Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: Stephen

Many churches, chapels and abbeys all over continental Europe claim to be founded by Charlemagne. Saint John Abbey in the village of Müstair (= monasterium) is - most likely - founded in deed by Charlemagne or a bishop under Charles´ order around 774. At that time Charlemagne fought war against the Langobards in Northern Italy and needed save and secure passes over the Alps for his army. Fortified monasteries played an important role in this strategy. Dendrochronological surveys found out, that some of the beams used for the construction cut around 775, what is, when Charlemagne´s soldiers conquered the Lombardy. The "Benediktinerinnenkloster St. Johann", today still a Benedictine nunnery, is since 1983 a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most spectacular is the interior of the convent´s church, that meanwhile serves the parish. It was constructed in Carolingian times, but remodelled later, when it got a late Gothic vaulted ceiling. Around 1200 all the walls of the church and the apses were covered with Romanesque frescoes. 300 years later, they seemed "old fashioned" - and the walls got whitened. End of the 19th century art historians discovered not only the fresco paintings from 1200, there were wall paintings even from the Carolingian times, dating back to 800. The central part of the right apse has this fresco painting depicting the martyrdom and burial of St. Stephen.

A Benedictian monastery, with strong ties to Cluny, existed here in 958, after the Reconquista had reconquered the area about 50 years earlier. There are hints, that a convent may have been here already in Visigothic times. The monastery offered a "hopital" to the pilgrims already in 1054, when nearby Estrella was not even founded. The large church was erected in a Basilica-style within the 12th and 13th century on a the floorplan of a "Latin Cross". The keystone depicts the lapidation of Protomartyr Saint Stephen (Stephanus, Esteban, Étienne). One stone has just hit his head.