Our Lady of Barbath

Montijo Patron (Badajoz)

Patrona de Montijo, the Virgin of Barbén lives in her country hermitage and descends every August to the village, where she remains more than a month walking houses and parishes in one of the most living domestic devotions of the Baja Extremadura.

Origin and history

The devotion to Our Lady of Barbaño is firmly rooted in Montijo as the patron of the people, articulated around her one-ship rural hermitage, with altarpieces and glass windows dedicated to the Virgin. The structure of his worship is well documented in the annual rites of Traida and Farewell, recognized even in civil areas.

On August 28, the image is moved in procession from the hermitage to Montijo, where it presides over the patron parties of early September and remains in the parishes of St. Peter the Apostle and St. Gregory Ostise until the first Sunday of October, the day of the "Farewell," when it returns to its sanctuary. A bewildering feature is the itinerant chapel of the Virgin, which runs through streets and houses to facilitate prayer before her image, a sign of a very alive domestic and popular devotion.

Remote origin, dating of the hermitage and canonical coronation: not recorded in the sources.