The Church of Quintanilla de las Viñas

W. M. Whitehill; A. W. Clapham

doi:10.1017/S0003581500010581

The Church of Quintanilla de las Viñas

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012

W. M. Whitehill and

A. W. Clapham

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The ermita of Santa Maria de Quintanilla de las Viñas, although one of the most important examples of pre-Romanesque architecture and sculpture in Spain, was unknown to archaeologists until 1927.

Padre Enrique Flórez, writing in 1772, mentioned the building in connexion with the reported existence of Roman inscriptions in its vicinity, but, as he had not seen it, gave no description. J. A. Cean Bermudez, who likewise had not been on the spot, published a somewhat confused account of certain inscriptions. From Cean Bermudez, Hübner copied three enigmatic monograms said to be ‘in aedicula S. Mariae de las Viñas prope Quintanilla, non longe a Lara oppido’, and published them both in his Inscriptiones Hispaniae Latinae and Inscriptionum Hispaniae Christianarum Supplementum.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1937 , pp. 16 - 27

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500010581 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1937

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^{page 16 note 1} The church is ten minutes' walk outside the village of Quintanilla de las Viñas, ayuntamiento of Mambrillas de Lara, partido of Salas de los Infantes, province of Burgos. Quintanilla de las Viñas, in the heart of Castilla la Vieja and within sight of the historic campo de Lara, was until recently a remote village, difficult of access, but since 1930 it has had a motor-road of sorts, which joins the Burgos–Soria highway between Mazariegos and Mambrillas de Lara. The name of the village does not figure upon ordinary maps of the province of Burgos, but it is given in Madoz, Pascual, Diccionario geográfico-estadístico histórico de España (Madrid, 1849), xiii, 337,Google Scholar as Quintanilla de las Viñas. The ermita is, however, sometimes described as Santa Maria de las Viñas in Quintanilla de Lara.

^{page 16 note 2} España Sagrada (Madrid, 1772), xxvii, 622.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 3} Sumario de las Antigüedades Romanas que hay en España (Madrid, 1832), 181.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 4} Cean Bermudez states that beneath the altar of the ermita is a tomb ‘con muchas labores de gusto’ and with an inscription. In the upper part were the letters:

in the middle:

then ‘un espacio con muchos adornos’, and at the bottom these monograms:

This tomb does not exist to-day at Quintanilla de las Viñas, and perhaps never was there, for Cean Bermudez's information was admittedly second-hand, and he published a very similar inscription as existing at Osma (Alava).

^{page 17 note 1} Berlin, 1879, no. 2885.

^{page 17 note 2} Berlin, 1900, no. 387.

^{page 17 note 3} Serna, Luciano Huidobro y, ‘El monasterio de San Pedro de Berlangas en Tordomar y su célebre caligrafo el monje Florencio’, Boletín de la Comisión Provincial de Monumentos Históricos y Artísticos de Burgos, iv (1934-1937), 244, note 1.Google Scholar

^{page 17 note 4} ‘Santa Maria de las Viñas en Quintanilla de Lara’, ibid, ii (1926–9), 175, 238–42, 266–8.

^{page 17 note 5} New York: Harcourt Brace, 1928, i, 37–8.

^{page 17 note 6} Cañas, Vicencio Alvarez, ‘La ermita de Quintanilla de las Viñas. Importancia artistica e histórica de sus fajas decorativas’, Anuario Eclesiástico, 1928 (Barcelona: Eugenio Subirana, 1928), 152*–6*.Google Scholar

^{page 17 note 7} de Orueta, Ricardo, ‘La ermita de Quintanilla de las Viñas en el campo de la antigua Lara: estudio de su escultura’, Archive Español de Arte y Arqueología, iv (1928), 169–78.Google Scholar

^{page 17 note 8} Gómez-Moreno, Manuel, Exposición Internacional de Barcelona, 1929. El Arte en España. Guia del Museo del Palacio Nacional (3rd ed., Barcelona: Eugenio Subirana, 1929), 51.Google Scholar Sr. Gómez-Moreno described the church as an ‘ermita visigoda: siglo VII’.

