The Chapel of Santiago was erected by Count Alvaro de Luna, for more
than thirty years the real sovereign of Castile. It is most elaborately
decorated throughout with rich Gothic work, interwoven with sparkling
filigree of Saracenic character. The tombs of the Lunas are of interest
because of the great Count. His own is not the original one. The first
mausoleum which he erected to himself was so constructed that the
recumbent effigy or automaton could, when mass was said, slowly rise,
clad in full armor, and remain kneeling until the service was ended,
when it would slowly resume its former posture. This was destroyed at
the instigation of Alvaro's old enemy, Henry of Aragon, who remained
unreconciled even after the death of his old minister. At each corner of
Alvaro's tomb kneels a knight of Santiago, at his feet a page holds his
helmet, his own hands are crossed devoutly over the sword on his breast,
and the mantle of his order is folded about his shoulders. His face
wears an expression of sadness.
Alvaro began his career as a page in the service of Queen Catharine
(Plantagenet). He ended it as Master of Santiago, Constable of Castile,
and Prime Minister of John II, whom he completely ruled for thirty-five
years. He lived in royal state, became all-powerful and arrogant. His
diplomacy effected the marriage of Henry II and Isabella of Portugal,
but he later incurred the enmity of Isabella, was accused of high
treason, found guilty, and executed in the square of Valladolid. Pius II
said of him, "He was a very lofty mind, as great in war as he was in
peace, and his soul breathed none but noble thoughts."
And thus we may continue all around the Cathedral, past the successive
chapels, vestries, sanctuaries and treasuries,--the architecture and
sculpture of each connected with great events and telling its own story
of dark tragedy or lighter romance.
In one, the Spanish banners used to be consecrated before leading the
hosts against the Moors; in another, Spain now keeps her priceless
treasures under the locks of seven keys hanging from the girdles of an
equal number of canons. There are silver and gold and pearl and precious
jewels sufficient to set on foot every stagnant Spanish industry. The
8500 pearls of the Virgin's cape might alone feed a province for no
short time. They are buried in the dark. Outside in the light, the
children of Spain are starving and without means of obtaining food. At
one's elbow the whine of the beggar is continually heard, till one
recalls Washington Irving's words: "The more proudly a mansion has been
tenanted in the days of its prosperity, the humbler are its inhabitants
in the days of her decline, and the palace of the king commonly ends in
being the resting-place of the beggar."
Here and there, in the interior as in the exterior, we find, mixed with
or decorating the Gothic, Moorish and Renaissance details and the later
extravagances which followed the decline of the Gothic. Even where the
carvers are expressing themselves in Gothic or Renaissance details, we
frequently observe an extreme richness, a love of chiaroscuro, of
sparkling jewel-like light and shade, and intricately woven
ornamentation which betrays the influence of the Arab. We see the
Morisco, a kind of fusion of French and Moorish, in many places. The
triforium of the choir is decidedly Moorish in its design, although it
is Gothic in all its details and has carvings of heads and of the
ordinary dog-tooth enrichment instead of merely conventionalized leaf
and figure ornament. It consists of a trefoil arcade. In the spandrels
between its arches are circles with heads and, above these, triangular
openings pierced through the wall. The moldings of all the openings
interpenetrate, and the whole arcade has the air of intricate ingenuity
so usual in Moorish work. Again, in the triforium of the inner aisle we
find Moorish influence,--the cusping of the arcade is not enclosed
within an arch but takes a distinct horseshoe outline, the lowest cusp
near the cap spreading inward at the base. We see Moorish tiles, we find
Moorish cupolas as in the Mozarabic chapel, and Moorish doorways, as the
exquisite one leading into the Sala Capitular,--here and there and
everywhere, we suddenly come upon details betraying the Arab intimacy.
The children of the Renaissance also embellished in their new manner,
not only in the magnificent carvings of the choir but in a variety of
places, for instance, the doors themselves contained within the Moorish
molds leading to the Sala just mentioned, the entire chapel of St. Juan,
the Capilla de Reyes Nuevos, portions of the Puerta del Berruguete, and
the bronze doors of the Gate of the Lions.
