Ermita de San Marcos, antigua Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Mismanos

Ermita de San Marcos, in Tudela, Navarre, is a small hermitage that today survives mostly in name and in local records rather than in stone. Long before it carried the name San Marcos, it was known as the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Mismanos, and the story behind that change in name says almost as much about the site as its physical remains do.

Why does the same building carry two names?

The hermitage likely dates back to the 12th century, and the earliest written reference to it appears in 1222, making it one of the older religious foundations recorded around Tudela. For centuries it was dedicated to Nuestra Señora de Mismanos, Our Lady of Mismanos, and kept that name until 1732, when its patronage was switched to Saint Mark the Evangelist, giving rise to the name still used today. Under this second dedication, the hermitage survived for close to two more centuries before it was finally abandoned in 1931.

Where exactly was it located?

The site stood roughly 8 kilometers from central Tudela, in an area known as Montes de Cierzo, a stretch of low hills and scrubland to the southeast of the city. An old route toward Alfaro passed nearby, and directly across from the hermitage once stood Torre Roya, a watchtower whose foundations were only rediscovered through recent excavation work, since nothing had been visible above ground for a long time. Together, the hermitage and the tower once marked a stretch of the road linking Tudela to the lower Ebro valley.

What remains to see today?

Little to nothing of the original structure survives, and Ermita de San Marcos is now listed among the disappeared or fully ruined heritage sites of the area. There is no roof, altar, or functioning chapel left, and the site has not served a religious purpose in close to a century. Visitors should treat it less as a conventional monument and more as a point of historical interest, since the value here lies in the story and the setting rather than in standing architecture.

How does it fit into Tudela's wider heritage?

This hermitage was never an isolated case. Tudela was once ringed by a series of hermitages built outside its city walls, dedicated to figures such as Santa Cruz, Santo Domingo, Santa Eulalia, and San Miguel Arcángel, among others. Most shared a similar fate, vanishing from the landscape or surviving only as ruins. That pattern says a lot about how dense the network of devotional sites once was around the city, and how much of that heritage has simply not survived. Tudela itself, set on the Ebro river, is known today chiefly for its Santa María cathedral and its proximity to the Bardenas Reales natural park, which draws far more visitors than the scattered remains of its old hermitages.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Ermita de San Marcos the same place as Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Mismanos? Yes. It is the same hermitage, originally dedicated to Nuestra Señora de Mismanos and rededicated to Saint Mark in 1732.

Can visitors tour the ruins today? Almost nothing of the building remains standing, so the site is of historical rather than architectural interest, with no visitor infrastructure in place.

How far is the site from Tudela? About 8 kilometers, in the area known as Montes de Cierzo, near the old road toward Alfaro.

When did the hermitage stop being used? It was definitively abandoned in 1931, after nearly seven centuries of use under its two successive names.