The monastery of San Salvador de Leyre, or simply the Leyre monastery, is one of the most important monastic complexes in Spain due to its historical and architectural relevance.

Among the different buildings that make up the complex, there are very outstanding Romanesque specimens for belonging to a very early period of the same and for their excellent state of conservation.

There are documented news about Leyre as early as the 9th century. The date and circumstances of the foundation of the Legerense monastery are unknown.

The first reference to its existence is due to the Cordovan Mozarabic priest Eulogio, in a letter of 851 addressed to the Bishop of Pamplona. In it, he recalls his stay in the monastery three years earlier, in the year 848, during a trip to Germanic lands that he had to forcibly interrupt.

Eulogio de Córdoba would later be martyred in Córdoba and sanctified, being known as San Eulogio. He wrote a chronicle of his trip and in it, among other now-defunct Pyrenean monasteries in which he stayed, he named Leyre. In the letter he points out the name of the then abbot, a certain Fortún.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, Leyre was one of the most important monasteries in peninsular Christianity, protected by the monarchy of the kingdom where it sits and with influence over a large territory. As an example of the support provided by the Navarrese kings to the Leyre monastery, the following documented donations can be pointed out: on August 15, 991, King Sancho Garcés II donated to the monastery the possessions that his brother Ramiro had in Apardués; they had already donated on February 15 those that he had in Navardún; On November 18, 1050, García de Nájera donated goods to Leyre and on January 28, 1085, King Sancho Ramírez incorporated the properties and monasteries of Igal, Urdaspal and Roncal, as well as other goods, into Leyre.

The monastery had a great relevance in the history of the kingdom of Pamplona-Nájera and later in that of Navarra, as well as in the Reconquest.

In it is located the pantheon in which the first monarchs of the kingdom of Pamplona lie.