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Sant Pau del Camp, photo by Bob Masters courtesy of Generalitat de Catalunya (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 ES).
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Sant Pau del Camp, photo by Bob Masters courtesy of Generalitat de Catalunya (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 ES).
If you walk from the Ramblas through the neighborhood of El Raval towards El Poble-sec on Carrer de Sant Pau, you’ll pass restaurants, bars, second-hand appliance shops, newspaper kiosks, bazars, fruterías, halal butcher shops, and a myriad of other businesses. But at number 99 on Carrer de Sant Pau, there’s a small, ancient monastery that possesses an air of quiet calm that’s incongruous to the bustle of the neighborhood.
The Monestir de Sant Pau del Camp (Monastery of Saint Paul of the Fields) is one of the best examples of Lombard Romanesque architecture in the city, and is what remains of an historic Benedictine monastery. It was built before the tenth century, though no one knows exactly when. There is archaeological evidence that the site served as a place of worship well before the church’s construction—as far back as the sixth or seventh centuries, during Roman times—and that the area where it was built was populated as far back as the Neolithic Period.
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Sant Pau del Camp photo by PMRMaeyaert (CC BY-SA 3.0 ES) via Wikimedia Commons.
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Photo by Bob Masters courtesy of Generalitat de Catalunya (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 ES).
Early Construction
The area around the monastery would have been a plain filled with grasses, shrubs, and orchards, outside of the walled center of Barcelona, hence the name. And in spite of the attacks that took place over the centuries and subsequent repairs and renovations, the cloister and the church have been preserved remarkably well. However, its history remains largely a mystery. There is little to no documentation about its original construction, but the existence of Visigothic capitals on the columns of the cloister and some reliefs from the same era, which feature distinctly solar and elemental symbolic imagery rather than Biblical, suggests that it might date back to the times when the Visigoths ruled the Iberian Peninsula. The construction is sometimes attributed to 5th-century bishop San Paulino de Nola, but little else is known about it, probably due to its being razed and all documentation destroyed when the city was sacked by military leader Almanzor and the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in the year 985.
The Early Medieval construction is simple, even primitive, when compared to the soaring Gothic cathedrals that would be built in the following centuries: the church’s plan is an irregular cross shape topped with a dome, with three apses. There are arches and reliefs decorating the outer façade, especially around the large doorway on the western-facing side. Inside the grounds, the church leads to a square cloister on the south side, constructed of three- and five-lobed arches situated between supporting columns, whose capitals feature reliefs representing plants, animals, birds, Adam and Eve, demons, saints, mermaids, warriors, monsters, and other Biblical and fantastical figures and scenes.
These arches are special, because even though they are typical of the architecture of that era, the arches in Sant Pau de Camp were built in the Arabic style, not Romanesque, which is a feature not found in any other Catalan church or monastery built during that time period. Yet another notable exception in its construction is that the church is oriented with 45 degrees’ deviation from the east; Romanesque churches are typically oriented due east.
Sant Pau del Camp cloister, photo by Amaianos (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
Mysterious Beginnings
Though the architectural style of the building as it stands today offers clues, the estimate of the period of its construction was made easier by the presence of the grave of Count Wilfred Borrell II, who died in the year 911 CE; the church logically had to be standing at the time of his death if he was buried there. (Oddly, no other mention of the monastery are found in any of the city records from that era.) Many historians have attributed the founding of the monastery to Borrell, and it would have had to have been a monastery of some importance to merit the burial of the Count of Barcelona. Other patrons of the church would later be entombed along its walls.
At the time, no men’s monastery existed in or near the settlement of Barcelona—only the all-female Sant Pere de les Puel·les, located in the Santa Caterina i la Ribera neighborhood in Ciutat Vella, not far from where the Arc de Triomf stands today.
Rebuilding from Ruin
Its history starting in the twelfth century is clearer, as it was re-established as a monastery in the year 1117 by nobleman Geribert Guitard and his wife Rotlendis, and confirmed by a papal bull issued by Pope Urban II in 1120, which also placed the monastery under the jurisdiction of the larger Monastery of Sant Cugat de Vallès. This second founding of the monastery is known thanks to the papal bull as well as its mention on the 1307 tombstone of another nobleman, Guillem de Bell-lloc, who was a descendant of the Guitards. On it, it specifies the founders to be Geribert and Rotlendis.
In 1165, Pope Alexander III gave the little priory more autonomy by putting it directly under the control of the Holy See, in spite of its previous relationship with Sant Cugat.
In spite of its small size, Sant Pau de Camp would have been important thanks to its strategic position. Its prominence was demonstrated by the fact that over 80 Benedictine congregations from all over the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula chose it as the headquarters of their congregation in the year 1215; in addition, the Crown of Aragon held the Cortes Catalanes (the Catalan Courts) at the church. In 1714 the church and cloister was briefly the temporary headquarters of the Catalan government during the conflicts caused by the War of Succession.
In 1577, Pope Gregorio XIII combined the priory of Sant Pau with the Monastery of Montserrat, but this union was never a harmonious relationship, and ended in 1593. The priory enjoyed independence until 1617, when it was combined with another larger monastery, Sant Pere de la Portella, located north of Barcelona. Unlike Montserrat, this entity recognized Sant Pau de Camp as an abbey and gave it a significant amount of autonomy and independence.
Two engravings of Sant Pau del Camp from the 1939 publication "Recuerdos y bellezas de España, Cataluña, Tomo segundo" by Pablo Piferrer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
In the year 1835, the Desmortización de Mendizábal was a declaration by the Spanish government that all properties belonging to “extinct religious communities” be confiscated and sold; the monks residing on the premises left the cloister permanently. The structure became a parish church, and later was used as a school and a barracks. It was set to be demolished in 1879, but the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya and the government minister Victor Balaguer campaigned to have the building declared a historic monument, which saved the former monastery from destruction. The church, cloister and grounds were later declared a national monument in 1987.
The works on the rectory of the church of Sant Pau del Camp. View of the church under construction. 1935 photo by Carlos Pérez de Rozas courtesy of Arxiu Municipal de Barcelona.
Sant Pau del Camp after being burned during the events known as Tragic Week in 1909. Photo by Brangulí courtesy of Generalitat de Catalunya (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 ES).
The Tragic Week of 1909
However, even that designation didn’t save it from damage during the massive anti-conscription riots of the Tragic Week of 1909, when many state and church institutions were attacked, as well as during the Spanish Civil War two-and-a-half decades later. After the war, repairs were carried out to try to maintain the building’s structural and historical integrity, including removing elements that had been added on over time and were thought to detract from its Romanesque foundations. The only element that exists today that was not constructed in the Early Medieval period is the Baroque belfry of the dome.
Now, the city’s oldest church, tucked away in El Raval, continues to have cultural significance that extends beyond even its historical importance. The designs in the church’s mosaic floor supposedly inspired artists such as Gaudí and Picasso, according to the church’s official history. Today, the monastery forms a part of the Raval Cultural Project, which aims to protect and promote the artistic and cultural heritage of the neighborhood.
The inside of the cloister is like a time capsule—an island of tranquility in the middle of the busy city—and surrounding the church and cloister are its gardens, which include palm trees, poplars, mulberry and other native species. Both tourists and locals can visit the church and its grounds, which offers traditional Catholic masses as well as guided tours.