Chapter VIII: Conclusion (3)

Castile--or properly Castilla--owed its name to the great number of castles which stood on solitary hills in the midst of the plains lying to the north of the Sierra de Guaderrama; one of these castles was called Burgos.

Unlike Leon and Astorga, Burgos was not known to the Romans, but was founded by feudal noblemen in the middle ages, most likely by the Count of Castilla prior to 884 A. D., when its name first appears in history.

Situated almost in the same line and to the west of Astorga and Leon, it entered the chain of fortresses which formed the frontier between the Christian kingdoms and the Moorish dominion. At the same time it looked westwards toward the kingdom of Navarra, and managed to keep the ambitious sovereigns of Pamplona from Castilian soil.

During the first centuries which followed upon the foundation of the village of Burgos at the foot of a prominent castle, both belonged to the feudal lords of Castile, the celebrated counts of the same name. This family of intrepid noblemen grew to be the most important in Northern Spain; vassals of the kings of Asturias, they broke out in frequent rebellion, and their doings alone fill nine of every ten pages of mediaeval history.

Orduno III.--he who lost the battle of Valdejunquera against the Moors because the noblemen he had ordered to assist refrained from doing so--enticed the Count of Castile, together with other conspirators, to his palace, and had them foully murdered. So, at least, saith history.

The successor to the title was no fool. On the contrary, he was one of the greatest characters in Spanish history, hero of a hundred legends and traditions. Fernan Gonzalez was his name, and he freed Castile from owing vassalage to Asturias, for he threw off the yoke which bound him to Leon, and lived as an independent sovereign in his castle of Burgos. This is the date of Castile's first appearance in history as one of the nuclei of Christian resistance (in the tenth century).

Nevertheless, against the military genius of Almanzor (the victorious), Fernan Gonzalez could do no more than the kings of Leon. The fate that befell Santiago, Leon, and Astorga awaited Burgos, which was utterly destroyed with the exception of the impregnable castle. After the Arab's death, hailed by the Christians with shouts of joy, and from the pulpits with the grim remark: _"Almanzor mortuus est et sepultus et in inferno_," the strength of Castile grew year by year, until one Conde Garcia de Castilla married one of his daughters to the King of Navarra and the other to Bermudo III. of Leon. His son, as has already been seen in a previous chapter, was killed in Leon when he went to marry Bermudo's sister Sancha. But his grandson, the recognized heir to the throne of Navarra, Fernando by name, inherited his grandfather's title and estates, even his murdered uncle's promised bride, the sister of Bermudo. At the latter's death some years later, without an heir, he inherited--or conquered--Leon and Asturias, and for the first time in history, all the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula were united beneath one sceptre.

Castile was now the most powerful state in the peninsula, and its capital, Burgos, the most important city north of Toledo.

Two hundred years later the centralization of power in Burgos was an accomplished fact, as well as the death in all but name of the ancient kingdom of Leon, Asturias, and Galicia. Castile was Spain, and Burgos its splendid capital (1230, in the reign of San Fernando).

The above events are closely connected with the ecclesiastical history, which depends entirely upon the civil importance of the city.

A few years after Fernando I. had inaugurated the title of King of Castile, he raised the parish church of Burgos to a bishopric (1075) by removing to his new capital the see that from time immemorial had existed in Oca. He also laid the first stone of the cathedral church in the same spot where Fernan Gonzalez had erected a summer palace, previous to the Arab raid under Almanzor. Ten years later the same king had the bishopric raised to an archiepiscopal see.

San Fernando, being unable to do more than had already been done by his forefather Fernando I., had the ruined church pulled down, and in its place he erected the cathedral still standing to-day. This was in 1221.

So rapidly was the main edifice constructed, that as early as 1230 the first holy mass was celebrated in the altar-chapel. The erection of the remaining parts took longer, however, for the building was not completed until about three hundred years later.

Burgos did not remain the sole capital of Northern Spain for any great length of time. Before the close of the thirteenth century, Valladolid had destroyed the former's monopoly, and from then on, and during the next three hundred years, these two and Toledo were obliged to take turns in the honour of being considered capital, an honour that depended entirely upon the caprices of the rulers of the land, until it was definitely conferred upon Madrid in the seventeenth century.

As regards legends and traditions of feudal romance and tragedy, hardly a city excepting Toledo and Salamanca can compete with Burgos. Historical events, produced by throne usurpers and defenders, by continual strife, by the obstinacy of the noblemen and the perfidy of the monarchs,--all interwoven with beautiful dames and cruel warriors--are sufficiently numerous to enable every house in and around Burgos to possess some secret or other, generally gruesome and licentious, which means chivalrous. The reign of Peter the Cruel and of his predecessor Alfonso, the father of four or five bastards, and the lover of Dona Leonor; the heroic deeds of Fernan Gonzalez and of the Cid Campeador (Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar); the splendour of the court of Isabel I., and the peculiar constitution of the land with its Cortes, its convents, and monasteries,--all tend to make Burgos the centre of a chivalrous literature still recited by the people and firmly believed in by them. Unluckily their recital cannot find a place here, and we pass on to examine the grand cathedral, object of the present chapter.

* * * * *

The train, coming from the north, approaches the city of Burgos. A low horizon line and undulating plains stretch as far as the eye can reach; in the distance ahead are two church spires and a castle looming up against a blue sky.

