Portrait of Diego Ros de Medrano, "The Most Excellent and Venerable Sir Don Diego Ros de Medrano, Bishop of Ourense and Captain General of the Kingdom of Galicia, died in the year of Our Lord 1694" (lower cartouche)
Bishop Diego Ros de Medrano's portrait is the work of Manuel de Lara in 1714 in Málaga. The bishop is represented in a half-length portrait, under a canopy or banner, holding a book and a governors baton. He wears a cassock and a mozzetta and is wearing a biretta. To his right, a crucifix is depicted. The portrait is surrounded by a crowded border composed of angels, who carry the attributes of Don Diego Ros de Medrano, such as the bishops mitre or the crozier. At the top, and in the center, his coat of arms.[4] Diego's coat of arms also appears in stone on the façade of the chapel he built in Ourense Cathedral, however it additionally shows a tower in the middle, eight crosses of San Andres around the border, crowned with a hat.[5]
A member of the noble House of Medrano in Soria— Diego was the son of Antonio Ros de Medrano, born in Ágreda, and Ana de Torres, from Alcalá.[1] Future descendants of his family, notably Manuel Ros de Medrano (b. Orense, 12 September 1756 - d. 23 September 1821), became Bishop of the Diocese of Tortosa.[6] Manuel Ros de Medrano is the author of "Historia de las rentas de la Iglesia de España desde su fundación hasta el siglo presente. Vol. 1." printed in Madrid at the printing house of Ibarra in 1793.[7]
The first part of Medrano's teaching career took place at the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso between 1658 and 1665, as a professor of Prima de Escoto and Prima de Sagrada Escritura, lecturer of Vespers, in the minor of Santo Tomás and in Natural Philosophy; the second part, as a lecturer of Prima de Santo Tomás, was from 1665 to 1673.[9]
Ecclesiastical career
His ecclesiastical career developed in parallel, as he was ordained a priest around 1650-1653 and was parish priest of San Nicolás in Madrid for more than three years, later becoming a master canon at the collegiate church of Santos Justo y Pastor, in Alcalá.[1]
Queen Mariana de Austria and Pope Clement X: Medrano's appointment to the Episcopal Government of Ourense
Vacant due to the promotion of Friar Baltasar de los Reyes to the diocese of Coria, Diego Ros de Medrano was presented to Pope Clement X by Mariana de Austria, with Nithard as ambassador in Rome (March 18, 1673), to assume the episcopal government of Ourense "without more diligence or favor than the splendor of his merit."[1]
On 29 May 1673, Medrano was appointed to the Diocese of Ourense and on 13 September 1673 he was ordained a Bishop in the Church of Alcalá de Henares and consecrated by Bishop Miguel Peréz de Cevallos.[3] He succeeded the previous Bishop of Ourense, Baltasar de los Reyes. Diego Ros de Medrano took charge of that diocese, which he would not abandon despite being tempted with more than one promotion —apparently, he renounced the mitres of León, Plasencia, and Santiago—, remaining in charge of a diocese poor in income, small, markedly rural (the capital had a few hundred inhabitants) and very problematic because it was divided into 651 parishes and had less clergy than other Galician dioceses.[1]
Bishop Medrano only had the rights of presentation to seventy parishes while the nobility and the monasteries controlled 581. His lordship power was scarce in contrast to the other lordships —houses of Monterrey and Ribadavia. However it is not in vain that in Medrano's Ourense there were six of the most populous and important Cistercian and Benedictine monasteries in Galicia: Oseira and Celanova.[1]
All this resulted in a lack of control over the clergy and the faithful, and that is why Diego Ros de Medrano distinguished himself during his tenure for the staunch defense of the rights of the episcopal mitre, especially its jurisdictional capacity, for which he himself made efforts to study Law and Sacred Canons, even personally presiding over the archiepiscopal hearings for years.[1]
Bishop Diego Ros de Medrano appointed Don Biento Trelles as a perpetual regidor.[10]
Visitor of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid and Governor Captain General of the Kingdom of Galicia (1686)
"As all of Spain recognized his courage and great understanding, His Majesty chose him, like Gideon, as Governor of this Kingdom, hoping for its restoration under his governance."[11]
There is no doubt that Don Diego Ros de Medrano had the support of Charles II of Spain, since, breaking with the custom of appointing the archbishops of Santiago as governors of the Kingdom of Galicia in case of substitution or interim, and being bishop of a smaller diocese, Diego Ros de Medrano was appointed visitor of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid "at a time when very serious cases and very difficult circumstances occurred in it," and GovernorCaptain General of the Kingdom of Galicia (October 9, 1686) replacing the Duke of Uceda, who had been given permission to move to the Court.[1]
The Kingdom of Galicia was administered within the Crown of Castile (1490–1715) and later the Crown of Spain (1715–1833) by an Audiencia Real directed by a Governor which also held the office of Captain General and President. Don Diego Ros de Medrano also attended the assemblies of the Junta in Galicia, because the King never consented on the petition of the Junta assembly in Galicia to meet at will, and from 1637 he decreed that the meetings of the assembly could only take place when in presence of a representative of the monarch, with voice, usually the Governor-Captain General of the Kingdom, in an attempt to maintain a tighter grip on the institution and its agreements.[12]
Construction of the chapel of the Holy Christ of the cathedral
The image of Christ in the chapel of Ourense constructed by Don Diego Ros de Medrano
A notable accomplishment of the Bishop was the construction of a magnificent new chapel of the Holy Christ of the cathedral of Ourense intended for a Crucifixion figure (La Imagen de Cristo en Ourense). Due to the chapel's limited size and the inability to display the Christ image with the reverence it warranted, Don Diego Ros de Medrano, during his tenure as bishop of Ourense, decided in 1674 to extend the chapel to ensure it could rightfully serve as a true sanctuary.
