HISPANIC NOTES
*
PENINSULAR SERIES
HISPANIC
HISPANIC SOCIETY
PENINSULAR SERIES
OF AMERICA
HISPANIC
NOTES & MONOGRAPHS
ESSAYS, STUDIES, AND BRIEF
BIOGRAPHIES ISSUED BY THE
HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA
PENINSULAR SERIES
I
THE WAY
SAINT JAM!
GEORGIANA GODP
Prof'
Colli
MAYOR
(From a Compostellan Azabache in the
Hispanic Society of America)
fcl
G. P ,M'S SONS
NEW V KX. AND LOHDOTf
1MO
THE WAY OF
SAINT JAMES
By
GEORGIANA GODDARD KING, M. A.
Professor of the History of Art, Bryn Mawr
College; Member the Hispanic Society
of America
In Three Volumes
Volume I
Illustrated
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1930
COPYRIGHT, 1920. BY
THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Ube ftnfcberbocber press, Hew Boris
FOREWORD
iii
FOREWORD
During my stay in Rome of two years
and a half, I employed all the spare
time I had from Books and Libraries in
viewing the Monuments; and I at last
prescribed to myself a certain Method
in making my Observations so as to go
through the whole City in twenty Days.
This same I repeated as often as either
at the Request of my Friends or for my
own Satisfaction I surveyed the city,
always allotting twenty Days to review
the whole. Pfere Montfaucon.
FOLLOWING the precedent of the learned
Benedictine, I have made one straight story
out of three years' wanderings, and places
visited and revisited. The outcome offers,
I. Record
first, a record of what exists, where other
accounts are incomplete or inaccessible,
II. Ex-
and, secondly, an explanation of it. Spain
planation
HISPANIC NOTES
I
IV
WAY OF S.JAMES
I. Icono-
graphy
2 . Chron-
ology
3. TheCult
of Santiago
is a long way off, and pictures are not
always explicit. It has taken seven years
of my life. The writer's contribution, in
particular, is first, a record and inter-
pretation of iconographic detail all along
the way, e. g., at Leyre from observa-
tion, at Santiago from Aymery Picaud's
account; second, an attempt to date, by
comparison with such dated examples as
exist, without any d priori; third and last,
an occasional small hypothesis and the
ground for it, e. g., about the original west
front at Compostella, and the cult of
Santiago.
The general intention is stated at length
in the first chapter; briefly, it was to dis-
cover and record the evidence of Spain's
debt in architecture to other countries,
France in especial, during the Middle Age.
By contrast with the French style which
came in along the Camino francos, it was
necessary to define the Spanish styles
which that supplanted or modified, and
was swallowed up in at last: this must
justify the consideration given twice or
thrice to earlier churches on sites now
HISPANIC NOTES
FOREWORD
occupied, especially to the earlier sanctu-
aries of the Apostle. At Leon Sr. Lamperez
had already made such a study. The
intention being to supplement his work and
Street's great book, not to compete with
them, repetition of what Street had pub-
lished is avoided and, in consequence, only
a single aspect of each of the great cathe-
drals can figure here. To deal adequately
with any one, would want a book at least
as large as this.
For those who desire to secure facts
while avoiding the context, a very careful
Index is supplied. This makes it possible
for the learned to look up a church un-
molested by the dust of the highway, and
even the learned may care to look into the
pages for some of the churches which are,
so far as may be ascertained, hitherto
unpublished: of these are Torres, Bar-
badelo, Puerto Marin. The writer has
looked into a good many old books and
not a few remote and distinguished periodi-
cals. The excursus into what may seem the
field of comparative literature, indispens-
able to the argument, was long, laborious,
Assertion
without
substantia-
tion
Compara-
tive
literature
AND MONOGRAPHS
VI
WAY OF S.JAMES
Compara-
tive
Religion
and scrupulously at first hand . The religions
of the Roman Empire were investigated in
competent and first-rate authorities, which
are enumerated in the bibliography. Cursor
Mundi is cited so often, though an English
work, because it is precisely what it calls
itself, a Pilgrim of the World, that has
gathered up an immense quantity of cur-
rent and floating lore, and represents just
what might be in the head of any stone-
cutter or master of the works. It is a
popular and plebian substitute for Vincent
and Honorius. The Bibliography repre-
sents not the books consulted but those
which yielded matter of worth, a very
small proportion. In the Appendix are
printed a few pieces justificatifs: quotations
inverse or others too long for a footnote;
the Grande Chanson des Pelerins, the Great
and the Little Hymn of S. James and his
Miracles out of the Ada Sanctorum, the
Miracles of our Lady of Villa-Sirga out of
the Cantigas del Rey Sabio, Thurkill's
Vision, and a selection of Itineraries for
the curious stay-at-home.
Possibly it will be said that this little
HISPANIC NOTES
FOREWORD
Vll
book is neither one thing nor the other,
for it offers archaeology without jargon,
and travel without flippancy. The writer's
hope is that the learning, however small,
may be judged sound, and the style not
unworthy of it in being the ordinary
vehicle, which is the daily speech of cul-
tivated people: and that some worth
and some pleasure may consist in the
exact account of what was done and seen
with the sense and in the light of a whole
history and literature yet palpable and
precious, though less familiar to the gentle
reader than the immortal ambience of
the Lombard plain and the hill-towns of
Tuscany.
To pay the gratitude I owe to all who
have helped me would take too long a list:
it would begin with the great S. James
himself, with the good Companion of
many days, with a great and generous
lover of Spain; and end with the long suffer-
ing guardians of books in many libraries,
the good-tempered boys and girls who
fetched and carried dusty piles, and the
outraged librarians who despatched too
Nor
pedantry
nor
imper-
tinence
The
Good
Companion
AND MONOGRAPHS
Vlll
WAY OF S.JAMES
Kindness
academic,
ecclesio-
logical.
and clerical
many tiresome loans by post. Some
names however may not be omitted, nor
may I leave unsaid my thanks, for untiring
and learned assistance, to the Reverend
Father Middleton of Villanova College,
who has answered questions intricate and
importunate ; to Dr. Wright and Dr. Patch
of Bryn Mawr College, who have read a
number of chapters in manuscript, and bet-
tered them, and Dr. Frank and Dr. Bar-
ton who have answered demands sudden
and surprising; to D. Juan Agapito y Re-
villa, the Vallasoletan architect and eccle-
siologist, for precious time spared to me
and the gift of publications, some other-
wise unattainable; to my friend D. Angel
del Castillo of Corunna for other articles
and specific advice and instruction sim-
ply invaluable; to D. Benito Fernandez
Alonso, of the Commission of Historic
Monuments in Orense, for many cour-
tesies and gifts; also to Mgr. Ragonesi,
the Apostolic Nuncio in Spain; to the
Archbishops of Santiago and Burgos and
the Bishop of Leon; to the Dean and
Chapter cf Santiago and the Abbess of Las
HISPANIC NOTES
FOREWORD
ix
Huelgas; to the Candnigo Fabriquero of
Mondonedo and the Candnigo Archivero of
1
Santiago, and D. Felix Araras, Candnigo
The glory
Magistral of Burgos: and to twoscore
of religion
cine! of
parish priests who without a single
Spain
exception offered me of their best, from
erudition down to new milk, to the glory,
i
in the grand phrase of one of them to the
glory of religion and of Spain.
G. G. King.
BRYN MAWR,
All Souls' Day, 1917.
The illustrations are taken in part from
old books and museum pieces, in part
from coins, and I have to thank G. F. Hill,
of the British Museum, for a generous
gift of casts from some coins in that col-
lection; in part also from photographs
of my own, and others, better, of E. H.
Lowber. For drawings of difficult matter
I am greatly indebted to Miss Helen Fer-
nald, Instructor in the History of Art at
Bryn Mawr College.
To the Curator of Publications at the
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WA Y OF S.JAMES
Use
Hispanic Society, Miss Isabel K. Macder-
mott, the reader owes as much as the writer,
for her long patience and vigilant oversight
during the publication. For the use in
Spanish words, names, and titles, she and
I are responsible, jointly, but it seems
desirable that I should explain the principles
to which we conformed; Spanish names of
persons and places, and titles of modern
books, are spelled and accented in accord-
ance with the latest rulings of the Spanish
Academy; the titles of old books are given
as the author gave them. But it is a
proud truth that the relations between
those of English and those of Spanish
speech were not established yesterday, nor
even during the Peninsular War, but are a
part of the ancient heritage of the two
nations, and the sign thereof is that Spanish
places have English names. We speak of
Seville and Corunna, Pampeluna and
Saragossa, Castile and Leon, by the same
token that Shakespeare wrote of Katharine
of Aragon, and Seuthey of the Infants of
Carrion rhyming to Robin Hood's Marion.
Those names I have used as we say Venice,
HISPANIC NOTES
FOREWORD
XI
Rome, and Florence, Paris, Lyons and
Marseilles. They are each a token and a
pledge that insularity is merely geographical
and not intellectual, that isolation on the
other side of the world cannot cut off
Americans from talking in free and homely
speech of the great places to which they
turn with ancestral love and longing. In
referring to Kings and Queens of the
Spains, and other saints or heroes, I have
not been careful always to call them by the
same name, but as Jack and Jill may be
addressed as John and Joan at times, I
have taken the liberties that old acquaint-
ance allowed. To call Isabel the Catholic
Elizabeth, or the English Tudor the
Isabellan style (though others have done
it), I should hold for presumption, but
Ferdinand and Alfonso may alternate
methinks with Fernando and Alonso when
the chronicler or the hagiographer prompts,
and S. James is still recognizable as San-
tiago. This is not meticulous nor pedantic,
but it is comfortable and easy, which is a
great good in travel. G. G. K.
Jack shall
have Jill
AND MONOGRAPHS
xii
WAY OF S. JAMES
I
HISPANIC NOTES
CONTENTS
xiii
BOOK ONE: THE PILGRIMAGE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTENTIONS .... 3
II. TURPIN'S CHRONICLE ... 26
III. THE BOOK OF S. JAMES . . 4!
IV. THE STATIONS OF THE WAY . . 64
%
V. ROMEROS EN ROMERIA . . 93
BOOK TWO: THE WAY
I. SETTING OUT .... 137
II. HEART OF ARAGON . . -152
Jaca: The Cathedral . .157
S. Juan de la Pena . . .165
Alfonso el Batallador . .192,
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
xiv
WAY OF S.JAM
E S
CHAPTER
PAGE
III. THE BATHS OF TIERMAS
. 2O2
Leyre ....
. 2IO
Sangiiesa
- 230
IV. PAMPELUNA
253
V. SAINT SEPULCHRE
. 286
Puente la Reyna
- 294
El Sepulcro .
309
VI. TOWN CHURCHES
324
Irache ....
357
*
VII. THE LOGRONO ROAD .
. 366
The Spires of Logrono
370
Along the Battlefield
. 381
S. Mary the Royal .
394
VIII. TWO ROAD-MENDERS .
. 406
Sieur des Orties
431
NOTES ....
44
I
HISPANIC NOT
ES
ILLUSTRATIONS
XV
ILLUSTRATIONS
SANTIAGO MAYOR . Frontispiece
PAGE
S. JAMES: FROM BERRUGUETE'S TOMB OF
CARDINAL TAVERA . . -51
THE SOUL AS PILGRIM. ". . .125
From a miniature of the XVth cen-
tury
THE CREST OF THE PYRENEES . . 139
Photogravure
A PYRENEAN VILLAGE . . -149
S. JAMES AND PILGRIM: FROM S. CERNIN 179
EUNATE . . . . ... 231
Photogravure
THE QUEEN'S BRIDGE . . . 286
Photogravure
EL SEPULCRO 311
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
xvi
WAY OF S.JAMES
PAGE
THE THURSDAY MARKET IN ESTELLA . 327
CAPITAL AT ESTELLA .... 349
THE DOOR OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE . 405
A MOUNTAIN TOWN .... 409
*
I
HISPANIC NOTES
BOOK ONE
i
BOOK ONE
THE PILGRIMAGE
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
2
WAY OF S. JA ME S
Grot Sanctiagu!
Herru Sanctiagul
E ultrejaf
E sus, ejal
Deus adjuva nost
Marching Song.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
/ THE PILGRIMAGE
3
I
INTENTIONS
C'est souvent sur les
grands chemins que la
vtritt apparatt aux cher-
cheurs, ainsi qu'aux croy-
ants. Courajod.
THE original intention of this book was
to examine the claims for the sources
of Spanish architecture in the Gothic and
Romanesque period. They are various.
Was everything invented in Persia? Or in
Syria, or Asia Minor, or Mesopotamia? Was
everything borrowed from France? Was
nothing learned from outside the Peninsula?
M. Dieulafoy will have it that all the
structural forms of Romanesque came
:rom Persia to Spain, passed thence into
Prance, and came back to Spain after the
Reconquest. On consideration it appears,
in the first place, that this contention will
DC affected, in a way, by the larger question,
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WAY OF S.JAMES
Orient oder
Rom
now undecided, of Orient oder Rom, and its
later development, Byzance ou Orient, and
in so far may be left until these are nearer
solution. In a way, of course, there is none,
for every beginning has its antecedents. The
argument of Professor Strzygowsky is allur-
ing, but English travellers have pointed out
that for the chronology of the churches of
Syria and Asia Minor, while the sequence is
plain the absolute dates are wanting, and if
they are not of the fifth and sixth century,
as once so confidently asserted, the argument
of priority falls to the ground. The same
is true of a good deal of Persian building:
and if Justinian sent architects to Ctesi-
phon, he probably sent others direct to
Betica and Carthagena, where he was set-
tling what once had been an army. Com-
mendatore Rivoira has shown with a proof
beyond challenge the early Roman use of
forms which, the Romans not fancying
them, were used indeed rarely. Anything
however that the Romans might know, the
Spaniards could and would and usually
did know, and here the law of parsimony
affects the thesis of M. Dieulafoy. To
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PI LGRI MA GE
turn the pages of Rivoira's great work on
the origins of Lombard architecture, is to
encounter one by one, most of the typical
plans enumerated by M. Dieulafoy in the
opening pages of Art in Spain as oriental,
and most of the structural devices as well.
In the second place, he offers no direct
means by which architectural methods
and forms could be conveyed from Persia
into Spain. If they came by Europe, the
Romans must have brought them: this he
dismisses. If they came by Africa, where
are the (tapes of the long journey? The
wonderful little churches that French archi-
tects and officers have unearthed along
that shore belong to Roman and Byzantine
imperial building. The Moors are gener-
ally believed to have developed their
marvellous civilization on Spanish soil, as
the Saracens on Sicilian and the Arabs on
Mesopotamian : it flourished after an interval
long enough, and it relied upon such charac-
teristics and essential elements as the
horse-shoe arch and the philosophy of
Aristotle, which it found already in Spain.
In this Arab question it is possible to com-
The route
of church-
builders
AND MONOGRAPHS
WA Y OF S. JA MES
Arab trails
Loans to
France
mand expert testimony. Says Ibn-Khal-
doun the historian, "When a state is
composed of Bedawi [Arabs] it needs men
of another land for building." M. Gayet,
who supplies this, z goes on to say that the
Arabs depended on the men they con-
quered, architect and day labourer alike,
for their edifices: that alike in Persia, Egypt,
and Spain, their art is moulded about a
pre-existing formula, and betrays the in-
clination of a race which, though it may
touch at points the Arab civilization, yet
preserves its individuality and haughtily
affirms it. So much for the intrinsic
likelihood of their serving as carriers from
Persia.
Thirdly, there is small evidence of French
borrowing from Spain before the year 1000.
Sr. Lamperez once began to make a list of
such cases: the first number 2 was the little
church of Germigny-des-Pres, due to Theo-
dulf the Spanish bishop of Orleans: the
second number has not yet been published.
The domed architecture of Perigord and
Quercy is more wisely referred, when dates
are scrutinized, to the repeated experi-
H I S PANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
ments of French builders, helped by the
presence of a Venetian colony at Limoges. 3
The architecture of Roussillon is not bor-
rowed from Spain, it is simply Spanish,
for in the Middle Age Roussillon was a
part, most of the time, of the King of
Aragon's domain. Isolated instances of
imitation in France there may well have
been, but rather in decoration than in
structure, and most apparent in borrowing
the cusped and trefoiled openings for
arcades, windows and doors; but no
general movement such as M. Dieulafoy
postulates.
The great wave which he calls a back-
wash, the influx of French architecture into
Spain that began in the eleventh century
and lasted till the fourteenth, few nowadays
will try to deny or even mitigate. French
knights came, and French monks, and
French master-masons, carvers and builders
both. The main business of this book is
with them. What is not so much denied,
by serious scholars and the world at large,
as ignored, unknown, is the importance of
that which it supplanted, the beauty, in
The back-
wash
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
Mozarabic
churches
truth the existence, of an art noble and
autochthonous. In .Asturias and Leon,
in Galicia, in those southerly parts of the
ancient county of Castile which are now
the provinces of Soria, Palencia and Valla-
dolid in Catalonia and Aragon, stand lonely
and forgotten churches, some cruciform,
some basilican in type, marked nearly all
with the horse-shoe arch; some built early
in the Reconquest, some due to a long
persistence of the type in places remote
or unpeopled: they are the great might-
have-been of Spain. They owe much to
Constantinople and more to Rome: some-
thing to the Visigoths, and wherever was
the earlier home of them; little or nothing
to France, that is to say, to Franks. With
these pre-Romanesque churches I hope in
some measure to reckon in the book that
shall follow this, but not here: they are
not found along the Pilgrim Way.
The extent of Spanish relations with the
lands that lie east of the Mediterranean, is
matter of history. In the first three cen-
turies, religions were fetched thence, the
worship of Serapis, of Mithras and, accord-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
ing to Spaniards, of Jesus; then heresies,
then precious relics, and memories of the
Holy Land; then travellers' tales, and the
exploits of Crusaders and the Great Con-
quests of Over-Seas. The question is not
whether this Oriental influence, so hotly
asserted, was possible, but whether it was
actual. Spiritually, in religious worship
and belief, it is apparent, though even
there Rome may nave been the carrier.
There is a debt to Egypt, and the worship
of Isis and Serapis was deeply rooted in
Spain. It has left traces perhaps on Span-
ish worship even to this day. Just what
the Coptic contributed to the formation of
Carolingian and Romanesque art, we are
not yet prepared to say, .but certainly
Coptic Christianity influenced Spanish
hagiography. I shall have to show later
how great perhaps was the debt to Syria,
how legends were carried by bishop and
merchant like seeds by birds. Sr. Lam-
perez will have it that he has found the
trail of a Syrian architect who came on the
Pilgrimage in the twelfth century, at Irache,
andatZamora. I believe him. Yetonexam-
The Great
Conquests
of Over-
Seas
Isis and
the Coptic
Church
AND MONOGRAPHS
IO
WAY OF S. JAMES
The Thou-
sand and
One
Churches
Campani-
lismo
ining the plans and photographs and state-
ments of fact I expressly exclude the
deductions drawn thence of The Thou-
sand and One Churches, 4 for instance, of
Professor Butler's Mission to Northern
Syria, of Crowfoot's journey and de Vogue's,
the correspondences that appear with what
I know in Spain are so few, that it seems
safer to classify them as like effects of a
common cause. Two further limitations
must be put to the last sentence : one, that
Templars' building and that of the Orders
of the Hospital and the Holy Sepulchre, in
Spain, are excepted, for there is Syrian or
other Asian influence there, but the build-
ings form a class apart, as will appear in the
course of the book. The other is that there
will be no consideration of any styles, in
Asia Minor or Asturias, Mesopotamia or
Galicia, Syria or Andalusia, of which all the
examples have completely disappeared.
Into the fault of not getting, intellec-
tually, the sound of your town belfry
out of your ears, have fallen some very
distinguished Frenchmen who habitually
speak on Spanish matters as having au-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
ii
thority. When M. Bertaux 5 too lightly
attributes matter very various, all to the
school of Toulouse; when M. Enlart rashly
insists that Peter Peterson, the architect
of Toledo (Petrus Petri, reads his epitaph),
instead of Pedro Perez, is Pierre the son of
Pierre, and wants to make one of these
Peter of Corbie, 6 then they bring reproach
upon their nation. There is only one
method to form a judgement of this sort,
the exactest and most disinterested com-
parison of objects. When Street wrote
that Leon Cathedral was built from French
designs, at some time after the year 1230,
he cited in evidence the mouldings at
Rheims, Amiens, and Laon: the passage
is quoted elsewhere. Nothing less would
serve him. M. Bertaux has wide reading
in contemporary Spanish ecclesiology and
a facile and happy instinct which oftener
guesses a truth than proves it. M. Enlart
has a recondite experience of early Gothic:
on the churches of Italy, of Cyprus, of
Scandinavia, he can speak from acquaint-
ance, but he has not pushed so far as might
be, into Spain, else had he never fobbed off
MM. Ber-
taux and
Enlart
Vcl. II,
P. 250
AND MONOGRAPHS
12
WA Y OF S.JAMES
Spain
closed in
1559
Ripoll with only three apses, instead of
seven.
There is nothing for it but to shrug the
shoulders when a Spanish Canon and his
English admirers go astray; taking up, for
instance, the dispute as to priority between
the churches of Santiago and S. Sernin,
if one of them asserts that there were, in
that style, early instances a-plenty in
Spain, but unhappily all have perished
except those posterior to Santiago; or if
another wrests the pilgrim's note that S.
Martin of Tours had ambulatory and
chapels "like Santiago," into an authentic
statement that it was copied after Santiago.
This is not scholarly, not critical. An
elder generation of Spanish ecclesiologists
was betrayed at times into an assumption
that Spain, like the Great Council at
Venice, was at a certain date closed to out-
side influence, just as in the year 1559 it
was closed to foreign learning: but the men
of weight and the men of genius in Spain
today, are free from taint of error.
If the names of two French scholars
only, muy respetables, are singled out, it is
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
precisely because they are so rightly and
so heartily respected. There are others.
