VIGO AND TUY
Southey at Redondela--Sacked by the English--The most modern town
in Galicia--The finest climate in Spain--Submarine cables--Vigo’s
harbour--_Vicus Spacorum_--Bayona--Tuy--Early history--The
Miño--The International Bridge--Occupied by the French--Learned
bishops--The oldest cathedral in Galicia--A puzzling
inscription--Quaint sculpture--Santo Domingo--The Cathedral--Its
history--The portico--The interior--A rectangular apse--The
cloister--San Telmo--The Portuguese frontier--Passports--Education
in Portugal
The prettiest spot through which we passed on our railway journey from
Pontevedra to Vigo was Redondela, whose picturesque houses scattered
among the green hills and fringing the Ria de Vigo, with a tiny harbour
all to themselves, were a delight to the eye as we looked down upon them
from the train windows. Macaulay mentions Redondela, and alludes to the
fact that it was sacked by the English in 1715. Southey was charmed with
it when he passed through on his way from Coruña to Lisbon, and he took
the trouble to translate into English verse a long legend about one of
its ancient towers,[264] telling how a lover jumps into the sea in his
despairing frenzy. It was Southey, too, who wrote--
“Spain! still my mind delights to picture forth
Thy scenes that I shall see no more, for there
Most pleasant were my wanderings. Memory’s eye
Still loves to trace the gentle Miño’s course,
And catch its winding waters gleaming bright
Amid the broken distance.
... Galicia’s giant rocks
And mountains clustered with the fruitful pines,
Whose heads, dark foliaged when all else was dim,
Rose o’er the distant eminence distinct,
Cresting the evening sky.”
Redondela, once an important town, is now little more than a collection
of scattered villages, whose inhabitants are chiefly engaged in oyster
fishing. At high tide the waters of the Ria de Vigo come right into the
town by way of a little river that passes through it under a pretty
bridge, which separates Redondela from its neighbour, Villavieja. Out in
the blue waters of the Ria we could see the famous little Hospital of
San Simon floating like a shell upon the surface.
Our train hugged the shore of the Ria, winding and curving with the
water’s edge till we came into the station of Vigo. Vigo is the most
modern town in Galicia; it owes its rapid development to its
geographical situation and to its bay and harbour, famed for being among
the finest in the world. Some forty years ago Vigo was a tiny village,
known as Vigo de Cangas. Cangas, situated on the opposite bank of the
Ria, is still nothing but a village with a few scattered houses, and it
seems incredible that Vigo was, so short a time ago, one of its
dependent hamlets. Vigo is built upon the sloping side of a hill, from
the top of which mountains may be seen on every side except where the
Ria bounds it on the west. Between the various mountain peaks may be
seen fertile valleys of all shapes and sizes, and separated from one
another by mountain ridges covered with oaks and pines.
The climate of Vigo is reputed to be the finest in Spain; its soil
produces almost every kind of vegetable and fruit in the greatest
abundance, and much earlier than they can be grown in other parts of
Galicia. The principal industry of the town is fishing, in connection
with which there are numerous factories for salting and preserving fish.
Other industries are paper-making, the refining of petroleum, and
tanning. The building of fishing-boats also constitutes an important
industry.
Vigo is a port of the first rank; it has three submarine cables, and is
a naval station for the British fleets. There are some forty-five young
Englishmen employed at Vigo in connection with the cables laid by the
British Government. I am told that a number of them have become Roman
Catholics in order to be able to marry Spanish ladies. The English at
Vigo publish a newspaper in their native tongue for circulation amongst
themselves. At present Coruña can boast of having greater commercial
importance than Vigo, but from its more favourable situation Vigo is
bound in time to take the lead.