The train reaches the station; a mass of houses and, overtopping the roofs of all buildings, the same spires as seen before, lost as it were in a forest of pinnacles, emerging from two octagonal lanterns or cimborios. In the background, on a sandy hill, are the ruins of the castle which once upon a time was the stronghold of the Counts of Castile.

Burgos! Passing beneath a four-hundred-year-old gateway--Arco de Santa Maria--raised by trembling bourgeois to appease a monarch's wrath, the visitor arrives after many a turn in a square situated in front of the cathedral.

A poor architectural element is this western front of the cathedral as regards the first body or the portals. Devoid of all ornamentation, and consequently naked, three doors or portals, surmounted by a peculiar egg-shaped ogival arch, open into the nave and aisles. Originally they were richly decorated by means of sculptural reliefs and statuary, but in the plateresque period of the sixteenth century they were demolished. The two lateral doors leading into the aisles are situated beneath the 275 feet high towers of excellent workmanship.

The central door is surmounted by a plateresque-Renaissance pediment imbedded in an ogival arch (of all things!); the side doors are crowned by a simple window.

Vastly superior in all respects to the lower body are the upper stories, of which the first is begun by a pinnacled balustrade running from tower to tower; in the centre, between the two towers, there is an immense rosace of a magnificent design and embellished by means of an ogival arch in delicate relief; the windows of the tower, as well as in the superior bodies, are pure ogival.

The next story can be considered as the basement of the towers, properly speaking. The central part begins with a prominent balustrade of statues thrown against a background formed by twin ogival windows of exceptional size. The third story is composed, as regards the towers, of the last of the square bodies upon which the fleche reposes; these square bases are united by a light frieze or perforated balustrade which crowns the central part of the facade and is decorated with ogival designs.

Last to be mentioned, but not least in importance, are the _fleches_. Though short in comparison to the bold structure at Oviedo, they are, nevertheless, of surprising dignity and elegance, and richly ornamented, being covered over with an innumerable amount of tiny pinnacles encrusted, as it were, on the stone network of a perforated pyramid.

The northern facade is richer in sculptural details than the western, though the portal possesses but one row of statues. The rosace is substituted by a three-lobed window, the central pane of which is larger than the lateral two.

As this northern facade is almost fifteen feet higher than the ground-plan of the temple,--on account of the street being much higher,--a flight of steps leads down into the transept. As a Renaissance work, this golden staircase is one of Spain's marvels, but it looks rather out of place in an essentially Gothic cathedral.

To avoid the danger of falling down these stairs and with a view to their preservation, the transept was pierced by another door in the sixteenth century, on a level with the floor of the building, and leading into a street lower than the previous one; it is situated on the east of the prolonged transept, or better still, of the prolonged northern transept arm.

On the south side a cloister door corresponds to this last-named portal. Though the latter is plateresque, cold and severe, the former is the richest of all the portals as regards sculptural details; the carving of the panels is also of the finest workmanship. Beside it, the southern front of the cathedral coincides perfectly with the northern; like the Puerta de la Plateria in Santiago, it is rendered somewhat insignificant by the cloister to the right and by the archbishop's palace to the left, between which it is reached by a paved series of terraces, for on this side the street is lower than the floor of the cathedral. The impression produced by this alley is grand and imposing, unique in Spain.

Neither is the situation of the temple exactly east and west, a rare circumstance in such a highly Catholic country like Spain. It is Roman cruciform in shape; the central nave contains both choir and high altar; the aisles are prolonged behind the latter in an ambulatory.

The lateral walls of the church, enlarged here and there to make room for chapels of different dimensions, give an irregular outline to the building which has been partly remedied by the free use of buttresses, flying buttresses, and pinnacles.

The first impression produced on the visitor standing in either of the aisles is that of size rather than beauty; a close examination, however, of the wealth of statues and tombs, and of the sculptural excellence of stone decoration, will draw from the tourist many an exclamation of wonder and delight. Further, the distribution of light is such as to render the interior of the temple gay rather than sombre; it is a pity, nevertheless, that the stained glasses of the sixteenth century see were all destroyed by a powder explosion in 1813, when the French soldiers demolished the castle.

The unusual height of the choir mars the ensemble of the interior; the stalls are lavishly carved, but do not inspire the same feeling of wonderful beauty as do those of Leon and Toledo, for instance; the _reja_ or grille which separates the choir from the transept is one of the finest pieces of work in the cathedral, and, though massive, it is simple and elegant.

The _retablo_ of the high altar, richly gilt, is of the Renaissance period; the statues and groups which fill the niches are marvellously drawn and full of life. In the ambulatory, imbedded in the wall of the _trascoro_, there are six plaques in low relief; as sculptural work in stone they are unrivalled in the cathedral, and were carved, beyond a doubt, by the hand of a master. The _croisee_ and the Chapel of the Condestable are the two chief attractions of the cathedral church.

The last named chapel is an octagonal addition to the apse. Its walls from the exterior are seen to be richly sculptured and surmounted by a lantern, or windowed dome, surrounded by high pinnacles and spires placed on the angles of the polygon base. The _croisee_ is similar in structure, but, due to its greater height, appears even more slender and aerial. The towers with their _fleches_, together with these original octagonal lanterns with their pinnacles, lend an undescribable grace, elegance, and majesty to what would otherwise have been a rather unwieldy edifice.

