San Millán de la Cogolla is a village in Rioja, a north easterly Region of Spain. It derived part of its name after Saint Emilianus, in Spanish San Millán, who was an inhabitant of the village in the 6th century. The de la Cogolla part of the name probably comes from the cowl-shaped peak of a mountain in the area. Although having only a population of around 300, San Millan is of important cultural and historical significance.
The village’s main attractions are two monasteries, the upper, Yuso, and the lower, Suso. In 1997 they became a World Heritage Site.
The original monastery at Suso dates back to the 6th Century, when San Millán founded the order, and by the 11th century, an impressive Romanesque church had been constructed in his honour. A chest containing the bones of San Millán is kept here and the area has developed into a centre of great devotion for pilgrims. Whilst the monks at Suso were living the lives of hermits, those at Yuso were members of the more worldly Benedictine order.
Yuso houses one of the most important libraries in Spain and contains unique material which records the first documents written in Castillian, the origin of the present-day Spanish language. In recognition of this, UNESCO describes the library and the hundreds of documents which are preserved here as: “The property is also of outstanding associative significance as the birthplace of the modern written and spoken Spanish language”. It is quite an achievement for this modest village of San Millán to be described as “the birthplace of the Spanish language”.
It is interesting to note that San Millán de La Cogolla has the distinction of being an important location on both the “Route of the Spanish Language” and “The Pilgrim’s Route to Santiago de Compostela”.
