original reliefs and statuary of the three doors have been preserved
and re-erected. Some old Byzantine capitals may be distinguished among
the Gothic work. The south-west door is relieved with a diaper of
fleurs-de-lys and castles, and lions and castles. The sculpture of the
tympanum is equal to that of the west front, and shows the Saviour and
the Evangelists, the twelve Apostles, and the Death of the Blessed
Virgin. The colossal statue on the central shaft is that of San Froilan,
an early bishop of Leon. Above is a row of four windows of two lights,
and an enormous rose-window.
The glory of the cathedral is its stained glass, which fills the
innumerable windows. Most of this is comparatively modern, and, though
good in tone, is inferior to the fifteenth-century glass still existing
in the windows of the Capilla Mayor, the Capilla de Santiago, and the
north transept. The three rows of windows reach high up to the vaultings
of the roof, those of the chapels being of two lights, those of the
clerestory of four. It is strange that with such exquisite examples of
colouring before them, the restorers of the church should have had the
bad taste to bedaub the arches of the aisles with ochre, and to
whitewash the pillars and vaults, marking the stonework with red lines.
We could well have spared, moreover, the elaborate plateresque work in
the choir, which, though good in itself, is dissonant from the general
character of the building; and the Churrigueresque retablo of the
Capilla Mayor, representing the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The
sanctuary and choir, which in so many churches are the most interesting
feature, are of quite secondary importance at Leon. The Capilla Mayor,
however, contains the remains of San Froilan in two silver reliquaries
of the Renaissance style, and the relics of two other bishops (Alvitas
and Pelagius) in plain marble urns. The choir stalls date from the
fifteenth century, and are well carved. The best work is seen in the
panels behind the stalls, the subjects being the generation of Christ,
the Visitation, the Revolt of Satan, and the Descent into Hell.
But after the general ensemble and the stained glass, nothing in the
cathedral merits as much attention as the tombs and monuments. Of these
the noblest is the cenotaph of Ordoño II. at the rear of the High Altar,
erected five centuries after his death as a tribute of gratitude by the
citizens of Leon. Though in the florid Gothic style of the fifteenth
century, many of the figures and inscriptions appear to have been copied
from an earlier tomb. The recumbent effigy of the king is large and
dignified; his face is sharp and smooth-shaven; he wears his crown and
the royal robes, and carries the orb and sceptre. At his feet lies a
dog, the emblem of fidelity, beneath which is an inscription in Latin
setting forth his deeds and virtues, and erroneously attributing to him
the erection of the present temple. The monumental arch above encloses
sculpture painted in brilliant colours on a gilt ground, which appears
to be of an earlier elate than the rest of the monument. The arches of
the wall of the Capilla Mayor have been bricked up, and those on each
side of this monument are adorned with two very ancient distemper
paintings of the Ecce Homo and Entombment. They exhibit some interesting
peculiarities of dress and detail, and though the central figure is
badly done, the spectators are lifelike and vigorously represented.
There are many tombs in the cathedral belonging to the transitional
period from Byzantine to Gothic, mostly of bishops of the thirteenth
century. The best preserved is in the Capilla del Nacimiento, and
enshrines the remains of Bishop Rodrigo, who died in 1232. The tympanum
of the arch is occupied by a representation of the Crucifixion, below
this being shown a funeral procession, with the mourners tearing their
hair in a grotesque excess of grief. The benevolence of the good
prelate is immortalised by a figure distributing food to the poor, the
halt, and the blind. The tomb of Bishop Martin (1254-1289), in the south
transept, is adorned with the favourite scene from the life of St.
Martin of Tours--the division of the cloak. The monuments to the bishops
Manrique de Lara, Erasmus, and Martin (second of the name) are all in
much the same style, but differing stages of preservation. In the
Capilla del Salvador, behind the High Altar, may be seen the graceful
effigy of the Countess Sancha (eleventh century), executed in the
fourteenth century by Maestre Juan Lope, as an inscription on the robe
informs us. The relief on the front of the tomb, showing a youth dragged
along by a fiery horse, probably refers to the punishment in this world
or the next of the wicked nephew, by whom the countess was assassinated.
Another tomb in the same chapel bears the figure of a venerable man with
flowing beard and ample robes.
