GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL
PORTICO DE LA GLORIA
IE ACCOUNT
OF
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
IN SPAIN
BY
GEORGE EDMUND STREET, F.S.A.
EDITED BY
GEORGIANA GODDARD KING
VOL. I
LONDON AND TORONTO
J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON & CO. 1914
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
&c. 6-c. &>c.
THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED
AS A TESTIMONY OF THE AUTHOR'S RESPECT
AND ADMIRATION
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Santiago Cathedral, Portico de la Gloria . Frontispiece
Segovia from the Alcazar . . ... . Vignette on Title-page
Compartment of Nave, Burgos Cathedral . . . . .15
Burgos Cathedral, north-west view (from Fergusson) ... 27
Varieties of Crockets, Burgos Cathedral ..... 29
Burgos Cathedral, Clerestory of Choir . . . . -31
Burgos Cathedral, View of Cloisters from the roof . . 33
Carved Capital, Burgos Cathedral ...... 36
Transept Chapel, Las Huelgas ....... 39
Las Huelgas, Burgos, north-west view ..... 45
San Esteban, Burgos, Interior looking west . . . . -57
San Esteban, Burgos, Iron Lectern . . . . . -59
San Gil, Burgos, Iron Pulpit . ... . . . .61
Prie-Dieu, Palencia Cathedral . . . . . . 71
Steeple of San Miguel, Palencia . . . . . . -75
Cloister, Sta. Maria la Antigua, Valladolid 80
Salamanca Old Cathedral, Interior of Lantern looking east . . 97
Salamanca Old Cathedral, Exterior of Lantern .... 99
Zamora, Bridge over the Douro . . . . . . in
Archivolt, San Martin, Salamanca . . . . . .112
Zamora Cathedral, Interior of Nave looking east . . . .113
Zamora Cathedral, Exterior from the south-west . . . .117
Choir Lectern, Zamora Cathedral . . . . . .119
Monument, la Magdalena, Zamora . . . . . .121
San Vicente, Zamora ........ 122
Benavente, East End of Sta. Maria . . . . . .127
Leon Cathedral, Interior of Aisle round the Apse . . . .139
Bay of Choir, Leon Cathedral . . . . . . 144
Interior of San Isidoro, Leon, looking north-east . . . 157
Leon, South Transept of San Isidoro . . . . . .161
Lugo Cathedral, Interior of Transept looking north-west . .173
Sta. Maria, la Coruna 181
La Coruna, Church of Santiago . . . . . . .183
Santiago Cathedral, Interior of Lower Church . . . .196
Santiago Cathedral, Shafts in South Doorway . . . .198
Exterior of Chevet, Santiago de Compostella . . . -199
Inscription on South Door, Santiago Cathedral . . . .203
Santiago Cathedral, Interior of South Transept looking north-east . 205
Central Shaft of Western Doorway, Santiago Cathedral . . 207
Medina del Campo, the Castle . . . . . . . 227
Avila Cathedral, Interior of Aisle round the Apse . . . .229
ix
x GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
PAGE
Puerta de San Vicente, Avila . . . . . . .231
East End, Avila Cathedral 236
Stone Roofing, Avila Cathedral . . . . . . .238
San Vicente, Avila, north-east view . . . . . . 241
San Vicente, Avila, Interior of Western Porch .... 243
Segovia, Interior of the Templars' Church ..... 262
San Esteban, Segovia, south-east view of Church and Steeple . 267
San Millan, Segovia, north-west view ...... 269
Capital in Cloister, San Martin, Segovia ..... 271
Organ, Alcala de Henares . . . . . . . .283
Domestic Window, Alcala de Henares . . . . . .284
Guadalajara, Palace of the Duke del Infantado .... 287
Sigiienza Cathedral, Interior of Nave and Aisles looking north-east . 289
San Cristo de la Luz, Toledo (from Fergusson) .... 305
Toledo, Interior of Sta. Maria la Blanca (from Fergusson) . . 309
Knocker and Nails on Door, Toledo . . . . . .313
San Roman, Toledo ......... 316
Sta. Magdalena, Toledo 317
Puerta del Sol, Toledo . . . . . . . .321
Stone Roof of Outer Aisle and Chapels, Toledo Cathedral . . 330
Toledo Cathedral, Interior of Transept, etc., looking north-west . 333
Diagrams of Vaulting, Toledo Cathedral . . . . -335
Chapels of the Chevet, Toledo Cathedral 337
Toledo Cathedral, Interior of North Aisle of Choir looking east . 339
GROUND PLANS
PLATE PAGE
I. Burgos, Plan of Cathedral 40
II. Burgos, Plans of Las Huelgas, San Gil, and San Esteban . 52
III. Palencia and Valladolid, Plans of three Churches . . 73
IV. Salamanca, Plans of old and new Cathedrals and San Marcos 104
V. Leon, Plan of Cathedral 152
VI. Leon, Plan of San Isidore ...... 155
VII. Lugo, Plan of Cathedral . . . . . .175
VIII. Plans of Churches at Benavente, La Coruna, Segovia, and
L6rida . .... 178
IX. Santiago, Plan of Cathedral . . . 200
X. Avila, Plan of Cathedral 232
XL Avila, Plan of San Vicente ...... 248
Medina del Campo, Plan of San Antholin . . . 249
XII. Segovia, Plan of Cathedral . 264
XIII. Sigiienza, Plan of Cathedral 296
XIV. Toledo, Plan of Cathedral 346
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
THREE sorts of people will read a book like this, of travel and
criticism: those who think of going somewhere and want to
know what to expect; those who cannot go, and feed their desire
by what stirs new desire; and those who have been there already
and want to recall the place or to follow up what they fancied
there. The greatest motive for reprinting Some Account of
Gothic Architecture in Spain, by George Edmund Street, lies in
the need of the first sort, for whom very little exists in any
language. Murray is Ford first spoiled and then superannuated ;
Baedeker is for the best part carved out of Street, and for the
rest inaccurate as well as inadequate ; few travellers' books give
more than travellers' prejudices. This book is meant to be,
what it has been always, the traveller's inseparable fellow.
The editor undertakes two things: first and chiefly to make
it valid for the current year, and, secondarily, to widen, a very
little, its range. Street and Baedeker the traveller can carry
with him, more he cannot carry. Therefore whatever Bae-
deker omits, Street must supply. I set out to report where
things are not as they were, and to add whatever new historical
scholarship has brought to light. I have tried to see not only
every place that Street saw, but every place that he expressed
a wish to see this sometimes was not possible and to add in
the third place a few notes on places still unseen where Baedeker
avails nothing. Whatever I have described without seeing I
have described, with infinite regret, from photographs. On
books to which Street had access I have drawn little, knowing
that he chose carefully and omitted judiciously.
That this is already the best work on the subject is a common-
place of connoisseurs and booksellers, but no one, without care-
fully reading most of the men who have been writing since, could
believe how much they all depend on it. To try to correct
or augment by later writers is like trying to lift oneself
by one's own bootstraps. Spanish authors quote Street more,
if possible, than do English or French, and the graver sort con-
xi
xii GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
firm or accept his judgment in essentials. For this reason,
amongst others, I have so little to add to a book published
nearly fifty years ago. Street was very thorough, and Spain
is very slow.
The greatest change has been the discovery, less than twenty
years ago, of what are called Primitives, first the Flemish
Primitives, then the French, lastly the Spanish. Here, more
than anywhere else, the traveller stands in need of help, and if
I offer a hint it is with the sense of being justified by at least
two considerations. The first of these is that though in the
days of Street Primitives had not been invented, yet whenever
he saw pictures he looked at them, and liked, furthermore, the
right ones. At Pamplona and Leon it is the author and not
the editor who stops to record and discuss paintings, who does,
precisely, at length what the editor ventures elsewhere. More-
over he dearly loved the early Italians. 1 The other consideration
is that the painting from the thirteenth to the fifteenth and even
the sixteenth century is in the strictest terms parallel to the
architecture and related with it, is in Street's sense Gothic and
in any sense ecclesiastical. Therefore a modest enumeration of
retables painted or carved will not break in upon the discourse
unduly, while it may serve a good turn to some future traveller
bent on that closer study of individual painters and schools
which is needed before Spanish painting can be estimated.
While in absolute beauty it can never support comparison with
the Italian, in freshness, in naivete, and marked personality,
and in the great charm of being yet " unspoiled " unravaged
by the common literary hack it has inexhaustible interest.
Matter of controversy not being matter for an editor, on the
vexed question of French influence in Spanish art, I have put
very briefly such conclusions only as seem indisputable and are
undisputed by the established critics, connoisseurs, and archaeo-
logists in Spain. The same facts are urged, as well, by such
modern historians as Don Rafael Altamira. The case of the
architecture, according to them, stands thus : First, during the
Reconquest the monks of Cluny had immense influence with a
number of important Spanish kings. Secondly, in the twelfth
century the monks of Citeaux and S. Bernard himself founded
great Spanish abbeys from French houses, notably Fontefroid
near Narbonne. Third, certain types of architecture which in
France are " regional," i.e. recur frequently in a particular
part, are found in Spain unique or isolated or without antecedent
1 See, finally, Vol. II. pp. 255-257.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE xiii
or tentative approximations. The first and second points
establish a presumption that workmen and master builders
would be fetched from France; the third affords evidence that
such have worked in Spain. It is not the least glory of Street
that without the data he saw this in the stones. With him for
example, and in confirmation of all this, I want to add another
sort of testimony, that of the connoisseur's eye, trained to coin-
pare and detect essential likenesses. This may be helped out
by photographs, and supported by what is called qualitative
criticism, and the habit of distinguishing between a master's
hand and an apprentice's, between first rate and provincial art,
between works which are in the current of a great tradition and
those which are individual, accidental, and without consequences.
In the case of Santiago de Compostella, since it has lately broken
out afresh I summed up the discussion. It is precisely in such
instances as this, of conflicting or ambiguous documentary
evidence, that the student is thrown back on a practised judg-
ment and enabled to declare that as certainly two pieces of
stuff are or are not of the same colour, so certainly two pieces of
sculpture are of the same school, or are not. Many threads
meet and mingle in the web of Spanish art, but a steady eye and
hand can disentangle some of them.
Equally this last criterion,, of the trained experience, is needed
to supplement the documents on the no less vexed question of
Spanish painting. Again the best Spanish authority is in
agreement, affirming consistently that through commercial and
political relations alike Tuscan influence i.e. Florentine and
Sienese was incessant and strong on the east coast, thence
spreading inland and westward to the other kingdoms. French
painting came in, from the courts of Provence, Burgundy, and
the Royal Domain, inevitably, and the documents prove it.
These also prove the Flemish intercourse. The German share
was probably less than sometimes is asserted, because the
evidence of documents is wanting, and the test of examining
and comparing the early pictures does not show it.
The history of Spanish painting before the sixteenth century
is yet to write for the most part, but some of the materials exist.
There is, first of all, the great book on Cuatrocentistas Catalanes
by Don Salvador Sanpere y Miguel, and his Pintura Mig-eval
Catalana now publishing. There are articles in Spanish periodi-
cals and other publications by Don Elias Tormo y Monso and
Don Luis Tramoyeres y Blasco.
In the Revue de V Art Ancien et Moderne between 1906 and 1909
xiv GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
M. Emile Bertaux presented in French most of Senor Sanpere's
conclusions even when he differed from them, and he has written
the chapters on Spanish painting and sculpture in M. Andre
Michel's Histoire de I' Art, and for this M. Camille Enlart has
written on Spanish architecture. These two are the best authori-
ties in French, I believe.
In Spanish there is one great book to add to Street's list:
Historia de la Arquitectura Cristiana Espanola en la Edad Media,
by Don Vicente Lamperez y Romea, which was summarised in
French, for the Revue Hispanique, by Professor Desdevises du
Dezert. Unfortunately the first volume is already out of print.
To every chapter and section in this, as in Michel, are appended
such excellent special bibliographies that to set down the books
I have consulted, before or after them, would be affectation.
Parcerisa has been republished, without the delightful old views,
and with later additions, as Espana, sus Monumentos y Artes,
Barcelona, 1885 and onward. The best new book I know in
English is called Spain., a Study of her Life and Arts, by Royall
Tyler, 1909. It contains forty- three plans of churches, some
of these not in Street.
To supply for the notes, plans drawn to scale and exquisitely,
like those in the text, the editor was not competent. To make
photographs that could replace the author's sketches the age
is not competent, for until a camera shall be able to work around
a corner, photography can be only a mechanical aid in the study
and reproduction of architecture, and for the impression and
the pleasure the burden will be still on the pencil. Those who
have known this book before will applaud the editor's and
publisher's conservatism, and will be glad equally that while
the author's notes are retained at the foot of the page, the
editor's, indicated by an arabic numeral, are relegated to the
end of the chapter.
The business of an editor is to help out his author with as
little ostentation as may be. If he disagrees in fundamentals,
he is in the wrong place; if he knows more in details, though
he has the better luck, yet his author is still probably the better
man, and his corrections and additions should come in discreetly.
It seems right in choosing new material and piecing out the old
to match the stuff as far as possible in other words, to insert
simply a report made to the chief in his own terms. If the
report is sometimes bald, sometimes garrulous, too often breath-
less, it is made at least rapidly and sotto voce and kept out of the
~way of the main business. This book is not mine. If I ever
INTRODUCTORY NOTE xv
write a book about Spain it will be a different one, and not so
good a one but whether I like or no, it will be based on this.
To those who have not known it before, I commend this.
Street is the best of companions the least professional, or
hackneyed, or egotistical. I testify after three journeys to
Spain and many months spent there that he is never dull, never
irritating, never fretful; and stimulating beyond the wont. If
one flags after fourteen hours in a train, one remembers that he
sat sixty-six in a diligence; if one turns from a lump of chocolate
and a cold omelette as the long day's provision, one remembers
that he lived for weeks on bread and grapes. He taught to
Europe the Gloria of Santiago ; he teaches to every fellow-travel-
ler his patience with foreign ways and his entire devotion to
exalted beauty. If one has more tolerance for the plateresque
style than he, it may be because one has less passion for the
Gothic, and that is not virtue on any count. Spain is not easy
to understand ; Spaniards say themselves that the very formulas
they offer do not plumb the depth but the best chance of
understanding lies in knowledge and in such a spirit as informs
the pages that follow here.
BRYN MAWR,
Vigil of S. Andrew, 1912.
PREFACE xix
the purpose of giving such a general and comprehensive idea
of the features of Gothic architecture in Spain as it has been my
effort to give in this work.
Seeing, then, how complete is the ignorance which up to the
present time we have laboured under as to the true history and
nature of Gothic architecture in Spain, I commit this volume to
the reader with a fair trust that what has been the occupation of
all my leisure moments for the last two or three years a work
not only of much labour at home, but of considerable labour
also in long journeys taken year after year for this object alone
will not be found an unwelcome addition to the literature of
Christian art. I have attempted to throw what I had to say
into the form which has always appeared to me to be the right
form for any such architectural treatise. The interest of the
subject is threefold first, Artistic and Archaeological; secondly,
Historical; and lastly, Personal. I have first of all, therefore,
arranged the notes of my several journeys in the form of one
continuous tour; and then, in the concluding chapters, I have
attempted a general resume of the history of architecture in
Spain, and, finally, a short history of the men who as architects
and builders have given me the materials for my work.
To this I have added, in an Appendix, two catalogues one of
dated examples of buildings, and the other of their architects,
with short notices of their works ; and, beside these, a few trans-
lations of documents which seem to me to bring before us in a
very real way the mode in which these mediaeval buildings were
undertaken, carried on, and completed.
PREFACE
THE book which I here commit to the reader requires, I fear,
some apology on my part. I feel that I have undertaken almost
more than an artist like myself, always at work, has any right
to suppose he can properly accomplish in the little spare time
he can command. Nevertheless, I have always felt that part of
the duty which every artist owes to his mother art is to study
her developments wherever they are to be seen, and whenever
he can find the opportunity. Moreover, I believe that in this
age it is only by the largest kind of study and range of observa-
tion that any artist can hope to perfect himself in so complex
and difficult an art as architecture, andjthat.it is only by study-
ing the development of Gothic architecture in all countries that
we can form a true an3^ust estimate of the marvellous force
of the artistic impulse which wrought such wonders- all over
Europe in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries.
In a~clay of revival, such as this, I believe it to be necessary
that we should form this just estimate of bygone art; because I
am sure that, unless our artists learn their art by studying
patiently, lovingly, and constantly the works of their great
predecessors, they will never themselves be great. I know full
well how much hostility there is on the part of soms to any
study of foreign examples; but as from my boyhood up I have
never lost any opportunity of visiting and studying our old
English buildings, and as my love for our own national artistic
peculiarities rather increases than diminishes the more I study
the contemporary buildings of the Continent, I have no hesitation
in giving to the world what I have been able to learn about
Spanish art.
What I have here written will no doubt be supplemented and
corrected by others hereafter; and much additional light will, I
hope, be thrown upon the history of Spanish buildings and their
architects. It will be found that I have referred to many
Spanish authorities for the historical facts on which the dates
of the buildings I have visited can alone be decided. Of these
xv ii
xviii GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
authorities none is more useful to the architect, none is more
creditable to its authors, than the Notices of the Architects
and Architecture of Spain, by D. Eugenic Llaguno y Amirola,
edited with additions by D. Juan Agustin Cean-Bermudez, in
four volumes, compiled about the beginning of this century, but
not published until A.D. i82C). 1
This work, full of documentary evidence as to the Spanish
architects and their works, appears to me to be far better in its
scheme and mode of execution than any work which we in
England have upon the buildings of our own country; and,
though it is true that neither of its authors had a very accurate
knowledge of the art, they seem to have exercised great diligence
in their search after information bearing on their subject, and
to have been remarkably successful.
Mr. Ford's Handbook of Spain has been of great service to
me, not only because it was the only guide to be had, and on
account of the charm of his style, but because it had the rare
excellence (in a Guide-book) of constantly referring to local
guides and authorities, and so enabling me to turn at once to
the books most likely to aid me in my work.
The other works to which I have at some pains referred are
mainly local guides and histories, collections of documents, and
the like. Of these a vast number have been published, and I
cannot pretend to have exhausted the stores which they contain.
Unfortunately, so far as I have been able to learn, no one of
late years has taken up the subject of the Mediaeval antiquities
of Spain in the way in which we are accustomed to see them
treated by writers on the subject elsewhere in Europe. The
Ensayo Historico of D. Jose Caveda is very slight and unsatis-
factory, and not to be depended on. Passavant, who has
published some notes on Spanish architecture, 2 is so ludicrously
wrong in most of his statements that it seems probable that
he trusted to his internal consciousness instead of to personal
inspection for his facts. The work of Don G. P. de Villa Amil 3
is very showy and very untrustworthy; and that of Don F. J.
Parcerisa, 4 and the great work which the Spanish Government
is publishing, 5 are both so large and elaborate as to be useless for
1 1 have quoted this book throughout as " Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Esp."
2 Die Christliche Kiinst in Spanien. Leipzic, 1853.
3 Espana Artistica y Monumental, por Don G. P. de Villa Amil y Don P.
de la Escosura. Paris, 1842.
4 Recuerdos y Bellezas de Espana, por F. J. Parcerisa, 1844, etc.
5 Monumentos Arquitectonicos de Espana ; publicados a expensas del
Estado, bajo la direccion de una Comision especial creada por el Ministerio
de Fomento. Madrid, 1859-65, and still in course of publication.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
IN SPAIN
CHAPTER I
IRUN SAN SEBASTIAN BURGOS
So little has it been the fashion hitherto to explore the North
of Spain in search of artistic treasures, that it was with some-
what more than usual of the feeling that I was engaged in an
adventure that I left Bayonne on my first journey West of the
Pyrenees. Yet, in truth, so far as I have seen there is little in
the way of adventure to anticipate even there in these matter-
of-fact days ; and, some slight personal inconvenience excepted,
there is nothing to prevent any traveller of ordinary energy
doing all that I did with complete success, and an uncommon
amount of pleasure. For if there are no serious perils to be
encountered, there is great novelty in almost everything that
one sees; and whether we wish to study the people and their
customs, or to visit the country and explore it in search of
striking and picturesque scenery, or to examine, as I did, its
treasures of ancient art, we shall find in every one of these
respects so much that is unlike what we are used to, so much
that is beautiful, and so much that is ancient and venerable by
historic association, that we must be dull indeed if we do not
enjoy our journey with the fullest measure of enjoyment. In-
deed the drawbacks about which so much is usually said and
written the difficulty of finding inns fit to sleep in, or food fit to
eat seem to me to be most enormously exaggerated. It is true
that I have purposely avoided travelling over the well-beaten
Andalusian corner of Spain; and it is there, I suppose, that
most English ideas of Spain and the Spaniards are formed. But
in those parts to which my travels have taken me, but in which
English travellers are not known so well as they are in Anda-
lusia, I have certainly seldom found any difficulty in obtaining
i A
2 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
such creature-comforts as are essential. Somewhat, it is true,
depends upon the time of year in which a journey is undertaken;
for in the spring, when the climate is most enjoyable, and the
country gloriously green and bright with wavy crops of corn,
the traveller has to depend entirely upon the cook for his food ;
and has no other resource even where the cookery is intolerable
to his English sense of smell, taste, and sight! But in the
autumn, if he chances to travel, as I have twice done, just when
the grapes are ripening, he may, if he choose, live almost entirely,
and with no little advantage to his health, on grapes and bread,
the latter being always pure, light, and good to a degree of which
our English bakers have no conception ; and the former tasting
as none but Spanish grapes do, and often costing nothing, or
at any rate never more than a merely nominal sum.
On the whole, from my own experience, I should be inclined
to recommend the autumn as the most favourable season for
a Spanish journey, the weather being then generally more
settled than in the spring. But, on the other hand, there
is no doubt that any one who wishes to judge fairly of the
scenery of Old and New Castile, of great part of Aragon, and
of Leon, ought on no account to visit these provinces save in
the spring. Then I know no sight more glorious in its way
than the sea of corn which is seen covering with its luxuriance
and lovely colour the endless sweeps of the great landscape on
all sides; whereas in the. autumn the same landscape looks
parched and barren, burnt up as it is by the furious sun until
it assumes everywhere a dusty hue, painful to the eye, and most
monotonous and depressing to the mind; whilst the roads
suffer sometimes from an accumulation of dust such as can
scarcely be imagined by those who have never travelled along
them. Even at this season, however, there are some recom-
penses, and one of them is the power of realising somewhat
of the beauty of an Eastern atmosphere, and the singular con-
trasts of colours which Eastern landscapes and skies generally
present; for nowhere else have I ever seen sunsets more beautiful
or more extraordinary than in the dreariest part of dreary
Castile (i).
So far as the inns and food are to be considered, I do not
think there is much need ordinarily for violent grumbling. All
ideas of English manners and customs must be carefully left
behind; and if the travelling-clothes are donned with a full
intention to do in Spain as Spain does, there is small fear of
their owner suffering very much. But in Spain more than in
SPANISH INNS 3
most parts of Europe the foreign traveller is a rare bird, and if
he attempt to import his own customs, he will unquestionably
suffer for his pains, and give a good deal of unnecessary
because fruitless trouble into the bargain.
Spanish inns are of various degrees, from the Posada, which
is usually a muleteer's public-house, and the Parador, which is
higher in rank, and where the diligence is generally to be found,
up to the Fonda, which answers in idea to our hotel. In small
country towns and villages a Posada is the only kind of inn to
be found; and sometimes indeed large towns and cities have
nothing better for the traveller's accommodation; but in the
larger towns, and where there is much traffic, the Parador or
Fonda will often be found to be as good as second-rate inns
elsewhere usually are.
In a Posada it is generally easy to secure a bedroom which
boasts at any rate of clean, wholesome linen, though of but little
furniture; and in the remoter parts of the country as in Leon
and Galicia there is no difficulty in securing in the poorest
Posada plenty of bird or fish of quality good enough for a gour-
mand. The great objection to these small inns is, that nothing
but the linen for the beds and the face of the waiting-maid ever
seems to be washed. The water is carried to and fro in jars of
the most curious and pleasant form and texture, and a few drops
are now and then thrown on the floor of the comedor or eating-
room by way of laying the ancient dust; but washing in any
higher sense than this is unknown. It must be said also, that
the entrance is common to the mules and the guests; and that
after passing through an archway where the atmosphere is only
too lively with fleas, and where the stench is something too
dreadful to be borne with ease, you turn into the staircase door,
and up the stairs, only to find when you have mounted that you
have to live, sleep, and eat above the mules; and (unless you
are very lucky), when you open your window, to smell as badly
as ever all the sweets of their uncleaned and, I suppose, unclean-
able stables 1
The kitchen is almost always on the first floor; and here one
may stand by the wood fire and see the dinner cooked in a
mysterious fashion in a number of little earthen jars planted
here and there among the embers ; whilst one admires the small
but precious array of quaint crockery on the shelves, and tries
to induce the cooking-maid to add somewhat less of the usual
flavouring to one at any rate of her stews ! I confess, in spite
of all this, to a grateful recollection of many a Posada, to a
4 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
hearty appreciation of an olla podrida a dish abused most by
those who know least about its virtues and to some suspicion
that many of the humblest have treasures in their unsophisti-
cated cooks for which one longs in vain in our own English
country-town inns, which of all I have seen seem to me to be the
worst, in their affectation of superiority, and in their utter
inability to support their claim with anything more worthy than
bad mutton-chops, doubtful beer, and wine about which there
is no kind of doubt whatever! So much for the Posada. In
the Parador or the Fonda the entertainment is generally very
fair, whilst in many the sleeping-rooms are all that need be
desired. But even here the smell of the stables is often so
intolerable as to make it very desirable to find other quarters;
and about this there is seldom if ever any difficulty; for in
almost all towns of moderate size there are plenty of houses
where lodgers are taken in for a night; and in these one may
generally depend upon cleanliness, the absence of mules, and
fairly-good cookery.
In all whether inns or lodgings it is well to eat when the
Spaniard eats, and not to attempt to do so at any other time, else
much precious time and temper will assuredly be lost, and with
results entirely incommensurate with the sacrifice. At what-
ever hour you rise the maid will bring a small cup of chocolate
and a vast glass of water, with some sweet biscuits or toast.
And you must learn to love this precious cup, if you intend to
love Spain: nowhere else will you get chocolate so invariably
well made; and if after you have taken it you drink heartily
of the water, you have nothing to fear, and may work hard
without fainting till you get your morning meal, at about eleven
o'clock. This is a dinner, and can be followed by another at
sunset, after which you can generally find in a cafe either coffee,
chocolate, or iced lemonade, whilst you watch the relaxation of
the domino-playing natives (2).
Finally, there is seldom anything to quarrel with in the bill,
which is usually made out for the entertainment at so much
a day; and when this has been paid, the people of the house
are sure to bid you God speed a dios with pleasant faces
and kind hearts.
The journeys which I have undertaken in Spain have all been
made with the one object of inspecting the remains of Gothic
building which I either hoped to, or knew I should, find there.
My knowledge of Spanish scenery has therefore been very much
limited, and it is only incidentally that I am able to speak at all
TOURS 5
of it. Yet I have seen enough to be able to recommend a great
extent of country as thoroughly worthy of exploration by those
who care for nought but picturesque scenery. The greater part
of Catalonia, much of Aragon, Navarre, the north of Leon,
Galicia, and the Asturias, are all full of lovely scenery, and even
in other districts, where the country is not interesting, there
seem always to be ranges of mountains in sight, which, with the
singular purity of the atmosphere through which they are seen,
never fail of leaving pleasant recollections in one's mind. Such,
for example, is the view of the Guadarrama Mountains from
Madrid a view which redeems that otherwise forlorn situation
for a great city, and gives it the only charm it has. Such again
are the mountain backgrounds of Leon, Avila, and Segovia.
In my first Spanish tour I entered the country from Bayonne,
travelled thence by Vitoria to Burgos, Palencia, Valladolid,
Madrid, Alcala, Toledo, Valencia, Barcelona, Lerida, and by
Gerona to Perpinan. In the second I went again to Gerona,
thence to Barcelona, Tarragona, Manresa, Lerida, Huesca, Zara-
goza, Tudela, Pamplona, and so to Bayonne; and in the third
and last I went by Bayonne to Pamplona, Tudela, Tarazona,
Siguenza, Guadalajara, Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Avila, Sala-
manca, Zamora, Benavente, Leon, Astorga, Lugo, Santiago,
la Coruna, and thence back by Valladolid and Burgos to San
Sebastian and Bayonne.
Tours such as these have, I think, given me a fair chance of
forming a right judgment as to most of the features of Spanish
architecture ; but it were worse than foolish to suppose that they
have been in the slightest degree exhaustive, for there are large
tracts of country which I have not visited at all, others in which
I have seen one or two only out of many towns which are un-
doubtedly full of interesting subjects to the architect, and others
again in which I have been too much pressed for time. Yet I
hardly know that I need apologise for my neglect to see more
when I consider that, up to the present time, so far as I know,
no architect has ever described the buildings which I have
visited, and indeed no accurate or reliable information is to be
obtained as to their exact character, or age, or history. The
real subject for apology is one over which I have had, in truth,
no control. The speed with which I have been compelled to
travel, and the rapidity with which I have been obliged to
sketch and take dimensions of everything I have seen, have often,
no doubt, led to my making errors, for which, wherever they
exist, I am sincerely sorry. In truth, the work I undertook was
6 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
hardly the mere relaxation from my ordinary artistic labour for
which it was first of all intended, and has been increased not a
little by the labour which I have undertaken in the attempt to
fix by documentary evidence, where possible, the ages of the
various parts of the buildings I have described.
It will be observed that I have not visited the extreme south
of Spain; and this was from the first a settled purpose with me.
Wejiave already been treated almost to surfeit with accounts of
the~Moorish remains at Granada^-Sjeville. Cordoba, and other
places 111 ITTe south : but beside this my anxiety was to see how
the Christians and not how the Moors built in Spain in the
middle^ages, and I purposely, therefore,_avoided those parts of
the country which during the best period of"me3Iie~val artrwere
not free from Moorish influenced The pages oi this book are the
best evidence I can give of the wisdom of such a decision, and I
need only say here that T was more than RntiRfie4jvjtlvthe purity
and beauty of the Christian architecture of Spain, and that I
have no hesitation in the advice which I give to others to lollow
in my track and to make good the deficiencies in my investiga-
tions, of which I am so thoroughly conscious.
By this time travelling on the great high road through Spain
via Madrid is much easier than it was when I first made the
journey. The railway to Madrid is now either completed or all
but completed, and it is possible to travel from Calais to Alicante
on an almost unbroken line. It is a matter to be grateful for
in most respects, yet I rejoice that I made my first journey
when it was still necessary to make use of the road, and to see
something on the way both of the country and 'of the people (3).
It was after a hurried journey by night to Paris, and thence
the next night on to Bordeaux, that I arrived, after a few hours
spent in that interesting old city, at the end of the second day in
Bayonne. Here my first work was to furnish myself with money
and places in the Spanish diligence; and in both these matters
I received my first lesson in one peculiarity of Spaniards that
of using foreign words in another and different sense from that
to which we are accustomed. Napoleons are said to be the best
coin for use in Spain, and I furnished myself with them only to
discover, when it was too late, that in Spain a Napoleon means
a silver five-franc piece, and that my gold Napoleons were all
but useless out of Madrid. And again, when I asked for places
in the coupe of the diligence, I found that I was really trying
to secure seats in the banquette the coupe being called the
berlina, and the banquette the coupe.
BAYONNE 7
At Bayonne there- -is- -not- very much to be seen beyond the
tv>p rivpr crossed by the Duke for his attack on Soult,
and a charming view from the top of the cathedral tower of the
lower ranges of the Pyrenees. The Trois Couronnes is the most
conspicuous peak, and its outline is fine; but here, as generally
in the distant views of the chain which I obtained, there is a
lack of those snow peaks which lend so much beauty to all
Alpine views. The exterior of the cathedral (4.^ has been almost
entirely renewed oYlatenrffrTa small army .of masons jwas busy
in the cloister on the south side of the choir. It is to be hoped
that the stoppage of the funds so lavishly spent upon the French
cathedrals may happen before the Bayonne architects and
masons have come round to the west end. At present there
is a savage picturesqueness about this which is beyond measure
delightful, whilst tbp^nn'ginal arrangement of the doorways
andjjorches on the west and south, with enormous penthouse
roofs oveTthem, isTust so tar open jtoconjecture and doubt
as to be best left without very much alteration! Thelgeneral^
character of the interior nf thp Cathedral is. nnly mnrfaratply
good, t|ig_ Ijarpn'fifi nf tV|fi Infty trappfjpd trifnrinm q r nf| % ft
j)f_jjie clerestory in the nave -being
ir Frenrh work - The choir is of late
thirtpfnth-fifmtnry work, v pr y ^tu^y w^b fiv^ ._happ.Is_ . 1>n the
In the afternoon we followed the stream and drove to Biarritz.
A succession of vehicles of every kind, crowded with passengers,
gave strong evidence of the attractions either of the place or
else of the emperor and empress, who had been there for a
week or two; and the mob of extravagantly dressed ladies,
French and English, who thronged the bathing-places and the
sandy plain in front of the Villa Eugenie, accounted for the
enormous black boxes under which all the vehicles seemed to
groan. The view from the cliffs on the western side of Biarritz
is strikingly beautiful, embracing as it does the long range of
the Pyrenees descending to the sea in a grand mass above Fuen-
terrabia, and prolonged as far as the eye could reach along the
coasj; of Biscay. The next morning we left Bayonne at four
o'clock for Burgos. We had seats in the coupe, the occupants
of the berlina on this journey being a son of Queen Christina,
with his bride. In Spain every one seems to travel by the
diligence; you seldom meet a private carriage; there are no
posting arrangements; and owing to the way in which the
diligences on the great roads are crowded, it is very difficult
8 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
indeed to stop on the road without running great risk of
indefinite delays in getting places again (5).
The drive was very charming. The sun rose before we reached
St. Jean de Luz, 1 and we enjoyed to the full the lovely scenery.
Crossing the Bidassoa at Irun, the famous He de Faisans was
seen a mere stony bank in the middle of the stream, recently
walled round and adorned with a sort of monument and then
ensued a delay of an hour whilst our luggage was examined and
plombe in order that it might pass out of Guipuzcoa into Castile
without a second examination.
There is a rather characteristic church (6) of late date here.
It stands on ground sloping steeply down towards the river, and
has a bald look outside, owing to the almost complete absence
of window openings, what there are being small, and very
high above the floor. The plan is peculiar: it has a nave and
chancel, and aisles of two bays to the eastern half of the nave,
so that the western part of the nave corresponds in outline
very nearly with the chancel. There is a tower at the west end
of the south aisle. The groining is many-ribbed, and illustrates
the love of the later Spanish architects for ogee surface-ribs,
which look better on a plan of vaulting than they do in execution.
The east end is square, but the vaulting is apsidal, the angles
of the square end being cut across by domical pendentives
below the vaulting. The most remarkable feature is the great
width of the nave, which is about fifty-four feet from centre
to centre of the columns, the total length not being more, I
think, than a hundred and fifty feet. The church floor was
strewed with rushes, and in the evening when I visited it the
people stole in and out like ghosts upon this quiet carpeting.
This church was rebuilt in A.D. 1508, and is of course not a very
good example of Spanish Gothic.
Fuenterrabia is just seen from Irun in the distance, very
prettily situated, with the long line of the blue bay of Biscay to
its right. From Irun the road to San Sebastian passes the land-
locked harbour of Pasage: this is most picturesque, the old
houses clustering round the base of the great hills which shut
it in from the sea, between which there is only a narrow winding
passage to the latter, guarded by a mediaeval castle. Leaving
1 The church at Bidart (7), between Bayonne and the French frontier, is
quite worth going into. It has a nave about forty-five feet wide, and three
tiers of wooden galleries all round its north, west, and south walls. They
are quaint and picturesque in construction, and are supported by timbers
jutting out upwards from the walls, not being supported at all from the
floor.
SAN SEBASTIAN 9
this charming picture behind, we were soon in front of San
Sebastian. Here again the castle-crowned cliff seems entirely
to shut the town out from the sea, whilst only a narrow neck of
land between the embouchure of the river on the one side, and a
land-locked bay on the other, connects it with the mainland.
We had been seven or eight hours en route, and were glad to hear
of a halt for breakfast. Whilst it was being prepared I ran
off to the church of San Vicente on the opposite side of the town
to the Fonda. I found it to be a building of the sixteenth
century built in 1507 with a large western porch (8), open-
arched on each face, a nave and aisles, and eastern apsidal choir.
The end of this is rilled with an enormous Retablo of Pagan
character, reaching to the roof. The church is groined through-
out, and all the light is admitted by very small windows in the
clerestory. The aisles have altars in each bay, with Retablos
facing north and south. There is little or no work of much
architectural interest here; but it was almost my first Spanish
church, and I had my first very vivid impression of the darkened
interiors, lighted up here and there by some brilliant speck of
sunshine, which are so characteristic of the country, and as
lovely in their effects as they are aggravating to one who wants
to be able to make sketches and notes within them.
Leaving San Sebastian at mid-day, we skirted the bay, busy
with folk enjoying themselves in the water after the fashion of
Biarritz. The country was wild, beautiful, and mountainous
all the way to Mondragon. At Vergara there was a fair going
on, and the narrow streets were crowded with picturesquely
dressed peasants; everywhere in these parts fine, lusty, hand-
some, and clean, and to my mind the best looking peasantry
T have ever seen. In the evening the villages were all alive,
the young men and women dancing a wild, indescribable dance,
rather gracefully, and with a good deal of waving about of their
arms. The music generally consisted of a tambourine, but once
of two drums and a flute ; and the ball-room was the centre of the
road, or the little plaza in the middle of the village. At mid-
night there was another halt at Vitoria, where an hour was
whiled away over chocolate and azucarillos delicate composi-
tions of sugar which melt away rapidly in water, and make a
superior kind of eau sucre ; and again at sunrise we stopped at
Miranda del Ebro for the examination of luggage before entering
Castile.
Close to the bridge, on the opposite side of the Ebro to Miranda,
is a church (9) of which I could just see by the dim light of the
io GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
morning that it was of some value as an example of Roman-
esque and Early Pointed work. The apse, of five sides, has
buttresses with two half-columns in front of each, and an arch
thrown across from buttress to buttress carries the cornice
and gives a great appearance of massiveness to the window
arches with which it is concentric. The south doorway is of
very fine Early Pointed style, with three shafts on each jamb,
and five orders in the arch.
On the road from Miranda to Pancorbo there is a striking defile
between massive limestone cliffs and rocks, through which the
Madrid Railway is being constructed with no little difficulty,
and where the road is carried up, until, at its summit, we found
ourselves at the commencement of the arid, treeless, dusty, and
eminently miserable plain of Castile, whilst we groaned not a
little at the slow pace at which the ten or twelve horses and mules
that drew us got over the ground. These Spanish diligences are
certainly most amusing for a time, and thenceforward most
wearying. They generally have a team of ten or twelve animals,
mostly mules. The driver has a short whip and reins for the
wheelers only; a boy, the adalantero, rides the leaders as postil-
lion, and with a power of endurance which deserves record, the
same boy having ridden with us all the way from San Sebastian
to Burgos twenty-five hours, with a halt of one hour only at
Vitoria. The conductor, or mayoral, sits with the driver, and
the two spend half their time in getting down from the box,
rushing to the head of one of the mules, belabouring him heartily
for two or three minutes till the whole train is in a mad gallop,
and then climbing to the box to indulge in a succession of wild
shrieks until the poor beasts have fallen again into their usual
walk, when the performance is repeated. I believe that for a
day and a half our mayoral never slept a wink, and spent some-
thing like a fourth of his time running with the mules : though
I am bound to say that subsequent experience has convinced
me that he was exceptionally lively and wakeful, for elsewhere,
in travelling by night, I have generally found that the mules
become their own masters after dark, walking or standing still
as seemeth them best, and seldom getting over much more than
half the ground they travel in the same number of hours of
daylight.
A few miles before our arrival at Burgos, we caught the first
sight of the three spires of the cathedral; and presently the
whole mass stood out grandly, surmounted by the Castle hill
on the right. One or two villages with large churches of little
DEFILE OF PANCORBO n
interest were passed, the great Carthusian Convent of Miraflores
was seen on the left, and then, passing a short suburb, we stopped
at the Fonda de la Rafaela (10); and after an hour spent in
recovery from dust, dirt, and horrid hunger, betook ourselves
to the famous Cathedral, with no little anxiety as to the result of
this first day of ecclesiologising in Spain.
The railroad, which is now open to Burgos, follows very much
the same line as the old road. As far as Miranda the scenery
is generally very beautiful, and here there is a junction with
the wonderfully-engineered railway to Bilbao, which is con-
tinued again on the other side until it joins the Pamplona and
Tudela Railway near the latter city. It is therefore a very
good plan to enter Spain by the steamboat from Bayonne to
Bilbao, to come thence by railway, join the main line at Miranda,
and so on to Burgos, or else by the valley of the Ebro to Tudela
and Zaragoza. The passage of the Pancorbo defile by the
railway is even finer than by the road ; and for the remainder of
the distance to Burgos the traveller's feeling must be in the
main one of joy at finding himself skimming along with fair
rapidity over the tame country, in place of loitering over it in a
tiresome diligence.
NOTES
(1) Spanish landscape, however, in autumn and winter is more
romantic. The broken mountain ranges, " like an old lion's cheek
teeth," turn to mauve, violet, and periwinkle-blue.
(2) In Spanish inns travellers will seldom be troubled now by
the mules, and will find even in the small towns a hotel of the non-
descript continental sort where they may have coffee for breakfast.
The hours for meals have changed, and not for the better: dinner
or luncheon is not ready till one o'clock or later, and the night meal
is begun nearer nine than eight.
(3) Spanish railways now go to more than half the places where
any one could want to go, even in the Pyrenees ; the diligences and
motor 'buses do the rest, so that the traveller with faith simply
travels to the nearest railway station, sure of finding conveyance
the rest of the way. A great want is for such a trustworthy account
of the diligence system as the French time-tables supply; it is
impossible in Spain to find out anything excepting in the very town
and at the diligence office.
(4) Bayonne Cathedral. The cloister is " restored " in large part
and throughout the rest many new blocks, yet uncut, replace the
old capitals. The great west porch is still untouched, but the
north porch is completely new. It has a mid-post between the two
12 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
doors, and a single great pointed arch above; the figures, however,
are missing from tympanum, archivolts, and jambs. From the scars
on the stone I should say that there had been a coronation of the
Blessed Virgin with the twelve apostles below. The south portal
opens into a sacristy where should be the north walk of the cloister;
it has two complete doors with one apostle on the inner jamb of each
and two on the outer, S. James conspicuous among them. On the
tympanum of the eastern is Christ in Judgment between angels; in
the archivolt, trumpeting angels, the Judgment, and Hell; on the
western, Madonna enthroned between four angels, and angels in the
archivolt making music. With this arrangement may be compared
the north portal of Leon, p. 147.
(5) Limited trains are the rule for long, rapid travel nowadays,
and though there is less danger of not getting a seat than the guide
books would indicate, it is worth while going very early to the
station tomakesureof a seat beside a window. So many market trains,
moreover, run once or twice a week that with a time -table and
careful planning one can manage almost anything.
(6) At Irun the church had just been restored completely when
I was there, and the three retables by Juan Vascardo were hidden
under cloths or behind scaffolding. "They looked late and rather
like that at San Sebastian.
(7) The church at Bidart Is visible from the train, but about a
mile away ; the type prevails on both sides the frontier from Bayonne
nearly to Miranda.
(8) The porch is walled up now. The seventeenth-century retable
by Ambrosio de Vengoechea and Juan Triarte, if rather too grand,
is at any rate seriously composed. It contains, so far as I could
make out in the dark church, six high reliefs the Annunciation and
Nativity, Crucifixion and Deposition, Christ before Pilate and at
the Pillar; at the top the Crucified between SS. Mary and John,
and, coming down the centre successively, other statues of the
Assumption, S. Sebastian, S. Vincent, and the Risen Christ. Six
or eight reliefs make up the predella and fourteen statues of saints
with two of angels fill the four main vertical lines.
(9) S. Nicholas of Miranda has a late Gothic nave, a Romanesque
apse, and a pointed Romanesque door in a good fifteenth-century
porch with penthouse roof. On the easternmost capitals of this
are a lion and a castle, which may refer to Alphonso VIII. , and in
an inscription on the archivolt I read the date, Era MCCCCLIIII. (A.D.
1416), which would stand for the porch building. D. Amador de
los Rios reads it as follows, supposing an earlier porch: " Esta
labor fui fecha en el anno del era de mil et ccc. et LIIII annos et eran
maiordomos Don Juan Martinez el maior et Joan Martinez fiio de
Domingo Periz de Quintaniella."
(10) Now Hotel de Paris, and excellent, though, like all Spanish
hotels of pretension, very dear.
CHAPTER II
BURGOS
THERE are some views of Burgos Cathedral which arejcon-
Qtpntly mpt W |>fi" f "a:p'rrTiipfnrvyhirh I rnfTf^s a]T^Jjjpa^nf its
style and meritshad been founded, to their^no little detrinlBnt.
Th'e~western "steeples, the central lantern, arid theTantefrPlike
rogTafrd- pimiades_yl the ihapcl of tht Com table at the "east
endLare all very late in date-^the first of the latest fifteenth
century, and the others of early Renaissance work; and their
massT is SQ_important ? their cria.rart.er so pir.tnrp.sqnp, arid their
detail sn pvnhp.ra.nt.ly ornate, that they have often been drawn
and described to the entire exclusion of all notice of the noble
early church, out of which they rise. The^ejiejaL^cheme o|
the ground-plan of the cathedral is drawn with considerable
accuracy in the illustration which I give of it. 1 Tfag^ fabric
consists oTa thirteenth-century church, added to somgwhat in
thgjrmrteenth century, altered affi, 1 " in thf> fiftegnt-hj and P^TI
more in the sixteenth century. Th<^ snhst ratling " to speak, is
throughout of the thirteenth century, but the two western
steeples, with their crocketed and perforated spires, the gorgeous
and fantastic lantern over the crossing, and the lofty and
sumptuous monumental chapel at the east end, are all later
additions, and so important in their effect as at first sight to
give an entirely wrong impression both of the age and character
of the whole church. The various dates are, as well as the
scale will admit, explained by the shading of the plan.
1 Plate I. (pp. 40, 41). This (as are all the other plans) is made from my
own rapid sketches and measurements. It is necessarily, therefore, only
generally correct. But I believe that it, and all the others, will be found
to be sufficiently accurate for all the purposes for which they are required.
Without ground-plans it is impossible to understand any descriptions of
buildings; and they are the more necessary in this case, seeing that, with
the exception of very small plans of Burgos and Leon Cathedrals, there is
probably no illustration of the plan of any one of the churches visited by
me ever yet published in England. I have drawn all the plans to the same
scale, viz. fifty feet to an inch. This is double the scale to which the plans
in Mr. Fergusson's History of Architecture are drawn; and though it would
facilitate a comparison of the Spanish with other ground-plans illustrated
by him to have them on the same scale, I found it impossible to show all
that I wanted in so very small a compass.
13
14 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
>arlv church seems to have consisted of a nave and aisles of six
bays, deep transppt.Sj anrl a choir and aisles 1 _with_ases~arid
chapels round it. The transepts probably had chapels on the
east, of which one still remains in the north transept; but this
is the only original chapel, none of those round the chevet
having been spared. Externally, the two transept fronts are
the only conspicuous portions ot the, old churcn, but, oil muunt-
ing to the roof, the flying buttresses, clerestory window's^ and
sorpp. nt.hftr... pa.rt.s J ...fl.rfi_JnnnH .still Iji^jft^jjlarna^rprl or altprpH
Never was a church more altered for the worse after its first
erection than was this. It is now a vast congeries of chapels
and excrescences of every shape and every style, which have
grown round it at various dates, and, to a great extent, con-
cealed the whole of the original plan and structure; and of
these, the only valuable Mediaeval portions are the cloisters and
sacristies, which are, indeed, but little later in date than the
church, and two of the chapels on the north side of the chevet,
one of which is original, and the other at any rate not much
altered. The rest of the additions are all either of the latest
Gothic, or of Renaissance.
The principal entrances to this church of Santa Maria la
Mayor are at the west end and in the north and south transepts
the two last original, the former a modern alteration of the old
fabric, made only a few years ago, and of the meanest kind. The
Archbishop's palace occupies the space on the south side of the
nave; and the ground on which the whole group of buildings
stands slopes so rapidly from the south up to the north, that on
the south side a steep and picturesque flight of steps leads up to
the door, whilst on the north, on the contrary, the door is some
fifteen feet above the floor, and has to be reached by an elaborate
flight of winding steps from the transept. Owing to the rapid
rise of the ground, and to the way in which the church is sur-
rounded by houses, or by its own dependent buildings, it is very
difficult to obtain any good near views of it, with the exception
of that of the west end from the Plaza in front of it; but the
views from the Prado, from the opposite side of the river, and
from the distant hills and country, are all very fine; and it must
be allowed that in them the picturesque richness of the later
additions to the fabric produces a very great effect.
Having thus given some general idea of the plan of the
church, I will now describe its parts more in detail.
On entering the nave at the west end, the effect of the arcades,
triforia, and clerestory is very fine, though much damaged by
BURGOS CATHEDRAL
the arrangement of the choir, which, as in most Spanish churches,
is brought down into the nave, enclosed with close walls or
screens, and entered only from the transept at its eastern end.
An altar is placed against the western entrance of the choir, and
the nave being only six bays in length, and equally divided, the
view is it may easily be imagined very confined and cramped.
Otherwise, the architectural features of the nave are thoroughly
good. The original scheme evidently included two western
steeples", the piers which support
them large clusters of engaged
shafts being larger than any of
the others, yet of the same date.
The nave columns are circular,
with eight engaged shafts around
them. The bases are circular,
finished on squares, with knops
of foliage filling in the spandrels.
The abaci are all square in plan,
and both bases and caps are set
at right angles to the direction of
the arches they support. One
of the smaller columns carries
the pier arch, the other three
carry the transverse and dia-
gonal groining ribs, whilst the
wall ribs are carried on shafts
on each side of the clerestory
window. The pier arches are of
ordinary early-pointed character,
and well moulded. There is not
much variety in the general
design of the nave and transepts,
though some changes of detail
occur. The triforium in both
is very peculiar, as will be seen by the illustration which I
give of one bay of the nave. The openings vary considerably
in number, and the piercings of the tympanum and in the
enclosing arch are also singularly arranged. I know nothing
like this singular triforium elsewhere (i). It is certainly more
curious than really beautiful, but at the same time it is valuable,
as seeming to prove this part of the work to be from the hand
of a native artist. The enclosing label is in all cases a segment
of a circle, and filled with sculptured heads at short intervals
COMPARTMENT OF NAVE
16 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
apart. At first sight this triforium hardly seems to be of early
date, having suffered by the addition of pinnacles covered with
crockets in front of, and open traceried parapet walls between,
the detached shafts on which the early traceries were carried;
the result is, that one of the most striking features in the church
is completely spoiled, and a general effect of very poor and
tawdry design is felt more or less throughout the whole building. 1
The original clerestory still, in great part, remains ; it is simple,
but good and vigorous in style, and with but one special pecu-
liarity in its detail. The windows are for the most part of two
lights, with a quatref oiled circle in the head ; and the peculiarity
referred to here is the omission to carry the chamfer round the
extrados of the arched heads to the lights or the circle ; the effect
produced is peculiar, the tracery not looking as if it were pro-
perly constructed, but as if the wheel had been loosely placed
within the arch without having any proper connection with it.
I have noticed the same arrangement in a church at Valladolid,
and it must, I think, be regarded either as a freak of the work-
men, or more probably as the exhibition of some degree of
ignorance of the ordinary mode of executing the mouldings in
window traceries.
But here, with this one exception, as in almost all the details
throughout the original work of this cathedral, there is little, if
anything, to show that we are not in France, and looking at
some of its best and purest thirteenth-century Gothic. There is
no trace of Moorish or other foreign influence, the whole work
being pure, simple, and good. In the aisles two only of the
original windows still remain, and these show that they were
lighted originally by a series of well-shaped lancets, with engaged
jamb-shafts inside. The vaults are all slightly domical in
section; the diagonal ribs generally semi-circular, as also are the
wall-ribs. The masonry of the cells is arranged in lines parallel
to the ridge, but considerably distorted near the springing.
