Ermita de San Lázaro: A Fifteenth-Century Hermitage and Former Lazaretto in Trujillo
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Chapel
On this page12 sections
History
Ermita de San Lázaro is a fifteenth-century hermitage in Trujillo, Spain, built by the Christian community in 1498 as a lazaretto, an institution for isolating people affected by or suspected of carrying contagious disease, and as a home for the Brotherhood of Saint Lazarus and Saint Blaise. The brotherhood’s membership was governed by statutes of blood purity, rules that restricted membership according to a person’s ancestry.
Foundation outside the city
The hermitage stood beyond Trujillo’s urban area, which then extended only as far as the present N-521 road. Its rural position helped prevent people with plague from being housed in the city’s hospitals. A nearby pond served as a public washhouse, adding to the practical character of this setting.
The brotherhood owned land whose income helped finance the building’s operation as both a lazaretto and a hermitage. Noble families also supported it, particularly the Paredes-Tapia family and the counts of Canilleros. The building stood at the starting point of the road to the Hermitage of the Virgin of Coronada. During the pilgrimage procession, which ended in the seventeenth century, participants passed from the city through the Hospital of the Holy Spirit toward San Lázaro. The beneficiaries and senior chaplains remained there while the other pilgrims continued to Coronada.
Patronage and decline
In 1630, an agreement with the brotherhood made Luis de Tapia y Paredes and his descendants permanent patrons through an entail, a legal arrangement that kept property within a designated family line. The patrons were responsible for repairs. Pope Urban VIII confirmed this arrangement in a formal papal document, or bull, in 1631.
After the lazaretto ceased operating with the end of the Old Regime, the traditional social and political order of Spain before nineteenth-century liberal changes, the building served mainly as an oratory. Its condition worsened after 1827, when the last nobles who supported it financially left Trujillo. The Madoz disentailment of 1855, a state policy that secularized and sold certain church and communal properties, removed the lands that had previously provided revenue for the lazaretto. Without that income, the hermitage was completely abandoned. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the municipality was arranging to reuse its floor tiles at the Portal del Paño in the Plaza Mayor.
Devotion and continued care
From the late nineteenth century, local residents helped keep the hermitage in use. Its main devotional focus became the Cristo de la Salud, regarded as a patron of Trujillo together with the Virgin of Victory. The devotion grew from prayers for rain. Since the fourteenth century, people had carried the Cristo de las Aguas from the Church of Santiago during droughts. In 1767, an exceptionally severe drought led them to carry the Cristo de la Salud from San Lázaro to the Church of San Martín. Rain fell the following day.
Ermita de San Lázaro is ecclesiastically dependent on the Parish of San Martín in the Diocese of Plasencia. Since 1903, a family of hermits and lay caretakers, known locally as the santeros, has taken part continuously in maintaining the shrine. Later work included a bell gable in 1884, a tabernacle and exposition stand in 1907, a wooden floor in 1911, an altarpiece and two windows in 1927, an iron lamp for the vault in 1945, and a stone floor in 1950. The frescoes on the transept vault were restored several times between 1927 and 1982, and the bells were restored in 2014. In 1949, the municipality created a garden between the road and the hermitage’s atrium.
The principal annual observance is a novena to the Cristo de la Salud, a series of devotional services held over nine days, from late April to early May. Since 1860, it has ended with the Puja de San Lázaro, an auction of products donated by local residents to help maintain the building. Municipal planning regulations protect the hermitage as a monument of local relevance with structural urban-planning protection. The Paredes-Tapia coat of arms on the facade and the neighboring garden cross also receive protection as cultural heritage assets under the general provision of the second additional clause of Extremadura’s Historical and Cultural Heritage Law.
Remains
Ermita de San Lázaro stands at the southern edge of Trujillo beside the former N-5 national road, now a secondary road of the Southwest Motorway. Built of rubble masonry, it has a rectangular single nave divided into three bays by transverse diaphragm arches, which separate the building into structural sections. A narrower, partly octagonal apse is attached to the nave and separated from it by a semicircular arch. The seventeenth-century roof is a barrel vault with crescent-shaped lunettes, the areas formed where the vault meets the walls or openings.
Entrance and exterior
Atrium and portico
The entrance facade is formed by an atrium and a portico divided by a large lowered arch. A relief of the Paredes-Tapia family arms appears above the arch. Inside the portico, the doorway has an ogee-arched profile, a pointed form created by two opposing curves. The bell gable stands beside the portico on the Gospel side, meaning the left side when facing the altar from the nave.
Garden cross
The San Lázaro park lies beside the hermitage and was developed around a pond. A stone cross stands at the center of the garden in front of the building. Its base is a column with three stepped circular forms, while the cross rests on a capital decorated with acanthus leaves and volutes. A relief of the recumbent Christ is in poor condition. The cross historically connected the hermitage with a Calvary formerly located on the present Calle de las Cruces.
Interior and furnishings
Apse and vaults
A grille protects the transept. The apse vault carries fresco decoration, while the frescoes on the transept vault have undergone repeated restoration between 1927 and 1982. These painted surfaces remain part of the building’s interior fabric alongside the vaulted roof and the three-bay nave.
Altarpiece and devotional images
The principal movable furnishing is an early twentieth-century altarpiece containing the Cristo de la Salud, a crucified Christ image dating from the sixteenth century. Niches on either side hold eighteenth-century images of Our Lady of Good End and Lazarus with the rich man’s dog.
Votive painting
The sacristy contains an 1872 votive painting, an image offered in thanks for perceived divine assistance. It depicts Francisco del Rosal of Trujillo falling from the top of the city’s castle. He gave the painting to the hermitage because he believed that the Cristo de la Salud had saved him.