Again, on the capitals and bases of many of the piers, with the
exception of those of the central nave, Byzantine influence may be seen.
So each age, according to its best ken, dealt with the Cathedral. In
among the varying styles of architectural decoration, the sister arts
embellish the stone surfaces or are hung upon them. There are paintings
by Titian, Giovanni Bellini, and Rubens, by El Greco, Goya, and Ribera;
Italian and Flemish tapestries, and frescoes too. Probably the greater
portion of the main walls were covered with them, for here and there
traces are still to be seen and a tree of Jesse remains in the tympanum
of the south transept, and near it an enormous painting of Saint
Christopher.
While the "Tresorio" may have been the treasure-house of the clergy, the
church itself was that of the people. Here was their art museum, here
were their galleries. The decorations became the primers from which they
learnt their lessons. Here they would meet in the afternoon hour as the
light fell aslant sapphire and ruby, through the clerestory openings. It
would light up their treasures with strange, unearthly glory and form
aureoles and haloes of rainbow splendor over the heads of their beloved
saints. Cool amethyst and emerald and warmer amber and gold touched the
darkest corners, and a gold and purple glory illuminated the high altar.
Some of the earlier glass is as fine as any to be found in Europe. The
depth and intensity of the colors are remarkable. Probably none of it
was Spanish, but all was imported from France, Belgium, or Germany. The
glass in the rose of the north transept and in the eastern windows of
the transept clerestory can hold its own beside that of the cathedrals
of Paris and Amiens. The subject scheme of the rose in the north
transept is truly noble. The earliest glass is that in the nave (a
little later than 1400), and this is Flemish. The windows of the aisles
are at least a century later. Their composition is simple and broad, the
coloring rich and deep, and the interior dusk of the church enhances the
value of the sunlight filtering through the glass.
Better than to descend into the immense crypt below the Cathedral, with
its eighty-eight massive piers corresponding to those above, is it to
stray into the broken sunlight of the green and fragrant cloister
arcade.
Bishop Tenorio procured the site for the church from the Jews, who here,
right under the walls of the Christian church, held their market. A
fresco adjoining the gate explains by what means. It represents on a
ladder a fiendish-looking Jew who has cut the heart out of a beautiful,
crucified child and is holding the dripping dagger in his hand. This
fresco stirred up the fury of the Christian populace to the point ofburning the
Jewish market, houses and shops, which then were annexed by
the Bishop. The fine, two-story Gothic arcade of the cloisters encloses
a sun-splashed garden filled with fragrant flowers. Around the walls of
the lower arcade are a series of very mediocre frescoes. The
architecture itself is not nearly as interesting as that of the
cloisters of Salamanca. It ought particularly to be so in this portion
of the church, for here is the very climate and place for the courtyard
life of the Spaniard.
V
So lies the Cathedral, crumbling in the sunlight of the twentieth
century. Beautiful, but strange and irreconcilable to all that is around
her, she alone, the Mother Church, stands unshaken, lonely and
melancholy, but grand and solemn in the midst of the paltry and tawdry
happenings of to-day. She has served giants, and now sees but a race of
dwarfs; princes have prostrated themselves at her altars, where now only
beggars kneel. Her walls whisper loneliness, desertion, widowed
resignation.
NOTE.--In connection with the remarks on page 160, a Catholic
friend has pointed out how rarely, when Peter has been robbed,
ostensibly to pay Paul, Paul (otherwise the Poor) has derived any
benefit from it. It is willingly conceded that Henry VIII bestowed
much of the wealth derived from the dissolution of the religious
houses on his own favorites, and recent disclosures in France show
as scandalous a diversion of some of the funds similarly obtained.