The Chapel of the Condestable is separated from the ambulatory (in the interior of the temple) by a good grille of the sixteenth century, and by a profusely sculptured door. The windows above the altar are the only ones that retain painted panes of the sixteenth century. Among the other objects contained in this chapel--which is really a connoisseur's collection of art objects of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--can be mentioned the two marvellously carved tombs of the Condestable and of his wife.

The _croisee_, on the other hand, has been called the "cathedral's cathedral." Gazing skyward from the centre of the transept into the high _cimborio_, and admiring the harmony of its details, the wealth of decorative elements, and the no less original structure of the dome, whose vault is formed by an immense star, one can understand the epithet applied to this majestic piece of work, a marvel of its kind.

Strange to say, the primitive cupola which crowned the _croisee_ fell down in the sixteenth century, the date also of Burgos's growing insignificance in political questions. Consequently, it was believed by many that the same fate produced both accidents, and that the downfall of the one necessarily involved the decadence of the other.

To conclude: The Gothic cathedral of Burgos is, with that of Leon and perhaps that of Sevilla, the one which expresses in a greater measure than any other on the peninsula the true ideal of ogival architecture. Less airy, light, and graceful than that of Leon, it is, nevertheless, more Spanish, or in other words, more majestic, heavier, and more imposing as regards size and weight. From a sculptural point of view--stone sculpture--it is the first of all Spanish Gothic cathedrals, and ranks among the most elaborate and perfect in Europe.

VI

SANTANDER

The foundation of Santander is attributed to the Romans who baptized it Harbour of Victory. Its decadence after the Roman dominion seems to have been complete, and its name does not appear in the annals of Spanish history until in 1187, when Alfonso, eighth of that name and King of Castile, induced the repopulation of the deserted hamlet by giving it a special _fuero_ or privilege. At that time a monastery surrounded by a few miserable huts seems to have been all that was left of the Roman seaport; this monastery was dedicated to the martyr saints Emeterio and Celedonio, for it was, and still is, believed that they perished here, and not in Calahorra, as will be seen later on.

The name of the nascent city in the times of Alfonso VIII. was Sancti Emetrii, from that of the monastery or of the old town, but within a few years the new town eclipsed the former in importance and, being dedicated to St. Andrew, gave its name to the present city (San-t-Andres, Santander).

As a maritime town, Santander became connected with all the naval events undertaken by young Castile, and later by Philip II., against England. Kings, princes, princess-consorts, and ambassadors from foreign lands came by sea to Santander, and went from thence to Burgos and Valladolid; from Santander and the immediate seaports the fleet sailed which was to travel up the Guadalquivir and conquer Sevilla; in 1574 the Invincible Armada left the Bay of Biscay never to return, and from thence on until now, Santander has ever remained the most important Spanish seaport on the Cantabric Sea.

Its ecclesiastical history is uninteresting--or, rather, the city possesses no ecclesiastical past; perhaps that is one of the causes of its flourishing state to-day. In the thirteenth century the monastical Church of San Emeterio was raised to a collegiate and in 1775 to a bishopric.

The same unimportance, from an art point of view, attaches itself to the cathedral church. No one visits the city for the sake of the heavy, clumsy, and exceedingly irregularly built temple which stands on the highest part of the town. On the contrary, the great attraction is the fine beach of the Sardinero which lies to the west of the industrial town, and is, in summer, the Brighton of Spain. The coast-line, deeply dentated and backed by the Cantabric Mountains, is far more delightful and attractive than the Gothic cathedral structure of the thirteenth century.

Consequently, little need be said about it. In the interior, the height of the nave and aisles, rendered more pronounced by the pointed ogival arches, gives the building a somewhat aerial appearance that is belied by the view from without.

The square tower on the western end is undermined by a gallery or tunnel through which the Calle de Puente passes. To the right of the same, and reached by a flight of steps, stands the entrance to the crypt, which is used to-day as a most unhealthy parish church. This crypt of the late twelfth century or early thirteenth shows a decided Romanesque tendency in its general appearance: it is low, massive, strong, and crowned by a semicircular vaulting reposing on gigantic pillars whose capitals are roughly sculptured. The windows which let in the little light that enters are ogival, proving the Transition period to which the crypt belongs; it was originally intended as the pantheon for the abbots of the monastery. But unlike the Galician Romanesque, it lacks an individual _cachet_; if it resembles anything it is the pantheon of the kings in San Isidoro in Leon, though in point of view of beauty, the two cannot be compared.

The form of the crypt is that of a perfect Romanesque basilica, a nave and two aisles terminating a three-lobed apse.

In the cathedral, properly speaking, there is a baptismal font of marble, bearing an Arabic inscription by way of upper frieze; it is square, and of Moorish workmanship, and doubtless was brought from Cordoba after the reconquest. Its primitive use had been practical, for in Andalusia it stood at the entrance to some mezquita, and in its limpid waters the disciples of Mahomet performed their hygienic and religious ablutions.

VII

VITORIA

If the foreigner enter Spain by Irun, the first cathedral town on his way south is Vitoria.

Gazteiz seems to have been its Basque name prior to 1181, when it was enlarged by Don Sancho of Navarra and was given a _fuero_ or privilege, together with its new name, chosen to commemorate a victory obtained by the king over his rival, Alfonso of Castile.

Fortune did not smile for any length of time on Don Sancho, for seventeen years later Alfonso VIII. incorporated the city in his kingdom of Castile, and it was lost for ever to Navarra.