The transepts, which, as has been said, are similar in their
design to the nave, are of considerable size, and the view across
them is in fact the best internal view in the church. One early
chapel alone remains on the east side of the north transept
and its groined roof is remarkable. It is a square in plan, with
its vault divided into eight groining cells, forming two bays
1 1 have not thought it necessary to draw these ruinous additions to the
early design. That they are additions is easily proved by the way in which
they are tied with bands of iron to the early shafts, as well as by the com-
plete difference in style. The original work is fortunately intact behind
the added pinnacles, and there is nothing conjectural in its restoration.
BURGOS CATHEDRAL 17
on each side, and with two lancet windows at the east end, each
under a division of the vault. No one who has studied the
groining of the churches in Poitou and Anjou so decided in
their local peculiarities can doubt, on comparison of them with
this chapel, that it was the work of men who had studied in
the same school, and it is remarkable that we find it repro-
duced in the lantern of the great church of the Convent of
Las Huelgas, near Burgos, of which I shall presently have to
speak. In both cases the vaulting is very domical, and the
joints of the stone filling-in of the cells are vertical. This
chapel suggests, too, the question whether the first idea was not
here, as well as at Las Huelgas, to have a series of chapels on
the east side of the transepts, though I should decide this in the
negative, inasmuch as there is no mark of a chapel in the next
bay to the north, and there was probably from the first a
complete chevet to the choir.
It will be as well, perhaps, to leave the description in detail of
the early features of the exterior for the present, and to complete
the notice of the interior first of all.
And here it is necessary to say a few words as to the cathedral
arrangements commonly seen in Spain, which exist in full force
at Burgos, and must be constantly referred to in all my notices of
Spanish churches.
I have already said that the choir proper (Coro) is transferred
to the nave, of which it occupies commonly the eastern half;
the portion of the nave outside, or to the west of the Coro, being
called the Trascoro, and that to the east of it the Entre los dos
Coros; and in most great churches the Crucero, or crossing,
and the transept really do the work of the nave, in the way of
accommodating the people. The floor of the nave proper is,
indeed, too often a useless appendage to the building, desolate,
dreary, unused, and cold ; whereas in the transepts, the services
at the altar and in the choir are both seen and heard, and this
accordingly is the people's place. A passage is sometimes,
or perhaps I ought to say is usually, made with low iron or
brass screens or rails leading from the eastern gate of the Coro
to the screen in front of the altar. This is especially necessary
here, as the choir proper is deep, and the people are thus kept
from pressing on the clergy as they pass to and fro in the long
passage from the altar to the Coro. Gates in these screens
admit of the passage of the people from one transept to the other
whenever the services in the Coro are not going on. The Coro is
usually fitted with two rows of stalls on its north, south, and
i B
i8 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
west sides, the front row having no desks before them. The only
entrance is usually through the screen on the eastern side, and
there are generally two organs placed on either side of the western
bay of the Coro, above the stalls. In the centre of the Coro there
is always one, and sometimes two or three lecterns, for the great
illuminated office-books, which most of the Spanish churches
seem still. to preserve and use. High metal screens are placed
across the nave to the east of the Coro, and across the entrance
to the choir, or capilla mayor, as its eastern part is called.
These screens are called rejas. Above the crossing of the choir
and transepts there is usually an open raised lantern, called by
the Spaniards the cimborio ; and behind the altar, at the end of
the Capilla mayor, is usually a great sculptured and painted
retablo or reredos. All these arrangements are generally des-
cribed as if they were invariably found in all Spanish churches,
as they certainly are at Burgos and many others now; and an
acute and well-informed writer in the Ecdesiologist suggests
that their origin may perhaps be looked for in the early churches,
of the Asturias and Galicia, since he had looked in vain, in
both Spanish and Mozarabic liturgies, for any peculiar dogma
or ritual practice which would have involved arrangements so
different from those common in other countries. The grounds
for my opinion will appear as I describe other churches in other
places ; but I may here at once say that what occurred to me at
Burgos was to some extent confirmed elsewhere, namely, that
most of these arrangements have no very old authority or origin,
but are comparatively modern innovations, and that they are
never seen in their completeness save where, as here, they are
alterations or additions of the sixteenth or subsequent centuries,
and they are usually Renaissance in their architectural character.
This is particularly the case in regard to the arrangement of
the Coro, as well as to its position in the church. At present the
bishop is generally placed in a central stall at its western end;
yet of this I have seen only one or two really genuine old
examples ; for, wherever the arrangement occurs in a choir
where the old stalls remain, it will be found that the bishop's
stall is an interpolation and addition of the sixteenth, seven-
teenth, or eighteenth century, and that where the old western
screen remains, the throne blocks up the old door from the nave
into the Coro. The word Cimborio is only the Spanish term for
our lantern. The early Spanish churches were like our own in
the adoption of this fine feature, and, with such modifications
as might be expected, the central lantern is still an invariable
BURGOS CATHEDRAL 19
feature in most of them. The term Cimborio, however, seems
to have no special significance, and, as I prefer the use of an
English terminology wherever it is appropriate, I shall generally
use the word lantern, rather than Cimborio. There are some of
these terms, however, which it will frequently be convenient to
use; such, for instance, are the words Reja, Coro, Capilla mayor,
and Trascoro, all of which describe Spanish features or arrange-
ments unknown in our own churches.
At Burgos the Coro occupies the three eastern bays of the
nave, and the only entrance to it is through a doorway in its
eastern screen. The stalls, screens, and fittings are all of early
Renaissance work, and were the gift of Bishop Pascual de
Fuensanta, between A.D. 1497 and A.D. 1512. t There are about
eighty stalls, in two rows, returned at the ends, and very richly
carved, over the lower stalls with subjects from the New, and
over the upper stalls with subjects from the Old Testament. In
the centre of the choir, concealed by the great desk for the books
(which, by the way, are old, though not very fine 1 ), lies a mag-
nificent effigy of Bishop Maurice, the founder of the church.
It is of wood, covered with metal plates, and very sumptuously
adorned with jewels, enamels, and gilding. He was bishop from
A.D. 1213 to A.D. 1238, and his effigy appeared to me to be very
little later than the date of his death.
A special architectural interest attaches to the life of this
prelate, for the tradition in Burgos has always been that he was
an Englishman, who came over in the train of the English Prin-
cess Alienor, Queen of Alfonso VIII., and, having been Arch-
deacon of Toledo, became in A.D. 1213 Bishop of Burgos. Florez, 2
however, doubts the tradition, and observes that his parents'
names, Rodrigo and Oro Sabia, were those of Spaniards. Two
years before the cathedral was commenced he went on an
embassy through France to Germany, to bring Beatrice, daugh-
ter of the Duke of Suabia, to marry King Ferdinand; so that,
even if he were not of English birth, he was at any rate well
travelled, and had seen some of the noble works in progress and
1 The Chapter entered into a contract with one Jusepe Rodriguez for
these books, but Philip II. insisted upon his being set free from this con-
tract in order that he might work for him on the books for the Escorial,
where he wrought from A.D. 1577 to A.D. 1585. Cean Bermudez, Dice. Hist,
de las Bellas Artes en Espana. Some illustrations of initial letters in the
Burgos books are given by Mr. Waring in his Architectural Studies in Burgos.
2 Espana Sagrada, vol. xxvi. p. 301. G. G. Davila, Teatro Ecclesiastico de
las Yglesias de Espana, iii. 65, says that Maurice was a Frenchman; and
he mentions the consecration by him of the Premonstratensian Church of
Sta. Maria la Real de Aguilar de Campo, on the and Kal. Nov. 1222.
20 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
completed in France and Germany at this date. In A.D. 1221 he
laid the first stone of his new cathedral: " Primus lapis ponitur
in fundamento novi operis ecclesiae Burgens: xx. die mensis
Julii era millesima quinquagesima nona die Sancte Margarite." l
Florez gives two other similar statements, one from the Martry-
ology of Burgos, and the other from the Chronicle of Cardena.
The king and the bishop are said to have laid the first stone in
the grand column on the epistle side of the choir; and the work
went on so rapidly that in November, A.D. 1230, when he drew
up directions as to the precedence of the various members of
the chapter, their order of serving at the altars, and of walking
in processions, the bishop was able to write, " Tempore nostrce
translationis ad novamfabricam" 2
Bishop Maurice was buried in the church, and his monument
was afterwards moved to the front of the Trascoro (or screen at
the west end of the choir) by Bishop Ampudia, before his death,
in A.D. 1512. It has never been moved from the spot in which it
was then placed, and yet, owing to the rearrangement of the
stalls, it is now in the very midst of the Coro, 3 and affords an
invaluable piece of evidence of the fact already stated, that
of old the stalls did not occupy their present place in the
nave. 4
There is nothing else worthy of note in the Coro. Its floor is
boarded, and a long passage about six feet wide, between rails,
leads from its door through the choir to a screen in front of the
high altar. The people occupy the choir, hemmed in between
these rails and the parclose screens under the side arches. The
altar has a late and uninteresting Retablo, in Pagan style, carved
with large subjects and covered with gold. 5 The steps to the
altar are of white, black, and red marble, counterchanged ; and
1 Esp. Sag. xxvii. 306; Memorial in the Archives at Burgos, ii. fol. 57.
The era 1259 answers to A.D. 1221. The " era " so frequently occurring in
Spanish records precedes the year of our Lord by thirty-eight years, and
is, in fact, the era of the Emperor Cassar Augustus. See Cronicas de los
Reyes de Castillo,, vol. i. p. 31, and Espana Sagrada, vol. ii. pp. 23 et seq.,
for an explanation of this computation, which is constantly used as late
as the middle of the fourteenth century in all Spanish inscriptions and
documents.
2 Esp. Sag. xxvii. 313. 3 Esp. Sag. xxvi. 315.
* Ponz states that Bishop Pascual de Fuensanta (1497-1512) moved the
stalls from the Capilla mayor (i.e. choir) to the middle of the church; and
Florez, Esp. Sag. xxvi. 315 and 413, makes the same statement.
5 Ponz, Viagede Espana, xii. 28, says that the sculptures of this Retablo
were executed by Rodrigo de la Aya and his brother Martin between A.D.
1577 and 1593 at a cost of 40,000 ducats; and that Juan de Urbina (a
native of Madrid), and Gregorio Martinez of Valladolid, painted and gilded
it for 11,000 ducats in three years, finishing in A.D. 1593.
BURGOS CATHEDRAL 21
at the entrance to the choir under the lantern are two brass
pulpits or ambons, for the Epistoler and Gospeller, an admirable
and primitive arrangement almost always preserved in Spanish
churches.
The columns of the choir arches have been modernised, and
there is consequently but little of the old structure visible on
the inside, the Retablo rising to the groining, and concealing the
arches of the apse. Between these arches sculptures in stone
are introduced, which are said to have been executed by Juan de
Borgona, in 1540. They are bold and spirited compositions in
high relief, and give great richness of effect to the aisle towards
which they face. The subjects are (i) the Agony in the
Garden; (2) our Lord bearing His Cross; (3) the Crucifixion;
(4) the Descent from the Cross and the Resurrection; (5) the
Ascension. Numbers i and 5 are not original, or at any rate
are inferior to and different in style from the others.
When we leave the choir for its aisles, we shall find that every-
thing here, too, has been more or less altered. Chapels of all
sizes and shapes have been contrived, either by addition to or
alteration of the original ground-plan; and, picturesque as the
tout ensemble is, with dark shadows crossed here and there by
bright rays of light from the side windows, with here a domed
Renaissance chapel, there one of the fourteenth century, and
here, again, one of the fifteenth, it has lost all that simplicity,
unity, and harmony which in a perfect building ought to mark
this, the most important part of a church. In truth hardly any
part of the aisles or chapels of the chevet of Bishop Maurice
now remains; for of the two early chapels on the north side
(marked a and b on the plan), the former is evidently of later
date, being possibly the work of Bishop Juan de Villahoz, who
founded a chapel here, dedicated to S. Martin, in A.D. 1 268-69. l
The style of this chapel is very good middle-pointed ; the abaci
of the capitals are square, the tracery is geometrical, the vaulting
very domical, and its north-western angle is arched across, and
groined with a small tripartite vault, in order to bring the main
vault into the required polygonal form. This arrangement
occurs at an earlier date, as I shall have presently to show, at
Las Huelgas (close to Burgos), but ought to be noticed here, as
the same feature is seen reproduced, more or less, in many
Spanish works of the fifteenth century, and here we have an
intermediate example to illustrate its gradual growth. It is,
in fact, the Gothic substitute for a pendentive.
1 Esp. Sag. xxvi. 331.
22 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
The other chapel (b) I believe to be the one remaining evidence
of the original plan of the chevet; and, looking at it in connection
with the other portions of the work, and especially with the
blank wall between which and the cloister the new sacristy is
built, it seems pretty clear that originally there were only three
chapels in the chevet, and all of them pentagonal in plan.
Between these chapels and the transepts there would then have
been two bays of aisle without side chapels, and on the eastern
side of each of the transepts a small square chapel, one of which
still remains. This plan tallies to some extent with that of the
cathedral at Leon (with which the detail of Burgos may well
be compared), and is in some respects similar to that of the
French cathedrals of Amiens, Clermont, and some other places.
In fact, the planning of this chevet is one of the proofs that
the work was of French, and not of Spanish origin.
At the east end of the cathedral is a grand chapel, erected
about A.D. 1487, by the Constable D. Pedro Fernandez de
Velasco and his wife. This remarkable building was designed
by an architect whose work we shall see again, and of whom it
may be as well at once to say a few words. Juan de Colonia
a German by birth or origin, as his name shows is said to
have been brought to Burgos by Bishop Alfonso de Cartagena
(A.D. 1435 to A - D - I 45^) when he returned from the Council
of Basle. There is evidence that he built the chapel of the
great Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, on the hill just out-
side the town; and there is, I believe, but little doubt that
he wrought here too. His work is very peculiar. It is essen-
tially German in its endless intricacy and delicacy of detail, but
has features which I do not remember to have seen in Germany,
and which may fairly be attributed either to the Spaniards who
worked under him, or to an attempt on his own part to accom-
modate his work to Spanish tastes.
The chapel is octagonal at the east, but square at the west
end ; and pendentives of exactly the same kind of design as those
of the early German and French churches are introduced across
the western angles of the chapel, to bring the plan of the central
vault to a complete octagon. They are true pendentives, and
quite unlike those three-sided vaulting bays across the angles of
the apse chapels, to which I just now referred, and which answer
precisely the same purpose. They are hardly at all Gothic,
having semi-circular arches, and the masonry below them
being filled in with stones radiating as in a fan, from the centre
of the base of the pendentive. The groining ribs (the mould-
BURGOS CATHEDRAL 23
ings of which interpenetrate at the springing) form by their
intersection a large star of eight points in the centre, and
the cells between the ribs of this star are pierced with very
elaborate traceries. This is a feature often reproduced in late
Spanish works, and it is one which aids largely in giving the
intricate and elaborately lace-like effect aimed at by the Spanish
architects at this date, to a greater extent even than by any
of their contemporaries in other lands; for though this, which
is well-nigh the richest example of the Spanish art of the fifteenth
century, was designed by a German, we must remember that
he was following, to a great extent, Spanish traditions, and was
largely aided in all the better portion of the detail by national
artists, among whom the greatest was, perhaps, Gil de Siloe,
whose work in the monuments at Miraflores I shall presently
have to describe. And it is not a little curious, and perhaps not
very gratifying to the amour propre of Spanish artists, that in
this great church the two periods in which the most artistic
vigour was shown, and the grandest architectural works under-
taken, were marked, the first by the rule of a well-travelled
bishop commonly said to be an Englishman under an English
princess, and who seems to have employed an Angevine archi-
tect; and the second by the rule of another travelled bishop,
who, coming home from Germany, brought with him a German
architect, into whose hands all the great works in the city seem
at once to have been put. I must return, however, to the
description of the detail of the Constable's chapel. Each bay
of the octagonal part of the chapel below the vaulting is divided
in this way : below is a recessed arch, under which is an enor-
mous coat-of-arms set aslant on the wall, with coarse foliage round
it. These arches have a very ugly fringe of shields and sup-
porters, and finish with ogee canopies. Above are the windows,
which are of flamboyant tracery of three lights; the windows
being placed one over the other, the outer mouldings of the
upper window going down to the sill of the lower. There are
altars (2) in recesses on the east, north, and south sides of the
octagon; and the two latter stand upon their old foot-paces,
formed by flights of three steps, the ends of which towards the
chapel are filled with rich tracery. The monument of the
Constable Velasco is in the centre of the chapel; and a velvet
pall belonging to it is still preserved, adorned with one of those
grand stamped patterns so constantly seen in mediaeval German
paintings. The stalls for the clergy are arranged strangely in
an angle of the chapel, fenced round with a low screen, and
24 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
looking like one of those enclosures in some of our own churches
sacred to archdeacons and their officials.
A quaint little vestry is contrived outside the south-east angle
of the octagon, and in it are preserved some pieces of plate of
the same age as the chapel. Among these are
A chalice of silver gilt, enamelled in white and red, with
its bowl richly set with pearls strung on a wire: the knop is
richly enamelled, and its edge set with alternate emeralds
and sapphires; whilst the sexf oiled foot is in the alternate com-
partments engraved with coats-of-arms, and set with sapphires.
It is a very gorgeous work, and, though all but Renaissance in
style, still very finely executed.
A pax; the Blessed Virgin Mary holding our Lord, and seated
on a throne covered with pearls and other jewels. The figure
of the Blessed Virgin Mary is enamelled with blue, and our
Lord is in ivory. The old case for this is preserved, and has a
drawer below it which contains papers referring to the gift of it.
Another small pax; a flat plate enamelled, with crocketed
pinnacles at the side, but no figure.
A fine thurible for incense, in the form of a ship, with Adam
and Eve on the lid.
A very good flagon, richly chased all over, sexfoil in section,
and with a particularly good spout and handle.
There are many other chapels, as will be seen by reference to
the plan, added to various parts of this cathedral, though none
of them are of anything like the same importance as that of the
Constable, which gives, indeed, much of its character to the
exterior of the whole church, so large, lofty, and elaborate is it.
On the south side of the south aisle of the nave is one which in
the treatment of its groining cells, which are filled with tracery,
seems to show the hand of Juan de Colonia; whilst another
chapel on the north side of the nave, partly covered with a late
Gothic vault, and partly with a dome, may be either a later work
of his, or, more probably, of his son Simon de Colonia; another
to the east of this is remarkable for the cusps, which come from
the moulded ribs and lie on the surface of the vaulting cells in
a way I do not remember to have seen before. In these chapels 1
we see the dying out of the old art in every stage of its progress;
and I think that both here and elsewhere in Spain the change was
much more gradual than it was in most other parts of Europe,
1 The chapel of the Visitation was built by Bishop Alonso de Cartagena,
1435-56. The chapel of Sta. Ana was built by Bishop Luis Acuna y Osorio,
I457-95- The chapel of Sta. Catalina in the Cloister is said to have been
built in the time of Enrique II. Caveda, Ensayo Historico, 379-80,
BURGOS CATHEDRAL 25
many of the early Renaissance masters having availed themselves
largely of the picturesque detail of their predecessors' work.
The central lantern was the last great work executed in this
cathedral, and its history must be given somewhat at length, as
it is of much interest. In the Royal Library at Madrid x there
is preserved a MS., from which we learn that the " crossing " of
the cathedral fell on the 4th of March, 1539; and that Felipe
de Borgona, " one of the three ' maestros ' who in the time of our
Emperor came to our Spain, from whom we have learned perfect
architecture and sculpture, though in both they say he had the
advantage over the others/' was entrusted with the execution of
the new work erected in its place. This Cimborio or lantern
was completed, according to this MS., in December, A.D. 1567,
Maestro Vallejo being mentioned as having wrought at the
work under Felipe de Borgona; Cean Bermudez, 2 without
giving his authorities, says, that the bishop (celebrated for
the many buildings he had erected, among others San Esteban
at Salamanca), on the fall of the " crucero," summoned Felipe
de Borgona from Toledo, where he was at work with Berruguete
on the stalls, to superintend the cathedral architects Juan de
Vallejo and Juan de Castaneda. Maestro Felipe seems to have
died in A.D. 1543, so that it is probable that after all most of
the work was done after his death by Juan de Vallejo, who
was sufficiently distinguished to be consulted with the archi-
tects of Toledo, Seville, and Leon about the building of the
new cathedral at Salamanca in A.D. 1512, and had also, between
the years A.D. 1514-24, built the very Renaissance-looking
gateway which opens from the east side of the north transept
into the Calle de la Pellegria. The whole composition of this
lantern is Gothic and picturesque; yet there is scarce a portion
of it which does not show a most strange mixture of Pagan and
Gothic detail. The piers which support it are huge, ungainly
cylinders, covered with carving in low relief, and everywhere
there is that combination of heaviness of parts and intricacy
of detail, which in all ages marks the inferior artist. I cannot
help lamenting much, therefore, the fall of the old work in
A.D. 1539. There is no evidence, so far as I know, as to what
it was that fell, 3 but the nearly coeval church of Las Huelgas has
1 Cod. M., No. 9.
2 Noticias de los Arquitectos y Arquitectura de Espana, vol. i. 206-207.
3 Florez, Esp. Sag. xxvi. 393, says: " A MS. which I have says that
Bishop Luis Acuna y Osorio (1457-95) reformed the fabric of the transept
in the middle of the church with eight turrets, which became a ruin in the
middle of the following century."
26 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
a fine simple lantern, and it is probable that some such erection
existed in the cathedral, and that Bishop Luis de Acuna y
Osorio raised it, and, by increasing its weight, caused its fall.
The central lantern is so completely a feature of English build-
ings, or of those built in lands over which our kings also ruled,
that any evidence of their early existence here would have
been most valuable, seeing how close the connection was at
the time of its erection between the families of the kings of
Castile and of England.
The groined roofs next to the lantern, on all sides, were of
necessity rebuilt at the same time, and with detail quite unlike
that of the original vault.
The exterior of the cathedral may be described at less length
than the interior, presenting, as it does, fewer alterations of the
original fabric, and much of what has been said of the one
necessarily illustrating the other also.
The west front is well known by the many illustrations which
have been published of it. The ground on which the church
stands slopes up, as I have said, rapidly from south to north,
but a level Plaza has been formed in front of the doors, and
part of which is enclosed with balustrades and pinnacles of a
sort of bastard Gothic, which I see drawn in a view published
circa 1770, and which may possibly be of the same age as the
latest Gothic works in the cathedral. On the rising ground
to the north-west stands the little church of San Nicolas, high
above the cathedral parvise, and hence it is that the view which
I give from Mr. Fergusson's book is taken. Nothing can be
more determinately picturesque, though nothing can be less really
interesting, than this florid work, which everywhere substituted
elaboration for thought, and labour for art. But I need say no
more on this point; for if we now look more closely, we shall
see that, underlying all these unsatisfying later excrescences, the
old thirteenth-century cathedral is still here, intact to an extent
which I had not at first ventured to hope for.
The western doors are three in number, but have been com-
pletely modernised. Of old the central door, " del Per don"
had effigies of the Assumption, with angels and saints; the
northern door " the mystery of the Conception of the Blessed
Virgin; " and the southern door her coronation. 1 Above the
side doorways the two steeples rise, whilst in the centre is a finely-
1 A view of the west front in A.D. 1771 shows the three western doors in
their old state; they had statues on the door-jambs, and on the piers
between them. Esp. Sag. xxvi. p. 404.
BURGOS CATHEDRAL
NORTH-WEST VIEW
28 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
traceried rose- window, which lights the nave; and above this
two lofty traceried openings, each of four lights, with effigies of
saints standing one under each light, the whole forming a screen
connecting the steeples, and entirely masking the roof. The
steeples, up to this level, are of the original foundation, much
altered in parts, and now put to strange uses, their intermediate
stages being converted into dwelling-houses, and lively groups
of cocks and hens being domesticated on a sort of terrace a
hundred feet from the floor (3). The upper part of the towers
and the spires was added in the fifteenth century, by Bishop
Alfonso de Cartagena (1435-56), who employed Juan de Colonia
(the German of whom I have already spoken) to design them.
German peculiarities do not gain in attractiveness by being
exported to Spain, and this part of Juan de Colonia's work is
certainly not a success. Nothing can be less elegant than the
termination of the spires, which, instead of finishing simply and
in the usual way, are surrounded near the top by an open gallery,
and then terminated with the clumsiest of finials. This work
was commenced in A.D. 1442, and when the bishop died in
A.D. 1456, one spire was finished, and the other, being well
advanced, was soon completed under Bishop Luis Acuna y
Osorio, the founder also of the central lantern. 1 Between the
two towers is a figure of the Blessed Virgin, with the words
" Fulcra es et decora." On the upper part of the towers, " Ecce
Agnus Dei " and " Pax vobis; " and on the spires, " Sancta
Maria " and " Jesus." These words are in large stone letters,
with the spaces round them pierced.
The detail of the spires is coarse, and the open stonework
traceries with which they are covered are held together every-
where by ironwork, most of which appeared to me to have
been added since the erection. The crockets are enormous,
projecting two feet from the angles of the spires, curiously
scooped out at the top to diminish their weight, and with holes
drilled through them to prevent the lodgment of water. The
bells are, I think, the most misshapen I ever saw; and, as if to
prove that beauty of all kinds is sympathetic, they are- as bad
in sound as they are in form !
The facades of the two transepts are quite unaltered, and as
fine as those of the best of our French or English churches. I
particularly delighted in the entrance to and entourage of the
southern transept, presenting as it does all those happy group-
ings which to the nineteenth-century Rue-de-Rivoli-loving
1 Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Esp. i. 105, 106.
BURGOS CATHEDRAL
29
public are of course odious, but to the real lover of art simply
most exquisite and quaint. 1 The cloister and bishop's palace,
built out from the church on the south, leave a narrow lane
between them, not absolutely in face of the great door, but
twisting its way up to it ; the entrance to this is through a low
archway, called the Puerta del Sarmental, above which, on
the right, towers one of the
enormous and really noble crocketed
pinnacles which mark the angles of
the cloister, and then, passing by
several old monuments built into the
walls of the passage, the great door-
way is reached by a flight of steps at
its end . Above this doorway is a fine
rose window of twenty rays of
geometrical tracery, and above this is
a screen in front of the roof, consisting
of four traceried openings, each of
four lights, and each monial protected,
as are the lights at the west front, by
figures of angels rather above life-
size. The angles of the transepts are
flanked by crocketed pinnacles, the
crockets here, as elsewhere through-
out the early work, being simple in A -
form and design, but as perfect in
effect as it is possible for crockets to
be. The sculptures of the south door are, in the tympanum,
our Lord seated with the evangelistic beasts around Him, and
1 It was well that I used the word " delighted " when I wrote this page,
for this passage no longer delights me as it did. I visited Burgos again
last year (1863), and found the Cathedral undergoing a sort of restoration;
masons cleaning up everything inside, and by way of a beginning outside
they had widened the passage to the south door, so as to make it square
with and of the same width as the doorway; to do this a slice had been cut
off the bishop's palace, at some inconvenience to the bishop, no doubt,
the result of doing it being simply that much of the beauty and picturesque-
ness of the old approach to the church is utterly lost for ever. Of one
thing such an unsuccessful alteration satisfies me little indeed as I
require to be satisfied on the point and this is, that in dealing with old
buildings it is absolutely impossible to be too conservative in everything
that one does. Often what seems as doubtless this thing did to the people
of Burgos the most plain improvement is just, as this is, a disastrous
change for the worst. And when we find old work, the reason for or
meaning of which we do not quite perceive, we cannot be wrong in letting
well alone. It is to be hoped that Spain is not now going to undergo what
England suffered from James Wyatt and others, and what she is still
in many places suffering at the hands of those who follow in their steps !
VARIETIES OF CROCKETS.
In Tower Window Jamb ;
B. In Tower,Window Arch ;
c. On Pinnacles of South
Transept.
30 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
the four evangelists, one on either side and two above, seated
and writing at desks whilst below His feet are the twelve
apostles, seated and holding open books. Below, there is a
bishop in front of the central pier, and statues on either side, of
which I made out two on the right to be S. Peter and S. Paul,
and the two answering to them on the left, Moses and Aaron.
The three orders of the archivolt have (i) angels with censers,
and angels with candles; (2 and 3) kings seated, and playing
musical instruments. Here, as throughout the early sculpture
the character of the work is very French, and the detail of the
arcading below the statues in the jambs is very nearly the same
as that of the earliest portion of the work in the west front of
the Cathedral at Bourges.
The north transept differs but little from the other. The
doorway De Los Apostoles is reached from the transept floor
by an internal staircase of no less than thirty-eight steps (the
sixteenth-century work of Diego de Siloe), and the whole front is
of course much less lofty than that of the south transept, owing
to the great slope of the ground up from south to north. Above
the doorway is an early triplet, and above this the roof-screen
and pinnacles, the same as in the other transept. The doorway
has in the tympanum our Lord, seated, with S. Mary and
S. John on either side, and angels with the instruments of the
Passion above and on either side. Below is S. Michael weighing
souls, with the good on his left and the wicked on his right.
The orders of the archivolt have (i) seraphim, (2) angels,
and (3) figures rising from their graves: and the jambs have
figures of the twelve apostles.
The ascent to the roofs discloses the remaining early features.
These are the clerestory windows, and the double flying but-
tresses, of which I give an illustration. The water from the
main roofs is carried down in a channel on the flying buttresses
and discharged by gurgoyles. There are some sitting figures of
beasts added in front of the buttresses which are not original.
The parapet throughout is an open trefoiled arcade, with an
angel standing guard over each buttress. The detail of the
clerestory windows is very good; they are of two lights, with a
cusped circle above, and a well-moulded enclosing arch. The
windows in the apse are built on the curve. The capitals of
the shafts in and under the flying buttresses are well carved,
and there is a good deal of dog-tooth enrichment. At the back
of the screen-walls, in front of the roofs of the nave and tran-
septs, is seen the old weather-moulding marking the line of the
BURGOS CATHEDRAL
CLERESTORY OF CHOIR
32 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
very steep-pitched roof (which was evidently intended to be
erected), and the stones forming which are so contrived as to
form steps leading up to the ridge, and down again to the opposite
gutter. In the transept, pinnacles take the place of the angels
over the buttresses, and their design is very piquant and original.
The moulded string-course at the base of these pinnacles is of a
section often seen in French work, and never, I believe, used by
any but French workmen.
All the steep roofs have long since vanished, and in their
place are flat roofs, covered with pantiles laid loosely and roughly,
and looking most ruinous. It may well be a question, I think,
whether the steep roofs were ever erected. The very fact that
they were contemplated in the design and construction of the
stonework, appears to me to afford evidence of the design not
having been the work of a Spaniard : and it is of course possible
that, at the first, the native workmen may have put up a roof
of the flat pitch, with which they were familiar, instead of the
steep roofs for which the gables were planned. But assuming
that the steep roofs were erected, they must, no doubt, have
been damaged by the fall of the lantern in 1539, and as it was
reconstructed with reference to roofs of the pitch we now see,
the roofs must have been altered at the latest by that time.
It is quite worth while to ascend to the roofs, if only to see
what is, perhaps, the most charming view in the whole church;
that, namely, which is obtained from the south-east angle of
the lantern, looking down into the cloister, above the traceries
of which rise the quaint pinnacles and parapets of the old
sacristy, and the great angle pinnacles of the cloister itself,
whilst beyond are seen the crowded roofs of the city, the all but
dry bed of the Arlanzon dividing it in two parts, and beyond,
on the one side, the steeple of the Convent of Las Huelgas
rising among its trees, and on the other the great chapel of
Miraflores, crowning a dreary, dusty, and desolate-looking hill
in the distance.
I have left to the last all notice of the cloisters, which are said
to have been built in the time of Enrique II. (1379-90), but I
can find no authority for the statement, and believe that they
would be more rightly dated between A.D. 1280 and A.D. I350. 1
They are entered from the south transept by the fine doorway,
of which a drawing is given by Mr. Waring in his work on
1 In A.D. 1257 the king gave a piece of land opposite his palace (now the
Episcopal Palace) to the Dean of Burgos. Was not this for the erection
of the cloisters?
o w
C^ J
O o
34 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
Burgos. This would be thought an unusually good example of
middle-pointed work even in England, and is as fair an instance
as I know of the extreme skill with which the Spanish artists
of the same period wrought. The planning of the jambs, with
the arrangement of the straight-sided overhanging canopies over
the figures which adorn them, are to be noticed as being nearly
identical in character with those of the north transept doorway
at Leon, and the strange feature of an elliptical three-centred
arch to the door opening under the tympanum is common to
both. The tympanum is well sculptured with the Baptism
of our Lord, and the well-accentuated orders of the arch have
sitting figures under canopies, and delicately-carved foliage.
The flat surfaces here are, wherever possible, carved with a diaper
of castles and lions, which was very popular throughout the
kingdom of Castile and Leon in the fourteenth century. The
figures on the left jamb of the door are those of the Annunciation,
whilst, on the right, are others of David and Isaiah. The
wooden doors, though much later in date, are carved with
extreme spirit and power, with S. Peter and S. Paul below,
and the Entry into Jerusalem and the Descent into Hell above.
The ecclesiologist should set these doors open, and then, looking
through the archway into the cloister, where the light glances on
an angle column clustered round with statues, and upon delicate
traceries and vaulting ribs, he will enjoy as charming a picture
as is often seen. The arrangement of the masonry round this
door shows, as also does its detail, that it is an insertion in the
older wall. 1
The cloisters are full of beauty and interest. They are of
two stages in height, the lower plain, the upper very ornate,
the windows being of four lights, with a circle of ten cusps in
the centre, and a quatrefoiled circle within the enclosing arch
over the side lights. The groining ribs are well moulded, and
the details throughout carefully designed and executed. At the
internal angles of the cloister are groups of saints on corbels and
under canopies placed against the groining shafts, and there is
generally a figure of a saint under a recessed arch in the wall
opposite each of the windows ; 2 besides which there are numerous
monuments and doorways. Those on the east are the most
noticeable. There is the entrance to the sacristy, with a sculp-
1 One of the buttresses of the north transept is seen in the western alley
of the cloister. On the face of it still remains one of the original dedication
crosses a cross pattee enclosed in a circle.
2 On the east side these recessed arches have very rich foliage in their
soffits.
BURGOS CATHEDRAL 35
ture of the Descent from the Cross in its tympanum; the
entrance to the room in which the coffer of the Cid is preserved,
with our Lord seated between SS. Mary and John and Angels;
and on the south side are in one bay S. Joseph of Arimathea
laying our Lord in the sepulchre, in another the Crucifixion;
whilst sculptured high tombs, surrounded by iron grilles, abound.
Indeed, I hardly know any cloister in which an architect might
be better contented to be confined for a time ; for though there
are many which are finer and in better style, I know none alto-
gether more interesting and more varied, or more redolent of
those illustrations of and links with the past, which are of the
very essence of all one's interest in such works.
One of the doors on the east side of the cloister opens into
the old sacristy, a grand room about forty-two feet square, the
groining of which is octagonal, with small three-sided vaulting
bays filling in the angles between the square and the octagon.
The corbels supporting the groining shafts are very quaintly
carved with the story of a knight battling with lions.
Here are kept the vestments of the altars and clergy, a right
goodly collection in number, and three of them very fine. These
are a blue velvet cope with orphreys, fairly wrought on a gold
ground, and all the work bound with a twisted cord, which
in one part is black and yellow; another cope, also of blue
velvet, has a half-figure of our Lord in the centre of the orphrey,
and angels on the remainder and on the hood, with wings of
green, purple, and blue, exquisitely shaded and lined with gold;
another has S. John the Baptist, the Blessed Virgin, our Lord,
and three saints, under canopies. In all of them the velvet
ground was covered with a large diaper pattern in gold, done
before the embroidery was applique.
To the south of this sacristy is another groined chamber, in
which is kept the coffer of the Cid, 1 and where the groining ribs
are painted in rich colour for about three feet from the centre
boss. A door out of this leads into the Chapter-house, a room
with a flat wooden ceiling of Moresque character. It is made
in parqueterie of coloured woods arranged in patterns with gilt
pendants, and the cornice is of blue and white majolica, inlaid in
the walls : the combination of the whole is certainly very effec-
tive. East of these rooms were others, of which traces still
1 The coffer of the Cid is that which he filled with sand, and then pledged
for a loan from some Jews, who supposed it to be full of valuables; after-
wards he honestly repaid the borrowed money, and hence, perhaps, the
coffer is preserved, the first part of the transaction being unquestionably
not very worthy of record.
36 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
remain on the outside; but they have been entirely destroyed,
and streets now form, on the east and on the south, the boundaries
of the church and its dependent buildings. Advantage was
taken of the rise of the ground to make a second cloister below
that which I have been describing (4). In the centre of the
enclosure stands a cross, but the arches are built up, and the
cloister is now used for workshops, so that there is here none of
that air. of beauty which the gardened cloisters of Spain usually
possess. In the north-west angle of this lower story is a sacristy,
reached by a staircase from one of the choir chapels, and still in
use for it. ,
I have now in a general way gone over the whole of this
very interesting church, and have said enough, I hope, to prove
that popular report has never overrated its real merits, though
no doubt it has regarded too much those points only of the
fabric which to my eye seemed to be least worthy of praise
the late additions to it rather than the old church itself. As
to the charm of the whole building from every point of view
there cannot be two opinions. It has in a large degree that
real picturesqueness which we so seldom see in French Gothic
interiors, whilst at the same time it still retains much of that
fine Early Pointed work which could hardly have been the
work of any but one who knew well the best French buildings
of his day; whoever he was
and amid the plentiful
mention of later artists I
have looked in vain for any
mention of him he was no
servile reproducer of foreign
work. The treatment of
the triforium throughout is
evidently an original concep-
tion; and it is to be noted
that the dog-tooth enrichment
is freely used, and that the
bells of the capitals through-
out are octagonal with con-
cave sides. The crocketing
of the pinnacles is, I believe,
quite original; and the general planning and construction
of the building is worthy of all praise. Nor was the sculptor
less worthy of praise than the architect. The carving of foliage
in the early work is good and very plentiful; the figured
BURGOS CATHEDRAL 37
sculpture is still richer, and whether in the thirteenth-century
transept doors, the fourteenth-century cloisters, or the fifteenth-
century Retablos, is amazingly good and spirited. The thir-
teenth-century figures are just in the style of those Frenchmen
who always conveyed so riant and piquant a character both of
face and attitude to their work. The later architects all seem
to have wrought in a fairly original mode; and even where
architects were brought from Germany, there was some influence
evidently used to prevent their work being a mere repetition of
what was being done in their own land; and so aided by the
admirable skill of the Spanish artists who worked under them,
the result is much more happy than might have been expected.
Much, no doubt, of the picturesque effect of such a church is
owing to the way in which it has been added to from time to
time: to the large number, therefore, of personal interests
embodied in it, the variety of styles and parts each of them full of
individuality, and finally to the noble memorials of the dead
which abound in it. In France thanks to revolutions and
whitewash without stint the noblest churches have a certain
air of baldness which tires the eye of an Englishman used to our
storied cathedrals: but in Spain this is never the case, and we
may go to Burgos, as we may anywhere else in the land, certain
that we shall find in each cathedral much that will illustrate
every page of the history of the country, if well studied and
rightly read.
There is one point in which for picturesque effect few coun-
tries can vie with Spain and this is the admission of light.
In her brilliant climate it seems to matter not at all how many
of the windows are blocked up or destroyed: all that results
is a deeper shadow thrown across an aisle, or a ray of light
looking all the brighter by contrast; and, though it is often
a hard matter to see to draw inside a church on the brightest
day, it is never too dark for comfort, and one comes in from
the scorching sun outside and sits down in the darkest spot
of the dark church with the utmost satisfaction. I saw an
evidence here one night of the natural aptitude of the people
for such effects, in the mode of lighting up the cathedral for
an evening service in a large chapel at the east end. There
was one lantern on the floor of the nave, another in the south
transept, and the light burning before the altar: and in the
large side chapel was a numerous congregation, some sitting on
the floor, some kneeling, some standing, whilst a priest, holding
a candle in his hand, read to the people from the pulpit. In
38 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
this chapel the only other light was from the lighted candles
on the altar. The whole church was in this way just enough
lighted to enable you to see your way, and to avoid running
against the cloaked forms that trod stealthily about; and the
effect would have been inexpressibly solemn, save for the occa-
sional intrusion of a dog or a cat, who seem to be always prowling
about, and not unfrequently righting, in Spanish churches.
Leaving the other churches and buildings of Burgos for the
present, let us now cross the Arlanzon by one of its many
bridges, and presently striking to the left we shall come upon
the well-worn path by the side of the convent-stream, which in
less than a mile from the city brings us to a postern of Las
Huelgas.
Santa Maria la Real de las Huelgas was founded by Alfonso
VIII. , son of D. Sancho el Deseado, at the instance, it is said,
of Leonor (or Alienor) his queen, daughter of Henry II. of
England, of whom I have before spoken in referring to Bishop
Maurice, the founder of the cathedral. The dates given for the
work are as follow: The monastery was commenced in A.D.
1180; inhabited on the ist June, A.D. 1187; x and in A.D. 1199
formally established as a house of Cistercians. The first abbess
ruled from A.D. 1187 to A.D. 1203; and the second, Dona Con-
stanza, daughter of the founder, from A.D. 1203 to A.D. 1218;
and from that time forward a large number of noble persons here
took the veil, whilst kings were knighted, crowned, and buried
before its altars. No wonder, therefore, that the postern-gate
of Las Huelgas a simple thirteenth-century archway leads,
not at once into the convent, but into the village which has
grown up around it, and which, whatever may have been its
aspect in old times, is now as dreary, desolate, and forlorn-
looking as only a Spanish or an Irish village can be, though still
ruled as of yore by the lady abbess no doubt with terribly
shorn and shrunken revenues. There is a small church in the
village here, but it is of no interest: and we may well reserve
ourselves for the great church rising from behind the boundary
walls which shut in the convent on all sides, and the people's
entrance to which is from an open courtyard on its north side
through the transept porch.
I give an illustration of the ground plan, 2 from which it will
be seen that the church consists of a nave and aisles of eight
bays, transepts, and choir, with two chapels on either side of it
opening into the transept, whilst a porch is erected in front
1 Manrique, Anales Cisterciences , iii. 201. 2 Plate II., p. 52.
LAS HUELGAS, BURGOS
39
of the north transept, and a cloister passage along the whole
length of the north aisle. A tower is placed on the north-east
of the north transept, and a chapel has been added on its eastern
side. There is another cloister court (5), of which a not very
trustworthy lithograph is given in M. Villa Amil's work. This
is within the convent, from which every one but the inmates is
rigorously excluded, but, as far as I can learn, it is on the south
side of the nave. The central compartment of the transept is
carried up above the rest as
a lantern, and groined with
an eight-sided vault. The
choir has one bay of quadri-
partite and one of sexpartite
vaulting, and an apse. The
transept chapels are all of
them square in plan, but, by
the introduction of an arch
across the angle (the space
behind which is roofed with
a small vault), the vault is
brought to a half-octagon at ^
the east end. This will be
best understood by the illus-
tration which I give of one
of these chapels : and here, too, it will be seen that the masonry
of the vaulting cells is all arranged in vertical lines parallel, that
is, to the centre of the vault, and that the transverse section of
the vault is in all cases exceedingly domical. Nothing can be
more peculiar than this description of early vaulting, and it is one
which, I believe, originated in Anjou or Poitou, where number-
less examples may be found all more or less akin to this at
Las Huelgas. This fact is most suggestive, for what more
probable than that Alienor, Henry II. 's daughter, should, in the
abbey which she induced her husband to found, have procured
the help of some architect from her father's Angevine domain to
assist in the design of her building? Yet, on the other hand,
there are some slight differences of detail between the work
here and any French example with which I am acquainted,
which make it possible that the architect was really a Spaniard,
but if so, he must have been well acquainted, not only with
the Angevine system of vaulting, but also with some of those
English details which, as is well known, were in common use
both in Anjou and in England in the latter part of the twelfth
BURGOS :_q
A. l& Century Chapel . D. Chapel of the. CorurtdbLe Veluscv fr.
B Chapel ofS. Grcgorio . F. . Chapel of 1he Presnutatwn,.
C ]fonu?nnt of Archbishop ]Maurice. F Chapel of S.HJuwurue. . I.
VT\ '. f : : % f ":. :
'i jSt^iej i _/ v ; />; ?
Arcli Bishop^s Palace
3(> . . , . v . . . .
IP. . , . ,__
lull.- de la Pcllegcria
K Gate of itm. AposrtUs
1. . CliapvL of 6'fintuu/o.
M. ChiweL (hi XantisuTu> Cr-isto
IV. Vulpits.
O. Ckapel vfS'. Amut
P. Room, of the Coffer vt the Cid
Q Chapter Eoom,
42 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
and first half of the thirteenth century. A foreigner naturally
gives us an exact reproduction of the work of some foreign
school, just as we see at Canterbury in the work of William of
Sens, and my own impression is strong that he must have been
an Angevine artist who was at work here.
If I am correct in attributing this peculiar church to the
Angevine influence of the queen, I prove at the same time a
most important point in the history of the development of style
in Spain. The planning of the church at Las Huelgas influenced
largely the architects of Burgos, the capital of Castile and
Leon. The groining of the only original chapel in the transept
of the cathedral is a reproduction of the octopartite vault of
the lantern at Las Huelgas; and one may fairly suspect that so,
too, was the original lantern of the cathedral. Then, again, in
a fourteenth-century chapel, north of the choir of the cathedral,
we see the same device (i.e. the arched pendentive across the
angle) adopted for obtaining an octagonal vault over a square
chamber; and again in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
in a chapel on the south of the nave, in the old sacristy, and
finally in the all but Renaissance chapel of the Constable, we
have the Spanish octagonal vault, supported on pendentives,
evidently copied by the German architect from the pendentives
of the Romanesque churches on the Rhine. In these Burga-
lese examples we have a typal vault which is extensively repro-
duced throughout Spain, and which I last saw at Barcelona,
in work of the sixteenth century. It is a type of vault, in its
later form, almost peculiar to Spain, and when filled in with
tracery in the cell, I believe quite so. And it is undoubtedly
more picturesque and generally more scientific in construction
than our own late vaults, and infinitely more so than the thin,
wasted-looking vaults of the French flamboyant style.
But to proceed with my notice of the church of Las Huelgas.
The nave is groined throughout with a quadripartite vault;
but beyond this I can say but little, as it is screened off from
the church for the use of the nuns, 1 and the only view of it is
obtained through the screen. The main arches between the
nave and aisles are very simple, of two orders, the inner square,
the outer moulded. Above these is a string-course level with
the springing of the groining, and then a clerestory of long,
simple lancet windows, the whole forming a noble and impressive
interior. Above the nuns' stalls on the south I noticed a good
1 The nuns' choir in the nave is, according to Florez, " the most capacious
of all that are known in cathedrals and monasteries." Esp. Sag. xxvi. 582.
LAS HUELGAS, BURGOS 43
fifteenth-century organ, with pipes arranged in a series of stepped
compartments, and painted shutters of the same shape; below
the principal range of pipes those of one stop are placed project-
ing horizontally from the organ. This is an almost universal
arrangement in Spanish organs, and is always very picturesque
in its effect, and I believe in the case of trumpet-stops very
useful, though somewhat costly. 1
The detail generally of all the architecture here is very good,
and in particular nothing can be more minute and delicate in
execution than some of the sculpture of foliage in the eastern
chapels, where also, as is frequently the case in early Spanish
buildings, the dog-tooth enrichment is freely introduced where-
ever possible. The design of the interior of the choir is very
good; below are lancet windows, with semi-circular inside
arches; and above, lancets with double internal jamb-shafts,
very picturesquely introduced high up in the walls, and close to
the groining. I could only get a glimpse of the exterior of the
apse, owing to the high walls which completely enclose the con-
vent on the east. It has simple but good buttresses, but
otherwise there seems nothing worthy of note. The rest of the
exterior is, however, very interesting. The general view which
I give shows the extremely simple and somewhat English-look-
ing west front; the gateway and wall, with its Moorish battle-
ments, dividing an inner court from the great court north of
the church; and the curious rather than beautiful steeple. An
arched bell-cot rises out of the western wall of the lantern, and
a tall staircase-turret out of the western wall of the north
transept. The cloister, which is carried all along the north aisle
of the nave of the church, is very simple, having two divisions
between each buttress, the arches being carried on shafts, coupled
in the usual early fashion, one behind the other. A very rich
first-pointed doorway opens into the second bay from the west
of this cloister, and a much simpler archway, with a circular
window over it, into the fifth, and at its east end a most
ingenious and picturesque group is produced by the contrivance
of a covered passage from the cloister to the projecting transept-
porch. The detail here is of the richest first-pointed, very
delicate and beautiful, but, apparently, very little cared for now.
The cloister is entirely blocked up and converted into a recep-
tacle for lumber, but I was able to see that it is groined (6).
The rose window in the transept-porch, with doubled traceries
1 The organ in All Saints, Margaret Street, has the pipes of one stop
similarly placed; but I know no old English example of this arrangement.
44 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
and shafts, set one behind the other, with fine effect, the
elaborate corbel-tables, and the doorway to the smaller porch
rich with chevron and dog-tooth ought to be specially noticed:
their detail being tolerably convincing as to their French origin.
There are some curious monuments inside the transept-porch,
which I was not able to examine properly, as when I went to
Las Huelgas a second time, in order to see them, I found the
church locked for the day. To see such a church properly it is
necessary to rise with the lark; for after ten or eleven in the
morning it is always closed.
There is a good simple gateway of the thirteenth century
leading into the western court of the convent, but otherwise I
could see nothing old, though I daresay the fortunate architect
who first is able to examine the whole of the buildings will find
much to reward his curiosity. 1 For there is not only a very
fine early cloister, but also, if Madoz is to be trusted, a chapter-
house, the vaulting of which is supported on four lofty columns,
and which is probably, therefore, a square chamber with nine
vaulting bays (7).
A long list of royal personages buried here is given by Florez. 2
In the choir are the founders, Alfonso VIII. and Alienor; in
the nave of Sta. Catalina, Alfonso VII. , the founder's grand-
father, his father, his son Don Henrique I., and twenty more of his
kin; and in other parts of the church a similarly noble company.
The king seems to have founded a hospital for men at the
same time as, and in connection with, the convent; but I saw
nothing of this, and I do not know whether it still exists.
Here took place many solemnities: Alfonso VII., nephew of
the founder, was the first who was made a knight in it (A.D. 1219,
Nov. 27); and in A.D. 1254 Don Alfonso el Sabio knighted
Edward I. of England before the altar; whilst in later days it
seems that in A.D. 1330, in A.D. 1341, and again in A.D. 1366,
1 Mr. Waring and M. Villa Amil have both published drawings of the
inner cloister. The drawing of the latter is evidently not to be trusted;
but from Mr. Waring's view I gather that the arches are round, resting on
coupled shafts, with large carved capitals. Mr. Waring calls them Roman-
esque, but in his drawing they look more like very late Transitional work,
probably not earlier than A.D. 1200. They appear to be arranged in
arcades of six open arches between largre piers, and with such a construc-
tion the cloister could hardly have been intended for groining. The famous
cloister at Elne, near Perpignan, with those of Verona Cathedral, S. Tro-
phime at Aries, Montmajeur, and Moissac, are examples of the class from
which the design of such a cloister as this must have been derived, and its
character is therefore rather more like that of Italian work, or work of the
South of France or England.
2 Espana Sagrada, xxvii. 611-614.
w
46 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
the kings were here crowned; l and in 1367 Edward the Black
Prince lodged here after the battle of Navarrete, and went hence
to the church of Sta. Maria to swear to a treaty with the King
Don Pedro before the principal altar. 2
The convent seems to have been quite independent of the
Bishop, 3 save that each abbess after her election went to ask
him to bless the house, when he always answered by protesting
that his consent to do so was in no wise to be construed in any
sense derogatory to his power, or as binding on his successors.
I observe that the abbesses here were elected for life until
A.D. 1593, but that from that time they have held office for
three years only; though in a few instances they have been
re-elected for a second such term.
