Monastery of San Vicente de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

San Vicente de Oviedo is a church and monastery in Oviedo. Its foundation, in 761, is recorded in a charter known as the Pacto monástico de Oviedo ('Monastic Pact of Oviedo') a copy made in the 12th-century of the original that is dated 25 November 781 and is considered the earliest document on the monarchy of the Kingdom of Asturias. Although doubts exist as to the veracity of this document since the monastery, also called Antealtares in the Middle Ages, is not mentioned again until 969. According to the charter of 781, twenty years before, in 761, the monks Máximo, with his serfs, and Fromestano, founded a church in locum quod dicunt Oveto (the place called Oveto), which was to become the city of Oviedo.

Transformed into a monastery, the first abbot was Oveco, documented between 969 and 978, and the first reference mentioning that it followed the Benedictine Rule is dated in 1042.

The style of the building is Romanesque, although reworked in the 11th and 12th centuries. Its cloister is an official National Historic and Artistic Monument and since 1952 houses the Archaeological Museum of Asturias.

The Archaeological Museum of Asturias

The Archaeological Museum of Asturias hosts collections of the Asturian Neolithic, Megalithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Astur hill fort culture, Roman period, and of the Gothic, Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque periods of the Kingdom of Asturias. The museum also includes sections of Asturian Ethnography, Heraldry, Medieval and Modern Epigraphy, Spanish Numismatics, a European Medal Section, and Armor.

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Pisadiel (4 months ago)
Monasteriu de San Vicente d'Uviéu (781), in calle San Vicente (Uviéu, Asturies). Monastery founded on November 25, 781 on the hill of Ouetum by 26 monks -shortly afterwards attached to the rule of San Benito-, having as founding patrons members of the reigning Asturian-Visigothic dynasty; place where in 761 the abbot Frómista and his nephew the monk Máximus arrived to found the basilica dedicated to Saint Vincent - a deacon from Huesca martyred in Valencia in 304 by order of the Roman praefecto Publio Daciano, governor of Lusitania (286-293) and Hispania Citerior ( 305), under the emperor Diocletian (284-305) -, an important crossroads where soon Fruela I (722-768), King of Asturias (757-768) built a basilica in El Salvador and built a royal palace, although the court continued in his native Cangues d'Onís. In the ss. XII-XIII, connected to the church-cathedral of San Salvador and submitted to the bishop d'Uviéu, it was rebuilt in the Romanesque fashion, thanks to the large donations of the high nobility. The centuries, artistic reforms and expansions followed one another, reaching the wall of Paraíso street in the s. XVII - L-shaped floor space currently occupied by the Faculty of Psychology. In 1836 he was exclaustrated by the government of the exalted liberal and clearly anticlerical from Cádiz Juan de Dios Álvarez Méndez -a surname that he changed in Mendizábal to pass for Basque (he said he was born in Bilbao, although he was born in Chiclana de la Frontera) and to hide his Marrano origin- , maximum representation of the avarice of the bourgeoisie -which once again deceived the people-, since it was the richest monastery in Asturies. Today, apart from the Church of Santa María de la Corte, a parochial one, the Muséu Arqueolóxicu d'Asturies and the Facultá de Psicoloxía of the Universidá d'Uviéu occupy their spaces of state ownership.

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Glimmingehus is the best preserved medieval stronghold in Scandinavia. It was built 1499-1506, during an era when Scania formed a vital part of Denmark, and contains many defensive arrangements of the era, such as parapets, false doors and dead-end corridors, 'murder-holes' for pouring boiling pitch over the attackers, moats, drawbridges and various other forms of death traps to surprise trespassers and protect the nobles against peasant uprisings. The lower part of the castle's stone walls are 2.4 meters (94 inches) thick and the upper part 1.8 meters (71 inches).

Construction was started in 1499 by the Danish knight Jens Holgersen Ulfstand and stone-cutter-mason and architect Adam van Düren, a North German master who also worked on Lund Cathedral. Construction was completed in 1506.

Ulfstand was a councillor, nobleman and admiral serving under John I of Denmark and many objects have been uncovered during archeological excavations that demonstrate the extravagant lifestyle of the knight's family at Glimmingehus up until Ulfstand's death in 1523. Some of the most expensive objects for sale in Europe during this period, such as Venetian glass, painted glass from the Rhine district and Spanish ceramics have been found here. Evidence of the family's wealth can also be seen inside the stone fortress, where everyday comforts for the knight's family included hot air channels in the walls and bench seats in the window recesses. Although considered comfortable for its period, it has also been argued that Glimmingehus was an expression of "Knighthood nostalgia" and not considered opulent or progressive enough even to the knight's contemporaries and especially not to later generations of the Scanian nobility. Glimmingehus is thought to have served as a residential castle for only a few generations before being transformed into a storage facility for grain.

An order from Charles XI to the administrators of the Swedish dominion of Scania in 1676 to demolish the castle, in order to ensure that it would not fall into the hands of the Danish king during the Scanian War, could not be executed. A first attempt, in which 20 Scanian farmers were ordered to assist, proved unsuccessful. An additional force of 130 men were sent to Glimmingehus to execute the order in a second attempt. However, before they could carry out the order, a Danish-Dutch naval division arrived in Ystad, and the Swedes had to abandon the demolition attempts. Throughout the 18th century the castle was used as deposit for agricultural produce and in 1924 it was donated to the Swedish state. Today it is administered by the Swedish National Heritage Board.

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Monastery of San Vicente de Oviedo

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