As regards the celebrated _fueros_ given by the last named monarch to the inhabitants of the city, a curious custom was in vogue in the city until a few years ago, when the Basque Provinces finally lost the privileges they had fought for during centuries.

When Alfonso VIII. granted these privileges, he told the citizens they were to conserve them "as long as the waters of the Zadorria flowed into the Ebro."

The Zadorria is the river upon which Vitoria is situated; about two miles up the river there is a historical village, Arriago, and a no less historical bridge. Hither, then, every year on St. John's Day, the inhabitants of Vitoria came in procession, headed by the municipal authorities, the bishop and clergy, the clerk of the town hall, and the sheriff. The latter on his steed waded into the waters of the Zadorria, and threw a letter into the stream; it flowed with the current toward the Ebro River. An act was then drawn up by the clerk, signed by the mayor and the sheriff, testifying that the "waters of the Zadorria flowed into the Ebro."

To-day the waters still flow into the Ebro, but the procession does not take place, and the city's _fueros_ are no more.

In the reign of Isabel the Catholic, the Church of St. Mary was raised to a Colegiata, and it is only quite recently, according to the latest treaty between Spain and Rome, that an episcopal see has been established in the city of Vitoria.

Documents that have been discovered state that in 1281--a hundred years after the city had been newly baptized--the principal temple was a church and castle combined; in the fourteenth century this was completely torn down to make room for the new building, a modest ogival church of little or no merit.

The tower is of a later date than the body of the cathedral, as is easily seen by the triangular pediments which crown the square windows: it is composed of three bodies, as is generally the case in Spain, the first of which is square in its cross-section, possessing four turrets which crown the angles; the second body is octagonal and the third is in the form of a pyramid terminating in a spire.

The portal is cut into the base of the tower. It is the handsomest front of the building, though in a rather dilapidated state; the sculptural decorations of the three arches, as well as the aerial reliefs of the tympanum, are true to the period in which they were conceived.

The sacristy encloses a primitive wooden effigy of the Virgin; it is of greater historic than artistic value. There is also a famous picture attributed now to Van Dyck, now to Murillo; it represents Christ in the arms of his mother, and Mary Magdalene weeping on her knees beside the principal group. The picture is known by the name of Piety or La Piedad.

The high altar, instead of being placed to the east of the transept, as is generally the case, is set beneath the _croisee_, in the circular area formed by the intersection of nave and transept. The view of the interior is therefore completely obstructed, no matter where the spectator stands.

VIII

UPPER RIOJA

To the south of Navarra and about a hundred miles to the west of Burgos, the Ebro River flows through a fertile vale called the Rioja, famous for its claret. It is little frequented by strangers or tourists, and yet it is well worth a visit. The train runs down the Ebro valley from Miranda to Saragosse. A hilly country to the north and south, well wooded and gently sloping like the Jura; nearer, and along the banks of the stream, _huertas_ or orchards, gardens, and vineyards offer a pleasant contrast to the distant landscape, and produce a favourable impression, especially when a village or town with its square, massive church-tower peeps forth from out of the foliage of fruit-trees and elms.

Such is Upper Rioja--one of the prettiest spots in Spain, the Touraine, one might almost say, of Iberia, a circular region of about twenty-five miles in radius, containing four cities, Logrono, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Najera, and Calahorra.

The Roman military road from Tarragon to Astorga passed through the Rioja, and Calahorra, a Celtiberian stronghold slightly to the south, was conquered by the invaders after as sturdy a resistance as that of Numantia itself. It was not totally destroyed by the conquering Romans as happened in the last named town; on the contrary, it grew to be the most important fortress between Leon and Saragosse.

When the Christian religion dawned in the West, two youths, inseparable brothers, and soldiers in the seventh legion stationed in Leon, embraced the true religion and migrated to Calahorra. They were beheaded after being submitted to a series of the most frightful tortures, and their tunics, leaving the bodies from which life had escaped, soared skywards with the saintly souls, to the great astonishment of the Roman spectators. The names of these two martyr saints were Emeterio and Celedonio, who, as we have seen, are worshipped in Santander; besides, they are also the patron saints of Calahorra.

The first Bishop of Calahorra took possession of his see toward the middle of the fifth century; his name was Silvano. Unluckily, he was the only one whose name is known to-day, and yet it has been proven that when the Moors invaded the country two or three hundred years later, the see was removed to Oviedo, later to Alava (near Vitoria, where no remains of a cathedral church are to be seen to-day), and in the tenth century to Najera. One hundred years later, when the King of Navarra, Don Garcia, conquered the Arab fortress at Calahorra, the wandering see was once more firmly chained down to the original spot of its creation (1030; the first bishop _de modernis_ being Don Sancho).

Near by, and in a vale leading to the south from the Ebro, the Moors built a fortress and called it Najera. Conquered by the early kings of Navarra, it was raised to the dignity of one of the cathedral towns of the country; from 950 (first bishop, Theodomio) to 1030 ten bishops held their court here, that is, until the see was removed to Calahorra. Since then, and especially after the conquest of Rioja by Alfonso VI. of Castile, the city's significance died out completely, and to-day it is but a shadow of what it previously had been, or better still, it is an ignored village among ruins.

