Our Lady of the Sea

Patrona de Santander · island of the Virgin of the Sea

On the coast of San Román de la Llanilla, on an islet beaten by the Cantabric, a hermitage guards the Virgin of the Sea, patron of Santander, a Gothic size invoked for centuries against the seasons, the eyelashes and the bad crops.

Origin and history

The image is a Gothic size from the late 13th or early 14th century, sedent, with the Child on the knees, which retains the iconographic tradition of the Romanesque and measures about 55 centimeters. There is a record of the image already in 1315, and the primitive hermitage dates around 1400, founded by Gonzalo Fernández de Pámanes on the islet in front of San Román de la Llanilla, where the vote and the Romeria of the city were established. Because of its location, the hermitage has suffered repeated damage and reconstructions due to the seasons of the Cantabric.

The devotion is markedly civic and mariners: the city of Santander comes in Rome on the Monday of Pentecost, and the Virgin is invoked as a protector against the sea, the tabs - especially that of 1596-1598 - and in favor of the crops. She was proclaimed patron of Santander by the bishop in the late 1970s, and since 1994 there is the Brotherhood of the Virgin of the Sea, a heiress of a fellowship already documented in 1489. The tradition of their "apparition" and the prodigious transfer of building materials belongs to popular piety, without documentary basis.

Canonical coronation: not found in the sources.