No. 26 (2009): The Herrera caves, the Cistercian monastery and the current cavaldula (Mirand de Ebro - Haro)
Antigüedad y Cristianismo
For a quarter of a century, an eclipsed tradition has been recovering, but never completely forgotten, the awareness that throughout our history caves and solitudes had been, on many occasions, inhabited by "men of God". The fact is documented in cases such as San Millán de la Cogolla, whose life speaks clearly about it and in others such as the San Martín de Albelda monastery, which never lost the cave image that is still well visible in the place today. The rest of the places with caves had been blurred until slowly the cave of the "Patio de los Curas" by Arnedo with epigraphy of the 5th century, which without any hesitation has been identified as a church, then with consciousness Attentive, the rock monastery of San Miguel de Arnedo; as well as the rock complexes of the upper Ebro, the surroundings of Treviño County and other points of the Basque provinces4. Scholars have realized that San Tirso de Arnedillo is a hermitage in a cave, so that when the indications are clear, and in many cases they are, it is not disputed that those caves that have them have been headquarters of monastic houses.
