I. Valladolid 293
II. Avila 302
III. Segovia 312
IV. Madrid-Alcala 321
V. Sigueenza 335
VI. Cuenca 342
VII. Toledo 349
Appendix 369
Index 387
[Note of Transcriber of the ebook]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Leon Cathedral (_See page 154_) _Frontispiece_
Cloister Stalls in a Monastic Church at Leon 48
Typical Retablo (Palencia) 50
Mudejar Architecture (Sahagun) 64
Santiago and Its Cathedral 82
Church of Santiago, Corunna 92
General View of Mondonedo 96
Mondonedo Cathedral 98
Northern Portal of Orense Cathedral 116
Tuy Cathedral 128
Oviedo Cathedral 140
Cloister of Oviedo Cathedral 144
Apse of San Isidoro, Leon 164
Burgos Cathedral 180
Crypt of Santander Cathedral 190
Cloister of Najera Cathedral 202
Santa Maria la Redonda, Logrono 204
Western Front of Calahorra Cathedral 207
Cloister of Soria Cathedral 212
Palencia Cathedral 226
Zamora Cathedral 238
Toro Cathedral 248
Old Salamanca Cathedral 260
New Salamanca Cathedral 266
Cuidad Rodrigo Cathedral 272
Facade of Plasencia Cathedral 288
Western Front of Valladolid Cathedral 300
Tower of Avila Cathedral 310
Segovia Cathedral 316
San Isidro, Madrid 326
Alcala de Henares Cathedral 332
Toledo Cathedral 360
_PART I_
_Introductory Studies_
_The Cathedrals of Northern Spain_
I
GENERAL REMARKS
History and architecture go hand in hand; the former is not complete if
it does not mention the latter, and the latter is incomprehensible if
the former is entirely ignored.
The following chapters are therefore historical and architectural; they
are based on evolutionary principles and seek to demonstrate the motives
of certain artistic phenomena.
Many of the ideas superficially mentioned in the following essays will
be severely discussed, for they are original; others are based on two
excellent modern historical works, namely, "The History of the Spanish
People," by Major Martin Hume, and "Historia de Espana," by Senor Rafael
Altamira. These two works can be regarded as the _dernier mot_
concerning the evolution of Spanish history.
Unluckily, however, the author has been unable to consult any work on
architecture which might have given him a concise idea of the story of
its gradual evolution and development, and of the different art-waves
which flowed across the peninsula during the stormy period of the middle
ages, which, properly speaking, begins with the Arab invasion of the
eighth century and ends with the fall of Granada, in the fifteenth.
Several works on Spanish architecture have been written (the reader will
find them mentioned elsewhere), but none treats the matter from an
evolutionary standpoint. On the contrary, most of them are limited to
the study of a period, of a style or of a locality; hence they cannot
claim to be a _dernier mot_. Such a work has still to be written.
Be it understood, nevertheless, that the author does not pretend--_Dios
me libre!_--to have supplied the lack in the following pages. In a
couple of thousand words it would be utterly impossible to do so. No; a
complete, evolutionary study of Spanish architecture would imply years
of labour, of travel, and of study. For so much on the peninsula is
hybrid and exotic, and yet again, so much is peculiar to Spain alone.
Thus it is often most difficult to determine which art phenomena are
natural--that is, which are the logical results of a well-defined art
movement--and which are artificial or the casual product of elements
utterly foreign to Spanish soil.
Willingly the author leaves to other and wiser heads the solving of the
above riddle. He hopes, nevertheless, that they (those who care to
undertake the mentioned task) will find some remarks or some
observations in the following chapters to help them discover the real
truth concerning the Spaniard's love, or his insensibility for
architectural monuments, as well as his share in the erection of
cathedrals, palaces, and castles.
Spanish architecture--better still, architecture in Spain--is peculiarly
strange and foreign to us Northerners. We admire many edifices in
Iberia, but are unable to say wherefore; we are overawed at the
magnificence displayed in the interior of cathedral churches and at a
loss to explain the reason.
As regards the former, it can be attributed to the Oriental spirit still
throbbing in the country; not in vain did the Moor inhabit Iberia for
nearly eight hundred years!
The powerful influence of the Church on the inhabitants, an influence
that has lasted from the middle ages to the present day, explains the
other phenomenon. Even to-day, in Spain, the Pope is supreme and the
princes of the Church are the rulers.
Does the country gain thereby? Not at all. Andalusia is in a miserable
state of poverty, so are Extremadura, La Mancha, and Castile. Not a
penny do the rich, or even royalty, give to better the country people's
piteous lot; neither does the Church.
It is nevertheless necessary to be just. In studying the evolutionary
history of architecture in Spain, we must praise the tyranny of the
Church which spent the millions of dollars of the poor in erecting such
marvels as the cathedral of Toledo, etc., and we must ignore the
sweating farmer, the terror-stricken Jew, the accused heretic, the
disgraced courtier, the seafaring conquistador, who gave up their all to
buy a few months' life, the respite of an hour.
And the author has striven to be impartial in the following pages. Once
in awhile his bitterness has escaped the pen, but be it plainly
understood that not one of his remarks is aimed against Spain, a country
and a people to be admired,--above all to be pitied, for they, the
people, are slaves to an arrogant Church, to a self-amusing royalty, and
to a grasping horde of second-rate politicians.
II
HISTORICAL ARABESQUES
The history of Spain is, perhaps, more than that of any other nation,
one long series of thrilling, contradictory, and frequently
incomprehensible events.
This is not only due to the country's past importance as a powerful
factor in the evolution of our modern civilization, but to the
unforeseen doings of fate. Fate enchained and enslaved its people,
moulded its greatness and wrought its ruin. Of no other country can it
so truthfully be said that it was the unwitting tool of some higher
destiny. Most of the phenomena of its history took place in spite of the
people's wishes or votes; neither did the different art questions,
styles, periods, or movements emanate from the people. This must be
borne in mind.
The Romans were the first to come to Spain with a view to conquering the
land, and to organizing the half-savage clans or tribes who roamed
through the thickets and across the plains. But nowhere did the great
rulers of the world encounter such fierce resistance. The clans were
extremely warlike and, besides, intensely individual. They did not only
oppose the foreigner's conquest of the land, but also his system of
organization, which consisted in the submission of the individual to the
state.
The clans or tribes recognized no other law than their own sweet will;
they acted independently of each other, and only on rare occasions did
they fight in groups. They were local patriots who recognized no
fatherland beyond their natal vale or village.
This primary characteristic of the Spanish people is the clue to many of
the subsequent events of the country's history. Against it the Romans
fought, but fought in vain, for they were not able to overcome it.
Christianity dawned in the East and was introduced into Spain, some say
by St. James in the north, others by St. Peter or St. Paul in the south.
The result was astonishing: what Roman swords, laws, and highroads had
been unable to accomplish (as regards the organization of the savage
tribes) Christianity brought about in a comparatively short lapse of
time.
The reason is twofold. In the first place, the new form of religion
taught that all men were equal; consequently it was more to the taste of
the individualistic Spaniard than the state doctrines of the Roman
Empire.
Secondly, it permitted him to worship his deity in as many forms
(saints) as there were days in the year; consequently each village or
town could boast of its own saint, prophet, or martyr, who, in the minds
of the citizens, was greater than all other saints, and really the god
of their fervent adoration.
Hence Christianity was able to introduce into the Roman province of
Hispania a social organization which was to exert a lasting influence on
the country and to acquire an unheard-of degree of wealth and power.
When the temporal domination of Rome in Spain had dwindled away to
nothing, other foreigners, the Visigoths, usurped the fictitious rule.
Their state was civil in name, military in organization, and
ecclesiastical in reality.
They formed no nation, however, though they preserved the broken
fragments of the West Roman Empire. The same spirit of individualism
characterized the tribes or people, and they swore allegiance to their
local saint (God) and to the priest who was his representative on earth
(Church)--but to no one else.
Consequently it can be assumed that the Spanish nation had not as yet
been born; the controlling power had passed from the hands of one
foreigner to those of another: only one institution--the Church--could
claim to possess a national character; around it, or upon its
foundations, the nation was to be built up, stone by stone, and turret
by turret.
* * * * *
The third foreigner appeared on the scene. He was doubtless the most
important factor in the formation of the Spanish nation.
It is probable that the Church called him over the Straits of Gibraltar
as an aid against Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king, who lost his throne
and his life because too deeply in love with his beautiful Tolesian
mistress.
Legends explain the Moor's landing differently. Sohail, as powerfully
narrated by Mr. Cunninghame-Graham, is one of these legends, beautifully
fatalistic and exceptionally interesting. According to it, the destiny
of the Moors is ruled by a star named Sohail. Whither it goes they must
follow it.
In the eighth century it happened that Sohail, in her irregular course
across the heavens, was to be seen, a brilliant star, from Gibraltar.
Obeying the stellar call, Tarik landed in Spain and moved northwards at
the head of his irresistible, fanatic hordes. The star continued its
northerly movement, visible one fine night from the Arab tents pitched
on the plains between Poitiers and Tours. The next night, however, it
was no longer visible, and Charles Martel drove the invading Moors back
to the south.
Centuries went by and Sohail appeared ever lower down on the southern
horizon. One night it was only visible from Granada, and then Spain saw
it no more. That same day--'twas in the fifteenth century--Boabdil el
Chico surrendered the keys of Granada, and the Arabs fled, obeying the
retreating star's call.
To-day they are waiting in the north of Africa for Sohail to move once
again to the north: when she does so, they will rise again as a single
man, and regain their passionately loved Alhambra, their beautiful
kingdom of Andalusia.
Tradition is fond of showing us a nucleus of fervent Christian patriots
obliged by the invading Arab hordes to retire to the north-western
corner of the Iberian peninsula. Here they made a stand, a last glorious
stand, and, gradually increasing in strength, they were at last able to
drive back the invader inch by inch until he fled across the straits to
trouble Iberia no more.
Nothing is, however, less true. The noblemen and monarchs of Galicia,
Leon, and Oviedo--later of Castile, Navarra, and Aragon--were so many
petty lords who, fighting continually among themselves, ruled over
fragments of the defeated Visigothic kingdom. At times they called in
the Arab enemy--to whom in the early centuries they paid a yearly
tribute--to help them against the encroachments of their brother
Christians. Consequently they lacked that spirit of patriotism and of
national ambition which might have justified their claims to be called
monarchs or rulers of Spain.
The Church was no better. Its bishops were independent princes who ruled
in their dioceses like sovereigns in their palaces; they recognized no
supreme master, not even the Pope, whose advice was ignored, and whose
orders were disobeyed.
It was not until the twelfth or thirteenth century that the Christian
incursions into Moorish territory took the form of patriotic crusades,
in which fervent Christians burnt with the holy desire of weeding out of
the peninsula the Saracen infidel.
This holy crusade was due to the coming from France and Italy of the
Cluny monks. Foreigners,--like the Romans, the Church, the Visigoths,
and the Moors,--they created a situation which facilitated the union of
the different monarchs, prelates, and noblemen, by showing them a common
cause to fight for. Besides, anxious to establish the supreme power of
the Pope in a land where his authority was a dead letter, they crossed
the Pyrenees and broke the absolute power of the arrogant prelates.
The result was obvious: the Church became uniform throughout the
country, and its influence waxed to the detriment of that of the
noblemen. Once again the kings learnt to rely upon the former, thus
putting an end to the power of the latter. Once more the Church grew to
be an ecclesiastical organization in which the role of the prelates
became more important as time went on.
In short, if the coming of the Moors retarded for nearly six hundred
years the birth of the Spanish nation, this birth was directly brought
about by the political ability of the Cluny monks; the Moors, on the
other hand, exerted a direct and lasting influence on the shaping and
moulding of the future nation.
Christian Spain, at the time of the death of the pious warrior-king San
Fernando, was roughly divided into an eastern and a western half, into
the kingdom of Castile (and Leon) and that of Aragon. The fusion of
these two halves by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabel, two hundred
years later, marks the date of the birth of Spain as a nation.
It is true, nevertheless, that the people had little or no voice in the
arrangement of matters. They were indifferent to what their crowned
rulers were doing, and ignorant of the growing power, wealth, and
learning of the prelates. All they asked for was individual liberty and
permission to pray to the God of their choice. Neither had as yet the
spirit of patriotism burned in their breasts, and they were utterly
insensible to any and all politics which concerned the peninsula as a
unity.
