Claustra

Authorship

Karen Stöber

Name

Santa María de Valldaura

Chronological data

posible comunidad benedictina 1200. Císter 1241

Orderse

Cistercenques
De 1225 a 1400
De 1425 a 1450

Related Communities

History of the Community

The Cistercian nunnery of Santa Maria de Valldaura was established at the site of an earlier, probably early- eleventh-century, religious foundation, possibly a Benedictine community, during the thirteenth century. The foundation charter of the Cistercian abbey, dated January 1241, was issued at the instigation of Bernat de Portella. The same year saw the formal authorization of a Cistercian community at Valldaura. It appears that the first community of Cistercian nuns came to Valldaura from the small and short-lived abbey of La Bovera (Urgell). Over the years that followed, the new Cistercian community received a series of grants of lands and property and was able to build up considerable possessions in the area.

Nonetheless, by the end of the same century Valldaura was beginning to experience difficulties that were to spell the end of the abbey just a few decades later. Attempts to resettle the nuns from Valldaura, a ‘miserable and dangerous place’, to the town of Berga met with considerable controversy and opposition from various directions, and it was not until over three decades later that the fate of the abbey of Santa Maria de Valldaura was to be concluded, with the involvement of the abbots of the male Cistercian abbeys of Santes Creus and Escarp: by the 1338 the community had divided, one part of it initially remaining at Valldaura, though they later, c.1398, moved to a new site in Manresa, the other part resettling just outside the town of Berga in a new monastery which became known as Santa Maria de Montbenet.

Prominent figures

Abbesses of Valldaura include Centella (appears 1241), Eldiarda d’Anglesola (1243-45), Blanca de Berga (1246-89), Marquesa de Guàrdia (1300-1314), Cília de Cartellar (1315-36), Constança de Portella (1340-61), Esclarmonda de Rechs (1367) and Sibil·la de Prous (1387-1414).

Among the patrons and benefactors of the nuns at Santa Maria de Valldaura, certain families stand out, most importantly the Portellas, but also the Berga family and the families of Cardona, Pinós and Lluçà.

Building architecture

The small romanesque conventual church of Santa Maria de Valldaura still remains at the site of the former nunnery.

Bibliography and links

Bibliography

Zaragoza Pascual, E., 1997. Catàleg dels monestirs catalans, Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.

Sarret i Arbós, J., 1924. Història religiosa de Manresa: iglésies i convents. Manresa: Impr. i Enquadernacions de Sant Josep.

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

Obiols i Bou, M., 2006. "El monacat femení a la Catalunya medieval: Santa Maria de Valldaura (1241-1399)", Butlletí de la Societat Catalana d’Estudis Històrics XVII, 177-198.

Obiols i Bou, M., 2009. "El monestir de Santa Maria de Valldaura, un espai de dones", DUODA. Estudis de la Diferència Sexual 36, 41-53.

Obiols i Bou, M., 2006. "El monacat femení a la Catalunya medieval: Santa Maria de Valldaura (1241-1399)", Butlletí de la Societat Catalana d’Estudis Històrics XVII, 177-198.

Obiols i Bou, M., 2009. "El monestir de Santa Maria de Valldaura, un espai de dones", DUODA. Estudis de la Diferència Sexual 36, 41-53.

Sarret i Arbós, J., 1924. Història religiosa de Manresa: iglésies i convents. Manresa: Impr. i Enquadernacions de Sant Josep.

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

Zaragoza Pascual, E., 1997. Catàleg dels monestirs catalans, Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.

Key words

Geographic descriptor

Catalunya

Notes