greater part from the thirteenth century. The windows on the south side
are round-headed, those on the other three sides pointed, with good
traceries. Through a round-headed arch we enter the chapter-house,
divided into three aisles by four pillars, so slender as in no way to
interrupt the view of the whole. The groining springs so gracefully from
the capitals that the pillars themselves have the appearance of shooting
up and bending like the branches of a tree. Then there is the library
which once contained 10,145 volumes, including 385 valuable codices, and
250 MSS. in various styles of handwriting--forming a complete museum of
calligraphy. This library is a noble chamber divided by four columns.
Its walls were once hung with the portraits of the Kings of Aragon and
their great nobles. Reminiscent of the brave days of old is the charming
façade of the palace built by good King Martin and intended by him to
be a retreat in his old age. He died before its completion and the work
was abandoned.
You may still traverse miles of cloister and hall at Poblet strewn with
broken tablets, overgrown with shrubs and climbing plants. One of the
most beautiful of the galleries is the Novices’ Dormitory, roofed in
with timber; then there are the locutorium, the only spot where
conversation was permitted between the recluses; the infirmary and the
beautiful cloister of San Fernando, built in 1415 by order of the first
king of that name, the little chapel of the saint, founded by the Count
of Barcelona, and the royal apartments, built in 1375.
SANTA CREUS
Santa Creus is the sister foundation of Poblet from which it is distant
about five leagues. It was also founded by Ramon Berenguer IV. and
belonged to the Cistercian Order. Not so large as Poblet, this abbey of
the Holy Crosses is equally severe and chaste, and of the two, is
distinguished more by its artistic harmony. The church is one of the
most finished works of the age and style. Its front is discovered
immediately on entering the monastery, raised on a terrace above the
long and spacious court round which are grouped the conventual
buildings. The battlements above the façade are a recent and incongruous
addition. The west porch is finely moulded and chiselled, and with the
rich foliage of the capitals creates a good impression. Another door,
symmetrical and elegant, leads into a cloister on the south side of the
church and was at one time flanked by the statues of Don Jaime II. and
his wife Blanca. The wall on this side bears an inscription to Bernard
Ranc, which is assumed to be the name of the architect. The church was
begun in the year 1174, and opened to public worship in 1211. It
preserves its altar, on which the light falls through a rose-window in
the apse. The principal objects of interest in the interior are the
noble tomb of Don Pedro the Great (who defeated the French and bound
Sicily to the throne of Aragon) and of Jaime II., who conquered Sardinia
and harried the Moors of Granada. King Pedro’s tomb consists of a great
porphyry urn supported by lions, which is believed to have been taken
from the infidels; and on this rests the stone coffin carved with
figures in high relief under pinnacled canopies. The tomb is covered by
a beautiful stone baldachin, with three traceried circles on each side
upheld by slender columns with elaborately carved capitals. The tomb of
Don Jaime is on the same plan, but is further adorned by the effigies of
the king and queen in the Cistercian habit, placed here, it seems
likely, long after the completion of the rest of the work. The tomb was
designed by Bertran Riquer, the architect of the royal palace of
Barcelona.
The church communicates with a spacious cloister with four sides of
seven bays, built at the beginning of the fourteenth century by order of
Queen Blanca. The traceries of the windows remaining here and there are
late Gothic, and contrast oddly with the severe lines and rude capitals
of the shafts. As at Poblet, in a corner of the cloister is a hexagonal
chamber said to have been a lavatory. A great number of persons of
distinction seem to have been buried in this cloister, in attendance,
one might say, upon their lords within the church. Among these was the
knight Queralt, who may been seen in effigy in a suit of fine mail, with
surcoat and greaves and girt with two-handed sword. Some of the figures
of divine persons to be seen over the tombs were evidently carved by
late fourteenth-century sculptors.
Here, as at Poblet, the Kings of Aragon had their habitations in life as
in death, and the courts of the ruined palaces of Don Pedro and Don
Jaime still bear some traces of the glory and culture of the greatest
maritime power of the Mediterranean of a bygone age.
VALLBONA
Vallbona, the third great royal abbey of Cataluña, is situated in the
province of Lerida, but on the borders of Tarragona, in a singularly
wild and remote district. Like Poblet, it is named after a hermit who in
the year 1157 founded here and at Colobres, monasteries for both sexes.
