community in 1339, when the nuns took part in the Corpus procession of Barcelona, and Arsenda de Pla, who was abbess in 1348.

The year 1410 saw the death of King Martin 'the Humane' of Aragon at Valldonzella, whence his remains were transported for burial at the abbey of Poblet.

The White Nuns of Valldonzella stayed at their new site for just under four centuries: during the Catalan Revolt (Guerra dels segadors) in 1640 the community was displaced, first temporarily, then permanently, when their house was destroyed and the nuns relocated to a new site, the house of the male Cistercian community of Natzaret (that had itself moved to a different site), inside the city of Barcelona. During the nineteenth century the nuns of Valldonzella were forced to relocate on further occasions; they eventually acquired a site at the foot of the Tibidabo hill in Barcelona, where their new (and actual) monastery was built, which the nuns occupied in 1913. They remain there to this day.

Web del Monestir de Sant Maria de Valldonzella: www.valldonzella.cat   Web sobre el cister: www.cistercensi.info/

Bibliography and links

Bibliography

Piquer i Jover, J.J., 1966. "Monestirs cistercencs femenins de la Corona d' Aragó al segle XIX", Studia monastica, V(8): 71-132.

Lekai, L.J., 1989. I cistercensi. Ideali e realtà, con Appendici di Goffredo Viti e Laura Dal Prà "Abbazie cistercensi in Italia. Repertorio", Certosa di Pavia: s.n.

Lekai, L.J., 1989. I cistercensi. Ideali e realtà, con Appendici di Goffredo Viti e Laura Dal Prà "Abbazie cistercensi in Italia. Repertorio", Certosa di Pavia: s.n.

Piquer i Jover, J.J., 1966. "Monestirs cistercencs femenins de la Corona d' Aragó al segle XIX", Studia monastica, V(8): 71-132.

Links

Web del Monestir de Sant Maria de Valldonzella: www.valldonzella.cat

 

Web sobre el cister: www.cistercensi.info/

Key words

Berenguer d'Arcs; Berenguer de Palou; Berenguera de Cervera; Arnau Alemany; Segismon Compte; Josep Pons; Esperança Roca

Geographic descriptor

Catalunya

Notes