Founded in the end of the 10th century and beginning of the 11th century, the Tibães Monastery was re-built in the end of that century, becoming one of the most rich and powerful monasteries in the north of Portugal.

With the Reform Movement and the end of the religious crisis of the 14th to 16th centuries, the São Martinho de Tibães Monastery watches to the foundation of the Benedictine Congregation of Portugal and Brazil, becoming the headquarters to all the Benedictine monasteries and the divulgation centre of cultures and aesthetics.

The importance of the Tibães Monastery can also be measured by the role it played as a real school of a group of architects, masons and carpenters, engravers, gilders, sculptors, and many more whose production is part of the best Portuguese Art of the 17th and 18th century.

Several campaigns of conservation, reconstruction and redecoration take place in the 17th and 18th century, transforming the ancient Romanesque building into a beautiful architectonic jewell of great dimensions.

With the extinction of the religious orders in Portugal, in 1834, the monastery is closed and all its goods start to be sold publicly until 1864.
Bought by the Portuguese state in 1986, the Tibães Monastery has been recovered and conservated ever since, in a large renovation project, in order to stop and abandonment and degradation that was taking place.