VI
SEGOVIA
[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
CATHEDRAL OF SEGOVIA]
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
_Gray._
Once upon a time, long, long ago, in the days of the Iberians, there was
a city and its name was Segovia. It is now so old that all of it, with
the exception of the great heap of masonry which crowns its summit, has
practically crumbled into a mountain of ruins. The pile still stands,
dominating the plain and facing the setting sun, triumphant over time
and decay,--the Cathedral of Saint Mary and Saint Froila. Though Mary
was the holier of the two patrons, owing to whose protection the church
stands to-day so well preserved, still Froila was in certain respects no
less remarkable. The Segovians of his day saw him split open a rock with
his jackknife and prove to the Moslems then ruling his city, beyond all
doubt, the validity of his Christian faith.
But long before saints and cathedrals, the Romans, recognizing the
tenacious and commanding position as a military stronghold of the rock
of Segovia, which rises precipitously from the two valleys watered by
the Erasma and Clamores, pitched their camp upon its crest, renaming it
Segobriga. The city was fortified, and under Trajan the truly
magnificent aqueduct was built, either by the Romans or the devil, to
supply the city with the waters of the Fonfria mountains. A beautiful
Segovian had at this early time grown weary of carrying her jugs up the
steep hills from the waters below and promised the devil she would marry
him, if he only would in a night's time once and for all bring into the
city the fresh waters of the eastern mountains. She was worth the labor,
and the suitor accepted the contract. Fortunately the Church found the
arcade incomplete, the devil having forgotten a single stone, and the
maid was honorably released from her part of a bargain, the execution of
which had profited her city so greatly. Segovia still carries on her
shield this "Puente del diabolo," with the head of a Roman peering above
it.
The strong position of the city made it an envied possession to whatever
conqueror held the surrounding country. It lay on the borderland,
constantly disputed with varying fortune by Christian and Moslem. Under
the dominion of the early Castilian kings, and even under the triumphant
Moors, the youthful church prospered and grew, for in the government of
their Christian subjects, the Mohammedans here, as elsewhere, showed
themselves temperate and full of common sense. The invaders had, indeed,
everywhere been welcomed by the numerous Jews settled in Spanish cities,
who under the new rulers exchanged persecution for civil and religious
liberty. Prompt surrender and the payment of a small annual tax were the
only conditions made, to confirm the conquered, of whatever race or
religion, in the possession of all their worldly goods, perfect freedom
of worship and continued government by their own laws under their own
judges.
In the eleventh century, Segovia was included in the great Amirate of
Toledo, but the Castilian kings grew stronger, till in 1085 they were
able to recapture Toledo. The singularly picturesque contours of the
city are due to the various races which fortified her. Iberians were
probably the first to strengthen their hill from outside attack,--the
Romans followed, building upon the foundations of the old walls, and
Christian and Moslem completed the work, until the little city was
compactly girdled by strong masonry, broken by some three to four score
fighting towers and but few gates of entrance. Alfonso the Wise was one
of the great Segovian rulers and builders. He strengthened her bastions,
added a good deal to the walls of her illustrious fortress, and in 1108
gave the city her first charter. A few years later Segovia was elevated
to a bishopric.
Long before the earliest cathedral church, the Alcazar was the most
conspicuous feature in the landscape, and it still holds the second
place. Erected on the steep rocks at the extreme eastern end of the
almond-shaped hill, it stands like a chieftain at the head of his
warriors, always ready for battle, and first to meet any onslaught.
Several Alfonsos, as well as Sanchos, labored upon it during the
perilous twelfth century. Here the kings took up their abode in the
happy days when Segovia was capital of the kingdom, and even in later
times it sheltered such illustrious travelers as the unfortunate Prince
Charles of England, and Gil Blas, when out of suits with fortune.
The first Cathedral was erected on the broad platform east of the
Alcazar, directly under the shadow of its protecting walls. The
ever-reappearing Count Raymond of Burgundy was commissioned by his
father-in-law, the King, to repopulate Segovia after the Moorish
devastations, and he rebuilt its walls, as he was doing for the
recaptured cities of Salamanca and Avila. The battlements were repaired,
and northerners from many provinces occupied the houses that had been
deserted.
