St. Martin’s Church
Rejas de San Esteban
About
Property belonging to the Spanish Historical Heritage, a Site of Cultural Interest with the category of Historical and Artistic Monument since 14th November 1980. It houses the Virgen de la Guía. It is located to the west, in the highest part of Rejas de San Esteban. This church has a single nave with a semicircular apse, a straight presbytery, a sacristy attached to the north side, a late Romanesque belfry at the foot and, most characteristic of our area: an arcaded gallery to the south.
The construction material of the church is masonry (logically reinforced with ashlars at the corners) except for the portico gallery, which is made of ashlars. This porticoed gallery, made up of seven arcades topped with diamond-shaped points and two entrances, was used as a corral until its restoration in 1982. This temple has two doorways. One, to the north, now blinded, consists of two archivolts and the other, the main one, to the south, similar to that of San Ginés, with four archivolts decorated with checkerboard, balls, interlacing and flowers.
The Gothic mural paintings in the apse hemicycle and the presbytery are interesting, in black, brown and reddish tones. On the side of the epistle, two acolytes can be seen placing the mitre on a bishop (perhaps Saint Martin of Tours), an angel holding a coat of arms with thirteen white rays on a blue field and Santiago Matamoros entering a city (other authors associate this last figure with the image of Saint Martin parting his cloak). Under the blind arcade there are figures identified as the Dream of Adam and the creation of Eve. On the other side, on the Gospel side of the chancel, the twelve apostles can be seen. In the nave, on the south wall, the figure of Saint Christopher can be seen. The heraldry, the Mudejar armour and the Hispano-Flemish features of the figures seem to date the frescoes to the end of the 15th century, except for the image of Adam’s Dream, which would be earlier, from the 13th century.