“This first Romanesque, so poor in materials, so simple, so humble, so moving, is the one that is now in the greatest danger due to depopulation, but we are indebted to it, all subsequent Romanesque is indebted: that of the great monasteries, that of the collegiate churches and the cathedrals. Therefore, we have to ensure that it does not disappear.” These words are not from now. They were pronounced by José María Pérez “Peridis” in the program The keys to the Romanesque of Spanish Television… more than two decades ago. The voice-over of the renowned architect and popularizer allowed us to observe several examples of that poorer, simpler Romanesque style. Among the images, the south wall, the apse, the doorway and the interior of the church of San Bartolomé, in La Barbolla. Sadly, that prophecy has come true: a year after the roof collapsed, nothing has changed in the uninhabited town located half an hour from the city of Soria. Ah, except for one thing: today the ruin is more ruin.
The cats fed by the last inhabitant of La Barbolla, the farmer Lorenzo Chico, have become the sole custodians of the building, which is open in a canal. Luis Carlos Pastor, spokesman for the ‘Romanesque without a roof’ collective, regretfully inspects the church among the rubble of the (partially collapsed) south wall, as if visiting the grave of a recently deceased relative. “We are a little disappointed,” admits this retired history teacher. Not in vain, the association he leads was founded in 2021 to fight against all odds so that San Bartolomé would not become another of those forty medieval buildings in the battered province of Soria whose roof ended up falling, as a result of depopulation, the disinterest and apathy. Neither public institutions nor the owner of the property, the bishopric of Osma-Soria, have done anything to date to prevent yet another stone corpse.
The chronology of La Barbolla confirms the sad story of forgotten heritage: no one cares. On the night of November 8 to 9, a crack opened in the roof that, since that date, has opened the doors wide to water, destruction and plunder. “The first looting was carried out by the bishopric itself, which took away the baptismal font, the holy water font, the bells and a chest where the brotherhoods of the True Cross and the Child Jesus kept the candles,” laments Pastor.
With an interesting diversity of baptismal fonts in the province of Soria, former neighbors and descendants of La Barbolla are especially upset with the transfer of theirs to the town on which they depend administratively. A few kilometers away, the ritual piece is “lying” in the church of Quintana Redonda. Those who have taken advantage of the building’s current vulnerability—permanently open due to collapses—have taken pieces of old altarpieces and panels. They have not even taken pity on a coat rack where it was tradition to hang votive offerings (offerings), mainly hair.
No progress after seven months
Seven months ago, officials from the Regional Government of Castilla y León and the diocese of Osma-Soria met with members of the associations ‘Hispania Nostra’ and ‘Romanico Sin Techo’ to try to find an effective solution to the situation in San Bartolomé. . The Minister of Culture of Castilla y León, Gonzalo Santonja, left a riddle in this regard: “I hope that a solution is found, which has to come from the owners and society.” He was referring to the convenience of the residents of La Barbolla—where there is no one—raising at least part of the budget to build a new roof.
For its part, the Soria bishopric has done little more than confirm that meeting, with an ambiguous statement. “In this meeting from the bishopric, the Románico Sinhozo association was authorized to carry out micro-patronage to raise funds with the purpose of consolidating the ruin of Barbolla,” is all that the diocesan delegate of Heritage, José Sala, has said to repeated questions from this medium.
However, Luis Carlos Pastor denies the worst and assures that the Church has left the matter in no man’s land. “Seven months have passed since then and we have not received any communication,” he asserts. “No one wants to do anything for this heritage, and there are even people in the town who are beginning to think that the best thing would be to take a backhoe and destroy what is left,” he adds. Perhaps so as not to suffer for the future of his memories.
Pastor is aware of the premonition that people like Peridis made decades ago about a heritage exposed to the drama of depopulation, but he rejects that bad omens necessarily have to come true, no matter how complicated the situation may be. “In the program The keys to the Romanesque“Peridis stated that it was a miracle that a bow from Berlanga de Duero (also Soria) did not fall on his head, but the association there managed to recover this and other assets,” he maintains.
Historically, the medieval legacy of Soria has carried the label of “poor Romanesque”. For experts, this is precisely the differentiating element that makes the recovery and conservation of churches such as that of San Bartolomé, in La Barbolla, necessary. “When we talk about rural Romanesque, perhaps the most obvious case is that of Soria, because its churches perfectly define those moments of repopulation or reconquest and how at this time, the 12th century, small villages with their churches were built,” Pedro illustrates. Luis Huerta.
The historian, a member of the team at the Santa María la Real de Aguilar de Campoo Foundation, served as a documentary filmmaker for the Spanish Television informative program more than two decades ago. “The work for the encyclopedia of Soria and The keys to the Romanesque allowed us to know the full dimension of the Romanesque of Soria, one of the provinces with the greatest number of testimonies, but we were also aware of the danger it faced due to depopulation,” he recalls.
The purest Romanesque
“The advantage we found,” Huerta continues, “is that it was the purest Romanesque; “We always say that the Romanesque is the child of poverty, because it has been preserved where there have been fewer resources to reform it.” A testimony barely altered in many cases, where later styles such as Gothic or Baroque did not knock on the door of humble temples that move, precisely, due to their extreme simplicity.
“Only the apse part is made of ashlar, the roof is made of wood and the walls are built in ashlar (a system of placing smaller and less careful ashlars), masonry or lime and stone formwork,” defines the expert. “They are fragile buildings in height, but the walls are strong and remain intact,” he describes. Although he speaks of the rural Romanesque of Soria in general, Pedro Luis Huerta seems to be describing the case of La Barbolla, where the apse appears unbreakable, but one of the walls has opened and is seriously collapsed, after the collapse of the wooden roof.
This type of construction, somewhat hasty, responded to the need to build towns and villages in a short time. The reverse of that practice can be the disappearance of a singular legacy that, at times, refuses to fully blend into the landscape. It seems that a part of these temples have chosen to melt into the horizon, there, indelible, without any help. “The disappearance of these buildings is completely unfair: La Barbolla must be preserved as an example of the essence of the purest Romanesque style, which defines a society and a very particular historical moment, and is located in an environment where it integrates perfectly with the civil and military architecture,” defends Huerta.
And to prevent a contagion or domino effect from occurring (which would end up destroying dozens of these buildings), from the Santa María la Real Foundation, Pedro Luis Huerta calls for replicating successful projects carried out in Castilian-Leonese provinces such as Palencia, Burgos, Zamora or the Soria herself. “Projects that cover a group of temples are required, instead of isolated actions, a comprehensive and larger plan than specific interventions,” he explains. For its part, the ‘Romanesque without a roof’ group still wants to believe that the situation in La Barbolla will end up being reversed. “Until the walls fall and a machine gets in, there is always hope; The work is expensive, but it can be done in deadlines,” reflects Luis Carlos Pastor. Although that same hope is accompanied by bitterness: “Sometimes I think that the authorities want it to disappear and, thus, one less problem for them.”
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