Peñalba de Santiago

The remote Aquilian mountains attracted hermits and monks from an early period. The first significant figure was San Fructuoso, who founded several monasteries in the area, including Compludo and San Pedro de Montes, both close to Peñalba de Santiago.

Two centuries later, with the Muslim advance checked and the early Christian kingdoms offering fragile protection, the Valle del Silencio entered a new period of religious life. San Genadio, appointed Bishop of Astorga but above all a hermit by nature, arrived in what the source calls the Leonese Thebaid with the purpose of reviving monastic life that had fallen into decline during Arab occupation. He founded the monastery of Peñalba, and his own testament of 919 records this work. After leaving the bishopric, Genadio retired to the monastery and spent a further nineteen years living as a hermit in one of the valley's caves. He was buried in the western apse of the church, until the Duchess of Alba later moved his remains to Villafranca del Bierzo, and subsequently to Valladolid.

In the mid-medieval period, Alfonso IX transferred all the monastery's assets to the cathedral chapter of Astorga. After that, records of the monastery effectively disappear, and only the church continued to be documented. The village of Peñalba de Santiago grew up around it, with the mozarabic church serving as the parish church without alteration to its original fabric.

From that point the village remained genuinely isolated, its population occupied entirely with livestock and crops. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that its rural architecture and surroundings began to attract wider attention, and the area was declared a Scenic Landscape by decree on 6 June 1969.

Peñalba de Santiago's architecture is one of its defining features. The buildings follow a tradition shared across the mountain villages of El Bierzo and the neighbouring comarca of La Cabrera. Roofs are covered in slate, laid in flat slabs. Walls are built from limestone and marble. Most houses have a cantilevered gallery or corridor reached by an external staircase, usually enclosed against the harsh winters. The ground floor typically housed livestock and a cellar. Many buildings also have a bread oven at one end, rounded on the exterior, which gives the houses a profile that recalls the old castro culture of the region. Floor plans tend to be square with rounded outer corners. The village as a whole is considered a well-preserved example of rural El Bierzo architecture and has held Cultural Heritage status since 2008, classified as an ethnological ensemble.

The Church of Santiago de Peñalba is the outstanding individual monument: a tenth-century mozarabic building founded by San Genadio after his time as Bishop of Astorga. Nearby, in the Valle del Silencio, the Cave of San Genadio is a place of worship associated with the saint's final years of contemplation.

A further layer of history lies in the Roman canals along the River Oza. These were built by the Roman Empire to divert water from the valleys around Peñalba de Santiago to the gold mines at Las Médulas.