foundation, is the Cartuja de Miraflores in an arid spot some two and a
half miles from the city. Here once stood the hunting palace of Enrique
III.--placed like so many abodes of Spanish royalty in a naturally
uninviting site, and converted by that king’s son and successor, Juan
II., into a Carthusian monastery in 1442. In consequence of a fire, all
had to be rebuilt, a few years later, under the direction of Juan de
Colonia. The edifice was not actually completed till the time of Isabel
the Catholic. The monastery is now inhabited by only a few monks, each
having his own house or cell, according to the rule of St. Bruno. Grass
grows in the courtyard, and everything wears an aspect of desolation and
neglect. The church recalls San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo. It rises
high above the adjacent buildings, simple in plan and rather spoilt by
plateresque additions. The interior, consisting of a single nave and
apse, is divided by _rejas_ or grilles into three parts, reserved
respectively to the laity, the lay brothers, and the clergy. The two
last have their own choirs. The stalls of the lay brothers are
beautifully carved in walnut, and display the figures of the apostles.
They were carved in 1558 by Simon de Bueras for the sum of 810 ducats.
The priests’ stalls, also in walnut, show the fine workmanship of Martin
Sanchez (1489), a Spaniard whose style was very Flemish. The
quadrangular altar, designed by Gil de Siloe, was adorned with gold
brought from America in the second expedition of Columbus. The
altar-piece, by the same artist and Diego de la Cruz, is a triumph of
design and colouring. It is impossible to describe in detail the almost
innumerable subjects and sculptures which make up this marvellous work.
To be easily distinguished among the religious compositions are the
figures of Juan II. and his Queen Isabel, kneeling on faldstools and
attended by their guardian angels. Above the tabernacle a superb cluster
of angels encircles a crucifix, over which is seen the symbolical figure
of the pelican. Very fine, also, is the seat occupied by the celebrating
priest during the sermon. It is the work of Martin Sanchez, and is an
exquisite specimen of Gothic carving, described by one authority as ‘one
of the most beautiful and sumptuous pieces of ecclesiastical furniture
of its kind and period in Spain or elsewhere.’
But the supreme objects of interest in this Castilian Charterhouse are
the superb tombs of Juan II., his queen, and their son, the Infante
Alfonso. These were designed and in great measure executed by Gil de
Siloe, by order of Isabel the Catholic. The effigies of the king and
queen recline on an alabaster tomb, the ground plan of which is a star
of eight points formed by two squares placed diagonally. On the angles
of the lower slab are placed figures of children supporting the royal
escutcheon, and accompanied by lions. Each of the sixteen spaces between
the points of the star is occupied by the statue of an apostle or a
cardinal virtue placed in a niche. The tracery of this part of the tomb
is indescribably rich. The angles of the upper slab are rounded off and
marked by pinnacles, statuettes, and the statues of the Four
Evangelists. Here and there the charming figures of cherubim, all in
different postures, seem about to detach themselves from the marble. In
the intervals between the points of the substructure are disposed lions
in various attitudes: on some _amorini_ are mounted, while others are
about to devour nude children. Such fantastic conceptions--monsters,
genii, etc.--are displayed in marvellous profusion all over the surface
of the monument. All this detail, which, in Street’s opinion, is for
beauty of execution, vigour, and animation of design, finer than any
other work of the age, serves but as a setting for the recumbent figures
of Juan II. and Queen Isabel of Portugal--the parents of that other and
more famous Isabel. The king is shown in his crown and robes; the face
is weak, but beautiful, boyish almost, smooth-shaven, and framed by long
curling locks; on the breast falls a magnificent collar of state. The
right hand, which held the sceptre, has been broken off, the left, with
a natural gesture, gathers up the folds of the robe. On the feet are
pattens, which seem to have been in use by both sexes in Spain in the
fifteenth century. The robe is of the most magnificent description,
encrusted with embroidery and precious stones. The statue of the queen
remains intact. Her gloved hands hold an open book, from which she seems
to have raised her eyes to regard the spectator between half-closed
lids. Her mantle is as splendid as her husband’s. Siloe’s embroidery in
marble, his moulding of the draperies, are as delicate as the work of
the weaver of the robes itself could ever have been. The lace-work is so
fine that one expects a breath of wind to ruffle it. Assuredly, the
price paid to the architect (442,667 maravedis) was not an exorbitant
one.