At the north-eastern shoulder of the church, between it and the tower in
the city wall already mentioned, is the fine rectangular chapel of
Santiago, built in the time of the Catholic sovereigns--on the site, it
would seem, of a twelfth-century chapel. The pillars are borne on the
shoulders of various figures, among them being Samson, the Queen of
Sheba, Laocoon, and a monk with a book on which is the derisive motto
_legere et non intelligere_. The details of the architecture are
capricious and graceful. The chapel is lighted by colossal windows,
filled with gorgeous stained glass--blue and gold, purple and
emerald--the reflected colour producing a magical effect.
The spacious cloister, which conceals the northern façade of the
cathedral, was built in the early fourteenth century, but it has been
rebuilt, restored, and altered into what Street calls ‘a very poor and
weak kind of Renaissance.’ The ornamentation is profuse and not in bad
taste. The inner walls have not been much altered, and the pillars
supporting them are sculptured in the Gothic style. The bays are painted
with an extremely valuable and interesting series of frescoes, so well
drawn that they were more likely the work of some fifteenth-century
Italian artist than productions of native talent. The subjects are all
from the history of Christ and Mary, the Crucifixion curiously enough
being omitted. When Street saw these paintings forty years ago, he spoke
of the colours as pure and good, but they have now been almost entirely
obliterated by the damp. The cloister contains several sepulchral
monuments, some mere slabs, but one--that of the Canon Juan de Grajal
(1447)--elaborately and artistically sculptured. Some colossal idiot has
cut off the heads of the angels shown in this fine piece of work. Near
the beautiful Gothic entrance to the cloister is an image of our Lady of
Regla, to which at one time the people used to proceed in procession to
return thanks for the mythical victory of Clavijo, a choir of damsels
representing the equally mythical tribute of one hundred virgins said to
have been paid by Mauregato to the Moors.
In the archives of the cloister are preserved a fine collection of
codices and documents, throwing light on the history not only of Spain
but of the Catholic Church. Specially valuable is a Gothic Bible written
_sub umbraculo Santae Marie et Sancti Martini in monasterio vocabulo Alb
... in DCCCCLVIII._ [920 A.D.], by John the Deacon, who transcribed on
the intermediate pages the life of San Froilan.
We cross the spacious plaza in front of the cathedral, with its fine
marble fountain, presided over by Neptune and his Tritons, and go into
the town in search of ancient buildings. Of thirteenth-century
architecture there are no more examples; but the southern wall was built
by Alfonso XI. about 1324, to take in a quarter which had hitherto been
a suburb. The old Roman wall began at the stern, square Torre de los
Ponces. The gates in Alfonso’s wall have all been restored and
modernised, except that of Santo Domingo, which, with its low arch and
pointed vaulting, preserves the true mediæval air. The Moneda gate
carries a statue of Carlos III., erected in 1759, the year of his
accession. Enrique II. (Trastamara) built a palace at Leon on the model,
it is said, of the Alcazar at Seville. What was left of this structure
has been converted into a prison.
The Renaissance, which left everywhere in Spain so deep an impress, did
not leave untouched this Gothic capital. Beside such triumphs of the
Romanesque and pointed styles as San Isidoro and the PULCHRA LEONINA
rises the church of San Marcos, an interesting specimen of the newer
school. Founded as a chapel of the new order of Santiago in 1170, the
church witnessed the election of the first prior, and received in 1184
the ashes of the first grand master, Pedro Fernandez de Fuente Encalada.
Fernando the Catholic ordered the church to be rebuilt in 1514, but the
work progressed very slowly and was not actually finished till 1715. The
most important part of the fabric and the plans, however, we owe to Juan
de Badajoz, who was working here about 1550. With the adjoining convent,
first a hospice for pilgrims to Compostela, now the Provincial Museum,
the building presents a very imposing appearance. The church occupies
the eastern side of the block, the portal being contained within a very
deep and lofty semicircular arch. On either side, in deep plateresque
niches, are fine but damaged reliefs by Crozec. The ‘acroterium’ (to
employ an expression used by Spanish writers), surmounting the arch,
appears to be unfinished, as also are the towers or large buttresses
flanking the portal.
