piercing. At the corner of every street a biting wind seized and
buffeted one about; besides being on a mountain, there are still higher
mountains near, and snow has been known to fall in June. Wind and cold,
however, were soon forgotten once inside the Cathedral. Our first visit
was within the hour of arrival, at dusk when details were hidden. The
great temple rose around us mysterious and awe inspiring. Though almost
with the first breath of wonder came a sense of bewilderment,--what was
this heavy wall rising some thirty feet in the center of the church,
that hid the altar and blocked up the nave so that only an encircling
aisle was left free? So confusing was it I could not at first tell by
what door we had entered, where was the east, where was the west end?
Books of travel all tell of this placing of the choir, or _coro_, in the
nave of Spanish cathedrals, but one can read them and imagine nothing
like the reality. I had pictured an open platform running down the
center of the church, whereas high walls are built round the _coro_ as
well as round the _capilla mayor_, thus making a smaller church within a
larger one. Wherever the inner church opens on the other, they have
placed a towering metal screen called a _reja_. A narrow passageway,
fenced by an open rail, usually runs from the altar enclosure to the
_coro_, and the people gather close to this, under the transept-crossing
tower; thus, practically, the priest at the altar and the canons
chanting in the choir are separated by the congregation. It is hard to
make the picture clear. I feel that no explanation can prevent this
arrangement of Spanish cathedrals coming as a surprise to the traveler.
The evening of our first visit, we wandered round in the dusk bewildered
by the blocking _coro_, and at length entered the chapel of St. Anne,
where a service was going on. The side chapels of Burgos are churches in
themselves, they often belong to private individuals, this of St. Anne
being, for instance, the property of the Duke of Abrantes. It was now
crowded with people of all kinds,--officers in uniform, a few ladies in
hats but the bulk of the women in black veils. From a small balcony on
one side the litany was sung.
Before the altar was what appeared to be a black covered bier, so I
thought we must have stumbled on some special service for the dead. This
would account for so large a gathering on a weekday, for at first one
fails to grasp the every-day religious attitude of the Spaniard. Looking
closer at the bier before the lighted altar a human figure was outlined
under the dark pall. How displeasing, I thought, not to use a coffin!
Suddenly the head of this recumbent figure unmistakably moved. With a
shiver I looked round me. No one appeared to notice what was to me so
terrifying, yet they were gazing over the bier at the altar. Strange
visions floated through my imagination, made up of memories of Charles
V's funeral before his death, and of contorted accounts of Spain and her
ways. Perhaps it was not an unusual custom here, thus morbidly to sample
beforehand one's own funeral service. Then, as the litanies continued,
now the solo from the choir, now the full-voiced responses of the
people, I realized these sweet evening melodies could hardly be the
dirges of a burial. The supposition of a living corpse was too bizarre
in the midst of this composed crowd.
I fastened my eyes on the round head of the bier, and again it moved,
but this time so thoroughly moved that the mystery was solved. With a
breath of relief I knew this was indeed a quiet evening service and what
had seemed a bier was merely one of the many marble tombs before the
altars of old churches, covered over with a dark mantle as they
sometimes are. What I had imagined the round head of a corpse, or future
corpse, was the veil-draped head of a living woman, seated on a higher
chair than usual between the tomb and the lighted altar. So ended my
first and only romantic episode in Spain.
I mention it as showing with what vague notions of terror the average
English-speaking tourist enters this harmless land. He comes full of the
prejudices inherited from the days of the Invincible Armada, when a
Spaniard was to an Englishman his satanic majesty incarnate, and this in
an age of which Froude himself, the enthusiastic chronicler of Drake,
says: "Perhaps nowhere on earth was there a finer average of
distinguished and cultivated society than in the provincial Castilian
cities."