Twenty years later, both houses were formed into a single community of
Cistercian nuns, under the headship of Doña Oria de Ramiro. The pious
Anglesola of Vallbona is buried before the high altar in the company of
James the Conqueror. The church is gloomy, silent and severe. It is
entered through a Romanesque porch in the north transept, the west front
presenting an unbroken wall. Vallbona has also a noble cloister, with a
fine gallery in the Pointed style; on the north and the remaining
galleries in the Romanesque. In Piferrer’s time, pictures and monuments
relieved the excessive severity of the royal nunnery of Aragon, but now
there reigns a desolation and poverty which might have affrighted even
the hermit founder.
MONTSERRAT
Montserrat, easily accessible from Barcelona, is one of the four or five
renowned shrines of Christendom. The legend of its institution is one of
the quaintest and at the same time silliest in the annals of hagiology.
In the time, it seems, of Count Wilfred, the Henry of Barcelona, there
dwelt on the mountain a hermit named Guarin whose sanctity was famed
even to the ends of the earth. Church bells rang of their own accord
when he passed, and the forces of nature were at his beck and call. This
being so, when Richildis, the Count’s daughter (she was beautiful, of
course), became possessed of a devil, Guarin was at once called in to
turn him out. Such a task was a mere matter of an Ave and an invocation
on the part of the holy man; but the devil thus incontinently expelled
from the person of Richildis appears to have passed into the body of the
hermit. He conceived an unlawful passion for the maiden, who remained
with him after her cure, to learn the arts of sanctity. He succumbed to
temptation and consummated his crime by murdering the girl, cutting off
her head and burying her in his cave.
Stricken with remorse immediately after, the erstwhile holy man hurried
to Rome and confessed his crime. The Pope ordered him to return to
Montserrat on his hands and knees and never to resume an erect posture
till his pardon should be miraculously announced.
So faithfully did Guarin carry out the penance imposed that he crawled
for seven years about the mountain that he had once illumined with his
sanctity, living on grubs and roots and becoming to all intents and
purposes a wild animal. One day Count Wilfred, while out hunting,
noticed this strange beast and had him taken to his stables at
Barcelona. There Guarin abode some months, saying never a word but
pleasing his captors by his docility. One day he was led into the castle
to amuse the Count and his Court. But before he could perform any
tricks, the infant son of the Count, a baby but three months old, cried
out, “Arise Guarin, for God has pardoned you.” Whereupon the strange
beast rose up on his hind legs, praising God, and confessing his
enormous crimes.
In these days men were very much alive, and thrilled to the passions of
love and hate. But, touched by the miracle, the Count forgave the
murderer of his daughter, and set out with him for Montserrat to
disinter the body buried seven years before. But lo, when the fair form
was revealed, it throbbed with life, and a red line only showed where
her head had been severed from her neck.
Richildis was so grateful for her restoration to life that she
determined to devote the rest of it to the service of God. The Count
founded a monastery for both sexes, of which his daughter was abbess and
Guarin became a humble lay-brother.
A mere fairy tale, yet it is full of what was best in the mediæval
spirit--the conviction that no misfortune was irreparable, no crime
unredeemable, no sinner unreclaimable, that for all men and all things
there was indeed mercy and plentiful redemption.
Upon the invasion of the Arabs in 976 the nuns abandoned their convent,
but the monastery remained and was recognised as a regular community
about the time of Fernando and Isabel.
It is not, of course, to pray before the shrine of Guarin that pilgrims
climb the ragged sides of the saw-edged mountain. Long before the hermit
immortalised his name by his crime and his repentance, a miraculous
image of the Virgin, said to have been carved by St. Luke, and brought
to Spain by St. Peter, had been hidden, to save it from the infidels, in
one of the caverns. Nearly two hundred years after, its whereabouts was
revealed to some shepherds by lights and mysterious melodies. These
manifestations were repeated every Saturday--that being the day of the
week specially consecrated to the Virgin by the Church. The Bishop came
over to investigate the phenomenon, and on entering the cave whence the
sounds proceeded, they found the heavy image carved by St. Luke. So
heavy was it that it resisted all efforts to remove it; so there it
remained till the end of the sixteenth century, when it was found
possible to enshrine it in the present church.
