Our Lady the Royal and Ancient of Gamonal

Burgos · historic Marian sanctuary of Gamonal

In the Burgalese district of Gamonal, a 14th-century Gothic church keeps Our Lady the Royal and Ancient, one of the oldest Marian devotions of Burgos, in a place that became for a short time the seat of the bishopric.

Origin and history

The church of Santa María la Real and Antigua de Gamonal is first documented in 1074, when King Alfonso VI, at the request of his sisters Urraca and Elvira, ordered to transfer to it the seat of the bishopric of Oca, although almost immediately the episcopal seat was fixed definitively in the city of Burgos. The present temple is a 14th century Gothic building, built on an ancient Romanesque church; it has a single ship, square apse, a Gothic calvary on the porch and cover of a Mudejar character. The long dedication to St. Mary and her early relationship with the episcopal headquarters show the importance of this place as the Marian center of the region.

The local tradition places the origin of the first sanctuary in the finding of an image of the Virgin on that site towards the 10th century, a story of popular piety without coetanea documentation. The devotion to Our Lady the Royal and Ancient is characterized by its antiquity and a strong arraigo: it is a deep-attached advocation to the identity of the ancient people of Gamonal, today populous district of Burgos, where the church remains a religious and sentimental reference. She is not the canonical patron of the city - a title that corresponds to Santa María la Mayor, in the cathedral - but one of its great historical Marian shrines.

The liturgical festival itself, the patronage of the city and canonical coronation: they are not recorded in the sources.