The rest for instance, M. Henri Stein, 7
when they snatch everything in Europe, 8 are
left with another shrug. 9 But these are not
in like case. Of their judgment and experi-
ence we should not anticipate the crowning
argument that because the tenth cen-
tury, or the twelfth, in France came to no
such flower, therefore it could not in Spain.
Both these, if they knew better the land of
Spain, would doubtless abate their claim
for France, as the present writer has had
in due course to do. When one has learned
really to know, league after league, a single
region, the Tierra de Santiago and there-
abouts, for instance, or the Burgalese, or
northern Catalonia, or southern Navarre;
or when one has studied the development
through the centuries of a great chant ier, that
of Leon or that of Compostella, one comes at
last to realize that the stuff, whencesoever
it comes, is soon altered and made over.
Sometimes one sees the French leavening a
vast lump; sometimes the metal is French
but Spanish the image and superscription.
The image
and super-
scription
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
When
Avila was
repeopled
That stands to reason. It is not much
better, with M. Bertaux, to dismiss every-
thing of a certain sort as school of Toulouse,
than with Richard Ford to talk about
Norman architecture in Segovia, because
we are used to calling it Norman in Eng-
land. In spite of all their likeness, the
English churches are not like those of
Normandy, though the conditions made
a relation far closer there, of incessant
passage and interchange, than ever existed
between Spain and France. Building
French by origin may be Spanish in
detail; again, the converse appears.
A great chantier at its very inception
must have had to call in local workmen.
Raymond of Burgundy, for the repeopling
of Avila, in 1090, fetched, along with ninety
French knights, twenty-two masters of pie-
dras taller and twelve of "jometria," for
the walls: these had to build, besides the
walls, the cathedral and the churches; yet
in 1109 the work on S. Vicente was re-
ported as well along. The masters had
trained their men, and this case is probably
typical. From time to time new blood
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRI MAGE
was wanted: sometimes after deliberation
the chapter would write away for an archi-
tect, as that of Astorga sent, fearing it was
too late, to enquire at Burgos for Master
Francis of Cologne. Sometimes one came
along of himself, like that William the
Englishman who is said to have built the
great church of Sahagun. So Villard de
Honnecourt went to Hungary; so he passed
by Chartres and Lausanne and sketched
there. Workmen from the Royal Domain
formed the style at Leon; from Burgundy,
that at Avila. Workmen from Chartres,
passing, left their handiwork on door-
jambs at Sanguesa; from Rocamadour,
left a plan like Souillac at Estella.
The stone- worker's is a wandering craft.
That R. Lombardo who signed a contract in
the Seo de Urgell, to build the church with
four other Lombardos, had crossed, belike,
both Alps and Pyrenees with a sack of
tools on his shoulder, some sort of sketch
book in his wallet. Bishop Alonso of
Carthagena, riding home from the Council
of Bale, broke the journey, it is conjectured,
at Cologne, and there picked up an honest
A wander-
ing craft
AND MONOGRAPHS
16
WAY OF S. JAMES
Master
William
and Master
Claus
workman, Hans by name, with as little
ceremony as he would have used to hire a
running-footman, or buy a hawk or a boar-
hound. Was not Master William called "of
Sens," master of Canterbury Cathedral?
Did not one same Master William and one
same Master Nicholas leave their signatures
at Verona and at Modena, and their sign
at Cremona and Ferrara? Up and down
the coast of Catalonia and even into the
isles of the sea travelled Jaime Fabre: all
over the kingdom of the Castiles you may
track the work of John of Badajoz. When
the princely uncles of the King of France
were still in their splendid ascendency,
Claus Sluter, working for the Duke of
Burgundy, wrote home to Holland for his
nephew to come down and join him; Andre
Beauneveu, working for the Duke of
Berry, was visited twice at least by work-
men of Burgundy, bent on learning. In
October or November, 1373, Claus Sluter
and Jean de Beaumetz were sent to him
at the Chateau of Mehun-sur-Yevre, "pour
visiter certains ouvraiges de peintures,
d'ymaiges, et d' entailleures et autres que
HISPANIC NOTE S
THE PILGRIMAGE
Monseigneur de Berry faisit faire audit
Meun." 10 The other party consisted of
masters in works of carpentry and of
masonry, of Philippe le Hardi in Flanders,
all expenses paid.
A few more examples may serve: Eudes
de Montereau went to Palestine with
S. Louis, and worked much, and learned
more. Jean Langlois of Troyes went on
the pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1267, not
probably alone, and it has been pointed
out that the cathedral of Famagusta, in the
island of Cyprus, bears a strong likeness
to the characteristic style of Troyes. For
Charles of Anjou in Naples, worked at
least one builder from the Isle of France,
between 1269 and 1284, Pierre d'Angi-
court. A hundred years later, in 1377,
Guillaume Colombier of Avignon was oc-
cupied at Anagni that removal, however,
left him still in Papal territory. Matthew
of Arras appears at Avignon in 1342 and
the Emperor Charles IV takes him thence
to Prague to build the cathedral there.
Henry Arler of Boulogne-sur-Mer is said to
have drawn the plans for that of Ulm
" I've been
to
Palestine"
AND MONOGRAPHS
i8
WAY OF S.JAMES
Villard de
Honne-
court
The Sepul-
chre of a
Saracen
but if so, something happened in the course
of executing them.
"J'ai este en mult de tiere, si cum ws
pores trover en cest livre," writes Villard
de Honnecourt, x I and again, beside the
drawing of a window in Rheims, with a
sudden recollection of bitter home-sickness :
" I was in Hungary when I drew that, there-
fore I love it more."
The architect in other days, indeed,
like the portrait painter, trusted more to
his mind and less in his material: Villard
in Hungary drew out from memory the
pattern of the lovely rose and lancets at
Rheims. Still, wffen he encountered the
antique he sketched from it on the spot,
here a votive statue, in the nude or all
but, there a Gallo-Roman sepulchral monu-
ment. " De tel maniere, " he notes, later,
quaintly, "fu li sepoulcre d'un Sarrizin
quejo m une fois." The chance to study
a living lion, out in Hungary, was seized
as a piece of great luck; almost as well as
Mokkei with the tiger, he caught the pose
of the huge doggish creature in the moment
before his spring. The design of a clock,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
the pattern of an inlaid pavement, the
tracery of a rose or a labyrinth, he sets
down as he encounters them; a device
to make the lectern-eagle turn and bow at
the Gospel, another to keep the priest's
hands warm enough to celebrate the Mass
on bitter mornings in northern winters.
He preserves these as he thinks them out:
afterwards, turning over the leaves with a
friend, or in his old age, he makes his com-
ments and adds his reminiscences. An
admirable plan was that which he and
Peter of Corbie worked out for vaulting
the double ambulatory.
So when such men met, on the tramp,
travelling for commissions or on pilgrimage,
be sure the sketch-book came out, yielding
much, acquiring more, as they sat each
with other, through the long hours of dark,
inter se disputando.
All along the Pilgrim Way you may see
where they have been. Desirous merely
of finding out, at first, what evidence
exists for these French claims and these
Spanish disclaimers, I have followed step
by step the route laid down by Aymery
AND MONOGRAPHS
Peter of
Corbie
2O
WAY OF S.JAMES
Sres. Alta-
mira, Mo-
reno and
Lamp6rez
Picaud in the twelfth century, for the
pilgrims going to S. James. Precisely
there, on the main-travelled road, if any-
where, the proofs would lie. What this
book records was learned from looking,
and from books of history. Also at times
are quoted the conclusions of Sr. G6mez
Moreno, sometime of Granada, of D. Ra-
fael Altamira who is an historian, of D.
Vicente Lamperez who is a working archi-
tect, versed in the learning of his craft,
for these three are men of approved sobriety,
reasonable in their postulates, liberal in
their admissions, well established in their
inferences, but even here, as in the case of
personal judgements, in the propounding is
distinguished whatever is matter of opinion.
I have rung the changes on belike and per-
adventure, it seems, and it well may be, till
the reader doubtless is heartily sick of them
all. I owe the scruple to the original intent,
which was simply, I repeat, to disengage
and present evidence. Everything believed
at the outset was abandoned long ago; and,
out of examination and comparison and
perpetual returns to view old matter under
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
a new light, has been built up a theory, not
new, but not before, perhaps, just so applied,
of the importance of the chantier.
Half by accident, at the outset, was
Aymery Picaud taken for guide. In an
earlier piece of work, editing Street's great
book on Gothic Architecture in Spain, the
main lines of French penetration into
Spain were marked and approved. Before
the breaking out of the War I had hoped to
follow those ancient roads across France,
and pause with the pilgrims at Vezelay and
S. Gilles, at Limoges and Saintes and
Toulouse; to see Saumur, and Parthenay-
le-Vieux, the home of Aymery, and Blaye,
where Roland lies buried and beside him
Oliver, and Oliver's sister who died of
sorrow, " Aude an vis cler." I had hoped
from among winding riverside poplars,
or on the huge domes of the volcanic land,
or by S. Gilles, beside the great waters
of the glimmering meres, to look up on
August nights and see how ran the starry
track, straight south-westward to Com-
postella. Personal disappointment, the
imperfection of a little piece of work, is
21
Aymery
Picaud
V
AND MONOGRAPHS
22
WAY OF S. JAMES
La douce
France
The Road
not so much as to be uttered where the
sacred name of France is invoked today.
Acquaintance from of old with much that
was best in France, la douce France, made
the first plan not impossible though modi-
fied perforce: but the close study of the
Camino frances has been commenced and
ended inside the Spanish frontier.
The intention, as the reader will see,
has grown long since from a mere pedantic
exercise in architecture, to a very pilgrim-
age, to following ardently along the ancient
way where all the centuries have gone.
The kings of Spain had built a highway to
assist pilgrims in the twelfth century: but
the road was there already. The Romans
had built a military road as sign and condi-
tion of their domination: but the road was
there already. Palaeolithic man had moved
along it, and the stations of a living devotion
today, he had frequented; there he made
his magic, and felt vague awe before the
abyss of an antiquity unfathomed. Along
that way the winds impel, the waters
guide, earth draws the feet. The very
sky allures and insists. "Comma se de-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
mostrdu d Calrros as estrelas enno ceo,
commences the Gallegan version of Turpin
the Archbishop, "how the stars in the sky
revealed themselves to Charlemagne. " "It
signifies that you shall go into Galicia at
the head of a great host, and after you all
peoples shall come in pilgrimage, even to
the end of time, " thus the vision spoke to
the Emperor: and the vision said to Bernar-
dette: "A chapel shall be built here; I
mean that people shall come in processions
to it, ... so that all peoples shall come
in processions from all places in the world, "
multitudes and multitudes, forever.
The known facts of geography, though
edifying, cannot wholly explain this matter
of the elder sanctuaries, nor tell why,
though religions come and go, men set
their feet eternally toward a certain hilltop,
there to lift up their hearts. Sursum
corda I the attitude is old as humanity, the
emotion is strong as death. At S. Michel
du PeYil the Druids held their assemblies
in the place of those they had supplanted.
At S. Michele in Gargano the bull of
Mithras still lurks in the cave, wounded
Angclorum
agmine
sepe
visitatur
AND MONO GRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
Under-
ground
waters
for the timeless sacrifice. An awe broods
even over the Protestant's and the Puri-
tan's line, when he comes to "the great
vision of the Guarded Mount." In the
lonely shrine of the Madonna del Parto,
Piero della Francesca paused to paint a
strange figure, older than the Maiden,
older than the Romans' homely gods of
hearth and garth, for Piero, mountain-
born, could hear the noises that travel
along the earth and over frozen seas.
That sound of underground waters, which
we call folk-lore, murmurs through all his
inscrutable art; and his figure is worshipped
there as from of old, the earth goddess
invoked by women about to bring forth.
Mystics can tell how journeys to such
shrines are made: The way is opened
before you, and closed behind you. Simple,
that: believe it or not, it happens. So
with Compostella: to those grey granite
hills, ringed round with higher, the blind
longings are drawn, the restless feet are
guided. It is not a place to live, Iriste,
grey, quite dead; nor even a place to love,
not beautiful, not sympathetic; but when
HISPANIC N OTE S
THE PILGRIMAGE
25
you are away, it draws you. In the spring,
when frost is out of the ground, and ships
are sailing, week by week, you cannot get
it out of your head: as you smell the brown
fresh-turned clods, it works in your blood.
There, as I went, so went the Middle
Age. The great Pilgrimage was some-
Roland's
thing hugeous, incredible. On the current
horn
of it was borne this noble French archi-
tecture, already spoken of; along the stream
of it grew up a body of noble French epic;
in the winding gorge of Roncevaux, still
echoes the Chanson de Roland.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
26
WAY OF S.JAMES
II
TURPIN'S CHRONICLE
Es livres qui parolent
des roys de France trovons
escript que par la proiere
Monseigneur Saint Jacques
dona Nostre Sires cest don a
Charlemaine c'on parleroit
de lui tant com le siecle
durtroit.
CHARLEMAGNE was old, he had worn
out his life fighting all over the earth ; he
was weary and would rest, when one night
he saw a starry road that, beginning at the
Frisian sea, crossed France and Gascony,
Navarre and Spain, to the world's end. It
ran on across the sky to Galicia, where
the body of S. James at that time lay
unrecognized. Many a night he saw the
marvel, and understood it not. At last a
fair lord appeared to him, and when the
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
27
Emperor asked, "Lord, who art thou?"
he answered, "I am James the Apostle,
Christ's servant, Zebedee's son, John
Evangelist's brother, elect by God's grace
to preach His law, whom Herod slew : look
you, my body is in Galicia but no man
knoweth where, and the Saracens oppress
the land. Therefore God sends you to
retake the road that leads to my tomb and
the land wherein I rest. The starry way
that you saw in the sky signifies that you
shall go into Galicia at the head of a great
host, and after you all peoples shall come
in pilgrimage, even till the end of time. Go
then; I will be your helper: and as guerdon
of your travails I will get you from God a
crown in heaven, and your name shall
abide in the memory of man until the Day
of Judgement." In saecula saeculorum,
Amen the promise rolls like thunder among
the reverberating centuries.
So Charlemagne makes three expeditions
into Spain. In the first he pushes as far
as Compostella and beyond, riding into
the sea and sticking there his lance in sign
of his dominion even to the ends of the
AND MONOGRAPHS
A road to
a grave
28
WAY OF S.JAMES
Compos-
tella,
Rome, and
Ephesus
earth. In the great church he establishes
a Bishop and Canons under the rule of S.
Isidore, bestows those bells that Almanzor
was to carry away. In the course of the
second foray he builds a church and
founds an abbey hard by Cea bank, where
Sahagun is situate. In the third invasion
he holds a Council at Compostella and
confers such privileges as Rome could
never enforce for herself every house in
Spain must pay four pence a year, every
plough-land recovered, a measure of wheat
and a measure of wine; bishops must come
thither for investiture and kings for coro-
nation. Compostella he makes the metro-
politan see of Spain, co-equal with Rome
the seat of Peter, and Ephesus the burial-
place of John. On the way home he takes
Saragossa and in the mountains his rear-
guard is beset by Saracens. Roland and
his twenty thousand good knights are
slain, and buried by the Emperor at Blaye
and Belin, Bordeaux and Les Alyscamps.
He calls a Council at S. Denis to dower
that abbey like S. James's and at Aix
he paints the history of the Spanish wars
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
29
upon his palace walls. Finally, when he is
dead, and the deeds of all his life lie in the
balance, and that is insecure, a Gallegan
without a head throws in the stones of all
the churches that he built, and thus re-
deems the promise of his early apparition.
This ends the Chronicle of Turpin. The
same crisis, it will be remembered, occurred
in the case of the good King Da/gobert and
also in that of the German Emperor Henry
who lies now sainted in Bamberg, thanks
to prompt action by S. Michael.
The latest contribution to letters of M.
Be'dier has been to show how all this is
related by action and reaction to the great
pilgrimage, and how the incidents which
have sprung up along its route contribute
to its success. He goes so far as to say
that the whole Book of S. James, the Codex
called of Pope Calixt, of which this of Tur-
pin is a part, was compiled, probably
by a French monk, in the middle of the
twelfth century, and was intended pre-
cisely as an instrument of propaganda,
in other words, an advertising scheme for
the pilgrimage. As the pseudo-Calixtus
The Epical
Legends
AND MONOGRAPHS
30
WAY OF S. JAMES
asked of clerks notes on the saints of
their churches, so the pseudo-Turpin asked
of professional jongleurs notes on the per-
The first
Knights of
sons in their romances. Charlemagne
Santiago
and his peers are Pilgrims of S. James,
they are the first Knights of Santiago.
The idea gives occasion to M. Be"dier's
ripe and poetic genius for une belle page
that may be detached without much more
damage than a flowering hawthorn bough:
L'idee est belle de grouper dans les
Landes de Bordeaux les heros de toutes
les gestes, appelfes des quatre coins de
1'horizon poetique, de les acheminer
tous, epris d'un meme de"sir, vers le torn-
beau de Galice, et de les ramener par
Roncevaux, afin que 1'apotre, a cette
derniere etape de leur pelerinage, leur
donne tous a la fois leur recompense, la
. c com-
joie d'etre martyrs. L'idee est belle de
e(on moyto
ce crepuscule des heros, qui renaissent
de chorar
ensemble a la lumiere eternelle. L'idee
sobre el
est belle de distribuer leurs depouilles,
leurs reliques, sur les routes de Com-
postelle, pour qu'ils en soient les gardiens,
pour qu'ils protegent, eux les pelerins
triomphants, ceux de 1'Eglise souffrante:
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
3i
ils sont leurs modules sur ces routes, leurs
patrons, leurs intercesseurs.
Id6e recente, dit-on. Sans doute,
puisque la vieille Chanson de Roland,
celle du manuscript d'Oxford, 1'ignore.
Mais idee qui precede pourtant de la
vieille Chanson de Roland. Charlemagne
et ses pairs chevaliers de S. Jacques, c'est
1'invention nouvelle; mais deja, dans la
vieille chanson, ils 6taient les chevaliers de
Dieu. Ils meurent & Roncevaux au
enton
retour du p^lerinage de Galice, c'est
Rulan
1'invention nouvelle; mais la donn6 est
martere de
Jhesu-
ancienne, h6ritee, qu'ils meurent a
Crislo. . .
Roncevaux, au retour d'une croisade, et
deja la vieille Chanson de Roland est, a
de certains 6gards, une Passion de
martyrs. . . . *
Certain chansons de geste show an exact
knowledge of the long way and the stopping
L'Entrfe
places on it. Even in the Entree d'Espagne, *
d'Espagne
though the Paduan poet who composed
it in the fourteenth century depended but
little on the pseudo-Turpin, the Pilgrimage
is the necessary antecedent, and the back-
ground, of the action. Composed in
honour of Charlemagne, it is perpetually
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WAY OF S.JAMES
Out-
landers'
geography
preoccupied with S. James. The business
of the warriors is not so much to deliver
the Apostle from the Saracens in occupa-
tion, as to keep the road open. Of the
Way the Paduan has only hearsay knowl-
edge he knows of Najera, and the bridge
at Najera, and sets his great battle there,
but we must suppose he brings in his army
not by the pass of Roncevaux but by the
sea-shore route, otherwise they could never
have got to Najera before Pampeluna. He
knows of Estella, about which lies much of
the action, Astorga, and Carrion: on the
other hand, he puts Belin close to Pam-
peluna, and if Orthez is to be identified with
Nobles, then he makes a like mistake there
again. Not knowing the mountain passes,
he takes a safe course and makes the entry
vaguely by Port d'Espagne. 3 Burgos is
merely Bors d'Espagne, a place from which
came one of four kings, the others ruling in
Logrono, Estella, and Sant Mart. Now
Santas Martas is a tiny sanctuary on the
Camino frances that no one would ever
remember unless he happened to sleep
there. 4 Nothing could be more significant
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
33
than this information, concrete and in-
exact, about the places familiar to the
pilgrims.
On the other hand, the Prise de Pam-
pdune s is as exact in its itinerary as Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage. Charlemagne takes
a town, baptizes the people, and moves on
to another; takes it, baptizes it, and treks.
The man who first planned this poem, not
necessarily Nicholas of Verona, for some
of the incidents of it lie in the dim back-
ward and abysm behind the Chanson de
Roland, either had made himself the
journey from Pampeluna to Compostella,
or had taken notes from the talk of a
pilgrim who had made it, or else, conceiv-
ably, he had access to a better and fuller
Guide than Aymery Picaud's, 6 and his
public knew as much as he. This is in the
situation of The Road in Tuscany, of. A
Note-Book in Northern Spain: half the
interest lies in the presentation on the one
hand, recognition on the other, of matter
familiar to both and by both felt romantic-
ally. While Saragossa, Cordova, and To-
ledo are vaguely envisaged, the westering
La Prise de
Pamftclune
AND MONOGRAPHS
3*
WAY OF S.JAMES
road runs straight and plain, by Pampe-
luna, Estella, and Logrono.
Sus le cemin seint Jaques somes sens
gaberise,
Vees la Charion, 7
and after Carrion we see Sahagun, Masele,
which will be Mansilla de las Mulas, Leon,
and Astorga, where was once, as still at
Compostella there is, a Porta Francigena.
Ver la porte che veit ver Frange e ver
Bertagne 8
Roland spurs, and the episode ends with
a movement westward
A la porte che veit ver Seint Jaques
tutour. 9
Another long and very readable poem,
composed in the thirteenth century,
Anseis de
Carthage
Anseis of Carthage, 10 draws not only from
the pseudo-Turpin but also from the
legendary store of Spain. Spanish and
French critics are agreed that Anseis, the
old Councillor Ysore" and his daughter
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
35
Lentierra, owe their being to Roderick,
Count Julian, and the unhappy lady called
la Cava. The morale of it is different; the
young king is shown as pretty nearly unable
to help himself in the false position that the
lady has contrived, the father as a renegade
hell-ripe, and the countess, remanded to
a convent, gets off too easily with a knightly
young son to intercede for her and to
succeed her. The Saracen princess Gan-
deira, whom Anseis intended all along to
marry, comes out as the conventional good
wife of chivalry. It is not really necessary
to suppose much more borrowing from
Count Julian than from Paris of Troy:
where likeness exists, the story is common
enough in history, in romantic poetry, and
in life. But the geography is rich and re-
sponsible. Taking place up and down the
Way, all over the Way, the action is a
little, in places, like a battle in Shakespeare,
and in others, like the page which good
Baedeker consecrates to an all-day journey.
