This monastic community is first attested in the historical record in 1137, in a privilege given by the monarch Alfonso VII. The Mosteiro de Santa María de Oia became affiliated with the Cistercian Order in 1185.
The Order itself was still relatively new at this time; the first house at Cîteaux had been founded less than a century ago in 1098, and it took time for the Cistercians to develop a unified sense of identity and effective bureaucratic mechanisms. Historian Constance Berman even argues that the Cistercians did not emerge as an organized and cohesive Order until the third quarter of the twelfth century (rather than the early twelfth century as previously assumed, and still maintained by some other scholars). Furthermore, Berman argues that “apostolic gestation” (in which new Cistercian houses are founded by a small group of monks sent out from a “mother house”) was not the primary method by which the Cistercians expanded; rather, their incorporation of preexisting monastic communities explains their rapid spread across Europe. In any case, Oia, like Sobrado, is an example of a preexisting monastery that was later incorporated into the Cistercian Order.
Location
Located on the Galician coast, Oia needed to be able to withstand pirate incursions. During the thirteenth century, the community constructed new church and monastery buildings that provided greater fortification against attacks.
References & Further Reading
Berman, Constance. The Cistercian Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
Burton, Janet, and Julie Kerr. The Cistercians in the Middle Ages. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2011.
“Historia.” Concello de Oia.
Jamroziak, Emilia. The Cistercians in Medieval Europe, 1090-1500. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Real Mosteiro de Oia: Official website.