The same skill is apparent in the kneeling effigy of the Infante
Alfonso, who died while in rebellion against his half-brother Enrique
III., at the age of fifteen years. Also by Siloe, this monument is
contained within a recessed arch in the north wall of the sanctuary,
festooned with a vine to which children cling. Men-at-arms support the
tomb, over which is seen a vigorous figure of St. George and the Dragon.
The monument is hardly less significant than that of the young prince’s
parents. All three tombs were a labour of love with Isabel the Catholic,
who looked upon this church as in quite a peculiar sense the property of
her family. It is said that on seeing the escutcheon of the family of
Soria painted on one of the stained-glass windows, she at once broke it
with one of her attendants’ swords, admonishing the community that they
must accept no other patronage than hers. And to-day, in truth, what
glory there is at this forlorn monastery is of her creation. A statue,
in painted wood, of St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusian Order, in one
of the chapels, deserves notice if only as one of the rare specimens of
Portuguese art--it was the work of one Manoel Pereira.
It is difficult to treat of the minor churches of Burgos in
chronological order, for here, as in so many other cities, the existing
fabric of the earliest-founded church may be of recent date, and far
surpassed in antiquity by the actual masonry of some less historic fane.
Street assigns the date of San Estéban to somewhere between the years
1280 and 1350. It stands on the castle hill, and exhibits some features
of architectural interest. The portico is good Gothic work of the late
thirteenth century, the reliefs representing the martyrdom of the patron
saint. An early instance of realism is the stones adhering to the folds
of the saint’s robe in one of the statues. Above is a fine wheel-window
of the middle fourteenth century. The church consists of three parallel
naves, all terminating in apses. At the west end is a raised gallery for
the choir, with a fine late Gothic balustrade. Some beautiful arabesque
work may be seen in the last chapel in the south aisle; the retablos and
pulpit are comparatively modern. This church, which belonged by the way
to the Knights Templars, is entered through an early fourteenth-century
cloister--one of the smallest to be met with.
Next in order of interest, and probably of date, comes San Gil, a
cruciform structure in the north of the city, founded, or at any rate
rebuilt, in the fourteenth century. Its chief treasure is a
wrought-iron pulpit, with very beautiful tracery, in part gilded. Very
curious are the effigies in the floor of the church, with bodies of
black marble and heads and hands of white. Another feature of the
building worthy of notice is the mixture of painting and sculpture and
carving in the decoration of the chapels on each side of the choir. The
retablos are gorgeous, and some of the tombs interesting and apparently
very ancient.
Only the very patient or enthusiastic sightseer will trouble to visit
the other churches of Burgos, which, as it seems to me, contain little
to reward one’s curiosity. San Nicolás, a sixteenth-century parish
church, being close to the cathedral, should not be neglected. The life
of the saint--the patron of youth--is illustrated in some ancient
paintings in the north aisle and on the admirably carved stone retablo
of the high altar. This fine work, as an inscription declares, was the
gift of Gonsalvo Solanco and his wife Leonor de Miranda, both of whom
are buried here. The tombs in these old forgotten churches are generally
interesting. St. Lesmes contains the sepulchre of the patron, a devout
French monk, who lived in the reign of Alfonso VI., but whose cult never
seems to have spread beyond Castile.
The old convent of San Pablo, now appropriated to military uses, is
hardly worth a visit, but the story of its founder, Bishop Pablo de
Santa Maria, is, as Street remarks, worth telling. Originally a Jew, he
was baptized a Christian in 1390. Of his four sons one at least followed
his example, and afterwards became Bishop of Siguenza; but his wife,
Juana, remained deaf to all his persuasions and refused to abandon the
faith of her fathers. Accordingly he had the marriage legally dissolved,
and was ordained priest. In 1415, being then at Valladolid, he was
raised to the episcopal see of his native city, and among those who met
him upon his induction were ‘his venerable mother, Doña Maria, and his
well-loved wife, Juana.’ His well-loved wife, despite their religious
differences, she seems to have remained, for she was buried near her
husband in this church of San Pablo, unconverted to the last. The bishop
survived her fifteen years. It is strange that these tombs should have
been spared in the days of Torquemada, when many bishops of Jewish
ancestry were compelled to disinter the bones of their remote ancestors
to save them from the fury of the new school of Christians.
