Cartoixa d’Escala Dei: The First Carthusian Monastery in the Iberian Peninsula
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Aragon, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page15 sections
History
Cartoixa d’Escala Dei, also known as Scala Dei, is a former Carthusian monastery in Spain, located at Escaladei beneath the Serra de Montsant. Founded in the late twelfth century, it was the first Carthusian foundation in the Iberian Peninsula and belonged to the Diocese of Tarragona and the Carthusian Province of Catalonia. The Carthusian Order, founded by Bruno of Cologne, combines communal worship with an unusually strict life of solitude and silence, centred on individual cells and gardens.
Foundation and early development
The monastery’s foundation date is uncertain. Dates between 1163 and 1167, and between 1194 and 1195, have been associated with its establishment. King Alfonso II of Aragon donated the land, while one tradition also credits his mother, Petronilla of Aragon. The foundation formed part of the Aragonese effort to repopulate territories recently reconquered from Muslim rule.
The first monks came from Provence and were joined by hermits from Montsant. Led by Prior Peter of Montsant and Procurator Raymond of Saint Stephen, they initially settled at Populeta, at the former hermitage of Santa Maria de Poboleda. In 1203, with the assistance of Peter I of Aragon, the community moved to the site that became the monastery’s permanent home.
Royal grants and private donations soon made Scala Dei a wealthy religious house. In 1218 it received tithes from Porrera, Poboleda, La Morera, Torroja, and Gratallops. It also established the Gran house on the left bank of the Siurana River to collect tithes from territories under its jurisdiction. The monastery began cultivating vines in the region in 1262 or 1263, an activity that contributed over time to the development of the area now known as the Priorat protected wine appellation. The appellation’s name derives from the monastery’s former priorate.
Expansion, estates, and intellectual life
During the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth centuries, the church, first cloister, and refectory were built. A second cloister and twelve additional cells were completed around 1333 with the support of John of Aragon and Anjou, a prince, patriarch, and archbishop of Toledo who later became archbishop of Tarragona. He may have been a monk at Scala Dei between 1324 and 1327. A third cloister, with six cells, followed in 1403 through a donation from Berenguer Gallart of Lleida, lord of Puigverd.
The community eventually reached thirty monks and fifteen lay brothers. Although Carthusian discipline emphasised silence and solitude, the monastery maintained intellectual connections beyond its walls. The physician Arnaldus de Villa Nova dedicated a treatise to its prior and monks and left books to the community. In 1444, the fifteenth-century scholar Alonso Tostado was a novice at Scala Dei before becoming an adviser to King John II.
The monks also managed extensive economic resources. They maintained an important wine and spirits trade and operated two paper mills. On 8 July 1313, James II of Aragon granted them the privilege of prospecting for and exploiting mines in their territory. John I of Aragon confirmed that privilege on 3 October 1387. The monastery administered the Espinós mine, regarded as one of the oldest mines in Priorat.
Later medieval changes
A decline began after the Black Death, although Scala Dei continued to acquire land during the fifteenth century. In 1452, after the suppression of the Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria de Bonrepòs, Scala Dei acquired its properties. This led to litigation with Santes Creus, and the division of the property was settled only after the dispute.
Scala Dei also helped establish or support other Carthusian houses. These included Saint-Paul-de-la-Mer in 1269, Val de Cristo in 1385, El Paular in 1390, Miraflores in 1442, and Las Fuentes in 1507. A further Escaladei was founded near Évora in Portugal during the 1580s, becoming the first Portuguese Carthusian monastery.
Rebuilding and regional influence
The church received Plateresque woodwork in 1443. Plateresque was a late Gothic and early Renaissance decorative style characterised by highly detailed carved ornament. A rebuilding campaign that began in the sixteenth century continued through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The work gave the charterhouse Baroque and Neoclassical features and helped make it an important regional artistic centre, particularly through the Escaladei school of painting.
On 27 January 1627, the dukes of Cardona sold the monastery lordships over La Morera, Poboleda, Torroja, Gratallops, La Vilella Alta, and Porrera, together with the territories of Masmorel and La Gambosa. The monks thereby became lords of much of central Priorat and held judicial rights there.
During the eighteenth century, Scala Dei recovered prestige and influence. It became a centre for books and painting and served as a point of reference in the movement that led to the creation of an independent national congregation of Spanish Carthusian monasteries. Its religious and cultural role was accompanied by a long association with viticulture and the administration of the surrounding territory.