At the mouth of Vigo harbour, about ten (Spanish) miles from the
anchoring-ground, lie the group of islands known as the Cies, formerly
called Cecas, or Siccas. Humboldt once visited them, and it was he who
first suggested that they might possibly be the “fabulous” or long-lost
Cassiterides.[265]
The Ria de Vigo, whose waters are part of the Atlantic Ocean, forms, as
we have seen, one of the finest and safest harbours in the world; many
consider it the best in Europe. The depth of the Ria varies from 90 to
150 feet; it is sheltered from all winds, and so large that the fleets
of many nations could anchor there at one and the same time.
Several of the streets of Vigo are lined with handsome blocks of white
granite buildings, after the style of those in Berlin, but handsomer,
because those of Berlin are only stucco. There are no ancient churches
or other sights of archæological interest to be seen at Vigo, and the
chief business of the traveller--after he has looked down upon the
valley where the French army capitulated on March 28, 1809--is to take
the beautiful drive along the shore of the Ria to Bayona, where there is
an old church, the _Colegiata de Santa Maria_, which once belonged to
the Knights Templars, and an interesting old Franciscan convent dating
from the eleventh century.
It is thought that Vigo stands upon the ancient site of _Vicus
Spacorum_, but whether this supposition be correct or not, it is an
accepted fact that Bayona is a far more ancient settlement. Molina wrote
that Bayona was formerly called _Voyana_, from the fact of its having
the figure of an ox on its coat of arms. There is also a legend that a
Roman prefect named Catilius Severus retired thither after his power had
been taken from him. Pliny thought the ancient name of Bayona was
_Abobrica_, and Vosius speaks of it as _Lambriaca_.
From Vigo we went by train to Tuy. Tuy is a mediæval, walled city rising
in the midst of a fertile valley through which the river Miño flows,
dividing the two kingdoms of Portugal and Spain. The old walls have
almost disappeared, and the houses of Tuy now spread far beyond them,
making altogether a population of some five thousand three hundred
inhabitants. At the top of the conical hill which the city covers,
stands the Cathedral, looking more like a castle than a church, with its
castellated walls and its fortress towers.
Tuy is said to have been founded by Greek colonists, and to have derived
its name from Tyde, _i.e._ Diomedes, king of Ætolea (not of Thrace),
whose parents were Tydea and Delphyla.[266] Morales thought he
recognised as part of a Greek pillar a piece of stone fifteen feet in
diameter which he discovered in a garden at Tuy. The same writer also
alludes to the wrestling matches still kept up by the inhabitants of
this town. He remarks that they wrestled in his day with such violence,
and squeezed each other so violently in the contest, that their very
lives were in jeopardy.
When the Romans took possession of Tuy, they moved the town from the
hill to the valley, thinking that once on lower ground it would require
less supervision. It was King Ferdinand II. who brought the town back to
its original hill and made it a walled city.
The river Miño brings Tuy a rich supply of fish, amongst which are fine
salmon, lampreys, and trout. The vines of Tuy make a better wine than
those of Ribadavia, and every kind of fruit grows in its fertile valley.
From the north-west there flows into the Miño, close to the town, a
little river the sands of which contain gold, and for this reason it has
received the name of Ouro. Opposite to the Ouro another river joins the
Miño; this is called Molinos, because of its many flour-mills. The land
in this neighbourhood fetches a very high price, on account of its
remarkable fertility. The soil is sandy, and every hillock is fringed
with pine trees.
The railway station of Tuy is on the line that runs from Orense to Vigo,
and the town itself is nearly two miles from the station. By a branch
line across the Miño the Gallegan railway is connected with that of
Northern Portugal. The junction is effected by means of a very fine
international bridge over the river, which is known as the _Puente
Internacional_. On the southern bank of the Miño there rises another
hill city confronting Tuy, the Portuguese fortress of Valença.