Of that tutelary divinity of Burgos, the Cid, there are several shrines,
mostly, alas! spurious. You may visit the church variously called Santa
Agueda and Santa Gadea, a fourteenth-century building, which succeeded
the historic church where the champion constrained Alfonso VI. to take
the oath. That event is recorded by the stone cross near the entrance,
and the iron lock over the door. But the real lock on which the oath was
taken was stolen by the French, who showed themselves particularly
greedy for relics of Spain’s national hero. Of the church of San Martin,
where he was baptized, no trace remains. The site of the Casa solar del
Cid is hardly worth visiting. The house, as might be expected, has long
since disappeared, and the present uninteresting monument was erected by
Carlos III. in the eighteenth century. The very monastery of San Pedro
de Cardeña, which the hero chose for his last resting-place, and to
which he was brought across Spain seated, dead, but still dreadful, on
his war-horse, has been modernised, and contains little to assist the
imagination. Its memories are stirring enough. The foundation dates from
Visigothic times, and here, in the ninth century, two hundred monks were
massacred by the Moors. Somewhere here is buried Babieca, the horse of
the Cid, one of those four-footed heroes who have attained to world-wide
fame. ‘Bury him deep,’ was his master’s last injunction, ‘for it is not
meet that he should be eaten by dogs who has trampled under foot so many
dogs of Moors.’ The honourable interment of animals who have endeared
themselves to their masters is far from being a modern craze and a proof
of the degeneracy of a people, as some pseudo-moralists of to-day appear
in their ignorance to believe.
The Cid’s own tomb at Cardeña is now empty. Some of his bones were
carried off by the French during the Peninsular War, and were ultimately
discovered at Sigmaringen, when they were restored to the Spanish
Government. Meanwhile the rest of the skeleton and that of the Cid’s
wife, Doña Ximena, had been removed from their insecure place of
sepulture, and are now contained in a walnut case, to be seen in a
modern chapel at the Ayuntamiento, or town hall. In the same
building--an eighteenth century structure--is shown the bench from which
those early judges of the nation, Lain Calvo and Nuño Rasura, are
affirmed by tradition to have administered justice. The archives are
said to merit exhaustive examination, and are rich in rare autographs
and manuscripts.
* * * * *
Burgos, like many other provincial capitals in Spain, is rich in old
mansions of the nobility. Our English country towns have lost much
historic and monumental interest from the immemorial practice of our
aristocracy living on their estates, remote from towns. Quite small
towns in France and in western Europe generally, usually contain two or
three residences of the local nobility which do something to redeem the
place from utter provincialism. It is the absence of such buildings
perhaps that gives even our large country towns the aspect of mere
agricultural centres or overgrown villages. The finest example of civil
architecture in Burgos is the Casa del Cordon, now the residence of the
Captain-General. This was the palace of that family whose tombs we have
seen in the Capilla del Condestable. It was in all probability built by
the same workmen in the middle of the fifteenth century, under the
direction of the famous Mudejar architect of Segovia, Mohammed, and by
order of the illustrious High Constable, Don Pedro Fernandez de Velasco,
and his consort, Doña Mencia de Mendoza de la Vega. Here Ferdinand the
Catholic and Charles V. held their courts, and here the first Duchess of
Frias presided over a little coterie composed of the most brilliant men
of letters and artists in Spain. This lady was the natural daughter of
Ferdinand, her mother having been a Catalan girl who accompanied her
royal lover in all his campaigns disguised as an esquire. The
accomplished duchess was the firm friend of her half-sister, the hapless
Queen Juana, and took the latter’s husband, Philip the Handsome, to task
so severely, that he caused her to be ejected from her own house. Within
these walls the Burgundian prince expired, his body being jealously
watched by the queen and the duchess to save it, tradition avers, from a
lady by whom he had been passionately loved and who had sworn to possess
him in death. The Casa del Cordon has nobler memories, too, of Columbus
who, on his return from his second voyage to America, here presented
himself to the Catholic Sovereigns with offerings of the choicest
products of the New World. Here was signed, on June 11, 1515, the act of
the incorporation of the kingdom of Navarre with Castile, the unity of
the whole of Spain being thus achieved. A copy of the document is
preserved in the city archives. And in this house, in 1526, Francis I.
was entertained on his way back to France by the High Constable of
Castile.