It was a relief, after the picturesque magnificence of the later
Burgalese architects, to turn to such a simple severe church as
this at Las Huelgas. But I must not detain my readers any
longer within its pleasant walls; and we will, imagine ourselves
to be there in A.D. 1454, in the midst of a group of the greatest of
the nobles and clergy of Castile: we should have found the
Bishop Alfonso de Cartagena there, and with him Juan deColonia,
his German architect, and Maestro Gil de Siloe, the sculptor, and
Martin Sanchez, the wood-carver, all of them invited and ready
to take part in a great work j ust about to be completed . Juan 1 1 .
had just died at Valladolid, and forthwith his body was taken
towards the Carthusian convent of Miraflores, by Burgos, where
of old stood a palace, which in A.D. 1441 he had converted into
a convent, and in A.D. 1454, just before his death, had begun to
rebuild. The Bishop met his body at Palenzuela one day's
journey from Burgos and brought it in procession to the Real
Casa de Las Huelgas, where he rested the night; and thence he
went onward, the coffin borne by ladies and gentlemen, to San
Pablo in the city, where the Dominican Fathers sung the funeral
office, and the next day the feast of S. John the Baptist to
Miraflores, where the Bishop himself said the office and preached.
Then the body was deposited with much pomp in the sacristy
until the church should be finished. 4
Let us follow them thither. The walk is dreary enough on
this hot September day, and terribly deep in dust; but yet, as it
1 Espana Sagrada, xxvi. 350, 359.
2 An interesting account of this meeting is given in Cronicas de los Reyes
de Castillos, i. pp. 481-483.
3 That it was " of no diocese " was expressly recorded among the titles
borne by the Abbess, and given by Ponz, Viage de Espana, xii. 65.
4 See the account at length in Esp. Sag. xxvii. 393 and 558.
LAS HUELGAS, BURGOS 47
rises up the slope of the hills on -the side of the river opposite
to the cathedral and city, good views are obtained of both. It
is but a couple of miles to the convent, which stands desolately
by itself, and never was there a spot which, in its present state,
could less properly be called Miraflores, where not even a blade
of grass is to be seen. The church stands up high above all
the other buildings, but its exterior is not attractive ; its outline
is somewhat like, though very inferior to that of Eton College
chapel, and its detail is all rather poor. The windows, placed
very high from the floor, are filled with flamboyant tracery, the
buttresses are plain, and the pinnacles and parapet quite Renais-
sance in their character, and are, no doubt, additions to the
original fabric. The west gable is fringed with cusping a very
unhappy scheme for a coping-line against the sky! A court
at the west end opens into the chapel by its west door, which is
close to the main entrance to the convent; but we were taken
round by several courts and quadrangles, one of them a cloister
of vast size, surrounded by the houses of the monks. These are
of fair size, each having two or three rooms below, and two
above. Their entrance doorways are square-headed, quaintly
cut up into a point in the centre of the lintel, and by the side of
each door is a small hatch for the reception of food. Another
smaller cloister, close to the south door of the church, has fair
pointed windows, with their sills filled with red tiles, and edged
with green tiles. Besides these remains, the only old work I
saw was a good flat ceiling, panelled between the joists, and
richly painted in cinquecento fashion. A good effect was pro-
duced here by the prevalence of white and red alternately in the
patterns painted on the joists.
The chapel is entered from the convent by a door on the south
side, in the third bay from the west. It consists of five bays
and a polygonal apse, and is about 135 feet long, 32 wide, and
63 feet in height. The western bay is the people's nave, and
is divided from the next by a metal screen. The second bay
forms the Coro, and has stalls at the sides, and two altars on
the east, one on each side of the doorway in the screen which
separates the Coro from the eastern portion of the chapel. This
last is fitted with five stalls on each side against the western
screen, and with twenty on either side, all of them extremely
rich in their detail : there is a continuous canopy over the whole,
and very intricate traceries at the back of each stall. 1
1 These stalls arelikelate Flemish work, but wrought by a Spaniard,Martin
Sanchez, circa A.D. 1480, who received 125,000 maravedis for his labour.
48 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
A step at the east end of the stalls divides the sacrarium from
the western part of the chapel; and nearly the whole of the space
here is occupied by the sumptuous monument of the founder
and his second wife, Isabel or " Elizabeth," as she is called in
the inscription. In the north wall is the monument of the
Infante Alfonso, their son; and against the south wall is a sort
of throne with very lofty and elaborate canopy, which is said by
the cicerone to be for the use of the priest who says mass.
Finally, the east wall is entirely filled with an enormous Retablo.
The groining throughout has, as is usually the case in late Span-
ish work in Burgos, a good many surface ribs, and enormous
painted bosses at their intersections. These are so much under-
cut, so large, and so intricate in their design, that I believe they
must be of wood, and not of stone. They are of very common
occurrence, and always have an extravagant effect, being far too
large and intricate for their position. The apse is groined in
thirteen very narrow bays, and its groining ribs are richly foliated
on the under side. Pagan cornices of plaster and whitewash
have been freely bestowed everywhere, to the great damage of the
walls, and to such an extent as to make the interior look cold
and gloomy. The windows are filled with what looks like poor
Flemish glass, though it may perhaps be native work, as the
names of two painters on glass, Juan de Santillana and Juan de
Valdivieso, are known as residents in Burgos at the end of the
fifteenth century, 1 about the time at which it must have been
executed (8).
The monument of Juan and Isabel is as magnificent a work
of its kind as I have ever seen 2 richly wrought all over. The
heraldic achievements are very gorgeous, and the dresses are
everywhere covered with very delicate patterns in low relief.
The whole detail is of the nature of the very best German third-
pointed work rather than of flamboyant, and I think, for
beauty of execution, vigour and animation of design, finer than
any other work of the age. The plan of the high tomb on which
the effigies lie is a square with another laid diagonally on it.
At the four cardinal angles are sitting figures of the four evan-
gelists, rather loosely placed on the slab, with which they seem
to have no connection; the king holds a sceptre, the queen a
1 See Cean Bermudez, Dice. Hist. vi. 171.
2 A decidedly hyperbolical inscription is quoted by Ponz, in which the
Chapel of Miraflores is called a Temple, " second to none in the world for
monuments, beauty, and curiousness." Ponz, Viage de Esp. xii. 61. The
remark might fairly have been made if he had referred only to the
monuments.
LAS HUELGAS, BURGOS 49
book, and both lie under canopies with a very elaborate per-
forated stone division between the figures; round the sides
of the tomb are effigies of kings and saints, figures of the Virtues,
sculptured subjects, naked figures, and foliage of marvellous deli-
cacy (9). A railing encloses the tomb. The whole is the work
of Maestro Gil de Siloe; and from the Archives of the Church
it appears that, in A.D. 1486, he was paid 1340 maravedis for
the design of the work, that he commenced its execution in
A.D. 1489, and completed it in A.D. 1493. The monument cost
442,667 maravedis, exclusive of the alabaster, which cost 158,252
maravedis. 1
About the same time, the same sculptor executed the monu-
ment of Alfonso, son of Juan and Isabel, in the north wall of
the sacrarium. This, though less ambitious than the other,
is a noble work. It consists of a high tomb with a recessed
arch over it, and pinnacles at the sides. The high tomb has a
great shield held by angels, with men in armour on either side;
under the arch above the Infante kneels at a Prie-Dieu. The
arch is three-centred, edged with a rich fringe of foliage and
naked figures; and between it and the ogee gable above it is
a spirited figure of S. George and the Dragon. The side pinna-
cles have figures of the twelve apostles, and one in the centre
the Annunciation. 2
The Retablo is no less worthy of notice. Its colour as well
as its sculpture is of the richest kind. Below, on either side
of the tabernacle (which has been modernised), are S. John
Baptist and S. Mary Magdalene, and subjects on either side of
them; on the left the Annunciation, and S. Mary Magdalene
anointing our Lord's feet, and on the right the Adoration of the
Magi and the Betrayal of our Lord ; whilst beyond, Alfonso and
Isabel kneel at faldstools, with their coats-of-arms above them.
Above the Tabernacle is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin,
and above this a grand circle entirely formed of clustered angels,
in the centre of which is a great crucifix surmounted by the
Pelican vulning her breast. Within this circle are four subjects
from the Passion, and a King and a Pope on either side holding
the arms of the Cross, which is completely detached from the
background (10). On either side are S. John and S. Mary; and
beside all these, a crowd of subjects and figures, pinnacles and
canopies, which it is impossible to set down at length. The
whole of this work was done by the same Gil de Siloe, assisted
1 Quoted by Cean Bermudez, Dice. Hist. iv. 378.
2 There is an illustration of this monument in Mr. Waring's book.
I D
50 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
by Diego de la Cruz, at a cost of 1,015,613 maravedis, and was
executed between A.D. 1496 and 1499. Behind the Retablo
some of the old pavement remains, of encaustic tiles in blue,
white, and red.
The works at this church seem to have made but slow progress
owing to the troubled state of the kingdom after the death
of Juan II. His son gave something towards the works in
A.D. 1454, but nothing more until A.D. 1465. In A.D. 1474 he
died, and was succeeded by Isabel the Catholic, who, in A.D.
1476, confirmed the grants to the monastery, and completed
the church in A.D. 1488; but it was not, as we have seen, until
the end of the century that the whole work was really finished.
Juan de Colonia made the plan for the building in A.D. 1454, for
which he received 3350 maravedis : he directed its construction
for twelve years, and after his death, in A.D. 1466, Garci Fer-
nandez de Matienzo continued it till he died of the plague in the
year 1488, when Simon, son of Juan de Colonia, completed it. 1
Having completed my notice of the three great buildings of
Burgos and its neighbourhood, and which in their style and
history best illustrate the several periods of Christian art, I now
proceed to give some notes of the Conventual and Parish
Churches, which are numerous and fairly interesting. In Burgos,
however, as is so often the case on all parts of the Continent, the
number of desecrated churches is considerable. The suppression
of monasteries involved their desecration as a matter of course;
and without religious orders it is obviously useless to have
churches crowded together in the way one sees them here. I
remember making a note of the relative position of three of these
churches, which stand corner to corner without a single inter-
vening house, and though this is an extreme case, the churches
were no doubt very numerous for the population. Unluckily a
desecrated church is generally a sealed book to an ecclesiologist.
They are usually turned to account by the military; and soldiers
view with proverbially jealous eyes any one who makes notes!
Just above the west front of the Cathedral is the little church
of San Nicolas, mainly interesting for its Retablo, which, how-
ever, scarcely needs description, though it is gorgeously sculp-
tured with the story, I think, of the patron. Its date is fixed by
an inscription, which I give in a note. 2 On either side are monu-
1 See Espana Sagrada, xxvii. 559. Cean Bermudez, Dice. Hist. iv. 324,
vi. 285, and Arq. de Espana, i. 106 and 121.
8 " Nobilis Vir Gonsalvus Polanco, atque ejus conjux Eleonora Miranda
hujus sacri altaris auctores hoc tumulo conquiescunt : " " Obiit ille anno
1505 haec vero 1503."
LAS HUELGAS, BURGOS 51
ments of a type much favoured in Spain, and borrowed probably
from Italy, of which the main feature is, that the figures lie on a
sloping surface, and look painfully insecure. Here, too, I saw one
of the first old western galleries that I met with in my Spanish
journeys; and as I shall constantly have to mention their
existence, position, and arrangement in parochial churches, it
may be as well to say here, that at about the same date that
choirs were moved westward into the naves of cathedrals,
western galleries, generally of stone, carried on groining, and
fitted up with stalls round three sides, with a great lectern in the
centre, and organs on either side, were erected in a great number
of parish churches. It cannot be doubted that in those days
the mode of worship of the people was exactly what it is now;
no one cared much if at all for anything but the service at the
altar, and the choir was banished to where it would be least
seen, least heard, and least in the way ! At present it seems to
me that one never sees any one taking more than the slightest
passing notice of the really finely-performed service even in the
cathedral choirs; whilst in contrast to this, in the large churches,
with an almost endless number of altars, all are still used, and all
seem to have each their own flock of worshippers; and though it
is a constant source of pain and grief to an ever-increasing body
of English Churchmen that the use of their own altars should be
so lamentably less than it ever was in primitive days, or than it
is now in any other branch of the Catholic Church, it is some
comfort to feel that our people have tried to retain due respect
for some of the other daily uses of the Church, inferior though
they be. In Spain, though I was in parish churches almost
every day during my journey, I do not remember seeing the
western gallery in use more than once. Sometimes it has been
my fate to meet with men who suppose that the common
objection to galleries in churches is, that there is no old " author-
ity " for them. Well, here in Spain there is authority without
end; and I commend to those Anglicans who wish to revive or
retain their use in England the curious fact, that the country in
which we find it is one distinguished beyond all others by the
very decided character of its Romanism, and the period in which
they were erected there, one in which Rome was probably more
hostile to such as they than any other in the whole course of her
history. 1
1 1 fear I must add that Roman Catholics still seem to be fond of western
galleries; for one of the most recent, and I hope the most hideous of their
works, the new Italian church in Hatton Garden, has, in addition to alt
BUR .OO.S : CConpgnj
Before 1200
13*Cntury
M*Centiiry %
PLATE II.
F
nounb Plan* of J3an Gil:
San Oil
San Estebati
PLATE II.
54 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
The gallery of San Nicolas is less important than most of its
class are; and there is indeed little to detain any one within its
walls (i i). Externally there is a low tower rising out of the west
end of the south aisle. This has a fine third-pointed south
doorway with an ogee crocketed canopy, and a belfry stage of
two lancet-lights on each face, roofed with a flat roof of pantiles.
The remainder of the church has been much altered; but a
good flying-buttress remains on the south side, and one or two
lancet-windows which convey the impression that the first foun-
dation of the church must have been in the thirteenth century.
The east wall is not square, but built so as to suit the irregular
site. The whole church is ungainly and ugly on the exterior,
and its planning and proportions neither picturesque nor scien-
tific. It is, in short, one of those churches of which we have so
many in England, from which nothing is to be learnt save on
some small matter of detail; and the alterations of its roofs,
windows, and walls have in the end left it an ungainly and un-
couth outline, which is redeemed only by its picturesque situation
on the slope of the hill just above the cathedral parvise, with
which it groups, and from which it is well seen.
Following the steep path of the east end of San Nicolas, I
soon reached the fine church of San Esteban. It stands just
below the castle, the decaying walls of which surround the slope
of melancholy hill which rises from its doorway; these, though
now they look so incapable of mischief, yet effectually thwarted
the Duke of Wellington. 1 It is quite worth while to ascend the
hill, if only for the view. San Esteban, shorn as it is like all
Spanish churches of more than half its old external features,
with pinnacles nipped off, parapets destroyed, windows blocked
up, and roofs reduced from their old steep pitch to the uniform
rough, ragged, and ruinous-looking flat of pantiles, which is
universal here, forms, nevertheless, a good foreground for the
fine view of the cathedral below it and the other points of interest
in the town beyond. Yet these are fewer than would be
its other faults, the glaring one of a western gallery fitted up like an
orchestra, whilst the part of the floor which, according to all old usage,
was given to the choir to sing praises to God, seems from the aspect of the
chairs with which it is filled to be reserved for the more " respectable "
part of the congregation! Extremes meet, and this Italian church would
be easily convertible, as it would be most suitable, to the use of the baldest
form of Dissent!
1 Ponz, Viage de Esp. xii. 21, gives an inscription on one of the towers
of the castle, which states that Pedro Sanchez, Criado y Ballistero, servant
and archer to the king (Enrique II.), was its Mayordomo during its con-
struction in the year 1295.
SAN ESTEBAN, BURGOS 55
expected in such a city, so long the capital of a kingdom and
residence of a line of kings. There are no steeples worthy of
remark save those of the cathedral, the churches are all, like
San Esteban, more or less mutilated, and there is as always in
cities which have been great and now are poor an air of misery
and squalor about only too many of the buildings on which the
eye first lights in these outskirts of the city.
I have not been so lucky as to find any record bearing in any
way upon the erection of San Esteban (12), and I regret this the
more, as its place among the churches of Burgos is no doubt next
after the cathedral, and in all respects it is full of interest.
The ground plan (Plate II.) will explain the general scheme
of the building a nave and aisles, ended at the east with three
parallel apses, a cloister, and a large hall on the south of and
opening into the cloister. The north side of the cloister has
been much mutilated by the erection of chapels and a sacristy,
whilst the north wall of the church is blocked up by low buildings
built against it. The only good view of the exterior is that from
the south-west. Spanish boys did their best to make sketching
it impossible, yet their amusements were after all legitimate
enough for their age, and it is very seldom in Spain that a
sketcher is mobbed and annoyed in the way he commonly is
in France or Italy when he ventures on a sketch in an at all
public place.
The erection of this church may, I believe, be dated between
A.D. 1280-1350; and to the earlier of these two periods the
grand west doorway probably belongs. The tympanum con-
tains, in its upper compartment, our Lord seated, with S. John
the Evangelist, the Blessed Virgin, and angels kneeling on either
side a very favourite subject with Burgalese sculptors of the
period; below is the martyrdom of the patron saint, divided into
three subjects: (i) S. Stephen before the king; (2) Martyrdom
of S. Stephen, angels taking his soul from his body; and (3)
the devil taking the soul of his persecutor. The jambs have
each three figures under canopies, among which are S. Stephen
(with stones sticking to his vestments) and S. Laurence. The
doorway is built out in a line with the front of the tower
buttresses, and above it a modern balustrade is placed in advance
of the west window, which is a fine rose of twenty rays. This
window at a little distance has all the effect of very early work;
but upon close inspection its details and mouldings all belie this
impression, and prove it to be certainly not earlier than the
middle of the fourteenth century. The whole of the tracery is
56 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
thoroughly geometrical, and the design very good. Above it
is a lancet window on each face, and then the lower part only
of a belfry window of two lights, cut off by one of the usual flat-
pitched tiled roofs. A staircase turret is carried up in the
south-west angle and finished with a weathering at the base of
the belfry stage. The buttresses are all plain, and, as I have
said, shorn of the pinnacles with which they were evidently
intended to be finished. 1
This church seems to be always locked up, and I think it was
here that the woman who lives in the cloister and shows the
church told me that there was service in the church once only
in the week; and certainly it had the air which a church misused
in this way usually assumes.
We were admitted by the cloister, a small and much mutilated
work of circa A.D. 1300. It opens by four arches into a large
hall on its south side, which is groined at a higher level than the
cloister. The groining of the cloister is good, and the ribs well
moulded ; but the window tracery is all destroyed, and most of
the windows are blocked up. The central court is very small,
as indeed is the whole work; but a cloister may be of any size,
and in some of our many collegiate erections of the present day
it would be as well to remember this, and emulate really and
fairly the beautiful effects always attained by our forefathers in
this way. 2
In the western wall of the cloister are two arched recesses for
monuments, one of which has a coped tomb, with eight steps to
the foot of the cross, which is carved upon its lid. The eastern
side is later than the rest, and its groining probably not earlier
than A.D. 1500.
Entering the church from hence we find a very solid, simple,
and dignified building, spoilt indeed as much a. possible by
yellow wash, but still in other respects very little damaged.
It is groined throughout, and the groining has the peculiarity of
having ridge ribs longitudinally but not transversely. This is
common in Spain; but it is impossible to see why one ridge
should require it and the other not, and the only explanation is
1 In Braun and Hohenburgius' Theatre des Villes, A.D. 1574, there is a
view of Burgos, which must have been drawn somewhat earlier, as the
Chapel of the Constable is not shown in the cathedral; San Esteban is
represented with a spire on its tower.
2 1 particularly refer here to our colonial cathedrals, in which I wish that
the founders would from the first contemplate the erection of all the proper
subordinate buildings as well as that of the church itself; and also to those
large town churches which we may hope to see built before long, and served
by a staff of clergy working together and encouraging each other.
SAN ESTEBAN, BURGOS
INTERIOR LOOKING WEST
58 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
that possibly the architect wished to lead the eye on from end to
end of the building. In the groining of an apse this ridge-rib in
its western part always looks very badly, and jars with the
curved lines of all the rest of the ribs. The columns of the nave
arcades are circular, with eight smaller engaged shafts around
them, those under the western tower being rather more elaborate
and larger than the others. Here we see a clear imitation of the
very similar planning of the cathedral nave. The planning of
the east end is more interesting, because, whilst it has no prece-
dent in the cathedral, it is one of the evidences we have of the
connection of the Spanish architecture of the middle ages with
that of other countries, which we ought not to overlook. I have
said something on this in speaking of the plan of Las Huelgas.
Here, however, I do not think we can look in the same direction
for the original type of plan; for, numerous as are the varieties
of ground-plan which we see in France, there is one the parallel-
triapsidal which we meet so seldom that we may almost say it
does not occur at all. In Germany, on the other hand, it is seen
everywhere, and there, indeed, it is the national plan: in Italy
it is also found constantly. In Spain, however, it was quite as
much the national ground-plan as it was in Germany; almost
everywhere we see it, and in any case the fact is of value as
proving that the Spaniards adopted their own national form of
Gothic, and were not indebted solely to their nearest neigh-
bours, the French, for their inspiration and education in archi-
tecture, though undoubtedly they owed them very much (13).
San Esteban is lighted almost entirely from windows set very
high up in the walls. Those in the apses are in the position of
clerestory windows, their sills being level with the springing
of the groining. The consequence of this arrangement a very
natural one in a country where heat and light are the main
things to be excluded from churches was that a great unbroken
space was left between the floor and the windows; and hence
it happened that the enormous Retablos, rising seldom less than
twenty feet, and often thirty, forty, or even sixty feet from the
floors, naturally grew to be so prominent and popular a feature.
In San Esteban the Retablos are none of them old, but doubt-
less take the place of others which were so.
The western gallery is so good an example of its class, that I
think it is quite worthy of illustration. It is obviously an
insertion of circa A.D. 1450, and is reached by a staircase of still
later date at the west end of the south aisle. I cannot deny
it the merit of picturesqueness, and the two ambons which
SAN ESTEBAN, BURGOS
59
project like pulpits at the north and south extremities of the
front add much to its effect. The stalls are all arranged in
the gallery in the usual fashion of a choir, with return stalls at
the west end and a large desk for office books in the centre.
The organ is on the north side in the bay east of the gallery,
and is reached through the ambon on
the Gospel 1 side. This organ, its
loft, and the pulpit against it are
all very elaborate examples of
Plateresque 2 Renaissance work.
Of the fittings of the church two
only require any notice, and both of
them are curious. One is an iron
lectern, just not Gothic, but of very
fair design, 3 and of a type that we
might with advantage introduce into
our own churches. The other is a
wooden bier and herse belonging to
some burial confraternity, and kept
in the cloister; the dimensions are so
small (and I saw another belonging
to the confraternity of San Gil of the same size), that it
was no doubt made for carrying a corpse without a coffin.
One knows how in the middle ages this was the usual if not
invariable plan, 4 and as these herses are evidently still in use
1 i.e. the north side, which would be the side of the Gospel ambon if it
faced in the right direction. As I never saw these galleries used, I do not
know how the ambons were really appropriated.
2 The work of Berruguete and his school is so called in Spain from its
plate-like delicacy of work in flat relief. For Renaissance work it has a
certain air of rich beauty, not often attained in other lands ; and, indeed,
it is only a debt of justice due to the architects of Spain from the time of
Berruguete in 1500 to that of the ponderously Pagan Herrera towards the
end of the same century, to say, that whatever faults may be found with
their over great exuberance and lavish display of decoration, they never-
theless possessed rare powers of execution, and a fertility of conception
(generally, it must be owned, of very ugly things), for which they may well
be envied by their school now, as they were in their own day. Indeed,
if the revivers of the Renaissance in these days ever think of such a thing
as importing a new idea, I wish heartily that they would go to Spain and
study some of her sixteenth-century buildings.
3 The similar but rather earlier iron lectern preserved in the Hotel Cluny
at Paris is well known. See an illustration of it from a drawing of mine
in the second volume of Instrumenta Ecclesiastica of the Ecclesiological
Society.
4 The curious cemetery at Montmajeur, near Aries, is full of graves
excavated in the rock, and cut out just so as to receive the body; so too
are all our own old stone coffins. See also the illuminations illustrating the
burial office so constantly introduced in Books of Hours.
60 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
(that of San Gil having been repainted in 1850), it has possibly
never been given up (14).
The main thing, I think, that struck me in the architecture of
San Esteban, was the very early look of all its proportions and
details compared to what seemed to be their real date, when
examined more in detail and with the aid of mouldings, traceries,
and the like; and its value consists mainly in the place it
occupies among the buildings of Burgos, illustrating a period of
which otherwise there would be very little indeed in the city.
From San Esteban I found my way first through the decayed-
looking and uninteresting streets, and then among the ruined
outskirts of the north-eastern part of the city, to the church of
San Gil, situated very much in the same kind of locality as San
Esteban, on the outskirts of the city. This church is just men-
tioned in Espana Sagrada l twice : first as being named, with
ten other churches in Burgos, in a Bull of A.D. 1163; and
subsequently, as having been built by Pedro de Camargo and
Garcia de Burgos, with the approbation of Bishop Villacraces
in A.D. 1399 ; and Don Diego de Soria, and his wife Dona Catalina,
are said to have rebuilt the Capilla mayor in A.D. 1586.
I give the plan of this church on Plate II. (p. 53), and am in-
clined to doubt the exact truth of the statements just quoted.
I believe the church to be a cruciform structure of the fourteenth
century, whose chancel and chancel aisles reproduced the plan
of Las Huelgas, but were probably rebuilt in A.D. 1399. The
so-called Capilla mayor is probably the chapel on the north side
of the north aisle, a very elaborate semi-Renaissance erection,
with an octagon vault, reproducing many of the peculiarities of
Spanish groining, supported upon pendentives similar to those
of which I have spoken in describing the later works in the
cathedral; and it is no doubt the work of one of the descendants
or pupils of Juan de Colonia. The late chapels on each side of
the choir have enormous wooden bosses at the intersection of
the groining ribs, carved with tracery, and with a painting of a
saint in the centre. This mixture of painting and sculpture is
very much the fashion in Spanish wood-carvings, and the altar
Retablos often afford examples of it. In the floor of this church
are some curious effigies of black marble, with heads and hands
of white. 2 Two such remain in the east wall of one of the
southern chapels, where they lie north and south.
1 Vol. xxvii. p. 675.
2 This is a very common Flemish custom ; but whether the Flemings
borrowed it from Spain, or vice versd, I cannot say.
SAN GIL, BURGOS
IRON PULPIT
62 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
The Retablos of the two chapels, north and south of the choir,
are very sumptuous works (15).
Against the north-west pier of the crossing there stands what
is perhaps the most uncommon piece of furniture in the church,
an iron pulpit. It is of very late date, but I think quite worthy
of illustration. The support is of iron, resting on stone, and the
staircase modern. The framework afcthe angles, top and bottom,
is of wood, upon which the ironwork is laid. The traceries are
cut out of two plates of iron, laid one over the other, and the
ironwork is in part gilded, but I do not think that this is original.
The canopy is of the same age and character, and the whole
effect is very rich, at the same time that it is very novel. 1 I
saw other iron pulpits, but none so old as this.
I visited two or three other parish churches, but found little
in them worth notice. San Lesmes is one of the largest, con-
sisting of a nave with aisles, transepts, apsidal choir, and chapels
added in the usual fashion (16). The window tracery is flam-
boyant, and the windows have richly moulded jambs, and are
very German in their design. The south door is very large and
rich, of the same style, and fills the space between two buttresses,
on the angles of which are S. Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin. 2
Close to San Lesmes are the church of San Juan, and another, the
dedication of which I could not learn (17), whilst opposite it is
the old Convent of San Juan, now converted into a hospital.
The entrance is a great doorway, remarkable for the enormous
heraldic achievements which were always very popular with the
later Castilian architects. The church of San Juan is now
desecrated; it is cruciform in plan, with a deep apsidal chancel,
and seems to have had chapels on the east side of the transepts.
The ground is groined throughout, and its window tracery poor
flamboyant work. San Lucas (18) has a groined nave of three
bays, and there is another church near it of the same character.
They both appear to have been built at the end of the sixteenth
century.
Of old convents, the most important appears to have been
that of San Pablo. It is now desecrated, and used as a cavalry
store ; and though I was allowed to look, I could not obtain per-
mission to go into it. Florez 3 gives the date of the original
1 Iron pulpits wese not unknown in England in the middle ages. There
was one in Durham Cathedral. See A ncient Rites of Durham, p. 40.
A drawing of this door is given by Mr. Waring, Architectural Studies in
rgos, pi. 39.
3 Espana Sagrada, vol. xxvi. pp. 382-387, and vol. xxvii. p. 540.
SAN PABLO, BURGOS 63
foundation of the monastery in A.D. 1219, and says that it was
moved to its present site in A.D. 1265, but not completed for more
than 150 years after that date. The inscription on the monu-
ment of Bishop Pablo de Santa Maria, on the Gospel side of the
altar in San Pablo (19), records him to have been the builder of
the church, 1 and his story is so singular as to be worth telling.
He was a Jew by birth, a native of Burgos, and married to a
Jewess, by whom he had four sons 2 and one daughter. In
A.D. 1390, at the age of forty, he was baptised; and having tried
in vain to convert his wife, " he treated her as though she were
dead, dissolving his marriage legally, and ascending to the
greater perfection of the priesthood." In A.D. 1415 he was made
Bishop of Burgos, and being at Valladolid at the time, all Burgos
went out to meet him as he came to take possession of his see.
" His venerable mother, Dona Maria, and his well-loved wife
Joana, waited for him in the Episcopal Palace, from whence he
went afterwards to adore God in the cathedral." Dona Joana
was buried near the bishop in San Pablo, with an inscription in
Spanish, ending, " she died (Jallecid] in the year 1420," and
from the absence of any religious form in the inscription, I
infer that she died unconverted. The bishop died in A.D. 1435.
The church of San Pablo consists of a nave and aisles of five
bays, transepts, and apsidal choir, with many added chapels.
The nave groining bays are square, those of the aisle oblong, a
mode of planning which marks rather an Italian-Gothic than a
French or German origin. The church is vaulted throughout,
with very domical vaults, and lighted with lancets in the aisles,
circular windows in the clerestory, and traceried windows in the
choir. Part of the old western gallery still remains. The vault-
ing has transverse, diagonal, and ridge ribs. The apse is
well buttressed, but, like all the churches in Burgos, San Pablo
has lost its old roofs, and has been so much spoilt by the additions
which have been made to it, that its exterior is very unpre-
possessing. Not so the interior, which, both in scale and
proportion, is very fine. The architect of San Pablo is said to
have been Juan Rodriguez, who commenced it in 1415, and
completed it before I435. 3
1 " Qui yenerandus Ppntifex hanc ecclesiam cum sacristia et capitulo
suis sumptibus aedificavit." Espana Sagrada, xxvi. p. 387. The cloister
was rebuilt by Alonso de Burgos, Bishop of Palencia, circa 1480-99.
G. G. Davila, Teatro EccL ii. 174.
2 The inscription on the monument of Gonsalvo, Bishop of Sigiienza,
contained the following passage: " Hie venerandus Pontifex fuit filius, ex
legitimo matrimonio natus, Reverendi Pontificis Dni Pauli," etc.
3 Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Espana, i. 103.
64 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
Another convent, that of La Merced, has been treated in
the same way, and is now a military hospital. Its church is
on the same plan as that of San Pablo, with the principal door-
way in the north wall instead of the west, and this opening under
the usual vaulted gallery. There is, too, a small apsidal recess
for an altar in the north wall of the north transept. The
window tracery and details here are all of very late Pointed,
but the buttresses and flying buttresses are good. Flat roofs,
destroyed gables, and the entire absence of any steeple or turret
to break the mass, make the exterior of little value. This
convent was moved to its present site in A.D. 1272, but I doubt
whether any part of the exterior now visible is so old as this.
I saw no other churches worthy of mention in Burgos; but
there are others which ought to be examined in the neighbour-
hood, among which one a little beyond Las Huelgas (20), of
large size, surrounded by trees, and apparently belonging to a
convent, seemed to be the most important. 1
There are but few remains of old Domestic Architecture.
The Palace has been modernised, but is still approached by a
groined passage from the south door of the cathedral. The
Palace of the Constable Velasco is a bald and ugly erection of
the sixteenth century, in the very latest kind of Gothic; its
walls finished with a strange parapet of crocketed pinnacles and
stones cut out into a sort of rude fork; its entrance a square-
headed doorway, with a large space above it, enclosed with
enormous chains carved in stone, within which are armorial
bearings. The internal courtyard is surrounded by buildings of
three stages in height, with open arcades to each, and traceried
balconies. The arcades and windows throughout have debased
three-centred arches.
The principal town gateway, that of Sta. Maria, is close to
the cathedral; its rear is a very simple but massive work of the
thirteenth century, and rather Italian in its design. The front
facing the Prado and the river was so much altered by Charles V.
that it is doubtful whether any of the old work remains; it is
now a very picturesque jumble of circular towers and turrets,
battlemented and crenellated, and looking rather like one of
those mediaeval castles which are seen either in an illumination,
or in a canopy over a figure in stained glass, than like a real and
useful fortified gateway.
1 In L'Univers Pittoresque, Espagne, vol. xxxi. pi. 54, is a view of the ruin
of the west end (apparently) of the convent of Carmelites at Burgos; it is
a very richly sculptured and panelled front of the most florid kind of latest
Pointed, and in a ruinous state.
BURGOS 65
It will be seen how full of interest to the ecclesiologist Burgos
s. My notes are, I have no doubt , not by any means exhaus-
ive; and I have equally little doubt that one who had more
ime at his disposal would discover much more than I found;
)esides which,, I was under the impression, when I was at Burgos,
hat the Monastery of San Pedro de Cardefia, so intimately
onnected with the story of the Cid, and where he lay peacefully
ill the French invasion, had been entirely destroyed, whereas,
n truth, I believe the church founded in the thirteenth century
till remains; and, if so, must certainly reward examination,
't is but a few miles from Burgos (21).
The great promenade here is along the river-side, where the
louses are all new, bald, and uninteresting; but the back streets
ire picturesque, and there is a fine irregularly-shaped Plaza,
urrounded by arcades in front of the shops, .where are to be
ound capital blankets and manias, useful even in the hottest
weather if any night travelling is to be undertaken, and
nvariably charming in their colour.
NOTES
(1) M. Camille Enlart compares it, with justice, to the triforium at
_,eon, and cf. p. 34.
(2) These have, all three, carved wooden retables, painted and
ilded, which are related (and in especial that on the north) to others
n the town and near at the Cavtuja of Miraflores, and at Covar-
ubbias in the Collegiate church. In Burgos itself may be counted
tiat in San Lesmes, three in San Gil, and one in the Chapel of S. Anne
n the cathedral. This last shows a superb Tree of Jesse, and the
Church and Synagogue above. The chapel of S. John Sagahun,
tie easternmost of the south aisle, shelters the scattered panels of a
ood painted retable that show a strong Flemish influence, but are
nmistakably Spanish. A Flemish triptych hangs on the south wall
f the Constable's chapel; and there the treasures of the little
acristy are still shown, among them a small Milanese Madonna,
ither lovely.
(3) No more, alas!
(4) They are now (1912) putting tracery into the windows of the
ower cloister, which is good, and glass, which is bad, and opening
tie old arches between the cloisters and the street, filling these with
n iron grill that is cast, not forged.
(5) There seem to be three in all, vide note 7 below.
(6) This cloister is now open and in good condition.
(7) Las Huelgas was a Cistercian foundation. According to
efior Lamperez, who gives a plan of the whole, there survive, of
ic original: the church with two doors and a chapel adjoining;
I E
66 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
the great cloister, called that of S. Ferdinand; the refectory, much
altered; the chapter-room, the finest Cistercian in Spain; and the
small cloister called claustnllas. The eastern end of the church and
across the transept with the chapels is Angevine, 1180-1215; the
nave, Isle-of -France, 1215-1230. The great cloisters have a pointed
barrel-vault, and three small arches to a bay; about the claustnllas,
Senor Lamperez quotes and sustains Street's note in regard to date
and provenance.
(8) It was brought from Flanders for Isabel the Catholic.
(9) The subjects are: underneath the Queen a Pieta and the
seven Virtues, treated as in French Renaissance work; under the
King a hermit, a saint, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Joseph in hat and
cloak with crimped hair ; Samson with a broken pillar ; Esdras with
cup and bag; David with harp; Daniel with six small lions; and
Queen Esther: above, the four Evangelists at the cardinal points,
and twelve apostles at the other angles salient and re-entrant.
(10) I find in my notes that this retable presents the Holy Trinity :
on the gospel side of the great Cross the Eternal Father ; and on the
Epistle side the Holy Ghost like a young prince, long-haired and
beardless, with open crown. But perhaps Street's reading is right.
(n) Since the recent restoration San Nicholas preserves in the
easternmost bay on the north side, in a retable thoroughly trashy
as to carving and images, ten precious panels of early, exquisite
painting, and above, a great round of saints with the Christ of the
Apocalypse, all apparently from the earlier Retablo Mayor. The
panels, though disarranged, contain the enthronement of S. Nicholas
as Bishop ; the story of the cup and the boy, in two scenes ; that of
the poor knight's daughters, in two scenes; the three school children
raised out of the tub; and a scene I could not identify of a seated
man, troubled, with a crowd about him; also the Annunciation,
S. Anthony of Padua with three nuns as donors, and S. James
with three men as donors. Other panels may yet exist in Burgos
for the finding, and all is of the purest, beautiful primitive work.
(12) D. Amador de los Rios says l that San Esteban is mentioned
along with San Nicholas and Santa Agueda in 1 3 16 by Alexander III.,
but that, of course, proves nothing about the present building.
(13) So many French Romanesque churches show the parallel
apses that the plan seems a characteristic less of certain countries
than of certain traditions, most marked where the Romanesque
strain persisted in full strength and where Gothic was less native
and, so to speak, less inevitable.
(14) The biers are still about (1912).
(15) That in the south chapel is full of interest and beauty, an'
Epiphany the central scene, below the figure of the Salvator Mundi
and above that of S. Thomas with a flaying knife, a book, and a
black Indian slave. To right and left of him are SS. Peter and Paul,
and beyond these on the Gospel side, in three groups, SS. Michat"
and Jerome, SS. Sebastian and Paul the Hermit, SS. Anthony
Padua and Anthony Abbot; on the Epistle side SS. Augustine ai
John, SS. Mary Magdalen and Christopher; SS. Andrew
Lawrence; in the predella, donors with S. Giles, the Pieta and
1 Espana.
BURGOS 67
VTass of S. Gregory, and donors with S. Catharine. That on the
lorth side, nothing like so good, shows a Madonna enthroned,
below an Assumption, flanked by SS. Peter and Paul, S. George and
5. Ferdinand ; in the predella the four evangelists at desks. There
s another good one in the late chapel on the north side of the nave,
with a full life of the Blessed Virgin and innumerable saints set in
;he niches and up the outer frame. That is called in Spanish
>uavda polvo, and constructed precisely to keep out dust, with
loping sides, something like what modern dealers call a shadow-
>ox. The retables of the Burgalese are a subject in themselves,
3n which little has been written, and the best of that, though brief
ind inadequate, reprinted by Senor Serrano-Fatigati from the
Boletino de la Sociedad Espanola Excursionista, is now out of print.
(16) This is a slip. San Lesmes has no chapels between the but-
resses. It has a number of very late Gothic tombs, and a charming
etable in the apse of the south aisle ; in the upper left-hand corner
>ccurs an interesting episode of travel that I could not identify, but
ancied might belong to the fairy epopee of S. Michael the archangel.
(17) At present S. Bernard; it belongs to Cistercian nuns.
(18) I could not hear of any San Lucas in Burgos, but San Cosme
eems to fit the description.
(19) San Pablo has also disappeared and left no memory.
(20) This should be, according to Baedeker, the Hospital del Rey,
lodging-house for pilgrims.
(21) Several churches which should be visited from Burgos can
)e reached by carriage or diligence. San Pedro de Cardefia,
ebuilt by Abbot Pedro de Burgos in 1447, has still a few arches and
apitals of the earlier work. The church of Sassamon, of the thir-
eenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, has five parallel apses
xnd a west aisle to the transepts as high as the centre, a nave of five
>ays of pure earlier Gothic, that recalls Las Huelgas, fifteenth-
entury chapels along the north aisle, and the ruins of a cloister
Jong the south.
Santo Domingo de Silos dates, the church from 1041-73, the lower
loister from the eleventh, the upper cloister from the tv/elfth
entury. 1 In 1750, Ventura Rodriguez rebuilt the church itself,
>ut the cloisters are intact. One of the lower capitals can be dated
etween 1073 ancl 1076. They show not only the monsters familiar
i Romanesque work all over Europe, but others fetched directly
rom the east winged and feathered antelopes, and manticores with
rowned head pecking at eagles in a tangle that resolves itself into
ymmetrical arabesques of creatures face to face or back to back,
ix out of the eight reliefs on the corner piers are visibly of the same
shool as those at Aries.
The abbey of San Quirse has a fine Romanesque west window-
ed round-arched west porch. Fres del Val, a Jeronymite convent,
Bunded 1414 by D. Gomez Manriquez, Governor of Castile, seems
3 have more considerable ruins than one would guess from
>aedeker's curt line. A daily diligence from Burgos to Santo
>omingo de la Calzada, carries one into the heart of the Rioja.
1 According to M. Bertaux from the thirteenth.
CHAPTER III
PALENCIA VALLADOLID
IT was after a day of hard work at Miraflores, Las Huelgas, and
Burgos, taking last looks and notes, that we drove to the railway
station en route for Palencia. Castile does not improve on
acquaintance, and, so far as I could judge in the hurried views
obtained from the railway-carriage, we missed nothing by mov-
ing apace. The railroad follows the broad valley of the Arlanzon,
bounded on either side by hills of moderate height, occasionally
capped with sharp cones and peaks, but everywhere of an
invariable whitish-grey colour, which soon wearies the eye
unspeakably. The few villages seen from the valley seemed
generally to occupy the slopes of the hills, and to have large,
shapeless, and unattractive churches. Indeed, it is not possible
to go very far in Spain without feeling either that Spanish
architects seldom cared for the external effect of their buildings,
or that whatever they did has been ruthlessly spoilt in later days.
Even in a city like Burgos this is the case, and of course it is
even more so in villages and smaller towns.
The Spanish railways are, on the whole, well managed. They
are usually only single lines, and there is no attempt made to
go very fast. Perhaps, too, any one who has travelled along
Spanish roads, deep with a five months' accumulation of dust,
and at the pace popular with diligence proprietors, comes to the
consideration of the merits and management of a railway in a
frame of mind which is not altogether impartial. The luxury
even of a second-rate railway is then felt to the utmost, and
there is not much desire, even if there is need, for grumbling.
It was dark when we arrived at Palencia, and, getting a boy to
carry the baggage, we walked off under his directions in search
of the Posada de las Frutas. The title was not promising.
But Palencia, a cathedral city, and the principal town between
Valladolid and Santander, has nothing in the way of an inn
better than a Posada, and it was to the best of its class that
we had been recommended. The first look was not encourag-
ing, but the people welcomed us cheerfully, and going across
68
PALENCIA 69
the covered entrance way, took us up to a room which was
fairly clean and furnished with the remains of eight smart chairs,
six of them hopelessly smashed, and the other two so weak in
their legs and spines that it was necessary to use them in the most
wary and cautious manner ! However, the beds were clean, and
the bread and grapes here as everywhere at this season in
Spain so delicious, that, even had the cookery been worse than
it was, we might have managed very well. Later in the evening,
when I came back from a short ramble through the town,
I found the open entrance-court and passage uneven with the
bodies of a troop of muleteers, each of whom seemed to have a
skinful of wine in his charge and a rough kind of bed laid on
the stones ; and if I may judge by the way in which they snored
as I picked my way among them to my room, they had no
occasion to envy me my occupation of the room of state.
I spent a day in Palencia, and found it almost more than its
architectural treasures required. I went there with some idea
that I should find a very fine cathedral, still retaining all its old
furniture of the fourteenth century, and soon discovered that I
had been somewhat misinformed. I hoped too, at any rate, if
I found no first-rate work, to find something which was peculiar
to the district in its artistic character; but in this also I was
doomed to be disappointed.
The city is divided into two parts by a very long winding
street running entirely across it from north to south. The
houses on either side are supported on stone columns (some of
them very lofty), so that the general effect is much that of one
of the old arcaded Italian cities. *
The cathedral, dedicated to S. Antholin, stands in a desolate-
looking open space on the edge of the hill which slopes
down to the river Carrion on the west side of the city. Cean
Bermudez says that it was commenced in A.D. I32I, 1 and com-
pleted in the beginning of the sixteenth century. 2 An inscrip-
1 The first stone of the cathedral was laid on the ist of June, 1321, by
Cardinal Arnoldo, legate of Juan XXII., assisted by Juan II., Bishop of
Palencia, and six other bishops, among whom was the Bishop of Bayonne ;
" and the first prebendary who had charge of the works (obrero) in this holy
church was Juan Perez de Aceves, Canon and Prior of Usillos, who assisted
in laying the first stone with the legate and the bishops." G. G. Davila,
Teatro Eccl. ii. 159.
8 In 1504 the conclusion of the cathedral of Palencia was undertaken by
Martin de Solorzano, an inhabitant of Sta. Maria de Haces, under the con-
dition that he should finish his work in six years, with stone from the
quarries of Paredes del Monte and Fuentes de Valdepero. Salorzano, how-
ever, died in 1506, and Juan de Ruesga, a native of Segovia, finished it.
Cean Bermudez, Avq. de Espana, vol. i. p. 142.
70 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
tion on the door from the cloister to the church has the date
A.D. 1535^ and the enclosure of the choir is of A.D. 1534. These
dates appear to be fairly correct; but the work having been so
long in progress, it may, I think, be assumed that the ground-
plan only is of the earliest date, and that the greater part of
the architectural detail belongs more probably to the fifteenth
than to the fourteenth century. This is quite consistent with
the evidence afforded by the building, for the detail of the
design is of very poor character throughout, and the window
tracery is generally of inferior and rather late flamboyant style.
The triforium is well developed, having large traceried openings ;
and the church is groined throughout. In the eastern part of
the chevet the window tracery has an early character, but the
mouldings belie this effect; and, if I may judge by them, none
of it is earlier than circa A.D. 1350-70. The plan of the chevet
is probably old, but all its details, save those of the piers between
the chapels, have been modernised. The thin spandrels of the
vaulting in the apse of the choir are pierced with cusped circles,
a device occasionally seen in French churches.
It will be seen, therefore, that there is little to praise here,
save the grand scale upon which the work has been done. The
nave is 36 feet 8 inches from centre to centre of the columns,
whilst each aisle is no less than 31 feet 2 inches. The relative
proportions are bad, but owing to the arrangement of the
Coro in the nave there is not much opportunity of seeing this,
and the internal view of the aisles, owing to their width and to
the very massive character of the nave columns, is extremely
fine. The nave is of five bays in length, the two eastern bays
being occupied by the Coro. There is an altar against the
western screen of the Coro, in front of which are some steps
leading down to a well, said to be that of S. Antholin, the tutelar
saint. The whole of the stalls are old, and fine of their kind;
they are mainly the work of El Maestro Centellas, a Valencian,
who contracted to execute them about the year I4IO, 1 but they
are not in their old place, for in A.D. 1518-19 Pedro de Guada-
lupe agreed to move them from the old choir into the new choir
for the sum of fifteen hundred maravedis, and to execute twenty
1 Gil Gonzalez Davila, Iglesia de Palencia, fol. 164, gives a letter from the
Chapter to the Bishop D. Sancho de Rojas, begging for money for the work.
The Chapter state that the stalls are to cost 76,000 maravedis, and that
they are the work of " Maestro Centellas," and that they propose to adorn
the Bishop's seat with four achievements of arms. The bishop at the time
this letter was written was at Valencia, assisting at the wedding of Alonso,
Prince of Gerona, and the daughter of King D. Enrique III.^ G. G. Davila,
Teatro Eccl. ii. 164.
PALENCIA CATHEDRAL 71
additional stalls for the sum of two thousand maravedis each. 1
At the same time the Retablo was moved forward and enlarged
to fit its new position by one Pedro Manso, at a cost of two
hundred ducats ; whilst Juan de Valmeseda executed the statues
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, S. John, and the Crucifixion for it
for one hundred ducats. 2
These facts are of great interest, proving as they do that the
stalls stood from the year 1410 to 1518 in their proper place in
the choir, and were then moved to their present position in the
nave precisely in the same way that we have already seen the
old arrangement changed at Burgos at about the same period.
This peculiar Spanish arrangement of the Coro in the nave, and
separated from the altar, we may now, I think, assume was not
known or thought of until this
comparatively late date in this
part of Spain, though now it
is universal throughout the
country. The design of the
stalls is somewhat like that of
late Flemish work, but peculiar
in many respects: the forward
slope of the stall elbows, the rich
traceries behind the lower stalls
very varied in their design
and the continuous canopies of
the upper stalls, are all worthy
of notice. I did not observe
any distinction in the style of the PRIE
work answering to the dates at
which Maestro Centellas and Pedro de Guadalupe were employed,
and I think, therefore, that the latter must have copied rather
closely the work of the former. Probably, however, the Prie-
Dieu desk in front of the bishop's stall is of the later date, as
also the desks which have been widened in front of the upper row
of stalls; and possibly Pedro de Guadalupe executed the twenty
stalls on each side of the choir forming the easternmost block.
The eastern part of the church has been worse treated even
than the nave, all the old arrangements having been ruthlessly
altered. The apse, shut in by screens, covered with a low
groined gallery, and used as a mere chapel, 3 is dark, dismal,
1 Cean Bermudez, Dice. Hist. vol. ii. p. 236. 2 Ibid. vol. v. p. 121.
3 Also in his (D. Sancho de Rojas, A.D. 1397 to A.D. 1411) time was built
the Capilla mayor, which is now the Parroquia of the church. G. G.
Davila, Teatro Eccl. ii. 164.
72 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
and undignified. The bay west of the apse is open from north
to south, but walled in on the west with the wall behind the
high altar. West of this are two bays walled in at the sides,
and then we come to the transept, which is open, save the rails
marking the passage from the Coro to the choir (i). The whole
arrangement is so confused, unintelligible, and contrary to the
obvious intentions of the first designers of the fabric, that it
hardly needed documentary evidence to prove that it had no
kind of ancient authority. There is no lantern or Cimborio at
the crossing. The metal screens 1 across the choir are of no
special interest, but those round the apse and opening into one
or two of the chapels of the chevet are better, and well illus-
trate the designs of most of the fifteenth-century iron screens
in Spain. They are met with in all directions, for there was
no country in the middle ages which made so free a use of
iron. They have most of the faults of German ironwork of
the same age, the smiths having apparently forgotten the right
use of their hammers, and, like Birmingham smiths of the
present day, having tried to do what was necessary with thin
plates of iron twisted about fantastically here and there, but
very much more easily wrought, and proportionably less effec-
tive, than the work of the English smiths of a couple of hundred
years earlier.
The whole of the floor of the eastern part of the church has
been lowered, in some places as much as three feet, in order to
obtain a level procession path all round the aisles.
On the south side of the nave are the cloisters (2), which are
large, with lofty arched openings, but they have been despoiled
of their traceries. Their style is poor third-pointed, and in their
present state they are thoroughly uninteresting. 2 To the west
of them is the Chapter-house, a large groined room, opening, not,
as is usual, from the cloister, but from an outer lobby. The
sacristy, on the south side of the choir, contains a few objects
1 Cristobal Andino made the Reja of the Capilla mayor in A.D. 1520 for
1500 ducats, and in 1530 the screen for 430 ducats, and Caspar Rodriguez
made that of the Coro in 1555 for the sum of 3600 gold ducats, paid by the
bequest of Bishop D. Luis Cabeza de Vaca.
2 Cean Bermudez, Arq. Esp. i. 60, says the date 1535 exists on the door
from the church to the cloister: and G. G. Davila, Teatro Eccl. ii. p. 171,
says that in the time of D. Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca (translated to Burgos
in A.D. 1514) the greater part of the chapels from the crossing downwards
were built, as also the cloister and chapter-house. The same bishop gave
the stairs leading to the well of S. Antholin, repaired the dormitories,
and gave to the sacristy a rich set of altar vestments (terno) of brocade,
four tapestries of ecclesiastical history, and four others of " Salve
Retina.
Chapel I Chapel | Plate III.
San MigTLe.l, _ Palencia.
C 1 : i s t c T
S^ Maria la Antigua, _YaTladolid
San Beaito, ^_ valladolid-.
PLATE III.
74 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
of interest, the best being a fine gilt monstrance, covered with
crockets and pinnacles,, but not earlier than circa A.D. i^oo. 1
The sacristan thought much more of a great plated temple,
six or eight feet in height, raised on a stage, and travelling on
wheels worked by a couple of men concealed within the platform
and its hangings, which is used for processions throughout the
town on Corpus Christi day (3).
I saw only two Gothic churches out of many which I looked
into in Palencia those of San Miguel and San Francesco.
