We could normally point out that forests are a shelter for plenty of species, since, according to FAO, around 80% of terrestrial biodiversity all over the world is found in forests and United Nations adds that these forests are formed by more than 60.000 tree species. But in Samos we can also appreciate that they can also be a spiritual shelter or simply a perfect place to get away from the world.
Many monasteries, such as San Xulián de Samos, are placed in forest areas, looking for solitude, far from any distraction and seeking thinking, study, retreat and prayer. But not only did they decide their location for this reason, but also forests were a source of nutrition, from hunting to fruit collection, medicinal herbs collection , wood supply for building, furniture , heat source and water harvesting.
Through the PEFC Forestry Certification System, the different habitats are preserved, regenerated and, moreover, they keep the obtainment of products, goods and services offered by forests guaranteed now and in the future.
Monasterio de Samos
So retreated, so narrow, so buried is that Monastery among four high hills, that it is not only closed, but oppressed, and it is just seen from the stars…
The disposal of the setting portrays the religion of its residents. It is portrayed and it is also influenced: since the Horizon is closed, objects to dissipate the spirit are missed. The sight has relief just looking at the Sky; so the Sky attracts all the attention. Written by famous Fray Benito Jerónimo Feijoó.
Samos is the oldest inhabited monastery in Spain. The first document which mentions is dated in 665. In these 1500 years of monastic life nearly uninterrupted, this Monastery hosted the history of many towns and people which stopped by and still do, since it is Camino de Santiago. Nowadays, 12 benedictine monks live there.
Located next to Sarria river, the enormous size of the Monasterio de Samos, which is 14,000 sq metres, surprise everyone who visits it. Its rustic and simple exterior walls and solid and austere buildings, built with slate stonework, contrast with the nobility and elegance of its cloisters, made of granite stone.
The monastic complex is composed by two cloisters of unequal size, joined together and flanked by flatten towers. You can find its magnificent church and its slender sacristy attached to the big cloister in the northwest part.
Three architectural styles intervene in the construction and embellishment of the abbey: Gothic, renaissance and baroque. Just a door and isolated elements are preserved as relics from the Romanesque period.
The inside of the Monastery hides beautiful wooden artistic creations and structures, with impressive altarpieces in different styles which you can visit.
Trees which make books and create rooms
The Monasterio de Samos has a huge library with more than 25.000 volumes, some of them with important historical value. In 1835, with the confiscation of Mendizábal, most of its books were transferred to Lugo, becoming part of the original fund of the Public Library. When the monastic life in Samos was restarted in 1880, the restorer monks were able to redo the library, but in the fire in 1951 nearly half of the books were lost. From that moment, more books have been added and restocked, but regarding the old funds, it is very far from what it was before the confiscation.
The library is one of the rooms of the monastery that cannot be visited, but it is possible to visit the pharmacy, with its wooden furniture to display the necessary medicines or the warehouse of medical herbs.
One of the three monks who stayed in the monastery after the Confiscation, in 1835, was an Apothecary. It is not difficult to imagine his importance, not only for the monastic community but also for the neighbours in Samos. The work of successive apothecaries who took care of the health of the monks and the people from Samos for so many centuries depended on their knowledge about medicinal herbs. Nature was, again, the main resource base. Some plants were grown in the garden of the apothecary, originally located in the “Capilla del Ciprés” (Cypress Chapel). Nowadays you can see its replication outside the monastery.
You will also be able to see the beautiful wooden door of the cell where the poet Ramón Cabanillas Enríquez lived.
Chapel of the Saviour or Cypress (Capilla del Salvador o del Ciprés)
About one hundred metres far from the monastery we can find the “Capilla del Ciprés”, a humble and simple temple from the end of the IX century or beginning of the X century, from the Mozarabic style.
It attracts the visitor’s attention because of its smallness and rusticity. It consists of two bodies with slightly trapezoidal floor: nave and apse. It is worth stressing here the location of its door, in the south side wall, the elliptical triumphal arch with a tendency to horseshoe, framed with the painting by an “alfiz”; and the “ajimez” (bifora) of the top guide of the chancel. The baroque altarpiece with the image of the Saviour presides the oratory of the community.
At the foot of the chapel we have other treasure, a unique tree, a Ciprés (Crupessussempervirens) which is over 27 metres and minimum 500 years old, although some sources indicate that it could be 1.000 years old. It is included in the Catalogue of unique trees of Galicia, the same as the Chestnut tree (Castiñeira) of Ramil in Triacastela.
A walk along the Oribio River
The monasteries also looked for a location close to small flow rivers, mainly because of fishing. For this reason, the Monasterio de Samos is next to the Sarria River.
The Sarria River, also called Oribio River, is formed with the water which comes down the A Meda, Oribio y Albela mountains, going through the capital of the municipality and flowing into the Neira River, which is affluent of the Miño River.
The place which initially was a small path made by the fishermen of the area in order to find a good place to catch the valued trouts of this river, has become a riverside walk nowadays. It is more than three kilometres long and it allows us to see a beautiful landscape in the shade of alders, birch trees, ash trees and willow trees.
The vegetation of the bank, apart from having a great landscape value, it has a high ecological importance, regulating the microclimate of the river, ensuring the stability of the banks, forming an ideal habitat for many animal and vegetal species, acting as a filter of sediments and harmful substances in the riverbed.
The river has an important trout population which share space with the eels. The eels are born in the Argazos Sea and as glass eels they go into the Miño river and go up with some difficulty to the Oribio River. After several years growing, they go back to the Cuba and Florida coasts, going through the Atlantic in an 8,000 Km voyage, where they breed and probably die.
The Oribio also keeps one of the last Galician population of native crabs, seriously threatened due to the rivers transformation and the introduction of other crabs.
The Role of PEFC
Through the PEFC Forestry Certification System, the different habitats are preserved, regenerated and, moreover, they keep the obtainment of products, goods and services offered by forests guaranteed now and in the future.
One of the goals of PEFC is to protect as much as possible the soil against erosion, the quality of the water and the riverbank woodland. In order to get that, preventive or corrective measures should be adopted in case they are necessary.
For a proper maintenance and improvement of the protective function in the forestry management (mainly soil and water), it must be encouraged, among others, the use of forestry techniques which don’t harm in a serious way the positive development of the soil; suitable preventive measures must be adopted in those situations with high erosive risk; the management of riverbank woodlands must be improved, in order to protect the quality and flow of the currents and the stability of the banks; and the criteria of the sustainable forestry management must be defended in the elaboration of the tools of river basins integral management ,especially regarding the treatment and handling of the forest ecosystems.