Although the antiquity of Tuy is traced back to the days of Troy and
Diomedes, and although we know that the Romans struggled desperately
before they could master it, there is very little mention of Tuy in the
history of their times. In the days of the Goths, King Witiza is said to
have established himself there and to have raised the town to a position
of great opulence. During the Middle Ages, after it had been attacked
both by Moors and Norman pirates, Doña Teresa, a natural daughter of
Alfonso VI., who was mistress of Portugal in 1220, claimed Tuy as part
of her dowry; but her sister, Doña Urraca, appeared on the spot with a
powerful army and forced her to evacuate it and retire across the Miño.
From that time on throughout the Middle Ages, the two cities of Tuy and
Valença scowled at one another across the water--the sentinels of two
clashing powers. Later on, during the War of Independence, French troops
occupied the citadel of Tuy, and the town was blockaded by the Spaniards
in 1809. The French General Martinière made a successful sally, and the
Spanish forces were driven back at first; but on April 16, 1809, the
French were forced to evacuate the fortress.
Tuy was one of the seven provinces into which the ancient kingdom of
Galicia was divided. In 1833, when a new division of Spanish territory
took place, Tuy became part of the province of Pontevedra. As a diocese
Tuy is now a suffragan of the Archbishopric of Santiago.
Molina (writing in the sixteenth century) stated that “Tuy has always
been famous for the erudition of its bishops.” There was a grand council
of bishops held in the Cathedral of San Bartolomé at Tuy in the days of
Archbishop Gelmirez, about 1122.[267] Whether the existing church of San
Bartolomé is the actual one in which that council was held, is not
known, but at any rate we know that this edifice is the oldest church in
Tuy, and, what is more, it is the oldest cathedral in the whole of
Galicia. The present Cathedral of Tuy, dedicated to the Virgin Mary,
crowns the summit of the mediæval citadel; but San Bartolomé is situated
lower down in the plain, and dates from the time when Tuy was in the
valley. San Bartolomé has three naves, each of the two lateral ones
being separated from the central nave by four rectangular piers
supporting vaulted arches. At the end of each nave is a chapel. The apse
chapels are covered with half-barrel vaulting. The ornamentation is very
plain, and shows, in the opinion of Casanova, distinct traces of
Oriental and Norman influence. The bases of the columns are decorated
with deep semicircular concave mouldings and plinths resting upon the
feet of monsters. The capitals are sculptured with classic leaves
interwoven with living forms, human and grotesque, with birds and
animals, singly and in groups. Above the abacus there is in many parts
the ornamentation known as the chess pattern, and here and there on the
imposts we find the billet ornament, or moulding in notches, of which we
have a specimen in Lincoln Cathedral. Villa-Amil considers the
chess-pattern ornamentation in this church to be one of the most
definite signs of its antiquity, and at the same time he points out the
close resemblance in form, dimensions, and ornamentation which this
edifice bears to the Cathedral of Mondoñedo, which dates from the
eleventh century.
This church has on the exterior of its northern wall an inscription
which has been the occasion of much controversy among archæologists and
epigraphists. No one has been able to decipher it, but Señor Manuel Lago
of Lugo has suggested that the characters may be Oriental, and written,
like Chinese, from right to left.
Here are drawings showing the sculpture of some of the capitals, for
which I am indebted to Señor Villa-Amil. On one capital is depicted a
dinner party. Three of the guests are standing with their hands upon the
table as if about to begin the repast: one of them is a woman. On the
table may be seen a large dish, in front of the woman, and a smaller one
in front of each of the men: a knife with a wooden or bone handle is
also distinctly visible beside one of the plates. A soldier, or
sentinel, stands to the right of the table, and confronting a man in the
garb of a monk who appears to have just arrived upon the scene, lays the
blade of his sword upon the newcomer’s shoulder in a most threatening
manner, as if to warn him that he interrupts the banquet at his peril.
The whole grouping of this piece of sculpture is most dramatic and
lifelike. The work probably dates from the tenth century, if not farther
back still. Visitors who wish to see the most interesting capitals must
hunt for them, often in the darkest corners, and with the aid of a
candle.