Anseis, beset by Saracens, falls back from
somewhere beyond Astorga making one
desperate stand after another, as far as
AND MONOGRAPHS
36
WAY OF S. JAMES
Hornillos del Camino and Castrojeriz,
and thence sends messengers along the
whole route up through France to the
court of Charlemagne: the emperor
marches, stage by stage, reconquers Spain,
and finally goes home and gives thanks:
the reader also, having now been over the
road three times. If Pierrot du Ries
wrote the poem, not merely copied it, then
Astorga in
Pierrot had himself once skirted wood,
the plain
descended painfully into a valley, forded
the stream at the bottom, breasted the
hill beyond the Orbigo and had the sudden
vision of Astorga in the plain adobe- walled,
crested with huge towers where it stands
yet like the ivory elephant on a chess-
board and
Droit ver Luiserne tout I antiu cemin, ' *
he too had gone with Franchois.
This same city of Luiserne, with its story
out of the Arabian Nights, had long in-
trigued scholars, and to M. Bedier belongs
the praise for having found it, at last,
simply by following the path. Here too, the
main concern of everyone in the poem is:
. I
HISPANIC NOTES
^ ^
THE PILGRIMAGE
37
Le cemin ke tu as Dieu promis
Del bon apostle.
This art, moreover, has its roots in the
soil. First was the station, then the
story, as M. Bedier points out. Some of
The In-
numerable
the stations may be older than he reckons:
Martyrs
as night mist lies late in mountain hollows.
The memory of innumerable dead broods
on certain fields from before the dawn of
history. The prehistoric bones in the
Rhineland about Cologne were so multi-
tudinous as to give the seat, and possibly
the occasion, of two legends at least: that of
S. Ursula, with her eleven thousand maidens
shot to death with arrows by the German
barbarians from further north and east;
and that of the Theban Legion who, having
received corporate baptism and given
their pledge to the Wonderful, the Ever-
lasting, the Prince of Peace, then sooner
than fight the battles of the Empire elected
to die where they stood; non-resistant.
The dead of Roncevaux all lie with their
fathers far back. At Bordeaux, a great
Gallo-Roman necropolis surrounded the
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
The little
flames
WAY OF S.JAMES
shrine and tomb of S. Seurin; at Blaye
it would seem S. Remain (ob. 384) found
some such an one when he rebuilt the
famous temple in a field of sepulchres: at
Alyscamps the Romans had buried in the
burial place of those they overcame.
Where lie the tombs of the dead, where
pass the feet of the living, there the little
flames of the holy story burn brightly,
and the ancestral ghosts are worshipped as
martyrs and intercessors.
S. Roland and S. Charlemagne were not
fantastic titles to the Middle Age. ' 2 In
the cathedral of Chartres they enjoy a
window of their own, like S. Stephen and
S. Eustace and S. Magdalen.
With Chartres, in truth, though the
way is long, Compostella has more than
one curious connexion. The famous Codex
named of Pope Calixt, which contains the
Chronicle of Turpin and the Itinerary of
Aymery, contains also a sort of liturgical
mystery play, dealing with the Mass, that
was written by Fulbert of Chartres. A
clerk of Santiago who knew the great Bishop,
or one visiting, may have brought it, or a
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
39
pious pilgrim, long after, made of it a
sweet offering, or the chapter came by it
through some ecclesiastical intermediary:
at any rate, there you handle the MS. and
music of Bishop Fulbert's composition, as
the owner laid it up in the Codex among
other precious things. There were plenty
of possible intermediaries, for instance that
Bernard of Angers who wrote the Book
of the Miracles of S. Faith and dedicated
it to Fulbert while he was yet alive: ' 3 now
the sanctuary of S. Faith in Rouergue was
specially recommended to pilgrims on the
Way. The Codex was compiled, as most
students agree, before 1150; at the close of
that same century or very shortly thereafter
a workman from the chantier at Chartres,
passing on the Camino frattces, stopped at
Sanguesa, and carved six figures on the door-
jambs of S. Mary's Church, three of them
queens, poor relations of the great figures
in La Beauce. They stand there yet in San-
guesa. In the thirteenth century the glass-
painters of Chartres portrayed a window
of the eastern ambulatory with the his-
tory of SS. Charlemagne and Roland, after
The
Miracles
from
Conques
Three
Queens
from
Chartres
AND MONOGRAPHS
40
WAY O
F S.JAMES
the versions ot
Beauvais.
Turpin and Vincent of
and S.
Ferdinand
That window is flanked, there in the
eastern aisle, by the legend of S. Vincent
of Saragossa on one hand, and on the
other, by that of S. James, Spaniards both,
in a little Spanish reunidn: and in a clere-
story window above still rides, as donor,
in the glowing rose, S. Ferdinand.
. I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
4i
III
THE BOOK OF S. JAMES
Nay more where is the
third? Calixt?
Villon.
THE codex called of Pope Calixtus has
Calixtus II
nothing of him but the name. Seeing
that he was in the world Count Guy of
Burgundy, born brother to Count Ray-
mond, Queen Urraca's husband, and there-
after Archbishop of Vienne, he made a
plausible par rain for the MS. which was
written under the influence of the great
Archbishop his friend, Diego Gelmfrez, if
not in his day. It consists of five books,
described as follows by a monk of Ripoll,
Arnaut del Monte, 1 who saw it in 1173:
I. De scriptts sanctorum patrum,
Augustini, videlicet, Ambrosii, Hieron-
ymi, Leonis, Maximi et Bede . . .
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
42
WAY OF S.JAMES
(aliaque) scripta aliorum quorundam
sanctorum, in festivitatibus predicti
apostoli et ad laudem illius per totum
annum legenda, cum responsoriis, anti-
phonis, prefationibus, et orationibus ad
idem pertinentibus quam plurimis.
II. Apostoli miracula.
III. Translatio apostoli ab Hierosoly-
mis ad Hyspanias.
IV. Qualiter Karolus Magnus do-
muerit et subjugaverit jugo Christi
Hyspanias.
V. Varia.
In the first Book or part occurs the
Mass with a Parse or dramatic and musical
Carmina
Contpos-
liturgy credited usually to Fulbert, but
tellana
retouched perhaps a little at Compostella.
Among the Hymns and Tropes many
are attributed to great names, Fulbert of
Chartres, the Patriarch William of Jerusa-
lem, S. Fortunatus; or others lesser but
still historical, Bishop Hatto of Troyes,
Joscelin of Vierzy Bishop of Soissons,
Alberic of Rheims, Master Airard of
Ve*zelay. Others are offered as the com-
position of Magister Johannis Legalis, of
r
HISPANIC'NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
Pope Leo and Master Panicha, of Albert of
Paris, in whom one would fain see a hum-
bler precursor of Albertus Magnus; and
one as a Prayer of Master G., whom Fr.
Dreves," probably with reason, would
identify with Master Gautier of Castel
Renaud, elsewhere presented as composing
music Magister Gauterius de Castello
Rainardi. A good many in the collection
may be of this kind, which is indeed the
same kind as Hymns Ancient and Modern;
a little one of Master Anselm's, two or
three named of Pope Calixt, and, also
charged to the last-named, a quaint set of
macaronic verses in Greek, Latin, and
Hebrew. Of Calixtus it must be admitted
that there is a very ancient tradition at
Santiago that he came thither. 3 Not
here, but after the Guide, along with some
of those already enumerated, occur the
poems of Aymery Picaud, the two hymns
and a third in unrhymed quantitative
verse, in Sapphics of a sort, which the
original editor annotates with touching
pride. But the best in the collection is
the superb drama of the Mass, intended
43
iDt d6nde
eres
Ptregrinof
The
Drama of
the Mass
AND MONOGRAPHS
44
WAY OF S.JAMES
The bull-
voiced
mimes
Ensamples
for antiphonal choirs, at least two great
solo voices, and a chorus that included,
along with masses of trained singers, at
times the entire congregation of the crowded
church. Only to read it, you hear the
bellowing of the bull-voiced mimes and the
roar of Amen and Eleison: of this com-
position more will be said elsewhere in
the proper place. The Hymns and Re-
sponsions in prose, with musical notation
arranged usually for two or three voices,
in the Appendix that follows the Itinerary,
differ from the rest only in the date of
transcription; some are repetitions from the
earlier part, one is dated 1190; all are in
another hand from the Codex proper.
There is no more reason to doubt the
good faith of the collector than to believe
in the authenticity of these vague and
traditional attributions it is enough that
Aymery believed them.
The second Book contains a choice of
twenty-odd miracles or Ensamples, mostly
contemporary: 4 about such a collection as
you would find at Lourdes. Of these the
second belongs to the time of Bishop
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
45
Theodomir and is credited to Bede; the
third befell in 1108; the fourth is told on
the faith of Master Hubert, the pious
canon of the church of S. Mary Magda-
len of Vezelay; the sixth and seventeenth
are credited to S. Anselm, and the eight-
eenth befell a Count of S. Gilles "not
long since." All the rest, with some of
these, belong to the lifetime, and most to
the episcopate, of the great Archbishop.
Arnold of Ripoll adds two more that he
found elsewhere in the Codex, in one of
which figures Abbot Alberic of Vezelay
(1138-43), a member of the household of
Cluny. He copied out parts for those at
home, some of which might be read in
church and some at dinner, some parts,
that is, being doctrine and others pious
opinion. 3
The third book, which tells the journey
of S. James's body, Mgr. Duchesne has
examined in the finest critical spirit, be-
side which seem dull and doubtful the pa-
tient labours of Fr. Fidel Fita to reconcile
nonsense and make forgery plausible.
The fourth is the Chronicle of Turpin,
Miraclesof
S. James
AND MONOGRAPHS
4 6
W A Y O F S.JAMES
A Spici-
legium
already summarized; the fifth, the Pil-
grim's Guide of Aymery Picaud, liegeman
of Vezelay and clerk in orders to which we
shall come shortly. 6
The core of the MS., then, is a sort of
offertory, compiled, in the better parts, of
what the pilgrims brought, though for-
geries are arranged behind and before and
on either hand, to make all secure. It was
intended to increase devotion and promote
the pilgrimage. 7 It succeeded; pilgrims
waited their turn to make extracts and
copies. But it is something more, a Spici-
legium, a true and faithful gathering of
the legends told along the way. The
whole Book of S. James is seen to be,
in this light, a book and not a miscellany.
It gathers up the tales along the road-
side, sometimes saintly legends, sometimes
epical. It begins with the history of the
Apostle, continues with Charlemagne, and
ends with a choice of contemporary
miracles.
The legend of S. James is told, in its
essentials, about as follows in the Codex,
in the Golden Legend, and in the Recuerdos
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
47
de un mage that Fr. Fidel Fita made in the
year of grace 1880:
James the apostle, son of Zebedee,
Tltf
preached after the ascension of our Lord
I ne
Golden
in the Jewry and Samaria, and after, he
Legend
was sent into Spain for to sow there the
word of Jesu Christ. But when he was
there he profited but little, for he had
converted unto Christ's law but nine
disciples, of whom he left two there, for
to preach the word of God, and took the
other seven with him and returned again
into Judea.
When the blessed S. James was be-
headed, his disciples took the body away
by night for fear of the Jews, and brought
it into a ship, and committed unto the
will of our Lord the sepulture of it, and
went withal into the ship without sail
or rudder. And by the conduct of the
angel of our Lord they arrived in Galicia
in the realm of Lupa. There was in
Spain a queen that had to name, and
also by deserving of her life, Lupa, which
is as much to say in English as a she-
wolf. And then the disciples of S.
James took out his body and laid it upon
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
4 8
WAY OF S.JAMES
Lupa, by
interpreta-
tion a
she- wolf
a great stone. And anon the stone re-
ceived the body into it as it had been
soft wax, and made to the body a stone as
it were a sepulchre. Then the disciples
went to Lupa the queen, and said to her:
Our Lord Jesu Christ hath sent to thee
the body of his disciple, so that him that
thou wouldest not receive alive thou shalt
receive dead, and then they recited to
her the miracle by order; how they were
come without any governaile of the ship
and required of her place convenable for
his holy sepulture. And when the queen
heard this, she sent them unto a right
cruel man, by treachery and by guile, as
Master Beleth saith, and some say it
was to the king of Spain, for to have his
consent of this matter, and he took them
and put them in prison. And when he
was at dinner the angel of our Lord
opened the prison and let them escape
away all free. And when he knew it, he
hastily sent knights after, for to take
them, and as these knights passed to go
over a bridge, the bridge brake and over-
threw, and they fell in the water and
were drowned. And when he heard
that he repented him and doubted for
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
49
himself and for his people, and sent after
them, praying them for to return, and
that he would do like as they would
themselves. And then they returned
and converted the people of that city
unto the faith of God. And when Lupa
the queen heard this, she was much
sorrowful, and when they came again to
her they told to her the agreement of the
king. She answered: Take the oxen
that I have in yonder mountain, and
join ye and yoke them to my cart or
chariot, and bring ye then the body of
your master, and build ye for him such
a place as ye will, and this she said to
them in guile and mockage, for she knew
well that there were no oxen but wild
bulls, and supposed that they should
never join them to her chariot, and if
they were so joined and yoked to the
chariot, they would run hither and
thither, and should break the chariot,
and throw down the body and slay them.
But there is no wisdom against God.
And then they, that knew nothing of the
evil courage of the queen, went up on the
mountain, and found there a dragon
casting fire at them, and ran on them.
and wild
bulls
AND MONOGRAPHS
50
WAY OF S. JAMES
And they made the sign of the cross and
he brake on two pieces. And then they
made the sign of the cross upon the bulls,
and anon they were meek as lambs.
Then they took them and yoked them
to the chariot, and took the body of S.
James with the stone that they had laid it
on, and laid on the chariot, and the wild
bulls without governing or driving of
anybody drew it forth into the middle of
the palace of the queen Lupa. And when
she saw this she was abashed and be-
lieved and was christened, and delivered
to them all that they demanded, and
dedicated her palace into a church and
endowed it greatly, and after ended her
life in good works. 8
Some of this seems to come too near to
Colchis' strand, and the devout of today
From
have quietly dropped overboard the dragon.
Colchis'
strand
It must be said in fairness, that the dragon
has as good a right there as the bulls: for
the twelfth century as for the fifteenth,
they would sink or swim together. After
this, the disciples set out on the Roman
road that runs from Padron to Betanzos, 9
and buried S. James in a fair marble
I
HISPANIC N OTES
o
.a
I
THE PILGRIMAGE
sepulchre, which they may have found
there disused, or which a convert and his
family might offer as once Nicodemus did;
Moors came, and the memory of 4t was
lost even in Galicia.
About the beginning of the ninth cen-
tury, in 830 or 813, perhaps, a hermit
named Pelayo lived among the rocks of
a steep hillside; by night he watched the
stars, and once he saw one burning strangely
low and strangely bright. There is another
version, however, by which many little
lights were seen hovering and flickering
above the spot. The villagers near by saw
it as well, the Bishop Theodomir was ap-
prized: excavations revealed the tombs of
the Apostle and his followers, and Alfonso
the Chaste in person beheld and adored.
Remain only the episodes when S. James
appeared again and showed himself, like
Castor, on a huge white horse. At the battle
of Clavijo, in the Rioja near Najera, to the
cry of " Santiago, Cierra Espana ! " he swept
the field clear of the Hagarenes: this was in
845. At Simancas, in 939, with mitre and
crozier he was manifested along with S.
53
Area
marmorea
The littl<
lights
HISPANIC NOTES
54
WAY OF S.JAMES
Millan, the two together, "white .horse-
The White
men that ride on white horses, the Knights
Horsemen
of God." 1 ' He appeared at Baeza before
1149, find helped in the winning of Estre-
madura, at Ciudad Rodrigo and Merida,
and elsewhere, and in America, though at
In all, 38
times the credit was transferred to others.
apparitions
Two traits, rich in human nature, belong,
if anywhere, here. M. Paul Claudel, a Neo-
Catholic man of letters sometime resident in
Paris, of the most excessive and unctuous
piety, is persuaded that S. James suffered
martyrdom in Spain. In brief, though his
theme is The Year of God, he does not know
the first thing about the Apostle:
S. Jacques a la fin de Juillet a peri en
Espagne par 1'epee:
Entre les deux mois ardents il git, la
tte coupee. 11
On the other hand, Father Fita, a very
learned Jesuit, believing what he is told,
yet saves and reserves his scholar's wit
and his Spanish humour. Apropos of the
eldest altar of S. James and an inscription
on it, he writes: "The monks believed
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
55
aright, if they thought the disciples of S.
James made an altar with these stones
over the grave of the Apostle, after the
most ancient use of the church: but they
believed not well, if they imagined that with
the holy body from Jerusalem came along
a Celto Hispanic column and tablet!" 12
Because some Neo-Catholics love to
suffuse with emotion their ignorance;
and because even scholarly Jesuits some-
times are bound to twist and turn the
impossible in the hope of making some-
thing credible which is the task of making
ropes of sand there must be no pause
before presenting another sort of priest, of
the kind not uncommon in France, who
loving their God with heart and mind have
thought to serve Him by blowing up old
lies and making plain the way of truth.
Mgr. Duchesne of the French School in
Rome, at Brussels in i8g4 13 and at Bor-
deaux in 1900 squarely encountered this
huge mass of legend, in the light of learn-
ing, and cleared the ground. He did to
his church son's duty and knight's service.
His reward is in the Index. 1 *
The Pillar
A French
priest
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
S. James
never
in Spain
Follows a very brief abstract of his
argument, 15 omitting points that seem of
pure scholarship, as, for instance, the
true history of the arcae marmoricae:
S. James's journey to Spain is not men-
tioned by Prudentius: no references to it
have been found in the fourth, fifth, sixth,
seventh, and eighth centuries. Orosius of
Braga, Idaeus, Bishop of Aquae Flaviae, S.
Martin of Braga, Visigothic ecclesiastical
writers, S. Isidore of Seville, etc., all are
silent in their authentic writings. So
also in Gaul: for instance, Gregory of
Tours, with all his knowledge of the sanc-
tuaries of Spain, makes no reference;
Fortunatus, even, in an epistle to S. Martin
of Braga, writes: "It is to S. Martin the
Elder that Gaul owes the light of the Gospel,
it is to the new Martin that Galicia owes
the same benefit. In his person she
enjoys the virtue of Peter, the doctrine of
Paul, the help of James and John." In
the collection of apostolic histories known
under the name of Abdias, although there
is plenty of legend, "apocryphal and
fabulous accounts," there is not a word
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
57
of the journey of S. James to Galicia or of
his burial there. Pope Innocent's letter,
416, denies any apostle but S. Peter in
Italy, the Gauls, Spain, Africa, Sicily, and
the adjacent isles. This may be for rea-
sons of his own, and indeed he is insisting
on acceptance of the Roman use. To be
sure, S. Jerome has a passage about nets
and fishers of men, Jerusalem, Spain, and
Illyria, but the geographical choice of
names is rhetorical rather than historical.
The so-called Apostolic Catalogues are
hopelessly apocryphal, and entirely dis-
credited; this was settled in 1894. Aldhelm,
Bishop of Malmesbury, used the legend
found in one of these, in composing an
altar-inscription, at the end of the seventh
century: S. Julian of Toledo had used
the same compilation as early as 686 but
he made S. James preach to the Jews, at
Jerusalem, and deliberately omitted the
Spanish episode. It is worth noting that
Archbishop Rodrigo Xime"nez of Toledo, in
the thirteenth century, treated it as an
old wives' tale.
Old Mozarabic liturgies before the
Apostolic
Catalogues
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
Mozarabic
liturgies
twelfth century take no particular interest
in S. James. The feast of July 25 came
into Spain very late: it is lacking from
many calendars of the tenth and the elev-
enth century.
Before the eleventh century the Spanish
apostolate of S. James, then, is mentioned
only in a Latin version of the Byzantine
Apostolic Catalogue, and in books which
depend on this version. Neither this
Catalogue in its original Greek text, nor
the additions which characterize the Latin
recensions, have any title to represent an
authentic tradition: certainly not a Spanish
tradition. S. Julian of Toledo knowing
their assertion, as we have seen, left it
out. The Catalogue moreover does not
bury him in Spain. The oldest uncon-
tested document is the Martyr ology of
Adon, c. 860: "Hujus beatissimi apostoli
sacra ossa ad Hispanias translata et in
ultimis earum finibus, videlicet contra
mare Britannicum condita, celeberrima
illarum gentium veneratione excoluntur."
Long before this, Spain was restless, in-
submissive, independently disposed in
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
59
relation to Rome. Galicia was the strong-
hold of Priscillians; the invasion of the
Suevi, 409, alone saved the bishops from
wholesale eviction; as late as 561 they were
still strong in the north-west corner of the
province; i. e. in the very diocese of Iria
Flavia. The heresy disappeared in the
seventh and eighth century and the Suevian
church was absorbed by the Visigothic.
The fall of the Visigoths and the Moslem
invasion touched the north-west lightly
and not for long. Charters of Alfonso II
the Chaste, 829, Ramiro I, 844, and
Ordono I, 859, are highly to the point, but
they are not universally admitted as
authentic. They say that the body of S.
James was revealed during the reign of
Alfonso, in the time of Bishop Theodomir
of Iria Flavia: that is all, just "re-
vealed," down to the end of the ninth
century. The Chronicon Sebastiani and
the Chronicon Albeldense have not a word
of it. Adon probably echoed some en-
thusiastic pilgrim who had picked up the
story on the spot. Almanzor took Com-
postella twice, in 988 and in 994, and
Priscil-
lians,
Friends of
God
AND MONOGRAPHS
6o
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Codex
as
authority
sacked and burned it. By 1078 the great
church still standing, was begun, and the
pilgrimage was in full blast.