Still further west, and likewise situated in a vale to the south of the Ebro, Santo Domingo de la Calzada ranks as the third city. Originally its parish was but a suffragan church of Calahorra, but in 1227 it was raised to an episcopal see. Quite recently, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, when church funds were no longer what they had been, only one bishop was appointed to both sees, with an alternative residence in either of the two, that is to say, one prelate resided in Calahorra, his successor in Santo Domingo, and so forth and so on. Since 1850, however, both villages--for they are cities in name only--have lost all right to a bishop, the see having been definitely removed to Logrono, or it will be removed there as soon as the present bishop dies. But he has a long life, the present bishop!

The origin of Santo Domingo is purely religious. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries a pious individual lived in the neighbourhood whose life-work and ambition it was to facilitate the travelling pilgrims to Santiago in Galicia. He served as guide, kept a road open in winter and summer, and even built bridges across the streams, one of which is still existing to-day, and leads into the town which bears his name.

He had even gone so far as to establish a rustic sort of an inn where the pilgrims could pass the night and eat (without paying?). He also constructed a church beside his inn. Upon dying, he was canonized Santo Domingo de la Calzada (Domingo was his name, and _calzada_ is old Spanish for highroad). The Alfonsos of Castile were grateful to the humble saint for having saved them the expense and trouble of looking after their roads, and ordained that a handsome church should be erected on the spot where previously the humble inn and chapel had stood. Houses grew up around it rapidly and the dignity of the new temple was raised in consequence.

Of the four cities of Upper Rioja, the only one worthy of the name of city is Logrono, with its historical bridge across the Ebro, a bridge that was held, according to the tradition, by the hero, Ruy Diaz Gaona, and three valiant companions against a whole army of invading Navarrese.

The name Lucronio or Logrono is first mentioned in a document toward the middle of the eleventh century. The date of its foundation is absolutely unknown, and all that can be said is that, once it had fallen into the hands of the monarchs of Castile (1076), it grew rapidly in importance, out-shining the other three Rioja cities. It is seated on the southern banks of the Ebro in the most fertile part of the whole region, and enjoys a delightful climate. Since 1850 it has been raised to the dignity of an episcopal see.

As regards the architectural remains of the four cities in the Upper Rioja valley, they are similar to those of Navarra, properly speaking, though not so pure in their general lines. In other words, they belong to the decadent period of Gothic art. Moreover, they have one and all been spoiled by ingenious, though dreadful mixtures of plateresque, Renaissance, and grotesque decorative details, and consequently the real remains of the old twelfth and thirteenth century Gothic and Romanesque constructions are difficult to trace.

_Najera._--Absolutely nothing remains of the old Romanesque church built by the king Don Garcia. A new edifice of decadent Gothic, mixed with Renaissance details, and dating from the fifteenth century, stands to-day; it contains a magnificent series of choir stalls of excellent workmanship, and similar to those of Burgos. The cloister, in spite of the Arab-looking geometrical tracery of the ogival arches, is both light and elegant.

This cathedral was at one time used as the pantheon of the kings of Navarra. About ten elaborate marble tombs still lie at the foot of the building.

_Santo Domingo de la Calzada._--The primitive ground-plan of the cathedral has been preserved, a nave and two aisles showing Romanesque strength in the lower and ogival lightness in the upper tiers. But otherwise nothing reminds one of a twelfth or thirteenth century church.

The cloister, of the sixteenth century, is a handsome plateresque-Renaissance edifice, rather small, severe, and cold. The great merit of this church lies in the sepulchral tombs in the different chapels, all of which were executed toward the end of the fifteenth and during the first years of the seventeenth centuries, and any one wishing to form for himself an idea of this particular branch of Spanish monumental art must not fail to examine such sepulchres as those of Carranza, Fernando Alfonso, etc.

The effigy of the patron saint (Santo Domingo) is of painted wood clothed in rich silver robes, which form a striking antithesis to the saint's humble and modest life. The chapel where the latter lies is closed by a gilded iron _reja_ of plateresque workmanship. The saint's body lies in a simple marble sepulchre, said to have been carved by Santo Domingo himself, who was both an architect and a sculptor. The truth of this version is, however, doubtful.

Of the square tower and the principal entrance no remarks need be made, for both are insignificant. The _retablo_ of the high altar has been attributed to Foment, who constructed those of Saragosse and Huesca. The attribution is, however, most doubtful, as shown by the completely different styles employed by the artist of each. Not that the _retablo_ in the Church of Santo Domingo is inferior to Foment's masterworks in Aragon, but the decorative motives of the flanking columns and low reliefs would prove--in case they had been executed by the Aragonese Foment--a departure from the latter's classic style.

In one of the niches of the cloister, in a simple urn, lies the heart of Don Enrique, second King of Castile of that name, the half-brother (one of the bastards mentioned in a previous chapter and from whom all later Spanish monarchs are descended) of Peter the Cruel. The latter was murdered by his fond relative, who usurped the throne.

_Logrono._--In 1435 Santa Maria la Redonda was raised to a suffragan church of Santo Domingo de la Calzada; about this date the old building must have been almost entirely torn down, as the ogival arches of the nave are of the fifteenth century; so also are the lower windows which, on the west, flank the southern door.

Excepting these few remains, nothing can bring to the tourist's mind the fifteenth-century edifice, and not a single stone can recall the twelfth-century church. For the remaining parts of the building are of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and successive centuries, and to-day the interior is being enlarged so as to make room for the see which is to be removed here from Santo Domingo and Calahorra.