But the Church-state had successfully evolutionized, and Catholic kings
sat on the only available throne. The last Moor had been driven from the
peninsula, the Jews had been expelled from the Catholic kingdom, and the
Inquisition--now that the Church could no longer direct its energy
against the infidel--strengthened the Pope's hold on the land and
increased the importance and magnificence of the prelates themselves.
* * * * *
A word as to heresy (the Reformation) and the Inquisition. The latter
was not directed against the former, for it would have been impossible
for the people to accept the reformed faith in the fifteenth century.
For the Spaniard the charm of the Christian religion was that it placed
him on an equal footing with all men; hence, it flattered his love of
personal liberty and his self-consciousness or pride. The charm of
Catholicism was that it enabled him to adore a local deity in the shape
of a martyred saint; thus, it flattered his vanity as a clansman, and
his spirit of individualism.
It was not so much the God of Christianity he worshipped as Our Lady of
the Pillar, Our Lady of Sorrows, of the Camino, etc., and he obeyed less
readily the archbishop than the custodian priest of his particular
saint, of whom he declared "that he could humiliate all other saints."
Consequently Protestantism, which tended to kill this local worship by
upholding that of a collective deity, could never have taken a serious
hold of the country, and it is doubtful if it ever will.
On the other hand--as previously remarked--the Spanish Inquisition
helped to centralize the Church's power and obliged the people to accept
its decisions as final. The effect of Torquemada's policy is still to be
felt in Spain--could it be otherwise?
* * * * *
Had successive events in this stage of Spain's history followed a normal
course, and had the education of the people been fostered by the state
instead of being cursed by the Church, it is more than probable that the
map of Europe would have been different to-day from what it is. For the
Spanish people would have learnt to think as patriots, as a nation; they
would have developed their country's rich soil and thickly populated
the vast _vegas_; they would have taken the offensive against foreign
nations, and would have chased and battled the Moor beyond the Straits
of Gibraltar.
It was not to be, however. An abnormal event was to take place--and did
take place--which repeated in fair Iberia the retrograde movement
initiated by the Arab invasion 750 years earlier.
A foreigner was again the cause of this new phenomenon, a harebrained
Genoese navigator whom the world calls a genius because he was
successful, but who was an evil genius for the new-born Spanish nation,
one who was to load his adopted country with unparalleled fame and glory
before causing her rapid and clashing downfall.
Christopher Columbus came to Spain from the east; he sailed westwards
from Spain and discovered--for Spain!--two vast continents.
The importance of this event for Spain is apt to be overlooked by those
who are blinded by the unexpected realization of Columbus's daring
dreams. It was as though a volcanic eruption had taken place in a virgin
soil, tossing earth and grass, layers and strata of stone, hither and
thither in utter confusion, impeding the further growth of young
plantlets and forbidding the building up of a solid national edifice.
Instead of devoting their energies to the interior organization of the
country, Spaniards turned their eyes to the New World. In exchange for
the gold and precious stones which poured into the land, they gave that
which left the country poor and weak indeed: their blood and their
lives. The bravest and most intrepid leaders crossed the seas with their
followers, and behind them sailed thousands upon thousands of hardy
adventurers and soldiers.
But the Spaniards could not colonize. They lacked those qualities of
collectivity which characterized Rome and England. The individualistic
spirit of the people caused them to go and to come as they chose without
possessing any ambition of establishing in the newly acquired
territories a home and a family; neither did the women folk
emigrate--and hence the failure of Spain as a colonizing power.
On the other hand, those who had sailed the seas to the Spanish main,
and had hoarded up a significant treasure, invariably returned, not to
Spain exactly, but to their native town or village. Upon arriving home,
their first act was to bequeath a considerable sum to the Church, so as
to ease their conscience and to assure themselves homage, respect, and
unrestrained liberty.
The effects produced by this phenomenon of individualism were manifold.
They exist even to-day, so lasting were they.
A new nobility was created--wealthy, powerful, and generally arrogant
and unscrupulous, which replaced the feudal aristocracy of the middle
ages.
Secondly, oligarchy--or better still, _caciquismo_, an individualistic
form of oligarchy--sprung up into existence, and rapidly became the bane
of modern Spain; that is, ever since the Bourbon dynasty ruled the
country's fate. As can easily be understood, this _caciquismo_ can only
flourish there where individualism is the leading characteristic of the
people.
Thirdly, all hopes of the country's possessing a well-to-do middle
class--stamina of a wealthy nation, and without which no people can
attain a national standard of wealth--vanished completely away.
Lastly the Church, which had become wealthy beyond the dreams of the
Cluny monks, retained its iron grip on the country, and retarded the
liberal education of the masses. To repay the fidelity of servile
Catholics, it canonized legions of local prophets and martyrs, and
organized hundreds of gay annual _fiestas_ to honour their memory. The
ignorant people, flattered at the tribute of admiration paid to their
deities, looked no further ahead into the growing chaos of misery and
poverty, and were happy.
The crash came--could it be otherwise? Beyond the seas an immense
territory, hundreds of times larger than the natal _solar_, or mother
country, stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific; at home, a
stillborn nation lay in an arid meadow beside a solemn church, a
frivolous, selfish throne, and a mute and gloomy brick-built convent.
The Spanish Armada sailed to England never to return, and Philip II.
built the Escorial, a melancholy pantheon for the kings of the Iberian
peninsula.
One by one the colonies dropped off, fragments of an illusory empire,
and at last the mother country stood once more stark naked as in the
days before Columbus left Palos harbour. But the mother's face was no
longer young and fresh like an infant's: wrinkles of age and of
suffering creased the brow and the chin, for not in vain was she, during
centuries, the toy of unmerciful fate.
* * * * *
Such is, in gigantic strides, the history of Spain.
The volcanic eruption in the fifteenth century has left, it is true,
indelible traces in the country's soil. Nevertheless, on the very day
when the treaty of Paris was signed and the last of the Spanish colonies
_de ultramar_ were lost for ever, that day a Spanish nation was born
again on the disturbed foundations of the old.
There is no denying it: when Ferdinand and Isabel united their kingdoms
a nation was born; it fell to pieces (though apparently not until a
later date) when Columbus landed in America.
Anarchy, misrule, and oppression, ignorance and poverty, now frivolity
and now austerity at court, fill the succeeding centuries until the
coronation of Alfonso XII. During all those years, but once did
Spain--no longer a nation--shine forth in history with an even greater
brilliancy than when she claimed to be mistress of the world. But, on
this occasion, when she opposed, in brave but disbanded groups, the
invasion of the French legions, she gave another proof of the
individualistic instincts of the race, as opposed to all social and
compact organization of the masses.
The Carlist wars need but a passing remark. They were not national; they
were caused by the ambitions of rulers and noblemen, and fought out by
the inhabitants of Navarra and the Basque Provinces who upheld their
_fueros_, by paid soldiery, and by _aldeanos_ whose houses and families
were threatened.
* * * * *
New Spain was born a few years ago, but so far she has given no proof of
vitality. As it is, she is cumbered by traditions and harassed by
memories. She must fight a sharp battle with existing evil institutions
handed down to her as a questionable legacy from the past.
If she emerge victorious from the struggle, universal history will hear
her name again, for the country is not _gastado_ or degenerate, as many
would have us believe.
If she fail to throw overboard the worthless and superfluous ballast, it
is possible that the ship of state will founder--and then, who knows?
In the meantime, let us not misjudge the Spaniard nor throw stones at
his broken glass mansion. To help us in this, let us remember that
unexpected vicissitudes, entirely foreign to his country, were the cause
of his illusory grandeur in the sixteenth century. Besides, no more
ardent a lover of individual (not social) freedom than the Spaniard
breathes in this wide world of ours--excepting it be the Moor.
Under the circumstances he is to be admired--even pitied.
III
ARCHITECTURAL ARABESQUES
_Preliminaries_
The different periods mentioned in the preceding chapter are
characterized by a corresponding art-movement.
The germs of these movements came invariably from abroad. In Spain they
lingered, were localized and grew up, a species of hybrid plants in
which the foreign element was still visible, though it had undergone a
series of changes, due either to the addition of other elements, to the
inventive genius of the artist-architect, or else peculiar to the
locality in which the building was erected.
Other conclusive remarks arrived at in the foregoing study help to
explain the evolution of church architecture. Five were the conclusions:
(1) The power and wealth of the Church, (2) the influence exerted by
foreigners on the country's fate, (3) the individualistic spirit of the
clanspeople, (4) the short duration of a Spanish nation, nipped in the
bud before it could bloom, and (5) the formation of an oligarchy
(_caciquismo_) which hindered the establishment of an educated
_bourgeoisie_.
The first of the above conclusive observations needs no further remarks,
considering that we are studying church architecture. It suffices to
indicate the great number of cathedrals, churches, hermitages,
monasteries, convents, cloisters, and episcopal palaces to be convinced
of the Church's influence on the country and on the purses of the
inhabitants.
The Spaniard, psychologically speaking, is no artist; it is doubtful if
illiterate and uneducated people are, and the average inhabitant of
Spain forms no exception to this rule. His artistic talents are
exclusively limited to music, for which he has an excessively fine ear.
But beauty in the plastic arts and architecture leave him cold and
indifferent; he is influenced by mass, weight, and quantity rather than
by elegance or lightness, and consequently it is the same to him whether
a cathedral be Gothic or Romanesque, as long as it be dedicated to the
deity of his choice.
The difference between Italian and Iberian is therefore very marked.
Even the landscapes in each country prove it beyond a doubt. In Italy
they are composed of soft rolling lines; the colours are varied,--green,
red, and blue; the soil is damp and fruitful. In Spain, on the contrary,
everything is dry, arid, and savage; blue is the sky, red the brick
houses, and grayish golden the soil; the inhabitants are as savage as
the country, and the proverbial "_ma e piu bello_" of the Italian does
not bother the former in the slightest.
All of which goes to explain the Spaniard's insensibility to the plastic
arts, as well as (for instance) the universal use of huge _retablos_ or
altar-pieces, in which size and bright colours are all that is required
and the greater the size, the more clashing the colours, the better.
Neither is it surprising that the Spaniard created no architectural
school of his own. All he possesses is borrowed from abroad. His love of
Byzantine grotesqueness and of Moorish geometrical arabesques is
inherited, the one from the Visigoths, and the other directly from the
Moors. The remaining styles are northern and Italian, and were
introduced into the country by such foreigners--monks and artists--as
crowded to Spain in search of Spanish gold.
These artists (it is true that some, and perhaps the best of them, were
Spaniards) did not work for the people, for there was no _bourgeoisie_.
They worked for the wealthy prelates, for the aristocracy, and for the
_caciques_. These latter had sumptuous chapels decorated, dedicated an
altar to such and such a deity, and erected a magnificent sepulchre or
series of sepulchres for themselves and their families.
This peculiar phenomenon explains the wealth of Spanish churches in
lateral chapels. Not a cathedral but has about twenty of them; not a
church but possesses its half a dozen. Moreover, some of the very finest
examples of sepulchral art are not to be found in cathedrals, but in
out-of-the-way village churches, where some _cacique_ or other laid his
bones to rest and had his effigy carved on a gorgeous marble tomb.
These chapels are built in all possible styles and in all degrees of
splendour and magnificence, according to the generosity of the donor.
Here they bulge out, deforming the regular plan of the church, or else
they take up an important part of the interior of the building. There
they are Renaissance jewels in a Gothic temple, or else ogival marvels
in a Romanesque building. They are, as it were, small churches--or
important annexes like that of the Condestable in Burgos, possessing a
dome of its own--absolutely independent of the cathedral itself, rich in
decorative details, luxurious in the use of polished stone and metal, of
agate and golden accessories, of gilded friezes, low reliefs, and
painted _retablos_. They constitute one of the most characteristic
features of Spanish religious architecture and art in general, and it is
above all due to them that Iberia's cathedrals are museums rather than
solemn places of worship.
But the Spanish people did not erect them; they were commanded by vain
and death-fearing _caciques_, and erected by artists--generally
foreigners, though often natives. The people did not care nor take any
interest in the matter; so long as the village saint was not insulted,
nor their individual liberty (_fuero_) infringed upon, the world, its
artists and _caciques_, could do as it liked.
This insensibility helped to hinder the formation of a national style.
