VENERABLE TERESA ENRÍQUEZ
1450 - 1529
Teresa Enríquez de Alvarado (Medina de Rioseco, 1450 - Torrijos, 4 March 1529) was a lady of the Castilian nobility, famous for her religiosity and her dedication to charitable works.
Devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, she dedicated herself to its exaltation during her years of retirement in our Villa de Torrijos after the death of her husband Gutierre de Cárdenas.
To her we owe the foundation of our Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament of Torrijos, which was the first in Spain. We also owe her the construction of our Collegiate Church of Torrijos in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, as well as the foundation of the Convent of the Conception, both in Torrijos and in other towns, and two hospitals, Consolation and Holy Trinity.
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Process of Beatification and Canonization
Several times, Christians admired by the figure of this woman have tried to promote her canonization process. The last attempt, before the current one, was in 1920. Then, in 2001, the diocesan phase of the current process began in Toledo, which closed with a solemn ceremony in November 2002. The cause was raised to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican, Doña Teresa Enríquez, was declared "Servant of God" after the examination of the report and dictation of the decree "Nihil Obstat". The Rapporteur drafted the "Positio".
After the discussion of the Positio by the Commission of Theologians and its approval and also with favorable sentence of the bishops and cardinals of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints on 23 March 2023, the Holy Father authorized the promulgation of the Decree recognizing the Heroic Virtues of Teresa Enríquez being recognized as "Venerable". In Torrijos (Toledo) there is a street and a school with her name.
Postulator General of the cause: P. Giovan Giuseppe Califano
Previous postulator of the cause: P. José Luis Cepero
Plaintiff of the canonization: Monjas Concepcionistas de Torrijos
Torrijos, 25 October 1926.
The remains of Doña Teresa Enriquez are exhibited to the public.
Incorrupted Body of the Venerable Doña Teresa Enríquez
in the Monastery of the Conceptionists of Torrijos
Foundation
ARCHCONFRATERNITY OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
His Holiness Julius II erected in the Church of San Lorenzo in Damasus in Rome, by Papal Bull, the chapel and Confraternity dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament, giving rise to the Institution of the Archconfraternities of the Most Holy Body of Christ, with the aim of Eucharistic adoration and the recovery of the forgotten tabernacles.
From this same year onwards, Blessed Sacrament Confraternities began to appear all over Europe. Doña Teresa Enríquez de Alvarado, of the House of the Admirals of Castile (1450-1529), promoted and founded the first Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in the town of Torrijos (Toledo) in 1508, with the same rights as the one in Rome.
Prayer for the cause of canonization
Jesús Sacramentado que quisiste quedarte con nosotros hasta la consumación de los siglos, por mediación de tu sierva Teresa Enríquez, que por su profundo amor a la Eucaristía mereció ser distinguida por el Papa Julio II con el sobrenombre de "LOCA DEL SACRAMENTO", te rogamos nos concedas una mayor correspondencia a tu amor, un mayor crecimiento del culto, adoración y amor a la Eucaristía en todo el mundo, y la gracia especial que te pedimos.
Padrenuestro, Ave, y Gloria.
"JESÚS SACRAMENTADO, GLORIFICADOR DE QUIEN TE GLORIFICA, PARA FOMENTO DEL CULTO EUCARÍSTICO CONCÉDENOS VER PRONTO EN LOS ALTARES A TU INSIGNE GLORIFICADORA TERESA ENRÍQUEZ"
Con Licencia Eclesiástica
We kindly ask you to communicate the graces received to: Monastery of the Immaculate Conception of Torrijos
More about "La Loca del Sacramento"
After the loss of her children and her husband, Teresa found strength of spirit in the cross of Jesus. Years earlier, the couple had acquired a large building in the town of Torrijos which they used as a palace, to which they sometimes retired. It was here that Teresa came to take refuge after the Queen's death in 1504, and with her son Diego and daughter Maria married, a new life began for her, freed from the frenzy of the Court, centred on the realisation of the great ideals that had inspired her life. In brief, I could summarise these ideals, a transcript of those she had lived with her now distant paternal grandmother: living faith and ardent love for the Lord, especially in the Eucharistic mystery; love also for the Holy Mother of God; operative charity towards the poorest and sickest, including captives in Muslim lands and children; a spirit of austerity and very high prayer.
