Welcome to the first video of Unit Two, The House of the Heart. We will explore the fascinating topic of medieval nuns and nunneries. As we have seen in one of the introductory chapters, Cistercian nunneries, although theoretically reformed, retained the characteristic seigneurial prerogatives of earlier
religious establishments. Thus, they remained important centers of
nobiliary power and memory. In many of these houses, the aristocratic presence and control were secured through the authority of the <i>señora</i>, an echo of the earlier domina. This was a lady that belonged to the founding family and managed the material aspects of the nunnery, ensuring the continuity of the family's control sometimes
without professing as a nun. On the other hand, from the 11th century onwards, the ladies from Castile and Leon, unlike their counterparts from other European areas, retained access to family properties. This was possible, thanks to a bilateral inheritance system, which instead of favoring the firstborn son while disinheriting the rest, involved both sons and daughters in the transfer of wealth. The result allowed for a remarkable capacity for female action although this mostly manifested among the aristocracy. Most of the Cistercian nunneries in the kingdoms of Castile and Leon
had been founded by a handful of lineages that used them as platforms for nobiliary action. For this reason and without ignoring the fact that King Alfonso VIII
could have felt a special devotion for a religious institution that was known
for its rigorism, it's possible that the desire to counteract these
aristocratic bases advised the monarch to found the new establishment of Cistercian nuns
near the city of Burgos, the nunnery of Las Huelgas. This intention seems to be demonstrated by the immediate efforts
undertaken by the king, aimed at subjecting the remaining Castilian Cistercian nunneries to the new house despite their longer trajectories. As I just mentioned, the foundation was promoted by King Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife, Eleanor of England. The Queen was the daughter of the English monarch, Henry II Plantagenet, and the Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. Both of them buried at the monastery of Fontevraud, it seems at the request of Eleanor of Aquitaine herself. In contrast, the Castilian monarchs expressed their wish to be buried in the foundation of Burgos, according to some chronicles, at Eleanor's own behest. It is for this reason that the funeral arrangement at Las Huelgas was for long considered
a copy of Fontevraud. This thesis has been recently questioned. And current scholars believe that Las Huelgas may actually represent another new expression of this characteristically Iberian female power. As we will see in a minute, the organization of the nunneries seems to support the second theory. In any case, there is no doubt that the establishment of Burgos
was initially conceived and later consolidated as a memorial center. Nunneries had played this role both in early medieval Iberia and in Carolingian Europe
as shown by figures such as Adela, abbess of Chelles, who was Charlemagne's sister and led the writing of works of dynastic exaltation, the <i>Annales Mettenses Priores</i>. The great female monasteries governed by abbesses or ladies, played a fundamental role in the consolidation of the power and the memory
of the dynasties. From the 10th century onward however, these functions were transferred to male monastic communities. The case of the territory of Saxony is an exception that strikingly resembles the organization of the great Castillian female establishments. Quedlimburg or Gandersheim were controlled by aristocratic ladies reminiscent of the Castilian <i>señoras</i>. After the year 1000, memorial systems that had disappeared in most of Europe still survived both in Castile and in Saxony. As has been mentioned, King Alfonso and Queen Eleanor ordered the construction of Las Huelgas and arranged to be buried there. However, we do not know for sure where the primitive tombs were placed,
although it is usually accepted that their resting place was originally
the Chapel of the Assumption, opened to the Claustrillas, the smaller and the older cloister of the nunnery. At the death of the monarchs in 1214, only the crossing of the monastic church, with the open chapels on the back wall, and the flank of the chapter house were built or under construction. These sections were carried out by a splendid workshop, probably of French origin, that left one of the few examples of early Iberian Gothic style with sophisticated constructive methods that employed <i>en délit</i> shafts
and <i>piliers cantonnés</i>. The works were interrupted after this first constructive campaign, as is often the case in Cistercian monasteries. In the 13th century, a memorial revival coincided with a new
architectural phase. We know that in 1279, the altars and burial places of the building were consecrated including the burial place of King Alfonso, which at that time was already in the nun's choir that occupied the central nave. This completed a characteristically female monastic structure
in which the space of the choir had to be duplicated to house nuns on one side
and chaplains on the other. In Las Huelgas, chaplains had their place in the main chapel while nuns occupied the central nave. The high number of chaplains, 14, between 1226 and 1250, indicates the excellent funding enjoyed by the nunnery, thanks to its close ties to the monarchy. Here we face one of those cases where in practice, the establishment had to function as a double center, which makes it difficult to differentiate it from the double houses the reform had theoretically put an end to. The new constructive impulse coincided with a series of events that indicate a memorial reactivation which can be traced back to 1215. On the one hand, the community was granted papal privileges
that allowed it to celebrate processions for the dead and indulgences for those who visited
the tombs of the monarchs. In 1248, the traditional position of <i>señora </i>was occupied by Berenguela, <i>infanta</i> of Castile, the much beloved sister of King Alfonso X,
known as The Wise. The presence of this characteristic position suggests that the nunnery was not so much a copy of Fontevraud but was founded to carry out the memorial functions entrusted to female communities, as was traditional in the kingdoms of Castile and Leon and also in
early medieval Europe. This purpose was firmly consolidated when the remains of
the young and mourned heir of Alfonso X, the <i>infante</i> Fernando de la Cerda, were received in the nunnery in 1275. The new tombs of Alfonso and Eleanor in the nuns' choir would be the product of this movement of revival initiated in the mid-13th century. During this years, we know that laymen and chaplains were allowed to walk around some areas of the enclosure. The monastic choir itself was a permeable space. The faithful obtained indulgences by visiting the royal tombs there, while the chaplains entered the choir on the occasion of funerary or liturgical processions. In 1321, the <i>infanta</i> Blanca of Portugal, the daughter of King Sancho IV of Castile died in Las Huelgas. Blanca was buried near the monarchs and in her will she established
that the chaplain, after celebrating several masses on the chevet altars, had to say a prayer for the dead on her tomb, and finally walk to the graveyard outside to pray for the deceased that were buried there. Thus, as we will see in one of the upcoming videos, the enclosure was far from being strictly respected
in female monastic centers. The role played by Las Huelgas in keeping the memory of the monarchs consists of superimposed layers, alternating periods of different intensities. These often makes it difficult to differentiate actual royal sponsorship from the initiatives promoted
by the monastic community itself, always interested in remembering the favors granted by the monarchs. A late revival of this memorial effort can be dated to the time of
Abbess Ana de Austria, the daughter of Juan de Austria, the bastard son of Emperor Charles V. In addition to promoting various works and the renewal of the liturgical furniture
of the church, Ana commissioned a chapel at the foot of the central nave in which she herself was buried in 1629. Placed next to the nuns' choir and the burial place of the founders, Ana remembered her royal predecessors by adding to the grille
that separates both spaces, the representations of King Alfonso and Queen Eleanor, next to the portrait of Emperor Charles, her illustrious grandfather. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned to know more about medieval nuns.