Besides, as the duration of the Spanish nation was so exceedingly short,
there was no time at hand to develop a national art school. In certain
localities, as in Galicia, a prevailing type or style was in common use,
and was slowly evolving into something strictly local and excellent.
These types, together with Moorish art, and above all _Mudejar_ work,
might have evolved still further and produced a national style. But the
nation fell to pieces like a dried-up barrel whose hoops are broken, and
the nation's style was never formed.
Besides, contemporary with the birth of the nation was the advent of the
Renaissance movement. This was the _coup de grace_, the final blow to
any germs of a Spanish style, of a style composed of Christian and Islam
principles and ideals:
"Es waer zu schoen gewesen,
Es haett' nicht sollen sein!"
Under the circumstances, the art student in Spain, however enthusiastic
or one-sided he may be, cannot claim to discover a national school. He
must necessarily limit his studies to the analysis of the foreign art
waves which inundated the land; he must observe how they became
localized and were modified, how they were united both wisely and
ridiculously, and he must point out the reasons or causes of these
medleys and transformations. There his task ends.
One peculiarity will strike him: the peninsula possesses no pure Gothic,
Romanesque, or Renaissance building. The same might almost be stated as
regards Moorish art. The capitals of the pillars in the mezquita of
Cordoba are Latin-Romanesque, torn from a previous building by the
invading Arab to adorn his own temple. The Alhambra, likewise, shows
animal arabesques which are Byzantine and not Moorish. Nevertheless,
Arab art is, on the whole, purer in style than Christian art.
This transformation of foreign styles proves: (1) That though the
Spanish artist lacked creative genius, he was no base imitator, but
sought to combine; he sought to give the temple he had to construct that
heavy, massive, strong, and sombre aspect so well in harmony with the
religious and warlike spirit of the different clanspeople; and (2) that
the same artist failed completely to understand the ideal of soaring
ogival, of simple Renaissance, or of pure Romanesque (this latter he
understood better than either of the others). For him, they--as well as
Islam art--were but elements to be made use of. Apart from their
constructive use, they were superfluous, and the artist-architect was
blind to their ethical object or aesthetical value. With their aid he
built architectural wonders, but hybrid marvels, complex, grand,
luxurious, and magnificent.
Be it plainly understood, nevertheless, that in the above paragraphs no
contempt for Spanish cathedrals is either felt or implied. Facts are
stated, but no personal opinion is emitted as to which is better, a pure
Gothic or a complicated Spanish Gothic. In art there is really no
better; besides, comparisons are odious and here they are utterly
superfluous.
_Cathedral Churches_
Before accompanying the art student in his task of determining the
different foreign styles, we will do well to examine certain general
characteristics common to all Spanish cathedrals. We will then be able
to understand with greater ease the causes of the changes introduced
into pure styles.
The exterior aspect of all cathedrals is severe and massive, even naked
and solemn. Neither windows nor flying buttresses are used in such
profusion as in French cathedrals, and the height of the aisles is
greater. The object is doubtless to impart an idea of strength to the
exterior walls by raising them in a compact mass. An even greater effect
is obtained by square, heavy towers instead of elegant spires. (Compare,
however, chapters on Leon, Oviedo, Burgos, etc.) The use of domes
(_cimborios_, lanterns, and cupolas) is also frequent, most of them
being decidedly Oriental in appearance. The apse is prominent and
generally five-sided, warlike in its severe outline. Stone is invariably
used as the principal constructive element,--granite, _berroquena_ (a
soft white stone turning deep gray with age and exposure), and _sillar_
or _silleria_ (a red sandstone cut into similar slabs of the size and
aspect of brick). Where red sandstone is used, the weaker parts of the
buildings are very often constructed in brick, and it is these
last-named cathedrals that are most Oriental in appearance, especially
when the brick surface is carved into _Mudejar_ reliefs.
Taken all in all, the whole building often resembles a castle or
fortress rather than a temple, in harmony with the austere, arid
landscape, and the fierce, passionate, and idolatrous character of the
clanspeople or inhabitants of the different regions.
The principal entrance is usually small in comparison to the height and
great mass of the building. The pointed arch--or series of arches--which
crowns the portal, is timid in its structure, or, in other words, is but
slightly pointed or not at all.
The interior aspect of the church is totally different. As bare and
naked as was the outside, so luxurious and magnificent is the inside.
Involuntarily mediaeval Spanish palaces come to our mind: their gloomy
appearance from the outside, and the gay _patio_ or courtyard behind the
heavy, uninviting panels of the doors. The Moors even to this day employ
this system of architecture; its origin, even in the case of Christian
churches, is Oriental.
Leaving aside all architectural considerations, which will be referred
to in the chapters dedicated to the description of the various
cathedrals, let us examine the general disposition of some of the most
interesting parts of the Spanish church.
The aisles are, as a rule, high and dark, buried in perpetual shadow.
The lightest and airiest part of the building is beneath the _croisee_
(intersection of nave and transept), which is often crowned by a
handsome _cimborio_.
The nave is the most important member of the church, and the most
impressive view is obtained by the visitor standing beneath the
_croisee_.
To the east of him, the nave terminates in a semicircular chapel, the
farther end of which boasts of an immense _retablo_; to the west, the
choir, with its stalls and organs, interrupts likewise the continuity of
the nave. Both choir and altar are rich in decorative details.
Behind the high altar runs the ambulatory, joining the aisles and
separating the former from the apse and its chapels. The rear wall of
the high altar (in the ambulatory) is called the _trasaltar_, where a
small altar is generally situated in a recess and dedicated to the
patron saint, that is, if the cathedral itself be dedicated to the
Virgin, as generally happens.
Sometimes an oval window pierces the wall of the _trasaltar_ and lets
the light from the apsidal windows enter the high altar; this
arrangement is called a _transparente_.
The choir, as wide as the nave and often as high, is rectangular; an
altar-table generally stands in the western extremity, which is closed
off by a wall. The rear of this wall (facing the western entrance to the
temple) is called the _trascoro_, and contains the altar or a chapel;
the lateral walls are also pierced by low rooms or niches which serve
either as chapels or as altar-frames.
The placing of the choir in the very centre of the church, its width and
height, and its enclosure on the western end by a wall, render
impossible a view of the whole building such as occurs in Northern
cathedrals, and upon which the impression of architectural grandeur and
majesty largely depends. It was as though Spanish architects were
utterly foreign to the latter impression, or wilfully murdered it by
substituting another more to their taste, namely, that of magnificence
and sumptuousness. Nowhere--to the author's knowledge--is this
impression more acutely felt than in a Spanish cathedral, viewed from
beneath the _croisee_.
Glittering brilliancy, dazzling gold, silver, or gilt, polished marble,
agate, and jasper, and a luxuriance of vivid colours meet the visitor's
eyes when standing there. The effect is theatrical, doubtless, but it
impresses the humble true believer as Oriental splendour; and what, in
other countries, might be considered as grotesque and unhealthy art,
must in Spain be regarded as the very essence of the country's worship,
the very _raison d'etre_ of the cathedral. Neither can it be considered
as unhealthy: with us in the North, our _religious awe_ is produced by
the solemn majesty of rising shafts and long, high, and narrow aisles;
this fails to impress the Iberian of to-day; and yet, the same sentiment
of _religious awe_, of the terrible unknown, be it saint, Saviour,
Virgin, or God, is imparted to him by this brilliant display of
incalculable wealth.
To produce this magnificence in choir and high altar, decorative and
industrial art were given a free hand, and together wrought those
wonders of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries which
placed Spain in a prominent position in the history of art. Goldsmiths
and silversmiths, masters of ironcraft, sculptors in stone and wood,
painters and _estofadores_, together with a legion of other artists and
artisans of all classes and nationalities, worked together in unison to
create both choir and high altar.
Therefore, from an artistic point of view, the Spanish cathedral is for
the foreigner a museum, a collection of art objects, pertaining, most of
them, to the country's industrial arts, for which Iberia was first among
all nations.
* * * * *
CHOIR STALLS.--Space cannot allow us to classify this most important
accessory of Spanish cathedrals. Carved in walnut or oak, now simple and
severe, now rich and florid, this branch of graphic art in low relief
constitutes one of Spain's most legitimate glories. It is strange that
no illustrated work dedicated exclusively to choir stalls should have
been published in any language. The tourist's attention must
nevertheless be drawn to this part of religious buildings; it must
not escape his observation when visiting cathedral and parish churches,
and above all, monastical churches.
[Illustration: CLOISTER STALLS IN A MONASTIC CHURCH AT LEON]
* * * * *
RETABLO.--The above remarks hold good here as well, when speaking about
the huge and imposing altar-pieces so universally characteristic of
Spain.
The eastern wall of the holy chapel in a cathedral is entirely hidden
from top to bottom by the _retablo_, a painted wooden structure
resembling a huge honeycomb. It consists of niches flanked by gilded
columns. According to the construction of these columns, now Gothic
shafts, now Greek or composite, now simple and severe, the period to
which the _retablo_ belongs is determined.
Generally pyramidically superimposed, these niches, of the height,
breadth, and depth of an average man, contain life-size statues of
apostle or saint, painted and decorated by the _estofadores_ in
brilliant colours (of course, as they are intended to be seen from a
distance!), in which red and blue are predominant, and which produce a
gorgeous effect _rehausse_ by the gilt columns of the niches. (Compare
with the Oriental taste of _Mudejar_ work in ceilings or
_artesonados_.)
The whole _retablo_, in the low reliefs which form the base, and in the
statues or groups in the niches, represents graphically the life of the
Saviour or the Virgin, of the patron saint or an apostle; some of them
are of exquisite execution and of great variety and movement; in others,
greater attention has been paid to the decoration of the columns or
shafts by original floral garlands, etc. Foment, Juni, and Berruguete
are among the most noted _retablo_ sculptors, but space will not permit
of a more prolific classification or analysis.
* * * * *
GOLD AND SILVERSMITHS.--The vessels used on the altar-table, effigies of
saints, processional crosses, etc., in beaten gold and silver, are well
worth examination. So is also the cathedral treasure, in some cases of
an immense value, both artistic and intrinsic. Cloths, woven in coloured
silks, gold, and precious stones, are beautiful enough to make any art
lover envious.
The central niche of the _retablo_, immediately above the altar-table,
is generally occupied by a massive beaten silver effigy, the artistic
value of which is unluckily partially concealed beneath a heap of
valuable cloths and jewels.
[Illustration: TYPICAL RETABLO (PALENCIA)]
But where the silversmith's art is purest and most lavishly pronounced
is in the _sagrarios_. These are solid silver carved pyramids about two
or three feet high: they represent miniature temples or thrones with
shafts or columns supporting arches, windows, pinnacles, and cupolas. In
the interior, an effigy of the saint, or the Virgin, etc., to whom the
cathedral is dedicated, is to be seen seated on a throne.
In all cases the workmanship of these miniature temples is exquisite,
and has brought just fame to Spain's fifteenth and sixteenth century
silversmiths.
* * * * *
IRONCRAFT.--Last to be mentioned, but not least in importance, are the
artisans who worked in iron. They brought their trade up to the height
of a fine art of universal fame; their artistic window _rejas_, in the
houses and palaces of the rich, are the wonder of all art lovers, and so
also are the immense _rejas_ or grilles which close off the high altar
and the choir from the transept, or the entrance to chapels from the
aisles. Though this art has completely degenerated to-day, nevertheless,
a just remark was made in the author's hearing by an Englishman, who
said:
"Even to-day, Spaniards are unable to make a bad _reja_."
* * * * *
The reader's and tourist's attention has been called to the salient
artistic points of a Spanish cathedral. They must be examined one by
one, and they will be admired; the view of the ensemble will puzzle and
amaze him, yet it will be wise for him not to criticize harshly the lack
of _unity of style_. Frequently the choir stalls are ogival, the
_retablo_ Renaissance, the _rejas_ plateresque, and the general
decoration of columns, etc., of the most lavish grotesque.
This in itself is no sin, neither artistic nor ethical, as long as the
_religious awe_ comes home to the Spaniard, for whom these cathedrals
are intended. Besides, it is an open question whether the monotony of a
pure style be nobler than a luxurious moulding together of all styles.
The whole question is, do the different parts harmonize, or do they
produce a _criard_ impression.
The answer in all cases is purely personal. Yet, even if unfavourable,
the utility of the art demonstration must be borne in mind and
considered as well. And as regards the Spaniard, the utility does exist
beyond a doubt.