The fruit of his ardent devotion to the Eucharist would be realised:
- In the building of the Collegiate Church of Torrijos, Gothic in its interior, Plateresque in its façades. The work lasted about 10 years and was completed in 1518.
- In the creation of the confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament. To understand this, we must situate ourselves in the religious crisis of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Already at the end of the 14th century, the Englishman Wycliffe had denied the truth of the real presence of the Eucharist. And in the years when the Collegiate Church was being built, the Lutheran and Zwinglian split, which also obscured or denied the Real Presence, was taking shape. Luther broke with Rome in 1517 and Zwingli in 1518. Despite some positive reactions, such as the Corpus Christi feast, which was spreading. These doubts were reflected in the fact that the Lord was practically abandoned in many churches where it was celebrated from evening to evening: tabernacles reduced to vulgar, undecorated boxes, wooden ciboria, chalices of ordinary glass, absence of lights to indicate the presence of the Lord....
In the Roman church of San Lorenzo in Damasus, a humble group of men accompanied the Viaticum through the streets with lights and recollection. They lacked resources and the people looked on with a certain respect, but indifferent to this Eucharistic gesture of this first "confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament". Someone informed Teresa in Torrijos of this act of these good Christians in Rome. She, so in love with the Blessed Sacrament, was moved and, through a religious, sent them a splendid embroidered canopy, a little golden pyx for the forms and 125 ducats for the nascent confraternity.
Later some of them came to Torrijos to see Doña Teresa. She had a beautiful marble chapel carved for the Lord in that Roman church, endowing and enriching it. There is a marble slab in the church that commemorates Teresa Enríquez as the founder of this first chapel of the confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament.
Teresa also obtained from Pope Julius II a bull with privileges for this Eucharistic Association and a licence to found it in Torrijos. This was achieved in 1508, and from Torrijos they spread to the whole of Spain, and later to a large part of Europe. The kind title of "Madwoman of the Sacrament" was given to her by Pope Julius II himself, and shortly afterwards Leo X would say of her: "The fact that a lady of Castile started in the world, from a small place, this new way of honouring the Eucharist and of promoting the virtue of Christians is, above all consideration, glorious for Spain".
- In the Love of the Blessed Virgin. Not only in his personal piety but also in his works. In Toledo Cathedral there is the Chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Antigua, founded by Doña Teresa. Another work in Torrijos honours the mystery of the Immaculate Conception of Mary: the foundation of one of the first Conceptionist convents in Spain in a large house she owned. It is not surprising that in her will she says: "I have the Blessed Glorious Virgin Mary as my Lady and Advocate in all my deeds, and now with a devout heart I offer myself as her servant and give her my soul".
- In the field of social justice and charity. Teresa was also a pioneer in the field that centuries later would become known as "agrarian parcelling". She divided some of her large estates near Torrijos into plots and gave them to poor families to cultivate with a small income which she used for her charitable works. In other words, she knew how to give not only the fish but also the fishing rod. With the help of a Sevillian priest, Fernando Contreras, famous for his social works, she took on the task of assisting the very numerous sick (during her husband's lifetime she had already founded the Hospital de la Trinidad), the orphans and even the poor captives from the Maghreb, especially from Algiers, renewing or helping the great work of the redemption of the captives of previous centuries.
These are just a few small samples of the great spirit of this great woman. Her incorrupted body rests in the Monastery of the Conceptionist Nuns of Torrijos.
Gutierre de Cárdenas and Teresa Enríquez introducing to Queen Isabel the man who would become her husband, D. Fernando.