Strange how tenaciously we cling to disproved ideas, I thought, as the
next day we examined the beautiful tomb of Bishop Acuña which had
caused my fright. Spain is as safe to-day as any civilized country. Yet
we met two Californian ladies traveling with pistols, about as needed
here as firearms in the lanes of Surrey or the brigand-infested hills of
Massachusetts. Little by little the traveler who keeps an open mind
learns that the cruel and morbid Spaniard of the popular fancy has no
existence except in his imagination. Unfortunately there will always be
some travelers here who see the heads on death biers move and carry away
the gruesome tale to swell the old prejudices, who will not wait long
enough nor look deep enough to find their living corpse a noble old
bishop in alabaster who has lain in peace some hundred years.
Every day of our week in Burgos found us several times in the Cathedral.
I used to arrive for the High Mass at nine, though before daybreak until
nine there had been many services in the side chapels; it is still the
custom with most Spaniards to kneel in recollection every morning.
Strangely enough, I soon grew reconciled to the clumsy _coro_. It
enabled the people to approach close to the altar in a peaceful secluded
spot. Here at Burgos one can kneel on the altar's very steps, beside the
big sanctuary lamp and the silver candlesticks that rise higher than a
man. The onlooking tourist, who often spoils Italian churches for those
who go to pray not to sightsee, in Spain is not permitted his ill-timed
liberty. He can wander freely through the outer cathedral, but during
the Mass, he cannot enter this inner temple unless he conforms to the
accustomed usages. All must kneel at the moment of the Elevation or else
leave. The lesson was taught us soon, for when the first morning in
Burgos a lady near by in the chancel inadvertently began to read in her
guide book, a verger in red plush cloak, bearing an authoritative silver
staff, approached, and kindly but firmly showed her out.
The richness of Spanish cathedrals at first is overpowering, that they
are too rich and overloaded is a criticism which is quite justified, but
it is the profusion of strength, not the cluttering of details to hide a
weak understructure; it is a profusion that speaks the nation's
character, her burning faith, her oriental generosity. In antique
silver, jewels, vestments, wood carvings, tombs, they are veritable
museums of art. A Spaniard has given generously to the church in all
ages. Though even when prosperous he is content to live with a frugal
simplicity hardly understood by our luxury-loving time, it is a law of
his nature that his ideas of grandeur and of beauty should find their
free expression in the House of God. I often had the sensation that the
beggar kneeling in these truly royal churches felt himself a part of
them; his own poor home was but one side of the picture, he could claim
this other home as well.
It was at Burgos we first met in the churches minor features that are
essentially Spanish. The organ pipes flare out like trumpets; the
reredos, or _retablo_, made up of carved wood panels, rises sometimes to
a hundred feet behind the altar; and there is the metal-work of the
great screens or _rejas_. This last was an art _de propia España_, and
her churches would lack half their sublimity without the massive
fretwork of iron or brass that shuts in the richly-decked altars. At
Burgos we especially noticed the _reja_ of the Condestable chapel, with
graceful wind-blown figures at the top. In the choir, round the lectern
were piled ancient psalm books, some of them three feet high, their
calfskin covers strengthened with metal claspings. The naturalness with
which these priceless books are treated shows how happily bound to
preceding generations, with no break of revolution and destruction, is
this old land. This thought of the antiquity of her usages is a very
potent one to every Spaniard, and the stranger too finds the purple
robed canons chanting in their choir-stalls more impressive because for
six hundred years in this same Cathedral they have intoned daily these
same psalms.
Another national talent is her carving in wood. The choir-stalls here
were a revelation. The masters of this art, Berruguete, Vigarni,
Montañés, may not be known to the rest of Europe, but they are locally
very famous. Their intense realism appeals to the popular mind, and
though in later centuries this realism degenerated into the bad taste of
hanging the statues with robes, enough of earlier art remains to make
one overlook these lapses. Should not a poet be judged by his best
lines? Why must an image in wig and jewels blind one to the remarkable
carved statues found side by side with it?
