The Romanesque of Saint Martin of Hoyos

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Just over two kilometers from Olea, San Martín de Hoyos is another small town in Cantabria, which not only delights us with its picturesque rural architecture and those fertile valleys where the economy of the villagers is still based on the fruits of the earth and on a cattle ranch where the presence prevails, above all, of cattle, which, let us remember that since the Neolithic period, was as important a currency of exchange as gold.

It is also another place where you can follow the traces of those mysterious medieval stonecutters, who, possibly operating from the coast and the mountains, found easier paths to follow, in the direction of the lands of Palencia and through Default, to the Castilian Plateau, where they hoped to find more and perhaps better opportunities to put their art into practice and earn a living.

In such a way, that, in the center of the town, one meter more meter less, we come across another Romanesque church, somewhat larger than that of San Miguel de Olea, but similarly made, rustic and charming, which, without a doubt, Undoubtedly, it offers worthy testimony of times in which faith was measured by the enormous number of churches and hermitages maintained by the towns, regardless of their reduced population or repopulation, as the case may be.

In this way, in its 12th century church, dedicated to the primordial figure of Saint Mary - let us remember that it was precisely in this century, when the figure of the Mother of the Savior began to be given real importance - we have another of these fascinating heritage elements, although, unlike the Olea temple, it has been fiercely modified at different times in its history.

The most obvious of these modifications is located in the apse, with the inclusion, probably in the 18th century, of an ugly sacristy, which completely breaks the harmony of the whole. It does not detract so much, however, the inclusion, next to its main doorway and facing south, of a wooden framework, as a porch or shed, attacked, however, by time and the humidity of the place.

On the other hand, the half tower, with a purely medieval aspect, attached to the belfry, located towards the west side, is striking. And although its main doorway suffers from decorated capitals, the corbels of its apse show, in broad strokes in their primitive designs, the representation of the characteristic animals of the area, among them, due to their proliferation, the deer.

In addition to the temple, the traces of the medieval stonemasons are also present in many of the portals of the ancestral homes, where traces of the characteristic access arches of that time are still kept in mind when the recommendations of the famous architect were still taken into account. Roman, Vitruvius.

And finally: between these and the church of Santa María itself, it is worth highlighting another of the fundamental and at the same time traditional elements of every town, such as the old trough or trough.

NOTICE: Both the text and the photographs that accompany it, as well as the video that illustrates it, are my exclusive intellectual property and, therefore, are subject to my Copyright.

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