Most of those who have seen the image are not favourably impressed, so
it is worth while to quote another opinion than the present writer’s. “I
cannot conceive [writes Mr. Herbert Vivian] that any one who has been
privileged to behold it can deny the imposing majesty of its expression.
It inspires awe rather than the sympathy and compassion which we are
accustomed to associate with Our Blessed Lady. Indeed, those who change
its vestments on holy days, say that it fills them with fear, that they
do not dare to look it in the face. In the Virgin’s right hand is a
globe, from which springs a fleur-de-lis. The crowns worn by her and the
infant Christ are of prodigious valve, being of pure gold and containing
no fewer than 3500 precious stones, many of them of exceeding size and
purity. Like everything else at Montserrat, they are of modern origin,
all the old valuables having been carried off by French troopers in
1811. In front of the image are two little staircases of walnut-wood by
which those who wish to kiss its hand may ascend and descend.”
As buildings, the church and monastery of Montserrat are wholly
destitute of interest. But they have their memories. Ignatius Loyola,
during the process of conversion, passed long hours at the feet of the
Virgin of Montserrat; Don John of Austria, before the altar of the
Immaculate Conception, swore to maintain the doctrine of the Virgin’s
freedom from original sin, against all and sundry, at the sword’s point,
and the victory of Lepanto was gained perhaps in fulfilment of that vow.
There is a monastic seminary on the mountain, also an extremely ancient
and aristocratic foundation. The boys have some curious customs. On the
feast of St. Nicholas, the patron of youth, they elect one of their
number Bishop, who entertains them all to dinner and heads the visits
which they pay to all the monks in turn.
But if as a shrine Montserrat has little to attract the curious, as a
mountain it is without rival for picturesque and strange grandeur. So
fantastic is the conformation that in all ages it has been regarded with
a certain superstitious awe. The caves with which it is honeycombed are
full of mystery and fascination. They extend and ramify in all
directions, constituting a veritable subterranean city. At all times
they have served as asylums to the natives of the surrounding country
when threatened by invaders. On one occasion the French discovered a
party of peasants in such a retreat and would have attacked them had not
one of the Catalans told them that a single explosion would bring all
the surrounding rocks upon their heads. Whether this was true or false
the soldiers did not care to prove, and they hastily withdrew.
There are plenty of people in Cataluña still who believe in the
wonder-working properties of the Virgin of Montserrat, and newly married
couples come up by the funicular railway to spend a night on the
mountain, in the hope of thereby assuring themselves of a numerous
family.
We may trace the footprints of St. Ignatius to Manresa, a name dear to
the Jesuit in all lands, and borne by the Manchester of Cataluña. It is
a lively, picturesque town, built on an amphitheatre of hills on the
left bank of the Cardoner. High over the factories towers the Collegiate
Church begun in 1328 and finished, probably, a hundred years later. It
is one of those wide-naved churches characteristic of the principality,
its span of nave is, in fact, greater than that of any cathedral with
aisles, except Palma. An interesting peculiarity is the flying
buttresses built partly in and partly outside the church. Over the first
roof rises an impressive bell tower. The interior is disappointing. The
side chapels are Gothic. There is some good glass in the clerestory
windows, and the organ displays one of those Saracens’ heads we so often
find in Catalan churches. In the archives are some interesting pictures
by local artists, reminding one of Byzantine work, and there also is
preserved that altar frontal which excited the fervent admiration of
Street. In a vault beneath the presbytery are treasured the relics of
St. Agnes and St. Maurice, translated here from Vienne on the Rhône in
the time of Berenguer III.
The fine old church of the Carmen commemorated a miracle reputed to have
occurred in the year 1345. The town having been laid under an interdict
by the Bishop of Vich, the innocence of the townsfolk was demonstrated
by a light which penetrated through the windows of the church, filling
it with radiance. But these mediæval traditions are obscured by the
glory of St. Ignatius, whose name the citizens delight to honour. In the
church of Santo Domingo was formerly shown a black cross which the saint
used to bear on his shoulder while he prostrated himself before the
altars in turn. The church of the Cueva--an odius _baroque_ work--is
raised over the cave wherein during ten months he underwent the dolorous
process of his spiritual regeneration. In the Jesuit College you may see
one of his fingers, his books, and the bricks that served him as a
pillow. There is not a spot nor a house in Manresa that the citizens
will not fail to point out as in some way, however slight, associated
with the immortal founder of the Society of Jesus.
