[1] Aurea was born in 1043 in the village of Villavelayo, then part of the Taifa of Zaragoza, a region controlled by the Moors.
As a child, she studied the Scriptures and the lives of the early martyrs of the Church under the guidance of a monk named Munio, who would later write her vita.
After some consideration as to how to proceed, for Aurea Prior Dominic had a narrow anchorhold built for her in the wall of the monastery church, with a small window through which she could see the altar, and another to the outside.
By the age of 20, she was living in a cave where she received a vision of her three favorite saints and was encouraged to follow her chosen lifestyle with more zeal.
[1] Her body was initially buried in her cave, which served as her shrine until 1609, when the bulk of her remains were enshrined at the monastery, with some being given to the parish church of her home town of Villavelayo, where a special chapel was built to house them and to honor her as the patron saint of the town.