The wood carvers of Spain speak the same language of sincerity as the
mystic writers, and a knowledge of Luis de León, St. John of the Cross
and St. Teresa, makes one better appreciate the sculptors. Not that they
too are mystical. They do not soar so high. It is only a few chosen
souls here and there through the centuries who can walk that perilous
path, and probably they can express themselves only through the more
intangible medium of speech. But these wood carvings are the fruit of
men who understood the mystics and who worked in a like spirit of
intense faith. I should say it was not in her paintings that the
religious essence of this race was to be found, not in the somewhat
posing monks of Zurbaran, nor in the gentle religiosity of Murillo's
madonnas. Though a master of color, Murillo is too often akin in spirit
to Carlo Dolce and Sassoferrato. It is the fashion to call these
typically religious painters. But in the carved biblical scenes of
_retablo_ and _sillería_ is shown more truly the inner spiritual
intelligence of the serious Spaniard. Velasquez spoke for the reality of
his time, its chivalry, its material force; and these masters of wood
carving in more halting speech expressed the religious aspirations of
the people. They worked with a realism that is often painful, yet the
intensity with which they felt the scenes they depicted links them with
the mystics. The wood carvings have not had justice done them, perhaps
because they are for the most part painted, which certainly detracts
from them. Fortunately choir-stalls were left in the natural wood, those
at Burgos being a rich dark walnut with the polish that time only can
give. We spent many happy hours studying this twelve years' work of the
sculptor Vigarni. The seats are carved with grotesque, fantastic
creatures, half man, half beast, the arm of the chair now made by an
acrobat bent double backward, now by a monster with a tail in his mouth,
or some bat-like demon. There is a frieze of Old Testament scenes too
high to be well seen, but below them the New Testament story is told
from the Annunciation to the Doubting Thomas after the Resurrection.
Though the simpleness of earlier times is shown in the miniature devil
that passes from the possessed man's lips, and in Mary Magdalene's
dropped jaw of surprise when she meets her risen Lord, these carvings
are not merely curious, they are soul-touching and beautiful. The type
of face is the high-boned one the Spaniard prefers, with well-cut brows
and aquiline nose. Notice the solemn beauty of Christ's face in the _qui
ci ne pecato_. In the panel, the blind cured, seldom has the expression
of absolute faith been better rendered than in the raised face of the
old blind man. Do not pass by the Garden of Gethsemane with the three
Apostles lying heavily asleep, the human shrug of the shoulder and
outstretched hand of the Master: "Could ye not watch with me one hour?"
While the Cathedral of Burgos shows much florid later work, especially
the central tower and that of the Condestable chapel, under the too
ornate additions the ancient purer church is plainly perceptible. It
belonged to the Gothic of the Northern-France type, for pilgrims to her
shrines and to fight in her crusades, brought foreign ideas to Spain at
so early a date that it is useless to speculate about what a native
architecture might have been.
Some of the smaller churches of the town are worth visiting, such as San
Nicolás, with a stone _retablo_ which is a tour de force of handicraft;
San Lermes, and facing it the hospital of San Juan, where we first met
the escutcheoned doorways of Spain, which, if kept within bounds, are
arrogantly effective and national. Throughout the city are good examples
of domestic architecture, such as the Casa del Cordón, built by the
Constable of Castile, Don Pedro Fernández de Velasco, whose sumptuous
tomb lies in the center of the Condestable Chapel, and whose pride as a
Castilian speaks in the family proverb:
"_Antes que Dios fuese Dios,_
_O que el sol iluminaba los peñascos,_
_Ya era noble la casa de los Vélascos._"
"Before God was God, or the sun shone upon the rocks, already was the
house of Velasco noble."[4] Above the entrance to his house the girdle
of St. Francis connects his arms with those of his wife, as proud as he,
for she was a Mendoza. One rainy afternoon we spent in the _Museo_ over
the Gateway of Santa María, and there, step by step, traced Spain's art
history,--statues from the former Roman city of Clunia in this
province, a remarkable enameled altar-front of the Byzantine period,
Romanesque and Gothic relics from the monasteries out on the plains, a
Moorish arch found _in situ_, and tombs of that transition time from
Gothic to Renaissance which in Spain was so flourishing a phase of art.