BUILDINGS BY DOÑA TERESA ENRÍQUEZ
After the death of her husband in 1503, Enríquez used the significant economic capital they had accumulated to give free rein to her personal concerns, not only by erecting these monuments that erected "a city of God" in this town, but also by creating schools of music and medicine. He was also concerned to protect the most disadvantaged, especially the youngest children, orphans and women who fell into prostitution.
Between 1503 and 1527, Enriquez founded the convent of Franciscan Conceptionist mothers on the former palace of Pedro I, built the Palace of Altamira - in which the architect Alonso de Covarrubias participated - and erected the Collegiate Church of Torrijos. In addition, after the episodes of plagues and famines of this period, between 1519 and 1520 she built two hospitals: that of the Consolación - now disappeared - and that of the Santísima Trinidad, including the Chapel of the Santísimo Cristo de la Sangre (Holy Christ of the Blood). A few years earlier, in 1492, D. Guierre de Cárdenas had the Franciscan Monastery of Santa María de Jesús built in Torrijos.
collegiate church
convent of concepcionist nuns
HOLY TRINITY HOSPITAL
DISAPPEARED
BOOKS ABOUT DOÑA TERESA ENRÍQUEZ
biografía de doña teresa enríquez
D. Miguel Antonio Alarcón
Valencia, 1825
La Loca del sacramento
D. Constantino Bayle
Madrid, 1922
La Loca del sacramento o doña teresa enríquez
P. Rufino Osaba
Ávila, 1926
La Loca del sacramento y la villa de torrijos
Apuntes Históricos
1928
teresa enríquez "LA LOCA DEL SACRAMENTO"
D. Gregorio Sánchez de Rivera Vázquez
Torrijos, 1983
teresa enríquez y gutierre de cardenas
D. Manuel de Castro y Castro
Toledo, 1992
TERESA ENRÍQUEZ
Dña. Amaya Fernández
2001
55 preguntas a doña teresa
D. Federico Vega Ramos
Torrijos, 2008
biografía
teresa enríquez
S. Inmaculada López
Torrijos, 2009
la dama de la católica
Dña. Marta Pardo Marín
Valencia, 2018
doña teresa enríquez alvarado
D. Julio Longobardo Carrillo
Torrijos, 2018
OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST
CARRO DE LAS DONAS
D. Francesc Eiximenis
Valladolid, 1542
VIDA DEL VENERABLE PADRE CONTRERAS
P. Gabriel de Aranda
Sevilla, 1692
LA COLEGIATA DE TORRIJOS
D. Julio Longobardo Carrillo
D. Javier Buitrago Maselli
D. Fernando Alcántara García
Torrijos, 1999
STA. BEATRIZ DE SILVA
"LA BELLA PRISIONERA"
S. Inmaculada López
Torrijos, 2006
STA. BEATRIZ
"LA BELLA PRISIONERA"
S. Inmaculada López
Torrijos, 2009
TORRIJOS Y TORRIJEÑOS EN LA POESÍA
Jesús María Ruíz - Ayúcar
Torrijos, 2009
MONASTERIO FRANCISCANO TORRIJEÑO DE STA. MARÍA DE JESÚS
D. Julio Longobardo Carrillo
D. Justi de la Peña Carbonero
D. Jesús Sánchez de Haro
Torrijos, 2014
CONCEPCIONITAS QUE DEJARON HUELLA SEDUCIDAS POR EL AMOR
S. Inmaculada López
Torrijos, 2018
PLACES NAMED AFTER HER
CEPA Teresa Enríquez
Torrijos
Plaza Doña Teresa Enríquez
Seville
Teresa Enríquez St
Torrijos
Sepulchre
Don Gutierre y Doña Teresa Enríquez
HIGHLIGHTS
PAPAL BULL RESTORATION 1508
19 January 2014
PAPAL BULL "PASTORI AETERNI"
After the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Papal Bull of 1508 known as "Pastori Aeterni" was presented to the people of Torrijos, recently restored thanks to the contribution and collaboration of the historian Adolfo Aguado, the Confraternity of the Bleseec Sacrament and the Consistory of Torrijos.