_Architectural Styles_
Let us now follow the art student in his task. He will determine the
different styles, and, to make the matter clearer, he will employ a
rhetorical figure:
There is an island in the sea. Huge breakers roar on the beach and dash
against the rocky cliffs. Second, third, and fourth breakers of varying
strength and energy race with the first, and are in their turn pushed
relentlessly on from behind until they ripple in dying surf on the
golden sands and boil in white spray in hidden clifts and caves. With
the years that roll along the island is shaped according to the will of
the waves.
Spain, figuratively speaking, is that island, or a peninsula off the
southwestern coast of the Old World, barred from France by the
impassable Pyrenees, and forming the link between Africa and Europe:
the first stepping-stone for the former in its northern march, the last
extremity or the rear-guard of the latter.
The breakers represent the different art movements which, born in
countries where _compact_ nations were fighting energetically for an
existence and for an ideal, flooded with terrible force the civilized
lands of the middle ages, and sought to outdo and conquer their rivals.
These breakers were: from the east, early Christian (both Latin-Lombard
and Byzantine); from the north, Gothic; from the south, Arab, or, to be
more accurate, Moorish. The first two were advocates of one
civilization, the Christian or Occidental; the latter was the
propagandist of another, the Neo-Oriental or Mohammedan.
The Renaissance was but a second or third breaker coming from the east,
which breathed new life into antiquated constructive and decorative
elements by adapting them to a new religion or faith.
Later architectural forms were but the periodical revival or combination
of one or another of the already existing elements.
Spain, thanks to her unique position, was the point where all these
contradictory waves met in a final endeavour to crush their opponents.
In Spain, Byzantine pillars fought against Lombard shafts, and Gothic
pinnacles rose haughtily beside the horseshoe arch and the _arc brise_.
In Spain Christianity grappled with the Islam faith and sent it bleeding
back to the wilds of Africa; in Spain the polygon, circle, and square
struggled for supremacy and lost their personality in the complex
blending of the one with the other, and minarets, cupolas, and spires
combined in bizarre fantasy and richness of decoration to serve the
ambitions of mighty prelates, fanatic kings, and death-fearing noblemen.
* * * * *
Such is, rhetorically speaking, the history of architecture of Spain.
Cathedrals had a _cachet_ of their own, either national (in certain
characteristics) or else local. But the elements of which they were
composed were foreign. That is, excepting in the case of Spanish-Moorish
art.
Moorish art! In the second volume (Southern Spain), the author of these
lines will dedicate several paragraphs to the art of the Moors in Spain.
Suffice to assert in the present chapter the following statements.
(1) Moorish art in Spain is peculiar to the Arabs who inhabited the
peninsula during seven hundred years. Consequently this art, born on
Iberian soil, cannot be regarded as foreign.
(2) Much of what is called Moorish art owes its existence to the
Christians, to the Muzarabs and Jews who inhabited cities which were
dependent upon or belonged to the Moors. In the same way, much of the
Oriental taste of the Spanish Christians was inherited from the Moors
and received in Spain the generic name of _Mudejar_.
(3) The art of the Moors, though largely used in Spain, especially in
the south, rarely entered into cathedral structures, though often
noticeable in churches, cloisters, and in decorative motives.
(4) The Moors learnt more art motives in Spain than they introduced into
the country.
These and many other points of interest will have to be neglected in the
present chapter. For the cathedrals of the north are (as regards the
ideal which brought about their erection) radically opposed to Moorish
art.
Prehistoric Roman and Visigothic (?) art are equally unimportant in this
study, as neither the one nor the other constructed any Christian temple
standing to-day. That is to say, cathedral; for Visigothic or early
Latin and Byzantine Romanesque churches do exist in Asturias, and a
notable specimen in Venta de Banos. They are peculiarly strange
edifices, and it is to be regretted that they are not cathedrals, for
their study would be most interesting, not only as regards Iberian art,
but above all as regards the history of art in the middle ages. So far,
they have been completely neglected, and, unfortunately, are but little
known abroad.
* * * * *
ROMANESQUE.--The origin of Romanesque is greatly discussed. Some
attribute it to Italy, others to France; others again are of the
conviction that all Christian (religious) art previous to the birth of
Gothic is Romanesque, etc., etc. The most plausible theory is that the
style in question evolved out of the early Latin-Christian (basilique)
style, at the same time borrowing many decorative details from the
Byzantine-Christian style.
In Spain, pre-Romanesque Christian architecture (or Visigothic) shows
decided Byzantine influence, more so, probably, than in any other
European country. This peculiarity influences also Romanesque, both
early and late. It is not strange, either, considering that an important
colony of _Bizantinos_ (Christians) settled in Eastern Andalusia during
the Visigothic period.
In the tenth century churches, and in the eleventh cathedrals, commenced
to be erected in Northern Spain. Byzantine influence was very marked in
the earlier monuments.
Was Romanesque a foreign style? Was it introduced from Italy or France,
or was it a natural outcome or evolutionary product of decadent early
Christian architecture? In the latter case there is no saying where it
evolved, possibly to the north or to the south of the Pyrenees, possibly
to the east or to the west of the Alps. What is more, the Pyrenees in
those days did not serve as a strict frontier line like to-day; on the
contrary, both Navarra and Aragon extended beyond the mountainous wall,
and the dukes of Southern France occasionally possessed immense
territories and cities to the south of the Pyrenees.
Be that as it may, Romanesque, as a style, first dawned in Spain in the
tenth and eleventh centuries. Its birth coincided with that of the
popular religious crusade against the Moor who had inhabited the
peninsula during four centuries; it coincided also with the great
church-erecting period of Northern Spanish history, when the Alfonsos of
Castile created bishoprics (to aid them in their political ambitions) as
easily as they broke inconvenient treaties and savagely murdered
friends, relatives, and foes alike. Consequently, many were the
Romanesque cathedrals erected, and though the greater part were
destroyed later and replaced by Gothic structures, several fine
specimens of the former style are still to be seen.
Needless to say, Romanesque became localized; in other words, it
acquired certain characteristics restricted to determined regions.
Galician Romanesque and that of Western Castile, for instance, are
almost totally different in aspect: the former is exceedingly poetical
and possesses carved wall decorations both rich and excellent; the
latter is intensely strong and warlike, and the decorations, if
employed at all, are Byzantine, or at least Oriental in taste.
* * * * *
TRANSITION.--Many of the cathedrals of Galicia belong, according to
several authors, to this period in which Romanesque strength evolved
into primitive Gothic or ogival airiness. In another chapter a personal
opinion has been emitted denying the accuracy of the above remark.
There is no typical example of Transition in Spain. Ogival changes
introduced at a later date into Romanesque churches, a very common
occurrence, cannot justify the classification of the buildings as
Transition monuments.
Nor is it surprising that such buildings should be lacking in Spain. For
Gothic did not evolve from Romanesque in the peninsula, but was
introduced from France. A short time after its first appearance it swept
all before it, thanks to the Cluny monks, and was exclusively used in
church-building. In a strict sense it stands, moreover, to reason that
the former (Transition) can only exist there where a new style emerges
from an old without being introduced from abroad.
* * * * *
OGIVAL ART.--The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries are,
properly speaking, those of the great northern art wave which spread
rapidly through the peninsula, bending all before its irresistible will.
Romanesque churches were destroyed or modified (the introduction of an
ambulatory in almost all Romanesque buildings), and new cathedrals
sprung up, called into existence by the needs and requirements of a new
people, a conquering, Christian people, driving the infidel out of the
land, and raising the Holy Cross on the sacred monuments of the Islam
religion.
The changements introduced into the new style tended to give it a more
severe and defiant exterior appearance than in northern churches,--a
scarcity of windows and flying buttresses, timidly pointed arches, and
solid towers. Besides, round-headed arches (vaultings and horizontal
lines) were indiscriminately used to break the vertical tendency of pure
ogival; so also were Byzantine cupolas and domes.
The solemn, cold, and naked cathedral church of Alcala de Henares is a
fine example of the above. Few people would consider it to belong to the
same class as the eloquent cathedral of Leon and the no less imposing
see of Burgos. Nevertheless, it is, every inch of it, as pure Gothic as
the last named, only, it is essentially Spanish, the other two being
French; it bears the sombre _cachet_ of the age of Spanish Inquisition,
of the fanatic intolerant age of the Catholic kings.
* * * * *
LATER STYLES.--Toward the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth centuries, Italian Renaissance entered the country and drove
Gothic architecture out of the minds of artists and patronizing
prelates.
But Italian Renaissance failed to impress the Spaniard, whose character
was opposed to that of his Mediterranean cousin; so also was the general
aspect of his country different from that of Italy. Consequently, it is
not surprising that we should find very few pure Renaissance monuments
on the peninsula. On the other hand, Spanish Renaissance--a florid form
of the Italian--is frequently to be met with; in its severest form it is
called _plateresco_.
In the times of Philip II., Juan Herrero created his style (Escorial),
of which symmetry, grandeur in size, and poverty in decoration were the
leading characteristics. The reaction came, however, quickly, and
Churriguera introduced the most astounding and theatrical grotesque
imaginable.
The later history of Spanish architecture is similar to that of the rest
of Europe. As it is, the period which above all interests us here is
that reaching from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries, embracing
Romanesque, ogival, and plateresque styles. Of the cathedrals treated of
in this volume, all belong to either of the two first named
architectural schools, excepting those of Valladolid, Madrid, and, to a
certain extent, the new cathedral of Salamanca and that of Segovia.
* * * * *
MUDEJAR ART.--Previous to the advent of Italian Renaissance in Spain, a
new art had been created which was purely national, having been born on
the peninsula as the complex product of Christian and Islam elements.
This art, known by the generic name of _Mudejar_, received a mortal blow
at the hands of the new Italian art movement. Consequently, the only
school which might have been regarded as Spanish, degenerated sadly,
sharing the fate of the new-born nation.
Rather than a constructive style, the _Mudejar_ or Spanish style is
decorative. With admirable variety and profusion it ornamented brick
surfaces by covering them with reliefs, either geometrical (Moorish) or
Gothic, either sunk into the wall or else the latter cut around the
former.
The aspect of these _Mudejar_ buildings is peculiar. In a ruddy plain
beneath a dazzling blue sky, these red brick churches gleam thirstily
from afar. Shadows play among the reliefs, lending them strength and
vigour; the _alminar_ tower stands forth prominently against the sky and
contrasts delightfully with the cupola raised on the apse or on the
_croisee_.
Among the finest examples of _Mudejar_ art, must be counted the
brilliantly coloured ceilings, such as are to be seen in Alcala, Toledo,
and elsewhere. These _artesonados_, without being Moorish, are,
nevertheless, of a pronounced Oriental taste. A geometrical pattern is
carved on the wood of the ceiling and brilliantly painted. Prominent
surfaces are preferably golden in hue, and such as are sunk beneath the
level are red or blue. The effect is dazzling.
[Illustration: MUDEJAR ARCHITECTURE (SAHAGUN)]
Unluckily, but little attention has been paid out of Spain to
_Mudejar_ art, and it is but little known. Even Spanish critics do not
agree as to the national significance of this art, and it is a great
pity, as unfortunately the country can point to no other art phenomena
and claim them to be Spanish. How can it, when the nation had not as yet
been born, and, once born, was to die almost simultaneously, like a moth
that flies blindly and headlong into an intense flame?
IV
CONCLUSION
Spain geographically can be roughly divided into two parts, a northern
and southern, separated by a mountain chain, composed of the Sierras de
Guaderrama, Gredos, and Gata to the north of Madrid.
Such a division does not, however, explain the historical development of
the Christian kingdoms from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, nor
is it advisable to adopt it for an architectural study.
During the great period of church-building, the nine kingdoms of Spain
formed four distinct groups: Galicia, Asturias, Leon, and Castile;
Navarra and Aragon; Barcelona and Valencia; Andalusia.
The first group gradually evolved until Castile absorbed the remaining
three kingdoms, and later Andalusia as well; the second and third groups
succumbed to the royal house of Aragon.
From an architectural point of view, there are three groups, or even
four: Castile, Aragon, the Mediterranean coast-line, and Andalusia. In
the last three the Oriental influence is far more pronounced than in the
first named.
Further, Spain is divided into nine archbishoprics: four corresponding
to Castile (Santiago, Burgos, Valladolid, and Toledo); one to Aragon
(Zaragoza); two to the Mediterranean coast (Tarragon and Valencia); and
two to Andalusia (Sevilla and Granada).
