Pombeiro, Abbey of
POMBEIRO, ABBEY OF
Former Benedictine monastery of St. Vincent in Lugo province, Spain; founded in 964 by the widow of Sancho Ordoñez, Queen Goto of Galicia, who gave the surrounding land to Abbot Asterigo and his brothers. In 997 Bermudo II confirmed and increased the donation, but in the late 11th century Alfonso VI subjected the abbey to cluny, thus depriving it of its abbatial title and some of its prestige. This loss was real despite the statement of Alfonso VII in a donation of 1139 that the monks served the Almighty, under the governance of Cluny. Pombeiro survived the stormy end of the Middle Ages in Spain without event and in 1527 was attached to the nearby abbey of San Esteban de Rivas del Sil and incorporated into the Benedictine Congregation of Valladolid. The monastery disappeared with the dispersal of the monks in the suppression of religious orders (1834) but its church now serves the parish of the small town that grew up around it.
Bibliography: a. de yepes, Crónica general de la Orden de San Benito, ed. j. perez de urbel, 3 v. (Madrid 1959) 2:347–350.
[j. perez de urbel]