The two great books on which, after
this, all hangs, are the Historia Compos-
tellana and the Codex called "of Calixtus
II" (called here The Book of St. James).
The former deals chiefly with contemporary
events, down to 1139, and is virtually a
history of Bishop Diego Gelmirez; the
second contains (as mentioned before)
The Translation of S. James from Jerusalem
to Spain, a letter of S. Leo the pope, the
Miracles of S. James, collected, nominally,
by Calixtus II, the Passion of S. Eutropius
of Saintes, the history of Charlemagne by
the pseudo-Turpin, and an apocryphal letter
of Innocent II authenticating the whole.
The Translatio is a clear plagiarism from
the History of the Seven Spanish Bishops
martyred in the south of Spain, at Acci,
now Guadix, near Granada. That story,
which includes the seven disciples, the
Lady Luparia, with the bridge that breaks
down, and the Monte Sagro, was known in
Italy and France by the ninth century.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
The letter of Pope Leo (possibly meant
for Leo III, 795-816) does not attest the
discovery of the relics, only their transla-
tion that the body of S. James was
brought by his disciples from Jerusalem
into Galicia. Three redactions of this
letter exist: the oldest from a MS. of S.
Martial of Limoges, in Visigothic writ-
ing of the tenth century, added on a blank
page. Another, from a MS. in the Escorial,
was published by Fita and Guerra in
Recuerdos de un viaje a Santiago de
Compostela. The third is that of the
Liber Calixtinus. The first depends on the
Translatio and the Apostolic Catalogues;
the second on the work of Adon; the third,
quite different, depends on the Translatio
and on the Passio S. Jacobi in the pseudo-
Abdias. The shrine being by this time
troubled by competition in other places
that claim some portion of the relics of S.
James, this version insists on "integrum
corpus," separates itself from the legend
of the Seven Spanish Bishops, and makes
the two disciples who escorted the body,
Athanasius and Theodore. On this ver-
AND MONOGRAPHS
61
Pope Leo's
letter
62
WAY OF S.JAMES
sion depends (1139) the Historia Composte-
llana. It may have been known in 1077,
if we may so conclude from an act of that
year between Bishop Diego Pelaez and
Fagild, abbot of the monastery of Anteal-
The third
tares. At any rate, it belongs to the re-
recension
building of the church. 16 The work was
begun in 1082 (so Mgr. Duchesne) and it is
quite possible that they looked at the
crypt, discovered that therein were only
three bodies, therefore revised the legend.
Fita and Guerra give no reason for saying
precisely that the crypt under the church
is of the first years of the Christian era.
One can only admit that it is Roman.
Probably a great Roman tomb was really
discovered in the first third of the ninth
century.
In summing up, Mgr. Duchesne says
Conclu-
i. The belief goes back to a Latin
sions
recension of the A postolic Catalogues, in no
sense traditional documents or trustworthy.
2. About 830 an antique tomb was
found, which was considered S. James's;
the cult is attested by Adon in France
within thirty years.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
63
3. About this time, the middle of the
ninth century, was compiled an account
of the Translation. A body brought by
the Seven Saints from near Granada, pre-
supposes the preaching of S. James in Spain
during his life.
4. At the end of the ninth century was
forged a letter of Pope Leo (any Leo)
stated a contemporary of S. James.
5. Nearer the end of the ninth century,
or early in the tenth, the letter was revised;
the Seven Bishops were left out and the
two disciples put in.
6. In 1136 the Historia Compostellana
fixed the tradition.
7. All that remains is the Galician cult,
from the first third of the ninth century.
Mgr. Duchesne leaves in a footnote the
recognition of the relics which had been
removed in 1589 (when Drake went to
Call him
Corunna sworn to burn and disperse them),
uo the
deep sea. . .
and were recovered in 1879, ratified in
1884.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
6 4
WAY OF S.JAMES
IV
THE STATIONS OF THE WAY
Airinos, airinos, aires,
Airinos da mina terra,
Airinos, airinos, aires,
Airinos, levaime a ela.
AYMERY PICAUD, Poitevin and clerk in
orders of Parthenay-le-Vieux, came to
Composteila with a Flemish dame called
Girberga, and probably her husband,
Oliver of Iscan, vassal of land dependent
on S. Mary Magdalen of Vezelay; and for
the redemption of their souls they made a
gift of the Codex, the Book of S. James,
to the apostle. The Latin text here is a
little difficult, through some corruption: it
is possible that Aymery was travelling with
Girberga as her secretary or even as her
husband, though the Council of Rheims had
again forbidden the clergy to marry. In
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
65
that case Oliver would be Aymery's name,
Parthenay his birthplace and Vezelay his
suzerain, and in truth, he copies out a
miracle on the faith of an abbot of Ve'zelay,
The
Poitevin
like one concerned, though he also tran-
scribes the Passion of S. Eutropius of
Saintes, and a passage about him from S.
Gregory of Tours, being a good Poite-
vin. We must be content probably to
know little more about him except that he
was a poet, and wrote a rousing good
marching-song which starts off to the tune
of Gaudeamus Igitur, and a longer poem,
also rhymed, summarizing the current
miracles. 1 These will be found in the
IV, V
Appendix. Furthermore, it is .generally
held that he was not probably the same
with the Aymery who was chancellor of
Santiago, from 1130 to 1141. 2 Of this I
am not quite sure, as will presently appear.
He is not in any circumstances to be con-
fused with Aymerico de Anteiaco, who was
treasurer of the cathedral of Santiago in
1326, wrote the manuscript called Tumbo B,
and probably the Latin Chronicle of Arch-
bishop Berenguel. 3 This was the Arch-
AND MONOGRAPHS
i
66
WAY OF S.JAMES
bishop who, a Frenchman from Rodez in the
south of France and a Dominican, 4 liked
Bishop
Beren-
but ill the account of Jacobus a Varagine
guel's
(whom we know better as Jacques de Vora-
Legenda
gine) and ordered Bernardus Guidonis to
write something more to the purpose : s
. . . ut Legendam alteram ex sincerioribus
actis colligeret et ederet, quod et fecit,
quod tamen non impedivit ne Legenda
Jacobi de Voragine sua brevitate com-
moda passim ab omnibus conquireretur
et avide legeretur.
The fifth book of the Codex that he gave,
is the Pilgrims' Guide, written avowedly in
part by Aymery, and by him attributed
in part to Pope Calixt, whose endorsement
is prefixed. "There are moreover many
yet living," he says, "who can testify to
the truth of what is writ therein."
Since upon the approximate date within
the twelfth century scholars are in complete
disagreement, a word of common sense may
be permitted. The only positive date
which occurs in the Codex as a terminus a
quo is in that difficult passage about the
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
deaths of kings, quoted and discussed later
in another connexion, which reckons from
the beginning of the cathedral works as
fifty-nine years to the death of Alfonso
of Aragon (1134), sixty-two to the death
of Henry of England, and fully sixty-three
to the death of Louis the Fat of France,
which occurred in 1138. Common sense
suggests that these three events, not very
important to Santiago except in the case
of Alfonso el Batallador, must have been
recent.
Supposing for a moment that Aymery
who gave the book wrote it and the three
hymns that bear his name, then (i) since he
knew the men working on the roads in
1 1 20, he went by that year; (2) since chap-
ter xxi in Turpin's Chronicle relates how
Charlemagne gave to Santiago all the rights
of Primacy, it would be most useful at the
time (11201124) when Archbishop Diego
was trying for that rank; (3) the style of
chapter ix of the Guide, written avow-
edly by Aymery the chancellor, is precisely
like that of all the others, so there is evi-
dence for supposing a single author and
Deaths of
Kings
Hypoth-
eses
AND MONOGRAPHS
68
WAY OF S. JAMES
if Aymery came to Santiago as a poor clerk
in ii 20 he could still rise to be chancellor
by 1130, D. Diego had done as well as that
or better; (4) the attributions of the other
Hymns in the Codex are plausible though
not convincing: one comes from Poitiers,
one from Vezelay, the Patriarch William
of Jerusalem was a fellow-countryman of
Dame Girberga's. There seems a fair
presumption of Aymery 's good faith, and a
probability that the date should be set in
the eleven-thirties, where for his own rea-
sons Gaston Paris put it half a century
6
ago.
The forged authentication of Innocent
II, on which, by the way, we depend for
Not
forgery but
all we know of Aymery Picaud, is the
politics:
only piece in a different handwriting: it
compare
proves on examination not so bare-faced as
Vol. III.,
p. 127
recent scholars would have you think. Of
the signatures, only two profess to be auto-
graph : one, and it is the first, that of Ay-
mery the chancellor, who says the book is
authentic and true, and sets his hand there-
to. The next signer, Gerard, Cardinal of S.
Croce, calls it precious and with his own
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
pen signs; the following five endorse the
Pope or praise the book, no more; and
lastly, Alberic, Bishop of Ostia (sometime
abbot of Vzelay) approves, as "legalem
et carissimum et per omnia laudabilem
fore." 7 The known historical dates of
the personages will fix the intended date of
this document as between 1134 and 1140,
which corresponds with all that can be
known or inferred about the state of the
building as therein described. Dr. Friedel,
a competent palaeographer, 8 has conjec-
tured that the hand in which the whole
Codex is written (he makes no allusion to
the changed script that Fr. Fita noted but
judged to be still contemporary) belongs
rather to the first than the second half of
the century. If Aymery the poor scholar
brought the kernel in 1120 when he came
with Dame Girberga and here the kernel
includes all but Book V, the account of the
journey and while he was yet chancellor
had the fair copy made, bringing the ac-
count of the church up to date, then the
original compilation would have come from
France, have been compiled in the interest
69
What
testimony
AND MONOGRAPHS
70
WAY OF S. JAMES
of the pilgrimage, would belong to the
first third of the twelfth century, and
Perhaps
good
Aymery's good faith would be safe from
faith
suspicion. Indeed the attacks upon it
have been mostly copied from book to
book without examination of evidence.
The character of Aymery is my chief con-
cern, as Turpin's Chronicle was that of Gas-
ton Paris, and M. Bedier's was the Chan-
sons de Gestes (while Dr. Friedel's I cannot
make out), for I have kept company with
him too long, and found his testimony too
good, not to owe him at least a presumption
of good faith.
These are the chapters:
The Guide
i. Of the Ways to S. James the
Apostle.
n. Of the Stages of the Way of S.
James by Pope Calixt.
in. Of the Names of Cities on the
Way of S. James.
iv. Of the Three Hospices of the
world.
v. Of the Names of those who repaired
the Way of S. James, by Aymery.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
7i
vi. Of Good and Bad Rivers which
are on the Way of S. James, by
Pope Calixt.
vii. Of the Names of the Lands and the
Sorts of People, that there be on the
Way of S. James.
vni. Of the Bodies' of the Saints that
Rest upon the Way of S. James
which are to be Visited by Pilgrims.
ix. Of the City and Church of S. James
the Apostle of Galicia by Calixt the
Pope and Aymery the Chancellor.
x. Of the Number of the Canons.
xi. Of how Pilgrims are to be Received.
Leaving the itinerary on one side for a
moment, we may consider briefly the
substance of these chapters. After telling
Evidence
over the principal stopping-places on the
of two
recensions
way, with indications what they are like,
and some repetition, as though Chapter ii
and the original of Chapter vi might
indeed have fallen into his hands as infor-
mation already prepared, the clerk pauses
and praises God for the three pillars that
sustain God's poor in the world, which are
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WAY OF S. JAMES
Hospices
and
rivers
three hospices, one at Jerusalem, one on the
Mount of Joy, 9 and, third, that of S. Cristina
in the Port of Aspe. He recites a litany of
praise: Holy spot, house of God, refresh-
ment of saints, repose of pilgrims, comfort
of the needy, health of the sick, succour of
the quick and the dead ! Next he relates the
names of those who took care of the road
from Rabanal to Puerto Mann in 1120,
which affords the probable date for his
famous pilgrimage, and adds a prayer
that their souls may have rest and peace.
The good rivers and bad he carefully
reviews. Chapter iii was simply an en-
larged and revised version of ii; in vi, on
the other hand, the earlier notes (if such
there once were) have dropped out, leaving
what corresponds to iii, that tells what
water is fit to drink and what is deadly,
naming towns not elsewhere mentioned,
like Torres and Castro de los Judios, which
preserves still a tomb dated in the year
noo: lastly a river a couple of miles from
S. James, in a woody place, which is called
Lavamentula because the pilgrims there
wash their clothes and themselves. This is
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
in Aymery's best vein, and most char-
acteristic. He concludes: "I have de-
scribed the rivers that pilgrims going to S.
James should study to avoid drinking the
deadly and be able to choose those which
are fit to drink." Then he frees his mind
about all the folk amongst whom he passed
on the journey: the Poitevins are heroes
and warriors: men of Saintonge speak a
patois but men of Bordeaux a worse:
Gascons are vain of speech, ragged, drunken,
and gluttonous. To the Basques he gives
an entire treatise, and of their language,
which sounds like the barking of dogs,
nearly a score of necessary words. Once
through Navarre and past the wood of Oca,
the traveller comes out on Castile and the
Campo, the north of the province of Val-
ladolid. This happy land he loves for its
foison of gold and silver, its stately houses
and strong horses, provision for all seasons,
bread and wine, meat and fish, milk and
honey; but yet the woods are desolate.
In the eighth chapter he deals with the
saints along the way. Now the great
saints who were travellers have always
73
Natives
AND MONOGRAPHS
74
WAY OF S.JAMES
been good to great travellers, and the pres-
ent writer owes debts not alone to S. James
To Saints
be thanks
in particular, and in general to S. Ra-
phael, S. Roque, and S. Christopher, but
also to S. Hilary for valuable information at
a critical time, and to S. Julian of the North
for harbourage in bitter cold. Therefore
of their honours not one shall be omitted:
I. To be revered by those who come
through S. Gilles : S. Trophime at Aries,
and S. Caesar, B. and M., S. Honorat
B., at the Alyscamps. also S. Gines,
[the player]. Also, all the blessed dead,
more than a thousand, in the Alyscamps.
Item, S. Giles himself, in his glorious
sanctuary, [whose shrine is described at
full length, for the imagination to figure
what were the treasures of Romanesque
art]. Four saints there are whose relics
may not in any wise be moved [and they
are all found upon this journey] to
wit, S. James, the son of Zebedee, S.
Martin of Tours, S. Leonard of Limoges.
and S. Giles. [Here also was preserved
another Parse of Fulbert's.)
II. By those who come through Tou-
louse: S. William who was a Count of
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
75
Charlemagne's: SS. Modestus and Flor-
entia, S. Saturninus.
III. For Burgundians and Germans,
coming by Le Puy, the most sacred body
is S. Faith's, V. M., at Conques.
IV. The way by S. Leonard's begins
really at S. Mary Magdalen's at Vezelay ;
thereafter S. Leonard is glorified at great
length: and S. Front at Pe"rigueux.
V. Pilgrims from Tours will revere in
Orleans the True Cross and the Shrine of
Bishop Evurcius: then S. Martin, S.
Hilary, S. John the Baptist, [who has
left his name to S. Jean d'Angely but the
Jesuits have left to his sanctuary only
one arch and a buttress to hold it up].
Saintes, next, gives occasion for the long
story of the Passion of S. Eutropius.
At Blaye lies the Blessed Roland; at
Bordeaux, S. Seurin; and in the Landes
of Bordeaux at Belin, four peers of
Charlemagne, Galdelbode of Frisia and
Otger of Dacier, Arastagne of Britain
and Garin of Lorraine.
VI. The Spanish saints we shall en-
counter m due course: S. Domingo de
la Calzada, SS. Facundus and Primitivus,
S. Isidore, and above all, S. James.
and hon-
our paid
at their
shrines
AND MONOGRAPHS
7 6
WAY OF S. JAMES
The Lord's
house at
the jour-
ney's end
So he ends with a prayer that their merits
and their intercession may avail for us, and
with a rolling Gloria, per infinita saecula
saeculorum, Amen!
The chapter which follows describes the
church as Aymery saw it: this, by great
luck for us, was before the addition of
Master Matthew's porch. These sections
are reserved for consideration with the
history of the fabric. Then the author
enumerates relics and treasures, with the
same intent as his phrases of Basque:
just as the Picard Manier copied out the
inventory and preserved his own collection
of Spanish words made for use at need.
Plainly, this sort of literature constitutes
a genre by itself, established and self-per-
petuating long before Murray was born or
Baedecker dreamed of.
The closing chapter enforces the obliga-
tions of evangelical hospitality, by a string
of miracles that punished those who re-
fused it. At Nantes a surly weaver saw
his web miraculously rent; at Villeneuve,
for a woman who denied that she had
bread, her store was turned to stone. In
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
77
the case of two Frenchmen begging their
way home, at Poitiers, close to S. Porchaire,
all the street that refused a lodging was
burned,but the firestayed at the house which
took them in. On this testimony ends Book
V: Ip sum scribenti sit gloria sitque legenti.
To the roads, then, we return:
Examina-
Chapter I. Of the Ways to S. James
tion of the
road-book
the Apostle:
There are four ways which, leading to
Santiago, come into one at Puente la
Reyna in Spain. One goes by S. Gilles,
Montpellier, Toulouse and the Port of
Aspe: another by S. Mary of Le Puy and
S. Faith of Conques and S. Peter of
Moissac: another by S. Mary Magdalen
of Vezelay and S. Leonard of Limoges
and the city of Perigueux: another by S.
Martin of Tours and S. Hilary of Poitiers
and S. John of Ange"ly and S. Eutropius
of Saintes and the City of Bordeaux.
Those by S. Faith, S. Leonard and
S. Martin join at Ostabal and passing
the Port de Cize, at Puente la Reyna
join the way that comes by the Port of
Aspe. And one way thenceforth goes
on to S. James.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WAY OF S.JAMES
Alquimia
- In
experienced
In the second chapter, that gives the
stages and the time required, Aymery re-
peats apparently what was told to him.
From the Port d'Aspe (between Pau and
Jaca) to Puente la Reyna is estimated as
three short days' journeys: from the Port
de Cize (by Roncevaux, between S. Jean
Pied-du-Port and Pampeluna) to S. James
takes thirteen days, some not long, some so
long that they must be done on horseback.
The Guide was written, of a truth, chiefly
for those who go afoot. None of my
mules or men, nor myself, of a truth, was
able to push ahead of this itinerary, yet
I am assured by one who knows that good
walkers in training can do thirty miles
a day on a long stretch, and that exceeds
considerably the estimate of Murray's Ford
for a well-used horse. From general
experience I should say the stages are all
possible, those indicated for horseback,
from Estella to Najera and thence to
Burgos, being the hardest, and the last
three coinciding exactly with the personal
recommendations of D. Angel del Castillo,
who has walked all over Galicia.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
79
The third chapter, Aymery's own, names
and discusses the towns, indicates hospices,
bridges and the like, with a memorial, for
instance, of the spot where victor's lances
burgeoned in green leaves, and a note on
the cairns at Mount joy. For these he ac-
counts by the pilgrims' custom of picking
up a piece of lime-stone at Triacastela and
carrying it to Castanola to make mortar
for the building of Santiago. He explains
that he has given these indications in order
that intending pilgrims may calculate their
expenses beforehand.
His comment on the towns will be found
generally along with the present author's
and the complete tabulation of the route,
according to the Book of S. James, among
the Appendices in the last volume. There,
that the curious reader may perceive
how little the way has changed in eight
centuries, are draughced some typical
records of the stations: first Aymery's,
that of the Chevalier de Caumont, who
went to Compostella in 1417, and one
from an English poem of about 1425:
the broadside that Columbus's son bought
AND MONOGRAPHS
Cairns
XIV, i
8o
WAY OF S.JAMES
Itineraries
in the fair of Leon for twopence in 1535,
which is entitled Le Chemin de Paris a
Sanct Jaques en Galice, dit Compostille,
et combien il y a de lieues de mile en mile.
Follows that from the Reportorio de
todos los Caminos, of Juan Villuga, Val-
encian, printed in 1547, for the assist-
ance of those who have an appetite to
travel "for all," says he, "who come
into this life are travellers" and though,
as a Spanish proverb affirms, "Quien
lengua ha, a Roma va," 10 yet delay and
fatigue are inevitable where one misses
the way even a little, and time and dis-
comfort are saved by a previous knowledge
of the certain and true road. Finally, he
indicates the pilgrimages most in repute
to the Six Angelical Houses, Monserrat,
the Pilar, Nuestra Senora la Blanco, at
Burgos (whom I do not otherwise know),
Nuestra Senora del Sagrario at Toledo,
and Her of Guadelupe, and Her of Pena de
Francia that he may profit by the users'
prayers and acquire merit through their
gratitude.
The Nouvelle Guide of French Pilgrims
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
81
of 1583, reprinted by the Baron Bonnault
d'Houet, adds little even to the fantastic
disguises that place-names take for an
alien ear. The route of the Picard pilgrim
Manier of Noyon, who made the journey
in 1726, comes next in order: he, like the
fantastical Pclegrino curioso in the seven-
teenth century, offers entertainment by
the way and figures in the chapters which
follow: an Itinerary of Spain dated at
Alcala, 1798, completes the series. The
reader will see, having perused this volume
as well, how little the journeys varied: how
Estella, praised for bread and wine and
all manner of good victuals in the twelfth
century, still stirs regretful longings today;
and how the eels of the Mino that were
lauded by the Licentiate Luis de Molina
at Puerto Marin, were served in a noble
pasty to the traveller who now testifies.