It was the author's object to preserve as far as possible in the
following chapters and in the general subdivision of his work, not only
the geographical, but the historical, architectural, and ecclesiastical
divisions as well. Better still, he sacrificed the first when
incompatible with the latter three.
But--and here the difficulty arose--what title should be chosen for each
of the two volumes which were to be dedicated to Spain? Because two
volumes were necessary, considering the eighty odd cathedrals to be
described.
"Cathedrals of Northern Spain" as opposed to "Cathedrals of Southern
Spain"--was one of the titles. "Gothic cathedrals of Spain"--as opposed
to "Moorish Cathedrals of Spain"--was another; the latter had to be
discarded, as only one Moorish mezquita converted into a Christian
temple exists to-day, namely, that of Cordoba.
There remained, therefore, the first title.
The first volume, discarding Navarra and Aragon (in the north), is
dedicated to Castile, as well as its four archbishoprics.
The narrow belt of land, running from east to west, from Cuenca to
Coria, to the south of the Sierra de Guaderrama, and constituting the
archbishopric of Toledo, has been added to the region lying to the north
and to the northwest of Madrid.
Moreover, to aid the reader, the present volume has been divided into
parts, namely: Galicia, the North, and Castile; the latter has been
subdivided into western and eastern, making in all four divisions.
(1) _Galicia._ Santiago de Campostela is, from an ecclesiastical point
of view, all Galicia. Thanks to this spirit, the entire region shows a
decided uniformity in the style of its churches, for that of Santiago
(Romanesque) served as a pattern or model to be adopted in the remaining
sees. The character of the people is no less uniform, and the Celtic
inheritance of poetry has drifted into the monuments of the Christian
religion.
The episcopal see of Oviedo falls under the jurisdiction of Santiago;
the Gothic cathedral shows no Romanesque motives excepting the Camara
Sagrada, and has therefore been included in--
(2) _The North._ With the exception of Oviedo, all the bishoprics in
this group fall under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Burgos. The
two finest Gothic temples in Northern Spain pertain to this group:
Burgos and Leon.
There is, however, but little uniformity in this northern region, for
Santander and Vitoria have but little in common with the remaining sees.
(3) _Western Castile._ A certain degree of uniformity is seen to exist
among the sees of Western Castile, namely, the warlike appearance of the
Byzantine Romanesque edifices. Besides, the use of sandstone and brick
is here universal, and the immense plain of Old Castile to the north of
the Sierra de Gata, and of Northern Extremadura to the south of the same
range, have a peculiar ruddy aspect, dry and Oriental (African?), that
is perfectly delightful.
The sees to the north of the mentioned mountain chain belong to
Valladolid; those of the south to Toledo.
(4) _Eastern Castile_ extends from Valladolid in the north
(archbishopric) to Toledo in the south (archbishopric), from Avila in
the west to Sigueenza in the east, and to Cuenca in the extreme southeast
of New Castile.
* * * * *
In the middle ages the Christian kings of Asturias (Galicia?) grew more
and more powerful, and their territory stretched out to the south and to
the east.
On the Mino River, Tuy and Orense were frontier towns, to populate
which, bishoprics were erected. To the south of Oviedo, and almost on a
line with the two Galician towns, Astorga, Leon and Burgos were strongly
fortified, and formed an imaginary line to the north of which ruled
Christian monarchs, and to the south Arab emirs.
Burgos at the same time served as fortress-town against the rival kings
of Navarra to the north and east; the latter, on the other hand,
fortified the Rioja against Castile until at last it fell into the
hands of the latter. Then Burgos, no longer a frontier town, grew to be
capital of the new-formed kingdom of Castile.
Slowly, but surely, the Arabs moved southwards, followed by the
implacable line of Christian fortresses. At one time Valladolid,
Palencia, Toro, and Zamora formed this line. When Toledo was conquered
it was substituted by Coria, Plasencia, Sigueenza, and, slightly to the
north, by Madrid, Avila, Segovia, and Salamanca. At the same time
Sigueenza, Segovia, Soria, and Logrono formed another strategic line of
fortifications against Aragon, whilst in the west Plasencia, Coria, Toro
and Zamora, Tuy, Orense, and Astorga kept the Portuguese from Castilian
soil. In the extreme southwest Cuenca, impregnable and highly
strategical, looked eastwards and southwards against the Moor, and
northwards against the Aragonese.
In all these links of the immense strategical chain which protected
Castile from her enemies, the monarchs were cunning enough to erect sees
and appoint warrior-bishops. They even donated the new fortress-cities
with special privileges or _fueros_, in virtue of which settlers came
from all parts of the country to inhabit and constitute the new
municipality.
Such--in gigantic strides--is the story of most of Castile's world-famed
cities. In each chapter, dates, anecdotes, and more details are given,
with a view to enable the reader to become acquainted not only with the
ecclesiastical history of cities like Burgos and Valladolid, but also
with the causes which produced the growing importance of each see, as
well as its decadence within the last few centuries.
_PART II_
_Galicia_
I
SANTIAGO DE CAMPOSTELA
When the Christian religion was still young, St. James the Apostle--he
whom Christ called his brother--landed in Galicia and roamed across the
northern half of the Iberian peninsula dressed in a pilgrim's modest
garb and leaning upon a pilgrim's humble staff. After years of wandering
from place to place, he returned to Galicia and was beheaded by the
Romans, his enemies.
This legend--or truth--has been poetically interwoven with other legends
of Celtic origin, until the whole story forms what Brunetiere would call
a _cycle chevaleresque_ with St. James--or Santiago--as the central
hero.
According to one of these legends, it would appear that the apostle was
persecuted by his great enemy Lupa, a woman of singular beauty whom the
ascetic pilgrim had mortally offended. Thanks to certain accessory
details, it is possible to assume that Lupa is the symbol of the "God
without a name" of Celtic mythology, and it is she who finally venges
herself by decapitating the pilgrim saint.
The disciples of St. James laid his corpse in a cart, together with the
executioner's axe and the pilgrim's staff. Two wild bulls were then
harnessed to the vehicle, and away went cart and saint. As night fell
and the moon rose over the vales of Galicia, the weary animals stopped
on the summit of a wooded hill in an unknown vale, surrounded by other
hillocks likewise covered with foliage and verdure.
The disciples buried the saint, together with axe and staff, and there
they left him with the secret of his burial-ground.
This must have happened in the first or second century of the Christian
era. Six hundred years later, and one hundred years after the Moors had
landed in Andalusia, one Theodosio, Bishop of Iria (Galicia), took a
walk one day in his wide domains accompanied by a monk. Together they
lost their way and roamed about till night-fall, when they found
themselves far from home.
Stars twinkled in the heavens as they do to this day. Being tired, the
bishop and his companion dreamt as they walked along--at least it
appears so from what followed--and the stars were so many miraculous
lights which led the wanderers on and on. At last the stars remained
motionless above a wooded hill standing isolated in a beautiful vale.
The prelate stopped also, and it occurred to him to dig, for he
attributed his dreams to a supernatural miracle. Digging, a coffin was
revealed to him, and therein the saintly remains of St. James or
Santiago.
Giving thanks to Him who guides all steps, Theodosio returned to Iria,
and, by his orders, a primitive basilica was erected some years later on
the very spot where the saint had been buried, and in such a manner as
to place the high altar just above the coffin. A crypt was then dug out
and lined with mosaic, and the coffin, either repaired or renewed, was
laid therein,--some say it was visible to the hordes of pilgrims in the
tenth and eleventh centuries.
The shrine was then called Santiago de Campostela.--Santiago, which
means St. James, and Campostela, field of stars, in memory of the
miraculous lights the Bishop of Iria and his companion had perceived
whilst sweetly dreaming.
The news of the discovery spread abroad with wonderful rapidity.
Monasteries, churches, and inns soon surrounded the basilica, and within
a few years a village and then a city (the bishop's see was created
previous to 842 A. D.) filled the vale, which barely fifty years earlier
had been an undiscovered and savage region.
Throughout the middle ages, from the eleventh to the fifteenth
centuries, Santiago de Campostela was the scene of pilgrimages--not to
say crusades--to the tomb of St. James. From France, Italy, Germany, and
England hundreds and thousands of men, women, and children wandered to
the Galician valley, then one of the foci of ecclesiastical significance
and industrial activity. The city, despite its local character, wore an
international garb, much to the benefit of Galician, even Spanish, arts
and literature. It is a pity that so little research has been made
concerning these pilgrimages and the influences they brought to bear on
the history of the country. A book treating of this subject would be a
highly interesting account of one of the most important movements of the
middle ages.
The Moors under Almanzor pillaged the city of Santiago in 999; then they
retreated southwards, as was their wont. The Norman vikings also visited
the sacred vale, attracted thither by the reports of its wealth; but
they also retreated, like the waves of the sea when the tide goes out.
After the last Arab invasion, an extemporaneous edifice was erected in
place of the shrine which had been demolished. It did not stand long,
however, for the Christian kings of Spain, whose dominions were limited
to Asturias, Leon, and Galicia, ordered the construction of a building
worthy of St. James, who was looked upon as the god of battles, much
like St. George in England.
So in 1078 the new cathedral, the present building, was commenced, and,
as the story runs, it was built around the then existing basilica, which
was left standing until after the vault of the new edifice had been
closed.
The history of Spain at this moment helped to increase the religious
importance of Santiago. The kingdom of Asturias (Oviedo) had stretched
out beyond its limits and died; the Christian nuclei were Galicia, Leon,
and Navarra. In these three the power of the noblemen, and consequently
of the bishops and archbishops, was greater than it had ever been
before. Each was lord or sovereign in his own domains, and fought
against his enemies with or without the aid of the infidel Arab armies,
which he had no compunction in inviting to help him against his
Christian brothers. Now and again a king managed to subdue these
aristocratic lords and ecclesiastical prelates, but only for a short
time. Besides, nowhere was the independent spirit of the noblemen more
accentuated than in Galicia; nowhere were the prelates so rebellious as
in Santiago, the Sacred City, and none attained a greater height of
personal power and wealth than Diego Galmirez, the first archbishop of
Santiago, and one of the most striking and interesting personalities of
Spanish history in the twelfth century, to whom Santiago owes much of
her glory, and Spain not little of her future history.
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were thus the period of Santiago's
greatest fame and renown. Little by little the central power of the
monarchs went southwards to Castile and Andalusia, and little by little
Santiago declined and dwindled in importance, until to-day it is one
city more of those that have been and are no longer.
For the city's history is that of its cathedral, of its shrine. With the
birth of Protestantism and the death of feudal power, both city and
cathedral lost their previous importance: they had sprung into life
together, and the existence of the one was intricately interwoven with
that of the other.
* * * * *
The stranger who visits Santiago to-day does not approach it fervently
by the Mount of Joys as did the footsore pilgrims in the middle ages. On
the contrary, he steps out of the train and hurries to the cathedral
church, which sadly seems to repeat the thoughts of the city itself, or
the words of Senor Muguira:
"To-day, what am I? An echo of the joys and pains of hundreds of
generations; a distant rumour both confused and undefinable, a last
sunbeam fading at evening and dying on the glassy surface of sleeping
waters. Never will man learn my secrets, never will he be able to open
my granite lips and oblige them to reveal the mysterious past."
As is generally known, the cathedral is a Romanesque building of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries mutilated by posterior additions and
recent ameliorations (_sic_). It was begun in 1078, and, though finished
about 150 years later, no ogival elements drifted into the construction
until long after its completion. As will be seen later on, it served as
the model for most of Galicia's cathedrals. On the other hand, it is
generally believed to be an imitation--as regards the general
disposition--of St. Saturnin in Toulouse: a combatable theory, however,
as the churches were contemporaneous.
Seen from the outside, the Cathedral of Santiago lacks harmony; few
remains of the primitive structure are to be discovered among the many
later-date additions and reforms. The base of the towers and some fine
blinded windows, with naive low reliefs in the semicircular tympanum,
will have to be excepted.
The Holy Door--a peculiarly placed apsidal portal on the eastern
front--is built up of decorative elements saved from the northern and
western facades when they were torn down.
[Illustration: SANTIAGO AND ITS CATHEDRAL]
The best portal is the Puerta de la Plateria, opening into the southern
arm of the transept. It is, unluckily, depressed and thrown into the
background by the cloister walls on the left, and by the Trinity Tower
on the right. Nevertheless, both handsome and sober, it can be counted
among the finest examples of its kind--pure Romanesque--in Spain, and is
rendered even more attractive by the peculiar Galician poetry which
inspired its sculptors.