Through this precious document promulgated by Pope Julius II, the foundations of Doña Teresa Enríquez are confirmed, both of the Confraternity of Rome (that of San Lorenzo in Dámaso) and that of Torrijos which was installed in the parish of San Gil (Confraternity of Corpus Christi).
Personalities of Torrijos next to the Bull
Torrijeños contemplating the Papal Bull of 1508
Papal Bull "Pastori Aeterni"
RECEIVING THE PAPAL BULL "PASTORI AETERNI".
25 April 2013
ARRIVAL OF THE PAPAL BULL
Thanks to the historian D. Adolfo, we have received the Papal Bull "Pastori Aeterni" of 1508 by which the Sacramental Archconfraternity was founded in Torrijos. A few days later it will be sent to be restored and kept in the Museum of the Collegiate Church of Torrijos.
Unwrapping the Papal Bull
Papal Bull "Pastori Aeterni" in Torrijos
Detail of the name of Pope Julius II
Signature of Pope Julius II
Detail of the Papal Bull of 1508
INAUGURATION IMAGE DOÑA TERESA ENRÍQUEZ
10 March 2012
TERESA ENRÍQUEZ IMMORTALISED IN THE CLOISTER OF THE TOWN HALL
The council of Torrijos forever embodies an image of one of the most important women in the history of the town. Its 'lady', the so-called 'Loca del Sacramento', founder and patron saint of the local collegiate church, died on 4 March 1529.
Her face has been immortalised on one of the walls of the cloister of the Palace of Don Pedro I, the seat of the Town Hall, where the medallion was unveiled as a tribute by the Archconfraternity and the Town Hall on the 483rd anniversary of her death. The event was attended by the mayor, Juan José Gómez-Hidalgo, accompanied by his corporation, the national deputy from Torrijos, Rocío López, the local parish priest, Federico Vega and the president of the Archconfraternity, María del Mar, among other representatives of Torrijos society.
Discovering the image of Doña Teresa
Personalities of Torrijos next to the picture
PLAQUE IN MEMORY OF TERESA ENRÍQUEZ
4 March 1979
450TH ANNIVERSARY OF HER DEATH
On 4th March 1979 the 450th Anniversary of the death of Doña Teresa Enríquez was celebrated in Torrijos, and on this occasion this plaque in her memory was placed on the outside of the lateral façade of the Collegiate Church of Torrijos.
Attached you will find some of the endorsements that, on the occasion of the 450th Anniversary of her death, were made by different personalities to ask for the opening of the beatification process.
Doña Teresa Enríquez, known as the "Madwoman of the Sacrament", shows us with her life what the vital centre of every Christian should be: the Eucharist, in which Jesus Christ, the Lord, wanted to remain to be our nourishment and companion on the pilgrimage towards the Homeland.
Cardinal TARANCÓN
The love of the Blessed Sacrament was the north of her life dedicated to the apostolate and to the service of the needy. Nearing the 450th anniversary of her death, the Church still perceives the soft fragrance of the testimony of Doña Teresa Enriquez, the "Madwoman of the Sacrament".
The Collegiate Church of Torrijos is witness to that generous dedication to Jesus Christ which set the whole of Christianity in motion around the Eucharist. How much the faith of Christians can do when it is authentic and consistent!
GABINO DÍAZ MERCHÁN (archbishop of Oviedo)
With our fervent wish that the madness of Doña Teresa Enríquez may infect us all with the love of the Blessed Sacrament.
King JUAN CARLOS and Queen SOFÍA.
Commemorative plaque to Teresa Enriquez
III EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS
25 October 1926
THE REMAINS OF DOÑA TERESA ENRÍQUEZ WERE EXHIBITED TO THE PUBLIC
The parish priest of Torrijos, Liberio González, had spent months decorating the town for the solemnity of the day. Four vegetal arches were built to decorate the route through which the procession passed and all the windows were decorated with flags and other symbols. On that historic day, from very early in the morning, there was a great deal of excitement in the streets. Several trains full of travellers came in. More than 3,000 other congress participants came by road. At 11 a.m. the Archbishop of Santiago and the Bishop of Oviedo arrived by car to officiate at the ceremony in La Colegiata. The Duke and Duchess of Maqueda, descendants of Doña Teresa Enríquez, also attended.
