Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Villamelendro de Valdavia
The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, or "la iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción", is a Catholic church located in Villamelendro de Valdavia, of the municipality of Villasila de Valdavia in the province of Palencia, under the autonomous community of Castilla and León, Spain. Originally built in the early twelfth century, the church's architecture is designed in a baroque style. History. Dating back to the twelfth century, both the charters of Villasila and Villamelendro, granted by Alfonso VIII in 1180, attested to the existence of both  towns, the priests of their parishes coming to Carrión to request this privilege. The church was built on top of an older, more primitive build; in fact, two different axes of symmetry can be seen. The presbytery presents a slightly different alignment from the rest of the nave. Given that it is closer to the village, it can be deduced that it is the oldest part over which the rest of the building was based. In early 1527 in Valladolid, presided over by Carlos I of Spain during the general chapter of the Order of Santiago, an examination of the  visitation books was carried out. Lope Sánchez Becerra and Juan Alonso, two priests, began the examination, discovering that among them are those relating to the "Hospitales de las Tiendas", or the hospitals of the Order of Santiago, of Villamartin. Because each half box mark must be paid for in silver (each Castilian mark weighed 230 g, so that the boxes that were manufactured should weigh 115g each) for the Church tabernacle, twith Villasila and Villamelendro as their destination, they were able to make connections to the order, as well as to figure out if the Order still had active  ownershipon an old well, lands and houses. As a result of the 1549 pastoral visit to the church of Santa María de Villamelendro, documentation was left about the work that was being carried out at that time. In the Church of Our Lady of Assumption, the bulk of the current church building, the work is accredited to Juan de la Cuesta, a Cantabrian master stonemason. It is also known that during these works, Juan de la Cuesta collaborated with Pedro de Argadero, a neighbor of Carrión de los Condes in the execution of the same, the latter being in charge  of making the wooden structure over the vaults on which the roof rests. After the passing of de la Cuesta, there were other periods of construction.. Both the portico and its paving, as well as the later remodeling of the buttresses and sacristy, seem to be works that took place after the Juan de la Cuesta construction. In 1771, Manuel Jacinto de Bringas, mayor of the province of Toro, created a file for the Count of Aranda detailing the state of the congregations, confraternities,and brotherhoods in the towns of this jurisdiction. Villasila and Villamelendro are included in this report , with four Brotherhoods, six Guardianships and 6493 "reales de vellón", or Spanish real, provided for these celebrations as both sacred and profane expenses. Description. Outside. The church is made of brick, masonry and stonework, with a modern belfry tower at the foot made of plastered brick. It replaced the old masonry and brick tower with a hipped roof and two loopholes in the mid-20th century, as it threatened ruin. A gate with a brick semicircular arch on the Epistle side is preceded by a portico with an access door with lowered arch flanked on the left and right with openings , lintels to curb. Although originally they would have been open, they were blinded after their construction, perhaps to protect the parishioners who congregated in the atrium from the cold. The space of the portico behind the opening on the right was used as liturgical storage from some time after its erection until its restoration in 2012, when this storage was amortized. These works were focused on the recovery of the portico roof, cleaning of the interior facade and replacement of the adobe wall of the eastern enclosure by a thermo-clay wall. During the foundation of this wall, remains of  skulls from bodies buried outside the church were found. From that moment on, the atrium recovers the original space, except for the spans that are glazed, bringing the original clarity to the interior, but offering protection from the atmospheric elements. When cleaning the floor of the space freed up by this storage area, it was found that the stones visible in the area of the doorway also continued towards this side of the portico. This is another record with 6 arms similar to that of the entrance. A motif repeated in so many church entrances in the area and which  could correspond to some kind of protective sun symbol at the time of the entrance to the temple. An ashlar also appeared, reused as a footing for a buttress of reinforcement after the work of Juan de la Cuesta, with a series of grooves that after the analysis of the experts of the Monastery of Santa María la Real (Palencia) of Aguilar de Campóo, determined that it was a Renaissance moulding reused at a later time than the main work. The grooves, 15 in all, are finished off with a semicircle at the top, and between the grooves there seems  to be a kind of rope column. In 2014, the gate, which was damaged by these works to refurbish the atrium, was restored by removing several layers of paint that had accumulated over the centuries. At least 4 shades were found, from grey, through light green, to light brown and finally dark brown. In the process of restoration, two more pattée crosses were found, carved on the outside of the left door. A nail from the El Pobal ironworks in Muskiz was also used, as well as two other restored nails from local constructions that show a four-lobed exterior . Outside, there is a relief of a cross pattée, on one of the ashlars of the sacristy. This motif of a cross pattée is repeated on several doorways in the Palencia and