Santa María la Real de las Huelgas (Valladolid)

The Monastery of Santa María la Real de las Huelgas is one of the original monasteries of Cistercian nuns in Spain. It is located within the city of Valladolid in the Duero region.

The early history of the monastery is obscure, primarily due to a fatal fire in 1282, which totally destroyed the entire monastery, along with its archives. The indicator Real (Royal) implies that it was founded by some member of the ruling family. After the fire, Queen María de Molina (1265-1321) gave the community a palace used as a place of rest—thus the title "of the Fallows" (Spanish: las Huelgas)--for their home, to which the community relocated. Of this building, only a gateway survives, Valladolid's sole example of Mudéjar art.

One later historian attributed the original foundation to doña Sancha, the sister of the Emperor of Spain Alfonso VII (1105-1157). This would be a logical history, given that it was King Alfonso, a very pious man, who introduced the Cistercians to Spain. He presumably knew the Order due to his father's Burgundian origins. He was the nephew of Pope Callixtus II and the founder of the military Order of the Knights of Calatrava, who were a part of the Cistercian Order.

This monastery lay on the new frontier of land taken back from Muslim rule in Alfonso's active engagement in the Reconquest of Christian Spain. The territory had been sufficiently pacified that he entrusted it to his sister. The new monastery suffered severe damages in 1328 from the forces of King Alfonso XI, known as "The Avenger", as he attempted to seize his grandmother and former Regent, the aforementioned Queen Maria, who had retired there after his coronation.

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