In the afternoon, the Cardinal Primate of Toledo, Reig Casanova, in whose city this III Eucharistic Congress was being held, arrived to attend the procession, which reached its climax when it reached the Plaza de la Constitución, where an altar had been erected with natural flowers. Here, the bands of Torrijos and Escalonilla, which followed the Custody under canopy, sang the Royal March to the applause and cheers of the public.
Then, once the ceremony was over, the Primate and the prelates visited the tomb of the "Loca del Sacramento". In her presence, the hymn of Torrijos was sung, with lyrics by Don Liberio, and music by the maestro Ruiz Lanjarón.
The town's confraternities parade in procession with banners.
Torrijos, 25 October 1926 on leaving La Colegiata.
Plaza de la Constitución in Torrijos.
Cardinal Reig Casanova in the middle of his homily at the improvised altar next to the Town Hall.
Plaza de la Constitución in Torrijos.
An improvised altar in front of the Town Hall was used to congregate thousands of faithful devotees of "La Loca del Sacramento".
Remains of Doña Teresa Enríquez
Torrijos, 25 October 1926.
The remains of Doña Teresa Enríquez are exhibited to the public in the Pedro I Palace.
BEFORE HER GRAVE
This was the title of the article by the parish priest Liberio González, accompanied by a photograph of Teresa Enríquez's coffin,
for the magazine El Castellano in 1926.
"The coffin, elegant and rich, perennial testimony of the generosity and devotion of the illustrious Marquise of Astorga, looks like a bronze argument, confirmation of the victory promised by the divine lips of the Master to the beautiful virtue of humility.
Yesterday, the corpse was walled up half a metre above the ground; before that, hidden in the common burial place of the nuns; until the beginning of the last century, hidden and ignored in a pit of the Convent of Friars Minor, which was profaned by the Napoleonic troops and later destroyed by the vandals of the disentailment; always dodging the light and the posthumous homage of the centuries, and always followed by Providence, which seems to struggle with the occult zeal of the spirit that animated it.
The salient features of his corporeal figure can still be appreciated: his tall stature, the outlines of his body, modelled in the die of penitence, the lines of his angular face, whose sharp prominences speak of the penetration of his talent, of the dapper primitiveness of his will.
One hears in the neighbouring square the swaying of compact and pious crowds, a legion of admirers who come from far and wide to proclaim the sanity of this "Madwoman". Thank goodness! Hidden in the ashes of oblivion was an ember capable of setting the world on fire. The devastating flood of injustice has passed and the inextinguishable journey that springs from the Christian fountain of gratitude has begun".
Liberio González. Torrijos, 1926
Magazine "El Castellano"
PAPAL BULL "PASTORIS AETERNI"
21 August 1508
FOUNDING BULL
It was at the beginning of 1508 when Doña Teresa Enríquez founded the Corpus Christi Confraternity in the parish of San Gil, in the likeness of the Roman confraternity of San Lorenzo. In her mind she had already planned to build a new church as the headquarters of her confraternity, next to her palace and some new houses that she bought nearby. He soon began to make contact with two illustrious architects: Alonso de Covarrubias and Antón Egas, commissioned by the lady herself.
With the first steps taken in Torrijos in favour of his Eucharistic programme, he needed apostolic approval to give the definitive backing to the project. It was then that she wrote to Pope Julius II, in 1508, informing him of her intention to build the temple, and at the same time asking for his agreement. From Rome, on 21st August 1508, the Pope promulgated a bull, known as "Pastoris aeterni", which confirmed the foundations of both the Confraternity of Rome and the Confraternity of Torrijos.
It also states that "Teresa herself had a house built and constructed, and in the same house a church in which the confreres themselves could have masses and other divine offices celebrated". It was the first occasion in which a sacramental confraternity obtained the approval of the Holy See, and it had been for the confraternity founded in the Villa de Torrijos by Doña Teresa Enríquez and the one already founded in the City of Rome.
