San Martín de Albelda

[1] The monastery was founded on 5 January 924 by Sancho Garcés I and Toda Aznárez, monarchs of Navarre, in gratitude for the recent reconquest of Nájera and Viguera (923) in conjunction with Ordoño II of León.

The community was founded 'secundum Benedicti regulam uel id quod a sanctis patribus didicisti, that is, according to the Benedictine rule.

[2] The house prospered under the repoblación, as it lay on trade routes connecting Álava, Castile, and Navarre north of the Ebro.

In 950 Albelda had two hundred monks when the French bishop Godescalcus, making the first Jacobean pilgrimage known to history, stopped at the monastery in order that his amanuenses could copy the De uirginitate beatae Mariae of Ildephonsus of Toledo.

Under the powerful Navarrese monarch Sancho Garcés III, the abbey received the castle of Clavijo and Albelda was made a diocese.

Ruins of the Monastery by year 2021
Contemporary depictions (and self-depiction) of three monks of Albelda, the scribes of the Codex Albeldensis, from left to right: Serracino, Vigila, and García (as drawn by Vigila)