Along the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim can find all kinds of religious monuments (churches, monasteries, hermitages...), testimony to the centuries of history and tradition that this route has given.
Among them, however, the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla is special, since it has the honor of being considered by historians as the cradle of the Spanish language.
Indeed, in the Suso Monastery (one of the two that make up the monumental complex of San Millán) is where the Emilian Glosses, considered the first words written in Spanish (or at least in a primitive version of it). These glosses are notes in the margin that copyist monks made next to a Latin codex, probably with the intention of explaining words and expressions of the main text. Some of these glosses are also in a primitive version of Basque, so they can also be considered the oldest existing text in Basque.
In addition, San Millán de la Cogolla was also the monastery where he worked Gonzalo de Berceo, considered the first writer in Spanish. His main work was "Miracles of Our Lady", a compilation of miracles attributed to the Virgin Mary, written around 1260, and is considered one of the first literary works written in Spanish.
Due to these and other reasons, the monasteries of San Millán were declared by the UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