The temple that would house the confraternity of Torrijos would be worthy of admiration in its time, and considered by many to be a "marvellous" building.
Amigos de la Colegiata de Torrijos
Founding Bull "Pastoris Aeterni"
ORDER OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
21 June 1507
THE MONASTERY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF TORRIJOS
Since D. Gutierre and Dña. Teresa Enríquez bought the town of Torrijos in 1482 from the Cabildo of the Cathedral of Toledo, our town began to "suffer" a great change, both architecturally and spiritually, economically, in terms of work, etc.
Work began on the Franciscan monastery of Santa María de Jesús, the refurbishment of the Alcázar-Palace of the Kings of Castile, the reconstruction of the fence or wall of the town (together with the Tower that gives its name to our town), and Teresa also began to plan the different foundations that she was to develop in the following years, such as the founding of convents, hospitals and Eucharistic patronages.
In Santa Catalina
When in the year 1496 three blessed women arrived in Torrijos from the Villa de Ocaña, Doña Teresa received them in her house-palace to help in the distribution of alms to all the poor who came there: "And as it is said, when a great number of poor people came to the Villa de Torrijos because of the fame of the great alms that this Christian lady gave, she ordered and ordered [...] an infinite number of poor people to gather in the courtyard of her palace [...] and she by her own hands distributed bread to the children and her servants and maids [...]. ...] an infinite number of poor people were to gather in the courtyard of her palace [...] and she, with her own hands, distributed the bread to the boys and girls, and her servants and maids distributed it to the other poor people".
Doña Teresa "seeing her great virtue and holiness" ordered the steward Luís de Torres to build a house to house the three blessed women with the intention of founding a monastery of nuns there. He also instructed him to do so in a specific place in the town, and no other: the cemetery of the church of Santa Catalina. But what was so special about this spot, and why didn't he choose any other place within the walls of the town?
We will go back years, to 31 March 1492, when the Catholic Monarchs decreed the expulsion of the Jews from all their kingdoms. To this end, a period of 4 months was set in which they had to convert or leave the kingdom definitively. At first they were allowed to take all their goods with them, except gold, silver, coins, horses and weapons, which they had to convert into bills of exchange in order to be able to take them out. A major problem soon arose, as the Jews became creditors and debtors, especially in situations where Christians were creditors of Jews, as the Kings had to appoint commissioner judges. In our case, as soon as the edict of expulsion was made public, the Catholic Monarchs had to grant D. Gutierre the goods of the Jews living in their lands, places and villages. And it was not the first time that the Kings had acted in this way, in relation to the donation of the assets of this community to a member of the high nobility, as had also occurred with the Duke of Alba or the Duke of Infantado.
In the middle of 1492, D. Gutierre ordered his servants Luís de Sepúlveda, Gabriel de Tapia and Gómez de Robles to go to Torrijos and Maqueda to proclaim an edict in which he ordered, among other things, that "the second synagogue of Torrijos should be taken to be a mosque for the Moors" and that the synagogues of Maqueda "should be kept so that whatever he ordered could be done with them". From this document it is clear that at least two synagogues existed in Torrijos, leaving the second for a mosque. But what happened to the first one? In my humble opinion, it was "kept", like those in Maqueda, in order to Christianise it shortly after the expulsion, going from synagogue to church under the title of Santa Catalina de Siena. The old Jewish cemetery next to the aforementioned building was also added to this foundation.
As a curiosity, these same facts are documented in the city of Valencia. When the Royal Monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena was demolished for the construction of a large shopping centre, the remains of a Jewish cemetery were found. The beginnings of the Order of Saint Dominic in Valencia date back to 1491, when... "three nuns whose fame and good name was notorious throughout the city, began cloistered life in a place that was donated to them by King Ferdinand".... It was a chapel and a poor house located in the Jewish cemetery. Later they occupied some adjoining houses and made extensions through donations, until the convent was founded in 1492.