San Miguel is both the earliest and best church in the city,
and deserves most careful study. I give an illustration of its
ground-plan on Plate III. The portion east of the crossing
appeared to me of the end of the twelfth century, and the rest
of the church a few years later. The plan is one of a not un-
common type, and suggestive either of Italian or German
influence in the mind of its designer. The regular planning of
the whole work, the bold dimensions of the groining shafts, and
the good character of the mouldings and windows, corbel-tables
and buttresses, all deserve special notice. The apse is groined
in four compartments, so that a rib and buttress occur in its
centre, 2 and the ribs here are square and plain in section, whilst
those throughout the nave are well moulded. The bosses at
the intersection of the groining ribs in the nave are sculptured :
that on the east bay having S. Michael and the Dragon, whilst
the next bay but one has an Agnus Dei. There is a peculiarity
in the finish of the buttresses of the apse, which I noticed also
at San Juan and San Pablo at Burgos. In all of them the face
of the buttress is carried up to the eaves-cornice, which is
returned round them, instead of being carried on to their centre,
as is usual: so that at San Miguel, in place of the apse at the
cornice-line having four sides only, it has four long and three
shorter sides, the latter above the buttresses. All the work in
the chancel appears to be of earlier date than that in the nave,
and its western arch is segmental, and of poor character. The
windows here are plain, round-arched lancets, but those in the
clerestory of the nave are two-light windows, with a plain circle
in the head, and richly moulded. The most striking architec-
tural feature on the outside is the western steeple, which well
deserves illustration, being full of peculiarity and vigour. The
1 The stained glass which once adorned the church was executed by
Diego de Salcedo in 1542, at the price of 100 maravedis each palm (cada
palmo). Cean Bermudez, Dice. Hist. vol. iv. p. 304.
2 This rare arrangement is seen in the church of the Frari at Venice, and
in the church of the Capuchins at Lugo.
SAN MIGUEL, PALENCIA
75
belfry-windows are singularly varied,, for they are of three lights
on the west, of two very wide lights on the south, and of two
narrow lights on the east side. The tracery in all consists of
uncusped circles, packed together in the same fashion as in the
clerestory of Burgos Cathedral. The west window is of two
lights, with simple piercings in the tympanum, and between it
STEEPLE OF SAN MIGUEL
and the west doorway are a number of corbels all across the
west front, which seem to prove that there was a penthouse roof
across the whole of it. This must have largely added to the
picturesqueness of the building, whilst at the same time it must,
in such a climate, have been a most wise expedient for sheltering
the doorway from the heat. The west doorway is a really fine
work, but terribly mutilated. It has six series of subjects, in as
many lines of archivolt moulding, the innermost order containing
angels only: the second, figures with books or instruments of
76 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
music: the third, angels again: the fourth, the Resurrection
(with the Last Judgment, occupying the centre of this and the
next order): the fifth and sixth, subjects from the life of our
Lord, beginning with the Annunciation on the left (4). The out-
side moulding consists of a bold bowtell, with another arranged
in continuous cusping in front of it, as in some of our own
transitional work. The lower stage of the tower has a groined
gallery, in which are the stalls, lectern, and organ.
It is much to be lamented that the finish of the steeple is not
original, for we should then have had a complete example of a
fine parish church, which must have been building from circa
A.D. 1190 to circa A.D. 1250; but an early building unaltered
on the exterior is a treat for which one generally sighs in vain in
Spain.
San Francesco has been much more mutilated than San
Miguel, but seems to be a work of about the same age; it is
said to have been built in A.D. 1246. l There is a large open
market-place, busy with venders of vegetables, in front of the
building, and a small enclosed courtyard between the two
seemed to be the receptacle for all the market filth. The west
front has a small sort of cloister in front of the doors, with a
tiled lean-to roof above it. Over this roof rises the west front,
a strange combination with a western gable, and a great bell-
gable rising out of its southern slope. The west window appears
to have been a fine cusped circular opening, under a pointed
arch, the spandrel between the two being filled with circles
similar to the traceries in the steeple of San Miguel. Entering
the church, I found its broad aisleless nave completely Pagan-
ised, but still retaining the low fifteenth-century gallery for
the Coro over the two western bays. At the east bay of the
nave are small transeptal chapels, and the chancel arch, and two
smaller arches open into the chancel and two chancel aisles (5).
The whole arrangement is thoroughly .Italian, 2 but the detail
of the arches, which are well moulded and adorned with a chevron,
is northern. The chancel is apsidal, but its groining is so late,
and its east end so far hidden by a Pagan Retablo, that it was
impossible to discover whether any traces of the original work
remained.
I saw several other churches, but their old features are in all
cases of the very latest Gothic or else Pagan, so as to be hardly
1 Madoz, Dice, de Espana.
2 It should be compared, for instance, with the church of the Eremitan i
at Padua, and the church of San Fermo Maggiore at Verona.
SAN MIGUEL, PALENCIA 77
worthy of record. Sta. Clara appears to be desecrated: it has
windows just like those of San Pablo, Burgos, and buttresses to
the apse managed in the same way as at San Miguel. It has
also a large flamboyant door of poor style (6). Near it is another
church (7), which has an apse with buttresses and pinnacles at
the angles, and from the even and undisturbed look of its
masonry I concluded that it never had any windows. This
church has a poor tower, but generally the churches here have
enormous bell-gable turrets of the most flaunting Renaissance
device, which are common throughout a great part of Spain.
They have generally several bells hung in openings in the wall,
and are often nearly the whole width of the front, and finished
with cornices and broken pediments in the most approved
fashion of the worst style of Renaissance.
Everywhere, save in the long main street, Palencia was as
triste a place as I have seen. The streets were emptied, prob-
ably by the heat of the day, and, save a curious crowd of boys
who pursued me relentlessly all round San Miguel, I saw few
signs of life. Much of the old wall round the city remains, and
walking round the north-eastern part of this, I came to a pic-
turesque angle, where is an old walled-up gateway with pointed
arch, round towers on either side, and deep machicolations
above, which may well have been built before the Cid rode
into Palencia for his marriage with Dona Ximena. The town
walls are lofty and massive, and crested with what is, I believe,
a Moorish battlement. Its peculiarity consists in the battle-
ments and spaces between them being equal, and the former
being capped with a stone weathered on all four sides nearly to
a point (8).
On the way to the railway station we saw two churches (9),
both having some portions of fair fifteenth-century work; and
then passing the old wall, found ourselves on the melancholy
open plain that surrounds the city. Under the hot sun, and
after the harvest has all been gathered in, the country looks
wretched and arid in the extreme. Not a tree is to be seen,
nor a blade of grass; but first a sandy plain of two or three
miles, and then rocky and sandy hills, all bleached to much the
same colourless tint, rose in long lines against the deep-blue
sky. On the other side of the city the river was hardly more
attractive; it was well-nigh dry, though it is true there were
some trees near its banks which to some extent redeemed the
aridness of the soil out of which they grew. As I neared the
station I found the whole city assembled to greet the Duke
78 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
and Duchess of Montpensier, who were to stop for a few minutes
to enjoy azucarillos and sweetmeats. Officers of all grades,
the bishop and his clergy, and smart people in abundance
were there; and as soon as the train arrived there was lusty
cheering, and great firing of rockets. After a fight with the
mob for a passage to the train, we secured seats, and were soon
off. There are some parts of the road which seemed more
interesting than most of the country we had been passing.
The river runs here and there under steepish bluffs, and occa-
sionally considerable vineyards give what is so much wanted
some variety of colour to the landscape. I suppose one ought
to be cautious in describing such a country after seeing it in
September; for I can well imagine that in the spring, when the
whole land is covered with great crops of corn, the impression
it produces may be very different (10).
At Valladolid we were delayed a long time whilst the Duke
and Duchess of Montpensier, saluted again with rockets, and
escorted by cavalry, took their departure from the station to
pass the night at the Captain-General's. As far as a stranger
can see and hear the truth, the royal family seem to be very
popular in Spain, and none of them more so than the Duke and
Duchess; and the good people of Valladolid did their best, by
illuminations, cheering, and decoration of their houses with
coloured cloth, to welcome their coming, and speed their parting
the next day. 1
In the evening I strolled out into the town, and presently
found myself in the Great Plaza, an imposing square surrounded
on three sides by houses on arcades, and having on the fourth
side the Town-hall. This was brilliantly illuminated by a
number of enormous wax-candles in great sconces flaring in the
air, whilst a good military band played waltzes, and the people
soldiers and civilians, men, women, and children danced
merrily and vigorously in groups all about. Presently crossing
the Plaza from this noisy scene, I stumbled over a bundle on the
ground, and found it to be a couple of labourers who, having
been at work at the pavement, had made a bed of sand, covered
themselves over with a blanket, and had gone to sleep by the
side of their tools for the night, indifferent to all the noise and
excitement of the place !
Valladolid is a city of which I have very pleasant general
1 We put up at the Fonda de Paris, in the Plaza Sta. Ana a good inn,
kept by some natives of Bellinzona, who took a good deal of trouble for
me, and whose hotel may safely be recommended.
VALLADOLID 79
recollections,, but of which nevertheless the architecture is
nowhere of very great interest. It has the misfortune to have
a cathedral built by Herrera, only one or two early works,
several gorgeous examples of the richest late-pointed work,
and a multitude of examples of the works of Berruguete, Herrera,
and their followers. But the streets are picturesque and busy,
and have that unmistakably foreign aspect which is always so
pleasant to the traveller.
I need say but little of the Cathedral. Its design is said to
be the greatest work of Herrera (A.D. 1585); but a small portion
only of it has been completed. The complete plan is given by
Ponz. 1 It was to have been cruciform, with four towers at the
angles, four bays of nave, and four of choir, with aisles to both.
The stalls of the Coro were intended to be in the choir behind the
altar. There is a large cloister on the north side of the nave.
The nave of four bays, with its aisles and chapels on either side
of them, is all that is completed; and, large as it is, the parts
are all so colossal that there is not the impression of size that
there ought to be. The piers are some 60 feet from centre to
centre north and south, and 45 feet east and west; they carry
bold arches, above which runs a great cornice surmounted by
a white (plastered and panelled) groined ceiling, which contrasts
violently with the dark sombre grey of the stonework below.
These vaults are of red tile; and if the plaster were altogether
taken off, the vault covered with mosaic, and the mouldings
of the cornices carefully removed, the interior would really be
fine and impressive. Nothing, however, could ever cure the
hideous unsightliness of the exterior. Herrera's west front
was revised by Churriguera in the eighteenth century, and
cannot, therefore, be fairly criticised; but the side elevation
remains as Herrera designed it, and is really valuable as a
warning. Flying buttresses were, of course, an abomination; so
in their place he erected enormous solid buttresses above the
aisles to resist the thrust of the nave vault. They are shape-
less blocks of masonry projecting about forty feet from the
clerestory wall, and finished with a horrid concave line at the
top. However, it is only right to give Herrera his due, and
to say that after all he only did what Wren did at St. Paul's,
but had the courage and the honesty to let his deeds be seen,
instead of spending a vast sum, like Wren, in concealing them.
And again it is plain that he thought much more of the internal
effect of his church than of the external ; how unlike ourselves,
1 Viage de Espana, xi. 38.
8o GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
who but too often, if we can attract men to our new churches by
a smart spire or a picturesque exterior, seem to forget that we
must make the interior noble, winning, solemn, and instructive
too, if we would keep them there !
A few fragments of the old cathedral remain to the north-
east of the present church, but I could not obtain access to
them; and I think nothing now exists but a wall pierced with
one or two fourteenth-century windows.
Sta. Maria la Antigua the most attractive church, to my
mind, in Valladolid is close to the cathedral. It is so valuable
an example, and illustrates
so well some peculiarities of
Spanish architecture, that I
give an illustration of its
ground-plan. 1 It is of the
common parallel - triapsal
arrangement, and has a fine
western steeple, and a cloister
along the north wall. This
kind of cloister is of not
unfrequent occurrence : I
have already noticed one in
the convent at Las Huelgas ;
and there are two or three
churches at Segovia in which
also it is introduced. It
would seem to be an arrange-
ment expressly adopted to
suit a tropical climate, and
its effect is always very
good.
CLOISTER. LA ANTIGUA, VALLADOLID
The cloister here is walled up, and considerably defaced on the
north side; and on the south, if one ever existed, it has been
entirely destroyed. That on the north side is of three bays in
length, the western bay having four arches, and the others five.
The arches are semi-circular, with labels enriched with dog-tooth
ornament, and the shafts which carry them are moulded and
wrought in imitation of the coupled columns of early Italian
artists. Simple buttresses separate the bays, and there is a
corbel-table under the eaves. A bold round-arched doorway
opened at the west into this cloister.
The interior of this church is fine. It is groined throughout;
1 Plate III., p. 73.
VALLADOLID 81
and most of the groining has longitudinal (but not transverse)
ridge-ribs,, considerably arched in each bay, to suit the domical
section of the vaults. The western bay has the usual late
gallery for the Coro supported on a debased arch, and with
open tracery in its front, and the stalls and organ still remain
in it. The main columns are cylindrical in plan, and each sur-
rounded by eight attached shafts. The transepts are not at all
defined in the ground-plan, but are groined at the same level as
the nave. The abaci of the capitals are either square or octagonal
in plan. The groining has bold and well-moulded transverse
arches, and diagonal ribs of an ordinary thirteenth-century
section. In the apse of seven bays the vaults, for the greater
part of their height, are no thicker than the moulding of their
ribs, and are pierced with cuspecl circles in their spandrels, just
above the line of the springing of the windows, in the same
manner as at Palencia Cathedral. The clerestory seerns to have
been lighted with simple lancets, of which one only remains on
the south of the nave. Of the old furniture still existing I
noticed a good Retablo, partly carved and partly painted, in a
chapel on the south side of the choir, and another in the baptis-
tery opening into the south transept. 1 The steeple is the most
remarkable feature of the exterior, and from its great height
gives, in company with the similar steeple of San Martin, much
effect to many views of the city, which, with these exceptions,
has nothing to break its monotony. It rises three stages above
the roof, the lower stage having an arcaded window of two lights
on each face, the middle one of three lights, and the upper,
again, one of two lights. The arches are all semi-circular, and
are carried upon shafts. There are string-courses under each
window, and the abaci are also carried round the steeple as
string-courses of inferior scale. There are nook-shafts at the
angles, with caps and bases between each of the horizontal
string-courses. The upper string-course and the eaves-cornices
are carved with a dog-tooth ornament, and the others with a
billet mould. The steeple is finished with a low square spire,
covered with tiles, some green and some red, and each tile
1 The Retablo of the high altar is (except the figure of the Blessed Virgin)
a work of Juan de Juni (circa A.D. 1556-83). He had studied under
Michael Angelo, and was either an Italian or a Fleming. I am sorry to
differ from Mr. Ford as to the merits of this artist ; but I must say that I
never saw figures so violently twisted and distorted, so affected and un-
natural, or coloured decorations so gaudy and contemptible as those in
which he indulged. At the same time, his works are so characteristic of
his period and school as to deserve examination, even if they provoke
contempt.
I F
82 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
made of a pointed shape, so as to form a series of scallops.
This steeple is of the same date as the cloister and lower part
of the church probably circa A.D. 1180-1200; but the east end
of the church is evidently a work of later date, being much
more advanced in style, and corresponding exactly in some
respects with the upper part of the transepts and clerestory
of Burgos Cathedral. The windows have three engaged jamb-
shafts, with square capitals. The tracery has soffit-cusping,
and there is a peculiarity here which is seen also in the clerestory
at Burgos. The arches of the lights and the circle above them
are only chamfered on one side, and their fillets do not mitre at
the junction; it looks, consequently, as though the circle were
merely put in loosely on the back of the arched heads to the
lights, without being in any way connected with them. I
need not say that the effect is not good : it has the appearance
of being the work of men who did not quite understand what
they were about; and, though I know of no example of the
same thing in England or France, it is not uncommonly seen
in the thirteenth and fourteenth century works of the Italian
architects. It is, however, impossible to charge the architect
of this apse with the indifference to, or ignorance of, other
examples of the same age which marked the Italians, for in
every other respect his work is as good as possible of its kind.
The pinnacles marking the junction of the apse with the choir
are very fine. They are hexagonal below, but, with admirable
effect, are covered with circular stone spires, enriched by delicate
crockets of the same fashion as those at Burgos, illustrated at
p. 29, and the springing of the spirelet is marked by small
pinnacles. The external roofs have been altered in accordance
with the invariable custom, and at the east end they now par-
tially obscure the old pierced parapets which fill the spaces
between the pinnacles of the apse. The south transept had a
rose-window, which is now blocked up, and the open parapet
of the choir was continued round it. This side of the church is
now much built against, and concealed by houses, the north
side being quite open. I ought not to forget that there is a good
sacristy at the north-east angle of the church, and of the same
date as the choir (n).
Sagrador y Vitores l says that this church was founded by
Don Pedro Ansurez and Dona Eylo his wife, in the latter part
of the eleventh century, and rebuilt by King Don Alonso XI.
I confess I cannot reconcile these dates (for which no author-
1 Historia de Valladolid, ii. 181.
VALLADOLID 83
ities are given) with the existing building. The earlier portions
of the work hardly seem to be so early in date as the eleventh
century; and the later alterations are so identical in character
with work of which we know the age in the thirteenth century
that it is almost impossible they should belong to the time of
Alonso XI. (A.D. 1350-69). The reign of Alonso IX. (A.D.
1230-44) would have been a more likely date (12).
The church of San Martin,, near Sta. Maria, has been rebuilt
(13), with the exception only of its steeple, which is a fine example,
very similar to that of Sta. Maria, though, no doubt, of rather
later date. The arches here are pointed, in place of round, as
they are in the other example ; the two upper stages are arranged
just as they are there, and the lower stage has a two-light
window, with its tracery contrived in a similar way to the apse
windows of that church. San Martin is said to have been
founded in A.D. U48, 1 and the earliest part of the steeple may
probably be of this age, though I do not think it can have been
completed earlier than about A.D. 1250.
Both these steeples bear unmistakable marks of Lombard
influence. The absence of buttresses, the repetition of very
nearly similar stages one over the other, and the multitude of
horizontal string-courses, are all features of constant occurrence
in Italy; and it will be sufficient to mention such an example
as the steeple of Lucca Cathedral, as, among others, illustrating
this similarity very remarkably.
There is not, so far as I could see or learn, any other work of
early date in Valladolid ; but, on the other hand, the city is rich
in works of the latest Gothic, some of which are exceedingly
sumptuous, and among the finest of their kind; and they are so
characteristic of Spanish art albeit they are undoubtedly
derived from German sources that it would be unpardonable
to pass them by without notice. At the same time it is luxury
of ornamentation, profusion of labour, marvellous manual skill
and dexterity, rather than real art, which we see displayed in all
the works of this school; and, attractive as these often are to
the uneducated eye, they are almost offensive to one who has
learnt ever so little to look for true art first and above all in all
works of architecture, and to regard mere excellence of workman-
ship as of altogether secondary importance.
The most remarkable of these works are the churches of
San Pablo, San Benito, La Magdalena, and the colleges of San
Gregorio and Sta. Cruz, which last is now converted into a
1 Sagrador y Vitores, Hist, de Valladolid, ii. 186.
84 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
museum. Their dates are all known very exactly, and the
following facts relating to them may as well be recorded.
San Pablo was commenced by Cardinal Don Juan Torque-
mada, and completed in A.D. I463. 1 It is said by some to be the
work of Juan and Simon de Colonia, but I can find no proof of
this statement, though I think that the elaborate facade may
possibly be the work of the artists Gil de Siloe or Diego de la
Cruz, who wrought under Juan de Colonia and his son at the
monuments and Retablo in the convent at Miraflores.
The first stone of the college of San Gregorio was laid in A.D.
1488, and it was finished in A.D. 1496? The architect is said
to have been Macias Carpintero of Medina del Campo; but
as he cut his own throat in i49o, 3 some other architect or
sculptor must have completed the work.
The monastery of San Benito was founded by King Don
Juan, who obtained a Bull from Pope Clement VII. , on Dec. 28,
1389, for the purpose. But the existing church was erected
more than a century later, by Juan de Arandia (probably a
Biscayan architect), who began his work in A.D. 1499. He
agreed to execute the nave and one aisle for 1,460,000 mara-
vedis, and afterwards the other aisle for 500,000. The Retablo
and the stalls were the work of Berruguete, between A.D. 1526
and 1532, and are now preserved in the museum.
The college of Sta. Cruz was founded in A.D. 1480, and com-
pleted in A.D. 1492, and was designed by Enrique de Egas, 4
son of Anequin de Egas of Brussels.
The church of La Magdalena appears, by extracts from the
archives of the Marquis de Resilla, to have been planned by
Rodrigo Gil, of Salamanca. By a contract, dated June 14,
1576, he undertook the erection of the Capilla mayor and sacristy
for 4,000,000 maravedis, whilst the " master of the works,"
Francisco del Rio, by an agreement of October n, 1570, agreed
to build the tower and body of the church according to Rodrigo
Gil's plan, for 6400 ducats.
Having given these details of their history, I must now say a
few words about the buildings themselves.
Going from the great Plaza de la Constitucion down a narrow
1 Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Lsp. i. 109.
2 Sagrador y Vitores, Hist, de Valladolid, ii. 263-268.
3 Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Esp. i. 128.
4 Enrique de Egas built the Hospital of Sta. Cruz, at Toledo, between
1504 and 1514. His work at Valladolid is still half Gothic; a few years
later, at Toledo, it is completely Renaissance in style. It is seldom that we
can trace this radical change of style in the work of the same man.
VALLADOLID 85
street to the north, we soon came out on another large irregular
open place, frequented chiefly by second-hand clothesmen, whose
wares would be deemed bad even in Houndsditch, and whose
wont it seems to be to induce their customers to make complete
changes of their apparel behind scanty screenworks of cloths.
At the angle of the further side of this Plaza is the grand church
and convent of San Benito (14). The monks are, of course,
all gone, as they are everywhere in Catholic Spain, and the
convent is turned into a barrack; the church is left open, but
unused, and the more valuable portions of its furniture, its stalls
and Retablos, have been carried away for exhibition in another
religious house, now used as a museum! Valladolid seems to
have been a city of religious houses; and when the revolution,
following on civil wars, made so clean a sweep of religious
orders, that not only does one see no monks, but even Sisters
of Mercy are scarcely ever met, 1 there was nothing, I suppose,
to be done but to convert these buildings to the first miserable
purpose that suggested itself; and we ought perhaps to be
thankful when we find a church like San Benito simply desolate
and unused, and not converted to some purely secular use.
The ground-plan of the church is given on Plate III. (p. 73).
At the west end are the remains of a tower, which seems never to
have been completed, and which, though of vast size, is so poor,
tame, and bald in detail, that it could hardly have produced a
successful effect if it had been finished. The whole design of
the exterior of the church is extremely uninteresting; but the
interior is much more impressive, being fine, lofty, and groined,
and lighted chiefly by large clerestory windows, aided by others
high up in the aisle- walls. The groining is all very domical
in section, and rather rich in ribs; and the grand scale of the
whole work, and the simplicity of the piers cylinders with eight
engaged shafts round them contribute to produce something
of the effect of a building of earlier date. The bases of the
columns are of enormous height from the floor, and their caps
are'generally carved with stiff foliage. Several altars, monuments,
and chapels have been inserted between the buttresses of the
north wall; and there is one old tomb on the north side of the
high altar, with a sculpture of the Crucifixion. The buttresses
on the exterior all rise out of a continuous weathered basement,
and there is no variety in their design in any part.
1 Little meets the eye, but still I have had several new establishments of
regular clergy pointed out to me, and the Church in Spain is already, no
doubt, regaining something of what she has lost in revolutions and wars (15).
86 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
The ritual arrangements deserve a few words of description.
There are six steps up from the nave to the altar, and there is an
ambon on each side of them entered from the altar side. There
is a stalled western gallery, with an organ on its south side, of
late mediaeval design, but apparently an insertion, and not
erected at the same time as the Coro. Beside the gallery Coro,
there is a second Coro on the floor, with screens round it on the
north, south, and west sides, which are evidently not original,
being mere brick walls. A metal screen extends all across the
nave and aisles at the east of the Coro; and there are gates,
not only in these, but also in the screen on the west side of the
Coro, which, it will be remembered, is an unusual arrangement
at this late date. The large organ is on the north side of the
Coro, and of the same date as the woodwork of the stalls. The
good people of Valladolid, who seem to feel inordinately proud
of all that Berruguete did, have carried off the stalls to the
museum. They are much praised by Mr. Ford, but for what
reason I endeavoured in vain to discover. Their sculpture
appeared to me to be contemptible, and mainly noticeable for
woolly dumplings in place of draperies, and for the way in
which the figures are sculptured, standing insecurely on their
feet, dwarfed in stature, altogether inexpressive in their faces,
out of drawing, and wholly deficient in energy or life. There
were also three great Retablos to the principal altars at the ends
of the aisles. The Renaissance frames of these are mostly in
situ, but the sculptures have all been taken, with the stalls, to
the museum, where they cumber the little chapel in the most
uncouth fashion. I never saw such contemptible work; yet
Mr. Ford calls this work 1 " the chef-d'ceuvrc of Berruguete, circa
1526-32." I can only say that the architecture is bad, the
sculpture is bad, and the detail is bad ; that all three are bad of
their kind, and that their kind is the worst possible. 2 It is in
truth the ugliest specimen of the imbecility and conceit which
usually characterise inferior Renaissance work that I ever saw.
The whole of the figures are strained and distorted in the most
violent way, and fenced in by columns which look like bed-
posts, with entablatures planned in all sorts of new and original
ways and angles. I have no patience with such work, and it is
inconceivable how a man who has once done anything which,
1 Handbook of Spain, ii. 572.
2 Berruguete was not dissatisfied with his work. In a letter from him
to Andres de Najera (given by Sagrador y Vitores in his History of Valla-
dolid, ii. 257) he expresses his own extreme satisfaction in the most
unreserved way.
VALLADOLID 87
from almost every point of view., is so demonstrably bad, can
have preserved any reputation whatever, even among his own
people. It is a curious illustration, however, of the singular
extent to which both Gothic and Renaissance were being
wrought at the same time in Spain; for at the time he did
this work, in which not a trace of Gothic feeling or skill remained,
other men at Salamanca, Zaragoza, and elsewhere, were still
building in late Gothic, and some buildings were still more than
half Gothic which were not erected for at least fifty years later.
A short walk from San Benito leads to another Plaza, on one
of which is the west front of San Pablo, whilst the great convent
of San Gregorio is on its south side (16).
I could not find any means of getting into San Pablo (17), and
am uncertain whether it is in use or desecrated. Its facade is a
repetition, on a large scale, of work like that of Juan and Simon
de Colonia who are said to have been the architects employed
in the chapel monuments at Miraflores. Armorial bearings
have much more than their due prominence, mouldings are
attentuated, every bit of wall is covered with carving or tracery,
and such tricks are played with arches of all shapes, that,
though they are ingenious, they are hardly worth describing.
The western doorway is fringed with kneeling angels for crockets,
and there are large and small statues of saints against the wall
on either side of it. Above is the Coronation of the Blessed
Virgin, with S. John the Baptist on one side, and the kneeling
founder on the other, flanked by angels carrying armorial
achievements. Above, in the centre, is our Lord seated,
S. Peter and S. Paul on either side, and the four Evangelists
seated at desks, and instructed by angels. Every vacant space
seems to have a couple of angels holding coats-of-arms, so that
it is impossible not to feel that the sculptor and the founder
must have had some idea of heaven as peopled by none with
less than a proper number of quarterings on their shields, or
without claim to the possession of Sangre Azul. I must not
forget to say of this work that, though its scheme is displeasing
and Retablo-like, its execution is wonderful, and the merit of
the detail of many parts of it very great.
The facade of San Gregorio is a long lofty wall, pierced with
small ogee-headed windows, and finished with a quaint, carved,
and pinnacled parapet; in the centre is the entrance gateway,
corresponding pretty much in its detail with the front of San
Pablo, but even more extremely heraldic in its decorations.
The doorway is a square opening under a segmental arch, with
88 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
an ogee-trefoiled canopy above. Full-length statues of hairy
unclad savages on either side may have a meaning which I
failed to discover; to me they looked simply uncouth and rude.
The canopy over the doorway runs up and forms a great heraldic
tree, with an enormous coat-of-arms and supporters in the
centre. The finish at the top is one of those open-work conceits
of interlacing pierced cusping, which looks like nothing better
than a collection of twigs.
The sculpture on this doorway is altogether inferior in its
character to that of the doorway of San Pablo. The convent is
now,, I believe, a barrack, and the sentry refused me admission ;
but I saw a picturesque court open in the centre, with the usual
galleries round it, supported on columns, the wooden ceiling of
the passage being painted (18).
The church of la Magdalena does not look so late in date
as the documentary evidence seems to prove that it is ; but it is
late enough to be most uninteresting. The west front is the ne
plus ultra of heraldic absurdity, being entirely occupied with an
enormous coat-of-arms and its adjuncts.
Close to the east end of this church is a Moorish archway of
brick, a picturesque and rather graceful work (19). It owes not
a little of its effect to the shape of the bricks, which are 7 in.
wide by ii in. long by i| in. thick, and to the enormous quantity
of mortar used, the joints being not less than an inch wide. 1 The
ruggedness and picturesque effect of work done in this way is
much greater than that of the smooth, neat walls badly built of
necessity where there is not much mortar used of our modern
buildings.
The Museum is housed in the old college of Sta. Cruz, close
to the University, and near to the Cathedral. It is a building
of a class whose name is legion in these parts. It encloses a
central court surrounded by cloisters, above which there are
open arcades all round on each of the three floors, traceried
balustrades occupying the spaces between their columns, and the
rooms being all entered from these cloister-like open passages.
With good detail such an arrangement might easily be made very
attractive; but I saw no example in any but the very latest
style of Gothic. The contents of the Museum are most unin-
teresting. There are three paintings said to be by Rubens, but
they seemed to me to have been much damaged; and the rest
1 The remarkable brick buildings of Toulouse and its neighbourhood are
similarly constructed; so, too, are those not less remarkable works at
Liibeck and elsewhere in the north of Germany.
VALLADOLID 89
of the pictures are unmixed rubbish. There is a large collection
of figures and subjects from sculptured Retablos, all of which
are extravagant and strained in their attitudes to the most
painful degree. I have already referred to some of Berruguete's
work preserved here, and the rest is mostly of about the same low
degree of merit (20).
The Library, which appeared to have many valuable books,
is a large room, well kept and well filled, with a librarian very
ready to show it to strangers.
The University is a cold work of Herrera the coldest of
Spanish architects. Mr. Ford mentions an old gateway in it;
but I could not find it (21).
I spent one day only in Valladolid ; but this is ample for seeing
all its architectural features. It is one of those cities which
was too rich and prosperous during an age of much work and
little taste, and where, though Berruguete and Herrera may be
studied by those who think such labour desirable, very little
mediaeval architecture of any real value is to be seen. Yet as a
modern city it is in parts gay and attractive, being after Madrid
the most important city of the North of Spain. Its suburbs
are less cheerful, for here one lights constantly on some dese-
crated church or ruined building, which recalls to mind the vast
difference between the Valladolid of to-day a mere provincial
town and the Valladolid of two centuries ago, for a short time
the capital of Spain.
NOTES
(1) Sen or Lamperez gives some fresh matter, showing a change of
plan, which explains all that Street found unsatisfactory. It may be
summarised thus: the crypt is Visigothic; the church was begun
in 1321 by Bishop John II., and 1424 is the date of the vaults of apse
and chapels, of the first bay westward and the second bay of aisles,
Isabrante being the master of the works and getting so far as to
build a kind of transept just west of the apse. After 1424 came the
idea of making something bigger, with a new transept. All the last
part was began before 1450. The transept portals were done in the
time of Bishop Alonso of Burgos (1485-9); by 1516 were finished
the vaults, cloister, and chapter -room.
(2) The cloisters are now all built up.
(3) The cathedral possesses a number of good early paintings and
retables. Since a fine early painting (as I learn from a gentleman of
Palencia) was quietly sold not long ago by the chapter, it may be
worth setting down a list of those still in position. On the south
90 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
pier of the apse a bishop and donor; east of the parroquia a Mag
dalen borne up to heaven; and against the south side of the coro
a wreck of a beautiful triptych of the Visitation and SS. Andrew
and Lawrence with a donor, in the wings SS. Stephen and John
Baptist. The Madonna is heavy, but the S. Elizabeth has a beauti-
ful thin Spanish face and old knotted hands. A lovely Flemish
triptych on the trascoro, by Juan de Holanda, has an unusual
treatment for the central panel, of the Madonna Dolorosa sup-
ported by S. John. The best of the carved retables are: at the
altar mayor and in the old apse chapel; in the first ambulatory
chapels, both north and south; in that just north of the Lady
Chapel, a French-looking Madonna; in the chapel next to it, S.
Roch and S. Anne, under shrines at the two sides, and behind a sad
statue and gilt glory, in the centre, apparently three good
paintings and two reliefs; in the next to last chapel of the north
aisle a fine altar-piece. I have not succeeded in finding out about
any of these, except in that 1505 Alejo de Vahia modelled the SS.
John and Mary Magdalen of the " great retable," and in 1522 Pedro
de Guadelupe and Pedro Manso made the retable of the capilla de
las cur as, i.e., the original Capilla Mayor, now the parroquia. The
former of these, dedicated to S. Antolin, is better than most things
of the sort, with much blue and scarlet in the painting, which goes
well with the carving of gold and dun.
(4) The sculptures of this portal are far more ruined now.
(5) In San Francesco the west window has been restored with a
regular wheel-window of sixteen cusped arches; at the east end
I found a narrow transept with doorways north and south, and a
central apse of two bays opening into two smaller side apses. The
cloister across the front has much grace; a barrel-vault of four bays
rests on great arches, between which pairs of arches are carried on
coupled shafts; the spacing, mouldings, and capitals all good. Out-
side, a little nun's garden, full of cabbage roses and white lilies,
runs up to a square, trim enough, with green benches and round
acacias, evergreens and japonicas, proof against snow and sun.
As in so many Spanish towns, the market has been moved to a
horrible iron erection around the corner as great a blot on the
town as gas-works could be.
(6) Santa Clara, however, has a fine flamboyant window over the
door and just below the roof a curious series of pierced stone grilles
which must be inherited from the Moors, replacing the usual wooden
lattice at the top of a convent. Founded in 1378 by the Admiral
of Castile, Don Alfonso Enriquez, and his wife, Dona Juana de
Mendoza, it is strict Spanish-Gothic of the fourteenth century,
before the German and Burgundian invasion. The plan is a Greek
cross, like Spanish churches of the seventh to the tenth century, and
the bays which fill up the corners of the cross are vaulted at a lower
level. The three parallel apses are polygonal and the traceries and
ornaments are far more vigorous than French flamboyant. The
church may be entered at all hours by going through a gate to the
east of the apses, past these and through a very humble court and
convent porch, where good wives gossip at the turning-box, around
to a door in the south transept.
VALLADOLID 91
(7) S. Lazarus, closed.
(8) Walls and gates, though described in Espana as late as 1885,
are all gone.
(9) One of these is San Pablo, the other I could not identify,
though there are churches enough in Valencia. I was sorry not to
stay long enough to visit San Martin de Fromista, 1066, which
Senor Lamperez mentions as one of the earliest examples of French
Romanesque in Castile, with three apses and a lantern. It looks
very perfect in style, though it has lately been restored.
(10) San Juan de Banos. Venta de Baflos is the junction for
anywhere in northern Spain, and the station restaurant is good, and
so are the beds above stairs; but merely between trains it is possible
to visit the little village of Banos, out in the plain, half an hour's walk
away. San Juan de Banos, on the opposite edge of the village,
is indisputably Visigothic, built by Recesivintho, 661. It has a
nave and aisles divided by four horse-shoe arches on columns, with
a clerestory high up, and sloping timber roofs. The openings of the
clerestory, the ajimez window in the west gable, and that in the
central apse, are filled with pierced stone tracery. Of the three
parallel apses, square at the east, the central one has a great barrel
vault, those at the sides quadripartite; on the outer walls of these
remain plain marks of the springing of other barrel vaults to north-
ward and southward. The apses and the deep western porch show
the horse-shoe arch, the capitals are a crude modification of the
acanthus. The problems here are many, and the recent restoration
has not helped them. Was the original church a five-aisled basilica
with five parallel apses, and if so how did the intermediate ones get
their vaults ? Or were the three apses arranged like the prongs of a
trident and the spaces filled in later ? The narrow western porch is
common enough in early Spanish churches of the north-west, but a
portico entirely around the nave (west of an hypothetical transept)
has been conjectured. M. Camilje Enlart boldly says that the
moulding on the north side belongs to the twelfth or thirteenth
century and the church is not so old as Spaniards believe.
(n) Santa Maria la Antigua is undergoing restoration; the
cloister has been cleared out and reveals a fine pointed door at each
end; the houses on the south side are pulled down, the inside is
stayed with beams and iron rods, and the sacristy is inaccessible.
The retable of the altar mayor is very bad, every one too big for
his niche and doubled up to get in. The painted one in the south
apse has much charm in its use of gold and scarlet and its naive
sweetness of landscape. The niche which once probably held
La Antigua herself is empty, but a statue of the Madonna and
Child above is still in place. In the six scenes from the early life
of the Blessed Virgin, S. Anne is beautiful as an ecstatic nun. The
south chapel, furthermore, keeps a battered altar-piece patched up
out of several, the best panel a Madonna and Child from the early
Sienese.
(12) Senor Lamperez, however, says that in the building of the four-
teenth century are remains of that of the twelfth. D. Jose Maria
Quadrado x says that it was beerun on the same day with S, Mary
1 Espana.
92 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
Major (the cathedral, dedicated May 21, 1095) f r the parroquia
of the palace of the count; that it was seven years old in 1088;
and that Alphonso XI. re-made it, raising transepts and nave and
vaulting it.
(13) In 1621. l
(14) San Benito was locked up when I visited Valladolid, and the
soldiers doing duty and loafing about the barrack gate, while civil
as possible, seemed not to know where or if I could find any one to
produce the keys. I never found any one.
(15) It would be hard to fancy the church more prosperous or the
clergy more familiar than to-day in Spain. One consequence of this
I have already touched in a note on Palencia that the treasures, not
only of early painting, but even of a master like Greco., are being
sold out of Spain silently, but very fast; of another I shall have to
speak when I come to the burning of S. Anthony Abbot in Barce-
lona, a few years ago.
(16) San Gregorio lies east of San Pablo, on a street that runs from
the south side of the square.
(17) San Pablo, in use now and completely restored, has five bays
of very elaborate groining, rich doorways on the inside faces of the
transepts, in the style of the fa9ade but rather better, and three
parallel apses.
(18) The convent is now, apparently, used for government or
municipal offices, and the two courts stand quite open. The larger
one has twisted columns below, rather like those at Guadalajara and
Alcala, a fine artcsonado ceiling to the great stair, and some charming
late Gothic doorways, and windows cobwebbed over with tracery.
(19) This has been cleared away, I think, to leave the desolate
open ground that lies north of La Maddalena.
(20) At present the top floor houses the Archaeological Museum ;
at least ten early altar-pieces, or panels from such, have real interest,
and some of them great charm. A Gothic retable from San Fran-
cisco de Cecera shows types and dress northern, but copied with
such crude realisms as the Madonna's hair stringing down around
her face, painted straight from a girl. The many scenes of a large
retable of S. Jerome are still set in its original Perpendicular
frame, and are enchanting for colour, humour, and action the monk
crawling under a bed on the lion's approach, the lion himself eating a.
leg of mutton in a corner of S. Jerome's study. A pair of later side-
panels of SS. Isidore and Leander, in churches almost classical,
are golden and Sevillian. Of an odd panel of S. Anthony of Padua,
composed like a Madonna with the book and the Holy Child, the
donors are two brothers, one secular, the other a friar. Another
friar and his mother are the donors of a S. Anne enthroned without
any splendours, holding her little girl on her knee, who holds in
turn a child like a Dutch doll. An inscription lettered upon the
tiles of the floor baffled me, but it certainly begins, " La mia
obra ..." The drapery is simple, the colour flat, the flesh grey
full of character and a kind of austere beauty. As much beauty
of a sort more urbane is in the figures of S. Louis of Toulouse and
another bishop enthroned, one in a loggia and the other in an oriel
1 Espana.
VALLADOLID 93
with windows opening on a landscape. With these may belong two
pairs of saints, SS. Andrew and James, more interesting than SS.
Paul and Peter, in which the landscapes are still French and the
persons very Spanish. All these, from S. Anthony of Padua,
are late quattrocento, of the school of Castile, and are probably from
a single admirable retable. As for the sculptures on the ground floor,
the sensations they arouse are as violent and uncomfortable as if one
were shut up with a gigantic Punch and Judy show suddenly come
to life in all its wooden and wiry frenzy.
(21) I heard from a Spaniard of a fifteenth-century gateway, but
the university is re-building and I could not get to it.
CHAPTER IV
SALAMANCA ZAMORA BENAVENTE
THE long dreary road which leads over the corn-growing plain
from Medina del Campo is at last relieved some two or three
miles before Salamanca is reached by the view of its imposing
group of steeples and domes, which rise gradually over the low
hills on the northern side. The long line of walls (i) round the
city still in part remains, but seems daily to be falling more and
more to decay, and indeed generally all its grand buildings speak
rather of death than of life. Few even of Spanish towns seem
to have suffered more at the hands of the French during the
Peninsular war than did Salamanca, and we ought not perhaps
to be surprised if its old prosperity comes but slowly back again
to it.
The public buildings here are generally grandiose and imposing ;
but almost all of them are of the period of the Renaissance,
and there are no very remarkable examples of this bad age.
Still when they were perfect there must have been a certain
stateliness about them, befitting the importance of a great
university.
The main objects of attraction to me were the two cathedrals,
the one grand and new, of the sixteenth century, by whose side
and as it were under whose wing nestles the smaller but most
precious old cathedral of the twelfth century, fortunately pre-
served almost intact when the new one was erected, and still
carefully maintained, though, I believe, very seldom used for
service. The remarkable relative positions of these two cathedrals
will be readily understood by the accompanying ground-plan, 1
in which, as will be seen, the vast bulk of the later church quite
overwhelms the modest dimensions of the earlier. I know
indeed few spots, if any, in which the importance, or the con-
trary, of mere size in architecture can be better tested than here.
Most educated artists would, I dare say, agree with me in rating
size as the lowest of all really artistic qualities in architecture;
and here we find that the small and insignificant old church
produces as good an effect as the large and boastfully ambitious
1 Plate IV., p. 104.
94
SALAMANCA 95
new one, though its dimensions are altogether inferior. This is
owing to the subdivision of parts, and to the valuable simplicity
which so markedly characterises them. On the other hand, it
would be wrong to forget that from another point of view mere
size is of the primest importance, for we may well feel, when we
compare, for instance, an extremely lofty church with one of
very modest height, that in the former there is on the part of the
founders an evident act of sacrifice, whilst in the latter their
thoughts have possibly never risen above the merest utilitarian-
ism; and it would be a spirit entirely dead to all religious
impressions that could regard such an act of sacrifice otherwise
than with extreme admiration.
The foundation of the first of these two cathedrals may be
fixed, I think, with a fair approach to certainty, as being some
time in the twelfth century. It was at this time, soon after the
city had been regained from the Moors, in A.D. 1095, that
Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo, himself a Frenchman, brought
many other Frenchmen into Spain, and through his great influ-
ence procured their appointment to various sees a fact which I
may say, in passing, suggests much in regard to the origin of
the churches which they built. Among the French ecclesiastics
so promoted was Geronimo Visquio, 1 a native of Perigord, who
was for a long time the great friend and close companion of the
Cid Rodrigo Diaz, and confessor to him and Dona Ximena his
wife. On the Cid's death he brought his body from Valencia to
the monastery of Cardena, near Burgos, and there dwelt till
Count Ramon and Dona Urraca made him Bishop of Salamanca.
Gil Gonzalez Davila 2 says that at this time the church was
founded, and Cean Bermudez adds some documentary evidence
as to privileges conceded to its chapter for the works about this
time by Count Ramon. 3 In A.D. 1178 a priest Don Miguel
of San Juan, Medina del Campo made a bequest to the Chapter
of his property for the work of the cloister, and we may
fairly assume, therefore, that before this date the church
itself was completed. The new cathedral was not commenced
until A.D. 1513, and of this I need not now speak; but in an
inscription on it, which records its consecration in A.D. 1560,
the first mass is related to have been said in the old cathedral
four hundred and sixty years before, i.e. in A.D. noo. 4 This
1 It is doubtful whether this surname is correct, and whether it is not old
Spanish for " Vixit " in the inscription on his tomb. Ford, Handbook, 521.
2 Teatro Eccl. iii. 236-238. 3 Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Esp. i. 21.
4 G. G. Davila, Teat. Eccl. iii. 344.
96 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
probably was only a tradition; but it may fairly be taken to
point to the twelfth century as that in which the cathedral was
built.
This early church is, it will be seen/ cruciform,, with three
eastern apses, a nave and aisles of five bays, and a dome or lan-
tern over the crossing. There is a deep western porch, and I
think it probable that there were originally towers on either side
of this . The church has been wonderfully little altered, save that
its north wall has been taken down in order to allow of the erec-
tion of the new cathedral, and at the same time the arch under
the northern part of the central lantern or dome was also under-
built. In other respects the church is almost untouched, and
bears every mark of having been in progress during the greater
part of the twelfth century.
There is no provision in the plan of the main piers for carrying
the diagonal groining ribs, and it may be, therefore, that when
they were first planned it was not intended to groin the nave.
The groining-ribs are now carried on corbels, in front of which
were statues, only two or three of which, however, now remain
in their places. 2 The vaulting throughout is quadripartite in
the arrangement of the ribs ; but the vaults of the three western
bays of the nave, of the south transept, and of the aisles are con-
structed as domes, with the stones all arranged in concentric
lines, but with ribs crossing their undersides; the two eastern
bays of the nave have quadripartite groining, planned in the
common way. The apses have semi-domes. The main arches
everywhere are pointed, those of the windows semi-circular, and
the capitals throughout are elaborately carved, either with
foliage or groups of coupled monsters or birds, a very favourite
device of the early Spanish sculptors (2).
The most interesting feature in this old cathedral still remains
to be mentioned: this is the dome over the crossing. The
remainder of the original fabric is bold, vigorous, and massive,
well justifying the line in an old saying about the Spanish
cathedrals, " Fortis Salmantina; " but still it is merely a good
example of a class of work, of which other examples on a grander
scale are to be met with elsewhere. Not so, however, the dome;
for here we have a rare feature treated with rare success, and,
so far as I know, with complete originality. The French
domed churches, such as S. Front, Perigueux, and others of
1 Plate IV., p. 104.
2 The statues at the angles of the lantern are of our Lord, the B. V. M.
an angel, and a bishop.
SALAMANCA OLD CATHEDRAL
INTERIOR OF LANTERN, LOOKING EAST
98 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
the same class, Notre Dame du Port, Clermont, and Notre
Dame, le Puy, have, it is true, domes, but these are all commenced
immediately above the pendentives or arches which carry them.
The lack of light in their interiors is consequently a great defect,
and those which I have seen have always seemed to me to
have something dark, savage, and repulsive in their character.
And it was here that the architect of Salamanca Cathedral
showed his extreme skill, for, instead o the common low form of
dome, he raised his upon a stage arcaded all round inside and
out, pierced it with windows, and then, to resist the pressure of
his vault, built against the external angles four great circular
pinnacles.
The effect of his work both inside and out is admirable. It is
divided into sixteen compartments by bold shafts, which carry
the groining ribs; and three of these divisions over each of the
cardinal sides are pierced as windows. The other four occur
where the turrets on the exterior make it impossible to obtain
light. These arcades form two stages in height between the
pendentives and the vault. The vault is hardly to be called a
real dome, having a series of ribs on its under side, nor does the
external covering follow the same curve as the internal, but with
admirable judgment it is raised so much as to have rather the
effect of a very low spire, with a considerable entasis, than of a
regular dome. The exterior angles have lines of simple and
boldly contrived crockets, and the stones with which it is covered
seem all to have been cut with scallops on their lower edge.
The stonework of the exterior is much decayed, but otherwise
the whole work stands well and firmly.
My drawings explain better than any written description can
the various details of the design; but I may well call attention
to the admirable treatment of the gables over the windows on
the cardinal sides of the dome. No doubt they answer the same
purpose as the circular turrets at the angles in providing a coun-
terpoise to the thrust of the vault, and the change from the
circular lines of the angle turrets to the sharp straight lines of
these gables is among the happiest efforts of art. So again I
ought to notice the contrast between the shafted windows, with
their springing lines definitely and accurately marked by sculp-
tured capitals, and the openings in the turrets, with their con-
tinuous mouldings. The value of contrast a treasure in the
hands of the real artist is here consciously and most artistically
exhibited; and it was no mean artist who could venture to
make so unsparing a use of architectural ornamentation without
SALAMANCA OLD CATHEDRAL
EXTERIOR OF LANTERN
ioo GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
producing any sense of surfeit on those who look at his work
even with the most critical eyes.
I have seldom seen any central lantern more thoroughly
good and effective from every point of view than this is: it
seems indeed to solve, better than the lantern of any church I
have yet seen elsewhere, the question of the introduction of the
dome to Gothic churches. The lofty pierced tambour, and the
exquisite effect of light admitted at so great a height from the
floor, are features which it is not, I believe, vain to hope we may
see emulated ere long in some modern work. But in any such
attempt it must be borne well in mind that, though the scale
of this work is very moderate, its solidity and firmness are exces-
sive, and that thus only is it that it maintains that dignified
manliness of architectural character which so very few of our
modern architects ever seem even to strive for.
From all points, too, this lantern groups admirably with the
rest of the church. My sketch was taken from the west end of
the nave roof, in order to show the detail of the work to a fair
scale; but the best view on the whole is that from the south-
east, where it groups with the fine exterior of the eastern apses,
with their engaged columns and rich corbel-tables, and with a
turret to the east of the transept, which has been carried up and
finished rather prettily in the fourteenth century with a short
spire, with spire-lights on each side of its hexagonal base.
The old corbel-tables under the eaves remain throughout the
east end; but the wall has been raised above them with a line
of pierced quatrefoils, over which the rough timbers of the roof
project. No doubt here, as we shall find in some other examples,
the original intention was to have a stone roof of rather flat pitch.
The space between the eaves of the chancel and the lower
windows of the lantern would admit of no more than this; and
though there is a good deal of piquant effect in the line of dark
pierced traceries under the eaves and the rough tiled roof above
them, one cannot but regret very much the change from the
original design in so important a part of the work. The eaves-
cornices are carved with a very rich variety of billet moulding,
and carried upon corbels, some of which are carved and some
moulded. The walls generally have flat pilasters at short inter-
vals, finishing under the eaves-cornices, and the principal apse
has the common arrangement of three-quarter engaged shafts
dividing it into three bays. The window-arches are boldly
moulded and carved, but the lights are narrow, and those in the
mam apse are remarkable for the delicate intricacy of the con-
SALAMANCA 101
temporary iron grilles with which they are guarded genuine
laborious smith's work, utterly unlike the poor modern efforts
with which in these days men earn fame without using their
hammers ! (3) The effect here of the intricate curved lines, re-
lieved by the dark shadow of the window opening, is charming. It
may fairly be doubted, I think, whether these windows were
ever meant to be glazed. In the transept pointed relieving
arches are built over the windows, and one of them is a good
example of the joggling of the joints of stonework, not uncom-
monly seen in early flat arches, but the use of which is not
very obvious in a high pointed arch. The smaller apses have
only one window, and are lower in proportion to the principal
apse than is usually the case.
There are some fine monuments (4) in the south transept, all of
them adorned with elaborate bas-reliefs of scriptural subjects.
One, of the thirteenth century, has a tomb supported on lions,
and a death-bed represented on its side; a little apsidal recess
above is groined with a semi-dome, with ribs. Another has
sculptures of the Crucifixion, the Entombment, the Maries going
to the Sepulchre, and the " Noli me tangere; " and a third has
another representation of a death-bed. The effigies are all
slightly tilted outwards, and those in the east wall have their
feet to the north. The most remarkable features in the decora-
tion of the church are, however, the Retablo and the painting
on the semi-dome above it. On the vault the Last Judgment
is painted, our Lord being drawn much in the famous attitude of
S. Michael in Orcagna's fresco at Pisa, and without drapery. The
Retablo is a work of the fourteenth century, of wood, and planned
so as exactly to fit the curve of the apse wall. It is divided into
five panels in height and eleven in width, so that there are fifty-
five subjects, each surrounded by an architectural framework of
delicate character. The subjects are all richly painted on a
gold ground, and seemed to me to be well drawn (5). The
coloured decoration of the whole is very effective, and owes
much to the white ground of its traceries. Generally speaking,
a Retablo is placed across the apse and cuts off its eastern
portion, which thenceforward becomes a receptacle for all the
untidiness of the church ; and when so arranged, if it reaches the
height common in Spain, it almost, and in some cases altogether,
destroys the internal effect of the apse. Here, however, the
exact fitting of the Retablo to the curve of the wall is free from
this objection, and its effect is unusually good.
