The Monastery of Monsalud is located in the municipality of Córcoles (Sacedón, Guadalajara) and was built around 1167 at the expense of King Alfonso VIII. It was the first of the three monasteries that he founded in Alcarrian lands as a means of consolidating the repopulation. His first abbot was Fortún Donato, a French monk from the Mother House of Monsalud, the monastery of Scala Dei (Tarragona). This building is a Cistercian monastic complex transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but still retains its medieval structure and the elegance and austerity of Cistercian architecture. The entrance, the cloister, the church, the chapter house, the sacristy, the refectory, the cellar and part of the cells are still recognizable elements of what the Monastery was.