The church is large and cruciform, with some good glass, windows with
plateresque traceries, and fine arabesques. The most notable accessories
are the choir stalls, the upper row exhibiting admirably carved busts of
New Testament worthies; the lower row, of the saints of the Old
Dispensation. Grotesque and capricious masks, centaurs, griffins, and so
forth, are introduced in great profusion into the decoration; they were
the work, for the most part, of one Doncel in 1542, and were mutilated
by a pupil of Churriguera in the early part of the eighteenth century.
The work of Juan de Badajoz is to be seen in the Sacristy, a spacious
nave of three vaults, richly designed and gilded. Under the windows are
medallions with busts in relief, very well done. The retablo in the
plateresque style shows the Eternal Father with His angels, and the
Vision of Santiago. The inscriptions on the frieze are from the Book of
Leviticus.
Much good work is to be seen in the cloisters, begun in the Armada year
or thereabouts, but interest here chiefly centres in the Prior’s
apartments where the illustrious Quevedo was imprisoned by order of the
Count-Duke Olivares, from December 1639 to June 1643,--the penalty for
an all too true and biting lampoon.
Quevedo thus describes his prison in one of the letters to his friend
Adán de la Parra:--
‘Although at first I was imprisoned in a tower of this sacred
house, as roomy as it was light and warm for this season of the
year, a short time after by superior order (I will not say by
superior disorder) I was taken to another much more uncomfortable
one, where I am now. It is an underground room, as damp as a
spring, so dark that in it it is always night, and so cold that it
is always like January. It is undoubtedly more like a tomb than a
prison.... The latitude of this tomb, in which I am enclosed, is
barely twenty-four feet and the width nineteen. The roof and walls
are in many places fallen owing to the damp, and everything is so
black that it seems more like a hiding-place of fugitive thieves
than the prison of a man of honour. In order to enter it two
equally strong doors have to be passed; one is on the floor of the
convent and the other on the floor of my prison, after twenty-seven
steps designed like a precipice.... This is the life to which I am
doomed by him who, because I would not be his favourite, is now my
enemy.’
The grand façade of the old convent, extending to the river bank, is
divided into two stories, the lower characterised by semicircular
windows between pilasters in the plateresque style, and separated by
niches; the upper by rectangular windows with balconies, disposed
between columns, and likewise separated by niches in pairs. The frieze
beneath the lower row of windows is adorned by a series of medallions,
displaying the heads of mythological and historical worthies, Gentiles
and Christians, ancients and moderns, most oddly assorted. With Priam
and Hector, Hannibal and Cæsar, we find Charlemagne and the Cid, Charles
V. and Philip II., with Lucretia, Judith and Isabel the Catholic. The
busts to the left of the doorway are those of the grand masters of the
Order of Santiago. The doorway itself is a very unhappy combination of
the plateresque and baroque styles, but the statue of Fame surmounting
it is not devoid of grace and dignity. The balconies and windows facing
the river date from the eighteenth century.
A good deal of building went on in Leon during the sixteenth century. In
the Plaza de San Marcelo (before Alfonso XI.’s time, outside the walls)
stands the mansion of the illustrious Guzman family, of which Guzman el
Bueno, of Tarifa fame, was an illegitimate and the most distinguished
member. It was built in the year 1560 by Juan Juiñones y Guzman, Bishop
of Calahorra. Its architecture is severe and imposing. Over the main
entrance, adjoining a square tower at the corner of the building, are
two medallions on which is engraved the motto, ‘Ornanda est dignitas
domo--non domo dignitas tota quærenda’--a device which one wishes all
the architects of the age had borne in mind. The interior _patio_ is
adorned with handsome plateresque reliefs. Next to the Casa Guzman is
the residence of the marquesses of Villasinta, in rather similar style.
Beneath the sixteenth-century façade of the mansion of the great Luna
family was discovered a fine Gothic arch, with another pointed arch
supported by columns with Byzantine capitals. This work cannot be later
than the thirteenth century. In the _patio_ is a magnificent arch
designed with arabesques.
Looking on the Plaza de San Marcelo is one of Leon’s two town halls,
finished by Juan de Rivera in 1584. The lower story is of the Doric
order, the upper Ionic. In the council-chamber, hung with damask and
velvet, may be read the verses proclaiming the excellences of the
city:--
‘En argen Leon contemplo
Fuerte, purpureo, triunfal.
De veinte santos ejemplo,
Donde está el unico templo
Real y sacerdotal.