The mansion, which has thus loomed so large in the history of Spain,
occupies one side of the Plaza de la Libertad. It belongs to the last
period of Gothic, and is not wanting in dignity and grace. The walls are
surmounted by a parapet or balustrade of pinnacles and crestwork, in
which is repeated the Cross of St. Andrew, in remembrance of a victory
gained by a Velasco on that saint’s day. The façade is flanked by two
square towers, rising one story above the ordinary roof level. The
windows and arcades are later additions, and in bad style. The rope
carved in stone over the entrance, from which the house derives its
modern name, is held by some to be part of the insignia of the Teutonic
Order, by others, with more probability, to be the cord of St. Francis
of Assisi, a saint who was the object of a special veneration by the
Velasco family. Within it are contained the escutcheons of the allied
houses of Velasco, Mendoza de la Vega, and Figueroa, the first
displaying the castles and lions of Castile and the device _Un buen
morir honra toda la vida_. The halls and courts, now devoted to the
military administration of the province, reveal some interesting traces
of the former magnificence of this old home of one of the most powerful
and illustrious of the great families of Spain.
On the south side of the river, in the Calle de la Calera, are two
interesting houses which give the neighbourhood a thoroughly
sixteenth-century aspect. The portal of the fortress-like Casa de los
Angulos or of Iñigo de Angulo is adorned by two lions placed on the
pillars flanking the archway, above which is a shield with seven
quarterings. A few doors farther on is the more interesting Casa de
Miranda, considered the best example of the Renaissance style in Burgos.
It now serves the prosaic purposes of a candle factory. It is entered
through a noble doorway decorated with heraldic achievements. Between
the capitals of the inner court may be deciphered the inscription:
_Franciscus de Miranda salon abbas de salas et canonicus burgen
protonotarius et scriptor aplicus patrie restitutus faciendum curavit
anno De MDXLV_. The escutcheon of the Mirandas is displayed on the
friezes, which are in the usual Renaissance style, relieved with the
figures of genii, medallions, etc. The architecture of the staircase
exhibits a harmonious blending of late Gothic and early plateresque.
Fine workmanship is to be seen in the decoration of the façade of the
old Colegio de San Nicolás (1570), where the Provincial Institute has
its quarters.
Two more conspicuous monuments of the sixteenth century are the fine
arches of Santa Maria and Fernan González. The former occupies the site
of the old tower of Santa Maria, where the town council at one time held
its sittings, and whence the body of Garcilaso de la Vega was hurled by
Pedro the Cruel; it was erected between 1536 and 1540 by the
municipality to conciliate Charles V., it is said, for the events of the
Comunidad. The arch is of three stories, and flanked by two rounded
towers. Over the arch are shown in niches six statues: those of Charles
V. and the Castilian worthies, the Cid, Fernan González, Nuño Rasura,
Lain Calvo, and Diego Porcellos. The upper part of the structure is
battlemented and adorned with statues of the Virgin, of the guardian
angel of the city, and of kings-at-arms supporting escutcheons. The
probability is that the entrance arch, and indeed the whole lower story,
is older by a century than the sculptured parts.
The arch of Fernan González was erected in 1592 to mark the site of the
castle of the redoubtable count. It is in the severe and imposing Doric
style of Herrera, and was evidently intended to receive a statue of the
hero, which an impoverished city is not likely to provide now. Burgos
has, however, done its best to keep green the memory of its illustrious
sons--an example set by so many continental towns, which we, in England,
seem loth to follow.
* * * * *
Of the castle, whose history was so long the history of Castile, little
that is ancient, nothing of the earliest structure, remains. The oldest
masonry is probably the gate, called the Puerta San Estéban, a brick
structure pierced with a horse-shoe arch. Popularly ascribed to the
period of the Moorish domination (which practically was never asserted
over Burgos), there can be little doubt that it dates from the
fourteenth century, and was the work of Mudejar masons, like so many
other Spanish buildings of that time. The old citadel of Castile is now
a heap of ruins, but it was strong enough as late as a century ago to
resist the assaults of Wellington. The next year, however (1813), the
French completely dismantled the fortifications and evacuated the city.
