A root from the foundation of the new monastery below (Yuso) in the year 1067, only a small community of elderly monks and some holy virgins remained in Suso, a community that disolved in 1080 when Pope Gregory the 7th prohibited the existence of co-habiting monasteries of monks and nuns - and the mozarabic liturgy.

 

As a consequence, men and women had to be separated, the women being sectioned off in the nave of the entrance, to the east in a high choir. Behind some niches, constructed to off load some architecture, the community of nuns would partcipate in the holy mass. From the 11th century it was finally considered a benedictine monastery, in which a scriptorium, where the monks carried out their work as copyist, was put at their disposal.

In the 14th century (the year1367) some monks from Yuso went up and repaired the monastery and church of Suso. They filled the walls with plaster, and built a lower gothic style ceiling, even covering up visigothic and mozarabic arches.

Monks lived in Suso until the disentailment of Mendizábal in 1835, when they had to disperse leaving the monasteries.in this century, in the year 1934, Don Francisco Iñiguez cleaned the plaster or limed walls, separated the endorsements and found apart from the flamenco altarpiece, a horseshoe arch with lime plastered block of stones. This discovery proved that Almanzor did not succeed in destroying it but only setting fire to it.

  
The gregorian reform revolutionised the life of the church and the liturgy.


Domes, capitals and Santa Oria

The domes of the monastery are caliphal of eight ribs. In these you can appreciate the polychromatic remains: they are paintings of the 10th and 11th centuries.

The capitals are of alabastre, visigothic-morzarabic. They of the domain of "basket" because of their cylindrical form and in them can be found various drawings, like sun dials, geometrical forms, ondulated borders, rosets or animal heads.

In the highest part of the rock a window with various bars can be seen: this is the famous cave where Santa Oria used to confine herself. She was a nun from Villavelayo, and had enetered the monastery in 1051, at the age of nine. She was since then recluded together with her mother in poor and narrow cells, where they spent the rest of their days in strict way of life.

 
The inspirational caliphal dome at Suso.

 
The Cordovan Mosque influenced the christian art at Suso.


 

The cenotaph of San Millán, enormous block of black alabaster sculptured in the 12th century.

  The largest of the caves at the church is conserved in excellent condition, a magnificant a reclining romanic structure that represents San Millán dressed as the pontiff. It´s the cenotaph of the saint (it corresponds to the 12th century): an enormous block of stone made of alabastre and sectioned into other figures.

The cenotaph of the saint; located in the maid cave is an enormous black alabastre stone block, where the reclining anachorite appears and at his feet his parcehment and disciples.

Around the figure of the saint can be seen two blind men with their canes, who received their sight after imploring to the miraculous Millán, a dead girl who rose from the dead to touch the sepulchre and various disciples of the anachorite.

 

The visitor who passes through the door of the monastery at Suso and walks on the on the first porch: a paved area that represents an 11th century mozarabic carpet, with two swastikas and a four petalled flower.

This place is also known as the "Portaleio of Gonzalo Berceo" and it was there that the poet, in his ultimate years, wrote the life of Santa Oria.

Futher on, passing under a visigothic arch which is the entrance to a cloister, whose floor is paved in "opus espigatum" (dowel work). It has a slight slope to allow the run off of water and snow.

 

The "Portaleio" is the entrance, the hallway, of Suso.

The seven infants of Lara and the three Queens of navarra

Still alined to the left of the cloister, are the seven tombs of the infants of Lara and their teacher, Nuño Salido, in the centre. To the right of the porch are the tombs of three Queens from Navarra: the mother Toda, Lady Elvira (wife of Sancho el Mayor) and Lady Jimena, of Garcia the Trembler, according to a leonine verse written in the stone of the wall. The presence of these tombs is not strange, especially due to San Millán and it´s monks being shown favourtism by Castellons and Navarrons.

The seven infants were the children of a noble, Lord Gonzalo Bustios, who commended their education to the teacher Nurio Salido. In one family wedding, the youngest of the children had an argument with their cousin, the dispute that arose between the two families, got bigger and bigger and eventually ended in an ill-fated fight in which the seven children were decapitated.

Tomb of the tutor of the seven infants of Lara, Don Nuño Salido.

  

 

The rocky sepulchres of the seven infants of Lara of their legendary deaths.


 Art 3-8


Art 5-8