Ad orientem: Las iglesias románicas del Camino Francés en los reinos de Castilla y León bajo la perspectiva de la Astronomía Cultural

Abstract

En este trabajo se examina, desde la perspectiva de la Astronomía Cultural, si las iglesias románicas del Camino de Santiago siguen un patrón de orientación común a todas ellas. Para ello, se ha obtenido la orientación de 191 templos en los antiguos reinos de León y Castilla, y se ha realizado un estudio comparativo. Ambos reinos comparten orientaciones hacia la salida del sol el domingo de Pascua, probablemente obtenidas en su mayoría mediante observación directa del sol sobre el horizonte, aunque León presenta una fuerte preferencia por el equinoccio eclesiástico del 21 de marzo, que no aparece en Castilla. También se han analizado las iglesias pertenecientes al Camino y una muestra de contraste en cada reino, lo que ha permitido extraer información relevante sobre las iglesias construidas en lugares concretos como Santiago de Compostela, la Ribeira Sacra, Sahagún o la Montaña Palentina

Land- and Skyscapes of the Camino de Santiago: An Astronomy and World Heritage Sustainable Approach

“…The wide range of peaks in Castile could be associated with Easter, as stated in aforementioned studies [47,48]. In comparison to these, the addition of La Rioja highlights declinations related to the most repeated Easter Sunday dates.…”

“…The reason these churches should follow such a western orientation pattern remains unknown, although this may not be an isolated case. Romanesque churches of the mountainous region of Palencia present significant double declination and azimuth peaks, one of which translates into negative declinations [48]. However, none of the proposed hypotheses was able successfully to explain the whole sample.…”

“…In total, we measured the orientation of nearly three hundred churches across the Way of Saint James. Appendix A includes new unpublished data belonging to the eastern area of the French Way, completing previous campaigns in the western territories [47,48]. The data include the geographical location of each church, its consecration, and the modern Spanish autonomous region it belongs to.…”

“…The exception is at declination c. −10 • , which belongs to a group of churches from Santiago de Compostela and Sahagún. The first seems to follow the planimetry of the city, while the second apparently follows the orientation of Cluny Abbey [48].…”

“…These researchers, along with Urrutia-Aparicio, recently identified Easter Sunday and the ecclesiastical equinox as the two main landmarks for the general orientation patterns of Romanesque churches in the western kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, which are traversed by the Way of Saint James [47]. Additionally, in a subsequent paper, they conducted a more detailed analysis of these regions and used contrasting samples of churches located at a distance from the Way, thus presenting proof of regional variations within the ancient Christian kingdoms of Castile and Leon [48].…”