Suppression and preservation
The monastery’s regular life continued under the Napoleonic regime, but it was interrupted during the Liberal Triennium of 1820 to 1823, a period of constitutional government and political reform in Spain. The monastery was requisitioned in 1820, and its possessions were returned in 1823.
The decisive rupture came with the Mendizábal disentailment decree of 1835, a policy that confiscated and sold substantial church and monastic property. The monks were forced to leave and lost their lands. They fled during a riot, after which the monastery was sacked and burned. The suppression decree was issued in October. Within two years, local farmers’ pillaging had reduced the cells, cloisters, church, inn, and other conventual buildings to nearly complete ruins.
The surviving buildings were sold at auction in 1843. In 1844, five families founded the Sociedad Agrícola La Unión to produce wine on the former monastic property. The ruins were donated to the Generalitat of Catalonia in 1990. Catalan authorities then began rehabilitation and consolidation work, while maintenance is currently the responsibility of the Museum of History of Catalonia. Scala Dei was declared a nationally important cultural property, with the cataloguing record dating the designation to 4 November 1980, partly because of its place as the first Carthusian foundation in the Iberian Peninsula.
A local legend explains the name Scala Dei, meaning “Stairway of God.” A shepherd was said to have seen angels ascending to heaven by a stairway leaning against a pine tree. The monks interpreted the vision as a divine sign and built a small cloister at the location.
Remains
Layout and monastic buildings
The former monastery stands at the foot of the Serra de Montsant, in the village of Escaladei within the municipality of La Morera de Montsant, in the Priorat district of Tarragona. Its development produced three cloisters and as many as thirty cells by the eighteenth century. The earliest complex included the church of Santa Maria, completed in 1228, the first cloister known as the Maius, twelve cells for twelve monks, and several other buildings.
The cloisters and cells
The second cloister was completed around 1333 and added twelve cells. The third, completed in 1403, added six more. These additions reflect the expansion of the community while preserving the Carthusian arrangement of separate living spaces around shared monastic buildings. One cell has been meticulously reconstructed with furniture and utensils associated with Carthusian life. It also illustrates the individual gardens attached to the monks’ cells.
The church and chapels
The surviving remains include the church, the Baroque portal of the Mother of God, and other monastic structures. The eighteenth-century church was restored and faced with marble and jasper. Behind its apse, the sanctuary was decorated with marble, statues, and reliefs, much of the work being produced by Carthusian artists.
Service and administrative areas
The correrie, the agricultural and service section of a Carthusian monastery, stood approximately two kilometres from the main monastery at the site of present-day Escaladei. It directed the cultivation of the surrounding fields. A separate procura house, an administrative residence responsible for dependants and territorial affairs, managed the monastery’s subjects and those of the wider Priorat region.
Eighteenth-century features and decoration
The eighteenth-century complex included the Chapel of the Tabernacle, the Chapel of Saint Joseph, a boundary wall, the Turtle Pond, and an entrance arch that still survives. The church sanctuary included four stone statues of the Doctors of the Church, officially recognised Christian theologians whose writings hold particular authority in Catholic tradition, and a relief of the Last Supper.
Sanctuary sculpture
In 1695, the sculptor Isidro Espinal made the four statues and the Last Supper relief for the chapel sanctuary. In 1719 he designed the high altar, whose statues were made by the sculptor Pujol. The surviving church and associated structures preserve elements of the successive rebuilding campaigns, although the former monastery as a whole is largely ruined.
Painting and artistic tradition
Baroque decoration included paintings, portraits, and frescoes associated with the Escaladei school. Joaquim Juncosa, a lay Carthusian brother from 1660, was one of the school’s principal painters, although his works at the monastery were later lost. Lluís Pascal, Ramón Berenguer, Manuel Bayeu, and Moïse-Jaime Pons were also associated with the painting tradition, and a work by Bayeu was held at the charterhouse.
Viticulture, books, and surviving records
A cellar remains associated with the charterhouse and reflects the monastery’s long-established role in viticulture. The economic history of the complex is therefore represented not only by its ruined religious buildings but also by surviving features connected with the cultivation and processing of wine.
The monastery’s library included the Bibli Sacra, donated by John of Aragon. The library is now held at the seminary of Tarragona, while a substantial part of the monastery’s documentary records is preserved in the National Historical Archives in Madrid. Scala Dei was also associated with El llibre de la Cuina de Scala-Dei, one of only two known Catalan cookery manuscripts, dating from the first half of the seventeenth century. Andrés Capilla’s Commentariam in Ieremiam Prophetam was published at Scala Dei.
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