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Monasteries in Spain

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The monastic pharmacy and its garden. La Oliva Monastery

Posted on 25/02/2025

Summary introduction to the Story

Pharmacies and their gardens were essential spaces in the sanitary role of monasteries in Europe. Those on the Way of St James were of particular importance.

Although not on this route, the Monastery of Saint Mary of La Oliva in Carcastillo (Navarra, Spain) also had a pharmacy and its medicinal garden.

We are gradually preparing a small medicinal garden with several objectives. First of all, the project aims at developing an educational workshop on plant care that would engage all the community.

The workshops will also highlight the role that the monasteries have had as for botany and its uses in apothecary.

Apart from that, we would like to enhance the beauty of these surroundings, enrich their biodiversity, and improve the visitor´s experience. Our goal is also to strengthen the heritage awareness among the local communities about the importance of this monastery as a dynamic element of culture.

It is also an opportunity to engage immigrants in these activities, giving them a chance to learn about this cultural heritage in order to promote their integration into the new host community.

The activity will be completed during the EHDs 2025 and will be presented in accordance with this year’s theme. By looking through the windows of the past, we can contemplate the old apothecary and its gardens, and we open the doors to enjoying medicinal gardening for the future local community.

The recent restoration of the church has helped to raise the popularity of the monastery. Anyone can visit this place as well as participate in the gardening workshops, not only during the EHDs but all year round. All the activities encourage face-to-face communication and help reduce the screen time among teenagers.

Obras en el Monasterio de La Oliva. Navarra

We are willing to exchange our knowledge about medicinal gardens with other monasteries in Spain and Europe.

Senanque Abbey

Long description of the story

The monastery of Saint Mary of La Oliva is located close to the village of Carcastillo , (Spain) in the south of the Navarra region, known as “La Ribera”. This is a rural area that, like most such areas in Spain and Europe, is currently facing the problem of ageing local population, but at the same time experiencing an influx of new generation members who come from other countries and cultures. This situation requires a rethinking of cultural heritage: the integration of newcomers means understanding their culture but also helping them to get to know, understand and enjoy the culture of the host country.

In addition, another challenge that we are facing is the lack of interest regarding cultural heritage in the young Spanish population.

This should not be understood as a complaint but rather a diagnosis that will help us to better tackle the situation, and as far as possible, to bring about a positive change. This is, in our opinion, where actions from local and small communities can be executed. These actions to preserve and help people to understand the cultural heritage are essential even if they can be evaluated as humble.

Taking into consideration all of the above, we would like to carry out an activity of creating a medicinal garden in a small area of the La Oliva Monastery, and at the same time, explain the role of monasteries in people’s daily lives over centuries.

We are planning to develop a participative activity rather than give lectures about architecture, art styles and so on. We would like the participants to fully engage in the activity, and as a consequence, rediscover their cultural heritage.

Criteria:

When talking about the original botanic garden of La Oliva Monastery, we must point out the fact that it was not located where we are now sowing the medicinal plants. The original location was in the enclosure area, close to the pharmacy, where the ill monks were taken care of. The area chosen for our activity is easily accessible since it is just in front of the main entrance. Hence, everyone is welcome to join us.

We would also like to highlight another important aspect when talking about this heritage. This garden is being created with all the formal permissions of the Heritage authorities. Therefore, as organisers, we must comply with many rules and conditions such as: under no circumstances can we act in the building, and what is more, if any problem arises with the plants, there exists a possibility of interrupting the whole activity or even cancelling it.

The Cistercian aesthetic and its elements are also being taken into consideration.

It is also very important to respect and, if possible, enhance the biodiversity of the site. We do not know how the plants, insects, and bees, will behave, but we will take good care of them. We will see how everything changes throughout the seasons, and we want to get in touch with other monasteries. We want to ask them about their archives, information they have about the old monastic apothecaries, among others.

There are professors of Pharmacy Faculties in different Spanish universities who are interested in the field of researching monastic apothecaries. We will keep them informed about this project in case it can serve as an incentive for the students to start their research in this area.

It is not possible to add more information for the time being.

European dimension

There are countless examples of apothecaries and medicinal gardens in the monasteries of Europe and their bibliographic collections, or shops dedicated to sell some products (especially in the area of cosmetics such as natural soaps and creams for body, face and hands) as well as herbal teas. These are some monasteries with which we can collaborate in this project:

the French monastery of Senanque and its famous lavender plantation
The Olimje Monastery with its Old Pharmacy and the garden of medicinal herbs
The Vatican Museums in Rome, which guard the apothecary’s shop of the ancient convent of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.
The Spanish monastic apothecaries of Guadalupe and Yuste, which can also be considered to have a European dimension.

As we know, apothecaries are always accompanied by gardens with medicinal plants.

Blog

An adventure in a Cistercian abbey

Posted on 15/07/2024

HOW CAN WE MAKE SURE THAT OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE IS PRESERVED IN THE FUTURE?

Since 2021 when we began the program “monasteries past present and future”, there has been one idea that has been repeated continuously, namely that it is impossible to maintain our cultural heritage without really knowing it.