In the sacristy there has lately been discovered some old columns which
date from the ninth century, and here too the sculpture on the capitals
is very curious.
Another church worth examination is that of Santo Domingo. This building
was consecrated by Bishop Sarmiento in 1534,[268] but the Gothic
vaulting was only completed in 1730. A large part of the expense of its
completion was borne by the Sotomayor family, two of whom became bishops
of Tuy. The church is in the form of a Latin cross with very short arms,
and only one wide nave terminating with a hectagonal apse and two small
circular chapels to right and left. The Pointed Gothic arches of the
nave rest upon Græco-Roman pillars supported by exterior buttresses. The
central arch leading to the apse is also Pointed Gothic, and rests upon
Gothic pillars. The vaulting of the transept is cylindrical, but the
rest of the vaulting is Gothic.[269] The Gothic apse, which reminds us
strongly of that of Santo Domingo at Pontevedra, was formerly lighted by
three long and narrow lancet windows, and the smaller apses had each two
such windows, but the bad taste of the eighteenth century led to their
being all bricked in, in order that a hideous reredos might be placed
behind the altar. There are two entrances to this church, the chief one
at the end of the nave, and another, called the Door of the Rosary, at
the end of the south arm of the transept. This last is pure Romanesque,
and possibly the oldest part of the edifice; it has an archivolt
composed of two pointed arches which rest upon two pairs of shafts. The
capitals are curiously sculptured: on one I could distinguish faces of
angels and long-necked swans, on another was a monkey with a long tail
twisted round some small object. On the tympanum, within a border of
horseshoe arches, there is a very old group representing the Adoration
of the Magi, the figures of which have been sadly mutilated. Enclosing
the tympanum is an arch decorated with various images of a symbolic
nature. The Eternal Father is represented by a hand stretched out from
clouds in the act of benediction.
We now come to the Cathedral, which is the principal object of interest
in Tuy. King Ferdinand of Leon conquered Tuy and took it from Alfonso of
Portugal in 1170, and as he made a handsome donation in 1180 to its
bishop for the building of a Cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it
is thought that this was the date at which the foundations were
laid.[270] The Cathedral was consecrated in 1124, and at the same time
opened for public worship. The original plan of the building was in the
form of a Latin cross with very short arms, and with three naves in the
transept as well as in the body of the church.
The western façade is very fine, but the episcopal palace which has been
built to the right of the portico detracts greatly from the beauty of
its perspective. The chief façade, with its high flight of steps and its
two massive and castellated towers, has an exterior portico, also
castellated and supported on four pillars. This is the only portico of
its kind in Galicia, for those of Santiago and Orense are interior
porticos, and that of Lugo is merely an additional piece built into the
original Romanesque doorway. The interior of the Tuy portico is square
and covered with Gothic vaulting. The entrance door is flanked on either
side by four columns and as many statues: each statue stands upon the
back of some animal, except one, which rests upon the shoulders of a
man;
[Illustration: BELL-TOWER OF THE CATHEDRAL. LOWER PART ROMANESQUE, TUY]
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, TUY.]
three have their feet upon monkeys; between each pair of statues there
is also a column. This class of decoration is anterior to the use of
niches; it is also to be seen in the northern portico of Chartres.[271]
The decoration of the lintel is divided into three subjects, the central
relief representing the death of the Virgin. The tympanum is covered
with a sculptured group representing the Adoration of the Magi.
As we enter the building we are struck with its beautiful and airy
proportions; above the side naves are galleries covered with arches
quite separate from, and below, the Gothic vaulting. Graceful arcades
decorate the whole interior, but unfortunately the view is spoiled by
modern brick walls and pillars added towards the end of the eighteenth
century. The choir, too, is in the centre of the chief nave--a mistake,
unfortunately, so common in Spain, and, as I have before had occasion to
observe, quite spoils the perspective; this choir was constructed in
1700 at the expense of Bishop Gomez de la Torre. The capitals on which
the arches of the nave rest are finely sculptured, but many of them are
too high up to be examined without a visit to the galleries--which,
however, is quite worth while, for it is from the galleries that the
finest view of the elegant triforium, of French design, can be obtained.
