cathedrals we find the one in charge called "Maestro,"--or _magister
operis_, _magister ecclesiae_, _magister fabricae_, but not till
the sixteenth century does the appellation "arquitecto" appear.
His pay seems to have varied, both in amount and in form of
emolument,--sometimes it was good hard cash, often a very poor or
dubious remuneration, handed out consequently with a more lavish hand;
sometimes grants, and again royal favor. Generally the architect entered
into a stipulated agreement with the Cathedral Chapter, both as to his
time and services, before he began his work. We find Master Jusquin
(1450-69) receiving from the Chapter of Leon not only a daily salary but
also annual donations of bushels of wheat, pairs of gloves, lodgings,
poultry, other supplies, and the use of certain workmen.
Leon's unquestionable French parentage is, if possible, even more
obvious in the interior than in the exterior. The piers between nave and
side aisles are cylindrical in plan, having in their lowest section on
their front surface three columns grouped together that continue
straight up through triforium and clerestory and carry the transverse
and diagonal ribs of the nave. They have further one column on each side
of the axis east and west and, strange to say, only one toward the side
aisles, which thus lack continuous supports for their diagonal ribs. The
outer walls of the side aisles are formed by a blind arcade of five
arches, surmounted by a projecting balcony or corridor and a clerestory
subdivided by its tracery into four arches and three cusped circles. The
nave triforium consists of a double arcade with a gallery running
between (one of the very rare examples in Spain). Each bay has in the
triforium four open and two closed arches, surmounted by two
quatrefoils. The clerestory rises above, divided by marvelously slender
shafts into six compartments and three cusped circles in the apex of the
arch. Here shine, in dazzling raiment and with ecstatic expressions, the
saints and martyrs ordered in the fifteenth century from Burgos for the
sum of 20,000 maravedis.
Throughout all the glazed wall surfaces we find evidence of the anxiety
that overtook their reckless projectors. All but the upper cusps of the
windows of the side aisles have been filled in by masonry, painted with
saints and evangelists in place of the translucent ones originally
placed here. The lower portions of the triforium lights have been
blocked up and also the two outer arches of the clerestory. The light,
clustered piers and slender, double flying buttresses could not
accomplish the gigantic task of supporting the great height above. Nor
could the ingenious strengthening of the stone walls (consisting of
ashlar inside and out, facing intermediate rubble) by iron clamps supply
the requisite firmness.
It seems doubly unfortunate that the choir stalls should occupy the
position they do here, when there is such liberal space in the three
bays east of the crossing in front of the altar. The stone of their
exterior backing is cold and gray beside the ochre warmth of the
surrounding piers. The classic Plateresque statues and bas-reliefs, as
well as the exquisitely carved, Florentine decoration, seems strangely
out of place under the Gothic loveliness above. The trascoro itself is
warmer in color, but of the extravagant later period. Its pilasters,
spandrels, and band-courses are filled with elaborate and fine
Florentine ornamentation, while the niches themselves, with high reliefs
representing the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Adoration of the
Magi, are not quite free from a certain Gothic feeling. Above, great
statues of Church Fathers weigh heavily on the delicate work and smaller
scale below.
The carving of the double tier of walnut choir stalls is at once
restrained and rich. Beautiful Gothic tracery surmounts in both tiers
the figures that fill the panels above the seats. Below are characters
from the Old Testament,--Daniel, Jeremiah, Abel, David busily playing
his harp, Joshua "Dux Isri," Moses with splendid big horns and tablets,
Tobias with his little fish slit up the belly. Above stand firmly
full-length figures of the Apostles and saints. With the exception of
some of the work near the entrance, which is practically Renaissance in
feeling, all this carving is late Gothic from the last part of the
fifteenth century and executed by the masters Fadrique, John of Malines,
and Rodrigo Aleman. Two of the stalls, more elevated and pronounced than
the rest, are for the hereditary canons of the Cathedral, the King of
Leon and the Marquis of Astorga. Excellent as they are, these stalls are
not nearly so rich in design nor beautiful in execution as the Italian
Renaissance choir stalls, in the Convent of San Marcos directly outside
the city walls, carved some decades later by the Magister Guillielmo
Dosel.
