Carrión de los Condes

Since the second century B.C. there was a Roman settlement at the foot of a highway from the remaining some sections. They remain of Roman villas that time and the third and fourth centuries are preserved.

During the Reconquista, this city began to acquire relevance as a defensive enclave of the Kingdom of León, being repopulated in the tenth century. The name refers to the counts that ruled their neighborhoods in medieval times, the Old Ballads of Castilla linked to this lineage to the legendary knight Bernardo Carpio, as Carrion belonged to the lineage of the Beni Gómez, who would claim that ancestor and ruled Carrion County in the early centuries of the Reconquest. Including Garcia Gomez said that in the late tenth century unsuccessfully opposed to periodic invasions of the Muslim caudillo Almanzor, who came to plunder Carrion. A Gomez Diaz and his wife Teresa should be in the eleventh century the works of the great monastery of San Zoilo, of the Order of Cluny, which greatly influenced Tierra de Campos and hosted a church council in 1130.

Carrion is presumably from the disloyal husbands of the daughters of the Cid, that by the end of the eleventh century, and according to the Cantar de Mio Cid (written more than a century later), they vejaron in the oak grove Corpes. Although this is something they vehemently deny the inhabitants of Carrion.

The Camino de Santiago favored its commercial and artistic development, population growth and a steady rise during the Middle Ages. It was the seat of important political and religious meetings; Aymeric Picaud, author of Codex Calixtinus, passed by mid-twelfth century, mentioning its prosperity. In his aljama he was born and lived the Jewish moralist Dom Sem Tob author of Proverbs Morales. Also born there another famous knight and writer, the Marquis de Santillana, Iñigo López de Mendoza.

In 1462 the villains of Carrion agreed a brotherhood with the counts of Castañeda, Osorno and Trevino, in order to get them to fall under the dominion of the powerful Count of Benavente. That ploy resulted in the addition to the name Carrion “of the Counts” which is legal since 1522.

He began to lose population following the revolts of the sixteenth century commoner despite commercial companies that conducted exchanges with Andalusia, France and Flanders.

In 1854 the Jesuits enable the Monastery of San Zoilo as a College and interned (called the Sacred Heart of Jesus), transforming it in 1890 in school for their novices.

In 1883 the City Hospital was founded in 1894 and Maria Cristina granted the title of city.

In 1909 the Jesuit born in Carrion, Sisinio Nevares, created an agrarian Catholic union in his native town, that organization was the germ of the National Catholic Agrarian Confederation, who also founded in 1917.

In the twentieth century there were born and raised Carande historian and economist Ramon Fuentes Quintana. The urban layout has been undergoing a profound transformation, but the medieval atmosphere and Jacobean tradition remain.

A must see in Carrion de los Condes is its extraordinary church of Santa Maria del Camino and the historic center; then you have to go down the Camino de Santiago – the road Frómista – to see the Monastery of Santa Clara and its museum of nativity scenes. Between the city center and the monastery given for a well spent morning, it can spend the afternoon at the above Frómista (essential for any lover of Romanesque place). After Frómista, those returning to the East by the Camino de Santiago not stop making a stop to see the interesting Castrojeriz.

To visit Carrion advised to follow the pilgrimage route through the town from east to west. On the road from Frómista is the Monastery of Santa Clara founded in 1231. Its present appearance corresponds mostly to the seventeenth century. In addition to the courtyard that provides access church is remarkable Renaissance façade and the adjoining museum. Inside the church the altarpiece of the seventeenth century and a frontal Talavera tiles and Cucificado Christ by Gregorio Fernández. The choir stalls is the sixteenth century and the organ of the fifteenth century. The Museum houses a collection of more than 150 nativity scenes from various parts of the world; from the sixteenth century to the present, and growing.

In the museum of sacred art pieces monastery itself is also exposed, as well as others from the former convent of Santa Isabel and San Francisco.

Following the street of Santa Maria remains of the medieval walls are. Next to the square dominated by the image of the Immaculate Conception, the Church of Santa Maria del Camino or rises Victoria. It is an important twelfth century Romanesque building with Gothic and Baroque as noted in his head. Sustained main entrance by flying buttresses made up of four archivolts decorated with reliefs of bulls, everyday scenes and checkered trim. On it a sculptural frieze depicting different scenes of the Adoration of the Magi are available. Above runs a colorful tejaroz or eaves on corbels carved with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures. Under the eaves pilgrims heard the stories related to representations such as the Tribute of the one hundred maidens Christian Arabs, once the irruption of a herd of bulls etc … The interior is divided into three naves; It houses an image of stone Romanesque XIII century depicting the seated Virgin and Child and a Gothic Christ of the fifteenth century.

In another square nearby is the, the gentleman and writer Inigo Lopez de Mendoza; It is occupied on the ground floor by the Tourist Office.

The Plaza Mayor is pedestrian and has two sides with porticoes. It is a place of the Camino de Santiago leading to the Rua (Street Jose Antonio) on which stands the Church of Santiago, Romanesque building from the XII century that was burned by the French in 1811. It retains the cover decorated with graceful figures representing medieval guilds. It should stop to admire the splendid frieze that runs along the upper part and representing Christ in Majesty and the twelve apostles. Inside also houses a sacred art museum in addition to its imagery and liturgical goldsmiths are two capitals found in archaeological excavations.

The historic center also includes the Church of San Andrés (sixteenth century), the baroque Church of San Julián or the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Bethlehem (in the upper part of the village), this conserves its original building of the fifteenth century ; local faithful flock there every December 13 to kiss the likes of St. Lucia.

Just outside the village to visit the medieval bridge over the Carrión and the ancient Monastery of San Zoilo; it retains a window in the eleventh century, with the remainder work of the many reforms that took between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries (when he was college and novitiate of the Jesuits). It is now a luxurious hostelry that after its beautiful baroque facade has an excellent plateresque cloister and a Romanesque room with the tombs of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, where are the remains of the first Counts of Carrion, Banu Gomez. There is also a seventeenth century church with a choir, choir stalls and baroque organ. From Carrion routes can be made to the Roman towns of Pedrosa de la Vega Saldaña and the Cook Quintanilla.