* * * * *
The provincial museums of Spain are, as a rule, disappointing, but the
Burgos collection, housed in the Puerta Santa Maria, is enriched by the
spoils of numerous ancient churches and suppressed convents. The
alabaster effigy of Don Juan de Padilla, believed to be by Gil de Siloe,
is one of the noblest sepulchral monuments in the kingdom. It was
brought here from the ruined monastery of Fres del Val, where the knight
was interred in 1491, having met his death at the age of twenty years,
before the walls of Granada. He is shown kneeling in an attitude of
prayer, beside a prie-Dieu. The face is beautiful and expressive, and
probably a portrait. An ample robe of extraordinary richness reveals the
shirt of mail, the cuirass, and the plate armour worn by the young
warrior. The style reminds one of the statues of Don Juan II. and Prince
Alfonso in the Cartuja, and reflects the greatest credit on Spanish
sculpture. Hardly less beautiful is the tomb itself, decorated with
shields upheld by angels, and an inscription recording the age of the
deceased. In the museum is also a very curious and interesting
altar-front from the convent of Santo Domingo de Silos, dating from the
eleventh century. It is of bronze, with figures of saints in coloured
enamels, in a bastard Byzantine style. The Moorish ivory casket from the
same monastery and of the same century is profoundly interesting, as
exhibiting in relief the Persian theory of the origin of good and evil,
like the basin from Medina Az Zahara, preserved in the National Museum
of Archæology. The Byzantine reliefs of saints on one side of the casket
were evidently carved by the Christians when they became the possessors.
Few small provincial collections contain more important antiquities than
the Museum of Burgos.
III
SALAMANCA
‘Sword never blunted pen,’ says a Spanish proverb, ‘nor pen sword.’ The
history of Salamanca illustrated this truth. Its people were doughty
warriors and learned scholars. The name of Salamanca was feared by Moor
and Portuguese, as much as it was respected in all the halls of learning
of the mediæval world. The seat of a university which all but
successfully competed for pre-eminence with Oxford and Paris, it was at
the same time the permanent camp of as fierce a race of fighting men as
ever marched beneath the banners of Spain. The pen has made the city
famous in every land, but it was by her sword that she came to be better
known in her own country. Decayed and ruined, she has yet made herself
illustrious in the two great fields of human activity, and has a twofold
claim on the respect and interest of men of every European tongue.
The city, far older than Leon and Burgos, existed prior to the Roman
conquest. It is identified by some with the Elmantica of Polybius, in
which others recognise the neighbouring town of Alba de Tormes. Plutarch
speaks of it as Salmatica, ‘a great town of Spain,’ and relates the
heroic exploits of its womenfolk. Besieged by the Carthaginians under
Hannibal, the inhabitants were forced to surrender. They were ordered to
evacuate the town, leaving behind them all their arms and property as
spoils for the victors. They were then placed under a guard of
Massilians, while the rest of the Punic host hastened to plunder the
forsaken city. But the women, who had accompanied the prisoners and whom
no one had thought of searching, produced weapons which they had
concealed about them, and armed their husbands, who fell upon their
guards and cut them to pieces. The Carthaginian army was thrown into
dismay by this unexpected attack, and the brave Salamantians were
enabled to make good their escape to the hills. Hannibal is stated by
Plutarch to have graciously pardoned the enemy that had eluded his
vengeance.
Salamanca, with the rest of the province of Lusitania, passed under the
sway of Rome, and seems to have been a place of some importance. Money
was coined here in the reign of Tiberius, and the town was governed by
duumvirs. Christianity must have early taken root here, for when the
Goths conquered Spain they found an episcopal see already established at
Salamanca. It had already been for a time the seat of a Vandal governor,
Genseric, brother of King Huneric. Money was struck bearing the names of
the city and of the kings Erwig and Egica. Certain bishops are mentioned
as assisting at the councils of Toledo: Eleutherius at the third;
Hiccila at the fourth and fifth; Egered at the seventh, eighth, and
tenth; Providentius at the twelfth; Holemund at the thirteenth,
fifteenth, and sixteenth. When in 715 Salamanca was submerged by the
Moorish invasion, her bishop sought refuge with Pelayo in the glens of
Asturias, and we read that Alfonso the Chaste assigned the basilica of
San Salvador at Oviedo, to Quindulfo, the occupant of the see then _in
partibus infidelium_. The city did not long remain in the undisturbed
possession of the Moor. It was taken by Alfonso I. in 750, and again in
858 by Ordoño I., who made captive the Moorish amir, and released him
only after extorting better terms for his Christian subjects. But this
promise did not tempt back the bishops from their safe retreat in the
north. Sebastian, who wore the mitre about the year 880, occupied
himself with writing a chronicle of Spain from the reign of Wamba to his
own day. His patron, Alfonso el Magno, succeeded in expelling the
Mohammedans from Salamanca, and thought to annex it definitely to his
kingdom; but it was recaptured by Abd-ur-Rahman, the Khalifa, five years
later, the Christian inhabitants, including priests, to the number of
two hundred, being put to the sword.