Immediately above the panels of the door, which are covered with
twelfth-century metal reliefs, there is a stone plaque or low relief,
representing the Passion scene; to the left of it is to be seen a
kneeling woman holding a skull in her hand. Evidently it is a weeping,
penitent Magdalene. The popular tongue has invented a legend--perhaps a
true one--concerning this woman, who is believed to symbolize the
adulteress. It appears that a certain hidalgo, discovering his wife's
sins, killed her lover by cutting off his head; he then obliged her to
kiss and adore the skull twice daily throughout her life,--a rather
cruel punishment and a slow torture, quite in accordance with the
mystic spirit of the Celts.
The apse of the church, circular in the interior, is squared off on the
outside by the addition of chapels. As regards the plateresque northern
and western facades, they are out of place, though the former might have
passed off elsewhere as a fairly good example of the severe
sixteenth-century style.
The general plan of the building is Roman cruciform; the principal nave
is high, and contains both choir and high altar; the two aisles are much
lower and darker, and terminate behind the high altar in an ambulatory
walk. The width of the transept is enormous, and is composed of a nave
and two aisles similar in size to those of the body of the church. The
_croisee_ is surmounted by a dome, which, though not Romanesque, is
certainly an advantageous addition.
Excepting the high altar with its _retablo_, the choir with its none too
beautiful stalls, and the various chapels of little interest and less
taste, the general view of the interior is impressively beautiful. The
height of the central nave, rendered more elegant by the addition of a
handsome Romanesque triforium of round-headed arches, contrasts
harmoniously with the sombre aisles, whereas the bareness of the
walls--for all mural paintings were washed away by a bigoted prelate
somewhere in the fifteenth century--helps to show off to better
advantage the rich sculptural decorations, leaf and floral designs on
capitals and friezes.
The real wonder of the cathedral is the far-famed Portico de la Gloria,
the vestibule or narthex behind the western entrance of the church, and
as renowned as its sculptural value is meritorious.
So much has already been written concerning this work of art that really
little need be mentioned here. Street, who persuaded the British
Government to send a body of artists to take a plaster copy of this
strange work, could not help declaring that: "I pronounce this effort of
Master Mathews at Santiago to be one of the greatest glories of
Christian art."
And so it is. Executed in the true Romanesque period, each column and
square inch of surface covered with exquisite decorative designs,
elaborated with care and not hastily, as was the habit of later-day
artists, the three-vaulted rectangular vestibule between the body of the
church and the western extremity where the light streams in through the
rose window, is an immense allegory of the Christian religion, of human
life, and above all of the mystic, melancholy poetry of Celtic Galicia.
Buried in half-lights, this song of stone with the statue of the Trinity
and St. James, with the angels blowing their trumpets from the walls,
and the virtues and vices of this world symbolized by groups and by
persons, is of a sincere poetry that leaves a lasting impression upon
the spectator. Life, Faith, and Death, Judgment and Purgatory, Hell and
Paradise or Glory, are the motives carved out in stone in this unique
narthex, so masterful in the execution, and so vivid in the tale it
tells, that we can compare its author to Dante, and call the Portico de
la Gloria the "Divina Commedia" of architecture.
At one end there is the figure of a kneeling man, the head almost
touching the ground in the body's fervent prostration in front of the
group representing Glory, Trinity, and St. James. Is it a
twelfth-century pilgrim whom the artist in a moment of realistic
enthusiasm has portrayed here, in the act of praying to his Creator and
invoking his mercy? Or is it the portrait of the artist, who, even after
death, wished to live in the midst of the wonders of his creation? It is
not positively known, though it is generally supposed to be Maestro
Mateo himself, kneeling in front of his Glory, admiring it as do all
visitors, and watching over it as would a mother over her son.
If the chapels which surround the building have been omitted on account
of their artistic worthlessness, not the same fate awaits the cloister.
Of a much later date than the cathedral itself, having been constructed
in the sixteenth century, it is a late Gothic monument betraying
Renaissance additions and mixtures; consequently it is entirely out of
place and time here, and does not harmonize with the cathedral. Examined
as a detached edifice, it impresses favourably as regards the height and
length of the galleries, which show it to be one of the largest
cloisters in Spain.
The cathedral's crypt is one of its most peculiar features, and
certainly well worth examining better than has been heretofore done. It
is reached by a small door behind the high altar (evidently used when
the saint's coffin was placed on grand occasions on the altar-table) or
by a subterranean gallery leading down from the Portico de la Gloria, a
gallery as rich in sculptural decorations as the vestibule itself.
The popular belief in Galicia is that in this crypt the cathedral
reflects itself, towers and all, as it would in the limpid surface of a
lake. Hardly; and yet the crypt is a nude copy of the ground floor
above, with the corresponding naves and aisles and apsidal chapels. The
height of the crypt is surprising, the architectural construction is
pure Romanesque,--more so than that of the building itself,--and just
beneath the high altar the shrine of St. James is situated where it was
found in the ninth century.
II
CORUNNA
Corunna, seated on her beautiful bay, the waters of which are ever
warmed by the Gulf Stream, gazes out westwards across the turbulent
waves of the ocean as she has done for nearly two thousand years.
Brigandtia was her first known name, a centre of the Celtic druid
religion. The inhabitants of the town, it is to-day believed,
communicated by sea with their brethren in Ireland long before the
coming of the Phoenicians and Greeks who established a trading post
and a tin factory, and built the Tower of Hercules.
The Roman conquest saved Brigandtium from being great before her time.
For the Latin people were miserable sailors, and gazed with awe into the
waves of the Atlantic. For them Brigandtia was the last spot in the
world, a dangerous spot, to be shunned. So they left her seated on her
beautiful bay beside the Torre de Hercules, and made Lugo their capital.
In the shuffling of bishops and sees in the fifth and sixth centuries,
Corunna was forgotten. Unimportant, known only for its castle and its
tower, it passed a useless existence, patiently waiting for a change in
its favour.
This change came in the fifteenth century as a result of the discovery
of America. Since then, and with varying success, the city has grown in
importance, until to-day it is the most wealthy and active of Galicia's
towns, and one of the largest seaports on Spain's Atlantic coast.
Its history since the sixteenth century is well known, especially to
Englishmen, who, whenever their country had a rupture with Spain, were
quick in entering Corunna's bay. From here part of the Invincible Armada
sailed one day to fight the Saxons and to be destroyed by a tempest; ten
years later England returned the challenge with better luck, and her
fleets entered the historical bay and burned the town. During the war
with Napoleon, General Moore fought the French in the vicinity and lost
his life, whereas a few years earlier an English fleet defeated, just
outside the bay, a united French and Spanish squadron.
To-day, the old city on the hill looks down upon the new one below; the
former is poetic and artistic, the latter is straight-lined, industrial,
and modern. Nevertheless, the aspect of the city denies its age, for it
is more modern than many cities that are younger. What is more,
tradition does not weigh heavily on its brow, and depress its
inhabitants, as is the case in Lugo and Tuy and Santiago. The movement
on the wharves, the continual coming and going of vessels of all sizes,
commerce, industry, and other delights of modern civilization do not
give the citizens leisure to ponder over the city's two thousand years,
nor to preoccupy themselves about art problems. Moreover, the tourist
who has come to Spain to visit Toledo and Sevilla hurries off inland,
gladly leaving Corunna's streets to sailors and to merchants.
There are, nevertheless, two churches well worth a visit; one is the
Colegiata (supposed to have been a bishopric for a short time in the
thirteenth century) or suffragan church, and the other the Church of
Santiago. The latter has a fine Romanesque portal of the twelfth
century, reminding one in certain decorative details of the Portico de
la Gloria in Santiago. The interior of the building consists of one nave
or aisle spanned by a daring vault, executed in the early ogival style;
doubtless it was originally Romanesque, as is evidently shown by the
capitals of the pillars, and was most likely rebuilt after the terrible
fire which broke out early in the sixteenth century.
Santa Maria del Campo is the name of the suffragan church dedicated to
the Virgin. The church itself was erected to a suffragan of Santiago in
1441. The date of its erection is doubtful, some authors placing it in
the twelfth and others in the thirteenth century. Street, whom we can
take as an intelligent guide in these matters, calls it a
twelfth-century church, contemporaneous with and perhaps even built by
the same architect who built that of Santiago de Campostela. Moreover,
the mentioned critic affirms this in spite of a doubtful inscription
placed in the vault above the choir, which accuses the building of
having been completed in 1307.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF SANTIAGO, CORUNNA]
The primitive plan of the church was doubtless Romanesque, of one nave
and two aisles. As in Mondonedo and Lugo, the former is surmounted by
an ogival vault, and the aisles, lower in height, are somewhat depressed
by the use of Romanesque _plein-cintre_ vaultings. The form of the
building is that of a Roman cross with rather short arms; the apse
consists of but one chapel, the lady-chapel. As regards the light, it is
horrible, for the window in the west is insignificant and, what is more,
has recently been blinded, though only Heaven knows why. The towers
emerging from the western front are unmeaning, and not similar, which
detracts from the harmony of the whole. As regards the different
facades, the western has been spoilt quite recently; the northern and
southern are, however, Romanesque, though not pure, as ogival arches are
used in the decoration of the tympanum.
In other words, the Church of Santiago at Corunna is more important,
from an archaeological point of view, than the Colegiata. The fishing
folk do not think so, however; they care but little for such secondary
details, and their veneration is entirely centred in the suffragan
church--"one of the three Virgins," as they call her to whom it is
dedicated. To them this particular Mary is the _estrella del mar_ (sea
star), and she is the principal object of their devotion. It is
strange--be it said in parenthesis--how frequently in Galicia mention is
made of stars: they form a most important feature of the country's
superstitions. Blood will out--and Celtic mythology peeps through the
Christian surface in spite of centuries of true belief.
III
MONDONEDO
A Village grown to be a city, and yet a village. A city without history
or tradition, and a cathedral that has been spoilt by the hand of time,
and above all by the hands of luckless artists called upon to rebuild
deteriorated parts.
To the north of Lugo, at a respectable distance from the railway which
runs from the latter to Corunna, and reached either by means of a stage
or on horseback, Mondonedo passes a sleeping existence in a picturesque
vale surrounded by the greenest of hills. Rarely bothered by the tourist
who prefers the train to the stage, it procures for the art lover many
moments of delight--that is, if he will but take the trouble to visit
the cathedral, the two towers of which loom up in the vale, and though
rather too stumpy to be able to lend elegance to the ensemble, add a
poetic charm to the valley and to the village itself.
How on earth did it ever occur to any one to raise the church at
Mondonedo to a bishopric? Surely the sees in Galicia were badly
shuffled; and yet, where can a quieter spot be found in this wide world
of ours for the contemplation of a cathedral--and a Romanesque one, to
boot!
It is to the Norman vikings that is due the establishment of a see in
this lonely valley. Until the sixth century it had been situated in
Mindunietum of the Romans, when it was removed to Ribadeo, remaining
there until late in the twelfth century. Both these towns were seaports,
and both suffered from the cruel incursions and piratical expeditions of
the vikings, and so after the total pillage of the church in Ribadeo,
the see was removed inland out of harm's way, to a village known by the
name of Villamayor or Mondonedo. There it has remained till the present
day, ignored by the tourist who "has no time," and who follows the
beaten track established by Messrs. Cook and Company, in London.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF MONDONEDO]
As will have been seen, Mondonedo is a city without history, and without
a past; doubtless it will for ever remain a village without a future.
Its doings, its _raison d'etre_, are summed up in the cathedral that
stands in its centre, just as in Santiago, though from different
motives.
It is, perhaps, the most picturesque spot in Galicia, a gently sloping
landscape buried in a violet haze, reminding one of Swiss valleys in the
quiet Jura. Besides, the streets are silent and often deserted, the
village inn or _fonda_ is neither excellent nor very bad, and as for the
villagers, they are happy, simple, and hospitable dawdlers along the
paths of this life.
According to a popular belief, the life of one man, a bishop named Don
Martin (1219-48), is wrapped up in Mondonedo's cathedral, so much so, in
fact, that both their lives are one and the same. He began building his
see; he saw it finished and consecrated it--_construxit, consumavit et
consacravit_; then he died, but the church and his name lived on.