The interior is Roman cruciform with a high and airy central nave, in which stands the choir, and on each hand a rather dark aisle of much smaller dimensions.

The _trascoro_ is the only peculiarity possessed by this church. It is large and circular, closed by an immense vaulting which turns it into a chapel separated from the rest of the church (compare with the Church of the Pillar of Saragosse).

True to the grotesque style to which it belongs, the whole surface of walls and vault is covered with paintings, the former apparently in oil, the latter frescoes. Vixes painted them in the theatrical style of the eighteenth century.

From the outside, the regular features of the church please the eye in spite of the evident signs of artistic decadence. The two towers, high and slender, are among the best produced by the period of decadence in Spain which followed upon Herrero's severe style, if only the uppermost body lacked the circular linterna which makes the spire top-heavy.

Between the two towers, which, when seen from a distance, gain in beauty and lend to the city a noble and picturesque aspect, the facade, properly speaking, reaches to their second body. It is a hollow, crowned by half a dome in the shape of a shell which in its turn is surmounted by a plateresque cornice in the shape of a long and narrow scroll.

The hollow is a peculiar and daring medley of architectural elegance and sculptural bizarrerie and vice versa. From Madrazo it drew the exclamation that, since he had seen it, he was convinced that not all monuments belonging to the grotesque style were devoid of beauty.

The date of the erection of the western front is doubtless the same as that of the _trascoro_; both are contemporaneous--the author is inclined to believe--with the erection of the Pillar in Saragosse; at least, they resemble each other in certain unmistakable details.

_Calahorra._--The fourth of the cathedral churches of Upper Rioja is that of Calahorra. After the repopulation of the town by Alfonso VI. of Castile in the eleventh century, the bodies of the two martyr saints Emeterio and Celedonio were pulled up out of a well (to be seen to-day in the cloister) where they had been hidden by the Christians, when the Moors conquered the fortress, and a church was built near the same spot. Of this eleventh-century church nothing remains to-day.

In the twelfth century, a new building was begun, but the process of construction continued slowly, and it was not until two hundred years later that the apse was finally finished. The body of the church, from the western front (this latter hideously modern and uninteresting) to the transept, is the oldest part,--simple Gothic of the thirteenth century.

The numerous chapels which form a ring around the church have all been decorated in the grotesque style of the eighteenth century, and with their lively colours, their polychrome statues, and overdone ornamentation, they offer but little interest to the visitor. The _retablo_ of the high altar is one of the largest to be seen anywhere; but the Renaissance elegance of the lower body is completely drowned by the grotesque decoration of the upper half, which was constructed at a later date.

The choir stalls are fine specimens of that style in which the artist preferred an intricate composition to simple beauty. Biblical scenes, surrounded and separated by allegorical personages and symbolical lines in great profusion, show the carver's talent rather than his artistic genius.

IX

SORIA

The Duero River, upon leaving its source at the foot of the Pico de Urbion (near Vinuesa), flows eastward for about fifty miles, then southward for another fifty miles, when it turns abruptly westward on its lengthy journey across the Iberian peninsula.

The circular region, limited on three sides by the river's course, is the historical field of Soria--part of the province of the same name, Numantia, Rome's great enemy and almost the cause of her ruin, lay somewhere in this part of the country, though where is not exactly known, as the great Scipio took care to destroy it so thoroughly that not even a stone remains to-day to indicate where the heroic fortress stood.

In the present day, two cities and two cathedrals are seated on the banks of the Duero within this circle; the one is Soria, the other Osma. The latter was a Roman town, an early episcopal see, and later an Arab fortress; the former was founded by one of the Alfonsos toward the end of the eleventh century, as a frontier fortress against Aragon to the east, the Moors to the south, and Navarra to the north.

The town grew apace, thanks to the remarkable _fueros_ granted to the citizens, who lived as in a republic of their own making--an almost unique case of self-government to be recorded in the middle ages.

The principal parish church was raised to a suffragan of Osma in the twelfth century. Since then, there has been a continual spirit of rivalry between the two cities, for the former, more important as a town and as the capital of a province, could not bend its head to the ecclesiastical authority of a village like Osma. Throughout the middle ages the jealousy between the two was food for incessant strife. Pope Clement IV., at Alfonso VIII.'s instigation, raised the Collegiate at Soria to an episcopal see independent of Osma, but the hard-headed chapter of the last named city refused to acknowledge the Pope's order, and no bishop was elected or appointed.

This bitter hatred between the two rivals was the origin of many an amusing incident. Upon one occasion the Bishop of Osma, visiting his suffragan church in Soria, had the house in which he was stopping for the night burnt about his ears. He moved off to another house, and on the second night this was also mysteriously set on fire. His lordship did not await the third night, afraid of what might happen, but bolted back to his episcopal palace at Osma.

In 1520 the chapter of the Collegiate in Soria sent a petition to the country's sovereign asking him to order the erection of a new church in place of the old twelfth-century building, and in another part of the town. The request was not granted, however, so what did the wily chapter do? It ordered an architect to construct a chapel in the very centre of the church, and when it was completed, admired the work with great enthusiasm, excepting only the pillar in front of it which obstructed the uninterrupted view. This pillar was the real support of the church, and though the chapter was told as much (as though it did not know it!) the architect was ordered to pull it down. After hesitating to do so, the latter acceded: the pillar was pulled down, and with it the whole church tumbled down as well! But the chapter's game was discovered, and it was obliged to rebuild the cathedral on the same spot and with the same materials.

