Montserrat History

The documented history of dates back to the year 888, when Count Guifrè the Hairy donated the hermitages of St peter and St Martin, at the foot of the mountain, and those of St Iscle and St Mary, which are at the top of the Montserrat mountain range, to the Monastery of Ripoll.

In 1025, Abbot Oliba, abbot of Ripoll and bishop of Vic, founded a small monastery, which was to be the origin of the current shrine, next to the Santa Maria hermitage.

In the early XV century, the monastery became an independent abbey and cut ties with the monastery in Ripoll. This independence did not last long and in 1493, at the request of King Ferdinand II of and Aragon, the monastery became subject to the Congregation of San Benito el Real in Valladolid. In spite of the trend towards uniformity displayed by this congregation, abbot Garcia Jiménez de Cisneros, who understood the peculiarities of the monastery, introduced important and forceful changes which made the monastery even more relevant and famous.

It is in this period that a new temple and other monastic cells were built. The monastery’s assets increased considerably with the purchase of new properties and lordly rights. Kings and popes made relevant offerings. The discovery of America helped extend the worship of the Virgin Mary in the new continent.

Montserrat was the first monastery to obtain a printing press and created a vast library with more than 8,500 tomes, 158 first editions and 322 manuscripts. In the XVII and XVIII centuries, Montserrat Monastery became a huge cultural centre.

In the early XIX century, between 1811 and 1812, during the war with the French, Napoleon’s army invaded Montserrat, and burned and destroyed the monastery completely. The library and the archives were lost, as were numerous works of art.

The laws on disentitlement stripped the Monastery of all its properties, which were sold off in public auction. The Monastery was closed in 1835 and it was nine long years until the monks could return.

After several attempts at refurbishment had failed, the Monastery was finally restored to monastic life in 1862, under the guidance of abbot Muntades. Reconstruction was continued by the abbots who succeeded him: Josep Deàs, Antoni M. Marcet and Aureli M. Escarré. The “Escolania” choir was also re-established.

In 1880 the Millennium Festival was held. As part of the celebration, a literary competition was held, won by Jacint Verdaguer with his poem Virolai. The music is by the composer Josep Rodoreda.

The Virgin Mary was declared the Patron Saint of Catalonia in 1881 by Pope Leo XIII.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) the monks were forced to leave the monastery and did not return until it was over. Twenty-three monks died during the war. The Generalitat government saved Montserrat from being destroyed and looted.

In 1970, in the middle of the Fascist dictatorship, more than 300 Catalan intellectuals locked themselves up in the monastery calling for respect for human rights.

Pope John Paul II visited Montserrat in 1982. In 1987 Montserrat Mountain was turned into a National Park because of the extraordinary number of biological life-forms there and the need to preserve them.

After the fires and flash-floods which damaged Montserrat, the monastery modernized its facilities and adapted them to continue to receive the thousands of pilgrims pouring in from every corner of the globe. Montserrat is still the national monastery of Catalonia, the spiritual and cultural heart of .

The Virgin Mary

The statuette of the Virgin Mary of Montserrat is Romanic in origin. It is made of poplar wood, painted in a multitude of hues and gold, and dates back to the XII century. She appears sitting on a throne, with the Baby Jesus at her knee. The hands and faces of both figures are black. There has been much speculation about why they are this colour. For many years it was believed that smoke from the candles lit in her honour to ask for favours or in thanks were the reason for the blackness.

The latest physical tests and x-rays confirm that the Virgin was white and started to turn darker from the XVI century onwards because of the lead in the white paint on her face. As a result, the image was first painted dark brown and, two centuries later, it was decided to paint it black directly.

According to legend, St Luke was the one to sculpt the statue of the Virgin Mary with the tools from St Joseph’s workshop, using Jesus’ mother as the model, and St Perter5 was the one to bring her to . Hidden by the Christians in a cave in the mountain, at the time of the Saracen invasion, it was miraculously found during the early days of the Reconquest, which gave rise to the idea of building a church and a monastery to house it.

Another of the legends says that, one Saturday in 888, some shepherd children saw a great light descending from the heavens, accompanied by beautiful music, which alighted half-way up the mountain. Once he had been informed, the bishop of organized an expedition to the place they indicated. There they found a cave, inside which was the statue of the Virgin. They tried to take it to Manresa in a procession, but this proved to be impossible. This made them realize what God wanted: the statue was to be venerated on the mountain of Montserrat.

