Claustra

Authorship

Karen Stöber

Name

Santa Maria de Montbenet

Chronological data

c.1333

Orderse

Cistercenques
De 1350 a 1550

Related Communities

Santa María de Valldaura

History of the Community

The origins of the Cistercian nunnery of Santa Maria de Montbenet lie in the abbey of Santa Maria de Valldaura of the same order. Around the year 1333, a group of some 15 Cistercian nuns from Valldaura moved to a new site just outside the walls of the town of Berga in Berguedà, where they stayed for just over forty years. In 1377, the nuns purchased the church of Sant Joan and adjoining property within the walls from the Hospitallers of Berga and moved into the town. In a charter issued in May of 1340, the bishop of Urgell asked his canons for help in the preparation of the church of Sant Joan of Berga for the Cistercian nuns of Montbenet. The nuns remained at the site until the second half of the sixteenth century, when the community delined and eventually failed; its properties passed to the male Cistercian abbey of Poblet. During the 1340s considerable activity was recorded at the new monastery, and there is also evidence for significant communication between the convent, under its energetic abbess Cecilia, and the local lay community.

In 1342 the community of Santa Maria de Montbenet consisted of its abbess, Cecilia, the prioress Elisenda de Moraria, the subprioress Agnes de More, and several nuns, including Alemanda de ?Pechs and Ermesenda de Montepalacio. Twelve years later, in 1354, the abbess of Montbenet is named as Brunissenda de Bessora, and in the 1380 the abbess’s name is still Brunissenda and we may be looking at the same person.

Prominent figures

Cecilia and Brunissenda: The abbesses of Santa Maria de Montbenet include Cecilia (the first abbess of the new community, who appears in the documents from the first half of the fourteenth century); Brunissenda (appears in 1354 and in the 1380s).

Building architecture

The former nunnery church still stands as the church of Sant Joan in the town of Berga.

Documentary heritage

More than 50 documents relating to Santa Maria de Montbenet are now kept in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid (Clero, Car.153 - 155.14), spanning the period 1340 - 1575.

Bibliography and links

Bibliography

Serra i Rotés, R., 1985. Catalunya Romànica, vol. XII. El Berguedà, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana.

Riu i Riu, M., 1966. "Santa Maria de Montbenet. Notes documentals d'un antic monestir cistercenc de monges radicat a Berga", Scriptorium Populeti 1, Abadia de Poblet, pp.105-54.

Riu i Riu, M., 1966. "Santa Maria de Montbenet. Notes documentals d'un antic monestir cistercenc de monges radicat a Berga", Scriptorium Populeti 1, Abadia de Poblet, pp.105-54.

Serra i Rotés, R., 1985. Catalunya Romànica, vol. XII. El Berguedà, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana.

Key words

Cecília; Elisenda de Moraira; Agnès de More; Alemanda de Pechs; Ermessenda de Montepalacio; Brunissenda de Besora

Geographic descriptor

Catalunya

Notes