Not far from Manresa is the flourishing town of Tarrassa, which occupies
the site of the old episcopal city of Egara. The primitive _arx_ or
citadel gave place in Christian times to a cathedral which was destroyed
by Al Mansûr, and the site is now occupied by the three interesting
Romanesque churches of San Miguel, Santa Maria, and San Pedro.
The oldest of these is undoubtedly San Miguel, which is distinguished
from other Catalan churches by many peculiarities. The plan is
rectangular, over the centre of the roof rises a lantern, resting on a
quadrangle of columns. The capitals of these columns are evidently part
of an older and different structure. Beneath the church is a crypt which
is believed to have been the baptistery of the old Roman cathedral.
Santa Maria was consecrated in 1112 by Raimundo Guillen, Bishop of
Barcelona, and was served by Augustine canons down to 1592. It is
contemporary with the church of San Pedro and both present an aspect of
extreme antiquity accentuated by the Roman tablets and fragments
incorporated with the structure. Close by are the ruins of a fortress
and a chapel attributed by tradition to the Templars. On the other side
of the prettily named Rio Vallparadis are to be seen the fragments of a
tower and castle.
About six miles from Manresa, on the banks of the Llobregat, is a little
monastery of San Benito de Bages, now a private residence. “All here,”
says Piferrer, “invites man to lift his eyes to God, and to banish the
frivolous recollections of this world. The building’s antiquity, the
modesty and simplicity of its plan alike contribute to still the voice
of passions and to excite more tranquil thoughts.”
The thoughts of the former occupants, however, were evidently not always
tranquil, for the little apses opening into the transepts have been
squared off, apparently for defensive reasons, and the tower looks as if
it had been constructed for the same object. The church is dark and
sombre, like a vault, and the cloister has the same funereal aspect,
only slightly relieved by the interesting carvings of courtiers and
warriors on the rude capitals.
Piferrer states that the chapel was built in the middle of the tenth
century and that it was consecrated in 972 in presence of Count Borrell
and his Court by the Bishop of Vich. In the year 1067 it was
incorporated with the Abbey of San Ponce de Tomeras near Narbonne; the
foundation received women, who were subject, like the monks, to the rule
of St. Benedict. At the end of the sixteenth century the community was
united to that of Montserrat.
CARDONA
Cardona is a picturesque walled town on the road from Manresa to
Solsona. It is crowned by a strong castle built by the Cordona family,
which traces its descent from Foulques, the ancestor of the
Plantagenets. Within the castle is the collegiate church of San Vicente,
dedicated in the eleventh century. It is a fine example of the
Romanesque. Its aisles are marked off from the nave by square pillars;
the nave is broad, the aisles narrow, without chapels. A very low
lantern rises above the crossing and the presbytery is raised by a few
steps above the level of the nave. There is not a single moulding in the
whole church, or any curve other than a semicircle. Of the sepulchres of
the mighty lords of the castle only two remain. Within this fortress
died St. Ramon Nonnat in the year 1240. The chapel dedicated to his
memory dates from 1682.
TORTOSA
Tortosa, on the banks of the Ebro, close to its mouth, is the
southernmost of the cities of Cataluña. It is an ancient place where
Roman and Visigothic coins were struck. It fell into the hands of the
Saracens in 716 and was reconquered in 1147 and consecrated in 1441.
Among the architects were the two Xulbes, whose opinion was taken on the
question of the nave at Gerona. Though disfigured by a classical façade
the church produces a good effect. Its aisles are separated from the
nave by twenty columns, which sweep round the east end in a graceful
semicircle so as to form a double apse. To the nine Gothic arches of the
chancel correspond as many apsidal chapels, whose windows overlook the
high altar. The reredos dates from 1351. There are five chapels in each
of the aisles. The windows are filled with transparent marble instead of
glass.
The Collegio Real of Tortosa is in the best Plateresque style. The
cloister is formed by three tiers of galleries, the columns and
balconies being adorned with medallions and escutcheons. The original
building belonged till the year 1528 to the Dominicans and was then
reconstructed by order of Carlos I. with a view to serving as a seminary
for Moorish converts. The College is now a barracks.
The Convent of Santa Clara, dating from the thirteenth century and
restored by order of Jaime II. of Aragon, is another precious memorial
of Tortosa’s more prosperous days.