The cloister on the south side is almost all modernised .
102 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
though one or two old doorways remain. That into the south
transept has spiral shafts, with the spiral lines reversed at
regular intervals. It has also some very good carving of foliage,
with birds and naked figures, and on its jambs are some memorial
inscriptions of A.D. 1190, 1192, and 1194. On the south side of
the cloister is a richly decorated little chapel (6), which retains
in one corner a very curious mediaeval organ, with shutters.
On the east side and close to the transept, what was no doubt
the original Chapter-house still remains, though it is now called
the Mozarabic chapel, and was formerly used for the Mozarabic
ritual. At present the boy who had the keys said it was not
used; but the proper books were all there. It is a very remark-
able chamber, square in plan below, and brought to an octagon
above by arches thrown across the angles, and finally roofed
with a sort of dome, carried upon moulded and carved ribs of very
intricate contrivance. The interlacing of these ribs 'gives the
work somewhat the effect of being Moorish, and there can be
little doubt, I think, that it owes its peculiarities in some degree
to Moorish influence. It will be seen by reference to the plan
that the groining ribs are arranged in parallel pairs. The ribs
go from the angles to the centre of the opposite side instead of
from angle to angle, and the sixteen ribs form a star-shaped
compartment in the centre. This coupling of ribs in parallel
lines is a feature of Moorish work, and is seen in the curious
mosque, the Cristo de la Luz, at Toledo, and in the somewhat
Moorish vault of the Templars' church at Segovia. But
whether Moorish or not, it is a remarkable room, and deserves
careful study. The diameter is but a little over twenty-six feet,
and the light is admitted by small windows in the upper stage.
I should be inclined to attribute this room and its vault to the
architect of the lantern of the church, and I regret that the only
part of the outside which I could see was so modernised as to
render it impossible to ascertain the original design. I call this
the Chapter-house, because I find that it opened originally into
the cloister, with three arches, that in the centre a doorway,
the others windows of two lights the almost invariable arrange-
ment of all Chapter-houses at this time. 1
A considerable number of masons' marks remain on the ex-
tenor of the early part of this church ; and if the are the marks
mude
herhh- f an Juan ' Medina del Cam P' made a donation
lntPr hn ! - n A ' D K Vi 78 ' t0 com P lete the work of the cathedral. The
P robabl y of about this date or a little later.-Cean Ber-
SALAMANCA 103
of the men who erected so complicated a piece of stonework as
the vault of the Chapter-house, they well deserve to be pre-
served. Throughout this church, indeed, the masonry is un-
usually good, and, owing to the rich warm colour of the stone,
the eastern apses, though they follow the common design of most
of the Romanesque apses in this part of Spain, are more than
usually good in their effect.
A flight of eighteen steps leads up from the old cathedral
through the north transept into one of the southern chapels of
the new cathedral, and I know few changes more remarkable
than that from the modest simplicity, yet grandeur, of the early
church, to the overbearing magnitude and somewhat flaunting
character of the late one.
Salamanca seems to have tasted early of that prosperity which
in the end ruined art in Spain ; and it was possible, therefore, for
the Bishop, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, to propose
a scheme for replacing his modest old cathedral by one of the
most sumptuous and ambitious in Spain, without attempting
what was absurd or sure to fail. The whole discussion as to the
planning of the church is told us in a series of documents published
by Cean Bermudez, which are, I think, of sufficient interest to
make them quite worth a place in the Appendix to this volume.
I shall discuss in another chapter the light which they throw
upon the architectural practice of the day, and here it will
only be necessary to refer to such parts of them as affect the
architectural history of the building.
In A.D. 1509 a Royal order was issued to Anton Egas, master
of the works at Toledo Cathedral, to go to Salamanca to make a
plan for the cathedral there. Egas seems to have delayed so
long that it was necessary to send another order to him, and then
at last, in May, 1510, he went. The same kind of command had
been laid at the same time by the king on Alfonso Rodriguez,
the master of the works at Seville, and after these two had con-
sidered the matter, they presented a joint plan, drawn on parch-
ment, showing the heights and widths of the naves, the thickness
of the walls, and so forth; but they were unable, they said, to
agree as to the proportion of length to breadth in the Capilla
mayor, and so they settled to meet in ten days at Toledo, and
then to appoint an umpire. Nothing more seems to have been
done by them, for in A.D. 1513 the Bishop and Chapter resolved
to call together a Junta of architects to make another report;
and Rodriguez being dead, they summoned Anton Egas of
Toledo, Juan Gil de Hontafion, Juan de Badajoz of Leon, Alonso
:_ Ground Finns of oii nnb nrm
Old and Xc\v Cathedrals.
:= 77, n f>v CtUhcA-rf /, af fi,,, r lay*
cast of -the. central Lanttrn .
for il,c- CupilUi- Xayffl-
.l' the ajisle, east of DP.
PLATE
San
106 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
de Covarrubias of Toledo, Juan Tornero, Juan de Alava, Juan de
Orozco, Rodrigo de Saravia, and Juan Campero, who all assem-
bled in September, A.D. 1512, at Salamanca, and drew up their
report. The detailed character of this report is very curious.
It decides the dimensions of every part of the church, the thick-
ness of the walls, the projection of the buttresses, and the exact
position that it ought to occupy. The architects not only agreed
in all their opinions, but testified to their truth by taking an
oath " by God and S. Mary," saying each one, " So I swear,
and amen."
The question was, whether the new cathedral should be on
the site of the old cathedral, or to the north or to the south of
it; and among other reasons for placing it to the north, where
it now is, the existence of the steeple at the west end of the old
cathedral was mentioned. In fine, the church has been so placed
as not to interfere at all with the steeple, but little with the old
cathedral, and not at all with the cloister. The opinion of the
Junta of Architects has been acted upon, in short, in everything
save the shape of the head of the church, which they preferred
should be octagonal, and which is, in fact, square in plan.
Three days after the presentation of this report certain of the
Chapter were appointed to select an architect, and their choice
fell at once on Juan Gil de Hontanon for the architect, and Juan
Campero for clerk of the works. 1 Whether Juan Gil really
made the plans or not seems very uncertain ; and I confess that
to me it seems more probable that the plan made in A.D. 1509
by Egas and Rodriguez was laid before the Junta, and that they
drew up their resolutions upon the data it afforded, and left to
Hontanon no choice as to the proportions of his church, but only
the management of its construction and the designing of its
details.
If this supposition be correct, I fear I can award but little
credit to Hontanon; for in this cathedral the only point one can
heartily praise is the magnificence of the general idea, and the
noble scale and proportion of the whole work. But the detail
throughout is of the very poorest kind, fairly Gothic in character
inside, but almost Renaissance outside, and everywhere wanting
in vigour and effect. Nothing can be much worse than the
treatment of the doorways and windows, and to take one
portion the south transept fagade is spotted all over with
1 I use the modern terms, which seem to express their offices. The
original words are J. G. de Hontanon, " maestro de canteria para maestro
principal, y en Juan Campero, cantero, para aparejador."
SALAMANCA 107
niches, crockets, and pedestals in the most childish way; whilst
every spandrel has a head looking out of a circle, reminding one
forcibly of the old application of a horse-collar, and, in fact,
the men were foolish who repeated, usque ad nauseam, so stale
and unprofitable an idea !
In one respect, however, the design of this church is very im-
portant. The Spanish architects seldom troubled themselves to
suit their buildings in any respect to the climate; and this, no
doubt, because in very many cases they were merely imitating
the works of another country, in which no precautions against
heat were necessary. Here we have a church expressly designed,
and with great judgment, for the requirements of the climate.
The windows are very high up, and very small for the size of the
building, so that no sunlight could ever make its way to any
unpleasant extent into it. There are galleries in front of all the
windows, both in the nave and aisles, but they are of thoroughly
Renaissance character. The section of the church gives a main
clerestory to the nave, and a second clerestory on one side of
each aisle over the arches opening into the side chapels. The
upper clerestory has two windows of two lights, and a circular
window above them in each bay, and the lower clerestory
traceried windows generally, I think, of three lights. The
traceries are very weak and ill proportioned; but I noticed in
places what seemed to be a recurrence to earlier traditions in
the groupings of small windows, with several circles pierced
in the wall above them. It was, however, just like the imitation
of old works we so often see from incompetent hands at the
present day. You see whence the idea has been taken, though
it is so travestied as to be not even tolerable where the original
was probably perfect !
The planning of the church is certainly infelicitous.,. The
square east end is bald to a degree externally, and finished as it
is inside with chapels corresponding with those of the aisles,
wants relief and life. If the square east end is adopted in a
great church, no doubt the prolonged Lady Chapels of our own
churches are infinitely to be preferred to such a plan as this,
which fails to give the great east windows of which we boast,
and loses all the effects of light and shade in which the apsidal
chevets of the Continent are so rich.
Everywhere here the buttresses are finished with pinnacles,
always planned in the same way, each group being planned
on a square, counterchanged over the one below: they are
of several stages in height, furnished throughout with crocketed
io8 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
finials on all sides, and at last with a single tall pinnacle . Nothing
can be more wearisome than this kind of pinnacled buttress,
but the later Spanish authorities were very fond of it, and
repeated it everywhere. The dome, or Cimborio, is altogether
Pagan in its design and detail outside, and on the inside is so
plastered with an olla of pink cherubs, rays of light, and gilt
scallopshells of monstrous size, and the like, as to be utterly
contemptible in its effect. It is, moreover, too small, and too
little separated from the rest of the vaulting, to look really well.
The church throughout is finished with hipped roofs in place of
gables; but the parapets in front of these are all Renaissance,
and marked at intervals by the favourite urns in which Renais-
sance architects still generally and most unfortunately indulge.
The cathedral was first used for service in A.D. 1560, when on
all sides Renaissance buildings were being erected, and perhaps
it would be more just to Juan Gil de Hontafion to look upon him
as striving to the last to maintain the cause of Christian art
against the inroads of the enemy, and failing in his detail not
for want of will, but because it was simply impossible to resist
the tide which had set in before he died. Much, too, of the
church must, no doubt, be attributed to other men; Juan de
Alava, Rodrigo Gil de Hontafion, Martin Ruiz, and Juan de
Ribero Rada, having been masters of the works after Juan Gil,
and the church not having been completed until more than a
century after its commencement. 1
It will have been noticed that the old steeple is spoken of by
the Junta of Architects as a work of so much importance as to
make it advisable to change the position of the new cathedral,
rather than interfere with it. I do not quite understand this,
for the greater part of it is now entirely of late Renaissance
detail, 2 though some large crocketed pinnacles still exist at the
angles of the highest stage. The lower part is very plain, but
the upper stage of the square tower has a rich balustrade, and
windows and pilasters, and above it is an octagonal stage with
1 Two inscriptions on stones on the church give the dates of its com-
mencement and first use.
" + Hoc Templum incepturn est anno a nativitate Domini millesimo
qumgentesimo tercio decimp djie Jovis duodecima mensis Maii."
Pio. IV. Papa, Philippo II. Rege. Francisco Manrique de Lara,
Jipiscopo, ex vetere ad hoc templum facta translatio xxv. Martii anno a
Cnsto nato 1560." G. G. Davila, Teat. Eccl. iii. 320, 344.
lit will be seen presently that in the somewhat similar cathedral at
Zamora the Romanesque steeple occupies precisely the same position as
is possible that when the Junta sat the steeple they spoke of was
of the same age as the old church, and that it has been subsequently recast
SALAMANCA
109
pinnacles at the angles, and this in its turn is surmounted by a
dome, with a lantern at the top. The outline is certainly fine,
and its great height and mass make it a conspicuous object for
a very long distance from Salamanca.
The mixed character of the detail in this church is well seen
in the great doorway. Its jambs are richly moulded and carved,
but the mouldings are all planned on a line receding but little
from the face of the wall, so that the general effect is flat, and
wanting in shadow. The main arch is a bold simple trefoil, but
the label above it is carried on in an ogee line, and the arches
below over two sculptured subjects, and over two door-openings
under them, are elliptical. So, too, in the sculpture on the bas-
reliefs over the door-openings, we have the richest luxuriance of
the latest school of Spanish Gothic, with its beasts, its crisp
foliage, and its wild love of heraldic achievements, and, mixed
with all this, naked cherubs, clouds, and representations of
Roman architecture.
In conclusion, I am bound to say of this great church that,
whilst its exterior fails in almost every single particular, its
interior, thanks to compliance with certain broad rules of Gothic
building, is beyond question very grand and impressive. To the
vast size and height of the columns this is mainly owing, for
though they are cut up with endless little mouldings ingeniously
" stopped," one does not observe their pettinesses, and the arches
which they carry are bolder and more important than might
have been expected.
Some of the side chapels have altars both at the east and the
west; and where the old altars remain they have carved in stone
an imitation of an altar frontal. They represent worked super-
frontals with fringes, and frontals with fringed orphreys at either
end : and I saw one altar with a painted imitation of embroidery
all over it. A chapel on the south side of the nave has an altar
entirely covered with glazed tiles, the walls around it being
similarly inlaid (7).
Close to the cathedral is one of the University buildings,
with a central dome and two dome-capped towers to the west
of it, and near these again is another domed church, and in
the distance this group is very remarkable and stately-
looking (8).
I wandered all over Salamanca looking for old churches, and
could find few of any interest. 1 The finest are all but Renais-
1 Yet I think a more careful search would be rewarded, for we know of
no GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
sance in their character and detail, and seem to have owed much
to the influence of Hontanon. The convents and colleges, where
not ruined, are grand in scale, yet they produce none of the
effect which our Oxford buildings do: but, on the other hand,
they are built of a much better stone, and of a rich, warm, yellow
tint. The good people here are smartening up the entrance to
the town with flower-gardens, seats, and acacias, and are cer-
tainly putting their best feet forward, though there is nothing else
even approaching to smartness in the place. A walk round the
old walls is a melancholy amusement. They are, in part, being
levelled ; still I saw two or three pointed gateways, which seemed
to be of early date, 'but very simple. I saw also some convents
in a dilapidated state, and indeed everywhere the state of these
is very bad, and I never saw so many waste places or half-
ruined buildings. A good deal of this is no doubt owing to the
operations of the French during the Peninsular War, but some-
thing certainly to the natives, who are busier in pulling down
than building up; or at any rate, when they do the latter, they
combine it with the former; for in some repairs of one of the
University buildings I found the men re-using old wrought
stones from some fifteenth-century building.
A bull-fight had just been celebrated here, and the principal
square in the city, the " Plaza Mayor," one of the best I have
seen in Spain, had been fitted up for the occasion as an arena,
with seats sloping up from the ground to the first floor windows
of the houses all round it. (There was a regular arena, but it
was being demolished, to give place, I presume, to one on a
grander scale.) Another Plaza close to it is the principal
market-place, and affords good opportunities for the study of
the costumes of the peasantry.
I was fortunate in happening to light upon one very curious
church here that of San Marcos. The engraving of the plan 1
will show how very cleverly its architect managed to combine the
scheme of a circular church with the usual Spanish triapsidal
arrangement. The apses are vaulted with semi-domes, whilst
the rest of the church is covered with wooden roofs, and these all
the consecration of several churches at an early date, and Mr. Ford sneaks
of them as still existing.
Church of San Nicholas, consecrated n Kal. Nov 1192
San Pedro Nov. 1202.
Sta. Maria de los Caballeros, consecrated Nov. 1214.
San Emilian, consecrated Nov. 1226.
S.Michael NOV. 1238.
1 Plate IV., p. 104. (G<
i
a :
ii2 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
lean towards the central square, which has a hipped roof. The
arches are all pointed, and there are rudely carved capitals to
the columns. A simple corbel-table is carried along under the
eaves, and there are one or two slits they are not more for
light. This little church is close to the town walls, and the
absence of windows gives it the look of a part of a fortress.
The plan seems to me to be admirably suggestive: we are too
much in the habit of working perpetually in certain grooves
which have been cut for us by our forefathers, and most men
now-a-days would be afraid to plan a little church like this, even
if the idea of it came into their heads. Yet it struck me as
being really an extremely useful and economical construction,
and such a scheme might with ease be fitted specially for a
cemetery chapel in place of one of the vulgar erections with
which we are now everywhere indulged.
The church of San Martin has a fine early doorway, in which
I first saw a very peculiar order
of decoration, which I saw
again at Zamora, and of which
no doubt more examples exist
in this district. My illustra-
tion will explain its design,
one member of the archivolt
of which is like a succession
of curled pieces of wood put
side by side and perfectly
ARCHIVOLT. SAN MARTIN. square in section. The effect
of light and shade in such
work is rather good, but it is nevertheless rather too bizarre to
be quite pleasing.
Another little church that of San Matteo has a rather fine,
though rude, Romanesque doorway, with a buttress on each side,
and a corbel-table above. But besides these I saw no remains of
early work in Salamanca (9),
From Salamanca an uninteresting road leads to Zamora:
occasionally there are considerable woods, and in other parts of
the road the fields were well covered with vines. For two or
three hours the domes of Salamanca are in sight, backed, as every
view in Spain seems to be, by a fine line of distant mountains.
No old churches are passed on the road, unless I except a large
convent, now desecrated and nearly destroyed, but which seemed
by the glimpse I caught of it to have old parts.
The entrance to Zamora is very striking: the city crowns the
ZAMORA CATHEDRAL
INTERIOR OF NAVE, LOOKING EAST
H4 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
long back of a rock, falling steeply on the south to the Douro,
and on the north to another valley. At the extreme end of
this hill is the cathedral, as far away from the bulk of the people
as it can be, but, for all that, very picturesquely and finely
perched. Below the cathedral is a scarped rock, and to the left
the noble river flows round a wooded point, and then out of
sight under a long line of green vine-covered hills. All this
view is taken in from the end of an old bridge, carried on sixteen
or seventeen pointed arches, across which, near the southern end,
is built a picturesque and tall gate-tower. The long line
of houses occupies the top of the rock, and then opposite the.
bridge the street descends by a steep-stepped hill, and the houses
cluster round the water-side.
The want of water in most Spanish landscapes is so great, that
I was never tired of the views here, where it is so abundant.
One of the best, perhaps, is that from just below the cathedral,
looking past the picturesque bridge across the cattle-peopled
plains to a long line of hills which bounds the horizon, with the
dead-level line with which so many of the Spanish table-lands
finish above the banks of their rivers.
Of the history of Zamora Cathedral I know but little. Here,
as elsewhere at the same time, a Frenchman, Bernardo, a Bene-
dictine, was bishop from A.D. 1125 to 1149, having been appointed
through the influence of, and consecrated by, his namesake, the
French Archbishop of Toledo. 1 Davila says that the cathedral
was built by a subsequent bishop, Don Estevan (10), " by order
and at the cost of the Emperor Don Alonso VII., as is proved by
some lines which were in this church." These lines give the date
of 1174 as that of the completion of the work, 2 and it tallies
1 G. G. Davila, Teatro EccL ii. 397. Davila' s statement, supported by
the inscription on his tomb, is that Bernardo was the first Bishop of
Zamora; but this does not appear to accord exactly with the result at
which Florez arrives. His statement is that Geronimo was the first Bishop
of Zamora after a long hiatus, that he was succeeded by Bernardo, and that
both these bishops were appointed by Bernard of Toledo, and both were
natives of Perigord. The fact seems to be that Geronimo was Bishop of
Valencia, and had to fly thence when the Moors regained possession after
the Cid's death, and that he was then made Bishop of Salamanca. It is
certainly not a little curious that two of the eleventh-century bishops of
Zamora should have come from a district where all the vaulting is more
or less domical, and that we should have in their cathedral one of the most
remarkable examples of a domed church. It will be recollected that nearly
the same facts have been mentioned in regard to Salamanca. See Esp.
Sag. xiv. 362-368, and 95 ante.
" Fit domus hista quidem, veluti Salomonica capridem
Hue adhibite fidem: domus haec successit eidem.
Sumptibus, et magnis viginti fit tribus annis.
ZAMORA 115
fairly with the general character of much of the building; for,
though it is true that everywhere the main arches are pointed,
much of the detail is undoubtedly such as to suggest as early a
date as that here given.
This cathedral is on a small scale, and the most important
portion of the ground-plan the choir having been rebuilt, it
has lost much of its interest. It consists now of a nave and
aisles of four bays, shallow transepts, with a dome over the cross-
ing, a short choir with an apse of seven sides, and two choir
aisles with square east ends. At the west end are chapels added
beyond the church, that in the centre being of considerable
length, and groined with the common intersecting ribs. 1 At the
west end of the north aisle is an unusually large and fine Roman-
esque steeple the finest example of the kind I have seen in
Spain and erected, no doubt, during the time of one of the
French bishops already referred to.
The nave piers are very bold .and vigorous in design; they are
planned with triple shafts on each face of a square core, and
have square caps and bases. The arches are very simple, but
pointed. The massiveness of the piers is very remarkable, for
though the clear width of the nave is only about twenty-three
feet, the columns are not less than seven feet across. The nave
is groined in square, the aisles in oblong compartments. There
are no groining ribs in the aisles, though the vaults are quadri-
partite, and in the transepts there are pointed waggon roofs.
The central dome is carried on pendentives, similar to those in
the old cathedral at Salamanca. It has an arcaded and pierced
stage above the pendentives, and then a dome or vault, divided
into sixteen compartments by ribs of bold section, the filling in
between which is a succession of small cylindrical vaults, so that
the construction inside looks rather complicated. It is, more-
over, so defaced by whitewash and plaster as to produce a much
less fine effect than the dome at Salamanca; but, on the other
hand, there can be but little doubt, I think, that it is the earlier
of the two by some years. The exterior of the dome, though
much decayed and mutilated, is still very noble in its design and
A quo fundatur, Domino faciente sacratur.
Anno millessimo, centessimo, septuagesimo.
Quarto completur, Stephanus, qui fecit habetur.
Alfonsus imperator, Rex Septimus fundavit."
G. G. Davila, Teat. Eccl. ii. 397~39 8 -
The same historian says that King Fernando I. rebuilt the city of
Zamora with very strong walls in 1055. Ibid. ii. 395.
1 This I suppose is the chapel of San Ildefonso, founded in 1466 by the
Cardinal D. Juan de Mella, Bishop of Zamora.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
effect. It will be seen that in many respects it is singularly like
that at Salamanca. The circular angle turrets, the dormers on
the cardinal sides, are similar in idea, though ruder and heavier
here than there: here, too, the Outline of the dome is more
thoroughly domical. All the courses of stone in the dome seem
to have been scalloped at the edges. The arches of the windows
and arcades are all semi-circular, and the angles of the dome
have a sort of sharp fringe of ornament, in which we see the very
earliest kind of suggestion of a crocket: it is very simple,
and extremely effective. Unfortunately this extremely interest-
ing work is not only very much decayed, but also rent throughout
with cracks, and I much fear that ere long it may cease to exist.
The loss of such an example would be one of the greatest mis-
fortunes for the student of Christian art in Spain, and for rarity
and peculiarity I am not speaking too strongly when I say that
we in England have no monument of the middle ages which
is one whit more precious. It is to be hoped that the authori-
ties of the church will do their best to preserve it in the most
tenderly conservative spirit.
The aisles have very broad massive buttresses, and the corbel-
tables which crown the wall are carried round them also. There
were simple round-arched, shafted windows in each bay, and
the clerestory was finished like the aisle with a corbel- table.
The south transept fagade is, after the lantern, the most
interesting part of the church. Its general character is extremely
peculiar, and unlike any other work I have seen in Spain.
There are plain buttresses at the angles, and the space between
them is divided into three compartments by fluted pilasters,
which rise as far as the corbel-table (continued at the same level
as the eaves-cornice), and carry three pointed arches which are
fitted to the original flat-pitched gable, the centre arch being the
widest and highest. The centre compartment has a doorway
with three shafts in each jamb, and four orders in the arch all
alike, and resembling the door in San Martin, at Salamanca,
illustrated at p. 112. The effect of light and shade in this orna-
mentation is very great; and, executed as it is with compara-
tively little labour, I rather wonder not to have seen more of
the same work elsewhere (i i). Two small recessed arches occupy
the side compartments of the fagade on either side of the door-
way: that on the right hand has its archivolt carved with
extreme delicacy with a small leaf repeated frequently; and
both have within their arches sculptures of figures (12). The
bases of all the columns are fluted, and the capitals are all carved
n8 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
rather rudely,, and have heavy abaci. Over the side arches are
square sunk compartments enclosing circular ornaments carved
with a succession of hollow flutings sinking back to the centre.
In fact, these strange ornaments which at first sight look
almost like modern insertions are precisely like models of the
dome with its arched groining spaces between the ribs. Above
the doorway is a row of five arches recessed in the wall/ and
under the central arch in the gable is a blocked-up window-
opening.
I was unable to gain admission to the interior of the steeple.
On the outside it rises in a succession of nearly equal stages, of
which the upper three have, in the common Lombard fashion,
windows of one, two, and three lights respectively.
It remains to say a few words as to the fittings of the church.
The Coro here occupies the two eastern bays of the nave, and is
fitted with very rich late stalls and canopies, which are quite
magnificent in their effect. The backs of the stalls are carved
with figures, and those over the lower range of stalls through-
out with half-length figures of Old Testament worthies, most of
which have inscribed scrolls, with legends referring to our Lord,
in their hands. These texts have been printed by Dr. Neale in
the Ecdesiologist , and they afford so valuable an example of the
right mode of selecting inscriptions, that, with his consent,
I give a copy of his account. 2 The figures are rather in the style
1 M. Villa- Amil, who gives a view of this transept, has converted this
arcade into a row of windows, presented the doorway with a sculptured
tympanum, and entirely altered the character of the archivolt enrichment.
2 On the north side, the figures and inscriptions are as follow :
1. Abel. Vox sanguinis. 10. Jeremias. Dominus.
2. Abraam. Tres vidit ; unum n. Ezekiel. Porta ncec.
adoravit. 12. Oseas (with cross botonnee on
3. Joseph. Meliusestutvenunde- -breast). Addam ultra.
tur. 13. Amos. Super tribus.
4. Melchisedec. Rex Salem pro- 14. Micheas. Percutient maxillam.
ferens panem et vinum. 15. Abacuc. Exultabo in Deo J.esu
5. Job. De terra surrecturus sum. meo.
6. Aaron. Invenit germinans. 16. Sophonias. Juxta est dies.
7. Samson. De (comedente exivit 17. Zacharias. Jesus erat.
nbus). !8. Nabuchodonosor. Quartus
8. Samuel. Loquere Domine. similis Filio Dei.
9. David. Dominus dixit ad me, 19. Virgilius Bucol. Progenies.
Filius.
On the south side:
i. Moyses. Prophetam excitabit. 6. Helias. Ambulavitinfortitudine
2> T Saa u Yr x quidem vox - 7- Helisa3us. Vade, et lavare
3. Jacob. Non auferetur Sceptrum septies.
de Juda 8. Salomon. Levent servi mei.
4. Balaam. Onetur stella ex. 9 . Tobias. Jherusalem.
5. tredeon. S^ ros solo. I0 . Isayas. Ecce Virgo eoncipiet.
ZAMORA CATHEDRAL
119
afterwards so much employed by Berruguete, large scale bas-
reliefs of single figures always an awkward kind of sculpture
in the hands even of the very best artist. The traceries and
crockets of this stall-work are
very elaborate, crisp, and good
of their kind. There is a con-
tinuous horizontal canopy above
the upper stalls, each division
of which is filled with purely
secular sculptures of beasts and
animals. The metal Rejas are
of the same age as the stalls;
and there is a fine ancient
lectern for the choir, of enormous
size, in the centre of the Coro,
and two others of more modern
date. The western screen is old
of the fifteenth century and
has the rare feature of two door-
ways, leaving the centre unpierced
for the altar in the nave, and
the bishop's throne on its eastern
side, towards the Coro. By the
time this work was done, it was
very generally settled that the
bishop's place was here, in the
centre of the western end of the
Coro; but I have seen no other
screen in which the entrance has still been retained at the west
in connection with this arrangement of the stalls. There is an
old metal screen or Reja under the eastern arch of the cross-
ing, which is of the same age as the choir fittings, and has two
iron pulpits projecting from its western face. These pulpits
are lined with wood, and stand on stone bases; the staircases
to them are of wood, carved on the Gospel side with figures
of the Evangelists and S. Laurence, and on the Epistle side
with S. John, S. Peter, and other Epistolers. Each pulpit has
ii. Baruch. Statuam Testamentum 15. Naum. Ecce super.
CHOIR LECTERN, ZAMORA
CATHEDRAL
ittis.
16. Ageus. Veniet desideratus.
12. Daniel. Septuaginta hebdo- 17. Malachias. A solis ortu usque
mades.
ad.
13. Johel. Magnus enim dies 18. Caiaphas. Expedit vpbis.
Domini.
14. Jonas. De ventre.
19. Centurio. Vere Filius.
120 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
a desk on a little crane projecting from the column by its
side (13).
The cloisters on the north side of the cathedral, and the
bishop's palace on the south, are all completely modernised; but
just under the old town walls, to the north of the Cathedral
Plaza, is the Romanesque church of San Isidore. It has a
square-ended chancel of two bays, and a nave of three, the
latter lighted by very small windows mere slits in the masonry
the former by shafted windows with a deep external splay to
the openings, which are also very narrow. There are two of
these windows at the east end, and there is a corbel-table under
the eaves. This church was not intended for groining.
The long, narrow, and winding street which leads along the
thin crest of the hill to the centre of the city, passes on the way
the very interesting little church of La Magdalena. This is a
Romanesque church, divided into nave, chancel, and apsidal
sanctuary, in the way we so often see in works of similar date
in England. The chancel has a pointed waggon-vault, the
apse is groined with ribs, whilst the nave has now a modern
(and probably always had a) flat wooden roof. The south door-
way is placed very nearly in the centre of the south wall of the
nave. It is a very grand example of the most ornate late Roman-
esque work, with twisted and moulded shafts, and a profusion
of carving in the capitals and archivolts. Over this door is a
circular window with dog-tooth in the label, and a quatrefoil
piercing in the centre; and on each side, in the other bays,
are round-arched windows of two lights. There is a very con-
siderable likeness between the plan of this church and that of
San Juan at Lerida. 1 In both, the overwhelming size and
grandeur of the doorway as compared with that of the building,
combined with its central position, produces at first the impres-
sion that it is the western, and not the southern, fagade one
is looking at. This is a defect; yet perhaps more so to the
eyes of an Englishman, who now as of old prefers creeping
through little holes 2 in the wall into his finest churches, than
to those of any one used to the noble doorways of the Continent.
The interior of La Magdalena is more interesting than the ex-
tenor; for, in addition to the good early detail of the arches
across the chancel, it has at the east end of the nave some very
fine and very peculiar monuments. Two of these are high
J See plan, Plate VIII., p. 178.
vLT he - W !t tern Doorways of Salisbury Cathedral are emphatically mere
boles in the wall," and very characteristic, too.
ZAMORA
121
tombs, with lofty canopies over them, occupying the space
between the side walls of the nave and the jambs of the chancel
arch. These canopies are square-topped, with round arches on
the two disengaged sides, and carried upon large shafts standing
detached on the floor. The detail of the canopies is as plain
as possible; but the capitals are carved with very pure and
vigorous conventional foliage, and the shafts are twisted; the
moulding on those of the northernmost of the two monuments
being reversed in mid-height, so as to produce a large and
MONUMENT, LA MAGDALENA
simple chevron. The mouldings of the shaft are carefully
stopped below the necking, and above the base. The effect of
this monument, rilling in as it does the angle at the end of the
nave, is extremely good ; its rather large detail and general pro-
portions giving it the effect of being an integral part of the fabric
rather than, as monuments usually are, a subsequent addition.
To the west of the monument already mentioned, against the
north wall, is another of about the same age ^probably the early
part of the thirteenth century and even more curious in its
design. It has three shafts in front carrying the canopy; and
this is composed of two divisions of canopy-work, very similar
to those so often seen in French sculpture over figures and
subjects in doorways; under each are a pair of monsters
122 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
wyverns, or some such nondescripts fighting. The capitals
are similarly carved, and the abaci have conventional foliage.
The tomb under the canopy has a plain coffin-shaped stone
with a cross on it; but against the wall are, below, a figure
lying in a bed carved on a bold block of stone projecting from
the wall; and, above this, the soul of the departed being carried
up by angels. The whole design
and character of this monu-
ment are so unlike any other
work that I know, that I give a
native artist the credit of them.
Yet the character of the detail
seems to me to show an acquain-
tance with the French and Italian
architecture of the day (14).
La Magdalena is said to have
been a church founded by the
Knights Templars, but on the
suppression of their order in A.D.
1312 to have become the pro-
perty of the Knights of S. John
of Jerusalem.
San Miguel, near the pic-
turesque market-place in the
centre of the city, has a fine
south door. The archivolts are
bold, but quite plain, and square
in section. Each order is carried
on three shafts, and the bold-
ness of the effect is very striking.
On the other side of the Plaza the
tall tower of San Vicente (15)
rises well up against the sky. It
has a fine west doorway, and rises
above the roof in three stages,
lighted respectively by windows of one, two, and three lights.
It is finished with a simple corbel-table, above which is a
modern roof. The whole of the detail here is fine, simple,
early-pointed, very pure and good. The church seems to be
almost entirely modernised.
In the lower and eastern part of the city there are also one or
two interesting churches. San Leonardo has a square tower
engaged against the north side of the west front, very plain
SAN VICENTE, ZAMORA
ZAMORA 123
below, but with a belfry-stage of two pointed windows, moulded
angles, simple corbel-table, and a low square slated spire the
slates cut to pattern, like scales. The fine west door of this
church is round-arched, and on either side of it are great brackets
sculptured with a lion and a bear (16).
Sta. Maria de la Horta is a church of the same class as La
Magdalena. It has a western tower, a nave of three bays of
quadripartite groining carried on very bold piers and shafts in
the side walls, a chancel, and apsidal sanctuary. The apse
has a semi-dome, with a pointed archway in front of it. The
chancel has a round waggon-vault, and the arch between it and
the nave is semi-circular. The vaulting of the nave is extremely
domical in its section. The light is admitted by small windows
in the upper part of the walls, and above the abaci of the groining
shafts, which are continued round the building as a string-course.
The west doorway is round-arched, with chevron, and a sort
of shell or flower-ornament in its arch-mouldings. The tower is
of the prevailing type: in the stage above the roof there is a
window of one light; in the next there are two lights ; and above
this the steeple has been destroyed, and a modern roof added.
The walls outside are finished with a fine and bold thirteenth-
century eaves-cornice (17).
I think one may see here the local influence exercised by the
fine Romanesque tower of the cathedral, which, in its division
into equal stages, with an increasing number of openings, has
been followed in all these other steeples.
A walk over the bridge takes one to the ruins of a rather
fine church (18) close to its further end. This has an apse of
seven sides, with good windows of two lights, with a trefoiled
circle in the head; above this is a string-course with trefoiled
arcading under it, and above this a second tier of windows.
The whole is of good early middle-pointed character. 1
The walls (19) here, as in so many of the Spanish towns, are
fairly perfect, and are thickly studded with the usual array of
round towers throughout their length. The bridge already
mentioned is probably a work of the thirteenth century. The
arches are perfectly plain and pointed, springing from about the
I 1 add Dr. Neale's notes of two churches here which I did not discover.
" San Juan de la Puerta Nueva. Principally of Flamboyant date, has
a square east end. The whole breadth of the church is here under one
vault, the span somewhere about sixty feet. The north porch, separated
by a parclose from the chapel of the Cross, has an excellent Transitional
door. The western facade has a middle-pointed window of five lights.
" San Pedro. Has had its originally-distinct nave and aisles thrown
into one in Flamboyant times, and vaulted with an immense span.
124 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
water-level. The piers between the arches project boldly; and
over each is a small arch pierced through the bridge, which gives
a good deal of additional effect to the design. The grand length
of this bridge, with its long line of pointed arches reflected in the
lazily-flowing Douro, and backed by the towers and walls of the
city, is extremely striking. Neither of the gateways on it is
really old; but nevertheless they add much to its picturesque-
ness. The only old domestic building of any note that I saw
in Zamora was a very late Gothic house in the Plaza de los
Momos (20). The entrance doorway has the enormous and
exaggerated arch-stones so common in the later Catalan build-
ings, but not often seen in this part of Spain. It has above it a
label, which is stepped up in the centre to enclose a great coat-of-
arms, with its supporters. On either side of this are two windows
which, with the coat-of-arms in the centre, make a panel of the
same width as the door below. The other principal windows
are on a line with these, and all of them of thoroughly debased
design. They are of two round-headed lights enclosed within
a label-moulding, which finishes in an ogee trefoil; and this
again within another label-moulding, either square or ogee in
the head. The vagaries of these later Gothic architects in
Spain are certainly far from pleasant; yet odd as its detail is,
the plain masses of unbroken wall in the lower part of this front
give it a kind of dignity which is seldom seen in modern work.
The practice of making all the living-rooms on the first-floor of
course conduces largely to this happy result.
I was unable, unfortunately, to spare time when I was at
Zamora to go over to Toro to see the fine Collegiata there (21).
M. Villa Amil has given a drawing of the domed lantern over the
Crossing. In plan it is similar to the domes at Salamanca and
Zamora as to the angle pinnacles, but not as to the gabled
windows between them. But it appears to have lost its ancient
roof; and I cannot understand, from the drawing, how the
domical roof, which it was no doubt built to receive, can now
possibly exist. 1 It seems pretty clear that this example is
of rather later date than that at Salamanca; and we have there-
fore in Zamora, Salamanca, and Toro a very good sequence of
Gothic domes, all upon much the same plan, and most worthy
of careful study. A more complete acquaintance with this part
of Spain might be expected to reveal some other examples of
the same extremely interesting kind of work.
1 Nevertheless, Dr. Neale describes it as existing, and so, no doubt, it
does. " An Ecclesiological Tour," Ecclesiologist, xiv. 361.
BENAVENTE 125
From Zamora (22), cheered by the recollection of perhaps the
most gorgeous sunset and the clearest moonlight that I ever
saw, I made my way across country to Benavente. It is a ten
hours' drive over fields, through streams and ditches, and
nowhere on a road upon which any pains have ever been be-
stowed ; and when I say that the country is flat and uninteresting,
the paternal benevolence of the government which leaves such
a district practically roadless will be appreciated. Beyond
Benavente the case is still worse, for the broad valley of the
Esla, leading straight to Leon, is without a road along which a
tartana can drive, though there is scarcely a hillock to surmount
or a stream to cross in the forty miles between a considerable
town and the capital of the province!
Soon after leaving Zamora some villages were seen to the
right, and one of them seemed to me to have a church with a
dome; but my view of it was very distant, and I cannot speak
with any certainty. From thence to Benavente no old building
was passed.
Benavente is the most tumble-down forlorn-looking town I
have seen. Most of the houses are built of mud, rain-worn for
want of proper thatching, of only one story in height, and
relieved in front by a doorway and usually one very small hole
for a window. There is, however, a church Sta. Maria del
Azogue which made the journey quite worth undertaking. It
is cruciform, with five apses projecting from the eastern wall,
that in the centre larger than the others. 1 The apses have semi-
domes, the square compartments to the west of them quadri-
partite vaulting in the three centre, and waggon-vaults in the
two outer bays. The transepts and crossing are vaulted with
pointed barrel- vaults at the two ends, and three bays of quadri-
partite vaulting in the space between these two compartments;
and the internal effect is particularly fine, owing to the long line
of arches into the eastern chapels and the rich character of most
of the details. The nave and aisles no doubt retain to some
extent their old form and arrangement, but most of the work here
is of the fifteenth century, whilst that of the eastern part of the
church is no doubt of circa A.D. 1170-1220. The west front is
quite modernised. The transept walls are lofty, and there is a
simple pointed clerestory above the roofs of the eastern chapels,
and a rose window over the arch into the Capilla mayor. The
smaller chapels have each one window, the centre chapel three
windows with the usual three-quarter engaged shaft between
1 See plan, Plate VIII., p. 178.
126 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
them, finishing in the eaves-cornice. The south transept has a
fine round-headed doorway, but all its detail is that of early-
pointed work. It has an Agnus Dei surrounded by angels in
the tympanum, the four Evangelists with their emblems in one
order of the arch, bold foliage in the next, a deep scallop orna-
ment in the third, and delicate foliage in the label. The capitals
are well carved, and the jambs of the door and one of the members
of the archivolt have simple rose ornaments at intervals. The
abaci of the capitals are square, but notwithstanding this and
the other apparently early feature of the round arch, I am still
not disposed to date this work earlier than circa A.D. 12 10-20. l
Of the same age and character probably are all the eaves-cornices
of the earlier part of the church, and, I have little doubt, the
whole lower portion of the church itself (23).
There is a fine doorway to the north transept, and a lofty
tower of very singular design rises over its northern bay. This
is three stages in height above the roof, and is finished with a
corbel-table and a modern spire of ogee outline. The masons'
marks on the exterior of the walls are here, as is usual in these
early churches, very plentiful.
The church of San Juan del Mercado seems to be in some
respects even more interesting than the other. It has a south
doorway of singularly rich character, the two inner orders of
the arch being round and the others pointed. The shafts are
unusually rich and delicate; they are carved with acanthus-
leaves diapered all over their surface, with chevrons and spiral
mouldings, and above their bands at mid-height have in front
of them figures of saints, three on either side. The tympanum
has the Adoration of the Magi, and the order of the arch round it
is sculptured with angels. Altogether this is a very refined and
noble work, and the combination of the pointed and round arches
one over the other is very happy. The west front has also a
fine doorway and engaged shafts at intervals in the wall, and the
east end is parallel triapsidal of the same character as that of
San Juan.
There are some other churches, but those which I saw seemed
to be all late and uninteresting. There are, too, the rapidly
wasting ruins of an imposing castle. It is of very late sixteenth-
century work, and apparently has no detail of any interest; but
the approach to it through a gateway, and up a winding hilly
1 There is an inscription on the south-east buttress of the transept which,
I believe, refers to the date of the church; but, unfortunately, though I
noticed it, I forgot to write it down.
BENAVENTE
127
BENAVENTE
EAST END OF STA. MARIA
road under the steep castle walls, is very picturesque. By its
side an Alameda has been planted, and here is the one agreeable
walk in Benavente. Below is the river Esla, winding through a
broad plain well wooded hereabouts with poplars and aspens;
in the background are lines of hills, and beyond them bold
mountain outlines; and such a view, aided by the transparent
loveliness of the atmosphere, was enough to make me half-
128 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
inclined to forget the squalid misery of everything that met the
eye when I passed back again to my lodging.
NOTES
(1) The walls are quite gone now.
(2) The old cathedral has been restored; in the vaulting only
the aisles and third bay of the nave show stones laid as in a dome.
The statues at the crossing are changed about under the dome,
two angels trumpeting, one with a book, and one missing; in the
south transept, first bay, S. Michael, a bishop, and a knight, each
with a dragon, and a knight with a lion; in the outer bay, sitting
figures, half grotesque; in the north transept only two remaining,
a king with a cup, and another apparently with a dragon. It is hard
to be sure of the intentions in Spanish cathedrals, where the greatest
builders never uttered so coherent a history or body of doctrine as
those of even a third-rate French church.
(3) These are gone, and, indeed, much is changed. The timbers
do not project, the pierced stone work above the transept is filled in,
and the billet moulding goes only around the central apse. The
north apse, which seems untouched, has instead a ball in the
hollow of the moulding, and wants corbels.
(4) Nearly all these have, beside the sculpture, remains of painting
in the tympanum of the recess, very interesting to the student, that
shows a strong likeness to the French painting of the same time on
walls, windows, and miniatures. The favourite subject is the Epi-
phany. Other evidence of the French influence (if such is wanted)
are the great Madonna at Huesca, in a side chapel, painted in
tempera on linen, and a small tempera painting of the Crucifixion,
preserved in the inner sacristy at Pamplona.
(5) The retable was painted by Nicholas Florentine in 1445.
The work is assuredly Italian, but the number and choice of sub-
jects neither Italian nor French they are too many for the former
and too consecutive for the latter. The whole is absolutely in the
tradition of Spanish ecclesiastical art, in the same vein as the great
retables of saintly legend which abound in Spain and in Spain alone.
Whether one of the canons dictated the choice, or the master of the
works, he was a Spaniard certainly. The two lower central panels,
which replace a lost image, are by a later and a Spanish hand, that of
Fernando Gallegos probably. The scenes a Pieta and a Way to
Calvary are beyond question from his atelier. About the Floren-
tine, Sefior Gomez Moreno has a most ingenious theory: he believes
him identical with Dello Delli, registered in Florence in 1432, who, as
we know from Vasari, worked in Spain, returned home once in 1446,
and was still living in Castile about 1460. He was famous at home
for cassone pictures. Now, if his name was Dello di Niccolo and
he painted the fifty-three panels of this retable, then re-visited
Florence and found a fresh inspiration there before painting the
Last Judgment in the vault above, the conditions of the case seem
SALAMANCA
129
satisfied. Moreover, Dello had a brother, called by the rather
uncommon name of Samson. This Nicholas had likewise a brother
Samson, who kept his shop in Avila and is mentioned with him in a
contract dated 1466. The scenes of the retable at Salamanca read
as follows, from left to right, beginning at the bottom :
I. Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, her Espousal, Annunciation,
Visitation, S. Joseph's Dream, the Nativity, Circumcision, Epiphany,
Presentation, and Flight into Egypt.
II. Massacre of the Innocents, Christ among the Doctors, Baptism,
Temptation, Angels Ministering, S. John baptising and talking to
disciples, Christ reading in the Synagogue (apostles and doctors
about), Marriage at Cana, Woman in Adultery, Lame Man
Healed.
III. Paralytic Healed, S. Peter walks on the Sea, Feast in the
House of Simon, Woman of Samaria, Miracle of the Loaves and
Fishes, Healing the Blind, Transfiguration, the Money-changers,
Bethesda, Canaanitish Woman, Raising of Lazarus.
IV. The Box of Ointment, Entry into Jerusalem, Last Supper,
Washing the Feet, Agony in the Garden, Kiss of Judas, Christ at the
Pillar, Way to Calvary, Crucifixion, Deposition, Way Home from
Golgotha.
V. The Harrowing of Hell, Entombment, Resurrection, Maries
at the Tomb, Christ as Gardener, Way to Emmaus, Incredulity of
Thomas, Ascension, Pentecost, Apostles preaching from the Upper
Room, Assumption, and Coronation.
(6) The following chapels opening out of the cloister have one
or more interesting retables carved or painted, or more usually
both: the Mozarabic chapel, those of S. Barbara, S. Catherine,
S. Bartholomew; there are other retables in the south-west corner
and the west walk of the cloister. This, however, was boarded off
for a workshop and the key not to be had. The retable of S. Catha-
rine is dated by payments made in 1500 to one " Gallego," twice
without other name and once as Francisco. Now, the great
Gallegos was called Fernando. M. Bertaux is quite sure that this
is the painter of the Pieta and Way to Calvary, inserted in the
Retablo Mayor, and more than half wants to identify him with
Fernando, though the multitude of Gallegos retables and the
differences among them force one to assume a big atelier. In the New
Cathedral (chapel of S. Anthony of Padua) there is one of the Virgin
with SS. Christopher and Andrew, too much repainted to serve any
end.
(7) The Capilla Dorada, in which I counted one hundred and
eleven statues, offers everything in the world for the iconography
of the Renaissance in Spain, Saints, Sibyls, Virtues, Heroes, etc.,
but shows so little care to distinguish the figures by any significant
sign that their names have all, perforce, been painted underneath.
(8) These I take to be the Seminario Conciliar and the church of
the Dominican nuns.
(9) Of early work, the walls and gates are all gone, so is San
Matteo, which dated from the eleventh century, being consecrated
by S. Isidore in 1062. San Marcos was founded in 1178 by Alfonso
I I
130 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN.
VIII., and in 1202 Alfonso IX. raised it to a Chapel Royal. The
apses are later, and by restoration it has lost the picturesque porch
with which a following age embellished one side. The whole is
abandoned and indescribably wretched ; furthermore, it is locked up,
but the priest of the Carmen, in the Plaza de Santo Tome, keeps the
key and is very kind. San Martin, which has many likenesses to
the Old Cathedral, appears in a writing of 1 173 : Sefior Faulcon says *
that he saw as a boy the apses that are now built up by other
houses: they had high, narrow windows and buttresses. The
church is very beautiful enough to draw one to Salamanca were
there no Old Cathedral or cloister of the Vega. Of the churches
named by Ford I could learn nothing about San Nicholas, San
Pedro, or San Miguel. They have perished and their place knows
them no more. Santa Maria de los Caballeros has been completely
made over. San Millan possesses charms of its own, but they are
very rococo charms. There are, however, four others, of which
the first, San Julian, is from the time of Raymond of Burgundy,
built in 1107, rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The only old part,
the north door and wall above, looks very Lombard, with the sur-
vivor of a pair of beasts high up. San Cristobal, founded 1145, in
the quarter where lived the Castellan that came in the early twelfth
century with Count Raymond, belonged already in 1150 to the
knights of S. John. The apse is old, very deep, with a billet moulding
and carved corbels. Santa Eulalia, mo, is said to have a Roman-
esque door. It belongs to the Little Sisters of the Poor, and at the
moment I could not see it, but I discovered on the opposite face of
the square of buildings some charming late Gothic windows looking
on a steep street. S. Thomas of Canterbury is of the same size and
style, with a west tower the whole width of the nave, a round-
headed window in the transept, and Romanesque fragments of
arcading on the buttress alongside, like that at San Pedro in Zamora;
three apses with the usual string-courses, corbels, and pilasters.
(10) He began it in 1151.
(11) There is plenty in the north-west, identical and with modifi-
cations, throughout Galicia and the Asturias.
(12) On the east SS. Paul and Peter, on the west Madonna
between censing angels.
(13) The trascoro and the central chapel at the west have paint-
ings by Fernando Gallegos, the latter signed. It represents in the
centre the Imposition of the Chasuble, to the left the Blessed
Virgin letting a bishop touch her veil, to the right the same bishop
giving a casket to pilgrims with lame beggars about. Above, the
Crucifixion is flanked by the Baptism and the Decollation of S. John,
and these scenes by figures of Adam and Eve; in the range below,
the Church and Synagogue, SS. John the Evangelist, Isidore, Peter,
Veronica, Jerome, and James. The retable on the trascoro presents
hnst enthroned between His mother and the Precursor, with
s and angels around. Gallegos, who was more diligent than
iterestmg, signed everything he could and a good deal that he should
s visibly the subject and the consequence of Flemish
1 Salamanca Artistica y Monumental.
SALAMANCA
influences, but precisely which influences critics are not agreed.
One of his pupils, sometimes called fantastically The Master of the
Armouries, has a marked personality, and is represented in the great
retable from Cuidad Rodrigo, now in Sir Frederick Cook's possession
at Richmond.
(14) Don Jose Maria Quadrado says this church was once vaulted,
and Sefior Lamperez assigns it to the thirteenth century. At half past
ten on Sunday morning I could not get in. I regret the more to have
missed these tombs, because the sculptural part of one of the
sepulchres in the Old Cathedral at Salamanca reminded me of con-
temporary work in Pisa and Umbria, and I was anxious to make
comparisons.
(15) San Vicente is now hidden from the square by a new shop.
The south door has the same effect as those of the cathedral and
San Ildefonso, but the details are later. The last-named church,
which shares its dedication with S. Peter and is identical with
that cited from Dr. Neale, is all rebuilt but one apse and one window;
it has still the central apse with half-columns and corbels, and a bit
of Romanesque arcade on the wall of the nave. The arches of this
being narrow, stilted, and set well back on the large abacus of the
shafts, at first glance seem of a horse-shoe form, illustrating pre-
cisely on a smaller scale the same illusion as at Santiago of Compos-
tella. San Juan de la Puerta Nueva, I was told, is the name of the
church that Street and I had called San Miguel.
(16) A lioness with her cub, I think.