The crossing is splendidly broad, the transepts appearing, as one
glances north and south, as much the main arms of the cross as do the
nave and choir. The southern arm is quite new, having been completely
rebuilt by D. Juan Madrazo and D. Demetrio Amador de los Rios. The
glazing of its window and the arabesques cannot be compared to those of
the original fabric in the northern arm. The four piers of the crossing,
though slender and graceful, carry full, logical complements of shafts
for the support of the various vaulting ribs, intersecting at their
apexes.
The retablo above the high altar is in its simplicity as refreshing as
the light and sunniness of the church. In place of the customary gaudy
carving, it merely consists of a series of painted fifteenth-century
tablets set in Gothic frames. Simple rejas close the western bays and a
florid Gothic trasaltar, the eastern termination. Directly back of the
altar lies a noble and dignified figure, the founder of the church, King
Ordoño II. At his feet is a little dog, looking for all the world like
a sucking pig in a butcher's window. And above him is an ancient and
most curious Byzantine relief of the Crucifixion. The lions and castles
of his kingdom surround the old king. The greater portion of the carving
must belong to the oldest in the church.
In looking at the vaulting and considering the difficulty of planning
the "girola" or ambulatory, one realizes that such construction could
only be the outcome of many years of study, experiment and inspiration.
Perfection means long previous schooling and experience. The apsidal
chapels that radiate from it have glass differing in excellence. Here
and there frescoes of the thirteenth century line these earliest walls.
It is surprising in how many different places old sepulchres are to be
found, all more or less similar in their general design and belonging to
the period of transition from the Byzantine to the Gothic, yet each
denoting the building period of the place where it stands. Some of the
subjects of the carving are most curious: a hog playing the bagpipes,
the devil in the garb of a father confessor, tempting a penitent; or
again, a woman suckling an ass. Saint Froila lies on one side of the
altar. Not only his sanctity but even his authenticity were disputed by
various disbelievers in the city, prior to his being brought to this
final resting-place. The matter was decided by placing the body in
question on an ass's back, whereupon the sagacious animal took his holy
burden to the spot where it deserved burial.
In the Capilla de Nuestra Señora del Dado, or "of the die," stands a
Virgin with the face of the Christ child ever bleeding, it is said,
since the time when an unlucky gambler in a fit of despair threw his
dice against the Babe.
Directly opposite Ordoño's tomb lies the Countess Sancha, who, in a
burst of religious enthusiasm, decided to leave her considerable worldly
goods to the Church instead of to her nephew. This was more than he
could stand, and he murdered her. Below her figure he is represented,
receiving his just reward in being torn to pieces by wild horses.
To the north, a florid Gothic portal leads on a higher level to the
Chapel of Santiago. This has been, and is still being, restored. Its
three vaults are differently arched, the ribs not being carried down
against the side walls to the floor, but met by broad corbels supported
by curious figures. The stonework is cold and gray in comparison to the
church proper.
Separating the northern entrance from the cloisters is a row of chapels,
leading one into the other and crowded with tombs and sculpture. There
are few more complete cloisters in Spain. Large and elaborate, they are
a curious mixture of the old Gothic and the Renaissance restorations of
the sixteenth century. Ancient Gothic tombs, their archivolts crowded
with angels, pierce the interior walls, while the vaults themselves are
most elaborately groined, the arches and vaulting being later filled
with Renaissance bosses and rosettes. In the sunny courtyard are piled
up the Renaissance turrets and sculptures that once usurped on the
façades the places of the older Gothic ornamentation. The northern
portal itself is practically hidden by the chapels and cloisters. It is
fine Gothic work. A Virgin and Child form a mullion in its centre, while
very worldly-looking women parade in its archivolts. Everywhere are the
arms of the United Kingdoms. A great portion of the ancient tapestry
blue and Veronese red coloring is still preserved, throwing out the old
Gothic figures in their true tints.
This aerial tabernacle, so rich and yet so simple, lies in the heart of
a city so fabulously old that the Cathedral itself belongs rather to its
later days. The old houses and streets have a dryness and close smell
like that in the ancient sepulchres of parched countries. Monuments and
walls and turrets of Rome crumble around the houses and vaults of
Byzantium. The naïve frescoes and carvings of the eighth and ninth
centuries seem to look down with childlike wonder and amazement on the
pedestrians now crowding the patterned pavements, or pressing against
the shady sides of the time-worn arches.
