The Monastery of Santa Maria de Valldigna is located in
Simat de la Valldigna
Simat de la Valldigna () is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of Safor in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is 50 km from Valencia, and 20 km from Cullera and Gandia. It is also near Xàtiva and Alzira.
It is one of the four village ...
(
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
).
History
The monastery was founded in 1297 by
James II of Aragon
James II (Catalan: ''Jaume II''; Spanish: ''Jaime II;'' 10 April 1267 – 2 or 5 November 1327), called the Just,, an, Chaime lo Chusto, es, Jaime el Justo. was the King of Aragon and Valencia and Count of Barcelona from 1291 to 1327. He ...
. Since the beginning, it was one of the most important monasteries of the
Cistercian order. It was founded by the monks of
Santes Creus
The Monastery of ''Santa Maria de Santes Creus'', ( ca, Reial Monestir de Santa Maria de Santes Creus) is a former Cistercian monastery in the municipality of Aiguamúrcia, Catalonia, Spain.
The abbey was erected in the 12th century, in today ...
in the
Tarragona province
Tarragona (, ) is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Catalonia. It is bordered by the provinces of Castellón, Teruel, Zaragoza, Lérida and Barcelona and by the Mediterranean Sea.
The province's p ...
. The whole Valldigna valley belonged to the monks, according to a royal order.
The monastery was inhabited by monks until 1835, when a revolt in the Valldigna valley took place after the