( 1 7) The porch and west door are hidden inside a modern entrance,
and another door midway the south side, now walled up, had
opened into a fine vaulted chamber, once perhaps a porch, now a
baptistery. With grotesques on the capitals and zig-zag mouldings,
this work is unlike any other in the town. In the chapel south of
the sanctuary is a fine retable in the best Castilian manner, and
another, later and different, but also of Castile, in the south-western
chapel, painted with great feeling for sky and air and sober, anxious
folk.
(18) San Claudio.
(19) Not only are the walls gone, but the railroad burrows under
the hill on which the town lies somewhat like Siena in a great Y,
and the station is beyond the tip of the longest spur, quite half an
hour from the centre and further yet from either the cathedral or
the river.
(20) Now, among other base uses, serving as the Parador de
los Momos, the square being called the Plaza de Zorrilla. The great
arch-stones occur also on a gateway at Salamanca close to San
Julian.
(21) At Toro S. Mary Major, judging from the history of the town,
must have been built in the latter half of the twelfth century, but
the great western portal and some of the capitals show that it cannot
have been finished till deep into the thirteenth. It is in the essen-
tial parts, however, probably earlier than the Cathedral of Salamanca,
because it contains more archaic elements, i.e., the barrel-vault in
the arms of the transept, and the plainer design of the lantern. It
is said to have been the cathedral of the diocese before Zamora, but
132 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
it was a simple church when the Catholic kings, Ferdinand and Isabel,
raised it to the collegiate estate. The architecture is Romanesque in
the east end and transept, transitional in the nave, Burgundian in
type throughout. Built of yellow stone, golden in the sunlight,
that weathers even more beautifully than that of Oxford and soon
loses the marks of restorers, it stands superbly away from the life
of the little town, high above a river, and visited all night by troops
of stars. The lantern has three stages and a low conical roof, four
turrets, and two rows of windows, all much less complicated than
those at Salamanca. The top stage of the central apse, like that of
the lantern, is not original, and simply carries the tiled roof; the
cornice below that is supported on fine corbels, fashioned like early
Gothic capitals. A great arcade, pierced with windows in the
alternate openings, rests on another blind arcade, plain and very
shallow, and four three-quarter columns divide the whole. The
other two apses are built against. The great transepts carry
corbel-tables with heads between the arches, and two shallow but-
tresses on each side of the corner ; the southern, less rebuilt, keeps a
wheel -window of eight shallow round arches. Above the pointed
south door of the nave another rich rose is pierced; capitals,
mouldings, and windows are here decorated with acanthus leaves in
very low relief, full of fine lines, like plaited lawn. The north door
has a round head and no tympanum, with similar decorative motives
in the round-arched window above. Three pairs of shafts in the
jambs carry four orders in the arch, the second and fourth of which
show little figures, of Christ reigning and fourteen angels in the one
case, and in the other the twenty-four elders making music with
Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and S. John all seated on the radius of
the arch as in the Gloria of Santiago. This arrangement, found
sometimes, though rarely, in the south-west of France, is the common
one in all north-western Spain. The capitals here bear partly
monsters and partly leafy forms of the transition. Those of the
apse arcade are very various ; some of Gothic form, but full of fine
lines, others made up of entrelacs or histories a king on horseback
who meets a monk, a knight who leaves his horse standing to fight
a panther perhaps Froila and the bear. Within, the church is all
restored, but rather discreetly, and at the west front, now built up
and used for a baptistery, the colour was last laid on in 1774:
" Retocose esta retablo seendo cur a Don Manuel de Orenas." On the
lintel of the portal is the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin; the
twelve apostles and two angels lay her in her grave, one reads the
funeral office, and two angels take her soul up in a napkin to Coro-
nation in the tympanum, between two angels with candles and two
more censing above. On the mid-post she holds a flower, with
the Holy Child on her left arm, and the corbels of the lintel carry on
their faces angel musicians. Jambs and door-sides are covered with
panelling and the short shafts are historied in part, with the Nativity
and the Shepherds, the Epiphany then Herod receives the Kings,
consults the Doctors, takes counsel, and slaughters the Innocents.
Statues under canopies above this have lost the inscriptions by which
they were once intelligible: on the left an angel with a scroll, a
prophet in a Jew's cap, with scroll, a fine gentleman, and Solomon,
ZAMORA 133
each with a book: on the right, David playing on his harp, Daniel
with a book, a prophet with a turban, and an angel, both with scrolls.
The archivolt reads, beginning from the outside at the centre:
Christ in Judgment between SS. Mary and John, the instruments
of the passion to left and right, angels trumpeting and the dead rising
and passing in a long procession to S. Peter, crowned and enthroned.
The souls of the blessed abide in a fair garden, three seated are
making music, others, half-lengths or mere heads, look out of the
interstices of leafy garlands. Beyond lies more than a hint of
Purgatory a door, one figure in a gown and another soul naked in
the flame; to the other side, a devil marshals soldiers and laymen to
all sorts of torments, hell-mouth gaping at the bottom of all. The
other rows follow in order: eighteen elders, crowned, with musical
instruments; sixteen virgins and matrons with palms; fourteen
confessors, monks, and bishops; twelve martyrs, chiefly clergy; ten
doctors with books ; eight angels with music and incense alternately.
In conception and realisation all this is French, at one remove,
and more than a little in the same vein as Leon. I understand that
the portal at Cuidad Rodrigo is like enough to be from the same
hand, and that probably a Leonese. Inside, the nave has three bays
of barrel-vault: the aisles, two of octopartite, and the third, to
eastward, simpler. The lantern carries its sixteen ribs superbly on
two rows of short shafts between the windows ; the design seems to
me simpler, finer, and earlier than that at Salamanca. In the
crossing are pendentives, in the three parallel apses semi-domes,
with a bay of barrel-vault to lengthen the central one, and barrel-
vaults in the transepts; the main arches are all pointed. Four
Fonseca tombs a bishop and a couple on the epistle side, a doctor
and a lady on the other, are flamboyant in style and would be lovely
in treatment if they were not smeared with yellow paint; another is
in the south apse. The baroque retables are discouraging, but I
understand that in San Lorenzo there was very lately seen a fine
polyptych by Gallegos, the frame painted with the arms of Don
Pedro of Castile (died 1492) and his wife, Dona Beatriz de Fonseca.
Eight panels, four of the Infancy and four of S. Lawrence, were in
position, with the predella and the upper part; that dislodged from
the centre by a churriguerresque abomination, and long kept in the
bishop's palace, has gone to Paris; it represents Christ in glory
between the Church and the Synagogue. If I had stayed longer I
might have found this retable, and I regretted enough, as it was, not
to stay. The town, which is not really hard of access, has a delicious,
independent, courteous life of its own, and the modest inn of the
Pineros is clean and kindly.
(22) Moreruela. Between Zamora and Benavente, the train
stops a moment at Las Tablas, whence a cart-road leads to More-
ruela, the earliest Cistercian foundation in Spain. Very considerable
ruins still standing show the finest transitional style of building
some time between 1131 and 1168. The monks were sent by S.
Bernard from Clairvaux for Alfonso VII. The nave is quite ruined,
but the chevet presents a superb view outside from the east, with
chapels and ambulatory mounting successively toward it. The
capitals, for instance those of the window shafts inside the apses,
134 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
are fine enough for Greek workmen, though following for the most
part French models.
(23) Of Santa Maria del Azogue, Senor Lamperez takes pains to
say, Street found the date, 1220. The nave was vaulted in the
middle of the sixteenth century. The inscription in the transept
buttresses reads: " Esta Yglesia esta senalada para el asilo y
sagrado de los reos, Benavente, Diciembre 26 de 1773." The date
of the west front is 1735. It contains very fair retables and a
charming Virgin and angel on the piers of the choir facing the nave.
Senor Gomez Morena says the Cistercian church of Moreruela gave
much both to this and to San Juan. The latter is dated by an
inscription in the arch between the choir and the northern apse,
" Era MCCXX." i.e., A.D. 1182. The north door, which opens into
the priest's garden, is very like the north door of Santa Maria, and
the same masons' marks are repeated on both buildings. It con-
tains a lovely retable of S. Isidore and others, that shows delicate
Umbrian and Tuscan influence. This part of Spain is almost
unspoiled by travellers ; courtesy and kindness are, the rule ; children
are civil-mannered, and the hill towns are comparable to those of
Italy, if not in nobility of silhouette yet certainly in magnificence of
situation.
CHAPTER V
LEON
IT is a ride of some six-and-thirty or forty miles from Benavente
to Leon. The road follows the course of the valley of the Esla all
the way, and, though it is as nearly as possible level throughout,
it is impassable for carriages. This is characteristic of the
country; the Spaniards are content to go on as their fathers
have done before them, and until some external friend comes to
make a railway for them, the people of Benavente and Leon
will probably still remain as practically isolated from each other
as they are at present.
The valley is full of villages, as many as ten or twelve being
in sight at one time on some parts of the road. None of their
churches, however, seem to be of the slightest value. They
are mostly modern and built of brick, though some have nothing
better than badly built cob-walls to boast of; and their only
unusual feature seems to be the great western bell-gable, which
is generally an elevation above the roof of the whole width of
the western wall, in which several bells are usually hung in a
series of openings. The villages, too, are all built of cob; and
as the walls are either only half- thatched or not thatched at all,
they are gradually being worn away by the rains, and look as
forlorn and sad as possible. One almost wonders that the people
do not quit their hovels for the wine-caves with which every
little hill near the villages is honeycombed, and upon which
more care seems to be bestowed than upon the houses. In
these parts the peasants adorn the outside of their houses with
plenty of whitewash, and then relieve its bareness with rude
red and black paintings of sprigs of trees, arranged round the
windows and doors.
TUe cathedral of I wrUJL first seen some three or four hours
before the city is reached It stands up boldly above the well-
wooded valley and is backed by a noble range oi mountain
peaks to the north; so that, though the road was somewhat
monotonous and wearying, I rode on picturing to myself the
great things I was soon to see. Unfortunately I visited Leon a
year too late, for I came just in time to see the cathedral bereft
135
136 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
of its southern transept, which had been pulled down to save
it from falling, and was being reconstructed under the care of
a Madrilenian architect Sefior Lavinia. I saw his plans and
some of the work which was being put in its place, and the sight
made me wish with double earnestness that I had been there
before he had commenced his work! In England or in France
such a work would be full of risk, and might well fill all lovers of
our old buildings with alarm; but in Spain there is absolutely
no school for the education of architects, the old national art is
little understood and apparently very little studied, and there
are no new churches and no minor restorations on which the
native architects may try their 'prentice hands. In England for
some years we have lived in the centre of a church-building
movement as active and hearty perhaps as any ever yet known ;
our advantages, therefore, as compared with those possessed by
foreigners generally are enormous ; whilst perhaps, on the other
hand, in no country has so little been done" as in Spain during
the present century. Yet in England few of us would like to
think of pulling down and reconstructing one side of a cathe-
dral, and few would doubt that art and history would lose much
in the process, even in the hands of the most able and conserva-
tive architect.
Thetwogreatjirchitectural features of Leon are f.hft ratherlral
ao^thTchurch of San Isidoro; and to the former, though it is
by much The most modern of the two, I musTlirst of all ask
my readers to turn their attention.
Spaniards are rightly proud of this noble church, and the
proverbs which assert its pre-eminence seem to be numerous.
One, giving the characteristics of several cathedrals, is worth
quoting:
" Dives Toletana, Sancta Ovetensis
Pulchra Leonina, fortis Salamantina."
And again there is another Leonese couplet :
" Sevilla en grandeza, Toledo en riqueza,
Compostella en fortaleza, esta en sutileza."
So again, just as our own people wrote that jubilant verse on
the door-jamb of the Chapter-house at York, here on a column
in front of the principal door was inscribed :
" Sint licet Hispaniis ditissima, pulchraque templa,
Hoc tamen egregiis omnibus arte prius."
There used to be a controversy as to the age of this cathedral,
LEON 137
which must, however, one would think, long since have been
settled. It was asserted that it was the very church built at the
end of the ninth century during the reign of Ordono II.; and
the only proof of this was the inscription upon the fine four-
teenth-century monument of the King which still stands in the
aisle of the chevet behind the high altar:
" Omnibus exemplum sit, quod venerabile teraplum
Rex dedit Ordonius, quo jacet ipse pius.
Hunc fecit sedem, quam primo fecerat aedem
Virginis hortatu, quas fulget Pontificatu.
Pavit earn donis, per earn nitet urbs Legionis
Quesumus ergo Dei gratia parcat ei. Amen."
Fortunately, however, in addition to the indubitable evidence
of the building itself, there is sufficient documentary evidence
to give with tolerable exactness the dates of the commencement
and completion of the "existing church, and I did not see, and
believe there is not, a relic of the church which preceded it still
remaining.
One or two facts of interest in regard to the first cathedral
may, however, well be mentioned here. The architect is said
by Sandoval to have been an Abbat; and in Ordono II.'s
absence he is said to have converted the old Roman baths in
"the palace into a church, the plan being similar to that of
churches with three naves. 1 It is interesting to find this plan so
popular in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, already described
as existing in the ninth. 2
Don Manrique, Bishop of Leon from A.D. 1181 to A.D. 1205,
is said to have been the first founder of the present cathedral.
The contemporary chronicler Don Lucas de Tuy speaks most
positively on this point, and as he wrote his history in the con-
vent of San Isidoro close by, it is difficult to dispute his testi-
mony. 3 How much he completed nowhere appears, though,
1 See Catalogo de los Obispos de Leon, Cixila II. Esp. Sag. xxxiv. 211.
2 In a deed of the 2oth March, A.D. 1175, mention is made of Pedro
Cebrian, " Maestro de la Obra de la Catedral," and of Pedro Gallego,
" Gobernador de las Torres." It is possible, of course, that Cebrian may
have been the architect of the new cathedral if it was commenced between
1181 and 1205, but I do not believe that this was the case; and the real
architect was, more probably, one who is thus mentioned in the book of
Obits of the cathedral: " Eodem die VII. idus Julii, sub era MCCCXV.
obiit Henricus, magister operis," and who, dying in the year 1277, may
well have designed the greater portion of the work. At a later date, in
1513, Juan de Badajoz was architect of the cathedral, and may probably
have finished one of the steeples. Cean Bermudez,/lr#. de Espana, i. 37, 38.
3 " Hoc tempore," he says, " ampliata est fides Catholica in Hispania, et
licet multi Regnum Legionense bellis impeterent, tamen Ecclesiae regalibus
muneribus ditatas sunt in tantum, ut antiquae destruerentur Ecclesiae, quae
138 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
judging by the style of the church, I should say it could have
been but very little. Later than this, in A.D. 1258, during the
episcopate of D. Martin Fernandez, a Junta of all the bishops of
the kingdom of Leon was held at Madrid, at which the state
of the fabric of the cathedral was discussed, and forty days of
indulgence offered to those who made offerings towards the
further promotion of the works. 1 Sixteen years later a council
was held in Leon, and again the state of the fabric of the church
was discussed and indulgence offered to those who gave alms
for it. 2 Finally, in A.D. 1303, the Bishop Don Gonzalez gave
back to the use of the Chapter a property which had been devoted
to the work of the church, " because," he says, " the work is
now done, thanks be to God." Nothing more clear on the face
of it than this list of dates can be desired; yet, as frequently
happens, when we come to compare them with the building itself,
it is utterly impossible to believe in the most important part of it
the foundation, namely, of any part of the present church in
the time of Bishop Manrique before the year 1205. I have
elsewhere in this volume had occasion to show how much the
Spaniards borrowed from the French in their architecture.
Certain entire buildings, such as Burgos, Toledo, and Santiago,
are distinctly derived from French churches, and in all cases
are somewhat later in date than the French examples with which
they most nearly correspond. If we apply this test to Leon it
will be impossible to admit that any part of the existing church
was built much before A.D. 1250. The church Jrorn beginning to
"it
^
jui--ks--geiiej-al__design. And inasmuch as there is no long and
regular sequence of Spanish buildings leading .up step by step
to the developed style which it exhibits, it is quite out of the
magnis sumptibus fuerant fabricate, et multo nobiliores et pulchriores in
totoRegnoLegionensifundarentur. TuncreverendusEpiscopusLegionensis
Manricus ejusdemSedis Ecclesiam fundavit opere magno, sed earn ad perfec-
tionem non duxit."
" Cum igitur," they say, " ad fabricam Ecclesiae Sanctaa Maria Legio-
nensis, qvue de novo construitur, et magnis indiget sumptibus, propriae non
suppetant facultates, universitatem vestram rogamus," " quatenus de
boms vobis a Deo collatis eidem fabrica? pias eleemosynas de vestris
facultatibus tribuatis, ut per haac, et alia bona opera, qua? inspirante Deo
tecentis, ad eterna possitis gaudia pervenire." This indulgence is pre-
Ser 2 v ,^ m the . archives of the cathedral. Espana Sagrada, xxxv. 269.
Cum igitur Ecclesia Beatae Maria? Legion. Sedis aadificetur de novo
opere quamplurimum sumptuoso, et absque fidelium adminiculo non possit
iter consummari, universitatem vestram monemus et exhortamur in
Jomino, etc., etc.; " ut per subventionem vestram, quod ibidem incep-
tum est, ad effectum optatum valeat pervenire," etc., given in the general
Council of Leon, 10 Kal. Aug. A.D. 1273. Espana Sagrada, xxxv. 270.
LEON CATHEDRAL
INTERIOR OF AISLE ROUND T^E APSE
140 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
question to give it credit for an earlier existence than the
corresponding French churches, in the history of which such
steps are not wanting.
The churches which are nearest in style to Leon are, I think,
the cathedrals at Amiens and Rheims, and perhaps the later part
of S. Denis (i). Of these, Amiens was in building from A.D. 1220
to A.D. 1269, and Rheims from A.D. 1211 to A.D. 1241! But
both are slightly earlier in their character than Leon. In all
three the chapels of the apse are planned in the same way ; that
is to say, they are polygonal and not circular in their outlines,
and the sections of the columns, the plans of the bases and
capitals, and the detail of the arches and groining ribs are as
nearly as may be the same; and in all these points the resem-
blance between them and Leon Cathedral is close and remarkable.
A similar conclusion will be arrived at if we pursue the
inquiry from a different point, and compare this cathedral with
other Spanish works of the date at which it is assumed to have
been in progress. I can only suppose that Don Lucas de Tuy,
when he spoke of Bishop Manrique's work at the cathedral, did
so only from hearsay, or else that the work then commenced
was subsequently completely removed to make way for the
present building. Certainly in A.D. 1180-1200 all Spanish
churches seem to have been built on a different plan, in a very
much more solid fashion, and so that it would have been very
difficult indeed to convert them into anything like the existing
building. I venture to assume, therefore, that the scheme of
Leon Cathedral was first made circa A.D. 1230-1240, and that
the work had not progressed very far at the time the Junta of
bishops was held in Madrid in A.D. 1258.
In plan ithp-f-athedrftl consists nf a nave and aisles of six bays,
transepts, a choir of three baySj _anjd_cheyet of five sidgs, witTTa:
Surrounding aip and pftntagoqgj rhappls hpynnfl Tl^PrP^ro
twjCLwestern towers, a large cloister oruth_north side, sacristies
on the south-east, and a large chapel on the east side of the
cloisters, with other buildings on their northern and western
sides, arranged very much in the usual way; the^chevet pro-
jects beyond the line of the old city walL_one of the towers of
which is still left on the east side of the cloister. The city
was long and narrow; and whilst the cathedral projects to the
east of the wall, the church of San Isidore has its western tower
built out beyond the western face of the wall. There is not,
however, here, as there is at Avila, any very distinct attempt to
1 Plate V., p. 152,
LEON CATHEDRAL 141
fortify the chevet of the cathedral, otherwise than by forming
passages, passing through the buttresses all round it, and by
raising the windows high above the ground on the east.
There are doorways in all the three grand fronts, west, north,
and south ; but these shall be described f urt ?r on. The columns
throughout are cylindrical, with attached shafts on the cardinal
sides, the groining-shafts towards the nave and choir being,
however, triple, instead of single. In the apse the small shafts
are not placed regularly round the main shaft, but their position
is altered to suit the angles at which the arches are built. The
same alteration of plan occurs in the chevet of Amiens, a work
which was in progress about A.D. 1240, and to which, as I have
said, the plan of this cathedral bears considerable resemblance.
<TheJfeature which most strnrk rriff in thin rnthpdrnl wjvMiir
rfril lihf r r)pss which rhnrnrtnrinrn iti pnn^tni
part Thp rolnmns; nf thn nnvn nrp nf mnHeraf
arches whi'c,b they parry vpr y thin j whilst tTip Iflrgp and lofty
clerestory, and the triforinm below it; were holkjiifirced to such
a*uextpnt. as tn Wvft a. pier to rereiv^thg groining srnaTJerTymn I
think T ever sa.w elsewhere in so large a church. T{iere are
nnp ahnvp t,hfr
trusted, no doubt, that the weight of the groining would be
carried down through them to such an extent as to make it safe
to venture on as much as he did. Moreover, he was careful to
economise the weight where possible; and with this view he
filled in the whole of his vaults with a very light tufa, obtained
from the mountains to the north of Leon. 1 In short, when this
cathedral was planned, its architect must either have resolved
that it should exceed all others in the slender airiness of its
construction, or he must have been extremely incautious if not
reckless. It is not a little curious that in France, at the same
time, the same attempt was being made, and with the like result.
The architect of Beauvais, unable to surpass the majestic com-
bination of stable loftiness with beauty of form which charac-
terised the rather earlier work at Amiens, tried instead to excel
him alike in height, and in lightness of construction. No one can
pretend that he was an incompetent man, yet his work was so
imprudently daring, that it was impossible to avoid a catas-
trophe; and we now have it rebuilt, to some extent in the same
1 So, at least, I was assured by the superintendent of the works at the
cathedral. Some of the material I saw was no doubt tufa; but some of it
seemed to me to be an exceedingly light kind of concrete. The vaulting
of Salisbury Cathedral is similarly constructed. I do not know whether
at Beauvais the same expedient was adopted to lessen the weight.
142 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
design after its fall, but with so many additional points of
support as very much to spoil its symmetry and beauty. Here,
then, we have an exactly parallel case : for at Leon, no sooner
was the church completed than it became necessary to build up
the outer lights, both of the clerestory and triforium, to save the
work from the same misfortune (2). Nor was the precaution
altogether successful, for, owing almost entirely to the over-
hazardous nature of the whole construction, the south transept
had recently, it is said, become so dangerously rent with cracks
and settlements as to render it absolutely necessary to rebuild it;
and the groining throughout the church shows signs of failure
everywhere, and this of serious, if not of so fatal a character.
At the risk of repetition, I cannot help saying how strongly
this parallel between Beauvais and Leon tells in favour of the
assumption that its origin was rather French than Spanish.
For in Spain there were no other churches at the time it was
built from which a Spanish architect could have made such a
sudden development as this design would have been. The
steps by which it would have been attained are altogether want-
ing, and yet in France we have every step, and, finally, results
of precisely the same kind. Both at an earlier and at a later date,
when Spaniards made use of their own school of architects,
they developed for themselves certain classes of churches, unlike,
in some respects, to those of any other country. Here, however,
we have an exotic, which, like the cathedral at Burgos, is evi-
dently the work of some artist who had at least been educated
among the architects of the north of France, if he was not
himself a Frenchman. The proof of this is to be found more
perhaps at S. Denis than anywhere, for there the section of the
mouldings of the clerestory windows, as well as their general
design, tallies so closely with the same parts of Leon Cathedral
that it is almost impossible to doubt their common origin.
One other feature not yet insisted upon affords strong evi-
dence in the same direction. This cathedral is a mere lantern,
it has scarcely a yard of plain unpierced wall anywhere, and
the main thought of its architect was evidently how he might
increase to the utmost extent the size of the windows, and the
spaces for the glorious glass with which he contrived to fill the
church. No greater fault could be committed in such a climate.
This lavish indulgence in windows would have been excessive
even in England, and must have always been all but insupport-
able in Spain. It was the design of 'French and not Spanish
artists, for in their own undoubted works these last always wisely
LEON CATHEDRAL 143
reduced their windows to the smallest possible dimensions.
The cathedral at Milan is a case of the same kind, for there a
German architect, called to build a church in a foreign land,
built it with as many windows as he would have put had it been
in his own country, and with a similar contempt for the customs
of the national architects to that which marks the work of the
architect of Leon Cathedral.
Regarding this cathedral, then, as a French, rather than as a
Spanish church, and giving up all attempt to make it illustrate
a chapter of the real national artistic history, we shall best be
able to do justice to it as a work of art. It is, indeed, in almost
every respect worthy to be ranked among the noblest churches
of Europe. Its detail is rich and beautiful throughout, its plan
very excellent, the sculpture with which it is adorned quite
equal in quantity and character to that of any church of the
age, and the stained glass with which its windows are every-
where rilled, perhaps some of the most brilliant in Europe.
There are many features in its construction and design which
must be referred to somewhat in detail, and to this part of my
subject I must now turn.
I have already mentioned that the triforium throughout the
church was originally glazed. In order to obtain this the aisles
were covered with gabled roofs, whose ridges were parallel
with the nave; and in order to allow of this being done a stone
gutter was formed below the sills of the clerestory windows, and
below this again corbels were built into the wall to carry the
aisle roofs; cross gutters also of stone were carried through the
roof in each bay from the clerestory gutter to the outer wall of
the aisles. I cannot say that the effect of this arrangement
is good. The eye seems to require some grave space of wall
between the main arches and the glazing of the clerestory; and
it is difficult to say on what ground the triforium is to be treated
as a separate architectural division of the fabric, when it is in
truth, as it is here, nothing more than a prolongation of the
clerestory.
The flying buttresses are rather steep in pitch, and each
consists of two arches abutting against very broad buttresses
rising from between the side chapels; the lower arch supports
the clerestory just at the level of the springing of the groining;
the higher a few feet only below the parapet. Two pinnacles
rise out of each of the buttresses, and others form a finish to
them all round the clerestory, and at the angles of the chapels
of the apse.
144 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
The windows throughout have good traceries. They are all
of pure geometrical character; those in the chapels of the choir
being of two lights, with large
cusped circles in the head, and
those in the clerestory of four
lights, subdivided into two divi-
sions, similar to the chapel win-
dows, with another cusped circle
above. The heads of the lights
throughout the windows are
uncusped, the cusping being
confined to the traceries. The
clerestory windows originally had
six lights, but the outer lights
were rather clumsy additions to
the original scheme for four-
light windows, and have since
been walled up, to give the neces-
sary strength to the groining
piers. The general arrangement
of the traceries in this part of the
church will be best understood by
reference to the engraving which
I give of one bay of the choir.
The stone-work of all the win-
dow traceries was very carefully
cramped together with strong
toothed iron plugs let into the
centre of the stones, and the
masons seem, in many cases, to
have marked the beds and not
the face of the stones. Indeed,
the early masons' marks are but
few in number, and most of
those that I saw occurred at the
base of the eastern walls, and
again in the upper portion of
the work. On the late, and
HOIR, LEON CATHEDRAL thoroughly Spanish chapel of
Santiago also, a good many occur
on the outer face of the stones. Owing to the works which were
in progress in the south transept, I had an unusually good
opportunity of looking for these marks, not only on the face
LEON CATHEDRAL 145
of the stones, but also on their beds, and their almost entire
absence from the early work was very remarkable. On the
other hand, there were markings on some of the other stones
which were of much more interest. I found, for instance,
one of the large stones forming the capital of the pier at the
crossing of the nave and transepts, carefully marked, first
with an outline of the whole of the jamb mould, then with the
lines of the capital, and finally with the whole of the archivolt.
It had all the air of being the practical working drawing used for
the execution of the work, some little alterations having been
made in the archivolt. It is easy to conceive that the architect
may thus have designed his details, and his mode bears con-
siderable analogy to that which M. Verdier describes as having
been adopted at Limoges, where the lines of the groining and
all the working outlines were scratched on the floor of the tri-
foria; here the lines are scratched boldly on the surface of
the stones.
The walls throughout the church were built of rubble, faced
with wrought stone inside and out, and some of the failures in
the work are attributable, no doubt, to the Want of strength and
bond of this kind of walling.
The dimensions of the various parts are about as follows:
Total internal length . . . 300 feet.
width of nave and aisles . 83 feet.
Height to springing of main arches 25 feet 6 inches.
floor of triforium . 46 feet.
centre of groining about 100 feet
These dimensions, though not to be compared to those of
many of the French churches, are still very noble, and would
place this among the finest of our own buildings in respect of
height; but, like all Spanish, and most French churches, the
length is not very grand.
The various views of the exterior are fine, but everywhere the
height of the clerestory appears to be rather excessive. This
is seen even at the west end, where a little management might
easily have prevented it. But the two steeples standing beyond
the aisles leave a narrow vertical chasm between their side
walls and those of the clerestory, which is brought out, without
any break in its outline by means of buttresses, quite to the west
front. The lower part of these steeples is perfectly plain;
each has a sort of double belfry stage, and they are both finished
with low spires that on the south pierced with open traceries,
146 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
and that on the north simply crocketed; both of them are
somewhat ungainly, of very late date, and not sufficiently lofty
or important for the church to which they are attached.
The grand feature of the west front is the beautiful porch
which extends all across, forming three grand archways, corres-
ponding with the nave and aisles, with smaller and extremely
pointed arches between them. These arches are all supported
on clustered shafts, standing away between four and five feet
from the main wall, in which the doorways are set. Statues are
set on corbels round the detached shafts, and again in the jambs
of all the doorways, and the tympana and archivolts of the latter
are everywhere crowded with sculpture. An open parapet is
carried all across the front above the porch, and above this the
west end is pierced with a row of four windows corresponding
with the triforium, and again, above, by a very large and simple
wheel-window. The finish of the west front is completely
modernised, with a seventeenth-century gable between two
pinnacles.
The sculpture of the western doors well deserves description
and illustration. It is charming work, of precisely the same
character as the best French work of the latter half of the
thirteenth century, and there is a profusion of it.
The central west door has in the tympanum our Lord seated,
with angels, and S. John and the Blessed Virgin worshipping
on either side. Below is the Last Judgment, the side of the
Blessed being as pretty and interesting as anything I have seen.
A youth sits at a small organ playing sweet songs to those who
go to Paradise; and a king, going jauntily, and as if of right,
towards S. Peter, is met by a grave person, who evidently tells
him that he must depart to the other and sadder side. The
three orders of the arch are filled with, the resurrection of the
dead, angels taking some, and devils others, as they rise from
their graves the whole mixed very indiscriminately. On
the central shaft is a statue of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord,
now with wretched taste dressed up and enclosed in a glass case,
to the great damage of the whole doorway.
The north-west doorway has its tympanum divided in three
horizontal lines. The lower compartment has the Salutation,
the Nativity, an Angel, and the Shepherds; the middle the
Magi adoring our Lord in the Blessed Virgin's arms, and the
Flight into Egypt; and the upper, the Massacre of the Inno-
cents. The arch of this door is elliptic, and the space between
it and the tympanum is filled with figures of angels with crowns
LEON CATHEDRAL 147
and censers, playing an organ and other instruments, and
singing from books. The meaning of the sculpture in the
archivolt was not clear to me, and seemed to refer to some
legend (4).
The south-west doorway has the tympanum divided as the
last, and in the lower compartment the death of the Blessed
Virgin; next to this our Lord and the Blessed Virgin seated;
and above, angels putting a crown on her head. The archivolt
here is adorned with one order of sitting figures of saints and
two of angels (5).
The east end is more striking than the west. It retains
almost all its old features intact, save that the roof is now very
flat, and covered with pantiles, whereas it is probable that at
first it was of a steep pitch. It stands up well above the sort of
boulevard which passes under its east end, and when seen from
a little further off, the steeples of the western end group well
with it, and, to some extent, compensate for the loss of the old
roofing line.
The south transept had been entirely taken down when I was
at Leon, and the sculpture of its three doorways was lying on
the floor of the church. It is of the same fine character as that
of the western doors; the central door has a figure of our Lord
with the emblems of the Evangelists on either side, and beyond
them the Evangelists themselves writing at desks. Below this
are the twelve Apostles seated, and the several orders of the
archivolt are carved with figures of angels holding candles,
sculptures of vine and other leaves, and crowned figures playing
on musical instruments. The south-west door of the transept
has no sculpture of figures, but the favourite diapers of fleur-de-
lys and castles, and lions and castles, and an order of foliage
arranged in the French fashion, a crochet. The south-east door
has in its tympanum the death of the Blessed Virgin, with angels
in the archivolt holding candles. The gable of this transept
seems to have been very much altered by some Renaissance
architect before it was taken down (6).
The north transept has two doorways, only one of which
is now open. This has a figure of our Lord seated within
a vesica, supported by angels, and the archivolt has figures of
saints with books (7). The jambs have like all the other door-
jambs statues under canopies, and below them the common
diaper of lions and castles. The closed north-west door of this
transept now forms a reredos for an altar; it has no sculpture
of figures.
148 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
The north transept doorway opens into a groined aisle which
occupies the space between the transept and the cloister. This
aisle is very dark, and opens at its eastern end into the chapel
of Santiago, a fine late building of the age of Ferdinand and
Isabella, running north and south, and showing its side eleva-
tion in the general view of the east end to the north of the choir.
The cloister is so mutilated as to have well-nigh lost all its
architectural value. The entrance to the porch in front of the
north transept is, however, in its old state; it is a fine door-
way, richly and delicately carved with small subjects enclosed
in quatrefoils. The original groining shafts, which still remain,
show that the whole cloister was built early in the fourteenth
century; the traceries, however, have all been destroyed; and
the groining, the outer walls, and buttresses altered with vast
trouble and cost into a very poor and weak kind of Renaissance.
But if the cloister has lost much of its architectural interest, it
is still full of value from another point of view, containing as it
does one of the finest series of illustrations of the New Testa-
ment that I have ever seen, remaining in each bay of the cloister
all the way round. These subjects begin to the east of the door-
way to the north transept, and are continued round in regular
order till they finish on its western side. I have not been able
to learn anything as to the history of these works. If they are
Spanish, they prove the existence of a school of painters of rare
excellence here, for they are all more or less admirable in their
drawing, in the expression of the faces, and in the honesty and
simplicity with which they tell their story. The colours, too,
where they are still visible, are pure and good, and the whole
looked to me like the work of some good Florentine artist of
about the middle of the fifteenth century (8). It would not be
a little curious to find the King or Bishop of Leon not only send-
ing to France for his architect, but to Tuscany for his wall-
painter, and, if it be the fact, it would show how firm must have
been the resolve to make this church as perfect as possible in
every respect, and how little dependence was then placed on
native talent.
The subjects represented are the following, each painting
filling the whole of the upper part of the wall in each bay of
the cloister:
1. The Birth of the Blessed Virgin (9).
2. Her Marriage.
3. The Annunciation.
4. 5, 6. Destroyed.
LEON CATHEDRAL 149
7. Massacre of the Innocents, and Herod giving orders for it.
8, 9. Destroyed.
10. The Blessed Virgin Mary seated with our Lord, angels
above, and three figures with nimbi sitting and adoring, others
with musical instruments.
11. The Baptism of our Lord.
12. Destroyed.
13. An ass and its foal, Jerusalem in the background, and
indistinct groups of figures.
14. Our Lord riding into Jerusalem. The city has circular
towers all round, and churches with two western octagonal
steeples.
15. The Last Supper.
1 6. Our Lord washing the Disciples' feet; some figures on
the right carrying water- jars are drawn with extreme grace.
17. Destroyed.
1 8. The Betrayal.
19. Our Lord bound and stripped, and,
20. Scourged. (These two subjects are very finely treated.)
21. Brought to the Place of Judgment: desks with open
books on them in front.
22. Buffeted and spit upon.
23. Judged: Pilate washing his hands.
24. Bearing the Cross. (This subject is painted round and
over a monument on which is the date xxm. October, A.D.
MCCCCXL. ; so that it must be of later date than this.)
25. Nailed to the Cross : the Cross on the ground.
26. The Descent from the Cross.
27. 28. The Descent into Hell (10).
29. The Incredulity of S. Thomas, and the appearance of our
Lord on the way to Emmaus.
30. The Ascension.
31. The Descent of the Holy Ghost.
It will be noticed that the Crucifixion is most remarkably
omitted from this series. There is no place on the wall for it,
and it occurred to me as possible that there may have been a
crucifix in the centre of the cloister, round which all these
paintings were, so to speak, grouped. 1
There are several fine monuments in these cloisters, some of
them corbelled out from the wall, and some with recumbent
1 The three crucifixes at the entrance to the cemetery at Nuremberg will
be remembered by all who have ever seen them; and such a group would
have made a fitting centre for such a cloister as this at Leon.
150 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
effigies under arches in it. One of the latter is so fine in its
way as to deserve special notice. The arch is of two orders/
each sculptured with figures of angels worshipping and censing
our Lord, who is seated in the tympanum of the arch holding a
book and giving His blessing. Below, on a high tomb,, is the
effigy recumbent; and behind it, below the tympanum, two
angels bearing up the soul of the departed. The sculpture
is admirable for its breadth and simplicity of treatment; and
the monument generally is noticeable for the extent to which
sculpture, and sculpture only, has been depended on, the strictly
architectural features being few and completely subordinate.
The cloister is surrounded by buildings, some of which only
are ancient. On the north side are the chapel of San Juan de
Regla, another chapel, and the Chapter-house. The latter has
one of those foolish Spanish conceits, a doorway planned obliquely
to the wall in which it is set. 1
In the church itself there are several very fine monuments.
The most elaborate is that of Ordono II., the original founder of
the old cathedral, which occupies the eastern bay of the apse,
with its back to the high altar. This is sometimes spoken of as
if it were a contemporary work. It is, however, obviously a
work of the fourteenth century, and recalls to mind some of the
finest monuments in our own churches. The effigy of the king,
laid on a sloping stone, so that it looks out from the monumental
arch, is singularly noble, very simple, of great size and uncom-
mon dignity. The general design of this fine monument will be
seen in my view of the aisle round the choir.
Another monument in the north transept has a semi-circular
arch carved alternately with bosses of foliage and censing angels;
and within this a succession of cusps, the spandrels of which
have also angels. The tympanum has a representation of the
Crucifixion; 2 and below this, in an oblong panel just over the
recumbent figure, is a representation of the service at a funeral.
The side of the high tomb has also an interesting sculpture
representing a figure giving a dole of bread to a crowd of poor
and maimed people, whilst others bring him large baskets full
of bread on their backs. The date in the inscription on this
monument is Era 1280, i.e. A.D. 1242.
In a corresponding position in the west wall of the south
1 This conceit is illustrated more elaborately than I have elsewhere seen
it in a palace near San Isidoro, where the angle windows are designed
and executed in a sort of perspective, which is inexpressibly bad in effect.
3 Not a crucifix.
LEON CATHEDRAL 151
transept is another monument of a bishop, recessed behind three
divisions of the arcade which surrounds the walls of the church.
The effigy is rather colossal, and has a lion at the head, and
another under the feet. Over the effigy is a group of figures
saying the burial office; and above, in panels within arches,
are: (i) S. Martin dividing his Cloak; (2) the Scourging of our
Lord, and (3) the Crucifixion. The soffits of the arcade are
diapered, and there were three subjects below the figure of, the
bishop, but they are now nearly destroyed.
The arches round the Capilla mayor were walled up, and those
on either side of the monument of Ordofio II., already described,
still retain the paintings with which they were all once adorned.
They are of the same class as those in the cloister, and one of
them, a large Ecce Homo, is certainly a very fine work. Un-
fortunately the figure of our Lord in the centre has been very
badly repainted, but the troop of soldiers and Jews reviling
Him on either side is full of life and expression (n).
The choir occupies the two eastern bays of the nave, and its
woodwork is fine, though of late fifteenth-century date. There
are large figures in bas-relief, carved in the panels behind the
stalls. There is a western door from the nave into the Coro;
and in part on this account, and in part from its considerable
scale, the nave has less than usual of the air of uselessness
which the Spanish arrangement of the Coro produces.
I have already incidentally mentioned that the windows are
full of fine stained glass. It is all of the richest possible colour,
and most of it of about the same date as the church. Modern
critics would, no doubt, object to some of the drawing for its
rudeness and want of accuracy. Yet to me this work seemed to
be a most emphatic proof if any were needed that we who
talk so much about drawing are altogether wrong in our sense
of the office which stained glass has to fulfil in our buildings.
We talk glibly about good drawing, and forget altogether the
much greater importance of good colour. At Leon the drawing
is forgotten altogether, and I defy any one to be otherwise than
charmed with the glories of the effect created solely by the
colour. At present in England our glass is all but invariably
bad nay, contemptible in colour; whilst the so-called good
drawing is usually a miserable attempt to reproduce some senti-
mentality of a German painter. Two schools might well be
studied a little more than they are; the one should be this early
school of rich colourists, and the other the beautiful works of the
sixteenth and seventeenth century French glass-painters, where
"I- Y X n Blairca 9 e al k .
b on Chapel of Santiago.
ofc
jilasons Marks.
a. Jowii o/ 1 Onion (i H .
b. J5Ty^ 4# fl r.
C. Oiaptl of StiTiti'aqo.
d. Chapter House. .
C. Chaprl of ,<tan Jufin iff Ry7a..
T. Oiaielo/'Saittfi Terrsn.
^. Skiircasf,
t. Old Dnorway blocked up.
i. Modern Screen;.
PLAI
& V X l 8 '^-
\ LJy xj ...=-' S, u,/ \LJxx
154 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
there is good drawing enough for any one, and generally great
beauty and simplicity of colour. Finally, two practices might
be suggested to our stained-glass painters one, that they should
only use good, and therefore costly glass; and the other, that
they should limit their palettes to a few pure and simple colours,
instead of confusing our eyes with every possible tint of badly-
chosen and cheaply-made glass.
If we want religious pictures in our churches as we do most
surely let us go to painters for them, and, with the money now
in great part thrown away on stained glass, we might then have
some works of art in our churches of which we might have more
chance of feeling proud, and for which our successors would
perhaps thank us more than they will for our glass. 1
I have detained my readers only too long, I fear, upon this
cathedral, but it is too full of interest of all kinds to allow of
shorter notice, and is, in its way, the finest church of which
Spain can boast; at the same time the work is all so thoroughly
French as to destroy, to some degree, the interest which we
should otherwise feel in it.
The other great architectural attraction of Leon is the church
of San Isidoro " el Real" This is altogether earlier than, and
has therefore an interest entirely different from, that of the
cathedral.
Gil Gonzalez Davila says that the church was founded in
A.D. 1030,2 by Ferdinand I., the Great. An inscription in the
floor of the church gives the name of its architect; 3 and from the
mention of Alonso VI., who came to the throne in A.D. 1065, and
his mother Sancha, who died in A.D. 1067, the date of his death
must have been between these two periods. 4 In A.D. 1063 King
Ferdinand Alfonso's father and Queen Sancha had very
richly endowed the church, in the presence of various bishops,
who had come together to celebrate the translation of the remains
of San Isidoro. 5 Finally Davila, in his History of the Cathedral
1 Witness Mr. E. Burne Jones's beautiful picture over the altar of S. Paul,
Brighton, and Mr. D. G. Rossetti's at Llandaff.
2 Teatro Ecclesiastico, i. 365.
" Hie requiescit Petras de Deo, qui superaedificavit Ecclesiam hanc.
Iste fundavit pontem, qui dicitur de Deus tamben: et quia erat vir mirae
abstinentiae et multis florebat miraculis, omnes eum laudibus praedicabant.
Sepultus est hie ab Imperatore Adefonso et Sancia Regina." Esp. Sag.
xxxv. 356. G. G. Davila, Teatro Eccles. i. 340. Davila adds the words
" servus Dei " before the name of the architect.
4 See Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Esp. i. 14.
5 The whole of this deed of endowment is interesting. I quote a few
lines only, which have some interest, as bearing, among other things, on
the Gothic crowns found at Guarrazar, and mentioned at p. 302. " Offeri-
Tria)iscpt---i ; Crossing ! I -Traa$ept
PLATE VI.
156 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
at Avila, gives the date of the consecration of the church, from
a deed in the archives there, as A.D. H49. 1
From these statements it would seem that the church was
fit for the reception of the body of San Isidoro in A.D. 1065, and
had then three altars; and yet that in A.D. 1149 it was conse-
crated, though indeed Ponz speaks of an inscription in the cloister
which mentions the dedication of the church in A.D. io63. 2
San Isidoro was one of the most popularly venerated saints in
Spain, and many are the miracles said to have been wrought by
him. One of them is not a little suggestive of plans for church-
building, not a whit behind the cleverest schemes of the present
day. It is said that in a time when much sickness prevailed, the
body of the saint was taken out in procession to a village near
Leon, Trobajo del Camino, the bearers of the body barefooted,
and all singing hymns, in order to charm away the disease from
the people. Suddenly the Weight became so great that it was
impossible to move or lift the saint, even by the aid of a strong
body of men : and many complained not a little of the Canons
for bringing the body out on such an errand, whilst the King,
who was at Benavente, was so incensed, that he insisted, as
the saint would not move, that they should build a church
over him for his protection; and at last came the Queen, grieving
bitterly, appealing to " her beloved spouse " San Isidoro, and
saying, " Turn, blessed confessor! turn again to the monas-
tery of Leon, which my forefathers, out of their devotion,
built for you; " and then the saint, moved by her prayer,
allowed himself to be borne back upon the shoulders of four
children, who brought him back to Leon amid the rejoicings
of the people: and these, moved by the miracle, at once built
a chapel on the spot which the saint had marked out for the
purpose by his pertinacious refusal to move until the King had
ordered it to be built, and until the Queen had shown how
deep was her interest in the work.
But I must not dwell longer on what is merely legendary,
mus igitur " " ornamenta altariorum: id est, frontale ex auro puro opere
digno cum lapidibus smaragdis, safiris, et omnia genere pretiosis et olo-
vitreis: alios similiter tres frontales argenteos singulis altaribus: Coronas
tres aureas: una ex his cum sex alfas in gyro, et corona de Alaules intus
in ea pendens: alia est de anemnates cum olivitreo, aurea. Tertia vero est
diadema capitis mei," etc., etc. Esp. Sag. xxxvi., appendix, p. clxxxix.
Sub era millesima centesima octuagesima septima, pridie nonas
Martn, facta est Ecclesia Sancti Isidori consecrata per manus Raymundi
foletanae Sedis Archiepiscopi, et Joannis Legionensis episcopi," etc. etc.
leatro Eccl. vol. ii. 243. See also the similar inscription on a stone in San
Isidoro. Esp. Sag. xxxv. 207.
2 Ponz, Viage de Espana, xi. 234.
SAN ISIDORO, LEON
157
but return to this church of San Isidore at Leon. It is cruciform
in plan/ with apsidal chapels on the eastern side of the transepts.
The nave and aisles are of six bays in length, and there is a
tower detached to the west. There is a chapel dedicated to
Sta. Catalina (now called El Panteon) at the north-west end of
INTERIOR OF S. ISIDORO
the church, and a choir of the sixteenth century takes the place
of the original apse. The whole of the nave is vaulted with a
waggon- vault, with transverse ribs under it in each bay; and
this vault is continued on without break to the chancel arch,
there being no lantern at the crossing. The arches into the
transepts have a fringe of cusping on their under sides, which
has a very Moorish air, and the transepts are vaulted with waggon -
i Plate VI., p. 155-
158 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
vaults, but at a lower level than the nave. The chapels to the
east of the transept are roofed with semi-domes. The nave has
bold columns, with richly sculptured capitals, stilted semi-circu-
lar arches, and a clerestory of considerable height, with large
windows of rich character.
The whole interior of the church has been picked out in white
and brown washes to such an extent, that at first sight its effect
is positively repulsive: nevertheless, its detail is very fine. The
capitals are all richly sculptured, generally with foliage arranged
after the model of the Corinthian capital; but some of them
histories with figures of men and beasts; and I noticed one only
with pairs of birds looking at each other. The western part
of the church is abominably modernised, but the alterations
in the fabric evidently commenced at a very early period, for in
the south aisle one of the groining-shafts is carried up exactly
in front of what appears to be one of the original aisle windows
(12). I confess myself quite at a loss to account for this, unless it
be by the assumption that the church, consecrated in A.D. 1149,
was commenced on the same type as S. Sernin, Toulouse copied,
as we shall see further on, at Santiago and that before the con-
secration the original triforium had been altered into a clerestory
by the alteration of the aisle-roofs and the introduction of quad-
ripartite vaulting in them at a lower level, thus necessitating the
introduction of the groining-shaft in front of a window. The
difficulty did not occur to me forcibly when I was on the spot,
and I am unable to say, therefore, how far a thoroughly close
examination of the work would clear it up. It might of course
be said that such an alteration proves that the church was of
two periods; and such an opinion would be to some extent sup-
ported by reference to the certainly early character of the south
door, which might have been executed before A.D. 1063. But I
am, on the whole, disposed rather to regard the chapel of Sta.
Catalina as the original church, and to assume that the remainder
of the building was built between A.D. 1063 and A.D. 1149, and
that the awkward arrangement to which I have just referred was,
in fact, the result of some accident or change of plan. This
supposition would reconcile more satisfactorily all the difficul-
ties of the case than any other, and would tally well with what
I have been able to learn as to the history of the church. The
body of San Isidoro was sent for rather suddenly, and brought
from Seville, and the King had but short time for the preparation
of the building for its reception. Two years later the body of
San Vicente was brought from Avila, and no doubt the popularity
SAN ISIDORO, LEON 159
of the two saints soon made it necessary to enlarge the church.
Then it might well happen that the old church was left in its
integrity, and the new building added to the east, but with its
north wall in a line with the north wall of the old one, so as to
allow of the cloister being built along their sides, and without
at all disturbing the early church or its relics. The relative
position of the churches makes it probable, in short, that the
large church was added to the small one, and not that the latter
was a chapel added to the former (13).
The style of the two buildings leads to the same conclusion,
for in Sta. Catalina we have a small, low, vaulted church, two
bays only in length and three in width. The two detached
columns which carry the vaults are cylindrical, with capitals of
somewhat the same kind as those in the church, but simpler and
ruder. Recessed arches in the side walls contain various tombs
of the Royal Family, who for ages, from the time of Fernando I.
and Dona Sancha his queen, have been buried here; and the
very circumstance that this little chapel was selected for the
burial of so many royal persons, seems to make it extremely
probable that it was the very chapel in which the body of San
Isidoro had first been laid.
The door of communication from the chapel to the church has
an arch of the same kind as the transept arches, semi-circular
and fringed with several cusps; and the chapel is now lighted
by two open arches on the north side, which communicate with
the cloister. The groining is all quadripartite, without ribs, but
with plain bold transverse arches between the bays.
The exterior of the church has some features which have all
the air of being very early and original in their character. Such
is the grand south doorway of the nave. Its arch is semi-
circular, and above it the spandrels are filled with sculpture.
Above this is a line of panels containing the signs of the Zodiac;
below are figures with musical instruments; and below these
again, on the west, is a figure of San Isidoro, and on the right
a figure of a woman, I think, book in hand, both of them sup-
ported on corbels formed of the heads of oxen. The tympanum
itself is divided into two parts, the lower half being surmounted
by a flat pediment, and the upper filling up the space from this
to the intrados of the arch. The upper half has an Agnus Dei
in a circle in the centre, and the lower half has Abraham's
sacrifice, with figures on horseback on either side. The head
of the opening of the doorway is finished with a square trefoil,
under which rams' heads are carved. The whole detail of
i6o GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
this sculpture is very unlike that of most of the early work I
have seen in Spain; the figures are round and flabby, and badly
arranged, and very free from any of the usual conventionality.
All this made me feel much inclined to think that the execution
of this work was at an early date, and soon after the first con-
secration of the church.
The elevation of the south transept is rather fine. It has
a doorway, now blocked, with a figure against the wall on
either side, standing between the label and a second label built
into the wall from buttress to buttress. Above this is a rich
corbel-table, and then an arcade of three divisions, of which the
centre is pierced as a window; in the gable is another statue
standing against the wall. The doorway has its opening finished
with a square trefoil, and the tympanum is plain. The design
of the apsidal chapel east of the apse is so precisely like the
eastern apsidal chapels of many of the Spanish Romanesque
churches, 1 that its date must, to some extent, be decided by
theirs: and it may well be doubted whether it can be much
earlier than circa A.D. 1150, though the lower part of the south
transept appeared to me to be as early as the south door, or at
any rate not later than A.D. noo.
The walls are all carried up high above the clerestory windows,
and finished with corbel-tables, carved with a billet-mould on
the edge, and carried on corbels moulded, not carved. Simple
buttresses divide the bays of the clerestory.
