The monastery

Although the foundation date is not known for certain, it is believed that a small congregation of Augustinians established a hospital for pilgrims here in the 9th century. In the 12th and 13th centuries the hospital was integrated by the Premonstratensian order, whose abbots were the lords of Urdazubi/Urdax and Zugarramurdi until the year 1785.

Nothing remains from its medieval period; its golden age was from the 16th to the 18th centuries, when the current edifices were built. The monastery suffered two major fires: in 1526 (when Navarre lost its independence) and in 1793 (during the French National Convention, when French troops invaded the area and burnt the monastery and the town of Urdazubi/Urdax). In the latter episode, the monastery’s large library, with more than 9,000 volumes, was destroyed.

After the French Convention period (1793-1795), the monks took refuge in the sanctuary of Loyola until 1806. Several decades later, in 1839, the ecclesiastical confiscations took place under Mendizabal, with the Spanish minister expropriating and selling communal properties and those belonging to the Church. The monastery was definitively abandoned by the Premonstratensians and its temple became the parish church. The church and cloister from the old monastery remain to this day, with the cloister and other wings forming the museum and the art exhibition space. The Museum of Liturgical Ornaments, promoted by the Urdax-BaztánAssociation of Friends of the Way of St James, is in one section of the old monastery, along with the permanent exhibition of 50 years of Basque painting.