In the Spanish province of Zamora, West of Granja de Moreruela, about 35 kilometres north of Zamora town along the Esla river, lies Moreruela Abbey - a former Cistercian monastery and a national monument in Spain. Despite being in ruins, it is still full of stories to tell. Before the Cistercians took over, Benedictines had a monastery on the site, possibly founded by the Asturian King Alfonso III or Saint Froilan. The Cistercians arrived around 1131/1133, but there is a theory that it was 1143. Moreruela Abbey was the mother house of Nogales Abbey (1164) and Aguiar Abbey (1165).
The abbey church, built about 1170 and finished in the second quarter of the 13th century, is a Romanesque, Latin cross-shaped building. Among other conventual buildings, the chapter house remains, although partly reconstructed.
Visitors today can see the preserved eastern apse and its vaulted ambulatory, round a rectangular choir, with seven chapels - just like Clairvaux. Parts of the nave, once comprising three aisles and nine bays, remain as well.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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