Modern art critics disagree with the above belief; the older or
primitive part of the church dates from the twelfth and not from the
thirteenth century. Originally, as can easily be seen upon examining the
older part of the building, it was a pure Romanesque basilica, the nave
and the two aisles running up to the transept, where they were cut off,
and immediately to the east of the latter came the apse with three
chapels, the lady-chapel being slightly larger than the lateral ones.
In the primitive construction of the building--and excepting all
later-date additions, of which there are more than enough--early Gothic
and Romanesque elements are so closely intermingled that one is perforce
obliged to consider the monument as belonging to the period of
Transition, as being, perhaps, a unique example of this period to be met
with in Galicia or even in Spain. Of course, as in the case of the other
Galician cathedrals, the original character of the interior, which if it
had remained unaltered would be both majestic and imposing, has been
greatly deformed by the addition of posterior reforms. The form of the
apse has been completely changed by the introduction of an ambulatory or
circular apsidal aisle dating at least from the fifteenth century, as
shown by the presence of the late Gothic and Renaissance elements.
[Illustration: MONDONEDO CATHEDRAL]
The general plan is rectangular, 120 feet long by seventy-one wide, and
seen from the outside is solid rather than elegant, a fortress rather
than a temple. The height of the nave, crowned by a Gothic vaulting, is
about forty-five feet; a triforium (ogival) runs around the top. The
lateral aisles are slightly more than half as high and covered by a
Romanesque vaulting reposing on capitals and shafts of the finest
twelfth century execution.
The original basilica form of the church has, unluckily, been altered by
the additional length given to the arms of the transept, and, as
mentioned already, by the ambulatory walk characteristic of Spanish
cathedrals; the workmanship of the latter, though lamentably out of tune
in this old cathedral, is, taken by itself, better than many similar
additions in other churches.
The western facade, which is the only one worthy of contemplation, is as
good an example of Romanesque, spoilt by the addition at a recent date
of grotesque and bizarre figures and monsters, as can be seen anywhere.
The buttresses are more developed than in either Lugo or Santiago, and
though these bodies, from a decorative point of view, were evidently
intended to give a certain seal of elegance to the ensemble, the
stunted towers and the few windows in the body of the church only help
to heighten its fortress-like aspect.
In a previous paragraph it has been stated that this cathedral is
perhaps a unique example of the period of Transition (Romanesque and
early Gothic). It is an opinion shared by many art critics, but
personally the author of these lines is inclined to consider it as an
example of the Galician conservative spirit, and of the fight that was
made in cathedral chapters _against_ the introduction of early Gothic.
For the temple at Santiago was Romanesque; therefore, according to the
narrow reasoning peculiar to Galicia, that style was the _best_ and
consequently _good enough_ for any other church. As a result, we have in
this region of Spain a series of cathedrals which are practically
Romanesque, but into the structure of which ogival elements have
filtered. Further, as there is no existing example of a finished Gothic
church in Galicia, it is rather difficult to speak of a period of
Transition, by which is meant the period of passing from one style to
another. In Galicia, there was no passing: the conservative spirit of
the country, the poetry of the Celtic inhabitants, and above all of
their artists, found greater pleasure in Romanesque than in Gothic, and
consequently the cathedrals are Romanesque, with slight Gothic
additions, when these could combine or submit in arrangement to the
heavier Romanesque principles of architecture.
Later, in other centuries, the spirit of architecture had completely
died out in Spain, and the additions made in these days are so many
lamentable signs of decadence. Not so the ogival introduction in
Romanesque churches, which in many cases improved the Romanesque
appearance.
IV
LUGO
What Santiago was as regards ecclesiastical politics, Lugo, one of the
three cities on the Mino River, was as regards civil power. It was the
nominal capital of Galicia, and at one time, in the reign of Alfonso the
Chaste, it was intended to make it the capital of the nascent Spanish
kingdom, but for some reason or other Oviedo was chosen instead as being
more suitable. Since then the city of Lugo has completely fallen into
ruins and insignificance.
It first appears in history when the Romans conquered it from the Celts.
It was their capital and their Holy City; in its centre was Lupa's
Bower, where the Romans built a magnificent temple to Diana. Some
mosaics of this edifice have been discovered recently, and the peculiar
designs prove beyond a doubt that the mythological attributions of the
Celts were made use of and intermingled with those of the Latin
race--not at all a strange occurrence, as Lupa and Diana seem to have
enjoyed many common qualities.
Under the Roman rule, the city walls, remains of which are still
standing in many places, were erected, and Locus Augusti became the
capital of the northern provinces.
All through the middle ages, when really Oviedo had usurped its civil,
and Santiago its religious significance, Lugo was still considered as
being the capital of Galicia, a stronghold against Arab incursions, and
a hotbed of unruly noblemen who lost no opportunity in striking a blow
for liberty against the encroaching power of the neighbouring kingdom of
Asturias, and later on of Leon. When at last the central power of the
Christian kings was firmly established in Leon and Castile, in Lugo the
famous message of adhesion to the dynasty of the Alfonsos was voted, and
the kingdom of Galicia, like that of Asturias, faded away, the shadow of
a name without even the right to have its coat of arms placed on the
national escutcheon.
The ecclesiastical history of the city of Lugo is neither interesting
nor does it differ from that of other Galician towns. Erected to a see
in the fifth century, its cathedral was a primitive basilica destroyed
by the Moors in one of their powerful northern raids in the eighth
century. The legendary bishop Odoario lost no time in building a second
basilica, which met the same fate about two hundred years later, in the
tenth century. Alfonso the Chaste, one of the few kings of Asturias to
take a lively interest in Galician politics, ordered either the
reconstruction of the old basilica or the erection of a new temple.
Those were stormy times for the city: between the rise and stand of
ambitious noblemen, who, pretending to fight for Galicia's freedom,
fought for their own interests, and the continual encroachments of the
proud prelates on the rights and privileges of the people, barely a year
passed without Lugo being the scene of street fights or sieges. As in
Santiago, one prince of the Church lost his life, murdered by the
faithful (_sic_) flocks, and many, upon coming to take possession of
their see, found the city gates locked in their faces, and were obliged
to conquer the cathedral before entering their palace.
The new basilica suffered in consequence, and had to be entirely rebuilt
in the twelfth century. The new edifice is the one standing to-day, but
how changed from the primitive building! Thanks to graceless additions
in all possible styles and combinations of styles, the Romanesque origin
is hardly recognizable. Consequently, the cathedral church of Lugo,
which otherwise might have been an architectural jewel, does not inspire
the visitor with any of those sentiments that ought to be the very
essence of time-worn religious edifices of all kinds.
The general disposition of the church is Roman cruciform; the arms of
the cross are exceedingly short, however, in comparison to their height;
the _croisee_ is surmounted by a semicircular vaulting (Spanish
Romanesque).
The nave shows decided affinity to early Gothic, as shown by the ogival
arches and vaulting. The presence of the ogival arches (as well as those
of the handsome triforium, perhaps the most elegant in Galicia) shows
this church to be the first in Galicia to have submitted to the
infiltration of Gothic elements. This peculiarity is explained by the
fact that, in 1129, the erection of the cathedral was entrusted to one
Maestro Raimundo, who stipulated that, in the case of his death before
the completion of the church, his son should be commissioned to carry on
the work. He died, and his son, a generation younger and imbued with the
newer architectural theories, even went so far as to alter his father's
plans; he built the nave higher than was customary in Romanesque
churches, and gave elegance to the whole structure by employing the
pointed arch even in the triforium, otherwise a copy of that of
Santiago.
The most curious and impressive part of the building is that constructed
by Maestro Raimundo, father, namely the aisles, especially that part of
them to the right and left of the choir; they are, with the _croisee_,
the best interior remains of the primitive Romanesque plans: short, even
stumpy, rather dark it is true, for the light that comes in by the
narrow windows is but poor at its best, they are, nevertheless, rich in
decorative designs. The wealth of sculptural ornaments of pure
Romanesque in these aisles is perhaps the cathedral's best claim to the
tourist's admiration, and puts it in a prominent place among the
Romanesque cathedrals of Spain.
Not the same favourable opinion can be emitted when it is a question of
the exterior. The towers are comparatively new; the apse--with the
peculiar and salient addition of an octagonal body revealing Renaissance
influence--is picturesque, it is true, but at the same time it has
spoilt the architectural value of the cathedral as a Romanesque edifice.
The northern facade, preceded by an ogival porch so common in Galicia,
contains a portal of greater beauty than the Puerta de la Plateria in
Santiago, and stands forth in greater prominence than the other named
example of twelfth-century art, by not being lost among or depressed by
flanking bodies of greater height and mass. As regards the sculptural
ornamentation of the door itself, it is felt and not only portrayed: the
Christ standing between the immense valves of the _vesica piscis_ which
crowns the portal is an example of twelfth-century sculpture. The
iron-studded panels of the doors have already been praised by Street,
who placed their execution likewise in the twelfth century.
Excepting this portal--a marvel in its class with its rounded tympanum
richly ornamented--the portion of the building doubtless more strongly
imbued than any other with the general spirit of the edifice is that
part of the apse independent of the octagonal addition previously
mentioned, and which is dedicated to "_La Virgen de los Ojos
Grandes_"--the Virgin of the Large Eyes. (She must have been
Andalusian!) Of the true apse, the lower part has ogival arched windows
of singular elegance; the upper body, also semicircular in form, but
slightly smaller, has round-headed windows. Both the ogival windows of
the first and the Romanesque windows of the second harmonize
wonderfully, thanks to the lesser height and width of the upper row. The
buttresses, simple, and yet alive with a gently curving line, are well
worth noticing. It is strange, nevertheless, that they should not reach
the ground, but only support the upper body, and unite it with the
lower, forming thus a sort of crown for the latter's benefit.
Personally--and the author must be excused if he emit his opinion--he
considers the old apse of the cathedral in Lugo to be one of the finest
pieces of architecture to be met with in Galicia. It belongs to what has
been called the period of Transition (compare previous remarks in
another chapter concerning this style), and yet it has a character of
its own not to be found elsewhere, and the harmony of ogival and
Romanesque has been so artfully revealed that it cannot fail to appeal
to the tourist who contemplates it carefully.
V
ORENSE
Coming by rail from Lugo or Monforte toward Tuy and Vigo, the train
suddenly escapes from the savage canon where the picturesque Mino rushes
and boils beside the road, and emerges into a broad and fertile valley
where figs, grapes, and olives grow in profusion. This valley is broad,
its soil is of golden hue, and the sky above it is as brilliantly blue
as a sapphire. In its centre Orense, heavy Orense, which claims as its
founder a Greek hero fresh from the pages of the Iliad, basks in the sun
beside the beautiful Mino; the while its cathedral looms up above the
roofs of the surrounding houses.
The history of the town is as agitated as any in Galicia and shows the
same general happenings. The Romans appreciated it for its sulphur baths
and called it Auria (golden) from the colour of the soil, of the water,
and perhaps also on account of certain grains of gold discovered in the
sands of the Mino.
The Suevos, who dominated Galicia and proved so beneficial to Tuy, did
not ignore the importance of Orense: one of the first bishoprics, if not
_the_ first historical one in Galicia, was that of Orense, dating from
before the fourth century, at least such is the opinion of to-day.
More than any other Galician city, excepting Tuy, it suffered from the
Arab invasions. Entirely destroyed, razed to the ground upon two
occasions, it was ever being rebuilt by the returning inhabitants who
had fled. Previous to these Arab incursions the cathedral had been
dedicated to St. Martin de Tours (France), and yearly pilgrimages took
place to the Galician shrine, where some relics belonging to the saint
were revered. But with the infidels these relics, or whatever they were,
were dispersed, and the next century (the eleventh) saw the new
cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mother (?). Besides, the inhabitants
seemed to have forgotten the patronage of St. Martin, he who protects
the vine-grower's _metier_--and this in spite of the fact that the
valley of Orense is and was famous above all Galician regions for the
cultivation of vines. Even Froissart, the French historian, could not
speak of the town without mentioning its wine. He passed a season in the
valley, accompanying, I believe, the Duke of Lancaster and his English
soldiers. The wine was so good and strong, wrote the historian, that the
soldiers clamoured for it; after they had drunk a little they toppled
over like ninepins.