The road never changes. The English route
from Pure has his Pilgrims is found in an
early fifteenth century poem wh'ch Purchas
took out of a MS. of Sir Robert Cotton's: it
is most vile doggerel and contains seventeen
hundred and fifty-four lines. It is headed:
and
itinerants
Purchas
his
Pilgrims
AND MONOGRAPHS
82
WAY OF S.JAMES
Here beginneth the way that is
marked and made with Mountjoies from
the Land of England into Sent James in
Galis, and from thence to Rome, and
from thence to Jerusalem, and so again
into England ; and the names of all the
cities by their way, and names of their
silver that they use by all these ways. 11
The account is excessively confused in
places, but I have thought well to reprint
and discuss the itinerary because it shows
already in circulation the travellers' tales
of a cleft in the mountain out of which
come grievous cry ings and groanings.
In Chansons des Pelerins de S. Jacques,
which was reprinted by the Abbe Camille
Pilgrims'
Daux from sources which are none of them
Songs
earlier, I believe, than broadsides printed
at Toulouse in 1615, Valenciennes 1616,
and Troyes in 1718 (permitted, there,
because already of great age) the data
are probably much older than the form.
Here you find, at the Mont-Etuves, in
Asturias, the same terror, with cruel cold;
and a Pont qui Tremble, before which the
pilgrims said, one to another, "Comrade,
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
83
you go first." The songs, while they go
to different airs, are much alike in substance
and in tone; plaintive, interminable, strung
and
out with the itinerary of the journey,
Canticle
wailing on like the endless litanies that
of Lourdes
children's shrill voices sing on hot summer
evenings, or like the Canticle of Lourdes
with its sixty odd verses:
Parmi les monts et praieries
Nous chantions la Litanie,
Ou quelque bonne chanson ;
Et racontions a 1'envie
Ce que nous scavions de bon.
This was in the seventeenth century: al-
ready since the fifteenth the old rough
ways by Pyrenean passes were commonly
disused, that by the Port of Aspe and that
by the Valley of Roncevaux; and replaced
by the coast road which runs by Bayonne,
Irun, Vitoria, and then, through the defile
of Pancorbo, turns aside in the mountains
of Oca and comes out at Burgos. A great
devour which they include is that to S.
Salvador of Oviedo, one much recom-
mended. A Spanish proverb says that to
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
8 4
WAY OF S. JAMES
The
Bridge of
Dread
visit S. James and omit S. Saviour is to
call on the servant and neglect the master.
It is here, in the mountains of Asturias
and on the Cantabrian shore, that they
place the more than half legendary Mont-
Etuves and Pont qui Tremble. The latter
Manier describes in his practical Picard
literality: it is the name given to a sort of
ferry where at one point the road crosses
an estuary, and pilgrims and animals are
conveyed together in what the railways
call a "barge," big enough to take fifty
at a time. The spray and the noise of the
waves are alarming, hence by reason of
the danger you are in (he explains) it is
called Pont qui Tremble.
Of this route from Oviedo to Compostella
Sr. Villa-amil ' 2 says that the old highway
between Villalba and Oviedo is still in good
repair up to within four kilometres of
Mondonedo. Also, ten kilometres to the
south was an albergaria which was al-
ready old in 1257. Beyond Mondonedo
it continued by Villanueva de Lorenzana
(formerly Villa de Ponte) : for this he cites
the record of gifts and sales, one of 1578
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
and the other 1571, which mentions by
name the Camino francos where runs the
modern road to Foz and Ribadeo. The
Franciscan monastery of S. Martin de
Villarente or de los Picas was in the
fourteenth century a place to which came
many pilgrims and romeros of those who
go to the Apostle S. James. From Mon-
donedo it goes by Goila'n to the parish
church of S. Maria de Vian, at which forks
the old road from Mondonedo to Castro-
verde and Lugo. Beside S. Mary of the
Crossways, here, was the much frequented
chapel of the Trinity, and here, not long
ago, was found a gold piece of Matthias
Corvinus, lost by some pilgrim. From the
first, thinks Sr. Villa-amil, the old Way ran
to the north of Lugo, leaving what is now
the province of Lugo by the Bridge of
Garcia Rodriguez and by Puentedeume.
Alfonso IX and S. Ferdinand often trav-
elled on it. Only a few years before his
writing (in 1878) there was not a road in
the region, between the Madrid-Corunna
highway and the coast, except those used by
pilgrims first and now by Maragatos.
Our Lady
of the
Crossways
AND MONOGRAPHS
86
WAY OF S. JAMES
There are traces, also, of another road
that came in perhaps from the south,
passed through Incio and reached Puerto
Marin. Dozy 13 quotes a gloss from the
Southerly
route from
Poem of the Cid that runs a line through
Zamora
Benavente: and L6pez Ferreiro publishes
an itinerary 14 that comes up by Verin,
Allariz, Orense, Lalin and so to Santiago
by the coach-road.
The question of the Roman roads can-
not here be ignored, though it is more
difficult than would appear to the classical
scholar. Such roads exist still in Spain,
long stretches of them in places. With
sudden picturesqueness Quadrado, writing
of Roman remains in the Vierzo, calls up
one as he has seen it:
Two and a half miles from Bergido,
he says, on the military road that went
to Lugo, in the skirts of a mountain,
there survives an arch, and remains of
buildings mark the site of an ancient
village close to the junction of the
Cabrera and the Sil, near the Bridge of
Domingo Florez; but the Roman power
is chiefly shown in the remains of the
. I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
magnificent "street" [calzada] that may
still be followed by the eye from afar,
across the scrub, like the silvery wake of
a ship on the broad sea. IS
There is, of course, the A ntonine Itiner-
ary, but until lately that has remained for
most of Europe in the hands of mere
schoolmen, creatures of pen and paper.
The various authorities cited in the old
edition, disagree rather fantastically about
the actual places represented by the Roman
names. It means very little to a German
scholar that Interamnio Flavio may be
Bembibre or may be Ponferrada, that
Aquis Originis may be Chaves or may be
Bafios de Bande, that Brigantium may be
Betanzos or may be Ferrol, but if a man
would look out the places on a large-scale
map to draw lines between them, he might
be annoyed by the divergent possibilities.
It would matter a good deal to an engineer
trying to survey, or to a traveller wanting
somewhere to sleep and to put up his
tired horse. When after Ad Duos Pontes,
possibly Pontevedra, the next station,
Grandimiro, is offered alternatively as
Imperial
Itineraries
AND MONOGRAPHS
88
WAY OF S.JAMES
Road-
mapping in
the study
Camarinas on the Atlantic seaboard, or
Mondonedo in the Cantabrian hills, even
the purblind pedant might be shocked into
a query, and into some faint recognition
that the two towns are in opposite quarters
of the ancient kingdom of Galicia. 1 6
Hitherto, then, the scholars have not
shown up well beside the poets of the
Chansons de Gestes or even the homely
pilgrims and those who wrote down their
stages for them. In 1892, however, Sr.
D. Antonio Blasquez published a Nuevo
Estudio sobre el Itinerario de Antonino, 17
which is plausible and recognizes the
geography of the peninsula. Suffice it to
note here that he identifies Lacobriga
with Carrion de los Condes, and Interam-
nio Flavio with Onamiol (a village too
small to figure on Stieler's map); puts
Roboretum in the Sierra de Roboredo,
and sets down Brevis for Mellid. The one
conviction that the mere student formed
over the dusty book is not altered by this
article, viz., a certainty that the Pilgrim
road in Spaing unlike that to Canterbury,
was not built on Roman foundations, except
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
89
in a few great segments, from Sahagiin
past Leon to Astorga, for sure, and through
the pass of Roncevaux to Pampeluna
probably, and perhaps a bit through the
mountains of Oca, toward Najera and
eastward.
The immense work of Konrad Miller,
Itineraria Romano, which represents the
labour of more than thirty years, and met
long and anxious expectation at last in
1916, is not so satisfactory to consult as
the cosmopolitan spirit could wish. Be-
sides the crabbed and arid style, besides
the tiresome affectations of German pedan-
try, which irritate and arrest the reader at
every step, the plentiful lack of punctua-
tion, the abuse of abbreviations and super-
abundance of conventional symbols, the
contraction into unintelligibility of every
word likely to recur often, so that the effect
of the whole is as illegible and unprofitable
as that of an undergraduate's notes, the
author has had the happy thought of put-
ting the names of Spanish towns, and indeed
all modern place-names, on all the maps, in
a German form and in German script.
A
German's
vagaries
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S. JAMES
Three
Ways
The traveller today has three different
lines to trace, the Roman "street," the
Camino francos, and the King's highway,
the modern and admirable Camino real.
They cross and part, coincide and diverge,
in ways impossible to predict and not
always explicable on the map. But on
the spot all is plain: where the new road
was built longer to run easier, or was turned
aside to a new town, or wanted to tap the
railway line. In a few places the old way
is quite disused, in most it still persists
as a short cut, sometimes foot-path, usually
possible to the small-footed silken-skinned
mules. At times it is a mere track across
somebody's meadow, cut off by gates at
either end; at times it is only a conjectural
one among half a dozen trails that cross
a moor. Some one, however, is always
travelling on it: women who sit sideways
as Queen Elizabeth rode, men who trot
hard with long stirrup-leathers, like Don
Quixote. Some one is always to be met,
to give a direction or to pass a question on.
The ways fill up with tiny moving figures
on the days of cattle fair, or of the monthly
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
91
feria conceded by some dead king seven
centuries or more ago. You have but to
narrow your lids, and watch the pilgrims
moving easily, not too slow, as they have
always moved.
The pilgrims set out from home at night-
fall, "circa noctis crepuscula . . . pere-
grinantium more": that made the first
Twilight
stage an easy one, and besides the practical,
leave-
there may have been a symbolic reason.
taking
The Grande Chanson says:
Quand nous partimes
Pour aller a S. Jacques,
Pour faire penitence,
Confesses avons nos peches.
Avant que de partir de France,
De nos cures, primes licence,
Avant de sortir du lieu
Nous ont donne pour penitence,
Un chape let pour prier Dieu.
Prions Jesus-Christ par sa grace.
Que nous puissions voir face a face
La Vierge et Sainct-Jacques le Grand.
Conformably, in earlier centuries, either
before they set out, or at a monastery the
first night, the pilgrims confessed, made
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
9 2
WAY OF S. JAMES
their wills, deposited their valuables and
riiftc o *
received, apparently as a gift from the
V.T1I IS d.[
parting
monastery, staff and scrip, blessed by the
abbot. The rich abbey of La Grande
Sauve, in Gascony, used to give a horse or a
donkey. They had also to carry credentials
of some sort from home: in 1671 Louis XIV
required that the bishop should recommend
the pilgrim and that the passport should be
signed and countersigned by the king and
a secretary of State. At Santiago the pil-
grims confessed again, and communicated,
and got other papers, for which they had
to pay. For the return journey they set
out in the morning, and some went then
to Oviedo, some to the great southern
shrines, some to Monserrat. Many, like
the young Manier, pushed on to Rome,
before they saw home again.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
93
V
ROMEROS EN ROMERIA
Encore le voient li p&lerin assez
Qui a S. Jacque ont le chemin tourne.
Guillaume au Court Nez.
IN a decree of a Spanish council, dated
676, cited by the Abbe Pardiac, certain
limits are defined as follows: "one bound-
ary runs to Futa and Alarzon, by the
road which goes to S. James." The value
of this reference would depend partly on
the authenticity of the act, partly on the
question what church of S. James might be
intended. It seems not likely to have
been that at Iria. Compostella was still
in its original estate of a field under the
stars "qua beati Jacobi corpus tune tem-
poris latebat incognitum." Granting that
the pilgrimage to S. James commenced
only in the ninth century, yet there were
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
94
WAY OF S. JAMES
Gdndara,
Cisne
Occidental,
11,258
pilgrims a plenty in Spain by the seventh
and places famed for their resort. The
Deacon Paul of Merida refers to many in
the sixth century, and in 629, S. Fructuo-
sus wrote, when founding the monastery
of S. Martin de Sande: "Vobis fratribus
nostris . . . concedimus reditus de Lusisi-
no, in elemosinas et sustentationem hos-
pitum et peregrinorum." The habit of
pilgrimage in a sense is innate; in another
sense, possibly it came out of the East,
like so many folk-tales, to the troubled
Europe of the early Middle Age. S. John
Chrysostom says: "Qualem mercedem
habet qui propter Deum peregrinatur,
talem habet, qui suscepit peregrinantem;
et fiunt ambo equales." The Council of
Rheims in 625 decrees: "quicumque pere-
grinari volunt illam (Eucharistiam) da
viaticum suscipiant." In short, pilgrimage
was common to all Europe: three special
pilgrimages outgrew the others that of
Jerusalem, that of Rome, and that of Com-
postella. English readers will recall how
similarly, among those to Walsingham, x
Glastonbury, and a thousand wells, caves
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
95
and isles, that of Canterbury outstripped
the rest by far. Chaucer, who sent his
Knight on the Way of S. James, like Raoul
de Cambrai and many another, put his
"Whanne
that
finger on the motive in a passage so fragrant
Aprile ..."
of the mounting sap, so musical with the
returning birds, that it breathes still as
fresh as April airs:
Then longen folk to gon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge
strondes
To ferve halwes couthe in sondry londes.
The precise date fixed by a Pastoral of
the Archbishop of Santiago, in 1898, for
the Invention of the Relics, is 813. "Char-
lemagne," says the Gallegan version of
Turpin's Chronicle, 2 "went on a pil-
grimage to the Monument of S. James, and
thence to Padron. And he flung his lance
into the sea " at Finisterre Paul the
Deacon has the same story of a Lom-
bard Duke at Reggio,- 5 "and said that
thence man could not further go. And
the Gallegans, that were all turned to
belief in God by the preaching of S. James
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
9 6
WAY OF S. JAMES
The
plough-
land tax
and his two disciples, and that had turned
afte wards to the sect of the Moors, were
baptized by the hands of Archbishop Tur-
pin: and those who would not be baptized
he put to the sword, or into the power of
the christened. And this time the king
conquered Spain from sea to sea," a
profitable pilgrimage, not to be matched
in times less fabulous.
In recognition of the victory of Clavijo,
Ramiro gave, in 872, to Compostella, for
every measure of land recovered from the
Moors, a measure of wheat and a measure
of wine. In 1102, every yoke of oxen from
Rio Pisuergo to the sea, paid a tax to S.
James. I do not know how much this
tax is still enforced. It was abolished in
the great years of reform, in 1812 and
again in 1835; but I have seen, at the
feast of the Apostle, the King of Spain or
his representative, offering treasure still
before the altar, in a church thronged with
pilgrims, among whom he moved as one
Spaniard among others.
It is hard to know precisely when, out of
ail the tangled pilgrimages, that to S. Mil-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
Ian for instance and that to the San-
tos Domnos at Sahagun, the journey to
S. James attained a separate and higher
importance. The early donations of Rami-
ros and Ordonos to S. Facundo, to ensure
the care of pilgrims, mean probably pilgrims
that did not pass beyond. But Abbot
Julian of Sahagun established, later, a hos-
pice in his monastery purely for pilgrims of
Santiago. Italians, and in particular Lom-
bards, were protected during pilgrimages
by a Capitulary of King Pepin, dated 782;
" De advenis et peregrinis qui in Dei servitio
Roma vel per alia sanctorum festinant
corpora, ut salvi vadant et revertantur sub
nostra defencione." This, again, is general.
Alfonso III gave to the church of Orense, in
886, a donation for the receipt of pilgrims.
The earliest reference unambiguous and
authentic, that I know, to Santiago, is a
casual one of Dozy's. 4 Abderraman II
sent Al-Ghazal on an embassy to the King
of the Normans not long after 844 and on
his way home the Arab poet and diplomat
turned aside to visit S. James, in company
with the Norman ambassador, and fur-
97
Royal
protection
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
Arab
testimc
nished with a letter from the king to the
lord of the land. He stayed there two
months, very well treated, until the
pilgrim season was over. Dozy has not
apparently understood this, for he ren-
ders "jusqu' a la fin de leur pelerinage,"
but it can only mean the other. He then
went back into Castile with returning pil-
grims, thence to Toledo, and finally reached
home after an absence of twenty months.
It is recorded that as early as 893 Pope
Formosus made the pilgrimage to Santiago
and also visited S. Julian of Brioude. By
the end of the century it is not uncommon.
Alfonso III the Great (866-910) came
with all his family. In the early tenth
century S. Genadius came: he that founded
S. Pedro de Montes, and was plucked
from his wilderness to administer the see
of Astorga, and when he had done his day's
work, fled back to the mountain again.
Almaccari says that in the tenth century, to
Compostella and Iria, came in pilgrimage
Christians from Egypt and Nubia. 5 About
that time, in 951, Godescalcus, Bishop of
Le Puy, left his diocese to go and implore
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
afar the suffrage of S. James, and stopped
going and coming at the Monastery of
Albelda, where he had copied out in French
S. Isidore's treatise on the Perfect Virginity
of Mary. 6 In 961 Raymond II, Count of
Rouergue, was killed on the road to Com-
postella, as is written in the Book of the
Miracles of S. Faith. S. Abbon, Abbot
(988-1000) of Fleury, S. Benoit-sur-Loire,
raised an altar to S. James. In his convent,
immediately after his death (in 1005)
was written the Great Legend of S. James,
possibly by the monk Aymoin, his friend
and pupil. It is more than likely that he
had made the journey, since there is no
record of relics acquired which would
explain otherwise the especial devotion to
that Apostle. The cities which claimed to
possess relics are: Toulouse, Arras, Liege,
Venice, Pistoja and Burgos.
By the eleventh century a great move-
ment was well begun. In the first half of
it, S. William of Vercelli, at the age of
fourteen, walked barefoot in his shirt to
Santiago, S. Simeon the hermit, also; and
S. Theobald quitted his home and with a
99
French
devotion
AND MONOGRAPHS
IOO
WAY OF S. JAMES
Road-
menders
single fellow made the pilgrimage unshod.
Under Ferdinand I (1033-1065), says
Morales, 7 the pilgrimage was quite estab-
lished, and miracles were happening all
along the road. Don Sancho el Mayor,
says the Silense, built roads for the pil-
grims going to Santiago, in 1032, and opened
a road in 1035 from the top of the Pyrenees
to Najera: 8 and Alfonso VI, says Pelagic,
in the Chronicle of the Kings of Leon, "stud-
uit f acere omnes pontes qui sunt a Lucronio
usque ad Sanctum Jacobum." 9
Building of bridges and mending of
ways were good enough work, in the Middle
Age, for the best of men. More than one
saint broke stone on the roads. To this
day the peones camineros, in Spain, are
heritors of that great and noble labour;
they are housed like soldiers; they wear a
uniform and carry a number, like police;
they work well, and look you in the eye,
and will do you a kindness; they are in
Government employment, unabashed. A
Lombard Capitulary of 803 recalls to the
clergy their duty in building and keeping
up bridges, which is their peculiar work
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
"per justam et antiquam consuetudinem."
Eudes III, Count of Touraine, in 1030
built a bridge over the Loire that led to
the Tomb of S. Martin. In 1164 S. Benet
the Less, S. Benezet, 10 founded the
order of Hospitaliers Pontifcs, and his own
little cell and shrine still stands on the
ruined bridge over the Rhone, where they
no longer dance "sur le pont d'Avignon."
There were also Hospitaliers dc S. Jacques
du Haul Pas, who must have lent their
name to a church and street in Paris and
who received a legacy in 1360, 1 1 and others,
Hospitaliers of Lucca, in Italy, whose busi-
ness was with bridges. Peter the Pilgrim,
on the fifth of October, 1126, received a
privilege from Alfonso VII to keep him
while rebuilding the bridge over the Mino
with the help of God and good souls. ' 2 We
have from Aymery the list of those who at
one time consecrated themselves to work-
ing on the road of Santiago between
Rabanal and Puerto Marin: Andrew,
Robert, Alvito, Fortis, Arnald, Stephen, and
Peter the last is Peter called the Pilgrim. x 3
S. Domingo de la Calzada got his name from
101
S. Benet
the Less
AND MONOGRAPHS
IO2
WAY OF S. JAMES
Order of
Santiago
Rule of
S. Loy
who shod
the super-
natural
horse
the work he did, and after his death S. Juan
de Ortega carried it on, and ended in a chapel
on a mountain pass, watching the ways.
The order of Santiago was founded in
1172 and confirmed by a Bull of Alexan-
der III in 1175, but it grew out of earlier
use. The prior and canons of Loyo had,
near Leon, on the Camino frances, a hos-
pital called S. Marcos for the pilgrims of
S. James. Always a canon of Loyo was in
residence, to administer the hospital and
give alms to pilgrims that passed by there.
In time the institution declined and on
petition was reformed, and again declined
and they tried a prior and canons from
Uccles. The original donation, with bridge
and a good endowment, was made to
the Bishop and Chapter of Leon by Dona
Cristina Lainez and provided for a hospice
and church for pilgrims. The convent was
further enriched by the body of the founder
and the first master of the order of Santiago,
D. Pedro Fernandez, in 1 184. The epitaph
reads:
Mens pia, larga manus, os prudens, hace
tria clarum,
THE PILGRIMAGE
103
Fecerunt Caelo, et mundo te Petre Fer-
nandi.
Militiae Jacobi stitor Rectorque fuisti.
So Militia
Dei
Sie te pro mentis ditavit gratia
Christi. 14
Like the other Spanish military orders,
this one fast outgrew its original intentions.
Lastly, Ferdinand of Aragon took to him-
self the Grand Mastership of this along
with the other orders, and today it serves
merely to lengthen the list of honours of
rich gentlemen in Madrid and to dress out
plump and handsome canons of Compos-
tella in white, red-crossed, on feast-days.