Much as there is to hold one in the town, the bleak uplands outside have
a desolate fascination that calls one out to them. There is an excursion
to be made not far away to the Monastery of Miraflores, where Isabella
built for her parents "the most perfectly glorious tomb in the world."
Personally I prefer the quieter art of a Mino da Fiesole to this work of
Gil de Siloe, rich though it is. The tomb is white marble, octagonal in
shape, with sixteen lions supporting it. The weak Juan II lies by the
side of his queen, who is turned slightly from him to read in her Book
of Hours, in a natural attitude, as if she said pleasantly, "Now do be
silent, I must read in peace for a few minutes." At Miraflores is a
wooden statue of St. Bruno, with a keen and subtle face of the same
ascetic type as that of the young monk we watched praying quite
oblivious of the gaping tourists. It is of this statue that Philip IV
remarked: "It does not speak, but only because he is a Carthusian monk."
The indifference to strangers in the mystic young penitent before the
altar was our second meeting with a trait found in the average
Spaniard. He does not care an iota what the stranger thinks of him. He
is not like the Italian, inclined to put his best foot forward. He will
not change his ways because they are criticised; you can admire or you
can dislike, it makes little difference to him; and this quiet poise, in
peasant as well as grandee, is not fatuous, for its root lies in an
innate self-respect. He feels he is loyal to his God, to his King, and
to himself,--what better standards can you have?
Avenues of trees lead out to another house of the Benedictine rule, a
convent for nuns founded by the sister of Richard C[oe]ur de Lion. Many
ladies of the royal line have retired to Las Huelgas, the nuns brought
their dowries, and the mitered abbess held the rank of Princess-Palatine,
with the power of capital punishment. The church has outside cloisters
for the laity; the cloisters within the convent are never seen except on
the rare occasions of a king's visit, when all who are able crowd in at
the moment he enters. We were standing before the chancel where so many
knights had performed the vigil of the armor--among others Edward I of
England was knighted here--when a nun entered the _coro_, and in her
trailing white robes bowed toward the altar--rather it was the slow
courtesy of a court lady. We shrank away with the feeling that we had
intruded uninvited on a ceremony, that the days of the abbess,
Princess-Palatine, were the reality and we, inquisitive guide-book
tourists, the anacronism, a sensation not uncommon in Spain.
Burgos is the birthplace of the national hero, the Cid Campeador, "God's
scourge upon the Moor." This contemporary of William the Conqueror, whom
the erudites of the eighteenth century tried in vain to prove a mythical
character,[5] may be said to dominate Spanish literature. Spain's epic,
the "Romancero del Cid," has made its hero the historic Cid for all
time, just as Shakespeare's genius vitalized a Henry V. Don Roderick
Díaz de Bivar was born under the castle hill of Burgos in 1026, some
small monuments standing on the site of his _casa solar_. He was a
champion of popular rights, generous, chivalrous, faithful ever to his
wife Jimena, a true guerrilla warrior, like the men of his age,
sometimes crafty and cruel. The Cid was every inch a man, as his fellow
countrymen are eminently _varonil_, his hold on the heart of the people
is secure. There are no poems in the world whose lines ring and clang
more valiantly than the "Romancero." Here is untamed red blood and
courage:
"With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low,
With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow,
All firm of hand and high of heart, they roll upon the foe.
And he that in a good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out,
And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout,
'Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for love of charity!
The Champion of Bivar is here--Ruy Díaz--I am he!'
Then bearing where Bermúez still maintains unequal fight
Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white;
Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow;
And when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.
It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day;
The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay;
The pennons that went in snow-white came out a gory red;
The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead;
While Moors called on Mohammed, and 'St. James' the Christians cry."[6]
Wandering minstrels sang these _chansons de gestes_ for centuries, till
they were a very part of the nation. The wooing of Jimena is strong with
the unconscious vigor of those times. The Cid had slain her father in
combat:
"But when the fair Jimena came forth to plight her hand,
Rodrigo gazing on her, his face could not command;
He stood and blushed before her; then at the last said he,
'I slew thy sire, Jimena, but not in villany:
In no disguise I slew him, man against man I stood,
There was some wrong between us, and I did shed his blood.