^{page 17 note 9} ‘Santa Maria de las Viñas, Monumento Nacional’, Boletín de la Comisión Provincial de Monumentos Históricos y Artísticos de Burgos, ii (1926-1929), 481–91.Google Scholar

^{page 17 note 10} Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana (Bilbao: Espasa-Calpe, 1933), viii, Apéndice, 1129–30.Google Scholar

^{page 18 note 1} A general survey of Spanish pre-Romanesque art by Dr. Schlunk will appear shortly. I am indebted to Professor A. M. Friend, jr., for the gift of a set of mimeographed outlines prepared for the course of lectures, Spanish Art in the Early Middle Ages, which Dr. Schlunk gave at Princeton University in 1934-1935Google Scholar.

^{page 18 note 2} Foundations of a three-aisled nave, and of small rooms at the extremities of the transepts, were apparently discovered. These excavations, however, were carried out after my last visit (Easter 1935) to Quintanilla de las Viñas, and I have been unable to secure more precise information about the finds.

^{page 18 note 3} The most complete study of the theme is that of R. Menéndez Pidal.

^{page 19 note 1} There seems to be no reasonable doubt over the identification of the present ermita of Santa Maria in Quintanilla de las Viñas with the one-time Benedictine convent of Santa Maria de Lara. de Argaiz, Gregorio, La Soledad Laureada por San Benitc y sus hijos en las iglesias de España (Madrid, 1675), vi, 284Google Scholar, states: ‘Del mismo año (929) se halla el Monasterio de Santa Maria de Lara. Fué convento ilustre. Oy perseveran sus ruinas. Llamanle aora Santa Maria de las Viñas.’ This is sound seventeenth-century testimony, and the identification is completely accepted locally to-day.

^{page 18 note 2} Serrano, Luciano, Cartulario de San Pedro de Arlanza (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1925), 18–21.Google Scholar

^{page 18 note 3} Serrano, , op. cit. 66–72.Google Scholar

^{page 18 note 4} Serrano, , Becerro gótico de Cardeña (Santo Domingo de Silos, 1910), 120–1Google Scholar, 327–8, 34–5, 114–15; Cartulario de San Pedro de Arlanza, 10–13, 24–6.

^{page 18 note 5} It appears that, in the excitement over the discovery of Santa Maria de las Viñas, some enterprising person either forged a cartulary of Santa Maria de Lara and copies of certain ‘lost inscriptions’ (said to come from the church), or caused rumours of the existence of such documents to circulate in Burgos. Sr. Huidobro, acting in perfectly good faith, mentioned these documents (which he had not seen) in the Boletín of the Burgos Historical Monuments Commission, ii (1926–9), 267–8. I have been assured by competent authorities, however, that this material (if it ever existed save in rumour) was quite false.

^{page 19 note 1} Heiss, Aloïss, Description géréale des monnaies des rois wisigoths d'Espagne (Paris, 1872), pls. VIII, XI.Google Scholar

^{page 19 note 2} ‘La antiquissima ermita de Santa Maria de las Viñas’, A. B. C, 5th10 1929.Google Scholar

^{page 24 note 1} Lampérez, V., Hist. de la Arquitectura Cristiana Española, i, 340.Google Scholar

^{page 24 note 2} Ibid. 185; Gómez-Moreno, M. in Architectural Review, xxvi (1909), 132 and 191Google Scholar.

^{page 26 note 1} Cf. Bible of León, finished 920, and a tenth-century tissue with hippocamps, both illustrated in , Gómez-Moreno, Cal. Mon. de Españo, León, pls. 82 and 137Google Scholar.

^{page 27 note 1} Bordona, J. Domínguez, Spanish Illumination, i, pl. 4. I am indebted to Dr. Hildburgh for drawing my attention to this point.Google Scholar

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