San Pedro de Cardeña Monastery was founded before 902. The prosperity of the monastery in the early medieval period is reflected in the quality of its scriptorium, in which the monk Endura performed extraordinary works. The Blessed of San Pedro de Cardeña was made between 1175 and 1180, has 290 pages and 51 miniatures.
The convent church dates from the 16th century; annexed is the Capilla del Cid, where the hero and some of his relatives were buried.
Some parts of Romanesque style have been preserved, the church being Gothic and part of the façade from the 18th century. Cistercian monks have lived here since 1942 and they make wine as well as medicinal herb liquors.
El Cid found refuge in this monastery during his exile, and he lived here together with his wife and daughters to the end of his days.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).