Nearly half a century earlier, Alfonso
VI (1073), in taking possession of Leon and
A King's
Castile, said that, in order to do a good
benefac-
thing for his subjects and for other people,
tion
not only of Spain but of Germany, France
and Italy, who by motive of religion were
journeying to Santiago, he would suppress
the tolls at Valcarcel:
In the port of Monte Valcarcel
there was a castle where all passers by
paid toll, called S. Maria de Auctares,
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I
IO4
WAY OF S.JAMES
and this supplied an occasion to molest
and rob travellers, which had been the
custom from the reign of his predeces-
sors, whence resulted grave grievances
for all who passed by that port, such,
[said D. Alonso] that they cried to
heaven , and in especial the pilgrims who
went to Santiago, who were never heard
in the Kingdom of Leon without male-
dictions and indignation against this in-
tolerable custom. He abolished the toll
forever, that all, of whatsoever condition,
could pass freely and without annoyance
or inquietude, in such wise that this road
to Santiago should be entirely free to
pilgrims and even to those who carried
merchandise, or went on any other busi-
ness whatsoever. 1 5
He makes the offering by the hands of
D. Pelayo, Bishop of Leon, to the honour and
A Gallegan
bishop
glory of God and the Virgin Mary and the
Apostle S. James, "In cujus ditione terra
vel regimen eonsistit totius Hispaniae." Is
it worth noticing that Bishop Pelayo was
born and bred in Galicia? There were
changes with changing times, belike, and
some give and take, for in 1094 Bishop
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
105
Pedro leaves to Leon money for altar lights,
and four pounds of incense for the altar of
S. John Baptist, charged upon the revenues
that the see had in Aguilar, in the bridge
of Ardon, in Villela and in the church which
was on the Camino francos. 1 6
The Council of Palencia, in 1129, pro-
tected by identical penalties clerks, monks,
travellers, merchants, women, and pilgrims
all persons going peacefully and un-
protected about their business. The Fuero
of Daroca, 1142, grants a year's delay of
any partition in which a pilgrim might be
involved: "si in peregrinatione fuerit per
annum expectatur"; and another law
secures their goods: "bona peregrinorum
non poseunt capi pro reprisaliis." The old
use by which what a pilgrim had upon
him fell to the town he might die in, was
altered by the Siele Parlidas, which charged
the bishop with searching out his heirs.
The Siele Partidas are full of provisions for
pilgrims against money-changers and inn-
keepers, mayors of towns and lords of
lands, robbers, and wars. The Church at
the Council of Valladolid, in 1322, orders
Ftteros and
Siete
Parlidas
AND MONOGRAPHS
io6
WAY OF S.JAMES
Canons
and
Constitu-
tions
rector and parish priests to receive chari-
tably the poor religious and the pilgrims,
and where there are special houses provided
for that use, to make sure that they are
prepared conveniently to fulfill the hos-
pitality for which they were designed.
One other enviable privilege should not be
overlooked: the Constitutions of the Uni-
versity of Salamanca, in 1422, declare that
a lawful cause for which a professor may
be excused from reading (i. e. giving his
courses), is that of "peregrinationis ad
limina Sancti Jacobi."
Ferdinand I, Alfonso VI and the Cid all
went on that road. Of the first, the
Chronicler of Silos says, "he loved the poor
pilgrims, and took great care to harbour
them." An old painting of the Cid in
Burgos showed him with the cockle-shell
at his girdle. Murguia affirms 17 that the
Archives of Santiago possess, unpublished
and even to scholars unknown, a circum-
stantial account of the journey made by
Pope Calixtus II to Spain in order to
visit the body of the saint. This visit
has been denied by scholars hitherto.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
In the second third of the twelfth century
the Maestrescuela of Compostella, Ramiro,
writing to his friend S. Aton, Bishop of
Pistoja, begs him to reply promptly, send-
ing either by the Easter pilgrims, or else by
those of the Ascension. These scraps of
old letters will convey, perhaps, more than
any studied episode, the sense of the magni-
tude of the pilgrimage. The Roman priest
who was a Cardinal of Santiago, Deusdedit,
writes the same recommendation in the
matter of a chasuble: it will be sent best
by the Easter pilgrims.
When AH-ben-Yussuf, the Almoravide,
sent an embassy to Dona Urraca about
1 121, the ambassadors were amazed at the
throngs of pilgrims who choked the road.
They asked the subaltern detailed to escort
and assist them, the Centurion Peter, as
the Latin Chronicle calls him: "Who is
this the Christians so revered, for whom so
great a multitude comes and goes, from this
side and the other of the Pyrenees, so that
the road is scarcely cleared for us? " And
Peter answered with a fine gesture: "He
who deserves such reverence is S. James,
107
Ramiro the
Maestre-
scuela
Peter the
Centurion
AND MONOGRAPHS
io8
WAY OF S. JAMES
Quercy to
Brag a
The Lion-
hearted
whose body there is buried, revered as pa-
tron and protector by Gaul and England,
the Latin and the German land and all
Christian parts."
Toward the end of the eleventh century
a noble of Quercy, who was a Benedictine
monk in the abbey of Moissac, was fetched
by Archbishop Bernard to Toledo, made
chantre and then Archbishop of Braga,
still, at that date, metropolitan of Santiago,
finally martyred in 1109. He constitutes
another tie between Santiago and Langue-
doc, if such were needed. William V of
Aquitaine made every year the pilgrimage
to Rome and to Compostella. It is said
in the Chronicle of Normandy that the
horse which William the Bastard rode at
Hastings had been brought to him from
Spain by a knight, a pilgrim of Santiago.
Matilda the Empress, the daughter of
Henry I of England, visited the shrine in
1125 and took back to England with her
S. James's hand. Richard I the Lion-
hearted, in 1178 pushed an expedition 18
into the Port of Cize to punish the rustics
who violated travellers and pilgrims. The
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
109
city of La Reole, where pilgrims crossed
the Garonne, was an especial residence of
his: it had an hospital and a street of
S. James. To S. James was dedicated the
principal church of Bergerac. Bordeaux
has a rue S. James, existent since 1152:
it is the sole vestige in Bordeaux of English
dominion in Aquitaine.
The father of Eleanore of Guienne, Wil-
liam X of Aquitaine, being converted by
S. Bernard at Parthenay in 1133, founded
outside Bordeaux, in the Clos-Moron (now
rue du Mirail) the Hospital of S. James for
pilgrims. The chapel stands yet. He went
on the pilgrimage in Lent of 1137, expired
while the Passion was sung, and was buried
before the altar. . According to other ac-
counts this funeral was a pious sham; he
went to Rome and Jerusalem and ended
as a hermit on Mount Lebanon twenty
years after. Murguia publishes a rather
lovely Gallegan romance, taken down from
the lips of the living, which seems to refer
to the blessed death of this William be-
fore the altar. The old man, who has not
strength to finish the journey, whose feet
AND MONOGRAPHS
Rue
S. James
William of
Aquitaine
no
WAY OF S.JAMES
Frisians
are bleeding, whose beard is so long and so
white, whose eyes are so soft, so veiled,
so like a lion's, green as sea water, he
meets a soldier on the road. The soldier
is of course the great S. James, who cheers
him and assists him, and brings him at
last where he would be. r 9 In the Cartulary
of S. Pere de Chartres is recorded a gift in
the middle of the twelfth century, "dono
patris sui qui in itinere sancti Jacobi de-
functus extulit." Hugues IV, Duke of
Burgundy, had just ended the pilgrimage
when he died in 1272. In 1217 some
Frisians, a people always very devoted to
S. James, who were bound on the Crusade
in three hundred ships, touched at Lisbon
and on the petition of bishops, Templars
and Knights of S. John, they besieged the
citadel of Alkacer, and encountered four
Saracen kings and a hundred thousand
fighting-men. By adverse winds they were
forced to put in to Corunna, and almost all
struck out for Santiago on foot; as the ships
were held there nine days before the wind
changed, they had time enough for what the
Dutch historian calls "their superstition."
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
in
Louis IX had as great devotion Join-
ville, I think it is, reports to Monseigneur
S. Jacques as to Madame S. Genevieve,
Collect of
S. James
and when dying said over his prayer Eslo
Domine: "Keep, Lord, Thy people, and
sanctify them, that fortified by the help of
Thy Apostle S. James, they may please
Thee in their works and serve Thee with a
quiet heart. Amen." Louis VII of France,
who had married Constance, the daughter
of Alfonso VIII, had made the pilgrimage
in 1157, after he had been on a crusade and
to the shrine of Notre Dame du Puy. Luke
of Tuy makes the story another of the
Miracles of S. James, splendid like a reli-
quary with coloured gems and bossy with
wrought gold. In brief, it stands thus:
Louis, King of France, thinking his
wife Elizabeth [she is usually called Con-
stance] a concubine's child, and her
father Alonso [Alfonso VII the Emperor]
a man of no moment in any but his own
estimation, denies her his bed. So on
pretext of a pilgrimage to S. James he
comes to Spain, and D. Alonso meets him
with the King of Navarre, and the Count
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
112
WAY OF S.JAMES
Vindica-
tion of a
French
Queen
of Barcelona, and so great a train that
King Louis and his Franks marvelled,
and they all go to Santiago and thence
through Spanish cities to Toledo. There
the kings of the Barbarians and princes
of the Christians kiss his hand, till Louis
cries: "By God I swear there is no
glory like this in all the world"; and the
tents and the plays were past numbering,
and they all offered gifts, gold, silver,
precious stones, silk, vestments, and
horses, to King Louis, him and his, so
that the very number wore them out.
Then Alonso says that Elizabeth is the
daughter of his empress Berenguela, the
daughter of Raymond of Barcelona there
present, and he comes up, glorious in
apparel, and remarks that it were well to
honour and reverence her, for otherwise
the Catalans are marching on Paris.
Louis thanks God and is content: nor
will he take any other gift but a great
emerald which King Zaf adola had given
to King Alonso and so he went home
joyfully and gave the emerald to S.
Denis, and loved his wife Elizabeth very
tenderly and honoured her in every
possible way. 20
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
Ferdinand III, Ferdinand IV and John
of Brienne, King of Jerusalem and later
Emperor of Constantinople, went to the
shrine of S. Martin in preparation for that
of S. James: at the same time, in Tours
were the Archbishop of Nineveh and
various bishops of Little Armenia coming
back from Compostella. These are they
who brought into Europe the notion of the
Wandering Jew. 2 * The Blessed Raymond
Lull visited Rocamadour and Compostella.
S. Francis is said to have come with some
companions, including Brother Bernard, in
1214. I can find no sound evidence that
he, or S., Dominic either though the
latter was a Spaniard ever set foot in
Santiago. Guido Cavalcanti set out, but on
account of the Lady Mandetta in Toulouse
he never finished the journey. Sordello, how-
ever, is said to have gone thither, and the
trobador Romieu de Villeneuve, that Dante
met in Paradise, where he saw the lights
shining in the shining pearl, who lived at
the court of Count Raymond Berengar of
Toulouse for a while and being falsely ac-
cused, wandered away again:
The
Wandering
Jew
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S. JAMES
Romieu de
Villeneuve
There came to his [Raymond Beren-
gar's] court a certain Romeo, who was
returning from S. James's, and hearing
the goodness of Count Raymond abode
in his court, and was so wise and valor-
ous, and came so much into favour with
the Count, that he made him master and
steward of all that he had. . . . Four
daughters had the Count and no male
child. By prudence and care the good
Romeo first married the eldest for him
to the good King Louis of France by
giving money with her, saying to the
Count, 'Leave it to me, and do not
grudge the cost, for if thou marriest the
first well thou wilt marry all the others
the better for the sake of her kinship
and at less cost.' And so it came to pass;
for straightway the King of England,
to be of Icin to the King of France, took
the second with little money; afterwards
his carnal brother, being the king elect
of the Romans, after the same manner
took the third; the fourth being still to
marry the good Romeo said: 'For this
one I desire that thou shouldst have a
brave man for thy son, who may be
thine heir,' and so he did. Finding
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
"5
Charles, Count of Anjou, brother of
King Louis of France, he said, 'Give her
to him for he is like to be the best man
falsely
in the world,' prophesying of him: and
accused
this was done. And it came to pass
afterwards through envy, which destroys
all good, that the barons of Provence
accused the good Romeo that he had
managed the Count's treasure ill, and
they called upon him to give an account.
The worthy Romeo said, 'Count, I have
served thee long while, and raised thy
estate from small to great, and for this,
through the false counsel of thy people,
thou art little grateful: I came to thy
court a poor pilgrim, and I have lived
virtuously here; give me back my mule,
my staff, and my scrip, as I came here,
and I renounce thy service.' The
Count would not that he should depart;
but, for nought that he could do would
he remain; and, as he came so he de-
, parted, and no one knew whence he
came or whither he went. But many
held that he was a sainted soul. 22
In 1253 the Friar Minor William Rubro-
ques met in the depths of Tartary a Nes-
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WAY OF S. JAMES
The Greek
Bishop
The cost
of war
torian Monk who spoke of setting out for
S. James of Galicia. Under Ferdinand the
Great a Greek Bishop named Stephen was
so happy when he came at last to the
Apostle's shrine, that he gave up home and
see and stayed there till he died. The
ends of Europe were drawn together.
There in 1254 was the wronged Christina
of Norway, the daughter of Haakon IV,
who though she married the pi ince D. Philip,
yet breathed away like a snow wreath
and died untimely. Thither also went S.
Bridget of Sweden, S. Elizabeth of Portugal,
Raymond VII of Toulouse in 1246, and
Henry II of Trastamara, the bastard who
killed his brother.
Studying the influx from abroad, Sr.
Villa-amil unearthed a curious item bear-
ing on the cost of war and who pays it. In
an agreement drawn up in 1345 between
the Dean and Chapter of Lugo, on the one
hand, and a canon called Juan Diaz on
the other, about the rent of an altar in the
cathedral church, for the sum of 700
maravedis, payable at Lady-Day; it is
expressly stipulated that if the King of
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
117
France and the King of England go to
war this year between Candlemas and
May Day, there shall be deducted from
the rent an hundred maravedis.
Many churches are dedicated to the
saint of wayfarers in Flanders and Picardy,
especially in the neighbourhood of Havre,
Dieppe and Compiegne. By a curious
coincidence, while the two former towns
are sea-faring places, the last grew into a
great nucleus of railways. Frisia dedi-
cated the gates of cities.
Slavonians had a special devotion to
the pilgrimage: after three trips, a man
might live exempt from taxation . They gave
their name, in Spanish and English alike,
to the long, waterproof pilgrim's coat, the
slaveyn. Ojea recorded, in 1600, that they
came the end of April, so as to be at the
sanctuary on May Day, and immediately
reported to the superior clergy and ob-
tained certificates from them. The third
year they put garlands on their heads
and went in solemn procession that
day, in sign that they had fulfilled
their devotion and the requirements of
Traveller's
towns
. Their
hats were
of the
brake . .
AND MONOGRAPHS
n8
WAY OF S.JAMES
Sir Walter
Manny's
end
the law, in order to enjoy its exemptions
thereafter. 2 3
In the fourteenth century the practice
was at its height. Froissart tells how Sir
Walter Manny was evilly killed as he came
home from S. James. 2 4 It is known that
in 1361 Messire Jehan de Chartres and
Pierre de Montferrand, going on the pil-
grimage, took three jongleurs with them:
and an English minstrel named Walter was
in Compostella about this time. 2 s It had
become an element in politics. For instance,
on the fourth of September, 1316, a contract
between Robert and the cities of Flanders,
and Philip, Regent of France, stipulated
that " If Count Robert can. he shall go over
sea with him who shall be King of France,
when he shall go. He will go, and his
sons, in one year or two (unless his father
or he be ill), once or more to S. James in
Galicia, to Noire Dame de Roche-Mador,
to Notre Dame de Vauvert, to S. Gilles in
Provence, to Notre Dame du Puy." A
treaty signed on Christmas Eve at Arcques
(near S. Omer) 1326, between the King of
France, Count Louis of Flanders, and the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
119
Flemish cities, stipulates that three hun-
dred persons of Bruges and Cambrai must
go on pilgrimage, one hundred to S. James,
one hundred to S. Giles, and one hundred
to Rocamadour. Before this, in 1284, the
two sons of Herbert called the Scrivener,
for having ill-used Girart the Butcher, of
Compiegne, were condemned to make the
pilgrimage to Compostella. They were the
first of their townsmen to go.
A decree of the Parliament of Champagne
dated January 9, 1367, and preserved at
Rheims, supplies another instance. Mar-
garet, wife of the Viscount Ponsard Larra-
bis, petitions that a certain Stephen who
had called her names and beaten her
(ratione injuriarum el verberationutn) shall
be condemned to make public satisfaction
and to go in pilgrimage first to S. Thomas
of Canterbury and after to S. James of
Galicia, living in each place a year at his
own expense, and bringing back letters
which show that he has done it.
As early as 1115 the Council of Oviedo
had prescribed for certain offences against
the Church that the criminal should become
Penitential
pilgrim-
ages
AND MONOGRAPHS
I2O
WAY OF S.JAMES
either a Benedictine monk, or an anchorite,
or a church serf, or a perpetual pilgrim
for all the days of his life. The penitentials
of Bede and of Theodore both contemplate
Creating
the tramp
this penalty, of temporary or perpetual
pilgrimage, according to the offence, and
Rabanus Maurus disallows it. In the
Capitularies of Charlemagne likewise it is
forbidden, because it ruins the man: it
creates the tramp. The Inquisitors of the
South of France often imposed annual pil-
grimages at fixed dates, called Visitations,
which worked like reporting periodically
to a Probation Officer. On the other
hand, in the twelfth century the Arch-
bishop Hildebert wrote to Foulques, Count
of Anjou and Maine, who wished to set
out on the pilgrimage:
Among the talents that the master
of the house divides among his servants,
no doctor has ever counted that of gad-
ding abroad ; and S. Hilarion, being near
to Jerusalem, went thither one time lest
he should seem to despise the holy places,
but only once. . . . You will say to me
perhaps, I have made a vow, and not to
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
121
keep it were a sin. But consider that
you yourself bound yourself by this vow,
but God laid on you the charge of gov-
erning your peoples : see if the good fruits
this journey will yield, can make up for
the loss of duties left undone. If the
latter good is beyond comparison the
greater, as cannot be denied, then stay
in your palace, live for your state, do jus-
tice, protect the poor and churches. 26
In England, a pilgrimage to S. James
was not infrequently a necessary condition
Condition
to the inheritance of property. The
to inherit-
poem, however, that the Early English
ance
Text Society reprints, has little to do with
S. James beyond the first couplet. The
rest is devoted to sea-sickness and the dis-
comforts of ocean travel. 2 7 But the English
came, notwithstanding. Out of ten se-
lected years, running from 1397 to 1456, D.
Jose" Corinde makes up a total of 130
ships, and 7907 pilgrims arriving in Galicia.
The inspiration of this great volume of travel
was in part, at least, commercial, just as
economic reasons underlay the change when
in the following century we read, instead,
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
122
WAY OF S.JAMES
of Drake's raid on Corunna, or "The True
Relation of a Brave English Stratagem prac-
ticed lately upon a sea town in Galicia,
one of the Kingdoms of Spain; and most
valiantly and successfully performed by one
English ship alone of thirty tons, with no
more than thirty -five men in her." 28
The Licenciate Luis de Molina, in his
Description of the Kingdom of Galicia,
which he printed in Mondofiedo in 1550,
relishes highly the long roll of countries
represented, reciting them with a reminis-
cence of the Pentecostal miracle:
Roll-call
Visitale Albania, Normandos, Gascones,
Mallorca, Menorca, Cerdena, y Cecilia,
Efesios, Corintios, Dalmacia, y Panfilia,
Vascos, Chiprianos, tambien Esclauones,
De Ponto, y Tesalia, y aca los Saxones,
Polonia, Noruega, Yrlanda, y Escocia,
De Egypto, de Siria, tambien Capadocia,
De Jerusalen, con otras naciones.
Visitale Francia, Ytalia, Alemania,
Ungria, Boemia, gran parte de Grecia,
Los Negros Etiopes, Ybernia, Suecia,
Caldea, Fenecia, ni Arabia se extrana,
' I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
123
Ymas Ynglaterra, con Flandes, Bretana,
Del gran Preste Juan, de Armenia, y de
Frisia
Teniendo tal cuenta con esta Galicia
Los quales afrentan a nos los de Espana.
The pilgrimage could be made by proxy,
or by delegates. Barcelona, in 1465, when
the plague was there, sent Fray Miguel
Proxy
Capeller and Fray Leonardo de Gratia:
in 1475 from Palma de Mallorca came two
chaplains of the church of S. Maria del
Mar. Kings sent ambassadors. The Eng-
lish King, Henry II, asks once rather im-
patiently for a safe conduct for the journey,
or if he cannot have that for his proper
person, then one for ambassadors of his.
After the death of Louis XI, Martillon
came to Santiago to make the offerings
provided by the King's will, and brought
with him founders to make goodly bells.
As representative, later, of Philip IV of
Spain and Margaret his Queen, came
Bishop Diego de Guzman, who was to be
Archbishop of Seville. His offerings were
chiefly in kind, Florentine textiles of un-
paralleledmagnificence,and wrought silver.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
124
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Soul
as Pilgrim
It was possible, also, to go for the dead.
In the year 1403, Juan Fernandez de
Guermeces signed a very devout will in
which, after ordering a certain number of
masses to be said, and leaving divers alms
to the convents, hospitals and asylums
situate in various streets and houses of
Burgos, he directed that two men should
go on pilgrimages on his account, one to
the Sepulchre of S. James and the other
to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadelupe.
It is not far from this possibility of a jour-
ney for the dead, to the belief that the
dead themselves may go. In the Asturian
Romance of El Alma en Pena, among those
collected by D. Jose Menendez Pidal, the
poor soul itself fulfills the pilgrimage.
On the way of Santiago went a pilgrim
soul: the night was starless, the earth was
shaken. A caballcro comes to the win-
dow: "If thou be of evil, I conjure thee
to depart, if thou be of this world, tell me
what is wanted." The sinful soul has
come to running water, and cannot cross,
"Trust to the rosaries said in life." "Alas,
I said none." "Trust to the fasts."