THE BALEARIC ISLANDS
The Balearic archipelago no longer deserves the name of the Forgotten
Isles bestowed upon it a dozen years ago by a French traveller. Much has
since been written about the islands in our own and other languages, and
yachtsmen often put in at what the Genoese Admiral classed with June,
July and August, as one of the four best harbours in the Mediterranean.
But the influx of tourists has not been large, and the isles run no
immediate risk of losing their marked local characteristics. The remote
past keeps a firm grip on Mallorca and Menorca; as in Egypt, you never
cease to feel dead stony eyes are staring at you across
thousand-year-long vistas. In the aisles the monuments of antiquity
belong to the very dawn of human history, appearing almost the works of
nature, even as those who reared them seem hardly to have emerged into
full manhood. At every turn, as in Sardinia, you are met by the rude
handiwork of that primitive Mediterranean race, which passed away in the
struggle between Latins, Greeks and Semites. Every one knows now that
the word Balearic is derived from a Greek word meaning _to throw_, and
that it refers to the extraordinary dexterity of the natives in the use
of the sling. This was their national weapon, their sole means of attack
and defence. In summer, as their only clothing, each man wore three
slings--one round his head, one round his loins, and one at his wrist.
To train their children in its use, the mothers, we are told, would not
let them have their bread or meat till they had brought it down from a
bough or ledge by means of the sling.
Of all their dexterity they had need when strange men with black curling
beards and dark stern faces--men that they had never seen--came sailing
into their harbours and tempted them down from their perches with a
display of bright rare stuffs and gewgaws. Poor simple white savages, it
is likely enough that they had thought themselves till then the only men
in the world. Then came the attempts of the Phœnicians to enslave and to
subdue them, and wildly the islanders fought for their freedom, knowing
as little as the creatures of the jungle do of the forces arrayed
against them. The wild birds were netted at last. In the sixth century
before Christ, the Carthaginians were masters of the archipelago, and
dragged the slingers off to serve in their armies. Mago, a Punic leader,
gave his name to Puerto Mahon. Then came a time when the natives felt
the grasp of the Semites relax. Their power had been crushed by the
Romans and the islands enjoyed a brief interval of liberty. But in the
year 123 _B.C._, the conquerors of Carthage remembered their neglected
heritage, and sent Cecilius Metellas to take possession. He founded the
cities of Palma and Pollensa, which still retain their Latin names, and
brought with him some thousands of Italian and Spanish colonists, who
soon tamed the wildness of the aborigines. Thence onward for centuries
the archipelago prospered quietly, safe beneath the outspread wings of
the Roman eagle. Upon the break-up of the empire it passed through
various hands to the Visigoths, to be wrested from them in the eighth
century by the Arabs. Under this new dominion the islands became a nest
of pirates, who ultimately founded a kingdom embracing parts of the
Spanish mainland and of Sardinia. The depredations of the Balearic Moors
excited the anger of Christendom, and Pope Pascual II. preached a
crusade against them. Constituting themselves the ministers of Europe’s
vengeance, the Pisans and Catalans inflicted a severe punishment on the
Pirates and sacked the rich city of Palma. Over a hundred years later,
in 1227, Don Jaime I. of Aragon reduced the whole group of islands in a
memorable campaign, and annexed them finally to Christendom. The
conqueror constituted his new possessions into a kingdom for his second
son and namesake, from whose grandson, Jaime II., they were taken by
Pedro IV. in the year 1347 and incorporated with the kingdom of Aragon.
But history had not yet done with the islands. The old rancour between
the peasantry and the nobles came to a head at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, in the war of the Germania or brotherhood. The
viceroy took refuge in the Citadel of Ibiza, while the nobles defended
themselves in the castle of Alcadia against the desperate attacks of the
peasantry led by Juan Colom. The arrival of a royal squadron commanded
by Don Juan de Valesco led to the extinction of the revolt. Ruled by
Carthaginians, Romans, and Moors, the islands excited the cupidity of
another race of conquerors. Seized by the English in 1708, Menorca
remained in their possession till 1781, when it was retaken by the
French and Spaniards. The failure to relieve the garrison cost Admiral
Byng his life. We again took possession of the island in 1793 to
surrender it finally to Spain at the peace of Amiens nine years later.