Burgundy areas, with the cross almost always in the same position to the right of the main door. This custom could be associated with some kind of protective ritual already within the nineteenth century, probably the 1855 cholera epidemic. Another possibility is that this relief was related to the Brotherhood of the Vera Cruz of Villamelendro. Each parish had at least two confraternities: one was the Vera Cruz  Confraternity and the other the Animas Confraternity, which would explain their general presence in other parishes. Oral tradition tells how in the 1970s, during the excavation of a well in the corner of the land near the sacristy, a tombstone with characters appeared, currently in an unknown location. On the outside of the apse, centred on the top, there is an eroded brick which local popular tradition calls the "santo rojo" (literally "holy red") due to the reddish colour of the material with which it was built. This served as a sundial during the summer season, and the shadow of  the temple reaches this brick during the months of the heat wave, just as it arrives at noon, serving as a reference for the neighbors who were working in the vicinity of the temple. The cemetery is located on the north side of the church. Originally it must have been built at the beginning of the 19th century, although the current one is an extended version of the original one and has access and walls that were remodeled by the Villasila Town Hall at the end of the 20th century. Interior. The interior consists of a single nave, separated by  arches of ashlars in three sections, covered with a barrel vault, and with a high wooden choir at the feet. On the side of the presbytery is the main altarpiece from the first half of the 17th century, with paintings on the bench of the Annunciation and Adoration of the Shepherds, flanked by four small panels representing the Fathers of the Church, from left to right: St Augustine of Hippo, St Gregory the Great, St Ambrose of Milan and St Jerome of Stridon on which four columns Corinthian Order are supported as an allegory for the pillars of the Church . The altarpiece is articulated around a central niche, with the image of Asunción presiding, and on the sides four panels with paintings of the life and martyrdom of Cyricus and Julitta, and a crucifix on the top. The tabernacle has a relief of the Resurrection on the door. On the epistle side, there is a rococo altarpiece (not gilded) with relief of the Souls and the Holy Trinity. On the Gospel side, there is a crucifix and a rococo altarpiece, identical to the one on the Epistle side, but with gilded reliefs. In the baptistery, under the choir, there is  a baptismal font with a large ribbon and with a relief of a cross pattée on one of its sides. By comparison to the font of the nearby Church of San Pelayo in Villasila de Valdavia, it can be dated to the end of the 18th century. At the same time, other more modern works of lesser artistic interest are kept, most notably a Sacred Heart of Jesus that was offered by the family of Martín Cabezón at the beginning of the 20th century for the safe return of their son Marcos Cabezón from the Third Carlist War. In 1987 , frescoes dating from the 18th century were discovered. On the gospel side a star motif is repeated on the floor of the church entrance, while on the epistle side the figure of an allegorical vase representing the Virgin Mary. The floor of the church, except for the part of the presbytery which is from the 20th century, is the original one made of terracotta tiles. Already from the end of the 18th century the need for burials to take place outside the church was promulgated, but it was not until later in the 19th century that the order was carried  out. This is why many of the tiles are dented and have marks on the ends from being lifted and re-laid. The burials inside the Church were done by zones and could be paid for. That is why the wealthy chose areas as close as possible to the main altar and the poorer ones far from it. Until the end of the 1980s, men sat in the choir, in the pews below the choir (where a still-existing indigo blue and black bench, known as the "pew of darkness", stood out) and the area closest to the entrance, while  women sat in kneeling pews closest to the presbytery. These kneeling places were usually above the areas where their relatives were buried, and the place where the women of the same family sat from generation to generation remained. There are two large banners. One of them is typical of holidays, with three bands of the same size, where the first and third are crimson and the middle one is white with the cross of Santiago in the middle, also crimson. The other is purple, with gold trimmings, to preside over the burials and moments of the Passion. Both banners are  accompanied by a bronze processional cross and two 18th-century lanterns. Conservation. Juan de la Cuesta's work presented problems from early times. It was necessary to reinforce the building with period buttresses so that they would reinforce the pressures that the groin vaults projected outwards. In the area of the apse it is reinforced with very thick but low buttresses, since in this area the church tends to open up as well. In the cemetery area, the base of these buttresses are eroded by humidity and burials, leaving the building unprotected. That is why in the mid-20th century the  arch of the presbytery was reinforced with a double tensor that gave it stability. The second arch of the nave, however, is increasingly giving way inwards, endangering the integrity of the second vault. In addition, at the end of the 20th century, the base of the whole church was painted with plastic paint, favouring that the humidity goes up the walls, weakening the integrity of the walls. This is the reason why this building is included in the Red Heritage List of the Association for the care and promotion of Heritage Hispania Nostra since November 2019. Church of Our Lady