HISPANIC NOTES
The Soul as Pilgrim
(From a Miniature of the Fifteenth Century)
THE PILGRIMAGE
"I never fasted." "To the alms." "I
gave none." Then the caballero lights
consecrated tapers at the window and on
the ray of light they cast, the soul crossed
the running water and went on: and re-
turned the same night singing: "Blessed
the caballero, who has saved his soul and
mine." 29 As this condensed version gives
no notion of the touching loveliness of the
poem, I have reprinted it in the A ppendix
along with an English ballad that shows some
curious divergence in the midst of likeness.
In another of Sr. Menendez Pidal's
Romances, the pilgrim who passes on her
way taller than a pine-tree, so charms the
eye and draws the desire of the King that
he lays out the finest bread and wine, the
richest clothing, the warmest cloak, and
sends a page to fetch her; she is under
an olive tree, combing out her blond hair
silken-fine: she will not be bribed by his
offers, for she is queen in heaven, she is
the blessed Magdalen. 30 In yet another,
she is Mary Queen. Very little abashed,
he renounces seduction and betakes him to
supplication: she hears him graciously.
127
Running
Water
XI
X
HISPANIC NOTES
128
WAY OF S.JAMES
Messen-
gers in
slavey n
The pilgrim who is not a pilgrim but
some one else in disguise, is a common-
place of the Chansons de Gestes. In Guy
de Bourgoyne the venerable Charlemagne
thus disguises himself: in Anseis of Car-
thage, by this device the King's messengers
get through to France, just as this is
the array in which those of Gelmirez
try to reach the Pope, in the Historia
Compostellana, which is truth written by
eye-witnesses. In the Cantar de Garci Fer-
nandez, the Countess Argentina was first
carried off, like Bernardo del Carpio's
mother, while en romeria a Santiago, and
afterwards she was greatly taken with a
count of her own land who yva en romeria
in his turn : and the end of all these persons
is in the tragedy of blood. In the Poem
of Ferndn Gonzalez it is a knight bowne
to S. James from somewhere in Lombardy
who brings word to the King's daughter
that the good knight lies in prison, and
again it is she, disguised as a romera, who
contrives his escape, in a famous romance
that Lockhart has translated. The latest
editor of Flares y Blancaflor, 3 1 the fifteenth -
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
129
century Spanish novel, wants to have
the whole exquisite romance, with all its
French and -Italian forms as well, fall into
line simply as another of the Miracles
of S. James. His argument is not quite
weighty enough, but the setting, at least,
of the orient gem he shows to be the cult of
the Apostle: with the pilgrimage to Santiago
the action begins, by an unaccountable mira-
cle the denouement is contrived, and with
another pilgrimage to Rome the whole ends.
The incident lay always ready at hand,
plausible, symbolic, romantic, for history,
epic, or allegory. The miracles that hap-
pened along the road are of all sorts,
but mostly quite practical, and they seem
to have happened over and over again.
From Ozanam's Pelerinage an Pays du
Cid I have gathered one, fragrant as the
rosemary of the Pyrenees, that perfumes
all the day. 32
It is told of S. Bona of Pisa, who with a
company of pilgrims came to a torrent
where the bridge was ruinous. As the
party stood about wondering what to do,
Christ appeared to her and said: "Raise
AND MONOGRAPHS
Flores y
Blancaflor
. . . Far
out at sea.
says
Howell
S. Bona of
Pisa
130
WAY OF S.JAMES
Que (.c.nt6
la gallina
asada
your arms, and pass." The company
cried out as she started, but a multitude
of saints came down from heaven, popes
and bishops in cope and mitre, and stood
in the stream on both sides of the bridge.
She passed in safety. Then Christ said:
"Call your companions; not one of them
shall perish if you keep your hands raised
all the time they are crossing," and at
last she coaxed them all across. One man
saw the popes and bishops as he passed.
Usually, however, S. James took care of
the miracles. There is the story of the
stolen cup and the pious German pilgrim,
falsely accused by a maid-servant he had
rebuffed: 33 he was hanged, and his parents
went on, but when they came back he
was yet alive, for S. James had held him
up so that the rope did not strangle. This
is told of Toulouse.
At S. Domingo de la Calzada they still
keep, caged, above the transept arch, a
pair of white chickens of the breed that
got up, under the carving knife, and crew,
to confute a judge who in a like case had
pronounced sentence and seen it executed.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
Navagero saw them, and I. You remember
the story : have seen it painted on a chapel
wall at Forli: the parents shaken by the
conflict of long grief and new-born hope,
the judge who says, "That man was dead
as these roast chickens, " and the cock who
claps his wings and stretches his throat to
testify that the saint can protect his own.
Another story is not without edification,
that of a pilgrim from Barcelona who
prayed never to be a captive. He was
taken by the Saracens and sold thirteen
times, but the chain always broke on his
limbs. In the end, however, the apostle
uggested to him that the chains of sin
were worse and his prayer would have been
better directed upon the spiritual side.
There is a touching history of a boy, a
good lad of Lorraine, who when one of the
party fell ill by the way in Gascony stayed
with him while the rest went on, nursed,
and at last buried him. This was in the
year 1080. Then he resumed the wallet
and staff to go on atone, but a rider over-
took and picked him up on a great white
horse that devoured the miles, that gal-
At Forll
by the
Adriatic
. It bon
Lorrain
AND MONOGRAPHS
132
WAY OF S.JAMES
On the
white
horse
loped up mountains and down them again,
splashed streams an instant and was far
on in the dust, till the trees whizzed by
and the sun was left behind. At nightfall
the boy found himself set down on the
Mount of Joy, in view of the cathedral
towers, just a pace ahead of all his friends
with whom he had set out from home.
The Venerable Guibert de S. Marie of
Nogent-sous-Coucy, in the diocese of
Laon, tells of a young man who made the
journey girt with the girdle of his mistress.
The devil, seeing him so far on the road to
salvation, made a furious assault, flung
him into despair, and persuaded him to
suicide, which meant, of course, damnation.
S. James interceded for him in heaven,
restored his soul to earth long enough for
penitence and absolution, and took it
back with him into Paradise.
Need was there, after all, on the long
road, of miracles, for it was a hard road,
and of great saints to take care of little
souls, for not all who went came home
again. I have the story, in a private
letter, of a French gentlemen, my cor-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE PILGRIMAGE
respondent's ancestor, who setting out on
the pilgrimage in the fifteenth centuiy,
arranged his affairs and provided that if
he should die on the way, his bones might
be brought back to rest in France; or if
the money upon him should not suffice,
then, at least, be brought so far as possible.
There you feel, for an instant, the home-
sick, the exile, as in the words which Dante
uttered prophesying, for he knew not yet
what way he should die: "These pilgrims
seem to me to be from a far country and I
believe that they have not even heard
speak of my lady and know naught of her;
rather their thoughts are of other things
than of these here; for perchance they are
thinking of their distant friends whom we
know not . . . The wide sense, in so far
as whoever is outside his fatherland is a
pilgrim: in the narrow sense, none is called
a pilgrim save him who is journeying
towards the sanctuary of S. James, or is
returning. They are called palmers, in
so far as they journey over the sea, theie,
whence many times they bring back palm
branches; they are called pilgrims in so
133
Dante in
the Vita
Nuova
AND MONOGRAPHS
134
WAY OF S. JAMES
far as they journey to the sanctuary of
Galicia, because the tomb of S. James was
farther from his own country than that of
any other apostle." 34
Very many who set forth, came not home
at the long last: by the side of the road
Graves by
are their graves, in parish churches, in for-
the way
gotten sanctuaries. The bishop who had
been all the way to Jerusalem and had got
him a precious relic of S. Andrew to bring
home, lies yet in Estella. The Knights
who were surprised as they slept by Cea
bank, yet sleep there still. Every hospice
or its site, along the way, has more graves
than names of pilgrims to tell over. Urged
by more than mortal desire, through the
centuries, they pressed on, "for they seek
a better country, that is, an heavenly."
Vous qui allez a Sainct lacques,
Je vous prie humblement
Que n'ayez point de haste:
Allez tout bellement.
Las! que les pauvres malades
Sont en grand desconfort!
Car maints hommes et femmes
Par les chemins sont morts.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
BOOK TWO
135
BOOK TWO
THE WAY
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
136
WAY OF S.JAMES
A-t-ilceintses reins pour le voyage,
de Compostelle ou pour celui de la
Mecque? S'est-il embarque dans un
pieux pelerinage archeologique? A -t-
il pris le besace el le baton du Juif
errant? A-t-il etc de monument en
monument, de relique en r clique, de
porte en porte, se recommandant a
tons les saints ou a tons les pr ophites
du Paradis, mendier fierement sur les
grands chemins, a la sueur de son
front, le pain de la verite.
Courajod.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
137
I
SETTING OUT
"Nous etions bien bonne
compagnie de gens studieux
amateurs de peregrinite."
THE cypress, it seems, grows in Langue-
doc along with the poplar, the poplar of
northern France with the Italian cypress,
side by side. The country was gilded with
ripening wheat, and the sun was in the
sign of the Lion. From thick green banks
blew into the train the scent of elder; there
bloomed eglantine and the pink wild rose
together. When Jehane came back after
coffee at a station, she found the carriage
pleasantly populous with irresponsibles,
old women, babies, and a priest: two sickly
children with their sickly mother in cheap
ready-made clothes, two handsome, whole-
some grandmothers en bonnet, and the
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
138
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Sun
in Leo
priest's the most beautiful woman's face
of all. Jehane is long and brown and
deceptively gentle, children gravitate to
her very luggage; with difficulty we kept
our seats at the window and our attention
on the thick slow waters and strong vegeta-
tion without. We had met, by appoint-
ment, in Toulouse on Midsummer Day,
Jehane coming from Italy and the other
from farther, following the starry track,
both firmly purposing to go into Spain by
the mountain road. Where the railway
ended we should take a diligence, or, if
there were none, a carriage; where wheels
did not go we should take mules; where
rocks were too steep, we should essay them
on foot. We had corded up our boxes
and left them with the landlord; we had
strapped up our bags and put them in the
carriage; and had taken our tickets for
Pau and thence au deld. We knew it lay
somewhere beyond Pau, to which city,
English-haunted, we had letters that we
hoped never to present; that it lay some-
where beyond Oloron where the portal of
S. Mary's church looks already more Span-
HISPANIC NOTES
Crest of the Pyrenees
THE WAY
ish than then we knew. Bedous was the
present terminus.
The last part of the way was stirring.
We had left the soggy plain, with its water-
channels and its dark green stuff, all irri-
gated. The pale far crests of the Pyrenees,
and their blue gulfs in between, we had
lost from sight in the approach: say,
at Lourdes, or shortly thereafter. There
everyone else had got down, for there was
the end of their pilgrimage. About the
train, as it halts, the hills rise kindly, a
little river winds clean and pure below, the
rock still stands, with a living spring be-
neath all the ancient site where celts and
arrow-heads are still -dug up, where earliest
man and thereafter his sons came worship-
ping, before any history had begun. Be-
tween the great flanks of the mountains
lie valleys blue like the calm blue that
sleeps in a horse's eye; in an hour the train
had burrowed among the red and tawny
rocks of them, and through the cold air
of torrents it climbed and twisted, through
the scent of. dark fir trees; and when the
laborious panting engine was quiet a
141
Lourdes
HISPANIC NOTES
142
WAY OF S. JAMES
Bedous
moment, the green stream below roared
into stillness. Twilight closed in upon the
glimmering rapids, among the dark tree
trunks, and in the pale strip of sky some
pale stars shook, before the line suddenly
stopped, as though it too were only halting
for the night or for a week, while the great
building of the railway went on incessantly.
Having asked a few questions at Oloron,
and knowing beforehand that wherever
engineers could sleep, there could we, with
thankfulness we undid the bags in an
interval and took out the ultimate in-
dispensables for a night; then, at Bedous,
abandoning the rest in a corner of the
station, walked out into the dark of a
village street behind a friendly railway
employee. We need have no fear, he
assured us, for the man who drove the
daily motor omnibus would put up that
night at the inn. There was no porter, for
nobody was expected by the evening train,
but he carried the little sack as well as the
post bags, and guided us, stopping for
various matters on the way, down the
whole straggling white-faced village to the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
inn. When we got there at last, no room
remained; the landlady was honestly sorry,
not so we, for the men eating and drinking
looked in the candlelight noisily disposed.
There was, it came out, another inn, to
which the maidservant kindly took us,
"though it is not like ours," she said
proudly. They were all so honest and
proud, in Bedous, the new landlady, again,
in her offer to send out and buy meat at
that hour of the night. We supped con-
tentedly, after a homely fashion, and went
to bed above the mules in a room big
enough for town meeting. One end opened
above the little street of houses that re-
called the Engadine, stuccoed and iron-
barred, the other on a wooden gallery
above a garden that smelt of lilies and
roses under the dew-fall, and at the end
of every opening and above the crest of
every building rose into the filmy moon-
light the vast back of mountains.
Next morning, when the yellow motor
omnibus backed out of a hangar and cir-
cled up to the station, for passengers arriv-
ing or awaiting, we sought out the driver
143
A Pyrc-
nean
village
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144
WAY OF S. JAMES
A river-
road
and bribed him with a small fee over and
above the extra fare, to allow us on the seat
beside him, whereby the other man in
corduroys who took up fares and handed
down bundles, and the like, travelled most
of the forty miles to Jaca on the step,
holding fast by the dashboard. Including
all stops, and the customs examination at
Canfranc, we ran those forty miles in four
hours, along the little river valley. Every-
where it was lovely, but not so romantic
as that of the night before: a perfect road,
hard and white, ran easily, for the most
part almost by the water side; and now
above it, now below, sometimes even on the
other side of the stream, ran the railway
that should carry back and forth, between
France and Spain, where once the pilgrims
passed. Being born and bred to railways,
one could admire the building, so skilful
that it looked easy, done in accord with the
modern admission that the Indians' way
was the right one the way of the makers
of trails, who expend less strength going
around an object than climbing over it,
and bend the path if a tree falls or a rock
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
topples. On that summer day the men
expected that two years more would see it
done: the two years are passed and much,
belike, has been undone, and the rest
remains untouched, but the road yet runs.
So there it ran, now white and winding
above the river bottom, now grey and
barred with shadows where a village
flanked it on either side. Dogs fled,
children were snatched back, the glare of
mountain light was tempered for a brief
space, and then grey hillsides drew away
again and grey stucco lay far behind. In
the first hour the houses, square and
colour-washed, their windows square and
barred, still recalled the Engadine, as
indeed do, a little, the mountains, in their
large lassitude, so un-Alpine. Then one
was aware of small iron balconies more
frequent, and the slope of the roofs un-
familiar and alien. The river is left sud-
denly below, to burrow like the railway
through the international barrier, but the
highway climbs in many loops a vast
mountainous bulk, set there as if ordained
for a barrier, though it has never stopped
145
and
Engadine
houses
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146
WAY OF S. JAMES
Summo
portu
Visigothic king or French bishop, Charle-
magne or Bonaparte.
The fort of Urdos is a mere rocky boss
in the midst of rock, crowning a wooded
spur, and the granite way zigzagging up
to it is walled and loopholed; the very
granite mass of the mountain is loopholed
and fortified. Then green trees, the light-
leaved sort, were left.
Somewhere here a shapeless rocky mass,
of weather-worn stones that once were
hewn, marks the site of the Hospice of S.
Cristina. From the time of the Goths 1
existed on the crest of the Pyrenees above
Jaca, a shelter where various monks took
care of pilgrims that passed that Port.
Aymery Picaud praised it before all: hos-
pitale S. Christinae, unum de tribus hos-
pitalibus cosmi. 2 Gaston IV of Beam,
a hero of the first Crusade, founded and
Gaston V in 1216 refounded the hospice
above Somport, 3 and the name of that town
is summo portu, the pitch of the pass. He
dowered it with various revenues in Aragon
and gave it to canons of S. Augustine.
King Alfonso of Aragon, great lords of
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THE WAY
Spain, Gascony, Hungary, and Bohemia,
contributed to its foundation, and built in
their domains hospices depending on it. It
lasted till 1558 and then, like so many other
ancient and pious works, it was removed
to the capital. 4 Possibly the monks pre-
ferred living in town: certainly the crown
preferred their keeping within reach.
When Leonore of England, the daughter
of Eleanore of Poitou and the sister of
Cceur-de-Lion, came into Spain to marry
Alfonso VIII, five Spanish bishops met
her at Bordeaux, and with them "the
most exquisite flower of the nobility of both
Castiles," 5 white monks and black, Cister-
cian and Benedictine, and especially the
great dignitaries of the Religious Orders.
With them came back by the Port of Aspe,
by Somport and Canfranc, a noble escort
of her own people: the archbishop of Bor-
deaux, the bishops of Agen, Poitiers, Angou-
leme, Saintes, Perigord, and Beziers, and a
host of lords and knights, English, Gascon,
Breton, and Norman. They rode together
as far as Tarazona, escorted by Alfonso of
Aragon, to be met there by her spouse, his
147
A Queen's
progress
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148
WAY OF S. JAMES
The King-
dom's
limits
namesake of Castile, with all the prelates
and nobles left in Spain, it would seem;
and thence the visitors turned back again
in July weather, heavy horse and sleek
mule, steel-armed knight and frieze-cowled
monk, velvet cloak and silken cope, climb-
ing the brilliant dusty steeps, filling the
pass with the heat and murmur of a mov-
ing multitude.
The still upland heights were open,
rocky, heathy, pasturable, when we reached
the plain stone column that marks the
limits of a kingdom: just before the last
boundary post a beautiful range opened up
to reveal beds of snow and crests of carven
rock. There the car stopped an instant,
the man in corduroy running to the road-
side to receive from a goatherd waiting a
knotted kerchief full of curds. This he
hung on the front of the car, for whey to
splash and spatter and yield him in Jaca a
goodly lump of cheese.
The trontier is at the top but the customs
at the bottom: we coasted down to find
a pair of the neatest, smallest, civilest
Spanish soldiers imaginable, in their sum-
HISPANIC NOTES
A Pyrenean Village
THE WAY
mer uniform of white with a grey hair-
line, just pulling on clean white cotton
gloves in which to examine our luggage.
The wonder was how they got so much
courtesy into so brief a matter. In the
little towns now men wore dpargatas and
flat caps; they had lost the candid French
look. One hundred years of liberte and
egalite have given some meaning to the
word fraternite, and when you cross a fron-
tier into France you know it in the eyes
that meet your own so friendly and frank.
The French look says, you are good as I;
the Spanish, I am as good as you usually,
better. Of qu ite plain people this is meant.
Another river was running beside the
road, between the rocks. The landscape
was widening, with an indefinably Spanish
look in the colours and contours, the brown
dust and palisaded cliffs. The impression
yields to one of a dusty plain, white with
dust, immense within the blue enclosing
heights; of an arid heat that intoxicates
and blinds; then two lines of river-bordering
trees that converge; and lastly, the dusty
brown walls of Jaca and towers within them.
I, as good
as you
HISPANIC NOTES
152
WAY OF S. JAMES
II
HEART OF ARAGON
De esta nobleza que es
gozar de libertad mas
goza el noble Aragon que
todos los reinos, porque
hasta sus villanosfaze ser
mas nobles que los nobles
mas nobles de las otras
provincias del mundo. Cd
nazen tan libres, viven tan
francos, son tan esentos
los villanos de Aragon I
Fray Guaberto Fabricio.
THE city still keeps a kind of state, the
houses are built of stone, their facades
adorned not merely with monstrous rococo
coats-ot-arms but with Romanesque mould-
ings and Gothic traceries, not frittered
away in glass galleries; the streets straight
Muy noble,
may leal, y
and well paven, the cathedral dominant.
vencedora
La muy noble, muy leal, y vencedora, Jaca
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
was already great in Roman days, strong in
Visigothic; was the last to yield to the
Arab conqueror Ayub (as late as 715) and
the first to rise and support the struggle
of Count Aznar (758-795). Court of the
counts of Aragon, and seat and stronghold
of the kings their successors, from the first
Ramiro down, it holds the type pure, in the
figures of the brown small men, the spare
swift grace of the women, the strong
Romanesque forms of the cathedral.
Though the fairs of Jaca in the latter
Middle Age drew merchants from Aragon,
France, and Navarre, these brought no
changes with them; and like the coinage
that fixed the standard of the realm, those
sueldos jaqueses that kings on their coro-
nation swore to maintain undebased, so
the temper of the people kept the one
image and superscription.
How unlike is Aragon to Castile, we were
to feel later more strongly, most aware
now of the entirely Spanish quality of it all.
The boy in alpar galas, with his swift sound-
less movements, entering on a message, with
bis snowy linen shirt, and velvet jacket
153
Last to
yield, first
to rise
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154
WA Y OF S. JAMES
El Gracioso
worn over one shoulder, with his bold eyes
and fine teeth, was just the gradoso of the
old comedy. He was all one golden tone,
the sunburnt dress, hair, and fine skin,
relieved by the shadow on his upper lip
and the deeper shadow of his eyelashes.
Unhappily, when hired to pose for a
photograph, he looked silly enough, but
once released, his comment, I make
no doubt, was in the antique vein, spiced
and seasoned, and sent up in good
Castilian.
Don Quixote you remember was a Cas-
tilian, so indeed were the Cid and Al-
fonso the Wise; Jaime I el Conquistador
and D. Martin the Humane were of Ara-
gon; but the distinction is easier to appre-
hend than to make plain. Aragon is more
European, Castile more Peninsular; the
one presents the ideal Romantic of chivalry
and humanism, Mediterranean, almost
Frank, almost Latin; the other cherishes
the quintessential, the Iberian, condensed,
insistent, the self -centered, self -judged, and
self-approved.