Tuvo veinte y cuatro reyes
Antes que Castilla leyes;
Hizo el fuero sin querellas;
Libertó las cien doncellas
De las infernales greyes.’
The other town hall (Casas Consistoriales) in the Plaza Mayor was built
to accommodate the municipal authorities on the occasion of festivities
and public functions in the square. It is an elegant building, built in
1677, and is surmounted by a pediment and acroteria, and by weather
vanes on its flanking towers.
The modern church of San Marcelo, which gives its name to the square,
was founded by Ramiro I. in the ninth century, and was liberally endowed
in after years by Alfonso VI. Marcelus is a reputed local martyr, a
Roman legionary who refused to adore the divinity of Cæsar, and was
beheaded, having blessed his executioners. By another account the
martyrdom took place at Tangier, whence, at all events, the saint’s
relics were brought here in 1493. The tympanum of a thirteenth-century
doorway in the wall at the back of the church is all that remains of the
original fabric. A deserted esplanade beyond the walls, to the
south-west of the city, marks the site of the once famous shrine of San
Claudio, erected first in Constantine’s day on the place of martyrdom of
Claudius, Lupercius, and Victoricus. Al Mansûr is said to have been
struck with sudden panic when about to attack this church. Successive
fanes of great magnificence rose over the spot, the last being destroyed
by fire in the sixteenth century.
Santa Maria del Mercado still exhibits much ancient work. Its arching
and capitals are Byzantine in style. The suburban church of San Pedro de
los Huertos was, it is said, the cathedral, before the time of Ordoño
II. In the tenth century we hear of it as a monastery for both sexes.
Another extremely old foundation is San Salvador del Nido, founded as a
monastery by Queen Urraca. A local guide states that Carlo Alberto, the
ex-King of Sardinia, received the last sacraments and expired in this
church on April 8, 1849. I confess I have not troubled to verify this,
but have hitherto laboured under the impression that the unlucky
predecessor of Victor Emmanuel breathed his last at Oporto.
Having noticed this link with the history of our own times, we take
leave of Leon, and hasten across the plains to the city which succeeded
it as capital of the growing monarchy of Leon and Castile.
II
BURGOS
THE CAPITAL OF CASTILE
Burgos, the red and white city in the broad valley of the Arlanzon, is
more mediæval than many an older town. For she was no inheritance from
Celts or Romans, but was born in the Dark Ages, waxed prosperous within
them, and declined with the Renaissance and the dawn of the modern era.
There is nothing that is classical, little that is modern, about this
old capital of Castile. All her memories are of Gothic, mediæval,
romantic Spain. To her belong knights and barons, shield and helm and
lance, tournaments and jousts, soaring Gothic spires, and the quiet of
the cloister--all the pageant and panorama of mediævalism.
Burgos was born amid the clash of arms. This dry, desert-like province
of Castile, which is now the very heart of, and whose name is almost
synonymous with Spain, was a thousand years ago a very debatable ground
between Moor and Christian. Leon, to the west, looked fiercely east and
south towards the dusky garrisons of Medina Sarakusta (Zaragoza), and
Tolaitola (Toledo). In itself the country seemed hardly worth settling
in or fighting for. It was the frontier, the ‘marches,’ as we should
have called it in olden England. And in the Dark Ages danger ever ran
like a hedge along the border of two lands. The valley of the Arlanzon,
a veritable oasis in this desert, was early peopled with shepherds and
tillers of the soil. To protect these against the forays of the Beni
Kasim from Zaragoza, early in the ninth century a fort or advanced post
was established here by the kings of Asturias and Leon. Its defence was
entrusted by Ordoño I. to a count (850-866), despite whose efforts the
post was destroyed by the Moors under Abd-ur-Rahman in the year 865.
Rallying from these disasters, the new king Alfonso III. (866-910) took
steps to defend the frontier, and appointed Diego Porcellos count or
warden of the marches. This personage--the first whose name is
particularly associated with Burgos--found the settlement on the
Arlanzon reduced to six groups of houses. He threw together three or
four hamlets, including, it is said, the churches of Santa Coloma, Santa
Gadea, and San Juan Evangelista, and surrounded the whole with a wall.
