Santes Creus

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Santes Creus is a Cistercian monastery in Catalonia. It was started in 1158,^{[citation needed]} and today is considered one of the finest preserved monastic sites in Southern Europe.^[who?]

[edit] History

The monastery was started in 1158 and was finished within 50 years.^{[citation needed]} In its early period, the monastery was a center of intellectual and political activity and was comparable to the Poblet Monastery.^{[citation needed]} One of the more important abbots was Bonanat de Vilaseca, who founded the subsidiaries of Santa Maria de Valldigna in 1298 and the Monastery of Altofonte (Sicily) in 1308, when Jaume II el Just reigned.^{[citation needed]}

Fortified in 1375 by Pere el Cerimoniós, it played an important role in the creation of the Order of Montesa, a refuge for Aragonese Knights Templar after the abolition of their order.^{[citation needed]}

The activities of the monastery continued largely uninterrupted until the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, which led to its eventual demise in 1835 at which time the monastery was sacked and burned.^{[citation needed]} Shortly thereafter, several ex-monks erected it as a parish Church and worked slowly toward its restoration.^{[citation needed]} It is today in the hands of the Generalitat de Catalunya.^{[citation needed]}