The choir, as has been said, was a late addition in place of the
original Romanesque apse. It was built in A.D. 1513, or a little
after, by Juan de Badajoz, master of the works at the cathedral. 2
It is of debased Gothic design and coarse detail, but large and
lofty. The groining at the east end is planned as if for an apse,
and portions of diagonal buttresses, to resist the thrust of the
groining ribs, are built against the east wall, in the way often
to be noticed in the later Spanish buildings. The east window
was of two lights only, and is now blocked up by the Retablo.
In this church there is a perpetual exposition of the Host, and
the choir is therefore screened off with more than usual care,
none but the clergy being allowed to enter it. At Lugo, where
there is also a similar exposition, the choir is left open, but
two priests are always sitting or kneeling before faldstools in
front of the altar.
I could not gain admission to the cloister on the north side of
1 E.g. Segovia, Avila, Salamanca, Benavente, Lerida.
So, at least, says Cean Bermudez, but without giving his authority.
SAN ISIDORO, LEON
SOUTH TRANSEPT
162 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
the church; it is large and all modernised, and surrounded by
the buildings of the monastery, which is now suppressed. A
chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity was founded here in A.D.
1191, and a list of the relics preserved at its altar is given on a
stone preserved in the convent.
The chapel of Sta. Catalina, already described, is specially
interesting on account of the remarkable paintings with which
the whole of the groining is covered. These all appeared to me
to have been certainly executed at the end of the twelfth century,
circa A.D. 1180-1200, and they are remarkably rich in their
foliage decoration, as well as in painting of figures and subjects.
Beginning with the eastern central compartment, over the altar,
and going round to the right, the subjects in the six bays of the
vault are as follows:
(I.) In this our Lord is seated in a vesica, at the angles of
which are four angels, with the heads of the four Evangelists,
with their books and names painted beside them. Our Lord's
feet are to the east, and He holds an open book and gives His
blessing.
(II.) The angel speaking to the shepherds, with the inscription,
" Angelus a pastor es"
(III.) The Massacre of the Innocents.
(IV.) The Last Supper, painted without the slightest regard
to the angles formed by the groining, and as if the vault were a
flat surface.
(V.) a. Herod washing his hands.
b. S. Peter denying our Lord.
c. Our Lord bearing his Cross.
d. The Crucifixion (this is almost destroyed).
(VI.) Our Lord seated with His feet to the west; the seven
churches around Him, seven candles, and an angel giving the
book to S. John.
The soffits of the cross arches between the vaults are painted,
some with foliage, others with figures. Of the latter, one has
the twelve Apostles, another the Holy Spirit in the centre, with
angels worshipping on either side, and a third a Hand blessing
(inscribed " Dextra Dei ") in centre, and saints on either side.
The whole detail of the painted foliage is of thoroughly good
conventional character, and just in the transitional style from
Romanesque to Pointed (14).
There is a fine steeple detached from the church to the west.
It stands on the very edge of the old town wall, several of the
round towers of which still exist to the north of it, and below
SAN ISIDORO, LEON 163
the great walls of the convent built within them. This steeple
is very plain below, but its belfry stage has two fine shafted
windows in each face, and nook shafts at its four corners. It is
capped with a low square spire with small spire-lights; but as I
found the working lines of all this drawn out elaborately on the
whitewashed walls of one of the cloisters, and as all the work
appears to be new, I cannot say whether or no it is an exact
restoration, though I dare say it is.
In the sacristy (15) there are some paintings, of which one or
two are of great beauty. One is a charming picture of the
Blessed Virgin with our Lord, with angels on either side, and
others holding a crown above : the faces are sweet and delicate.
One of the attendant angels offers an apple to our Lord; the
other plays a guitar : the background is a landscape. The frame,
too, is original. It has a gold edge, then a flat of blue covered
with delicate gold diaper, and there are two shutters with this
inscription on them: " Fcelix e sacra virgo Maria et omni laude
dignissima quia in te ortus est sol justicie Chrus Deus nosier"
There is also a very little triptych, with a Descent from the Cross,
and an inscription on the shutters. Two figures are drawing out
the nails, and hold the body of our Lord; two other figures on
ladders support His head and feet, and S. Mary and S. Mary
Magdalene weep at the foot of the cross. The inscriptions on
the shutters are from Zachariah xii., Plagent eum, etc., and
Second Corinthians, " Pro omnibus mortuus est Christus." There
are other paintings which the Sacristan exhibits with more pride,
but these two are precious works, of extremely good character,
and painted probably about the end of the sixteenth century.
Leon is a much smaller city than might be expected for one
so famous in Spanish history; its streets wind about in the most
tortuous fash on; there are but few buildings of any pretension,
and I saw no other old churches (16). There is indeed a great
convent of San Marcos, built from the designs of Juan de Badajoz,
in the sixteenth century, and afterwards added to by Berru-
guete, but I forgot to go to see it, and his work at San Isidore
makes me regard the omission as a very venial one (17). Round
the city, on all sides, are long groves of poplars which look
green and pleasant; there is a river or at least in summer, as
I saw it, the broad bed of one and over the low hills which girt
the city is a background of beautiful mountains. Both for its
situation, therefore, and for the artistic treasures it enshrines,
Leon well deserves a pilgrimage at the hands of all lovers of
art (18).
164 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
NOTES
(1) To these must be added Chartres, for, as M. Camille Enlart has
pointed out, the west portal at Leon is more like the transept porches
at Chartres than like anything else in the world. Another corres-
pondence, curious if only a coincidence, is in the spires, one plain
with a fish-scale pattern of tiling, the other, and later, pierced.
(2) This filling has all been taken out now, and the restored lights
have modern glass in the clerestory barely tolerable, in the aisle
windows insupportable.
(3) The glass case and the fine clothes are happily gone, and N. S.
la Blanca smiles with her old frank coquetry, just delicately touched
with paint on lips and cheeks, the white robe sprigged with gold.
(4) The archivolt has: I. in the innermost row Jesse and the
seven kings, his descendants, crowned and making music. II. in
the second the history of the Baptist, as follows : at the left at the
bottom (i) the angel with Zacharias ; (2) Zacharias writing the name ;
(3) Nativity of the Baptist; (4) Baptism of Christ; (5) The Baptist
rebuking Herod; then at the bottom right (i) Herod and Herodias;
(2) Salome dancing to music; (3) Decollation, of which all is broken
except the executioner's great sword ; (4) Angels from a cloud take the
head while the lame are healed; (5) Disciples bury the body, while in
the peak of the arch angels carry up the soul. III. On the outermost
row on the left three monks and three bishops, with Christ blessing
at the apex; and on the right a saint's legend which I believe that ot
San Fro'ilan, perhaps the second of the name. It is entirely in the
French tradition that the northern door should celebrate the local
saints.
(5) The archivolt has: (i) (innermost row) eight seraphim,
apparently with books; (2) ten angels with censers and candles;
(3) two women saints at the bottom, and then the wise and foolish
virgins; the latter have other interests, a mirror, and a dog, etc., and
some of them are out of place, like a great deal more of the sculpture
at Leon. Great statues (or their empty niches) of the twelve apostles
are ranged each side of the central portal : of the six figures at the
northern door I could make nothing, and I fancy they were gathered
up from anywhere during restoration. At the southern door, two
prophets, the Baptist (who belongs on the other side with his history),
a prophet or angel, Solomon and Sheba. The outer piers have the
Church and Synagogue where they can look to Christ at the centre,
Queen Esther, and prophets finer than those on the jambs.
(6) The south transept is severe enough now, but some of the
statues are out of place. On the mid-post of the central door is San
Froilan under a canopy, French work of the same school as the
transept portals at Chartres: on the jambs, at the left a prophet
who should be the angel Gabriel, a Virgin Annunciate, and a King;
on the right a Virgin in Presentation, Simeon, and a Queen out of
her place. The niches of the two flanking doorways are empty.
(7) The mid-post of the north transept carries a Madonna with the
Child and a rose, a very grave, queenly figure. The jambs have
LEON 165
Melchizedek, SS. Peter, Paul, Philip, and two other apostles. The
great sculpture at Leon urges on one afresh how living and flexible
a genius had the French craftsmen, how soon from the city about
them they copied Spanish costumes and Spanish types. Just so
in the small sculpture of the cloister, on the tombs and the tym-
pana above them, on the corbels that carry the groining and the
capitals of the shafts, is plenty of admirable late Gothic carving,
saintly legends and scenes of contemporary life: a feast with jong-
leurs and women dancers, a lovely woodland design of stag-hunting
and boar-hunting, the apple harvest, with women at work and grapes
already ripe.
(8) Florentine in conception and technique this painting seems
to me at the outset, but it grows steadily more Spanish as the series
goes on. By the Pentecost the old Spanish composition is pretty
clearly manifest and already in the Passion even in the Herod
scenes the architectural forms and the types of ruffian are Spanish
absolutely.
(9) Read, The Golden Gate.
(10) No. 28 is completely gone, the bay filled by a door and a
yellow plaster wall above. It must have had the Resurrection.
(u) Among paintings in the Cathedral are remains of frescoes
much nearer to the French style on the east wall of the large chapel
to the north-east of the transept, and a painting in oils of the martyr-
dom of S. Erasmus in a tympanum of a destroyed tomb just east of
the transept door. In the ambulatory chapel dedicated to them is
a fresco of SS. Cosmos and Damian, and a later quattrocento painting
of the Santos Medicos as well ; on the other side of the Lady Chapel a
cinquecento SS. Martha and Mary Magdalen, the latter rather
good, with much use of white and a late Sienese look about her face.
Opposite is a Pieta, very Spanish in composition, at the sides of
which figure Jeremiah with the money-bag and Isaiah with the
napkin. In the north end of the transept, in a fine perpendicular
frame, stands a great painted retable of no small worth. The
centre holds a statue of the Madonna seated; the predella half
lengths of SS. Thomas, Andrew, John, Peter, Paul, James, Bar-
tholomew, and Philip ; and the eighteen scenes of the main structure
are drawn from saintly legend. The panels, now out of place, should
read from the top as follows: on the left the story of three holy
children committed by their mother to a saintly bishop, who teaches
them in school, confutes the heathen doctors, leaves his city to
appear before the Pro-consul, is tortured by the Emperor with fire
and scourging. The children are beheaded, the bishop strengthening
them and then undergoing martyrdom himself; miracles are worked
at his shrine. On the right, at the top, is I. S. Roch (i) nursing the
sick in a hospital; (2) tended by an angel with his dog; and (3)
returning to the city. II. A story I do not recognise, including a
Mass, a Pieta (probably irrelevant), and ladies at a city gate.
III. The story of the Holy Cross: (i) The angel visiting Constan-
tine; (2) the battle of Arbela; (3) the dead raised by the virtue of
the True Cross. The whole is good downright Spanish painting,
that neither copies the Flemings nor goes astray after the Umbrians,
with its own beauty of form, colour, and texture, and a keen dramatic
166 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
interest. The bishop's throne near the High Altar is decorated
with such exquisite little painted saints, six in the centre, two on
each side, and four in the wings, like figures from a window, that it
almost justifies the existence of the professional restorer. Over the
altar and to right and left of it hang the superb fragments of the
Retablo Mayor painted about 1450 by Nicholas of Leon, given in
1740 to a country church, and brought back in 1907. M. Bertaux
thinks the painter, who received a commission in 1450 for the " little
altar of the Capilla Mayor," was probably the same Nicholas who
worked for the chapter from 1450 to 1468, and perhaps a pupil of
Nicholas the Florentine at Salamanca. He was sent to Salamanca
in 1452 to study the Last Judgment there before painting it in Leon
on the inside of the west wall. The retable on the epistle side is made
up of fragments: SS. Paul and Peter, Christ among the Doctors,
and the Epiphany, on one side; on the other, SS. Bartholomew
and Andrew, the Mass of S. Gregory, and the Deposition. The great
Pieta on the gospel side shows a very curious conflict between the
treatment of the school of Van der Weyden, with the cross in the
centre and the whole composition like an inverted J., and the
Catalan tradition of a wide low panel with all the heads in a row
and a stiff horizontal figure of the dead Christ below these. The
central retable is devoted mainly to San Fro'ilan; at the top, his
translation, below that two groups of saints (SS. Andrew, John, and
Paul, SS. Peter, James, and Thomas), and below that again a niche
for the statue of the saint. On each side are two scenes : San Fro'ilan
as bishop, and monks in a wood, to the left; to the right, monks
invaded by soldiers and the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin.
The predella carries the Dormition, Annunciation, Pentecost,
Nativity, Epiphany, and Candlemas. The painting is curious and
delightful, with a red-haired Madonna, harsh Spanish facial types,
gold backgrounds, and for the costumes masses of grass-green and
scarlet, splendid past description: the scene of enthronement what
Mr. Abbey must dream of painting.
(12) The groining shaft crosses the north window similarly at
present. The nave is all restored; the transepts and east end are
screened off and scraped, awaiting restoration.
(13) Senor Lamperez disputes some of this. He will only admit
at most that the Panteon may be part of the narthex temp.
Ferdinand I . The church was dedicated in 1 06 3 , the king being in close
relation with Cluny; it was enlarged by Alfonso VII., from 1101 to
1 149 and then reconsecrated. Petrus de Deo must have worked at
this last building. The apses and transept belong to the time of Fer-
dinand I. and Dona Urraca, his daughter, and the nave to Alfonso
VII. and Petrus de Deo; proof lies in the doors, that called del
Perdon being the earlier and of the school of Toulouse.
(14) The painting is nearly all Byzantine in character, though very
various, and I hardly think a French source can be proved for the
great vault compositions, even for the Last Supper. More likely
the chief artists were either trained under men from Constantinople
or themselves fetched thence. In the north-east vault (VI. in
Street's enumeration) S. John is prostrated before the angel like
George of Antioch in the mosaic of the Martorana at Palermo. The
LEON 167
arch between this and the one west of it has the dove; that to the
south has the labours of the months adapted to a colder climate than
the centre of France and a more laborious life. January shuts one
door and opens another; February warms himself at a fire ; March
prunes the vine ; April grafts the tree a man in a cloak holds two
bundles of twigs; May leads his donkey, instead of riding on horse-
back; June mowing; July, reaping; August, threshing ; September,
gathering grapes into a basket; October shakes down acorns to
swine; November kills the hogs; December sits at table with cup,
dish, and fire.
In the next compartment (i.e., in the text I.) the Evangelists are
represented with the heads of their symbolic beasts, as in some of
the painted altar frontals in the museums at Barcelona and Vich.
The arch to the west has the Hand of God, blessing, between Enoch
and Elijah. The other arches have patterns, some of which are
like those carved on the door-posts at Chartres and the mouldings
at Avallon in France and at Cambre in Spain. While I know that
the presence of the months is accepted as a sign, whether at Verona
or at Trani, that northern workmen have passed that way, and while
I recognise the importance of the pattern associated with the west
portal at Chartres, I humbly submit that the Greek quality of the
main compositions cannot be ignored or offset. The whole south-
east vault (II.) is a pastoral in the Alexandrian manner, like a wall
decoration or a miniature; the angel insignificant, the shepherds
hardly so delightful as the vine-wreaths, sheep and goats, delicious
cows, a dog drinking from a cup. The arch to the west has leafage.
The Massacre of the Innocents (III.) is the most like the usual thir-
teenth-century painting, e.g. in France; and the scene of S. Peter
and the maid (V.) is the vivid forerunner of the episodes in Spanish
retables, but of the best kind. Everywhere there is great beauty,
but most of all in (IV.), the Last Supper, which is absolutely in the
grand style. The gigantic Christ follows the Byzantine convention :
among the apostles appears the same play of gesture that Leonardo
was to work out. Two of the sides open upon cloister walks; in
the tympana of the arches on the other two the scenes are sorely
ruined. On the east wall may be traced, in the north bay, the
Crucifixion; in the south, the Nativity with small scenes, and
angels above the altar niche in the central one; on the south wall
the Annunciation and Visitation and the Flight into Egypt. While
very often in provincial art the historical interest is very nearly the
whole, here curiosity is far out- weighed by beauty.
(15) I could not get into the sacristy; perhaps, as in the choir
of the west gallery, there is strict clausura against ladies, but the
sacristan was positive that nothing remained there which I could
care to see.
(16) There exists, however, a fine old church in N. S. del Mer-
cado or del Camino, with a Romanesque west tower and three apses.
The interior was altered once by throwing into one the two
central bays in the nave and aisles: the central apse has a barrel-
vault, and then had a semi-dome like the two side apses. These
contain rich capitals developed from the Corinthian, very like
contemporary Gallegan forms. The retables are late, but not with-
168 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
out charm; one in the Education of the Virgin shows her making
lace on a pillow. The tower of four stages stands west of the nave,
making a vestibule which opens by doors north and south into
rooms; fine old iron grilles are still in their western windows. The
apses outside have corbels, a rich billet moulding for eaves-cornice
and drip-stone, and fine capitals of the Gallegan cabbage-leaf or of
entrelacs. The round head of a walled-up door on the. north side
reveals how far the level of the town has risen about the ancient
foundations.
(17) Yo tambien. At least, both times I was in Leon I put it
off until the last moment, to be visited on the way to the train, and
then stayed too late in the cathedral to spare the time. From a
distance, and from pictures, it appears high-shouldered, plateresque,
and negligible.
(18) I had wanted, however, while in Leon to visit San Miguel de
Escalada, where on November 20, 913, Alfonso III. the Great gave
a little church to some Cordovan monks, refugees from the Moors.
In a year's time it was consecrated (November 20, 914), from which
men tend to believe that Alfonso must have given a building already
existent, i.e. Visigothic. Moreover, into it are built many bricks
with a Roman stamp or a Visigothic inscription. When in 980
Almansor ravaged the March of Leon the damage must have been
slight and soon repaired. In 1050, new works were undertaken on
the outside; nobody seems to know just what. It has three aisles
and three deep barrel-vaulted apses, with arches across the front of
the choir on the west side of the transept; five round-headed horse-
shoe arches to the nave-arcade and three to the sanctuary, with
two wider and plainer arches opening from the aisles; wooden
roofs, but a vault in the apses and the arms of the transept; a
cloister along the south side and a tower east of that. The details
of the sculpture in tympanum and panels, as given in Monumentas
Arquitectonicos, suggest a Visigoth trying to copy Byzantine work.
CHAPTER VI
ASTORGA, LUGO, LA CORUNA
THE road from Leon to Astorga is bad, and traverses a very
uninteresting country. A good part of the old walls of Astorga
still remains, with the usual array of lofty round towers at
short intervals : they were in process of partial demolition when
I saw them, and I noticed that they were in part constructed
with what appeared to be fragments of Roman buildings.
There is a rather picturesque Plaza de la Constitucion here,
one end of it being occupied by a quaint town-hall of the seven-
teenth century, through an archway in the centre of which
one of the streets opens into the Plaza. A number of bells
are hung in picturesque slated turrets on the roof, and some of
them are struck by figures (i).
The only old church I saw was the cathedral. A stone here
is inscribed with the following words in Spanish: " In 1471,
on the 1 6th of August, the first stone of the new work of this
holy church was laid; " and there is no doubt that the church
is all of about this date, with some additions chiefly, however,
of Retablos and other furniture in the two following centuries.
The character of the whole design is necessarily in the very
latest kind of Gothic; and much of the detail, especially on the
exterior, is quite Renaissance in its character. The east end is
finished with three parallel apses, and the nave is some seven or
eight bays, in length, with towers projecting beyond the aisles at
the west end, and chapels opening into the aisles between the
buttresses. The light is admitted by windows in the aisles over
the chapel arches, and by a large clerestory. These windows
are fortunately filled with a good deal of fine early Renaissance
glass, which, though not all that might be wished in drawing and
general treatment, is still remarkable for its very fine colour.
Arches of the same height as the groining of the aisles open into
the towers, the interior view across which produces the effect
of a sort of western transept, corresponding with a similar
transept between the nave and the apsidal choir (2). The detail
169
170 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
is throughout very similar to that of the better known cathedrals
at Segovia and Salamanca, the section of the columns being like
a bundle of reeds, with ingeniously planned interpenetrating
base mouldings, multiplied to such an extent that they finish at a
height of no less than ten feet from the floor. Another evidence
of the late character of the work is given by the arch mouldings,
which lie against and interpenetrate those of the columns,
there being no capitals. Beyond a certain stateliness of height
and colour which this small cathedral has in common with most
other Spanish works of the same age, there is but little to detain
or interest an architect. But stateliness and good effects of light
and shade are so very rare in modern works, that we can ill
afford to regard a building which shows them as being devoid of
merit or interest.
From Astorga the road soon begins to rise, and the scenery
thenceforward for the remainder of the journey to la Corufia
becomes always interesting, and sometimes extremely beautiful.
The country can hardly be said to be mountainous, yet the hills
are on a scale far beyond what we are accustomed to; and the
grand sweep of the hill sides, covered occasionally with wood, and
intersected by deep valleys, makes the whole journey most
pleasant. One of the prettiest spots on the road, before reaching
Villafranca, is the little village of Torre, where a quaint bridge
spans the brawling trout-stream ; and where the thick cluster of
squalid cottages atones to the traveller, in some degree, by its
picturesqueness, for the misery in which the people live. They
seem to be terribly ill off, and their chimneyless hovels pierced
only with a door and one very small window or hole in the wall,
into which all the light, and out of both of which all the smoke
have to find their way are of the worst description. The
village churches appear to be, almost without exception, very
mean; and all have the broad western bell- turret, so popular in
this part of Spain.
In ten hours from Astorga, passing Ponferrada on the way,
from the hill above which the view is very fine, Villafranca
del Vierzo is reached ; and this is the only place of any impor-
tance on the road. Its situation is charming, on a fine trout-
stream, along whose beautiful banks the road runs for a
considerable distance; and it is the proper centre for excursions
to the convents of the Vierzo (3), of which Mr. Ford gives an
account which made me anxious to examine them, though un-
fortunately the time at my disposal put it completely out of
the question. These old towns, of the second or third rank,
LUGO 171
have a certain amount of picturesque character, though far
less than might be expected of external evidence of their anti-
quity. Here, indeed, the picturesqueness is mainly the result
of the long tortuous streets, and the narrow bridges over the
beautiful river, which make the passage of a diligence so
much of an adventure, as to leave the passengers grateful when
they have gained with safety the other side of the town. The
Alameda here is pleasantly planted ; and the town boasts of an
inn which is just good enough to make it quite possible for an
ecclesiologist to use it as headquarters in a visit to the convents
of the Vierzo, whilst any one who is so fortunate as to be both
fisherman and ecclesiologist could scarcely be better placed.
Villafranca has one large, uninteresting, and very late Gothic
church, into which I could not get admission; the other churches
seemed to be all Renaissance in style.
I arrived at Lugo after a journey of more than thirty hours
from Leon. Like Astorga it is surrounded with a many-tov/ered
wall, which still seems to be perfect throughout its whole ex-
tent. The road passes along under it, half round the town, until
at last it turns in through an archway, and reaches the large
Plaza of San Domingo, in which is the diligence Fonda (4). This
was so unusually dirty even to the eyes and nose of a tolerably
well-seasoned traveller, that I was obliged to look for a lodging,
which, after a short search, I discovered ; and if it was not much
better, it was still a slight improvement on the inn. In these
towns lodgings are generally to be found; and as they are free
from the abominable scent of the mules, which pervades every
part of all the inns, they are often to be preferred to them. Mine
was in a narrow street leading out of the great arcaded Plaza,
which, on the day of my arrival, was full of market-people, sell-
ing and buying every kind of commodity; and on (5) the
western side of this Plaza stands the cathedral.
This is a church of very considerable architectural value and
interest. It was commenced early in the twelfth century, under
the direction of a certain Maestro Raymundo, of Monforte de
Lemos. His contract with the bishop and canons was dated
A.D. 1129; and by this it was agreed that he should be paid an
annual salary of two hundred sueldos of the money then current;
and if there was any change in its value, then he was to be paid
six marks of silver, thirty-six yards of linen, seventeen " cords "
of wood, shoes and gaiters as he had need of them; and each
month two sueldos for meat, a measure of salt, and a pound of
candles. Master Raymundo accepted these conditions, and
172 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
bound himself to assist at the work all the days of his life ; and
if he died before its completion,, his son was to finish it. 1
The church built by Raymundo is said to have been finished
in A.D. H77, 2 and still in part no doubt remains. 3 It consists of
a nave and aisles of ten bays in length, transepts, and a short
apsidal choir, with aisle and chapels round it. The large central
eastern chapel is an addition made in A.D. 1764; and the west
front is a very poor work of about the same period. There is
an open porch in front of the north transept, and a steeple on its
eastern side.
The design and construction of the nave and aisles is very
peculiar, and must be compared with that of the more important
cathedral at Santiago. This had been finished, so far as the
fabric was concerned, in the previous year, and evidently
suggested the mode of construction adopted at Lugo.
Here the arches, with few exceptions, are pointed; but other-
wise the design of the two churches is just the same. The nave
has a pointed barrel- vault; the triforium, however, has quadri-
partite vaulting throughout, in place of the half barrel-vaults
used at Santiago; and the buttresses externally are connected
by a series of arches below the eaves. The triforium consists
in each bay of two pointed arches under a round enclosing arch,
carried upon coupled shafts, which have rudely sculptured
capitals. The five eastern bays of the nave appear at first sight
to have no arches opening into the aisles; but upon closer
examination the outline of some low arches will be found behind
the stall work of the Coro. These arches are all blocked up;
but if they were originally open they are so low that they could
not have made the effect very different from what it now is.
It looks, in fact, at first sight, as if the present arrangement of the
Coro were that for which the church was originally built, and as
if the nave proper was always that part only of the church to
the west of the present Coro which opens to the aisles with simple
pointed arches of the whole height of the aisle. But on further
examination we find that the vaulting of the aisles in the four
eastern bays is a round waggon- vault, and this, of course, limited
the height to which it was possible to raise the arches between
the aisle and the nave; and it is therefore probable that their
height is not to be attributed so much to the wish to define a
Coro in the nave, as to the fault of the architect, who did not at
first perceive the advantage of using a quadripartite vault instead
1 Pallares Gayoso, Hist, de Lugo, from the black book in the archives.
Lean Bermudez, Arq. de Espana, i. 25. 3 Plate VII., p. 175.
LUGO CATHEDRAL
INTERIOR OF TRANSEPT LOOKING NORTH-WEST
174 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
of a waggon- vault. The three bays west of these have the former
kind of vaulting without ribs, and with windows both larger and
higher from the floor than the simple round-arched openings
which light the four eastern bays. The eighth and ninth bays
are evidently rather later than the rest; and the western bays,
again, are quite subsequent additions. The crossing has a
quadripartite vault, and the transepts waggon-vaults like those
of the nave.
It is pretty clear that the work was commenced upon the
scheme which we still see in the bays next the crossing, and
carried on gradually with alterations as the work went on, and
probably as it went on the architect discovered the mistake he
was making in confining himself to waggon-vaulting in the
aisles (6). It is somewhat remarkable that, with the example of
Santiago so near, such a scheme should ever have been devised,
unless, indeed, the work was commenced earlier than the date
assigned, of which I see no evidence.
The choir shows the same gradual variation in style; and I
have considerable difficulty in assigning a precise date to it. It
is clear, however, that the whole of it is of much later date than
the original foundation of the cathedral; and it is probable, I
think, that it was reconstructed in the latter half of the thir-
teenth century. The windows in the chapels of the chevet are
of two lights, with a small quatrefoil pierced in the tympanum
above the lights. The mouldings of the groining are extremely
bold and simple. The aisle- vaulting, too, is very simple and of
early-pointed character, whilst the clustered columns round the
apse look somewhat later. There is, however, no mark of altera-
tions or additions; and I think, therefore, that the whole of
this work must be of the same date, and that the difference visible
between the various parts of it may be put down to the long
lingering of those forms of art which had been once imported
into this distant province, and to the consequent absence of
development. The sculpture of the capitals in the chevet is
nowhere, I think, earlier than about the end of the thirteenth
century, though that in the chapels round it, being very simple,
looks rather earlier.
Unfortunately all the upper part of the choir was rebuilt
about the same time that the eastern chapel was added. It has
strange thin ogee flying buttresses, large windows, and a painted
ceiling.
Here, as at San Isidore, Leon, the Host is always exposed, and,
as I have mentioned before, two priests are always in attendance
at faldstools on each side of the Capilla mayor in front of the altar.
Masons Marks K?.'Cciklnry.
T\j
~2o 55 afar*
PLATE VII.
176 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
The interior, of course, has been much damaged by the de-
struction of the old clerestory of the choir (7). It is, neverthe-
less, still very impressive, and much of its fine effect is owing to
the contrast between the bright light of the nave and the obscure
gloom of the long aisles on either side of the Coro. The length
of the nave, too, is unusually great in proportion to the size of the
church; and though much of the sculpture is rude in execution,
it is still not without effect on the general character of the
building.
On the north side of the nave a chapel has been added, which
preserves the external arrangement of the windows and but-
tresses in the earliest part of the building, as they are now en-
closed within and protected by it. The simple and rather rude
buttresses are carried up and finished under the eaves' corbel-
tables with arches between them, so as to make a continuous
arcade the whole length of the building on either side.
The north doorway is of the same age as the early part of the
church, and has a figure of our Lord within a vesica in the tym-
panum, and the Last Supper carved on a pendant below it. The
head of the door-opening is very peculiar, having a round arch
on either side of this central pendant. The door has some rather
good ironwork. The porch in front of it is a work of the fifteenth
century, or perhaps later, and is open on three sides.
The only good external view of the church is obtained from
the north side. Here the tower rises picturesquely above the
transept, but the belfry and upper stage are modern 1 and very
poor. The bells are not only hung in the windows, but one of
them is suspended in an open iron framework from the finish
of the centre of the roof.
The cloister and other buildings seem to be all completely
modern and are of very poor style.
There are two old churches here those of the Capuchins and
of Santo Domingo both of them in or close to the Plaza of Santo
Domingo (8). The church of the Capuchins is evidently inter-
esting, though I could not gain access to its interior, which
appears to be desecrated. It has transepts, a low central
lantern, a principal apse of six sides, and two smaller apses open-
ing into the transepts. These apses are remarkable for having
an angle in the centre, whilst their windows have a bar of tracery
across them, transome fashion, at mid-height. It is certainly
a very curious coincidence, that in both these particulars it
resembles closely the fine church of the Frari at Venice; and
though I am not prepared to say that the imitation is anything
1 A.D. 1577. Madoz, Dice.
SANTO DOMINGO, LUGO 177
more than the merest accident, it is certainly noteworthy. The
eaves are all finished with moulded corbel- tables ; and there is a
rather fine rose- window in the transept gable. The circles in
the head of the apse windows are filled in with very delicate
traceries, cut out of thin slabs of stone, a device evidently
borrowed from Moresque examples; and it is somewhat strange
to meet them here so far from any Moorish buildings or
influence.
The church of Santo Domingo is somewhat similar in plan. It
has a modernised nave of five bays, a central dome, which looks
as though it might be old, but which is now all plastered and
whitewashed, a principal apse of seven sides, transepts covered
with waggon-vaults, and small apses to the east of them. The
capitals have carvings of beasts and foliage; but none of these,
or of the mouldings, look earlier than the fourteenth century;
yet the capitals are all square in plan, and the arches into the
chapels have a bold dog-tooth enrichment. There is a fine south
doorway to the nave, in which chevrons, delicate fringes of cusp-
ing, and dog-tooth, are all introduced. In such a work the date
of the latest portion must be the date of the whole; and so I do
not think it can be earlier than the rest of the church, though at
first sight it undoubtedly has the air of being more than a century
older.
Gil Gonzalez Davila 1 says that Bishop Fernando gave per-
mission for the foundation of the convent of Santo Domingo in
A.D. 1318, and that circa A.D. 1350-58 the Dominican Fray Pedro
Lopez de Aguiar founded it; and this date appears to me to
accord very well with the peculiar character of the work.
There is little more to be seen in Lugo. The old walls, though
they retain all their towers, have been to some extent altered
for the worse to fit them for defence in the last war; they have
been also rendered available as a broad public walk very
pleasant, inasmuch as it commands good views of the open
country beyond the city.
The people here and at Santiago all go to the fountains armed
with a long tin tube, which they apply to the mouths of the
beasts which discharge the water, and so convey the stream
straight to their pitchers placed on the edge of the large basins.
The crowd of water-carriers round a Spanish fountain is always
noisy, talkative, and gay; and many is the fight and furious the
clamour for the privilege of putting the tube to the fountain in
regular order.
I travelled between la Coruna and Lugo by night, so that I
1 Teatro Eccl. iii. 182, 183.
I M
fl gf LH flORUNS: S0G QV1K
Masons' Marks.
PLATE VIII.
Mason ' Mirks
Before 1200
K
J^Ccnturj- P
*"
Modem.
PLATE VIII.
180 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
am unable to say anything as to the country or scenery on the
road, save that for some distance before reaching Lugo it is
cold, bare, and unattractive.
Betanzos (9), the only town of importance on the road, has two
or three good churches, which I missed seeing by daylight. They
are of early date, with apsidal east ends, and somewhat similar,
apparently, to the churches at la Coruna, though on a larger scale.
La Coruna is charmingly situated, facing a grand landlocked
bay, but on the inner side of a narrow ridge, a short walk across
which leads to the open sea, which is here very magnificent.
The views of the coast, and the openings to the grand bays or
rios of Ferrol, Betanzos, and la Coruna, are of unusual beauty,
and it is rarely indeed that one sees a more attractive country.
But there is not very much to detain an architect. The town
is divided into the old and the new; and in the former are two
old churches, which, though small, are interesting; whilst in
the latter there is absolutely nothing to see but shops and cafes.
The Collegiata of Sta. Maria del Campo was made a parish
church by King Alonso X. in A.D. 1256, and in A.D. 1441 was
made collegiate : it has a nave and aisles of five bays, and a short
chancel, with an apse covered with a semi-dome vault. 1 The
nave and aisles are all covered with pointed waggon-vaults
springing from the same level; and as the aisles are narrow,
their vaults resist the thrust of the main vault, without exerting
a violent thrust on the aisle walls. The capitals are rudely
carved with foliage, and the arches are perfectly plain. The
bay of vaulting over the chancel is a pointed waggon-vault,
with ribs on its under side, arranged as though in imitation
of a sexpartite vault. 2
The western doorway has a circular arch, with rudely carved
foliage in the outer orders; and ten angels, with our Lord giving
His blessing in the centre, in the inner order. The tympanum
has the Adoration of the Magi. The abaci and capitals are
1 Plate VIII., p. 179.
2 The following inscription remains on one of the columns on the north
side of the nave:
SANTA : MARIA : RECE
AB : ESTE : PIAR : DE : FON
DO : A TE : CIMA : CON : LA
METADE : DOS : AR
cos : CA : QUELQUE : o :
PAGON : EN : vni. : IDUS
JULII : ERA : MCCC : XL.
From which it appears that this column, with the halves of the two arches
springing from it, was built in A.D. 1302. On another column on the same
side is an inscription recording the erection of the Chapel of the Visitation
in A.D. 1374.
STA. MARIA, LA CORUNA
181
carved, but everywhere the carving is overlaid with whitewash
so thickly as to be not very intelligible. The south door has
storied capitals, and angels under the corbels, which support the
tympanum over the door-opening; this has a figure with a pil-
grim's staff, probably Santiago, and there are other figures and
foliage in the arch. The abacus is carried round the buttresses,
and a bold arch is thrown across between them above the door.
An original window near this door is a mere slit in the wall, and
not intended for glazing. The north door is somewhat similar
to the other, with a sculpture of S. Katharine in the tympanum.
' '" --'--
STA. MARIA, LA CORUNA
The apse has a very small east window, engaged columns
dividing it into three bays, and a simple corbel-table.
The west front (10) is quaint and picturesque. It has a bold
porch now almost built up by modern erections and two small
square towers or turrets at the angles. Of these the south-
western has a low, square stone spire, springing from within a
traceried parapet, and with some very quaint crockets at the
angles. A tall cross, with an original sculpture of the Crucifixion,
stands in the little Plaza in front of the church. The Coro here
is in a large western gallery, but both this and the stalls are
Renaissance in style.
The other church is that of Santiago. This has a broad nave,
forty-four feet wide, into the east wall of which three small
182 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
apses open. 1 The nave is divided into four bays by bold cross
arches, which carry the wooden roof; and of the three eastern
arches, the central rises high above the others, and has a circular
window above it. The west front has a very fine doorway (n),
set in a projecting portion of the wall, finished with a corbel-table
and cornice at the top. This has a figure of Santiago in the tym-
panum, and statues in the jambs. The north doorway has
heads of oxen supporting the lintel, and rude carving of foliage
in the arch. One of the original windows remains in the north
wall. This is roundheaded and very narrow, but has good jamb-
shafts and arch-mouldings. The detail of the eastern apse is of
bold and simple Romanesque character, with engaged shafts
supporting the eaves-cornice.
There is not, so far as I know, any evidence as to the exact
date of these churches; but I think that the character of all
their details proves that they were founded about the middle of
the twelfth century. They are evidently later than the cathe-
dral at Santiago, and tally more with the work which I have
been describing in the nave of Lugo Cathedral. And though
the dimensions of both are insignificant, they appear to me to
be extremely valuable examples, as showing two evident attempts
at development on the part of their architect, who, to judge of
the strong similarity in some of their details, was probably the
same man.
Three barrel-vaults on the same level as at Sta. Maria are
seldom seen ; and the bold cross arches spanning Santiago are a
good example of an attempt in the twelfth century to achieve
what few have yet attempted to accomplish in the revival of
the present day the covering of a broad nave in a simple,
economical, and yet effective manner (12).
In the church of Santiago there is preserved a fragment of
an embroidered blue velvet cope. The sprigs with which it is
diapered are so exactly similar in character to those of some of
our own old examples the Ely cope in particular as to suggest
the idea that the work is really English.
From La Corufia to Santiago the road is, for the first half of
the way, extremely pleasant, and passes through a luxuriant
country; gradually, however, as the end of the great pilgrimage
is reached, it becomes dreary and the country bare ; still the out-
lines of the hills are fine, and some of the distant views rather
attractive. But Santiago is too important a city, and its
cathedral is too grand and interesting, to be described at the end
of a chapter.
1 Plate VIII., p. 178,
184 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
NOTES
(1) In Astorga, the walls are gone and the figures on the town
hall do not strike any more. The cathedral, which can be well seer
by going over for the day from Leon, is not worth spending a night
at the Fonda del Comercio, the only hotel in the place, and the worst,
I believe, in Spain.
(2) Sefior Lamperez compares the plan with that of Leon, and
points out that the apparent transepts east and west are not truly
such, because the vaulting is on a level with that of the aisles.
These jutting bays at the east are dated by an inscription in them,
1553; the chapels are all of the sixteenth and seventeenth century,
the cloister of the eighteenth. The longitudinal arches into the
chapels are the shape of the so-called Tudor arch. It is worth noting
how often late Gothic in Spain resembles English rather than French
styles: in the use of the four-centred arch, in Perpendicular panel-
ling (for instance, in the frames of retables), and in the frequency of
the " linen-fold " pattern in panelled wood. The cathedral in
Astorga, moreover, like the New Cathedral and San Esteban at
Salamanca, can very justly be compared with such late Gothic
churches as S. Gervais at Paris, rather to the advantage of the
Spanish. An interesting retable of S. Theresa in one of the nave
chapels presents SS. Scolastica and Catharine of Siena, Paula and
Clare, with four doctors. The other retables are mostly of an age ;
N. S. de la Magestad is an archaic figure, SS. Toribio and Genadius,
both bishops, are the local patrons. The central portal at the west
is very late and very bad.
(3) I did not try to penetrate the Vierzo, almost as inaccessible
as sixty years since. Even Villafranca lies off the railway. The
most important of these convents seems Carracedo, a Cistercian
foundation, restored in 1796. Of the tenth century nothing, of
the twelfth century a little remains. The church was begun
October 16, 1138. The chapter-house, which still has a round-
arched door with three shafts in the jamb, and one Romanesque
ajimez window, contains some tombs the abbots Florencio and
Diego (died 1155). The palace, though ruined, still stands with a
window and gallery of the thirteenth century. Besides this, there
are San Martin de Castafieda, and Santiago de Penalva, a chapel
with apses east and west, a cloister and a tomb, 937-1 105.
Of Villafranca, founded 1070 for French pilgrims on the Way of
S. James, Sefior Quadrado says a that the parish churches of San-
tiago and San Juan are Romanesque, that San Francisco, with
Romanesque details, has a dedication of the fifteenth century. The
monks at Cluny at the time of the foundation had maintained
two hospices, Santiago and San Lazaro.
(4) Lugo, which has now an excellent inn, the Hotel Mendez
Wunez, is the sweetest and sleepiest cathedral town in Spain, with
s in the main square, roses in the canons' gardens, and a walk
entirely about the city on top of the walls, commanding fine moun-
tain views.
(5) For on read beyond.
1 Espana.
LUGO 185
(6) Seiior Lamperez continues the history as follows : Raymond's
son succeeded him. In 1273, indulgences were offered for contribu-
tives; in 1308, the chapter bought up some houses to make the
head (i.e. the east end, sanctuary, apses or ambulatory, chapels,
and what not, called in Spanish cabecera). It probably had* at first
three parallel chapels and was altered later. Documents quoted by
Sefior Villamil y Castro show that in the thirteenth century it had
chapels only of S. Michael and S. Martin; moreover the Capilla
Mayor is very fine and French, and the surrounding chapels rougher
and more regional. Therefore, we must distinguish three periods:
(i) 1129-1177, transept and earliest apsidal chapels; (2) thirteenth
century, nave and fa9ade; (3) first half of the fourteenth century,
Capilla Mayor, ambulatory, and its chapels.
(7) The face of each transept from the portal to the rose is filled
by great carved and painted retables of the sixteenth century,
made probably out of the ruins of an earlier Retablo Mayor. Along
the walls of the coro hang some paintings of the story of Joseph from
a yet earlier one perhaps. San Froi'lan re-appears on the west front.
(8) The churches of S. Francis and S. Dominic are close together
and just alike, having a low central tower, three polygonal apses
with an angle at the centre, transepts, and no aisles. Of the former
Seiior Villamil says rather peevishly that it is not Capuchin, but
primitive Franciscan; at any rate it is deserted, and through a
little, late, low-browed, ugly conventicle under its wing, along the
south side of the nave west of the transept, lies the only access to it.
A great west door is locked and a great cloister on the north side, of
nine bays ruined with whitewash, is the playground of orphans,
wards of the Little Sisters of the Poor. The cloister is made up of
groups of three round arches on coupled shafts under a single abacus,
between heavy piers, in the style of the Romanesque cloisters in the
south of France, at Elne, Mont-Major, etc., but the date is 1452.
There seems to be a chapter-house, but I did not see it. The church
carries the wooden roof of nave and transepts on fine pointed stone
arches, and at the crossing an octagonal artesonado ceiling. Santo
Domingo, I believe, is also fifteenth century.
(9) Betanzos is exceedingly picturesque and quite unspoiled, the
inn tolerable, and some of the Casas de Huespedes inviting. The
church of Santiago at the top of the hill seems the ideal type for a
parish church, very lofty and open, with aisles almost as high as the
nave. Senor Lamperez cites it as typical Gallegan, looking thir-
teenth century and probably late fourteenth. Over the main
arcade of lofty pointed arches the timber roof spreads a single
gradual slope from the centre to the walls. The central apse has a
chevet of seven compartments, with three lancets below roses, and
with a marked inclination to the north; and the side apses have a
quadripartite vault, and a rose in the aisle wall above. A rich and
beautiful late Gothic chapel on the south contains two bishops'
tombs and a superb early Renaissance retable of S. James that
recalls the French figure-sculptures of the church of Brou or of
Troyes. At the west, pointed arches open from the aisles into two
square towers, taken off the width of the last bay; and a third
tower, at the east, is in the shape of an irregular pentagon. The
186 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
facade seems to testify that Lombard workmen once passed along
that road, but being also lately restored, like nearly everything else
.ecclesiastical in the town, one cannot safely judge by it of the original
building. At any rate, it is dated 1900. has a blind arcade under the
eaves, and shallow pilasters and a pair of trumpery little towers.
The portal was magnificently conceived, but always, probably, as in
all provincial work, the execution lagged behind the idea. S. James
on horseback occupies the pointed tympanum ; a row of little figures,
the second of the five orders above, and a seated Christ on a larger
scale, the peak of the arch; the four shafts in the jambs have
grotesque or storied capitals. Several masons' marks are plain
by the north door. Santa Maria del Azogue is like Santiago,
except that the side apses are square. It was founded by the
Andrade family and cannot be earlier than the fourteenth century;
the date of construction by some is read 1346, and by others 1417.
The nave as I paced it was about forty feet wide and the aisle twelve.
It has five bays of which the first seems a true narthex, opening on
either hand into the aisle-ends by pointed arches with coarse,
rude leaves and storied capitals. The retable is carved in small
scenes and recalls Flemish or Rhenish work of the late fifteenth
century. The facade projects a trifle beyond the aisle-ends, and the
south wall only is carried up and pierced for bells. The central
wheel-window of three orders, and rich, has a bad and modern filling.
The portal, of the same sort as that of Santiago, has an Epiphany
in the tympanum and a panelling, beyond the shafted jambs,
under the wide archivolt. San Francisco, finished 1387, is fine
Gothic ; it has a nave, transept, pentagonal apse, two square chapels
east of the transepts, others north and south and also west these
of the fifteenth or sixteenth century. An amusing tomb of Fer-
nando Perez de Andrada, 1 387, carved with hunting scenes, stands
on very Iberian pigs. The chapels and chevet have a ribbed vault,
probably later, the transept a barrel-vault, the crossing a flat wooden
ceiling and the nave a steep one. The cloister on the north side is gone.
Cambre is a charming village, with well-to-do gardens and a good
train service to La Coruna, and Santa Maria is an immensely inter-
esting church of the thirteenth century with some unusual elements,
most of which are French. It has a nave and aisles of four bays ;
the timber roof, carried on round arches of stone, is flat in the nave
and sloping over the aisles. The square transepts of two bays and
deep presbytery are barrel-vaulted, the apse ending in a semi-dome.
This apse has seven bays, now blocked up, four narrow and three
wide, and the ambulatory has eleven bays of segmental barrel-vault,
nlternating narrow and wider. In the five radiating chapels,
rather more than a semi-circle in plan, set on the wider faces, the
vaults are pointed and ribbed, and arch at entrance pointed. 1 The
capitals in the nave are transitional, in the chapels unmistakably
Gothic, and the holy water stoops are made of fine capitals which
show, in the Romanesque acanthus pattern, traces of Gothic feeling.
The fine early font of red stone is still in use. The fa9ade has two
small round-headed windows at the west of the aisles, moulded with
1 Cf. the note by Street, p. 195, on French churches with chapels in the
alternate baysjonly.
LA CORUftA 187
a billet and then the deep scallop so common in Galicia; on the
south side these scallops are cusped. The shafts in the jambs, like
those of the door, have some capitals carved in a leaf pattern and
others in entrelacs or monsters. The beautiful rose-window in the
centre has eight circles disposed around a central larger circle cut
in a plate of stone all over delicate reliefs, deep mouldings with the
scallop, and a label of the acanthus leaves in low relief. Below this
window a cornice on six corbels stretches between nave-buttresses
of moderate projection that carry a half column on the face and a
quarter column in the inner corner; all three have fine transitional
capitals under a continuous abacus moulding. The tympanum
of the round-headed door shows the Agnus Dei in a cusped circle held
by two angels. The moulding of the arch above is both rich and
curious ; the inmost order, a diaper of crosses deeply undercut, such
as you find on the shafts at Chartres, then a series of hollows and
rounds with a bold roll in the middle, another order carved like ivory
in a pattern of entrelacs, and last before the billet label, set over the
series of mouldings, instead of the hosts in glory, as at Benavente,
Betanzos, and Santiago, a series of beasts and birds, among which
at the centre of the arch a man sits with legs crossed and a book in
his lap, elbows on knees and chin on hands, two lions looking over
his shoulders. For rich luxuriance of fancy, as if some breath had
blown out of the east and for an hour had bewitched northern work-
men, I can recall no parallel except the rose-window at Troja.
There again, without straining the parallel too far, from a like cause
you make out a kind of similarity of effect, Byzantine and French
influences meeting and acting on an alien race.
(10) The west front of Santa Maria has been completely restored
and is not only uninteresting, but, like Santiago of Betanzos, sus-
picious; as Lombard as possible, with four pilaster-buttresses,
two string-courses, and eaves-corbelling. The beautiful Virgin
Annunciate and S. Gabriel, which must belong to the destroyed
porch, are leaning against the wall in a chapel on the north side.
The north door at present has an Annunciation in the tympanum.
(i i) This has three shafts in the jambs and two statues set on the
door posts facing each other, beneath the kneeling figures of the lintel
corbels. Worn figures of twenty angels are ranged in the archivolts,
as at Santiago of Compostella, and above the peak of the outermost
order Christ enthroned shows His wounded hands. The corbels of
the cornice, resting on figures, enclose others in the arches between.
The tympanum of the north door, round-arched, exhibits the Agnus
Dei.
(12) Sefior Lamperez points out that our author had no means
to gauge the degree to which Galicia lagged behind the times. At
Santa Maria, for instance, though the foundation is old, the church
is only archaic: at Santiago, with apses of the twelfth century,
the rest is mainly of the sixteenth, when the nave and aisles were
thrown together. Santa Maria del Campo 1 was begun in 1 302, and
the vaults closed in 1317. Santiago, existing in 1161, received in
1448 a donation for covering it, and in the early sixteenth century
was rebuilt, according to an inscription on the church.
1 Cf. note on p. 180.
CHAPTER VII
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELLA
THE journey from Lugo to Santiago (i) is pleasant so far as the
country is concerned, and there is one advantage in the ex-
tremely slow and grave pace of the diligences in this part of the
world, that it always allows of the scenery being well studied.
Moreover, in these long rides there is a pleasure and relief in
being able to take a good walk without much risk of being left
behind, which can hardly be appreciated by the modern English-
man who travels only in his own country. The general character
of the landscape is somewhat like that of the Yorkshire moors,
diversified here and there by beautiful valleys, the sides of which
are generally clothed with chestnut, but sometimes with walnut,
oak, and stone-pines. The heaths were in full flower, and
looked brilliant in the extreme, and here and there were patches
of gorse. The road is fine, and has only recently been made.
The country is very thinly populated, so that we passed not
more than two or three villages on the way, and in none of them
did I see signs of old churches of any interest. It is difficult to
picture anything more wretched than the state of the Gallegan
peasantry as we saw them on this road. They were very dirty,
and clothed in the merest rags : the boys frequently with nothing
on but a shirt, and that all in tatters; and the women with but
little more in quantity, and nothing better in quality. The
poorest Irish would have some difficulty in showing that their
misery is greater than that of these poor Gallegans.
My journey to Santiago was quite an experiment. I had
been able to learn nothing whatever about the cathedral (2)
before going there, and I was uncertain whether I should not
find the mere wreck of an old church, overlaid everywhere with
additions by architects of the Berruguetesque or Churrugieresque
schools, instead of the old church which I knew had once stood
there. In all my Spanish journeys there had been somewhat of
this pleasant element of uncertainty as to what I was to find;
but here my ignorance was complete, and as the journey was a
long one to make on speculation, it was not a little fortunate that
1 88
SANTIAGO 189
my faith was rewarded by the discovery of a church of extreme
magnificence and interest.
The weary day wore on as we toiled on and on upon our
pilgrimage, and it was nearly dark before we reached the
entrance of the city,, and after much delay found ourselves
following a porter up the steep streets and alleys which lead
up from the diligence Fonda to the principal inn, which happens
fortunately to be very near the one interesting spot in the city
the cathedral. The next morning showed us not only the
exterior of the city, but enabled us also to form a good idea of
its surroundings. It stands on the slope of a steep hill, with
great bare and bleak hills on all sides, rising generally to a great
height. From some of them the views are no doubt very fine,
and the town with its towers and walls may well look more
imposing than it does on a nearer view.
For, to say the truth, if the cathedral be left out of considera-
tion, Santiago is a disappointing place. There is none of the
evidence of the presence of pilgrims which might be expected,
and I suspect a genuine pilgrim is a very rare article indeed.
I never saw more than one, and he proclaimed his intentions
only by the multitude of his scallop-shells fastened on wherever
his rags would allow; but I fear much he was a professional
pilgrim; he was begging lustily at Zaragoza, and seemed to
have been many years there on the same errand, without getting
very far on his road. And there is not much evidence in the
town itself of its history and pretensions to antiquity; for, as
is so often the case in Spain, so great was the wealth possessed
by the Church in the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth
century, that all the churches and religious houses were rebuilt
about that time, and now, in place of mediaeval churches and
convents, there are none but enormous Renaissance erections on
all sides; and as they are bad examples of their class, little
pleasure is to be derived from looking at them, either outside or
inside.