To judge from the ruins as well as from well-preserved edifices,
Romanesque days must have been full of great architectural activity. One
is constantly reminded of Toledo in climbing up and down the narrow
streets, where one must often turn aside or find progress barred by
Romanesque and Gothic courtyards or smelly culs-de-sac. Everywhere are
Romanesque portals and arches, palaces and the apses and circular
chapels of the age, bulging beyond the sidewalks into the cobblestones
of the street. They seem indeed venerable. Some of the old palaces
present a curious all-over design executed in Moorish manner and with
Moorish feeling. It is carved into the sidewalk, showing in relief a
geometrical, circular pattern, each circle filled with a quantity of
small Gothic lancets, surely difficult both to design and to execute.
Some of the old parish churches stand with their deep splays,
round-headed arches and windows and broad, recessed portals almost as
perfectly preserved as a thousand years ago. The Romanesque style died
late and hard. Even in the thirteenth century, the city could boast
thirty such parish churches. To-day they seem fairly prayer-worn. Beyond
their towers stretch the plains in every direction, seamed by stone
walls and dotted with gray rocks. Olive and poplar groves cluster round
the small hillocks, rising here and there like camels' backs.
[Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF SEGOVIA CATHEDRAL
A. Capilla Mayor.
B. Choir.
C. Crossing.
D. Sacristy.
E. Cloisters.
F. Tower.]
As long as the welfare and development of the city depended on strong
natural fortifications, Segovia remained intact. To the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries belongs her glory. Her power passed with the middle
ages and their chivalry, and in the sixteenth century she was a dead
city.
Villages, convents and churches lie scattered over the plain, the houses
crowded together for protection against the blazing, scorching, pitiless
sun. Standing by itself is the ancient and severe church, where many a
knight-templar kept his last vigil before turning his back on the plains
of Castile, and apart sleeps the monastery where Torquemada was once
prior. They all crumble golden brown against the horizon.
Many a bloody fray or revolution upset the city during the middle ages.
The minority of Alfonso XI witnessed one of the worst. The revolt which
broke out in so many of the Spanish cities against the Emperor Charles
V, proved most fatal to the Cathedral of Segovia.
The first Romanesque Cathedral had been built in honor of St. Mary,
under the walls of the Alcazar, during the first half of the twelfth
century. It was consecrated in 1228 by the papal legate, Juan, Bishop of
Sabina. Some two hundred and fifty years later, a new and magnificent
Gothic cloister was added to it by Bishop Juan Arias Davila, and
likewise a new episcopal palace more fitting times of greater luxury and
magnificence. This palace, despite the coming translation of the
Cathedral itself, remained the abode of the bishops for the three
following centuries. In the new cloisters a banquet of reconciliation
was celebrated in 1474 by Henry IV and the Catholic Kings. It was held
on the very spot whence Isabella had started in state on a journey
proving so eventful in the history not only of Castile but of the entire
Peninsula and countries beyond. Three years after the furious struggle
which took place around the entrance of the Alcazar, Charles V issued
the following proclamation:--
"The King: To the Aldermen, Justices, Councillors, Knights, Men-at-arms,
Officials, and good Burghers of the city of Segovia. The reverend Father
in Christ, Bishop of the church of this city, has told me how he and the
Chapter of his church believe that it would be well to move the
Cathedral church to the plaza of the city on the site of Santa Clara,
and that the parish of San Miguel of the plaza should be incorporated in
the Cathedral church; and this, because when the said Cathedral church
is placed in a situation where the divine services may be more
advantageously held, our Saviour will be better served and the people
will receive much benefit and the city become much ennobled; it appears
to me good that this plan should be carried out, desiring the good and
ennoblement and welfare of the said city because of the loyalty and
services I have always found in it, therefore I command and request that
you unite with the said Bishop or his representative and the Chapter of
said church and all talk freely together about this and see what will be
best for the good of the said city, and at the same time consider the
assistance that the said city could itself render, and after discussion,
forward me the results of your combined judgment, in order that I
better may see and decide what will be for the best service of Our Lord,
Ourselves, and the welfare of the city. Dated in Madrid, the 2d day of
October, in the year 1510.--I, the King."
