Our Lady of Guadalupe (Extremadura)
The shrine to
Our Lady of Guadalupe was the most important
Marian shrine in the
medieval kingdom of
Castile. It is revered in the
monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe, in today's
Cáceres province of the
Extremadura autonomous community of
Spain.
The shrine housed a statue reputed to have been carved by
Luke the Evangelist and given to
Saint Leander, archbishop of
Seville, by
Pope Gregory I. When Seville was taken by the
Moors, a group of priests fled northward and buried the statue in the hills near the Guadalupe River in
Extremadura.
At the beginning of the
14th century, a shepherd claimed that the
Virgin Mary had appeared to him and ordered him to ask priests to dig at the site of the
apparition. Excavating priests rediscovered the hidden statue and built a small shrine around it which evolved into the
great Guadalupe monastery.
Pilgrims began arriving in 1326, and in 1340, King
Alfonso XI took a personal interest in the shrine's development, attributing his victory over the Moors at the
Battle of Rio Salado to the Virgin's intercession. Our Lady of Guadalupe, along with
Santiago de Compostela and
Nuestra Señora del Pilar became rallying points for the Christian Spaniards in their
reconquista of Iberia.
In 1386, the shrine was commended to the
Hieronymites, who turned the popular devotion to the figure into a genuine
cult. Copies of the statue were venerated in satellite chapels.
A theory that the name of the
Mexican Lady of Guadalupe derives from the Extremadura figure is based on similarities between the apparition stories and the provenance of many
conquistadors, including Hernán Cortés, from the region.