Perhaps some exception ought to be made from this general
depreciation of the buildings at Santiago in favour of the
entourage of the cathedral; for here there is a sumptuous church
opening on all sides to Plazas of grand size, and surrounded by
buildings all having more or less architectural pretension. Steep
flights of steps lead from one Plaza to another, a fountain plays
among quarrelsome water-carriers in one, and in another not only
does an old woman retail scallop-shells to those who want them,
but a tribe of market people ply their trade, cover the flags with
igo GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
their bright fruit, make the>ar tired with their eternal wrangle,
and the eye delighted with their gay choice of colours for sashes,
headgear, and what not.
The whole record of the foundation of this cathedral is a great
deal too long to enter upon here; but fortunately enough re-
mains of its architectural history to make the story of the
present building both intelligible and interesting, and to this I
must now ask the attention of my readers.
There seems to have been a church founded here in or about
the year 868, 1 which is said to have been completed in thirty-
one years, 2 and consecrated in A.D. 899. Of this church nothing
now remains; but the contemporary deed of gift to the church
by the King Alfonso III., and the account of the altars and relics
existing in it at the time, are of considerable interest. 3
I need hardly say how much store was laid by the clergy of
Santiago on their possession of the body of the Apostle. Mr.
Ford 4 gives only too amusing, if it is, as I fear, only too true, a
version of the story of the Saint's remains. Suffice it here to say,
that there no longer seem to be great pilgrimages to his shrine,
and that even in Spain the old belief in the miracle-working
power of his bones seems now practically to have died out. 6
1 Espana Sagrada, xix. 91.
2 Historia del Apostol Sanctiago, by Mauro Castella Ferrer, p. 463.
3 The latter document in particular has much architectural interest, and
is worth transcribing in part, on account of its references to these early
buildings, and their materials and furniture. It commences as follows:
" In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi, edificatum est Templum Sancti
Salvatpris, et Sancti Jacobi Apostoli in locum Arcis Marmoricis territprio
Gallecise per institutionem gloriosissimi Principis Adefonsi III. cum conjuge
Scemena sub Pontifice loci ejusdem Sisnando Episcopo " (877-903).
" Supplex egregii eximii Principis Ordonii proles ego Adefpnsus Principi
cum praedicto antistite statuimus aedificare domum Domini et restaurare
Templum ad tumulum sepulchri Apostoli, quod antiquitus construxerat
divae memoriae Dominus Adefonsus Magnus ex petra et luto opere parvo.
Nosquidem inspiratione di vina adlati cum subditis ac familia nostraadduxi-
mus in sanctum locum ex Hispania inter agmina Maurorum, quae eligimus
de Civitate Eabecae petras marmoreas quas ayi nostri ratibus per Pontuni
trans vexerunt, et ex eis pulchras domos aedificaverunt, quae ab inimicis
destructae manebant. Unde qupque ostium principale Occidentalis partis
ex ipsis marmoribus est appositum: supercilia vero liminaris Sedis in-
yenimus sicut antiqua sessio fuerat miro opere sculpta. Ostium de sinistro
juxta Oraculum Baptistaa et Martyris Joannis quern simili modo fundavi-
mus, et de puris lapidibus construximus columnas sex cum basibus todidem
posuimus, ubi abbobuta tribunalis est constructa, vel alias columnas sculp-
tas supra quas portius imminet de oppido Portucalense ratibus deportatas
adduximus quadras, et calcem unde sunt aedificatae columnae decem et
VIII. cum aliis columnelis marmoreis simili modo navigio." Espana
Sagrada, xix. 344, Appendix.
Handbook of Spain, 600-605.
6 The authors of the Manual del Viagero en la Catedral de Santiago are,
however, not quite of this opinion. They say of it, " The monument which
SANTIAGO 191
Nothing could, however, have been stronger than the old faith
in their patron, and the extreme wealth brought to the church
by the pilgrimages made of old to his shrine from all parts of
Europe would no doubt have involved the entire destruction
of all remains of the early church, in order to its reconstruction
on a far grander scale, had it not been destroyed, so far as
possible, in the century after its erection, by the Moors under
Almanzor.
From the end of the tenth century I find no mention of the
cathedral until the episcopate of Diego Gelmirez, in whose time
Santiago was made an archbishopric. He was consecrated in
the year noo, and died in A.D. 1130, and the history of his
archiepiscopate is given in great detail in the curious contem-
porary chronicle, the Historia Compostellana. 1 Here it is
recorded that, in A.D. 1128, " forty-six years after the com-
mencement of the new church of S. James," the bishop, finding
that the subordinate buildings were so poor that strangers
absolutely " wandered about looking for where the cloisters and
offices might be," called his chapter together, and urged upon
them the necessity of remedying so grave a defect, finishing his
speech by the offer of a hundred marks of pure silver, thirty at
once, and the rest at the end of a year. 2 This would put the
commencement of the new cathedral in the year 1082, during
the episcopate of Diego Pelaez, though, as will be seen, the same
History elsewhere says that the church was commenced in
A.D. 1078, a date which occurs also on the south transept door-
jamb; and the works must have been carried on during the time
of his successors, Pedro II. and Dalmatius (a monk of Cluny),
to its completion under Gelmirez. 3 It was in the time of this
we examine belongs not to Santiago, to Galicia, to Spain, but is the
patrimony of the Christian religion, of the Catholic world; since in all
fervent souls something remains of the ancient and fervent faith of our
forefathers." This guide-book, by the way, is one of the worst I ever
met with.
1 The twentieth volume of Espana Sagrada is entirely occupied with the
reprint of this chronicle.
8 Histor. Compost, lib. iii. cap. i.
3 " Postquam supradictus Episcopus," " ad Ecclesiam Patroni sui B.
Jacobi Apostoli rediens.circaeammdefessamsolicitudinemexhibuit." " Re-
versus itaque a supradicta expeditione, vetustissimam Ecclesiolam obrui
praecepit, quae intra immensam novae ecclesias capacitatem imminente
ruina lapsum minabatur. Haec in longitudinem ad altare B. Jacobi pro-
tendebatur ab illo pilari qui juxta principalem ecclesiaa parietem, et secus
unum de quatuor principalibus pilaribus existit, in sinistra parte supe-
riorem partem chori ingredientibus pone relinquitur, et juxta fores pon-
tificalis Palatii Ecclesiam introeuntibus, recta frpnte opponitur, et in alia
parte, id est in dextera, a pilari opposite supradicto pilari usque ad idem
altare: latitude vero illius eadem quas modo et chori est. Destructa ilia
1 9 2 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
bishop, in the year 1117, it is recorded in the Chronicle, that
during a violent tumult in the city, in which both the bishop
and queen hardly escaped alive, the cathedral was set on fire by
the mob; but its construction is so nearly fireproof, that doubt-
less it was the furniture only that was really burnt; for, eleven
years later, in A.D. 1128, the bishop, in his speech to the chapter,
already mentioned, speaks of the church as being extremely
beautiful, and, indeed, renowned for its beauty. 1 In A.D. 1124
two canons of Santiago were collecting money for the works at
the cathedral in Sicily and Apulia, 2 and the cloister, which was
commenced in A.D. 1128, seems to have been still unfinished in
A.D. ii34. 3 From this date until A.D. 1168 I find no record of
any alteration; but in this year Ferdinand II. issued a warrant 4
for the payment of the master of the works one Matthew
and twenty years later, the same master of the works put the
following inscription on the under side of the lintel of the
western door:
" Anno : ab : Incarnatione : Dni : Mo. Co LXXXVIIIvo: Era la CCXXh.
VI. a: Die K-L. Aprilis : supra liniharia : Principalium : portalium."
" Ecclesiaa : Beati : Jacob! : sunt collocata : Per : Magistrum : Matheum :
qui : a : fundamentis: ipsorum : portalium : gessit : magisterium." 6
In addition to these evidences, there are two others in the
church itself; one, to which I shall refer again, a date which I
take to be A.D. 1078, on the jamb of the south transept doorway;
and the other, an inscription which, with some modifications, is
repeated several times round the margins of circles let into the
aisle walls, in the centre of which are the dedication crosses.
The date on one of these over the west side of the transept, as
Ecclesia in era I. C. L." (A.D. 1112) " quae quasi obumbraculum totiu,
Ecclesiae esse videbatur, Chorum satis competentem ibidem composuit-
qui usque in hodiernum diem Dei gratia et B. Jacobi per industriam ejus-
dem Episcopi optimi Cleri excellentia egregie decoratur. Ipse quoque
Episcopus, utpote sapiens architectus, in ejusdem chori dextro capite
fecit supereminens pulpitum, in quo Cantores, atque Subdiacones officii sui
ordinem peragunt. In sinistro vero aliud, ubi lectiones et Evangelia
leguntur. Est autem B. Jacobi specialis et praeclara nova ecclesia incaspta
Era I. C. XVI. V. idus Jul." (A.D. 1078). Histor. Compost, lib. i. cap. 78.
1 The Archbishop's words were as follows: " Fratres, nostra ecclesia
non nostris sed Dei gratia et nostri Patroni Beatissimi Apostoli Jacobi
meritis maximi et celeberrimi est nominis, et ultra portus et citra portus
pro ditissima et nobilissima reputatur." " Quaelibet Sedes ultra portus
pulchriora et valentiora aedificia habet quam nostra," etc., etc. Hist.
Compost, lib. iii. cap. i.
2 Histor. Compost, lib. ii. cap. 64.
3 Ibid. lib. iii. cap. 36. * See Appendix.
6 Before this time, in 1161, Master Matthew had built the bridge of
Cesures in Gallicia. Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Espana, i. 33.
SANTIAGO 193
well as I could read it, appeared to me to be A.D. 1154; 1 but as
the inscriptions vary somewhat round the different crosses, it
is possible that the dates may vary also with the time of com-
pletion of the various parts of the building; and I regret there-
fore that I did not make accurate copies of all of them. The
dedication crosses are all floriated at the ends, and have in the
spandrels between the arms of the cross above, the sun and
moon, and below, the letters A and ft. Three of these remain
on each side of the nave, two in each transept, and two in the
choir aisle, twelve in all. I saw none on the exterior; but so
little of the old external walls can now be seen that this is not to
be wondered at.
It is now time to describe the building itself, the age of its
various parts having been pretty accurately defined by the
documentary evidence which I have quoted.
This cathedral is of singular interest, not only on account of
its unusual completeness, and the general unity of style which
marks it, but still more because it is both in plan and design a
very curiously exact repetition of the church of S. Sernin at
Toulouse. 2 But S. Sernin is earlier in date by several years,
having been commenced by S. Raymond in A.D. 1060, and con-
secrated by Pope Urban II. in A.D. 1096; and the cathedral at
Santiago can only be regarded, therefore, as to a great extent a
copy of S. Sernin, the materials being, however different, since
granite was used in its construction in place of the brick and
stone with which its prototype was constructed.
The dimensions of the two churches do not differ very much;
Santiago has one bay less in its nave, but one bay more in each
transept; it has only one aisle, whilst S. Sernin has two on each
side of the nave; and its two towers are placed north and south
of the west front, instead of to the west of it, as they are at S.
Sernin. The arrangement of the chevet and of the chapels on
the east of the transepts was the same in both churches. Here
they still exist in the chevet, but in the transepts traces of them
are only to be found after careful examination. Three of them,
indeed, are quite destroyed, though slight traces still exist of the
arches which opened into them from the aisles, but the fourth
has been preserved by a piece of vandalism for which one must
be grateful. It has been converted into a passage-way to a
1 " Era : millena : nova : vicies : duodena."
2 By a strange coincidence, S. Sernin boasts of having, among the bones
of several of the apostles, those of S. James; though, of course, this would
be strongly denied at Compostella.
I N
194 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
small church which once stood detached to the north-east of the
cathedral, and the access to which was by a western doorway.
The erection of a modern chapel blocked up the access to this
doorway, and an opening was then made through the northern
chapel of the north transept, which has thus been saved from
the fate which has befallen the others. The position and size of
these chapels are indicated in the ground-plan.
The proportions of the several parts of the plans of the two
churches are also nearly identical; and owing in part to the
arrangement of the groining piers of the transepts, in which the
aisles are returned round the north and south ends, the transept
fronts in both churches have the very unusual arrangement of
two doorways side by side a central single doorway being im-
possible. The triforium galleries surround the whole church,
being carried across the west end and the ends of the transepts,
so that a procession might easily ascend from the west end, by
the tower staircases which are unusually broad and spacious
and make the entire circuit of the church. Finally, the
sections of both these great churches are as nearly as possible
the same; their naves being covered with barrel- vaults, their
aisles with quadripartite vaults, and the triforia over the aisles
with quadrant vaults, abutting against and sustaining as with
a continuous flying buttress the great waggon-vaults of their
naves. 1
The exterior of the cathedral at Santiago to a more detailed
description of which I must now devote myself is almost
1 The church from which the cathedral at Santiago was copied is one of a
considerable number in France, all of which have the same general charac-
teristics. I have already given some description of them in a paper read
before the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1 86 1, and published in
their Transactions. The following list of some of the more remarkable
examples will show both their date and locale : Conques, completed in
A.D. 1060; b. Etienne, Nevers, commenced in A.D. 1063, consecrated A.D.
1097; S Eutrope, Saintes, consecrated in A.D. 1096; S. Genes A.D. 1016-
1120; S. Hilary Poitiers, A.D. 1049; Moutierneuf, Poitiers, A.D. 1069-1096;
Radigonde, Poitiers, A.D. 1099; S. Amable, Riom, A.D. 1077-1120; S.
vn m N Tou ]H s , e > D - 1060-1096; Cluny, A.D. 1089-1131; Dorat (Haute
u5? ^d Benevente (Creuse), A . D> II5o . I2oo; S . Saturnin; Volvic;
Issoire; S. Nectaire; N. D. du Port, Clermont Ferrand, circa A.D. 1080-
Bnoude A.D 1200. There is a church of similar construction at
anson, on the lake of Neufchatel. These churches agree generally in
v- ar ah? T' v, es P eclall y in th ose of their chevets (which almost in-
luke tL ?Hf C ^ apel f 1 m ^e alternate bays only). Their sections are also
harSl nr ,3 V ^ S b ^ n8 always vaulte d with a continuous half-
w^e alwav^t H T?*' *** they have no ^stories. No doubt they
were always intended to receive stone roofs, without any use of timber-
^ ^ carefuU y rest ^d recently a? N D du
SANTIAGO 195
completely obscured and overlaid by modern additions. The two
old western steeples shown on the plan are old only about as
high as the side walls of the church, and have been raised to a
very considerable height, and finished externally with a lavish
display of pilasters, balustrades, vases, and what not, till they
finish in a sort of pepper-box fashion with small cupolas.
Between them is a lofty niche over the west front, which contains
a statue of the tutelar. 1 Fortunately the whole of the fa$ade
between the steeples was built on in front of, and without
destroying, Master Matthew's great work, the western porch.
The ground falls considerably to the west, and a rather pictur-
esque quadruple flight of steps, arranged in a complicated
fashion, leads up from the Plaza to the doors. There are two
great and two lesser flights of steps, so that a procession going
up might be divided into four lines ; a doorway in the centre of
the western wall below these steps leads into a chapel constructed
below the western porch. This is now called the Chapel of S.
Joseph, but seems to have been known of old as Santiago la
Vajo (4). The arrangement of its plan is very peculiar. 2 There
are two large central piers east and west of a sort of transept;
to the west of this are two old arches, and then the modern
passage leading to the doorway at the foot of the steps. To the
east of the transept is an apse consisting of an aisle formed round
the great central pier, with small recesses for altars round it.
The aisle is covered with a round-arched waggon- vault; it has
five recesses for altars ; the easternmost seems to have a square
east end, the next to it on either side have apses, and the others
are very shallow recesses hardly large enough for altars. There
can be no doubt whatever, I think, that this is the work on
which Master Matthew was first employed; it is exactly under
the porch and doorway, on which, as we know by the inscription
on the lintel of the door, he wrought; and as he was first at work
here in A.D. 1168, and finished the doors in A.D. 1188, we may
safely put down this chapel as having been begun and finished
circa A.D. 1168-75. I n tn ^ s tne bases are some of them square,
some circular in plan; the sculpture of the capitals is elaborate
and similar in character to most of the later work in the cathedral.
The favourite device of pairs of animals regarding each other is
frequently repeated; and there are moulded and spiral shafts in
the jambs of the western arches. My view of the interior of this
1 This facade was designed by D. Ventura Rodriguez, in 1764 (3).
2 The ground-plan of this chapel is shown on Plate IX., above the plan
of the cathedral.
SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL
INTERIOR OF LOWER CHURCH
SANTIAGO 197
interesting little chapel will best explain its general character
and peculiarities, and it will be felt, I think, that it is certainly
not earlier than the date I have assigned, and therefore, like the
great western door, of later date than the church in connection
with which it was built. Behind the eastern altar there is an
arcade of three arches forming a kind of reredos, but I am not
at all sure whether they are in their old places, and I a.m inclined
to think it more likely that there is an eastern apse behind them.
There is nothing to prove whether there were any western doors
to this chapel, and as all the light must originally have come
through the western arches, it would seem to be most probable
that there were none. The chapel is now kept locked, and is
but seldom used for service. 1
To return to the west front. This is the centre only of a vast
architectural facade; to the right of the church being the
chapter-house and other rooms on the west side of the cloister,
and to the left another long line of dependent buildings. The
Plaza is bounded by public buildings on its other three sides ; 2
and beyond, to the west, the ground falling very rapidly affords
a fine view across the valley to the picturesque mountain-like
ranges which bound the landscape. This is the Plaza Mayor or
" del Hospital"
Going northward from the west entrance, and turning pre-
sently to the east, a low groined gateway is reached, which leads
into another Plaza fronting the north transept. This gateway
is a work of the twelfth century, but of the simplest kind. The
Plaza de San Martin, to the north of the cathedral, is pictur-
esquely irregular; its north side is occupied by a vast convent of
S. Martin, and the ground slopes down steeply from it to the
cathedral. Here is the gayest and busiest market-place of the
town, and the best spot for studying the noisy cries and the
Dright dresses of the Gallegan peasantry (5). They are to be
seen on a Sunday, especially, in all their finery bright, pictur-
esque, and happy looking, for those who can afford to dress
smartly are happy, and those who cannot don't seem to come
selling and buying every possible kind of ware, save, perhaps,
the large stock of scallop-shells, which, though they are kept for
sale with due regard to the genius loci, seemed to me never to
1 The sacristan will not trouble himself to show this chapel, and it was
>y a mere accident that I discovered its existence. The keys are kept by
he carpenter of the chapter, whose shop is below the chapter-house.
2 The seminario on the west, the hospital on the north, and the College
f San Jeronimo on the south side.
SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL
SHAFTS IN SOUTH DOORWAY
SANTIAGO
199
attract any one to become a purchaser, and to adopt the badge of
S. James !
The whole of the northern front of the transept and church is
modernised. But to the east of it lies the little church used as
the Parroquia, and which will be better described when I go to
the interior, as externally it has no old feature save a simple
little window in its north wall.
A narrow passage from the Plaza de San Martin leads to the
EXTERIOR OF CHEVET
upper side of a third Plaza opposite the east end; and here,
though the cathedral has been enclosed within square modern
walls, there is fortunately just enough left of the exterior of the
eastern chapel and part of the apse enclosed in a small court to
explain its whole original design. The entrance to this court
is garnished with a number of statues, evidently, I think, taken
from a doorway, and perhaps from the destroyed north doorway. 1
1 This is the Puerta Santa, and is only opened by the archbishop in years
of jubilee.
modern. Domed, C/ui
entered fi'orti Nave , occupif-s tfiis
PLAT*
of Hj? fljrtSfbwf *5
Masons Marks on internal Walls.
lower part of Noyc
hfiiU KOX!
X.
202 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
From this fragment of the chevet, it seems that the eastern
chapel was surrounded with a deeply recessed arcading, within
which were broad, round-arched windows with moulded archi-
volts carried on shafts with sculptured capitals. The smaller
chapels have three-quarter shafts running up to the cornices
placed between the windows, and the corbel-tables at the eaves
are simple and bold. The bay between the chapels has a window
occupying the whole space in width, and above it is a small
circular window, a feature which occurs in almost exactly the
same position in S. Sernin, Toulouse. 1 A string-course is carried
round the aisle wall above the roofs of the chapels, and the wall
is continued up to the same level as the walls of the aisles of the
church, and has alternately windows and arcading in its outer
elevation. This is perhaps the only serious difference between
the design of this church and that of S. Sernin. There the
triforia are not carried round the chevet, and consequently the
aisle walls are not so lofty, and the clerestory of the apse is
shown in the usual way.
Continuing the circuit of the cathedral, we now reach the
Plaza de los Plateros, in front of the south transept. This is
bounded on the west side by the outer walls of the cloisters, and
a broad flight of steps all across the Plaza leads up to the
transept. This has been to some extent damaged by the erection
of a lofty clock-tower projecting at its south-east angle, in which
are the clock and the bells. The rest of the old fagade is for-
tunately preserved. It has two doorways in the centre division,
and two grand and deeply recessed windows above them. The
ends of the aisles seem to have been similarly treated above.
The finish of the transept wall is modern, but there still remain
two canopies in it, under one of which is a figure of the Blessed
Virgin, no doubt part of a sculpture of the Annunciation.
The detail of the work in this front is of great interest, inas-
much as it is clearly by another and an earlier workman than
that of the wes ern part of the church. There are hree shafts
in each jamb of the doors, whereof the outer are of marble, the
rest of stone. These marble shafts are carved with extreme
delicacy with a series of figures in niches, the niches having round
arches, which rest upon carved and twisted columns separating
the figures. The work is so characteristic as to deserve illus-
1 It is just open to doubt whether the small circular window over the
other is original, but I think the similarity to S. Sernin is in favour of its
being so, in spite of some awkwardness in the mode of its introduction,
which would otherwise have inclined me to doubt it.
SANTIAGO
203
^
ERn
I/
tration. It is executed almost everywhere with that admirable
delicacy so conspicuous in early Romanesque sculpture. The
other shafts are twisted and carved in very bold fashion.
The jamb of this door retains an inscription deeply cut in
large letters, which appears to give the same
date Era 1116, 5 Ides of July that I have
already quoted from the Historia Compostellana.
But as the reading of this inscription is open
to doubt, I think it well to engrave it. This Era
would make the date of these doors agree with
the commencement of the works. Figures on
either side support the ends of the lintels of the
doors, but the tympana and the wall above for
some feet are covered with pieces of sculpture,
evidently taken down and refixed where they
are now seen. They are arranged, in short, like
the casts at the Crystal Palace, as if the wall
were part of a museum. One of the stones in
the tympanum of the eastern door has the
Crowning with Thorns and the Scourging; and
on other stones above are portions of a Descent
into Hades, in which asses with wings are shown
kneeling to our Lord. Asses and other beasts
are carved elsewhere, and altogether the whole work has a rude
barbaric splendour characteristic of its age (6).
The windows above deserve special notice. Their shafts and
archivolts are very richly twisted and carved, and the cusping
of the inner arch is of a rare kind. It consists of five complete
foils, so that the points of the lowest cusp rest on the capital,
and, to a certain extent, the effect of a horse-shoe arch
is produced (7). This might be hastily assumed to be a
feature borrowed from the Moors; but the curious fact is that
this very rare form of cusping is seen in many, if not most, of the
churches of the Auvergnat type, to which reference has already
been made, and it must be regarded here, therefore, as another
proof of the foreign origin of most of the work at Santiago,
rather than of any Moorish influence. I have omitted to say
that in addition to the other steeples there is a modern dome over
the crossing. The lower part of the lantern is old, and the four
piers which support it are somewhat larger than the rest.
The exterior of the cloister is rather Renaissance than Gothic
in its character, and has some picturesque small towers at the
angles.
204 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
Altogether the impression which is first given here is of a
church which has been completely altered by Renaissance
architects of rather a more picturesque turn of mind than is
usual; and the generally similar character of the work in the
Plazas on the several sides of the church gives certainly a rather
stately, though to me it was a very disappointing, tout ensemble.
With such feelings about the exterior, the complete change in
the character of the work as one goes through the door is more
than usually striking, for you are at once transferred from what
is all modern, to what is almost all very old, uniform, and but
little disturbed. The interior of the transepts is very impressive ;
their length is not far from equal to that of the nave, and the view
is less interrupted than in it, as the rails between the Coro and the
Capilla mayor are very light, and the stalls are all to the west
of the crossing. The whole detail of the design is extremely
simple. The piers are alternated throughout the church of the
two sections given on my ground-plan. The capitals are all
carved, generally with foliage, but sometimes with pairs of
birds and beasts. Engaged columns run up from the floor to
the vault, and carry transverse ribs or arches below the great
waggon-vault. The triforium opens to the nave with a round
arch, subdivided with two arches, carried on a detached shaft.
I have already described the construction, and I need only add
here that the buttresses, which appear on the ground-plan, are
all connected by arches thrown from one to the other, so that
the eaves of the roof project in front of their outside face.
There is consequently an enormous thickness of wall to resist
the weight and thrust of the continuous vault of the triforium,
these arches between the buttresses having been contrived in
order to render the whole wall as rigid and uniform in its resis-
tance to the thrust as possible. The height of the interior, from
the floor to the centre of the barrel-vault of the nave, is a little
over seventy feet. This dimension is, of course, insignificant if
compared with the height of many later churches ; but it must be
borne in mind that here there is no clerestory, and that, owing
to its absence, there is much less light in the upper part of the
church than is usual, and one consequence of this partial gloom
is a great apparent increase in the size of every part of the
building. The original windows remain throughout the greater
part of the church. In the aisles they have jamb-shafts inside,
and in both aisles and triforia there are jamb-shafts outside.
Occasionally at the angles of the aisles, and elsewhere where it
was impossible to pierce the walls for windows, sunk arcading,
SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL
INTERIOR OF SOUTH TRANSEPT, LOOKING NORTH-EAST
206 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
corresponding with them in outline and detail, is substituted for
them.
The chevet has been a good deal altered ; most of the chapels
remain, but the columns and arches round the choir have all been
destroyed, or, at any rate, so covered over with modern work as
to be no longer visible. A thirteenth-century chapel has been
added on the north of the apse, and a small chapel of the fifteenth
century and a large one of the Renaissance period on its south-
west side. The other alterations are clearly indicated on the
engraving of the ground-plan.
I have already said that the existing Renaissance steeples at
the west end are built upon the lower portions of the original
Romanesque towers. The only peculiarity about these is the
planning of their staircases. The steps are carried all round the
steeple in the thickness of the wall, and the central space is made
use of for a succession of small chambers one over the other.
These staircases are unusually wide and good, and their mode
of construction is obviously very strong.
The only other part of the church of the same age as the
original fabric is the detached chapel to the north-east of it.
This seems to have had originally no connection whatever with
the cathedral, the passage which now leads to its western door-
way from the north transept being quite modern, and made for
the reason already mentioned. Its western door is a good late
Romanesque work, with shafts in the jambs, and carved capitals.
The church itself consists of a nave and aisles of two bays in
length, and a chancel with an aisle on either side. The columns
are cylindrical, with carved capitals. The aisles have quadrant
vaults, and the nave a semi-circular ceiling, but I could not
ascertain certainly whether this was of plaster or stone. If the
latter, then this little church affords a very interesting example of
the adaptation of precisely the same mode of construction that
we see in the great cathedral by its side, viz. the waggon-vault in
the nave supported on either side by the quadrant vaults of the
aisles (8).
It is now necessary to say something about what is to an
architect the chief glory of this noble church its grand western
entrance, fitly called the Portico de la Gloria. On the whole,
with no small experience to warrant my speaking, and yet with
a due sense of the rashness of too general an approval, I cannot
avoid pronouncing this effort of Master Matthew's at Santiago
to be one of the greatest glories of Christian art. 1 Its scale is
1 See the illustration of this doorway in the frontispiece.
SANTIAGO
207
not very grand, but m every other respect it is quite admirable,
and there is a freshness and originality about the whole of the
detail which cannot be praised too much. If we consider the
facts with which we are ac-
quainted, we may understand
how it is that it has these great
merits. Let us assume that
Master Matthew was, as he no
doubt was, extremely skilled when
the king sent him to Santiago with
his special warrant and recom-
mendation. From that time until
the happy day came, after twenty
years of anxious labour, when he
was able to write his inscription
on the lintel of the door, it is prob-
able that this same man wrought
on slowly but systematically on
this great work. During all this
time he had but a very moderate
opportunity of studying similar
works in his own neighbourhood,
or of receiving incitement by the
competition of others of his craft;
and I think the whole work bears
about it evidence that this was its
history. There is up to a certain
point a conformity to common
custom and precedent, and yet at
the same time a constant fresh-
ness and originality about it which
seems to me to show that its
sculptor was not in the habit of
seeing other similar works during
its progress. The figures are
almost all placed in attitudes
evidently selected with a view to
giving them life and piquancy.
But these attitudes are singularly
unconventional; and though they are by no means always
successful to an eye educated in the nineteenth century, they
have all of them graces and merits which are almost entirely
unseen in the productions of nineteenth-century sculptors;
CENTRAL SHAFT OF WESTERN
DOORWAY
208 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
whilst, again, in strong contrast to what is now almost the
in variable -rule, there is no doubt that here we have the absolute
handiwork of the sculptor, and not a design only, the execution
of which has been relegated to a band of unknown and unre-
warded assistants ! The detail of some of the smaller portions,
as e.g. of the sculptured shafts, is exquisitely refined and delicate,
beautifully executed, and with a singular appreciation, in some
respects, of the good points of classic sculpture.
The doorways are three in number, of which that in the centre
opens into the nave, and those on either side into the aisles. In
front of these doors is a western porch, of three groined divisions
in width, the outer face of which has been built up and concealed
by the modern western facade. The groining ribs of this porch
are very richly decorated with sculpture of foliage in their
mouldings. The general design of the doors will be best under-
stood by reference to the engraving which I give of them. The
bases are all very bold, and rest generally on monsters. That
under the central shaft has a figure of a man with his arms
round the necks of two open-mouthed winged monsters ; l
whilst on the other side is a figure of a person kneeling towards
the east, in prayer, and about life-size. The central shaft is of
marble, and carved all over with the tree of Jesse. The detail
of this shaft is so delicate and characteristic of the whole work,
that I give an engraving of a portion of it; nothing can be
prettier or more graceful than the design, and the execution
is admirable. The corresponding shaft in either jamb is also
sculptured, but in these there is no story, the shafts being twisted
with carving of foliage and figures in the alternate members.
The capital of the central shaft has the figures of the Holy
Trinity, with angels on either side censing; and above is a grand
sitting figure of S. James, with a scroll in his right hand, and a
palmer's staff in the other. His nimbus is studded with large
crystals; but as none of the other figures throughout the door
have nimbi, I suspect it has been added in his case. The
main capital of the central shaft, above the saint's head, has on
three sides the Temptation of our Lord, and on its fourth side
angels coming and ministering to Him.
The tympanum of this central door has a central seated figure
1 1 could not discern the meaning of a rite the people perform here. They
kneel down and put the thumb and three fingers of one hand into some
cavities just fitted for them in the sculpture of the central shaft, and then
with the other hand throw sand down the throats of the monsters. Some
people evidently did this much to their own satisfaction, whilst an acolyte
called my attention to the practice as being curious and unintelligible.
SANTIAGO 209
of our Lord, holding up His open hands. Around Him are the
four Evangelists, three of them with their emblematic beasts
standing up on their hind legs, with their paws in the Evan-
gelists' laps. Beyond them are angels holding the various
instruments of the passion, and above these angels a multitude
of small figures worshipping the hundred and forty-four thou-
sand, many of them naked, i.e. free from sin. The archivolt
is perhaps the most striking feature in the whole work, having
sitting figures of the four-and-twenty elders arranged around
its circumference, in a manner at once quite original and singu-
larly effective. The skill and fancy shown in the treatment
of this crowd of figures is beyond praise, and there is a certain
degree of barbaric splendour about the profuse richness of the
work which is wonderfully attractive. Traces everywhere re-
main of the old delicate colouring with which the sculpture was
covered, and this just suffices to give a beautiful tone to the whole
work (9).
The side jambs have standing figures on a level with that of
S. James. On the north jamb are Jeremiah, Daniel, Isaiah, and
Moses, and on the opposite side S. Paul, and, I suppose, other
New Testament saints, though I could not tell which (10). The
side doorways, though there is no sculpture in their tympana,
have figures corresponding with the others in their jambs.
Under the groining against the north wall is an angel blowing a
trumpet, and there are other angels against the springing of the
groining ribs holding children in their hands.
The whole scheme is, in fact, a Last Judgment, treated in
a very unconventional manner; the point which most invites
hostile criticism being the kind of equality which the sculptor
has given to the figures of our Lord and S. James, both being
seated, and both in the central position; and though the figure
of the apostle is below that of his Lord, it is still the more
conspicuous of the two.
The design of the interior of the west end is peculiar. The
doorway occupies the same space in height as the nave arches;
above it the triforium is carried across over the porch, opening
into the nave with two divisions of the same arcade as in the
side galleries. Above this is a large circular window, with
sixteen (n) small cusps and a small pierced quatrefoil on either
side. These openings now all communicate with the western
triforium gallery; and I found it impossible to make out, to my
own satisfaction, what the original scheme of the west end could
have been. It does not appear clear whether there ever were
I o
210 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
any doors hung in the doorways, but I think there never were;
and, perhaps, as we are told that the first church built over the
body of the saint was of two stages in height, and open at the
ends 1 (somewhat like the curious church still remaining at
Naranco, near Oviedo), we may be safe in assuming that this
western porch was in the same way open to the air. Above it
the vault of the nave may have been prolonged between the
towers, and under this the circular window would have been seen
from the outside as it is still from the inside. Whether there
was any direct access to this western porch from the ground
may admit of question; but it seems difficult to see how it would
have been contrived without blocking up the chapel below the
porch, which I have already described (12).
The only remaining work of any importance is the cloister,
with its adjacent buildings the sacristies, chapter-room,
library, etc. The present erections show no relics whatever of
the work which, as we have seen, the Archbishop Diego Gelmirez
undertook in the twelfth century (13). It is uncertain, indeed,
whether his constructions were on this side of the church, for
there are still remains of walls which seem to be coeval with
the church round a courtyard on the north side of the nave.
The cloisters now in existence are the work of Fonseca, after-
wards Archbishop of Toledo, and were commenced in A.D. 1533.
As might be expected by the date, there is very little Gothic
character in their design; they have the common late many-
ribbed Spanish groining; and if they have ever had traceries
in the arches, these are now all destroyed.
The festival of S. James is celebrated with special solemnity
whenever it happens to fall upon a Sunday. Then the people,
I was told, ascend a staircase behind the altar, pass in front of
some of his relics, and descend by another staircase 2 on the
other side. The body of the saint is said to be contained in a
stone tomb below the high altar, which lies north and south,
with a modern sarcophagus over it, and there is a rather good
old statue of him on horseback against the west wall of the
south transept.
The ritual arrangements here are the same as they usually
are in Spain. The Coro occupies four bays of the nave, and
there is a passage railed off between the Reja of the Coro and
1 Espana Sag. xix.
2 This practice illustrates the intention of the singular pilgrimage chapel
at the west end of Lapworth church, Warwickshire, which has two newel
staircases to its small upper chamber, evidently intended to facilitate the
passage of a crowd of people.
SANTIAGO 211
that of the Capilla mayor,, and there are not many altars now in
use, but the number of clergy is very great, and the church is
constantly crowded with worshippers.
On a Sunday morning during my stay the Archbishop said
Mass, and there was a procession with tapers all round the
church. As the slow chant rose from among the dense crowd
of worshippers, and the flickering lights of the tapers struck
here and there on the walls of the dark old church, one of
those pictures was produced which one must, I suppose, go to
Spain to see really in perfection. The number of communicants
seemed to be extremely small, but the number of those at con-
fession unusually large. The penitents have a way of kneel-
ing with their cloaks held up over them against the confessional,
so that their heads are quite concealed. Spanish women are
fond of squatting on the floor, fanning themselves, before an
altar; but here they often kneel, with their arms stretched out
as in wild entreaty, for a long time together, and with rather
striking effect. I think I am within bounds in saying that fifty
or sixty priests are to be seen in this church at one time, some at
the altars, some hearing confessions, and others with a large
staff of singing men and boys in the choir.
I have but little more to say about Santiago. The churches
seemed everywhere to be modern, and, though some of them are
very large, extremely uninteresting (14). The streets are narrow,
picturesque, and winding, but with far fewer traces of any anti-
quity in the houses than might have been expected. The only
Gothic domestic building that I saw is the great hospital, close
to the cathedral, which has four fine courts, and the principal
entrance through a chapel or oratory, with an altar in it. The
detail of this work is, however, extremely late and poor; it was
founded in A.D. 1504 by Ferdinand and Isabella, Henrique de
Egas being the architect.
The interest which, as an architect, one must feel in a building
which is as I have shown the cathedral here to be a close copy
of another church in another country, is very great. And the
only regret I feel is that I am unable to give any evidence as to
the nationality of the men who wrought the exquisite work in the
western porch. My feeling is certainly strong that they must
have been Frenchmen, and from the district of Toulouse. This
I infer from the execution of their work. Moreover, I do not
know where in Spain we are to find the evidence of the exist-
ence of a school in which such artists could have been trained,
whilst at Toulouse no one can wander through the Museum in
212 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
the desecrated convent of the Augustines without recognising
the head-quarters of a school of artists from among whom the
sculptor of Santiago might well have come thoroughly educated
for his great work.
From Galicia I travelled back by the same road along which
I had already journeyed as far as Leon; and from thence by
Medina del Rio Seco a poor, forlorn, and uninteresting town
to Valladolid. The plain between Leon and Valladolid is most
uninteresting; and the whole journey from the coast of Galicia
to the last-named city is one of the most wearisome I ever under-
took. The occasional beauty of the scenery and on this road
it is oftentimes very beautiful does not prevent one's feeling
rather acutely a diligence journey of sixty-six hours with few
and short pauses for meals; and the only solace if solace it is
one has, is that the adalantero or postillion, who has to ride
the whole distance, is in infinitely worse case than oneself!
Fortunately the least interesting part of the road is now super-
seded by the opening of the railway from Palencia to Leon (15).
NOTES
(1) Santiago may also be approached from the south, and I was
sorry not to take that route either going or coming, in order to visit
the cathedrals of Orense and Tuy, and the churches of Pontevedra.
Actually, I motored in from Curtis to save some hours of railway
travel, and to save some days, went out again in another motor 'bus
to la Corufia, finding both drives very beautiful. Besides the
ruined churches of SS. Dominic and Francis, much like those at
Lugo, Pontevedra possesses in San Lorenzo de Carboira a great
Benedictine Abbey, ruined, but apparently still fine, founded in 1 171
by Abbot Fernando and built between 1171 and 1 1 92. It has a nave
and two aisles, three bays long, a great transept with two small apsidal
chapels to the eastward, an apse of five bays, to which corresponds
a big ambulatory with trapezoidal quadripartite vault, and three
immense chapels, three-quarters of a circle, that open from the three
eastern bays of this, the other two bays being plain and being, indeed,
the walls of the transept chapels. There are large western and
northern portals.
(2) It is pleasant to note that Senor Lamperez y Romea says
Street told all Europe about it.
(3) This is a slip ; the west portal, del Obrador, was built by Novoa ;
the north, del Azabacheria, by Ventura Rodriguez.
(4) That is, BajoS. James Undercroft.
(5) Now, alas, the market, as in most Spanish towns, has
removed to a tin structure down below, and is filled up witli German
" enamelled " iron ware and Austrian stamped cups and plates.
(6) In a manuscript given by French pilgrims to the cathedral
SANTIAGO 213
between 1137 and 1143 the sculptures of the south transept portal
are described, and some now discoverable there are set down as a
part of the north portal for example, the Expulsion from Paradise.
These were removed thence probably at its reconstruction in the
eighteenth century, and thrust in wherever a statue had fallen or a
relief worn away or a vacant space offered. Apart from this mix-
ture, which has sadly confused the iconography, they are not of a
single age or perhaps of a single school. M. Bertaux believes them
the output of two generations of cathedral workmen, trained in the
school of Toulouse; the earlier portion, on the three storied shafts
and in the two tympana, showing shorter figures, coarser faces, and
few and straight folds, and later on a more learned and dextrous
artist giving to those who were to take a place under the arcades
longer proportions, lovelier faces, and draperies finer and more
supple. But beyond this clear division into two manners I seem to
trace sometimes the breath of another tradition, sometimes the
touch of an individual genius. The three marble shafts, carved like
ivories and inspired by them, are marked by an eastern influence,
however remote. The four statues on the door-jambs are fashioned
out of another marble with a rarer grace than the great reliefs to
right and left of the whole portal. These four statues perhaps belong
with some in the wall above. They represent, on the western door,
Moses and S. Andrew, on the eastern a bishop and the Sign of the
Lion. The great flanking reliefs (on the west, David playing his
viol, the Creation of Eve, and Christ blessing with a book; on the
right, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Christ blessing, the Creation of Adam)
must have meant, like those on the wall above, something when they
were first set up, but never, I fancy, anything symbolic here, for the
Spaniards are curiously indifferent to iconography as distinguished
from drama. If there is not a story to tell, the meaning matters not
at all. Into the east tympanum are packed the Kiss of Judas,
Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation, along with the Epiphany
and the Angel addressing the three kings asleep. The western is
occupied by the Temptation in the Wilderness, with flying angels
and doggish, crawling devils, and by a great, strange, seated woman.
It is on this last figure that another traveller's handbook hangs the
story of an adulterous wife, whom her husband, discovering her,
compelled to fondle and kiss the head of her lover day by day while
it corrupted in her hands. This eminently Spanish story was made
to fit the place, and the figure is really the Sign of the Ram, a companion
to the Sign of the Lion, now on the jambof the door. In the spandrels,
four angels are trumpeting to judgment and Abraham gets up out of
his tomb (above the central shaft) , for he has seen the Day of the Lord.
Above, Christ appears as in the Transfiguration with S. James on His
right, between two trees (cypresses, the old descriptions say), and the
Apostles ranged on either hand. Other such bits as a mermaid with
her fish and a centaur with his bow are Romanesque commonplaces
from the Rhine to the Adriatic, and from the North Sea to the Bay
of Biscay. The testimony of the Puerto, de la Plateria confirms the
persistent feeling that the Spaniard rarely invents, and always
remakes; on alien materials he sets his own image and super-
scription.
214 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
(7) This is one of the many variants of the moulding that I have
called a scallop, that recurs incessantly in the whole north-west.
It may be worth saying here that I could not find a single horse-shoe
arch about the building; in the interior, indeed, a good many round
arches are stilted and set back deep on the abacus-block, precisely
as in the little Romanesque arcade at San Pedro, Zamora, and this
looks rather like a horse-shoe arch from below, but from a level is
easily distinguished. The horse-shoe arch was used by the Visigoths,
it antedates the Moors, and it appears, I am credibly informed, in
certain parish churches of one district in Normandy, but it has
nothing to do with the origin of the plan of Santiago, and as a
matter of observation it does not occur in Santiago.
(8) The whole floor of this little church I found strewn with grass,
flowers, and fragrant twigs and herbs.
(9) The figures have been repainted, and the open mouths of the
monsters blocked up.
(10) SS. Peter, Paul, James Minor, and John.
(n) There are certainly twenty now.. The restoration that the
whole church has been through, in particular the Gloria, though
not recent, must be later than 1865.
(12) Unfortunately the whole question of date and origin has been
revived so lately and so violently that it seems necessary to sum up
the arguments for and against a purely Spanish source of inspiration.
Aside from its beauty, the Gloria of Compostella, as Senor Lamperez
points out, made a whole school, and you can see imitations of it at
the cathedral of Orense, San Jeronimo of Compostella, San Martin
de Noya, the doors of Carboira, San Julian de Moraine, etc. It is
probable, though the dates are not certain, that San Vicente of
Avila influenced Santiago. The actual date of commencing the work
cannot be fixed, because the Codex Calixtino contradicts itself,
gives 1078 as the date, but also says that from the beginning until
the death of Alfonso I. of Aragon was fifty-nine years, to that of
Henry I. of England sixty-two years, to that of Louis VI. of France
sixty-three years. That gives you a chance to fix the date as early
as 1073, if you think the Spanish historian less likely to know the
year he meant than a bit of foreign history. This all is the less
important because the Archaeological Congress, at Toulouse, seems
to have admitted that S. Sernin was begun in 1080, consecrated in
1096, and finished 1 140. That point of precedence is offset, however,
by the fact mentioned by the Abbe Bouillet, that the abbey church
of Conques, identical in type, was planned and well begun under the
Abbot Odolrich, who disappears in 1065. The date, if correct,
shifts the direct derivation from Toulouse to Conques, and if, as I
believe, the case of Conques has not appeared in English it is worth
summing up from the modest essay by Abbe Bouillet. First, the
three churches are alike in type. Secondly, the dates make S. Foy
de Conques the eldest. In the third place, Conques lay on one of
the four great pilgrimage routes from France to Santiago, which
joined at Puenta la Reina beyond Pamplona. The first went by
S. Gilles, Montpelier, Toulouse, and the Port of Aspe; the second
from Le Puy by way of Conques and Moissac. The Codex of S.
James of Compostella, or Liber de Miraculis Sancti Jqcobi, an early
SANTIAGO 215
twelfth-century guide book, names the relics of S. Faith among
those that are to be venerated on the way. In 1034, Roger I. of
Tosny, Lord of Castillon, in Normandy, went to help Sancho of
Aragon against the Moors, and on the way home took some relics
of S. Faith from Conques to Castillon, which he renamed from the
abbey and which is now Conches. In effect, Conques was not then
neglected and forgotten, but an influence felt far. Fourth and last,
the monks of Conques were great builders, not only throughout
France, but across the Pyrenees: Sancho Ramirez at the siege of
Barbastro vowed to them for a priory the principal mosque of the
town, and by the advice of the Bishop of Pamplona kept his vow;
he made, and let us hope he kept, a similar pledge when he marched
against Zaragoza and Lerida. Between noo and 1114, Sancho,
Bishop of Erro, gave them the church of Roncesvalles. All this
time Santiago was a-building, and the real burden lies on those who
should undertake to prove that from Conques, as from Moissac and
Toulouse, ideas and labourers did not travel along the great pilgrim
way. Churchmen knew the road: in the beginning of the twelfth
century there was at Compostella a canon named Bernard, who
came from Agen and who became Bishop of Salamanca, and finally
Archbishop of Santiago, dying in 1152. There was an earlier
Bernard, who served on one of Diego Pelaez's commissions in 1071 ;
it consisted of one Rotberto and the director of the works, Bernard,
afterwards called Magister Mirabilis, and even Senor Ferreiro admits
that any Bernard is presumably a Frenchman. The case of a
French derivation, Senor Lamperez sums up in five propositions:
(i) The type is completely Angevine he is using Angevine for what
we call Auvergnat, specifying Le Puy, Clermont-Ferrand, Orcival,
Issoire, Toulouse, Conques, etc. (2) No earlier monuments exist
to prove that Spain developed such a type. He frankly laughs at
the claim that such once were but all are lost except San Bartolome
de Tuy and San Torcuato de Comba, the dates of which are not
established. The respectable parallels are the cathedrals of Lugo
and Tuy and the nave of S. Vincent of Avila, all posterior. (3)
Santiago is, however, earlier than S. Sernin he does not apparently
know the date for Conques (4) and is the finest example of the
series. (5) It shows in some elements a nationalising of the Ange-
vine style produced by direct foreign influences, both Syro-Byzan-
tine and national, i.e., Mahometan. After these there is no more to
say. To come to the Gloria : French critics claim Master Matthew
as a Frenchman : all the documents cited in confutation can prove
only that he was living in Galicia from nobody knows how long
before 1161, when he built the Puenta Cesuri, and bridge-building in
those days was a master's work, well rewarded sometimes, as at
Avignon, by nothing less than canonisation; that he was married
and had various sons, one of whom was to succeed him in the work
on the basilica; that his post was director and master of all the
workmen of the Compostellan school, existing from the end of the
eleventh century; that in 1168 Ferdinand gave him a private
donation because he held in his charge the direction and the master-
ship of the works of the Apostle ; that his name appears in documents
of 1189-92; that in 1217 he is called Dominus, and in 1342 and,
216 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN SPAIN
in 1435 the houses he had owned on the Plaza de la Azabacheria
were still called Master Matthew's houses. We shall probably never
know more. But before Master Matthew there was no such nar-
thex in Spain as already existed in France, at, for instance, S. Benoit-
sur-Loire and Vezelay. The former abbey, by a curious coincidence,
has a link with Spain by way of Germiguy-des-Pres, three miles off,
built in 806 by a Spanish bishop on the model of Aix-la-Chapelle.
At Vezelay the tympanum of the door of the church proper holds a
gigantic Christ in Judgment, showing His wounds, between apostles
and evangelists, with a small but still great figure on the central
shaft, this time of Christ as Creator and Sustainer of the world
the Magdalen being obviously debarred from her place there, both
as penitent and as woman. The style of this work is more like
some at the south door of Santiago than like the Gloria. Master
Matthew was very individual, as our author has already, on page 207,
pointed out, and while the French workmen at Leon give you
Spanish types, he does more, he gives you Gallegan. He founded
a great school by the strength of his own genius; where one of his
immediate disciples carved the archbishop's banqueting hall, you
can judge how much of that he was able to communicate. He set
on his own work the mark of his own hand, and his workmen were
plastic under his touch ; but he and they alike, perhaps (the earliest,
it may be, or the best of them, at any rate, a great number), had
come along the Way of S. James, past S. Gilles and past Moissac or
past Conques, and as surely as they all made up a school, which was
a new thing, so surely they all came out of schools which were old
things, and brought their wallets stuffed, and picked up what they
could by the way. Among the parallels that must enforce them-
selves I noted for my own part these : in general likeness, that the
bases of all the great pillars recall those at S. Trophime and S. Gilles,
though less eastern than the latter and more individual; that the
northern French sense for telling a coherent story, presenting a
sculptured scheme of things, is absolutely wanting, and so it is at
Vezelay, Conques, Moissac. In particulars : any one who has seen
sculptured in the porch at Moissac the punishment of lust and avarice
will not forget either the miser's toads or the woman's serpents;
here, in the archivolt of the southern doorway, which represents
souls rising, and gathered by four angels and four devils and then
tormented in Hell, occurs the same figure of Lilith and the Serpent.
As this door has been restored by a mealy-mouthed generation, I
photographed the group in the original fragment at San Clemente, and
the same motive on a capital at Vezelay. On the western side, front-
ing these doors, only two of the capitals in the Gloria are historied,
and one of these shows the slanderer's tongue pulled out with pincers,
as again at Vezelay. Certain figures here also, and at the south
transept, have the legs crossed like a dancing dervish, as at Moissac
and Souillac and Vezelay. Enough examples are these to establish
between the south of France and Compostella, in the very moderate
words of the Abbe Bouillet, " un echange d' inspirations artistiques
entretenu par le courant des pelerinages et de la devotion."
(13) The chapel in the palace of the archbishop, which by the
kindness of himself and his major-domo I was able to visit, is an old
SANTIAGO 217
and curious room, that was once a refectory with a porch of its own.
The vault of this porch or ante-chapel rests on a great cylindrical
pier, and that on a similar one below. It has a very rich window on
the south side, of two orders of rolled and curled leaves; it is two
bays wide and one and one-half long, the screen having been removed
half a bay to the eastward of its original place. The chapel has
five bays in all, of which the western (above the screen) is the widest,
and the ribs run from wall to wall, making a wide quadripartite
vault. The ribs of the ante-chapel and one bay east are richly
moulded with a huge torus overlaid with scallops on each side and a
flower in the hollow between, that looks like the arum "lords-and-
ladies." The other ribs are of plain mouldings, the keys to the vaults
enormous, and at the eastern end, decorated with the sun, the
moon, a cock, an angel, etc. ; on the west with large hollow flowers.
The great interest, however, lies in the corbels, on which the vaulting
ribs rest, half-way down the walls; these are scenes of every-day
life, but princely state. It is all immensely savorous and alive,
and essentially secular ; it is like an earlier flowering of the fourteenth-
century style, which the Spaniards so greatly affected in the cloisters
of Pamplona and Leon, for instance. The subjects are fairly
monotonous, but it may 