The dissensions among the Moors themselves favoured the development of
the nascent town, and also permitted its governors, like those of the
other frontier forts, to turn their attention to domestic politics. Don
Gonzalo Fernández, who reigned as count from about 884 to 915, was a
party to various conspiracies and intrigues against his sovereign, the
net result of which appeared to be to confirm him in his petty
sovereignty. Patriotism was an unknown virtue in those days, and the
counts of Castile were bent rather upon consolidating their own
authority than combining against the Infidel. They are said in fact to
have flatly refused to accompany the king on one of his campaigns.
Revenge for such treason could in the tenth century take but one form.
Ordoño II. summoned four of the rebellious vassals--Abu-l-Mundhir
(evidently a Moor), Nuño Fernández, another Diego Porcellos, and
Fernando Ansúrez--into his presence, and sent them in chains to Leon,
where, after a painful captivity, they were put to death. Spanish
writers, who express no particular horror at the atrocities of the
Inquisition in after years, appear somewhat unaccountably shocked at
such rough and ready justice.
As a stroke of policy this deed of violence was a bad one. The
Castilians, as it is now time to call the inhabitants of the marches,
conceived a lasting aversion to the government of Leon, and the desire
for independence grew stronger. An interregnum seems to have taken place
at Burgos after the execution of Nuño Fernández and his colleagues. We
hear at this time of two famous but nebulous personages, Nuño Nuñez
Rasura and Lain Calvo, who were elected as judges to rule over the
little commonwealth. Their reign as actual rulers was brief, for about
the year 930 we find all authority in Castile in the strong hands of the
greatest Spaniard of that age--Fernan González, the king-maker.
The fame of the good _Conde Castellano_, as González is lovingly called
by the annalists, is overshadowed in the song and story of Spain only by
that of the Cid himself. His heroic exploits against Moor and Christian
are magnified and set forth in popular ballads and legends, dating
mostly, it is true, from the thirteenth century. The real Fernan
González is a difficult person to understand and appraise, when we have
cleared away as much as possible the clouds of tradition and romance
which obscure his features. Like the Cid, we find him repeatedly
revolting against his sovereign, and striving very much harder for the
independence of Castile than for the interests of the whole kingdom. But
unlike the greater Spanish hero, he never seems to have been in the pay
of the Moslems, or to have in concert with them turned his sword against
his fellow Christians. Judged by the standard of that day, Fernan
González was a great man. He was a good lord to his immediate vassals, a
valiant and determined enemy of the Moor, a patriot in a very parochial
sense, and a strong man.
Ramiro the king, jealous of Fernan González’s power and influence,
dispossessed him of his countship, and released him from prison only
when he had sworn fidelity and obedience anew. His daughter Urraca was
given in marriage to the king’s son, Ordoño, by whom, however, she was
afterwards repudiated. Till the death of Ramiro the count was not
suffered to return to Burgos, which was meanwhile governed by the
Infante Don Sancho. Meanwhile the Moors ravaged the country, destroying
the monastery of Cardeña without the walls of Burgos, and greatly
profiting by the internal disorders of Leon.
On the abdication of Ramiro in 950, González was reinstated in his
fiefs, and henceforward played the part of king-maker in northern
Spain, changing sides more than once, establishing every day more firmly
his own authority, and warring unceasingly against the Moor. His policy
often met with severe rebuffs, and he sustained not a few disastrous
reverses; but his death in 970 was felt as a deadly blow to Christian
Spain and to the Castilians in particular, whose national aspirations
undoubtedly coincided with his own ambitions.
He had succeeded so far as to establish a dynasty; and his son Garcia
Fernández became the next count of Castile as of right. The defects of
the hereditary system became at once apparent, for while inheriting his
father’s rank, Garcia inherited little of his ability. Unluckily for
him, he was the contemporary of the terrible Al Mansûr, the greatest and
most formidable of the Moorish race. Castile was ravaged from the Sierra
Guadarrama to the sea. Don Sancho, supported by the Moors, revolted
against his father, who died from wounds received in battle on the banks
of the Douro, in May 995. The unfilial Sancho was at once acknowledged
sovereign Count of Castile, but was compelled to pay an annual tribute
to the Khalifa of Cordoba. But we find Al Mansûr waging war against him
seven years later. It was the great Mohammedan’s last campaign, and
Sancho profited by the dismay into which their leader’s mortal sickness
plunged the Moslems to expel them from his dominions.