The worshipers who tread the narrow lanes leading to and from the altar
have changed, but little else. The square, mediæval castles with their
angular towers still command the approach of the main thoroughfares. The
crabbed old watchman with lantern and stick under his cape treads his
doddering gait across the courtyards through the night hours, crying
after the peal of the bell above, "Las doce han dado y sereno," "Las
trece han dado y aleviendo," "Las quince han dado y nublano," just as in
the middle ages, so that the good peasant may know time and weather and
merely turn in his bed, if neither crops nor creatures need care.
Santa Maria de Regla too stands to-day as she stood in the middle ages,
a monument to the care and affection of her children. She has the same
spirituality, harmony of proportions, slenderness, and purity of lines,
and she looks down and blesses us to-day with the same serenity and
queenly grace which she wore in the fourteenth century. She is the
finest Gothic cathedral in Spain.
V
TOLEDO
[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
CATHEDRAL OF TOLEDO]
I withdrew at once with the Morisco into the cloisters of the
Cathedral.--_Don Quixote._
I
The peace of death is over Toledo, unbroken by any invasion of modern
thought or new architecture since her last deep sighs mingled with the
distant echoes of the middle ages. But she still wears the mantle of her
imperial glory. She sleeps in the fierce, beating sunlight of the
twentieth century like the enchanted princess of fairy tales,
undisturbed by, and unconscious of, the world around her.
The atmosphere is transparent; the sky spreads from lapis-lazuli to a
cobalt field back of the snow-capped, turquoise Sierra de Gredo
mountains, while a clear streak of lemon color throws out the sharp
silhouette of the battlements and towers.
There is sadness and desolation in the decay, a pathetically forlorn and
tragical widowhood, strangely affecting to the senses.
A blackened ruin, lonely and forsaken,
Already wrapt in winding-sheets of sand;
So lies Toledo till the dead awaken,--
A royal spoil of Time's resistless hand.
Toledo! The name rings with history, romance and legend. Enthralling
images of the past rise before one and vanish like the ghosts of
Macbeth. Capital of Goth, of Moslem, and of Christian; mightiest of
hierarchical seats,[8] city of monarch and priest, she has worn a double
diadem. Gautier says, "Jamais reine antique, pas même Cléopatre, qui
buvait des perles, jamais courtisane Vénitienne du temps de Titien n'eut
un écrin plus étincelant, un trousseau plus riche que Notre Dame de
Tolède." But the flame of life which once burned warm and bright is now
extinct and all her glory has vanished. Neglected churches, convents,
palaces, and ruins lie huddled together, a stern and solemn vision of
the past, waiting with the silence of the tomb, broken only by the
continual tolling of her hoarse bells.
The city has a superb situation. Once seen, it is forever impressed upon
the memory. The hills on which it stands rise abruptly from the
surrounding campagna, which bakes brown and barren and crisp under the
scorching rays of the sun, and stretches away to the distant mountains,
vast and uninterrupted in its solitude and dreariness. It is "pobre de
solemnidad,"--solemnly poor, as runs the touching phrase in Spanish.
There is no joy and freshness of vegetation, no glistening of wet
leaves, no scent of flowers. You read thirst in the plains, hunger in
the soil-denuded hills. All is naked and bare, without a softening line
or gentler shadow, lying fallow in spring, unwatered in drought, and
ungarnered at harvest time.
The Tagus rushes round the city in the shape of a horseshoe, confining
and protecting it as the Wear does the towers of Durham. It boils and
eddies 'twixt its narrow, rocky confines, hurrying from the gloomy
shadows to the sunshine below, through which it slowly sweeps, murky and
coffee-colored, to the horizon, no life between its flat banks, no
commerce to mark it as a highway.
You pass over the high-arched Alcantara Bridge, which the Campeador and
his kinsman, Alvar Fanez, crossed with twelve hundred horsemen at their
back, to demand justice from their sovereign. A broad terrace crawls
like a serpent up the steep incline to the city gates. A forest of
soaring steeples rises above you, topped by the square bulk of the
Alcazar.
The city smells sleepy. The narrow streets, or rather alleys, of the
town wind tortuously around the stucco façades, with no apparent
starting-point or destination, as confused as a skein of worsted after a
kitten has played with it. Thus were they laid out by the wise Arabs, to
afford shade at all hours of the day. At every corner, one runs into
some detail of historical or artistic interest,--history and
architecture here wander hand in hand.
