May 7, Palas de Rei

Today was the highlight of the Camino, so far. Initially the first and only scheduled attraction was Santo Tirso’s Church in the city center of Palas de Rei.

But we were fortunate to get in touch with Father Mariana who volunteered to take us to an eight hundred year old church on the outskirts of town that is closed. mass is served only once a month.

Father Mariana is Spanish, went to seminary two years ahead of the Pope in Chicago, spent 22 years in South Africa and five years in his current position.

The church we wanted to see was Vilar de Donas. It dates from the mid- 12th century and was originally a monastic church . Tradition attributes the founding of the monastery to women, depicted in the Gothic paintings of the main chapel.

[The following is from Wikipedia] This church is linked to the famous Order of the Knights of Santiago and the Templars; it even served as the burial place for important figures of this order. The building has a Latin cross floor plan with a single nave and three apses at the head, which is very uncommon in Galician Romanesque architecture, and is made of granite blocks that are very well squared and fitted with abundant masonry marks.

The church features several Romanesque sculptural elements. The capitals of the triumphal arch and those of the nave are particularly noteworthy, decorated with plant motifs, fantastical animals, and human figures. These sculptures, although Romanesque in style, show a certain evolution towards more naturalistic forms, characteristic of the early Gothic period. The same is true of the arches; semicircular arches are retained, but pointed arches, more typical of Gothic architecture, also begin to appear.

The original Romanesque ironwork, which has adorned and reinforced this doorway for centuries, is particularly striking. It is one of the few churches that still preserves it. All the ends of the ironwork fan out in the shape of palm leaves and are topped with arrowheads. If we go inside the temple, the most striking elements are two things: on the one hand, the Gothic paintings that form part of the main altar, and on the other, the different medieval tombstones in honor of the Knights of the Order of Santiago who were buried there in the 12th century.

Besides being a place of worship and burial, it is believed that the church and its adjoining monastery served as a hospital for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago . This hospice function is a common feature of many monasteries and convents along the Camino, which offered refuge and care to pilgrims on their journey to Santiago.

It is curious that it is set back from the main route despite its hospital function, but this is because, as it was originally a monastery for nuns, the women wished to remain separate from the usual pilgrim traffic.