On their return to Torrijos, around 1497, the construction of the monastery began next to the church of Santa Catalina, and the nuns were housed in a "small house with a large building and an example for the whole town" until its completion. The work was completed in a short space of time, and three more nuns were added to the three initial nuns. Their names: María de Calderón, Abbess; Catalina Vázquez, vicar; Teresa de Herrera; Catalina de Saavedra; María de Saavedra and María de la Cruz. Shortly afterwards, Doña Teresa went to Rome so that Pope Alexander VI would authorise the six unvowed blessed women who were in Torrijos to profess in the Third Order of St. Francis, taking the habit on the 8th of May 1497. In addition, the Pope ordered Doña Teresa that the blessed women should remain subject to the ordinary, that is to say, to the Archbishop of Toledo.
Foundation of the Conception of Torrijos
Again in the year 1507, Teresa went to Rome requesting, this time from Julius II, the approval for the foundation of a new monastery under the recent rule of the Conception, approved by Pope Innocent VIII in 1489. Thus, on 21st June 1507 Pope Julius II promulgated the Bull "Inter cetera divinae majestati" by which the convent of Torrijos became professed in the rule. The text of the Bull tells us that Doña Teresa "[.... she had a house built, which is near the church called the hermitage of Santa Catalina, within the boundaries of the parish of the place of Torrijos of the said diocese, for the use and habitation of some blessed women of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where they praise God; And they are under the care and administration of the Archbishop of Toledo or observant religious, in which at present they live commendably and honestly; Doña Teresa herself now wishes to erect in the house and church of Santa Catalina a monastery of the order of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and after erecting it, to endow it with the goods that God has given her. For which reason, on behalf of Doña Teresa herself, it was humbly begged of us that with our apostolic benignity we would deign to give all the necessary provisions and order to erect in the house and church of Santa Catalina a monastery of nuns of the order of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a humble church, bell tower, bell, cloister, refectory, cemetery, dormitory and other offices, in the same manner as the monastery of the nuns of the same order in the City of Toledo, under the invocation of the Conception [. ..]"
On 20 September of the same year they were received in the order by Fr. Martín de Vergara, vicar provincial of Castile.
Sudden transfer
After the new foundation of the convent in the house and chapel of Santa Catalina, the Señora de Torrijos must have had some problems in this respect, as two years later she had to move the convent to the first house that Doña Teresa and Don Gutierre had in Torrijos, together with their family: the palace-fortress of the Kings of Castile.
Why did Teresa take such a sudden decision, in such a short period of time?
Several authors of the time put us on the track:
Pedro de Salazar, tells us that "they were two or three years in Santa Catalina", but that because of "the lack of water and other difficulties" they moved to the palace.
Juan Alonso Maldonado, in "La Vida de San Germán", notes that in Santa Catalina "they were kept for two years and due to the lack of water and the lack of water they were moved to where they are today (palace)".
Both authors agree on the causes, although we could doubt the lack of water, since a few years later the Hospital de la Santísima Trinidad was founded on the same premises. As for "the lack of appearance of the site" and "other difficulties" could refer to the real cause of the sudden move: the foundation of a Christian monastery or place of prayer on the site of a Jewish synagogue, and the consequent interest that this matter had taken on for the Holy Inquisition. The fact is that at the end of 1509, in order to avoid greater evils, Doña Teresa moved the Convent of the Conception to the palace-fortress, restructuring the rooms for the enclosure. Proof of this are the mural paintings dating from 1510 in the monastic refectory, which have recently been restored and brought to light.
Amigos de la Colegiata de Torrijos
Convent of the Conceptionists in Torrijos
Years: 1507 - 1509
Future "Santísima Trinidad" Hospital
Convent of the Conceptionist Sisters in Torrijos
Years: 1509 - 1975
Current, Torrijos Town Hall
Convent of the Conceptionist Sisters in Torrijos
Years: 1975 - present
MONASTERY OF SANTA MARIA DE JESUS
1492 - 1869
THE HISTORY OF THE MONASTERY
Gutierre de Cárdenas, at the request of his wife, Teresa Enríquez - a great devotee of Saint Francis of Assisi - ordered the erection in the town of Torrijos of a monastery of Religious Observants of the Franciscan Order, for which he obtained authorisation by means of a bull issued by Pope Innocent VIII (Bull "Cum sicut nobis", dated 24 March 1491).