Consequently, the church at Soria is a sixteenth-century building of little or no merit, excepting the western front, which is the only part of the old building that did not fall down, and is a fine specimen of Castilian Romanesque, as well as the cloister, one of the handsomest, besides being one of the few twelfth-century cloisters in Spain, with a double row of slender columns supporting the round-headed arches. This modification of the conventional type lends an aspect of peculiar lightness to the otherwise heavy Romanesque.

As regards the settlement of the strife between Soria and Osma, the see is to-day a double one, like that of Madrid and Alcala. Upon the death of the present bishop, however, it will be transported definitely to Soria, and consequently the inhabitants of the last named city will at last be able to give thanks for the great mercies Allah or the True God has bestowed upon them.

_Osma._--From an historical and architectural point of view, Osma, the rival city on the Duero River, is much more important than Soria.

According to the tradition, St. James preached the Holy Gospel, and after him St. Peter (or St. Paul?), who left his disciple St. Astorgio behind as bishop (91 A. D.). Twenty-two bishops succeeded him, the twenty-third on the list being John I., really the first of whose existence we have any positive proof, for he signed the third council in Toledo in the sixth century. In the eighth century, the Saracens drove the shepherd of the Christian flock northward to Asturias, and it was not until 1100 that the first bishop _de modernis_ was appointed by Archbishop Bernardo of Toledo. The latter's choice fell on Peter, a virtuous French monastic monk, who was canonized by the Pope after his death, and figures in the calendar as St. Peter of Osma.

When the first bishop took possession of his see, he started to build his cathedral. Instead of choosing Osma itself as the seat, however, he selected the site of a convent on the opposite banks of the Duero (to the north), where the Virgin had appeared to a shepherd. Houses soon grew up around the temple and, to distinguish it from Osma, the new city was called Burgo de Osma, a name it still retains.

In 1232, not a hundred years after the erection of the cathedral, it was totally destroyed, excepting one or two chapels still to be seen in the cloister, by Juan Dominguez, who was bishop at the time, and who wished to possess a see more important in appearance than that left to him by his predecessor, St. Peter.

The building as it stands to-day is small, but highly interesting. The original plan was that of a Romanesque basilica with a three-lobed apse, but in 1781 the ambulatory walk behind the altar joined the two lateral aisles.

Two of the best pieces of sculptural work in the cathedral are the _retablo_ of the high altar, and the relief imbedded in the wall of the _trascoro_--both of them carved in wood by Juan de Juni, one of the best Castilian sculptors of the sixteenth century. The plastic beauty of the figures and their lifelike postures harmonize well with the simple Renaissance columns ornamented here and there with finely wrought flowers and garlands.

The chapel where St. Peter of Osma's body lies is an original rather than a beautiful annex of the church. For, given the small dimensions of the cathedral, it was difficult to find sufficient room for the chapels, sacristy, vestuary, etc. In the case of the above chapel, therefore, it was necessary to build it above the vestuary; it is reached by a flight of stairs, beneath which two three-lobed arches lead to the sombre room below. The result is highly original.

The same remarks as regard lack of space can be made when speaking about the principal entrance. Previously the portal had been situated in the western front; the erection of the tower on one side, and of a chapel on the other, had rendered this entrance insignificant and half blinded by the prominent tower. So a new one had to be erected, considered by many art critics to be a beautiful addition to the cathedral properly speaking, but which strikes the author as excessively ugly, especially the upper half, with its balcony, and a hollow arch above it, in the shadows of which the rose window loses both its artistic and its useful object. So, being round, it is placed within a semicircular sort of _avant-porche_ or recess, the strong _contours_ of which deform the immense circle of the window.

To conclude: in the cathedral of Osma, bad architecture is only too evident. The tower is perhaps the most elegant part, and yet the second body, which was to give it a gradually sloping elegance, was omitted, and the third placed directly upon the first. This is no improvement.

Perhaps the real reason for these architectural mishaps is not so much the fault of the architects and artists as that of the chapter, and of the flock which could not help satisfactorily toward the erection of a worthy cathedral. Luckily, however, there are other cathedrals in Spain, where, in spite of reduced funds, a decent and homogeneous building was erected.

The cloister, bare on the inner side, is nevertheless a modest Gothic structure with acceptable lobulated ogival windows.

_PART IV_

_Western Castile_

I

PALENCIA

The history of Palencia can be divided into two distinct parts, separated from each other by a lapse of about five hundred years, during which the city was entirely blotted out from the map of Spain.

The first period reaches from before the Roman Conquest to the Visigothic domination.

Originally inhabited by the Vacceos, a Celtiberian tribe, it was one of the last fortresses to succumb to Roman arms, having joined Numantia in the terrible war waged by Spaniards and which has become both legendary and universal.

