Santa María la Real de Pamplona

Virgin of the Sagrarian · Queen of Navarre · Cathedral of Pamplona

On the main altar of the Cathedral of Pamplona, he presided over Santa María la Real, a Roman size of the 12th century before which the kings of Navarra swore the Fueros; crowned Queen of Navarra in 1946, she was long venerated as Virgin of the Sagrarian.

Origin and history

The image is a Romanesque size of polychrome wood from the second half of the 12th century, probably from the episcopate of Pedro de Artajona (1167-1194), then covered with a silver shell in the 14th century. In the Middle Ages it was known as Santa Maria de Pamplona; later it received the names of Santa Maria la Blanca, Virgin of the Seo, Our Lady of the Sagrarian and Virgin of the Kings. The title of "the Royal" recalls that before it the kings of Navarra swore the Fueros and the crown, according to the Fuero General.

The name of Virgin of the Sagrarian was born in the 17th century, when the image occupied in the altarpiece a room similar to a sacred. She was crowned canonically as the queen of Navarra on September 21, 1946. A devotional feature of its own is the Brotherhood of the Slaves of Mary, erected in the cathedral in 1798, in whose continuity the Rosary prays daily before the image.