In 1686 Diego Ros de Medrano, who held positions as a canon, filed an executive lawsuit against the estate and heirs of Antonio Ros de Medrano. The lawsuit stemmed from a debt totaling 120,941 maravedis, along with 37 fanegas and 7 celemines of wheat. This debt originated from discrepancies in the currency and grain accounts during the stewardships of the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso, which were managed by Antonio Ros de Medrano and his brother, Juan Ros de Medrano.[13]
Diego Ros de Medrano's death occurred in his see on 24, March 1694 and he was buried in the chapel of the Holy Christ of the cathedral of Ourense, which he himself had enlarged. A laudatory "Posthumous Acclamation" (1714) accounted for his merits, the condition of governor distinguishes him from the usual in episcopal careers of the time. Doctor Don Juan Gomez de Escobar, Canon of the Holy Church, Provider and Vicar General of this Archbishopric, etc. granted permission for the printing of Diego's funeral sermon, "as it is worthy of being put to press, and so that the virtue and venerable examples of the Most Excellent Lord Don Diego Ros de Medrano, Bishop of Ourense, may be remembered," on 24, November 1714.[11]
"Posthumous Acclamation. Immortal fame. Panegyric trumpet of virtues. Funereal trumpet of examples, and of disillusionments, with which the Most Illustrious Chapter of the Holy Cathedral Church of the city of Orense publicly announced to the world the loss of the most famous hero ... D.D. Diego Ros de Medrano ... The mournful panegyric of such loss was pronounced last year of 94." - by Dr. Jacinto Andres Phelipes (Granada, 1714)[14][15]
In the city of Granada, on the twenty-fifth day of the month of January of the year 1714, His Most Illustrious Lordship, Don Juan Miguelez de Mendaña, Official of the Council of His Majesty, Bishop of the Holy Church of the City of Tortosa, President of the Royal Chancery, in view of the Approval of Father Fr. Gabriel de Zieza of the Order of Saint Dominic in his Convent of Tortosa, granted permission for the printing of the sermon preached by Doctor Don Jacinto Andrés Phelipes, Master Canon of the Holy Church of Ourense, at the Funeral of the Most Excellent Lord Don Diego Ros de Medrano.[11]
Part of Bishop Don Diego Ros de Medrano's funeral sermon reads:
"To the Illustrious and Most Excellent Lord D. DIEGO ROS DE MEDRANO, most deserving Prelate of this Holy Church, who will always be mourned for his absence, accompanying the entire Kingdom of Galicia, which rightly still laments having enjoyed his governance and generalship. Deciphering my attention to that favored by God, and forever illustrious Leader of Israel Moses: consider his Life and Death. His first cradle was the waters, as you already know, and for this reason he is called Moses: "Because I drew him out of the water." And the favors that as a child he has garnered! As an adult, he was already tending a flock when God called him from that mysterious bush, for greater duties. Our Most Excellent Prelate Diego Ros de Medrano was born in the town of Alcalà, to which an ancient river gives renown, and besides that, Heaven decreed that his cradle be the waters.
Celestial Dew in the Cradle, which foretells, but would it not be a peaceful life, a rain of crystal-clear waters for the remedy of faults? His Nobility, the illustriousness of his Surnames attest to it. When he was a child, he enjoyed the favors of all, both for the greatness of his intellect and for his gentleness. Having completed the course of his studies with the common applause of all, and having graduated as a Doctor ahead of many, he went to the Crowned City of Madrid to serve at the Parish of San Nicolás. There he tended, like another Moses, the Flock of Christ."[11]
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