In the late XI century, was built the Romanesque Monastery, which in 1910 received the Couto Letter, donated by Count D. Henrique. Over the low middle ages, the monastery became an owner of a vast heritage, having been enlarged in the first half of the XVI century through an action of the Commendatory Abbot Frei António de Sá. In 1567, it became the Motherhouse of the Portugal and Brazil’s Congregation of São Bento.
In the first half of the XVII century, the great campaign of rebuilding the monastery began, from which resulted from the set we know today. The beginning of the construction still belongs to a mannerist style, but the baroque and the rococo would triumph in the XVII to XVIII centuries’ campaigns. Of all the building we highlight the church, one of the biggest temples of the country, one of the most important landmarks of the baroque art in Portugal. With the extinction of the religious orders, the monastery was closed in 1834 and their property inventoried sold at a public auction. In 1864, the Coventry building and the fence, with an exception of the church, sacristy, and the cloister graveyard, went into particulars. In their possession, from the 50’s of the XX century, it knows decadence and degradation. Bought by the Portuguese State in 1986, empty and in the advanced degradation state, its recuperation and cultural promotion begins. Other than the church, in cultural and museological usage, it is expected the re-foundation of a monastic community, the museualization of several building spaces and the realization of a student center, taking into account the importance of the Monastery of S. Martinho de Tibães (Mosteiro Martinho de Tibães) in the Portuguese “Benedictine Route”.