The worship of the Virgin Mary soon found a concrete image for devotion. The same one we venerate today. The devotion to Montserrat spread rapidly across Catalonia and soon reached several points of the peninsula and Europe, thanks to how word spread of the miracles which take place on the mountain.

Visitors from the royal houses of the peninsula and Europe, numerous high-ranking personages and the fervour of the popes, increased the number of pilgrimages to the holy mountain. Writers, poets from all ages, all lengthen the list of people devoted to Montserrat. Numerous churches, monasteries, temples and even villages the world over, bear the name “Montserrat” in honour of the Virgin Mary. There are very few other cases where the devotion to a Virgin Mary has reached similar proportions and gained such universal renown.

Hermits

The life-style in Montserrat’s hermitages is historically unique. Initially, the hermits lived in the natural caves in the mountains. Over time, small hermitages were built. These constructions had a single bedroom, a work and study room, a kitchen, a dining room, other secondary rooms and a chapel. Often they had water tanks dug out of the rock, and a little garden.

Hermits lived a life of prayer and hard work. They were part of the community of monks in the monastery and were subject to the rules dictated by abbots and priors, but they did not have to take vows. With the reform instigated by abbot Garcia Jiménez Cisneros they became Benedictine monks. Because of the number of candidates, it took years of waiting to become a hermit. Vacancies only arose when one of the hermits died. Hermits have played an extremely important role in the spiritual life of the mountain.

Although there is some evidence that humans inhabited Montserrat as far back as the Palaeolithic Age, it is not until the Neolithic period that they left obvious signs of their presence.

The worship of fertility and life and funeral worship constitute the most significant religious characteristics of the human of that time. The homage paid, seen in excavated tombs, reveals as much. These burial sites, dug in the ground, contain all kinds of items: personal ornaments, stone axes or flint knives.

The “Gran” [Large] and “Freda” [Cold] caves in Collbató, have revealed the most important findings in Montserrat or cardium pottery and other items of Neolithic art ever found in Catalonia. They are all kept in the monastery’s Archaeology Museum.

Legend of Riquilda

The legend has it that Riquilda, the beautiful daughter of Guifrè the hairy, sovereign count of Barcelona was possessed by a demon. Guifrè persuaded his daughter to spend nine days with Fra Gari, who was a famous and revered hermit who lived on the Montserrat Mountain and who was famous for curing affictions of this kind. The Devil, disguised as a pilgrim, tempted Fra Gari to fall into carnal sin with Riquilda. Obsessed with the sin that he had committed, Fra Gari killed the daughter of Guifrè to dispose of any evidence of his sinful actions. He traveled to Rome to implore the forgiveness of the Pope, who made him return to Montserrat and walk on all fours until God forgave him. In the course of this pitiful penitence he was transformed into a form of bear. During a royal hunt, the strange-looking animal was caught and taken to the royal palace in Barcelona. During the celebrations to mark the birth day of one of Guifrè’s children, the infact approached the chained-up animal and said to it: “Arise, for God has forgiven you”. Fra Gari recovered his Human forma and confessed his crime to the Count begging him for his forgiveness. Fra Gari led the Count to the place where he had buried Riquilda, where a rose tree had grown. When he plucked a flower from the rose tree, the beautiful girl came to life.

The legend of Percival

Percival was a French nobleman. He made a long journey which would eventually lead him to the mythical and legendary court of King Arthur, where Percival was made a knight. In time he eventually abandoned the royal court in search of new adventures which were to lead him to a castle lost among the peaks of a steep, isolated mountain: Montserrat. The king and the royal court which inhabited these parts had been the custodians of the Holy Grail. However, the virtue and grace of such a jewel had been put in jeopardy, as the mountain had been cast under the wicked spell of a malevolent sorcerer, who craved possession of the Holy Grail. Percival managed to save himself, restoring the lost virtue of the jewel and peace to Montserrat.

The young drummer boy

Following the invasion of the Napoleonic troops, all the towns surrounding the Montserrat Mountain raised up in arms and took refuge in the mountain; all, except for a young boy armed only with a large drum which he played endlessly to encourage the courageous troops. One night, the enemy troops discovered them resting and closed in on the brave Catalan fighters. Just as the Napoleonic troops were about to attack and slay the resting Catalan troops, they all heard the heavy beat of a drum. The sound became louder and louder and a strong and vibrant echo filled the mountain. The enemy, believing that a great army was about to fall upon them, began to flee, terrified by the growing sound of the drumming.