THE MONASTERY OF OSERA, ORENSE
CLOISTERS IN THE MONASTERY OF OSERA
PHOTOS, BY AUTHOR
deepest hollow of that valley was planted the monastery of Osera, the Gallegan Escurial.
We came to the outer wall of the monastic demesne about fifteen minutes before we reached the entrance. It was a thick and high mediæval wall, a rampart wall, with strong round turrets about fifteen feet high at regular intervals. Outside these walls there were green pasture lands stretching up the mountain slope as far as the eye could see, but the only woods and trees we could distinguish were those within the demesne; they must have been all planted by the monks at one time or another. The centre and lowest dip of the valley, where the monastery stood, was so much lower than the surrounding wall, that we could not even see its church towers when we had drawn a little nearer.
There was a picturesque little village just within the outer gates of the monastery. I took a snapshot of one of its long maize barns, crawling like a great caterpillar over the granite wall. In one of the houses dwelt the lawyer to whom I had brought my letter of introduction. He and his aged mother welcomed me kindly, and while the old lady went off to prepare me a cup of chocolate I chatted with her son, and took some notes from a book to which he drew my attention. It was entitled Codigo Civil (Civil Code), and contained an interesting paragraph relating to the monastery I had come to visit. It was to the effect: There exists an insensible gradation between the charters granted to the population of more important towns of Galicia, and those conceded to the people dwelling on the solitary estates, which are in themselves, so to speak, centres or townships. One of the earliest indications of the gradation is to be found in a letter promulgated in 1207 by the abbot and monks of the monastery of Osera, which is now preserved in the Archives of Natural History at Madrid,[294] in which all the people dwelling in the hamlet of Aquada were commanded to pay annually—a hundred and forty loaves of good bread, fifteen pots of honey, fifteen pullets or fifteen kids, and fifteen crocks filled with fried cakes. Furthermore, whenever the king or other great personages should visit the monastery, these villagers were to supply its major-domo with as many chickens and kids as he might require. In addition, they were bound over to plough the fields belonging to the monastery, and to lend their help in the harvest season. And last, but not least, they were to convey in their own vehicles any of the monks who might wish to make an annual visit to Santiago or Marin, and they were not to recognise any other suzerainty than that of the monks. The only compensation for all these kind offices which the monks promised to the villagers was a supply of good merino from their flock.