Huge, wooden doors, closely studded with scallop nails as big as a man's
fist, proud escutcheons of noble races lost to all save Spain's history;
charming glimpses of interior courtyards and gardens glittering fresh in
their emerald coloring, and sweet with the scent of orange blossoms;
Gothic crenelations, Renaissance ironwork and railing, and Moorish
capitals and ornamentation, all pell-mell, the styles of six centuries
often appearing in the same building. More than a hundred churches and
chapels and forty monasteries crumble side by side within the small
radius of the city. Half of its area was once covered by religious
buildings or mortmain property.
II
The church, be it a grand cathedral or the humble steeple of some little
hamlet, is always the connecting link between past and present. It has
been the highest artistic expression of the people, and it remains an
eloquent witness to continuity and tradition. It is what makes later
ages most forcibly "remember," for it seeks to embody and satisfy the
greatest need of the human heart.
The history of a great cathedral church of Spain is so closely connected
with the civil life of its city that one cannot be thoroughly studied
without some familiarity with the other. Spanish cathedrals differ in
this respect from their great English and French sisters. In England,
cathedrals were built and owned by the clergy, they belonged to the
priests, they were surrounded and hedged in from the outside world by
their extensive lawns and cloisters, refectories, chapter houses,
bishops' palaces, and numerous monastic buildings. They were shut off
from the rest of the world by high walls. In France, the cathedrals were
the centre of civic life; their organs were the heart-throbs of the
people; their bells were notes of warning. The very houses of the
artisans climbed up to their sides and nestled for protection between
the buttresses of the great Mother Church. Notre Dame d'Amiens, for
instance, was the church of a commune, what Walter Pater calls a
"people's church." They belonged to the people more than to the clergy.
They were a civil rather than an ecclesiastical growth, essentially the
layman's glory.
[Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF TOLEDO CATHEDRAL
A. Chapel of Saint Blase.
B. Chapel of the Parish of Saint Peter.
C. Octagon.
D. Chapel of the Virgin of the Sanctuary.
E. Large Sacristy.
F. Court of the Hall of Accounts.
G. Chapel of the New Kings.
H. Chapel of the Master of Santiago, D. Alvaro de Luna.
I. Chapel of Saint Ildefonso.
K. Chapter House.
L. Chapel of the Old Kings or of the Holy Cross.
M. Capilla Mayor.
N. Chapel of the Tower or of the Dean.
O. Mozarabic Chapel.
P. Choir.
Q. Portal of the Lions.
R. Portal of the Olive, or Gate of La Llana.
S. Portal of the Choir.
T. Portal of the Little Bread.
V. Portal of the Visitation.
W. Portal of the Tower or Gate of Hell.
X. Portal of the Scriveners or of Judgment.]
In Spain, the church belonged to both. Municipal and ecclesiastical
history were one and the same, going hand in hand in bloody strife or
peaceful union,--the city was the body, the cathedral its animating
soul. The cathedrals were meant, not for prayer alone, but to live
in,--they were for festivals, meetings, thanksgivings, for surging,
excited crowds. The church was an _imperium in imperio_. It was the
rallying place in all great undertakings or excitements. Here the Cortes
often met, the great church conclaves assembled, the mystical Autos or
sacred plays were performed, in them soldiers gathered, prepared for
battle, edicts were published, sovereigns were first proclaimed, and
allegiance was sworn; kings were christened, anointed, and buried. The
troubled murmurings of the lower classes were here first voiced. They
were the art galleries; here were displayed their finest paintings,
statues and tapestries; they were even museums of natural history, and
exhibited the finest examples of their wood-carving and glass-work, and
the iron and silversmith's arts. It is thus easy to see that the
political history of Toledo becomes vital in connection with its
Cathedral church.