The Arabs defeated and thrown out of the peninsula, the vikings' last
business trip to Galicia over, and the Portuguese arms driven to the
valley of Braga beyond the Mino, Orense settled down to a peaceful life,
the monotony of which was broken now and again--as it usually was in
this part of the country--by squabbles between noblemen, prelates, and
the _bons bourgeois_. If no prince of the Church was killed here, as
happened in Lugo, one at least died mysteriously in the hands of his
enemies. Not that it seemed to have mattered much, for said bishop
appears to have been a peculiar sort of spiritual shepherd, full of
vice, and devoid of virtue, some of whose doings have been
caricatured--according to the popular belief--in the cornices and
friezes of the convent of San Francisco.
Otherwise, peace reigned in the land, and Orense passed a quiet
existence, a circumstance that did not in the slightest add to its
importance, either as an art, commercial, or industrial centre. To-day,
full of strangers in summer, who visit the sulphurous baths as did the
Romans, and empty in winter, it exists without living, as does so many a
Spanish town.
Nevertheless, with Vigo and Corunna, it is one of the cities with a
future still before it. At least, its situation is bound to call
attention as soon as ever the country is opened up to progress and
commerce.
The cathedral of Orense, like those of Tuy, Santiago, and Lugo, was
erected in a _castro_. These _castros_ were circular dips in the ground,
surrounded by a low wall, which served the druids as their place of
worship. The erection of Christian churches in these sacred spots proves
beyond a doubt that the new religion became amalgamated with the old,
and even laid its foundations on the latter's most hallowed _castros_.
Perhaps the question presents itself as to why a cathedral was erected
in Orense previous to any other city. From a legend it would appear
that the king of the Suevos, Carrarick, had a son who was dying; thanks
to the advice of a Christian monk, a disciple of St. Martin, and, one is
inclined to think, fresh from Tours, the king dipped his son in the
baths of Orense, invoking at the same time the help of St. Martin. Upon
pulling his offspring out of the water, he discovered that he had been
miraculously cured. The grateful monarch immediately became a stout
Christian, and erected a basilica--destroyed and rebuilt many a time
during the dark ages of feudalism and Arab invasion--in honour of his
son's saviour. What is more wonderful still is that, soon afterward, the
relics of the French saint were cherished in Orense without its being
positively known whence they came!
The present cathedral, the date of the erection of which is a point of
discussion to-day, is generally believed to have been built on the spot
occupied by the primitive basilica. It is dedicated to Santa Maria la
Madre according to the official (doubtful?) statement, and to St. Martin
of Tours, Apostle of Gaul, according to the popular version.
The general appearance of the cathedral proclaims it to have been begun,
or at least planned, in the twelfth century, and not, as Baedeker
states, in 1220. As a twelfth-century church we are not obliged to
consider it for more reasons than one, and especially because, as we
have seen, the twelfth century was the great period of Galician
church-building. It was in this century that the northwest shone forth
in the history of Spain as it had not done before, nor has done since.
The church is another Romanesque specimen, but less pure in its style
than any of the others mentioned so far: the ogival arch is prevalent,
but rather as a decorative than as an essentially constructive element.
As it is, it was commenced at least fifty years after the cathedral of
Lugo, and though both are twelfth-century churches, the one is an early
and the other presumably a late one; the employment of the ogival arch
to a greater degree in Orense than in Lugo is thus easily explained.
In short, the cathedral of Orense is another example of the peculiar
Romanesque of Galicia, which, withstanding the invasion of Gothic,
created a school of its own, pretty in details, bold in harmony, though
it be a hybrid school after all.
The influence of the cathedral of Santiago is self-evident in the
cathedral of Orense. How could it be otherwise, when the bishop Don
Diego, who sat on the chair, was a great friend and a continual visitor
of that other Don Diego in Santiago who erected the primate cathedral of
Galicia?
This influence is above all to be seen in the Portico del Paraiso, an
interior narthex leading from the western front to the body of the
church. It is a handsome area of Romanesque sculpture covered by an
ogival vaulting, and would be an important monument if its rival and
prototype in Santiago were not greater, both as regards its perfection
of design, and the grand idea which inspired it.
Of the three doors which lead into the cathedral, the western is crowned
by three rounded arches reposing on simple columns. The tympanum as a
decorative element is lacking, as is also the low relief, which is
usually superimposed above the upper arches. The latter are, however,
carved in the most elaborate manner. As regards the other two portals,
the northern and southern, their composition, as far as generalities are
concerned, is the same as the western, excepting that they are
surrounded by a depressed semicircular arch in relief, the whole of a
primitive design.
[Illustration: NORTHERN PORTAL OF ORENSE CATHEDRAL]
The towers of the cathedral are not old. The general impression of the
building from the outside--unluckily it cannot be contemplated from any
distance, as the surrounding houses impede it--is agreeable. To be
especially observed are some fine fourteenth-century (?) windows which
show ogival pattern, but either of timid execution or else of a bold
endeavour on the artist's part to subdue solemn Gothic to the Romanesque
traditions of the country.
The interior has been restored and changed many a time. In its original
plan it consisted of two aisles and a nave with a one-aisled transept,
and, just as in Lugo, an apse formed by three semicircles, of which the
central was the largest, and contained the high altar. To-day, though
the general appearance or disposition of the church (Roman cruciform
with exceedingly short lateral arms) is the same, an ambulatory walk
surrounds the high altar, which has been moved nearer the transept in
the principal nave. The vaulting is ogival, reposing on solid and
severe shafts; the aisles are slightly lower than the central nave, and
the _croisee_ is surmounted, as in Santiago, by a handsome cupola
similar in construction to that of Valencia, though more reduced in
size, and of a less elegant pattern.
The lack of triforium is to be noted, and its want is felt.
The northern aisle has no chapels let into its exterior wall, but a long
row of sepulchres and sepulchral reliefs to replace them. Some of them
are severe and beautiful. The choir has finely carved stalls, and the
Gothic _retablo_ is the only one of its kind in Galicia, and one of the
best in Spain.
Many more details could be given concerning the worthy cathedral of
Orense, second only in richness of certain elements to that of Santiago.
The additions, both in Romanesque and ogival styles, are better than in
most other cathedrals in Galicia, though, as far as Renaissance is
concerned, Galicia showed but little love for Italia's art. This was due
to the regional Celtic taste of the inhabitants, or else to the marked
signs of art decadence in this part of Spain, when the Renaissance was
introduced into the country.
As regards the cloister,--small and rather compact in its
composition,--it is held by many to be a jewel of the fifteenth century
in the ogival style, handsome in its general outlines, and beautiful in
its wealth of sculptural decoration.
VI
TUY
The last Spanish city on the Mino, the Rhine of Galicia, as beautiful as
its German rival, and as rich in architectural remains, both military
and ecclesiastical, is Tuy, the Castellum Tude of the Romans, lying
half-way on the main road from Braga (Portugal) to Lugo and Astorga in
Spain.
The approach to the city by rail from Orense is simply superb. The
valley of the Mino is broad and luxuriant, with ruins of castles to the
right and to the left, ahead and behind; in the distance, time-old Tuy,
the city of a hundred misfortunes, is seated on an isolated hill, the
summit of which is crowned by a fortress-cathedral of the twelfth
century.
Tuy sits on her hill, and gazes across the river at Valenca do Minho,
the rival fortress opposite, and the first town in Portugal. A handsome
bridge unites the enemies--friends to-day. Nevertheless, the cannons'
mouths of the glaring strongholds are for ever pointed toward each
other, as though wishing to recall those days of the middle ages when
Tuy was the goal of Portuguese ambitions and the last Spanish town in
Galicia.
Before the Romans conquered Iberia, Tuy, which is evidently a Celtic
name, was a most important town. This is easily explained by its
position, a sort of inland Gibraltar, backed by the Sierra to the rear,
and crowning the river which brought ships from the ocean to its
wharves. The city's future was brilliant.
Matters changed soon, however. The Romans drew away much of its power to
cities further inland, as was their wont. The castle remained standing,
as did the walls, which reached on the northern shores of the river down
to Guardia, situated in the delta about thirty miles away. Remains of
the cyclopean walls which crown the mountain chain on the Spanish side
of the Mino are still to be seen to-day, yet they give but a feeble idea
of the city's former strength.
After the Romans had been defeated by the invasion of savage tribes from
the north, Tuy became the capital of the Suevos, a tribe opposed to the
Visigoths, who settled in the rest of Spain, and for centuries waged a
cruel war against the kings whose subjects had settled principally in
Galicia and in the north of Portugal.
The power of the Suevos, who were seated firmly in Tuy, was at last
completely broken, and the capital, its inhabitants fighting
energetically to the end, was at length conquered. It was the last
stronghold to fall into the hands of the conquerors. A century later
Witiza, the sovereign of the Visigoths, made Tuy his capital for some
length of time, and the district round about is full of the traditions
of the doings of this monarch. Most of these legends denigrate his
character, and make him appear cruel, wilful, and false. One of them,
concerning Duke Favila and Dona Luz, is perhaps the most popular.
According to it, Witiza fell in love with the former's wife, Dona Luz,
and, to remove the husband, he heartlessly had his eyes put out, on the
charge of being ambitious, and of having conspired against the throne.
The fate that awaited Dona Luz, who defended her honour, was no better,
according to this legend.
After the return of Witiza to Toledo, the city slowly lost its
importance, and since then she has never recovered her ancient fame.
Like the remaining seaports of Galicia,--or such cities as were situated
near the ocean,--Tuy was sacked and pillaged by Arabs and vikings alike.
The times were extremely warlike, and Galicia, from her position, and on
account of the independent spirit of the noblemen, was called upon to
suffer more than any other region, and Tuy, near the ocean, and a
frontier town to boot, underwent greater hardships than any other
Galician city. Of an admirable natural position, it would have been able
to resist the attacks of Gudroed and Olaf, of the Portuguese noblemen
and of Arab armies, had it been but decently fortified. The lack of such
fortifications, however, and the neglect and indifference with which it
was, as a rule, regarded by the kings of Asturias, easily account for
its having fallen into the hands of enemies, of having been razed more
than once to the ground, of having been the seat of ambitious and
conspiring noblemen who were only bent on thrashing their neighbours,
Christians and infidels alike.
In the sixth century Tuy had already been raised to the dignity of a
city, but until after the eleventh century the prelates of the church,
tyrants when the times were propitious, but cowardly when danger was at
hand, were continually removing their see to the neighbouring villages
and mountains to the rear. They left their church with surprising
alacrity and ease to the mercy of warriors and enemies, to such an
extent, in fact, that neither are documents at hand to tell us what
happened exactly in the darker ages of mediaeval history, nor are the
existing monuments in themselves sufficient to convince us of the
vicissitudes which befell the city, its see, and the latter's flocks.
Since the last Arab and Norseman raid, matters seemed to have gone
better with fair Tuy, for, excepting the continual strife between
Portuguese and Galician noblemen, who were for ever gaining and losing
the city on the Mino, neither infidels nor pirates visited its wharves.
It was then that the foundations of the present cathedral were laid, but
not without disputes between the prelates (one of whom was taken
prisoner, and had to give a handsome ransom to be released) and the
noblemen who called themselves seigneurs of the city. Between the
claims and struggles of these two factions, those who suffered most were
the citizens themselves, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Between the bishops who pretended to possess the whole city, and the
noblemen who endeavoured to leave the prelates without a groat, the
ignored inhabitants of the poorer quarters of the town passed a
miserable life.
Since the middle ages, or better still, since the time when the Mino
became definitely the frontier line between Spain and Portugal, the city
of Tuy has been heard of but little. Few art students visit it to-day,
and yet it is one of the most picturesquely situated cities in Galicia,
or even in Spain. Its cathedral, as well as the Pre-Roman, Roman,
Gothic, and middle age remains,--most of them covered over with heaps of
dust and earth,--are well worth a visit, being highly interesting both
to artists and to archaeological students.
In short, Tuy on her hill beside the Mino, glaring across an iron bridge
at Portugal, is a city rich in traditions and legends of faded hopes and
past glories. Unluckily for her, cities of less historical fame are
better known and more admired.
As has already been mentioned, the cathedral crowns the hill, upon the
slopes of which the city descends to the river; moreover, the edifice
occupies the summit only,--a _castro_, as explained in a previous
chapter. Therefore, for proofs are lacking both ways, it is probable
that the present building was erected on the same spot where the many
basilicas which we know existed and were destroyed in one or another of
the many sieges, stood in bygone days.