It doesn´t matter how big the investments in the rehabilitation of the heritage sites are if new generations take them for granted or even worse, they don´t know about their existence.

On the other hand, we cannot have any guarantee of decent rehabilitations in the future if people in charge of them know nothing about the essence of these places nor they have ever experienced them.

Regarding that, we made a proposal to Irene Pascual, a young lady in charge of events and institutional communication at Monasterio de Valbuena, which is a luxury hotel belonging to the prestigious hotel brand Castilla Termal.

“How about we invite the staff of your hotel, which used to be a monastery, to get to know the everyday life of a real monastery?” This friendly talk was shot in a beautiful old chapel. And here you have it available in Spanish

At the same time, we also organise scholarships for young professionals who every year, travelled to visit real monasteries, and buildings that used to be monasteries but today have a different function such as hotels, cultural centres or museums. After the journey, they have to make an oral presentation talking about their experiences and conclusions they have reached.

As an example, here you have the talk of the photographer José Luis Martínez Arce, just click here:

Just like every year we also had the volunteering week. In 2023 it was held in San Pedro de Cardeña, Burgos in the region of Castilla y Leon (Spain). You can find out more about it here

Hora del café

Now in 2024 we were at Monasterio de La Oliva, in Carcastilo, Navarra. Read on to find out what we did.

A VOLUNTERING WEEK BUT A FILMING WEEK AS WELL

Pablo Beorlegui durante el rodaje en La Oliva

It was a fun but also intense week. Not only because all the team has been working hard on getting to know the daily life inside a monastery, the real “ora et labora” of the monks, their prayers, playing music, keeping archives, gardening, maintaining supplies, among others, but also because of Miguel Arguibide and Pablo Beorlegui shooting their documentary there

En el campanario de La Oliva

Both are working on a documentary that will be released in autumn and as you can see in the photo below, we are sure that it will be a piece of work of a really high level 🙂

Pablo y Miguel en un momento del rodaje

EXPERIENCES THAT WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN

We are very much aware of the fact that, in general, the young are quite reluctant to participate in so called “cultural events”. And it´s probably because they associate them with the idea of having to listen to a lecture given by an expert. That is why we devote our efforts to make the young become the real protagonists of these events.

En la cocina del monasterio de La Oliva

Both boys and girls are welcome to participate in our events, although this year no girl signed up for the volunteering week. Everything this year’s volunteers learned when living with the monks helped them to better understand how difficult the maintenance of these big old buildings is.

What is more, everybody contributed to the project with their knowledge. For instance, Iñigo Medrano, who is an industrial engineer, talked about energy efficiency of solar panels and the need for keeping them thoroughly clean. So, here you can see the team cleaning the panels.

Limpiando las placas solares

There were moments of friendly meetings and time for having fun, especially at coffee time – sobremesa, which is typical of the Spanish lifestyle. Sobremesa is a time after lunch, especially during holidays or special days, when people spend their time just talking and sharing thoughts in an informal way.

Sobremesa

One aspect that everybody talked about was the big surprise that the elderly monks turned out to be for them. Their vitality and strength caught the attention of the young volunteers.

It was a worthwhile week. The volunteers had the chance to listen to the architect in charge of the renovation of the church, José Luis Franchez Apecechea.

Visita con José Luis Franchez.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

The volunteering week has been the last activity of the 2023/2024 academic year but not the end of the project.

Pablo and Miguel are still working on their documentary. From January to June 2024, they talked with many people, and it is not possible to include all the conversations in the documentary. For that reason, all the interviews are available on our Youtube channel.

Not only did they visit some monasteries, but they also explored some churches that are not churches anymore. Here you can listen to an interview in La Merced Library.

En la biblioteca de La Merced en Cuenca

It is located close to the seminar and in the old church of Our Lady of La Merced in the beautiful city of Cuenca, (Worldwide Heritage site) which is in the region of Castilla la Mancha, Spain. Click here to listen to the conversation:

Here is another example of a former church, Espacio Torner, also situated in Cuenca.

Just look at the beauty of Monastery of San Juan located in the north of Spain, in the city of Burgos, just on the way of Saint James (Camino de Santiago).

Pablo Ramos Aguado con Pablo Beorlegui y Miguel Arguibide en el antiguo monasterio de San Juan de Burgos

Another day to remember was the filming day with the female students of Instituto Antonio Machado, in the small town of Soria. They spent a morning together at Espacio Santa Clara. Click here if you want to find out more.

En el Espacio Santa Clara en Soria con alumnas del IES Machado

All the volunteers have worked hard, and each has contributed to the project with their creativity, personal worth and values, which makes Patrimonio para Jovenes a brilliant project. It is the result of the sum of high capacities of many enthusiastic people, of people who dare to do something different and who are not afraid to take on challenges.

Los volutnarios en la puerta de la iglesia con el P. Abad

We would also like to thank the Cistercians communities for trusting us. All these activities are described in detail in our annual report. Here you can see the delivery of the 2023 report at the abbey of San Pedro de Cardeña.