Under Roman rule the broad belt of land, of which Palencia, a military town on the road from Astorga to Tarragon, was the capital, flourished as it had never done before. Consequently it is but natural that one of the first sees should have been established there as soon as Christianity invaded the peninsula. No records are, however, at hand as regards the names of the first bishops and of the martyr saints, as thick here as elsewhere and as numerous in Spain as in Rome itself. At any rate, contemporary documents mention a Bishop Toribio, not the first to occupy the see nor the same prelate who worked miracles in Orense and Astorga. The Palencian Toribio fought also against the Priscilian heresy, and was one of the impediments which stopped its spread further southward. Of this man it is said that, disgusted with the heresy practised at large in his Pallantia, he mounted on a hill, and, stretching his arms heavenwards, caused the waters of the river to leave their bed and inundate the city, a most efficacious means of bringing loitering sheep to the fold.

Nowhere did the Visigoths wreak greater vengeance or harm on the Iberians who had hindered their entry into the peninsula than in Palencia. It was entirely wrecked and ruined, not one stone remaining to tell the tale of the city that had been. Slowly it emerged from the wreck, a village rather than a town; once in awhile its bishops are mentioned, living rather in Toledo than in their humble see.

The Arab invasion devastated a second time the growing town; perhaps it was Alfonso I. himself who completely wrecked it, for the Moorish frontier was to the north of the city, and it was the sovereign's tactics to raze to the ground all cities he could not keep, when he made a risky incursion into hostile country.

So Palencia was forgotten until the eleventh century, when Sancho el Mayor, King of Navarra, who had conquered this part of Castile, reestablished the long-ignored see. He was hunting among the weeds that covered the ruins of what had once been a Roman fortress, when a boar sprang out of cover in front of him and escaped. Being light of foot, the king followed the animal until it disappeared in a cave, or what appeared to be such, though it really was a subterranean chapel dedicated to the martyrs, or to the patron saint of old Pallantia, namely, San Antolin.

The hunted beast cowered down in front of the altar; the king lifted his arm to spear it, when lo, his arm was detained in mid-air by an invisible hand! Immediately the monarch prostrated himself before the miraculous effigy of the saint; he acknowledged his sacrilegious sin, and prayed for forgiveness; the boar escaped, the monarch's arm fell to his side, and a few days later the see was reestablished, a church was erected above the subterranean chapel, and Bernardo was appointed the first bishop (1035). After Sancho's death, his son Ferdinand, who, as we have seen, managed to unite for the first time all Northern Spain beneath his sceptre, made it a point of honour to favour the see his father had erected a few months before his death, an example followed by all later monarchs until the times of Isabel the Catholic.

A surprising number of houses were soon built around the cathedral, and the city's future was most promising. Its bishops were among the noble-blooded of the land, and enjoyed such exceptional privileges as gave them power and wealth rarely equalled in the history of the middle ages. But then, the city had been built for the church and not the church for the city, and it is not to be marvelled at that the prelates bore the title of "_hecho un rey y un papa_"--king and pope. The greater part of these princes, it is true, lived at court rather than in their episcopal see, which is, perhaps, one of the reasons why Palencia failed to emulate with Burgos and Valladolid, though at one time it was the residence of some of the kings of Castile.

Moreover, being only second in importance to the two last named cities, Palencia was continually the seat of dissident noblemen and thwarted heirs to the throne; because these latter, being unable to conquer the capital, or Valladolid, invariably sought to establish themselves in Palencia, sometimes successfully, at others being obliged to retreat from the city walls. The story of the town is consequently one of the most adventurous and varied to be read in Spanish history, and it is due to the side it took in the rebellion against Charles-Quint, in the time of the Comuneros, that it was finally obliged to cede its place definitely to Valladolid, and lost its importance as one of the three cities of Castilla la Vieja.

It remains to be mentioned that Palencia was the seat of the first Spanish university (Christian, not Moorish), previous to either that of Salamanca or Alcala. In 1208 this educational institution was founded by Alfonso VIII.; professors were procured from Italy and France, and a building was erected beside the cathedral and under its protecting wing. It did not survive the monarch's death, however, for the reign of the latter's son left but little spare time for science and letters, and in 1248 it was closed, though twenty years later Pope Urbano IV. futilely endeavoured to reestablish it. According to a popular tradition, it owed its definite death to the inhabitants of the town, who, bent upon venging an outrage committed by one of the students upon a daughter of the city, fell upon them one night at a given signal and killed them to the last man.

In the fourteenth century, the cathedral, which had suffered enormously from sieges and from the hands of enemies, was entirely pulled down and a new one built on the same spot (June, 1321). The subterranean chapel, which had been the cause of the city's resurrection, was still the central attraction and relic of the cathedral, and, according to another legend, no less marvellous than that of Toribio, its genuineness has been placed definitely (?) without the pale of skeptic doubts. It appears that one Pedro, Bishop of Osma (St. Peter of Osma?), was praying before the effigy of San Antolin when the lights went out. The pious yet doubting prelate prayed to God to give him a proof of the relic's authenticity by lighting the candles. To his surprise (?) and glee, the candles lit by themselves!

* * * * *

Let us approach the city by rail. The train leaves Venta de Banos, a junction station with a village about two miles away possessing a seventh-century Visigothic church which offers the great peculiarity of horseshoe arches in its structure, dating from before the Arab invasion.

Immediately upon emerging from the station, the train enters an immense rolling plain of a ruddy, sandy appearance, with here and there an isolated sand-hill crowned by the forgotten ruins of a mediaeval castle.

The capital of this region is Palencia.

The erection of the cathedral church of the town was begun in 1321; it was dedicated to the Mother and Child, and to San Antolin, whose chapel, devoid of all artistic merit, is still to be seen beneath the choir.