While the discussion of the feasibility and expense of commencing an
entirely new cathedral upon a new site nearer the heart of the city was
at its height, the revolt of the Comunidades broke out, in 1520, and
swept away in its burning and pillaging course the Romanesque edifice.
This stood at the entrance to the fortress, where the fight naturally
raged hottest. Only a very few of the most sacred images, relics and
bones were carried to safety within the walls of the Alcazar before the
old pile had been practically destroyed. Segovia was without a Cathedral
church.
In the centre of the city, on the very crest of the hill, lay the only
clearing within the walls. Here at one end of the plaza was the site of
the convent mentioned by Emperor Charles, which had long sheltered the
nuns of Santa Clara. They had abandoned it for other quarters, and the
adjacent convent of San Miguel had become unpopular and was dwindling
into insignificance. Both could thus in this most free and commanding
location give way to a new and larger cathedral, distant from what would
always prove the rallying point of civic strife. Following the mighty
wave of revolt which had swept the city, came a great receding wave of
religious enthusiasm to atone in holy fervor for the impious act
recently committed. Citizen and noble alike proposed to build an edifice
which would be much more to the glory of Saint Mary than the shrine
which they had so recently pulled down. Lords gave whole villages;
women, their jewels; and the citizens, the sweat of their brows. We find
in the archives of the Cathedral the following entry by the Canon Juan
Ridriguez[b]:
"On June 8th, 1522, ... by the consent and resolution of the Lord Bishop
D. Diego de Rovera and of the Dean and Chapter of the said church, it
was agreed to commence the new work of the said church to the glory of
God and in honor of the Virgin Mary and the glorious San Frutos and all
saints, taking for master of the said work Juan Gil de Hontañon, and for
his clerk of the works Garcia de Cubillas. Thursday, the 8th of June,
1552, the Bishop ordered a general procession with the Dean and Chapter,
clergy and all the religious orders."
The corner stone was laid and the masonry started at the western end
under the most renowned architect of the age. Juan Gil had already
worked on the old Segovian Cathedral, but had achieved his great fame on
the new Cathedral of Salamanca, started ten years previously, whose
walls were rising with astounding rapidity. His clerk was almost equally
skilled, always working in perfect harmony with his master and carrying
out his designs without jealousy during the "maestro's" many illnesses
and journeys to and from Salamanca. Garcia lived to work on the church
until 1562, and the old archives still hold many drawings from his
skillful hand.
The two late Gothic Cathedrals are so similar in many points that they
are immediately recognizable as the conception of the same brain.
Segovia is, however, infinitely superior, not only in the magnificent
development of the eastern end with its semicircular apse, ambulatory,
and radiating apsidal chapels, as compared with the square termination
of Salamanca, but, throughout, in the restrained quality of its detail
and the refinement of its ornamentation. How far the abrupt and
uninteresting apsidal termination of Salamanca was Juan Gil's fault, it
is difficult to say, for we find records of its having been imposed upon
him by the Chapter as well as of his having drawn a circular apse.
Fortunately, the Segovian churchmen had the common sense to leave their
architect alone in most artistic matters and allow him to make the head
of the church either "octagonal, hexagonal, or of square form." Where
Salamanca has been coarsened by the new style, Segovia seems inspired by
its fidelity to the old.
The similarity of the two churches is visible throughout. The general
interior arrangements are much alike. The stone of the two interiors is
of nearly the same color, and the formation and details of the great
piers are strikingly similar. There is the same thin, reed-like descent
of shafts from upper ribs, the same, almost inconspicuous, small leaves
for caps, and, in both, the bases terminate at different heights above
the huge common drum, which is some three feet high. Externally, there
are analogous buttresses, crestings, pinnacles and parapets, and a
concealment of roof structure, but there is none of the vanity of
Salamanca in the sister church of Segovia. The last great Gothic church
of Spain, though deficient in many ways, was not lacking in unity nor
sincerity. The flame went out in a magnificent blaze.