But the great feature of this edifice is the fact that it is a fortified
cathedral, and is at one and the same time a monument of war as well as
of religion; its granite towers with their castellated parapets and
loopholes dominate not only the city, but the country round, for miles.
I went up to the top parapet, and found that the walls of the tower were
a yard thick. From the parapet I looked down upon the old Cathedral
Church of San Bartolomé in the plain below, and upon Santo Domingo,
which lay between. The bell in the clock tower was cracked by lightning
in December 1793. The clock tower is older than any other part of the
Cathedral. It was once a royal tower, and was given by the Emperor
Alonso VII.
In the Sala Capitula we saw many interesting parchments with curious
seals, dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries; these were only
discovered by accident in February 1907 by the _Archivero_ José Martinez
Novas; many of these were the deeds by which the various kings conferred
their donations upon the Cathedral, and most of them had seals of lead
or wax. Here we were shown a number of Papal Bulls--one of Paul II.,
others of Eugenius IV., Leo X., Julius VI., and Benedict XIV.
respectively. Many of the parchments shown us were of the second half of
the tenth century. These newly discovered trophies must have been
hidden away by the priests at the time of the French invasion. The lower
part of the old tower is now covered by fifteenth-century work, but the
Romanesque arch of one of its upper doorways is still visible in the
wall.
This Cathedral is the only church of any importance in the whole of
Galicia which has a rectangular apse, the usual forms being semicircular
or polygonal. In England the practice of making the east end of churches
square began early in the Norman period; we have them, for instance, in
Winchester and Salisbury, but they were rare in France and Spain until
towards the close of the Gothic period. The only example I know of in
Galicia is that of the _Colegiata_ at Bayona.
In its general form and structure of the naves and transept the
Cathedral of Tuy bears rather a close resemblance to that of Santiago de
Compostela. But the cylindrical vaulting of the nave and transept is
quite Latino-Romanesque, without any indication of Byzantine influence.
The ribbed ornamentation of the vaulting is somewhat after the style of
the German Gothic, in the opinion of Señor Casanova, and the triforium
as seen from the pavement of the central nave is not unlike those of the
churches of Southern France.
The Cathedral cloister has some very old arcades with sculptured
capitals, but the upper storey is modern and in bad taste. Behind the
Cathedral is the _Capilla de la Misericordia_, one of the oldest in Tuy;
it is built upon the solid rock. Close by is a little modern chapel
dedicated to San Telmo, the patron saint of Spanish fishermen, whose
birthplace was Tuy. The great naval school at Seville is dedicated to
this saint, who, according to tradition, has been known to appear to
sailors in distress in the form of a bright light and lead them safely
to a haven.[272] One of the Cathedral chapels is also dedicated to San
Telmo, and was built in 1577 by Bishop Diego de Torquemada.
The principal drive in the neighbourhood of Tuy is to the Portuguese
frontier town of Valença, on the opposite side of the Miño. We started
at 2 p.m., on a fine afternoon in the end of April, and enjoyed crossing
the handsome bridge which joins Portugal to Spain above the blue waters
of the largest river in Galicia. Portuguese sentinels in blue uniform
greeted us on the farther bank, and questioned us in the language of
their country as to our object, but they did not ask for passports. At
the post office in Valença we posted Portuguese post-cards to various
friends in memory of our afternoon visit
[Illustration: PORCH OF TUY CATHEDRAL]
to Portugal, and while we were writing them a group of
respectably-dressed boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen gathered
round us and watched us as we wrote. On my laughingly remonstrating with
the postmaster, he replied, “You need not mind the boys; not one of them
knows how to read.” So much for education in Portugal in the twentieth
century!