The history of Toledo dates back to Roman days,--we find Pliny referring
to the city as the metropolis of Carpentania. She was among the first
cities of Spain to embrace Christianity. All the barbarians, with the
exception of the Franks, were Arians, but the last Gothic ruler in Spain
to withstand the Roman faith was Leovgild, who reigned in the last half
of the sixth century. He was also their first able administrator, the
first who consistently strove to bring order out of the chaos of warring
tribes and conflicting authorities. Contemporaries describe his palace
at Toledo, his throne and apparel, and his council chamber, as of truly
royal magnificence. It was reserved to his son Reccared to change the
history of Spain by publicly announcing his conversion to the Roman
faith before a council of Roman and Arian bishops held in Toledo in 587,
at the same time inviting them to exchange their views fearlessly and,
as many as would, to follow him. The Goths were never difficult to
convert, and many of the bishops and of the lords who were present
embraced the Catholic faith, to which a majority of the people already
belonged. Gregory the Great, hearing of the success of Reccared's gentle
and liberal proselytism, wrote to him: "What shall I do at the Last
Judgment when I arrive with empty hands, and your Excellency followed by
a flock of faithful souls, converted by persuasion?" He summoned a third
council at Toledo in 589, and in concert with nearly seventy bishops,
regulated the rites and discipline of the Church, at the same time
excluding the Jews from all employments. In royal Toledo Reccared was
anointed with holy oil, and he substituted the Latin for the Gothic
tongue in divine service, where Isidore was the first to use it. In
daily life Latin soon replaced Gothic. King Wamba built the great walls
round the city, and King Roderick held his glorious tournament inside
them.
Greater than any fame of Gothic monarch was that of the Church Councils
which met here to determine the course of early dogma and shape the
destinies of the larger part of Christendom.
The most salient figure during the rule of the Gothic kings was Saint
Ildefonso, who quite overshadows his royal contemporaries. In 711 the
Moors conquered the city, which then became a dependency of the Caliphs
of Damascus and Bagdad until a Moorish prince shook off the foreign
yoke. Independent Arab princes ruled, with Toledo as capital of their
empire, until Alfonso VI, King of Castile and Leon, in 1085, finally
conquered it for himself and his successors.
During the reigns of the early Castilian kings, we find names connected
with the city's history which became famous all over Spain. The Cid was
the city's first Alcaide. Alfonso el Batallador and Pedro el Cruel stand
out in sombre relief, and Toledo was the cradle of the dramatic
Comunidades' rising, and the scene of the noble death of their patriotic
leader Padella. The streets ran with blood, and the walls spoke of
glorious resistance before the Flemish emperor had crushed the liberties
of the people.
We have a description of the brilliant pageant of Ferdinand and
Isabella's entry after defeating the king of Portugal. "The Prince of
Aragon was in full armour on his war horse and Isabella riding a
beautiful mule, splendidly caparisoned, the bridle being held by two
noble pages. Followed by their gorgeous retinue they rode slowly towards
the Cathedral, while the highest dignitaries of the Church, the
archbishop, himself a mitred king, the canons, and the clergy, in their
pontifical garments, preceded by the Cross, came forth from the Puerta
del Perdon to receive them. On each side of the arch above the doorway
were two angels, and in the centre a young maiden richly clothed, with a
golden crown on her head, to represent the image of 'La Bendita Madre de
Dios, nuestra Señora.' When Ferdinand and Isabella and all the company
had gathered around, the angels began to sing. The following day the
trophies of war were presented to the Cathedral."
During the period immediately following the reign of the Catholic Kings,
Toledo reached her highest prosperity. She numbered as many as 200,000
inhabitants;--to-day she has only 20,000. Glorious processions swept
through her streets, the proud knights of the military orders of
Alcantara, Calatrava, and Santiago, black-robed Dominican inquisitors,
executioners, royal chaplains and major-domos, the Councils of the
Indies, Castilian grandees, Roman princes and cardinals, brawling
Flemish and Burgundian nobles, German landsknechts, and great Catholic
ambassadors.
Toledo received her death-blow when Philip II, unable to brook the
haughty claims of the Toledan archbishops, and feeling his power second
to theirs, finally, in 1560, moved the capital of his realm to Madrid.
Toledo's annals grew dark. So merciless was the Tribunal of the
Inquisition that under its vigilant eye 3327 processes were disposed of
in little more than a year. So Toledo fell from her former greatness.
The site of the Cathedral in the very heart of the city is by no means
dominant. The church lies so low that even the spire is inconspicuous in
the landscape. On three sides adjacent buildings completely bar all
view or approach. The only free perspective is on the fourth side, from
the steps of the Ayuntamiento across the square.