Santo Toribio de Liébana

The monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana lies near Potes in northern Spain. A community was established there in the sixth century, when a cleric named Turibius retired with companions to follow the Benedictine rule; first dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, the house took its name in the eleventh century.

Its Lignum Crucis is said to be the largest surviving fragment of the True Cross, brought from Jerusalem by Saint Turibius of Astorga in the fifth century and carried to the valley for safety in the eighth. In that century the monk Beatus of Liébana wrote and illustrated his Commentary on the Apocalypse at the monastery.

The church was built in 1256, and in 1512 Pope Julius II granted the house a jubilee year, its Door of Forgiveness opening to pilgrims alongside Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago. In 1837 the Mendizábal confiscations drove the monks out.