had populated the surviving cities that had been founded during the Roman Empire and Visigothic civilization. The area of Segovia had a large Muslim population which resisted the Christian reconquest several times after attempts at cultural assimilation. The newly founded monasteries served, among other things, as centers of evangelization and colonization. Abundant irrigation systems, canals, ditches, and castles had already been constructed during the Muslim era. The Muslim people established their cities on the banks of rivers, because their economy was based on agriculture, concentrating on the cultivation of irrigated land. Some areas of the Pyrenees had not been effectively occupied because of the high altitude, but the traffic of people and goods was controlled by establishing fortified steps at the entrance to the valleys. Because of Muslim occupation, the nobles and Christian clergy had settled mostly in the north of present-day Spain, then small independent Christian kingdoms. There they began to organize churches and monasteries around which the Christian communities soon developed. Religious communities revived trade among other Iberian towns especially in wool and salt, also the cultivation of vines and raising of livestock. Differences between newly arrived monks and earlier residents of the area caused altercations concerning the passage of merchant mule caravans, the exploitation of salt, water use in the region's villages, dominion over the towns, pastures, and tithes. Some parts of the monastery were rebuilt after being destroyed by fire in 1641. The abbey remained an active monastic community until 1835. The monastery was closed about 1836-1840 during Isabella II of Spain's rule as a consequence of the Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal. The Desamortización caused the exclaustration of the place, brought monastic life to an end and the main church was privatized. Its Romanesque abbey church remains one of the monuments of Sacramenia. History 1926–64 The historic monastery building is for the most part in the United States, that is, the cloister, the chapter house and the refectory of the monks. The rest of the monastic compound, that is, the church and other facilities such as Cilla (mullion) remain privately owned in Spain, in Sacramenia village, although the grounds can be visited on certain days. It was declared a Spanish national monument on June 3, 1931. The monastery's cloister and its outbuildings were illegally purchased and moved by William Randolph Hearst in 1926, despite Spanish government restrictions. In order to be transported to the United States,