I slew a man, I owe a man; fair lady, by God's grace,
An honored husband thou shalt have in thy dead father's place.'"
And to the end the free-lance warrior proved a gallant husband. The
ballad of their wedding feast was often in my mind in the silent streets
of Burgos.
"Within his hall of Burgos the king prepares the feast,
He makes his preparation for many a noble guest,
It is a joyful city, it is a gallant day,
'Tis the Campeador's wedding, and who will bide away?
They have scattered olive branches and rushes on the street,
And the ladies flung down garlands at the Campeador's feet,
With tapestry and broidery their balconies between,
To do his bridal honor, their walls the burghers screen.
They lead the bulls before them all covered o'er with trappings,
The little boys pursue them with hootings and with clappings,
The fool with cap and bladder upon his ass goes prancing
Amid troops of captive maidens with bells and cymbals dancing."[7]
The old poet must have written with his eye straight on his subject;
those eleventh century urchins baiting the bulls are startlingly
realistic. When the Cid died, at Valencia, in 1099, still called on the
maps Valencia del Cid, he was placed in full armor on his battle horse,
Bavieca, and brought to San Pedro de Cardeña, eight miles from Burgos.
Thither Jimena retired, and on her death was laid with her husband. The
faithful horse, famous in the "Romancero" as Jimena herself, was buried
under a tree of the convent near his master. For the Cid had left word,
"When you bury Bavieca, dig deep. For shameful thing were it that he
should be eaten by curs who hath trod down so much currish flesh of
Moors." To-day Bavieca's master does not lie in the quiet dignity of San
Pedro. After various vicissitudes his remains are kept in a chest in
the city hall of Burgos, not the most appropriate of sepulchers for a
national hero.
On the last day of our stay in the old Gothic city, we climbed the hill
from which it doubtless got its name, Burg, a fortified eminence. The
castle where the Cid was married is a complete ruin, for when the French
evacuated the fort in 1813 they blew it up. On every side stretched the
level melancholy plain, and silhouetted against it was the elaborate
stone lace-work of the Cathedral. For long I looked out on the
remarkable landscape, so far from beautiful yet so thought arousing.
Little by little I was learning how a race can be ascetic to its inmost
core yet express itself in grandiose architecture; exalted in soul yet
the most realistic people in Europe; serious and dignified, yet
childlike in their zest of life. Here was man in his unsubtle vigor, not
so liberal that he had no creed left, not so polished that he had lost
the power of first wonder and emotion. Life was lived here, not analyzed
and missed.
VALLADOLID
"They have no song the sedges dry
And still they sing,
It is within my heart they sing as I pass by,
Within my heart they touch a spring,
They wake a sigh,
There is but sound of sedges dry
In me they sing."
GEORGE MEREDITH.
From Burgos to Valladolid the monotonous Castile plain continued,
unbroken by any hill and hardly a tree. Yet evening on the level steppes
has a charm of its own. Like sunset at sea, nature has a free sweep of
canvas on which to paint her pageant; details eliminated, the essential
remains. One carries away many such memories from the silent plateau,
till little by little the affection of the grave Castilian for his home
is understood.
On leaving Burgos there had occurred an amusing station scene. The man
at the ticket office told us we could not start till the following day,
as the train, on the point of arriving, was already full. So in
discouragement we turned back to the distant hotel. Half way there a
messenger from the station overtook us to say they had telegraphed
ahead that there would be a few seats in the second class. We returned
in time to board the packed train, and since it was the express to
Madrid the second class carriages were excellent. As was the custom all
over Spain, the hotel bus at Valladolid was waiting, and drove us
immediately to the inn, where we had the usual bare but clean rooms, and
the usual well-cooked generous dinner: if the trains were to pick us up
as they chose, at any rate we were not going to starve or be eaten
alive.