The monastery was founded under the patronage of Santa María de Jesús and work began in February 1492, shortly after the conquest of Granada. It was built on a large plot of land approximately two hundred metres outside the walled enclosure, close to the site of today's railway station and the "San Francisco" football pitch. The works, which lasted 10 years, were completed in May 1502. A total of 130,000 escudos of gold were invested.
In August 1809, after the Battle of Talavera and the burning of San Juan de los Reyes by Napoleon's troops under the command of General Bellume (26 December 1808), the Monastery of Santa María de Jesús fell victim to the rapacity and vandalism of the French soldiers. The troops stripped the monastery of its jewels, paintings, ornaments, mutilated and desecrated images, annihilating in a few days what had been a marvellous work of many years.
During the liberal triennium of Ferdinand VII (1820-1823) the monastery was partially repaired at the expense of the state. The work was only reduced to what was most necessary and indispensable for worship.
The Franciscan friars remained there until 9 March 1836, when the Minister Juan Álvarez de Mendizábal decreed the famous Law of Disentailment. The part that had been recently rebuilt by the State was sold as national property. The rest of the original building, together with the site and the extensive convent garden, was transferred to the house of Altamira as heir to the patronage of the foundation. The action of time, neglect and ignorance would eventually cause the monumental work to disappear.
The destroyed monastery was bought with all its belongings from the House of Altamira by a resident of Torrijos on 9 December 1869. The walls were immediately demolished in order to sell the rich materials, which were used to build houses and bridges, huts and stations for the Tagus Railway.
Ruins of the Monastery of Santa María de Jesús. 3D view of the disappeared building
ALTAMIRA PALACE
Beginning of the 20th century
THE HISTORY OF ALTAMIRA PALACE
Don Gutierre and his wife, Doña Teresa Enríquez, had the following built in the town of Torrijos: the Franciscan monastery of Santa María de Jesús (the Second San Juan de los Reyes), the hospitals of Consolación and Holy Trinity, the palace of the Dukes of Maqueda or the Counts of Altamira, and the crowning work of Torrijos art, the collegiate church of Corpus Christi or of the Blessed Sacrament.
Of all the artistic splendour of Torrijos in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, only two monuments remain: the collegiate church of the Blessed Sacrament and the hospital of the Santísima Trinidad, in whose chapel the image of the Santísimo Cristo de la Sangre is venerated. Likewise, the palace of Don Pedro I, from the 14th century, was transformed by Don Gutierre and Doña Teresa into a Gothic-Renaissance palace, to be used, at first, as a residence for their ill-fated first-born son Don Alonso, and later, after the death of Don Gutierre, as a convent for the nuns of the Immaculate Conception.
The Altamira Palace was modelled on the Palace of Ocaña and is located in the old market square, now Plaza de España, with a surface area of some 8,050 square metres. It has an arrogant Gothic façade and magnificent Mudejar halls, and the Renaissance style was added in successive reforms carried out by its heirs.
After it was bought by private individuals at the beginning of the 20th century and all its riches were put up for sale, almost nothing remained of the palace in Torrijos, and its belongings travelled to the most diverse places: In Oropesa (Toledo), Don Platón Páramo bought one of the coffered ceilings of the four halls, specifically the one that can be found today in room XXXV of the National Archaeological Museum, as well as the entrance door to the Salón Liceo, plasterwork and ceramic panels; the other three coffered ceilings belonging to the quadrangular halls are in the Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco (USA), another in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the third, known as 'la Martina', in the Château de Villandry in the Loire (France).
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Portico of the Altamira Palace
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Courtyard of the Altamira Palace