In the kingdom of Aragon alone was
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
there anything of the feudal system, and,
from the very beginning of the Reconquest,
something in the way of a Parliament,
with right of election and recall. The
fucros of Jaca in the twelfth century sup-
plied a model for those of Castile, Navarre,
and elsewhere. The famous haughty for-
mula will bear quoting again: "Nos" the
nobles say to their king new-crowned,
"A 7 os que valemos tanto como vos y pode-
mos mas que vos, os elijimos rcy con tal que
gardareis nuestros fueros y libertades, y
entre vos y nos uno que manda mas que vos:
si no, no!" 1
The pride of the nobles gave their vassals
liberty, and the need of the king gave the
cities rights. King and Cortes are mutually
dependent "For neither the king without
the kingdom, nor the kingdom without the
king, may severally make a law of the land
nor alter that agreed to once, but all united
must conjoin in making new laws and
providing for the weal and regiment of all:
and the more that is done without admix-
ture of any force, cautel or deceit, by so
much the more is it more estimable, stabler,
155
Fueros
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156
WAY OF S. JAMES
Constitu-
tionalism
and diviner." 2 Thus the Chronicle of
Aragon, which breaks out elsewhere, to
proclaim in a droll passion of constitution-
alism, "that it is greater grandeur and
majesty to be king of kings than king of
caytiffs, that those who rule kings are
(and all the more those who rule well) like
the Aragonese, who may make no law
without a common accord and have place
and power to say what best to them beseems
in respect of the regiment of the realm,
that greater king there may not be than
the king who rules such kings and lords as
the men of Aragon be."
Individuality of this metal does not take
easily a strange stamp, and there are no
foreign traces on the cathedral here. Jaca
was the mountain capital when the plain
yet lay in power of the Hagarenes. 3 In
the eleventh century the bishop of Ar-
agon, whose seat was in Jaca, exercised
jurisdiction not only over the Chris-
tians of the Mountain, but over the
Mozdrabes of Huesca. In Saragossa they
had their own Bishop and possibly also in
Tarrazona. 4
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
157
Jaca: the Cathedral.
There still, although the
world autumnal be and
pale,
Still in their golden ves-
ture the old saints
prevail;
Alone with Christ, deso-
late else, left by man-
kind.
The quality named architectonic, seems
alien to the Spanish genius. This appears
in many ways, some of them very curious:
in excessive formalism in the Spanish
Architec-
tonics
drama, for instance, as if the author could
not move himself without the steel and
buckram of theatrical convention, and in
the interminable assonances which every
poetry but the Spanish outgrew some cen-
turies earlier; or, again, in the attitudinizing
formulae of Berruguete's choir-stalls; but
nowhere so much as in the architecture.
The average Spanish church has no par-
ticular shape, when you look at it. Barring
the great cathedrals built by foreign inspira-
tion and under foreign direction, they are
too often mere lumps. The king's daughter
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I
158
WAY OF S. JAMES
lilium
inter spinas
is all glorious within, but outside she looks
like a fat market-wife. Yet as the butter-
woman was once a trim milk-maid, Jaca
cathedral was a fine sight once. From
the cloister garth, amid the rose of Sha-
ron, the lilium inter spinas, rusty fir tree,
and potted bamboo, you may make out
above the built-up cloister face the gable of
the transept roof, the low tower to mark
the crossing, the bold round-headed win-
dows of the aisle, quite blocked now.
Then, crossing the beautiful and dim in-
terior, you may pass by way of a market
square to a glimpse of one remaining side
apse with its own noble round-arched
window richly moulded, its billet-moulded
cornice carried on splendid and fantastic
corbels, where the spaces between these,
and the under face of the cornice, are
carved with foliage, rosettes, and other
luxuriant and highly developed forms, all
this, however, hidden behind a ten-foot
wall overflowing with eglantine and fra-
grant leafage.
Within, it is wonderfully little spoiled.
The stone that turned brown as iron under
HISPANIC NOTES
light is
silent
THE WAY 159
the suns of Aragon is a graver grey in the
quiet indoor light, almost a silvery in the
sculptures of tomb and retable. Enter
from the blazing square; the light is cool
and grave, the vista lofty and noble.
There are cathedrals which have been
erected from parish churches; there are
others built express which might as well
have been that; this is none of them. Not
large, it is yet princely.
The kingdom of Sobrarbe was founded
in the seventh century, and this see in the
ninth, but not a stone is earlier than that
church of the eleventh (commenced A.D.
1040) where nine Bishops attended a coun-
cil and after consecrating the new edifice
(*. e., probably apses and transepts) signed
a document which survives. This was in
1063. The transepts and apses alone can
belong to this date: to the end of that
century the enclosing walls, the west door,
and the beginning of the western tower: to
the close of the twelfth the aisles of the
nave: to the fifteenth their rib- vaulting,
sexpartite, and the elaborate sexpartite
vaults of the nave that, leaving the fabric
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i6o
WA Y OF S. JAMES
The
original
church
below practically untouched, descend upon
consoles to a sort of cornice under the
clerestory windows, at about the springing
of the original great barrel vault. * Then
the eighteenth century overhauled gener-
ally. It is easy for the imagination to
construct the original Romanesque church,
of which the barrel-vaulted transepts
give the scale, and the great cruciform
piers, that alternate with cylindrical col-
umns, suggest the mass: many capitals
have lasted on from this, some historied
and some of strong stiff leafage, and a bil-
let moulding at the springing of the vault
and semi-dome.
There were four bays to the great nave,
and the piers carried just such transverse
arches as may still be seen on the four
openings of the crossing and against the
end walls of the transepts. On them rested
the strong barrel vault, windowless, the
light coming from the lofty aisles vaulted
in a plain quadripartite form, unribbed,
for which the alternate columns of the
nave sufficed. The eastern end had three
parallel apses, the central one very deep;
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
161
it opened directly from the transept, and
the central portion of this is covered by an
octagonal dome under a low lantern, vaulted
on ribs that spring from the centre of each
a Spanish
builder's
of the cardinal sides and from arches thrown
across the corners i. e., squinches. In this
same way the vault is turned in the apsidal
chapels at Las Huelgas, in the Constable's
at Burgos, and under the lantern at Irache,
and it is a Spanish builder's way. 2 At a
time when the builders of Auvergne were
opening the first tribunes of their dark
naves, and those of Languedoc were turning
the first ambulatory around their lofty
apses, the king's men here had carried a
form, simpler indeed, to a greater perfec-
tion. D. Jose Maria Quadradro quotes
from a parchment in the cathedral archives,
the prescription of Ramiro's foundation:
... Quod ejus tectum fiat et perficiatur
de crota lapidea sive boalta per omnes
tres naves sive longitudines incipientes
ab introitu magne porte usque ad altaria
majora que sunt in capite ipsius ecclesie,
et una turris supra dictam portam ubi
jam incepimus earn hedificare pro cam-
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I
1 62
WAY OF S. JAMES
panali cum octo campanis, quatuor
magnis et duabus mediocris, et duabus
parvis, cum quibus Dominus noster pius
Pater excelsus laudari et universus
populus evocari possit, cuius tegumen
volumus etiam fieri de lapide firmo. 3
Then he continues with provisions for
eight lamps to burn continually and in-
Lights and
cense to smoke upward at all hours of
incense
day and night. This is rather an exercise
in rhetoric than a builder's instruction,
and the king is more concerned with the
bells and lights and incense of his daily
worship than with the fabric already going
up, but from it we make out the Spanish
vaulted type unmodified. In the time of
his son Sancho Ramirez the rule of Cluny
was introduced into the convent of S.
Juan de la Pena and some other royal
houses of the north, 4 but there is no evi-
dence that builders were fetched during
this reform, nor is it likely that the princely
bishop of Jaca would have borrowed any
from the proud abbot of S. Juan. Rela-
tions were strained: at the Council of Jaca
the said abbot had affixed his signature
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
before any of the bishops present, and in
1076 the bishop of Jaca, D. Garcia, Infant
of Aragon, opposed the undertakings and
exemptions of the abbot. 5
The western narthex, below the tower,
was already commenced at the dedication:
it was three bays in depth and possibly once
more than one in breadth, but not pro-
bably. The square projection westward
is characteristic of Asturian and Visigothic
churches, and the narthex at S. Martial of
Limoges 6 and at S. Benoit-sur- Loire, which
might have afforded models of a close-
pillared Galilee, were not yet builded, for
they both must be referred to the height
of the twelfth century. The low chamber
here, with storied capitals and tympanum
sculptured with the labarum, is elder. The
sacred symbol is treated like eight rays or
spokes, with roses in between, and flanked
by a pair of symbolic and rather oriental
lions, the one respecting a fallen man, which
signifies that God's judgements are dis-
armed by contrition, the other trampling
on human heads, in sign of Christ taking
empire over death.
163
Bishop and
Infant of
Aragon
God's
judge-
ments
disarmed
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1 64
WAY OF S. JAMES
The south
porch
The beautiful and airy portico on the
south flank, while Romanesque, is of the
latest and most perfect period. That side
porch is not peculiar to Spanish churches,
but it is very common among them.
Only a few leagues away, at Tiermas, the
parish church has another, just such,
except that it is quite formless. Transept
portals in purely Spanish building are
rare, even when conditions seem to exact
them, as at Las Huelgas: instead, you get
the opening in the flank. If the two fine
portals at Estella may pass as imposed by
the fall of the ground, this cannot be urged
of S. Vincent at Avila or S. Martin or S.
Millan at Segovia. Neither of these last
churches has a proper transept, which also
is characteristic. There seems to be an
elder Romanesque tradition, which appears
in France at S. Benoit-sur-Loire, for
instance, and Notre-Dame-la-Grande of
Poitiers, and S. Seurin of Bordeaux, which
explains the early and precious portal of
Bordeaux cathedral, and determines the
side door in the rather archaic cathedral
of Avila. It is this which is invoked to
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
165
explain the symbolism of the wounds of
Christ in the five doorways of the church,
and the Spanish practice may possibly be
determined by the greater glory of His
wounded Side.
S. Juan de la Pefia.
Fundamental ejus in
montibus sanctis; gloriosa
dicta stint de te.
At three o'clock the gracioso called up
from the street under Jehane's balcony, and
before four we were driving in a purple
starlight, that deepened and blanched,
along the river Aragon, fringed like all
Spanish waters with green linden and
plane-trees. A ray shot up and the moun-
tains turned to the purple of heather; the
Dawn
primrose brightness grew and they turned
blue; lastly came up a white-hot mass and
they were vaporous. By the water-side
grew wild iris, and on the other side of
the road wild rose and hawthorn. We
passed that shrine of Our Lady of Victo-
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I
1 66
WAY OF S.JAMES
Escula-
bolsas
ries which commemorates the wives and
daughters who could not stay idle in Jaca
while their men made a stand against the
Moors. In the white mantles and veils of
their sheltered life they made a sudden
sally and turned the day and helped the
slaughter. x At a grange called Esculabolsas
where men were piling logs by the roadside,
we waited while two mules were fetched
and a guide, and with them a lame dog
who looked like a wolf, yellow and elderly;
with these we struck up toward the moun-
tain through stony lanes almost like the
English, along a brookside. Logs were
dragging down the brook, each at a horse's
heels, and the high bank of the lane was
often musical with water-channels and
flashing where the runnel spilled over into a
terraced field. For a long time a sort of
doubtful tower rose ahead.
At the very head of this valley stands S.
Cruz de la Seros, 2 of the Sisterhood, a
convent abandoned when the nuns, feeling
it lonesome in the country, moved into
town in 1 5 5 2 . The convent has fallen away
into ruins, but the church is fairly intact.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Just a minute upstream from the poor little
village, it lifts well above the willows and
alders of the high bank a series of high and
heavy masses. The great tower, crowned
by a low octagon and pierced by pairs of
windows in the upper stages, stands above
the south transept, of which the walls are
incorporate with it and from which projects
one of the two shallow, square-faced struc-
tures thatenclose the lateral apses. Between
them the vast central apse, semicircular, di-
vided by attached columns, adorned with
moulded windows, round-headed and shaft-
ed in the jambs, is crowned by a cornice
on corbels and a low roof. The face of the
east wall is continued up a long way, and
roofed by a sort of low pyramid, the church
having above the crossing a true lantern,
thus disguised on the outside and hidden
on the inside by a vaulted bay. Approach-
ing from the north, the effect is odd: above
and beyond the flat end wall of the transept
you see a high square structure sustaining
a low broad octagon and behind this again,
not much higher, another square, octagon-
topped. The tiny nave runs off, absurdly
167
S. Cruz de
la Seros
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1 68
WAY OF S. JAMES
Auvergne
low. The apse appears in strong profile;
and all these square contours, while not
structurally so connected, as S. Maria at
Tarrasa is really, perhaps, related yet do
a little recall the characteristic architec-
ture of Auvergne. That is almost the only
hint of the sort, however, here in the heart
of Aragon.
The nave will have been low always, and
at present a n amber of steps lead down
into it. The portal looks like Benedictine
work of the twelfth century: it is enclosed
by a strong billet and adorned by a superb
roll moulding, and then by balls disposed
at regular intervals in a hollow an ugly
motive too frequent in twelfth century
work; which was to be revived with fa-
tal enthusiasm by Torquemada and the
Catholic kings. Quadrado, 3 publishing a
sketch that shows ruins now disappeared,
copies also three lines of Latin verse about
the doorway and a fourth in the cornice:
Janua sum praepes: per me transite,
fideles.
Fons ego sum vitae,' plus me quam vina
sitite,
THE WAY
169
virgines hoc lemplum quisque penetrare
beatum.
Corrige te primum, valeas quo poscere
Xristum.
The low lunette of the tympanum, carved
with the chrism and a pair of lions, is
copied from that of Jaca, but a daisy or
Benedic-
sunflower is unexpectedly dropped into
tines
the space below one of these. Of two
shafts on which the great torus de-
scends, the right-hand is transitional ; under
true volutes you find a sheath curling
over a ball (rather than a bud); the left-
hand has, also under volutes, a pair of
lions and other beasts more Lombard-
looking than those above, with the same
brutal heaviness as some of the monstrous
things at the Seo de Urgell. Benedictine,
twelfth century, regional that is the con-
clusion of the whole matter, exception
made of the sunflower.
Inside, the western gallery rests on one
fantastic shaft, which the holy-water
stoup encircles. There are three bays ot
barrel vault, out of the easternmost of
which open the transepts without occupy -
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I
170
WAY OF S. JAMES
Exotic
traits
Anatolian
and
Provencal
ing the whole of it; the apse is preceded
by a shallow bay and occupies no more
than a third of a circle. That you could
never divine the lantern, strongly suggests
that it was an exotic idea. The transept
arms are cross-ribbed, with a very domical
vault; a billet moulding runs along the
top of the wall and lunettes fill the space
below the vaulting another suggestive
trait. The side apses are of course very
shallow, lighted by a single window, now
half blocked up, at the central line where
the square outer face of the mass is tan-
gential to their curve.
M. de Lasteyrie says this is frequent in
Byzantine architecture. I should have
thought it came either from Asia Minor
or from Rome. Apses in this form are
found in the undated churches on the
Anatolian plateau; and, later, in Provence,
in the crypt of Montmajour and at Ma-
guelonne. Now the bishops of Mague-
lonne figure frequently in the ecclesiology
of this region, and Bishop Godfrey went
along this road when S. Juan de la Pefia
was consecrated.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WA Y
A narrow and steep staircase leads up
from the nave, in the thickness of the
wall. The lantern consists of a superb
vaulted chamber with four ribs, mould-
ed, supported on four shafts in the
centre of the sides, and deep niches in
the corners. The stones of the vault
are laid horizontally, like a dome, both
here and in the upper chamber of the
tower, but not in the transepts below, as
they were, for instance, in the domical
vaulting of the Old Cathedral of Salamanca.
The bases of the shafts are cusped ; three of
the capitals are historied and the fourth
uses the motive of the pine cone (found at
Vezelay and at the Pantheon of S. Isidore at
Leon), very rich: in late Roman mysticism,
the pine cone stood for immortality. The
tower chamber, just referred to, which
is reached through this room, is roofed
with a sort of dome on squinches: ajimez
windows, in the four faces, have three
capitals apiece but the shafts have perished
and the openings are walled up where
they should be. These capitals anticipate
Gothic, like one at the door, with volutes
171
somewhat
as at
Cuenca
" topped
with a
cypress
cone "
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172
WAY OF S.JAMES
Toulouse
and
Provence
at the corners and a strong curl below,
sometimes a human head.
The convent was founded perhaps in
987 or 992 by King Sancho of Navarre
and his wife, Urraca Fernandez, who left
eighteen villages to the sorores or sisters
of S. Cross. The great benefactors were
however the family of Ramiro I, who in
1061 recommended it in his will to his
daughter. Urraca was professed there and
so between 1076 and 1096, were her wid-
owed sisters, Sancha, Countess of Toulouse
and Teresa, Countess of Provence. The
church was built in their day, the transept
vaults belonging to a reconstruction not
later than the twelfth century. The won-
der is, on the whole, that Toulouse and
Provence had not even more to say in the
matter; but, as observed already, there are
as many reminiscences of northern Au-
vergne; and the rest are apparently of the
nearest cathedral. Briz Martinez, 4 writing
the history of S. Juan de la Pena, speaks
of this convent as a daughter house, filled
with kings' daughters and those of the great
nobles and principal persons of the realm,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
and adds that the widowed queens passed
their lives there. By a decree of the
Council of Toledo, widowed Gothic queens
might not marry again, and they either
took the veil, or took a house near a convent
though not bound to the community life.
In the poor little village the parish church
keeps a Romanesque apse, arcaded, and
one house an ajimez window of late Gothic
in an ogee curve, also rude sculptures on
the lintel of eagles, bells, sunflowers, and
in the centre a cross. About contemporary
with this house is a treasure that the nuns
left when they moved into town, and that
still graces with its tarnished golds and
faded reds the deserted church. The
Gothic retable, dated 1490, shows on the
left side the Annunciation, Epiphany, and
Ascension; on the right the Nativity,
Resurrection, and Pentecost; in the centre,
flanking a niche, four angels; above, Cal-
vary and the Dormition of the B. V. M.
In the Predella a soi-disant Coronation is
really a scene of the Spouse embracing
the Beloved, both on one bench, both
crowned, with angels making music: this
173
Wife of
one
husband
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WAY OF S.JAMES
The road
runs up-
hill
all the
way
is followed by the Presentation of the
B. V. in the Temple, and on the other side
of the tabernacle, by the Visitation and
Candlemas. The figures of the Old Cove-
nant wear octagonal haloes. The drawing
everywhere is bad and the scenes quaint
rather than powerful, but the time-worn
colour is pleasant and this little offshoot of
the early school of Aragon would grace a
gentleman's collection and doubtless will.
Beyond S. Cruz the path, quitting the
walnuts of the brook-side, turns up across
the great red flank of the Sierra, where
crumbling soil is sparsely overgrown with
aromatic plants, cistus and juniper and
the wild lavender. The lame dog raced
ahead, the mules followed the man, and the
landscape slowly widened to northward
over the white levels of the Aragon until
shoulder above shoulder the Pyrenean
heights heaved up and snow-wreaths pied
their grey. Along a shelf the road was
following a gorge and was constructed of
loose stones, any size from a man's fist to a
man's torso. Rocks bigger than that, the
road-menders had cloven into two or three.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Some were of pink marble, others of grey
and purple, and the ocherous soil was beset
with flowers of Alpine loveliness, hawthorn
and wild rose and many unknown: like the
rue-anemone, but pink; like the cowslip,
but purple; and a white flattish blossom
that persisted veiy high. Going up thus
among the hills was like going up the map:
the northern plants appeared, and we came
out at last, on the crown, through thick
pine woods into what might have been a
clearing in the Adirondacks, where the
pines stood more openly in a meadow
of tall grass starred with white daisies.
There is situated the new convent, red as
the mountain side, of little interest, the
seventeenth -century church decently kept
with a Sunday mass; the range of conven-
tional buildings reduced to a single dwelling
habitable for the caretakers, shepherds,
and who not. We were urged to rest and
eat or drink. One asked, by mischance,
for the single thing that taxed the woman's
kindness, a drink of water. Wine they
had and pressed upon us, but the water
had been fetched from far, and was not
AND MONOGRAPHS
175
with wild
flowers
and grasses
1 7 6
WAY OF S.JAMES
purple iris
and pine
fresh, and the mistress must be consulted
before the maid would pour a drop. In
the dark cool kitchen we watched them
preparing the family dinner, with a piece
of meat as big as your palm. The mistress
arriving with keys and water, we set out
for another mile, rather to the ill-content
of' all the assistants, to find the ancient
church. Through the meadow and down a
green valley on the other side filled with
wild iris we straggled, and feet were sud-
denly stayed as, across the tree-tops and
the thick brushwood, we saw a fringe of
pines against the sky, a mighty rock, and
a little clump of buildings niched under it
like a child's playhouse.
One Vico went hunting the deer in the
great forest, it is said, and followed hard
upon a stag till it went over the cliff, and
the horse, reined up, hung there on the verge
by miraculous intervention till the prince
could throw himself off and crawl down
over the rough jutting face. At the bot-
tom he found the game dead, before a
cavern, and a dead hermit within wait-
ing for burial, his name written beside
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
him. Vico devoutly thanked the good
Baptist who, himself acquainted with wil-
dernesses, had stood by him that day, and
after burying the hermit assumed his place.
Abrother joined him, and to them came from
time to time the Christian chieftains ; before
them was made a league and a covenant
of the fellows and the followers of Pedro
Atares: in their sanctuary was founded, it
may be, the kingdom of Sobrarbe, which
was to bring forth the kingdom of Aragon.
What Covadonga is in the west, that in the
east is S. Juan de la Pena, and the vener-
able church is a place of pilgrimage still,
sanctified not only by bones of martyrs,
but by dust of kings.
It is still, in spite of all, homely and
lonely, a hermitage and no more. A
mighty abbey rose, and fell apart again,
and the shrine under the rock abides. In
the entrance court the tombs of powerful
feudatories were adorned seven hundred
years ago with such patterns, of panther
and griffin, as cheap workmen at Jeypore
enamel in brass for the tourist to-day.
The low little church, without aisles, barrel-
177
Bones of
martyrs
and dust
of kings
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178
WAY OF S. JAMES
La Pefia
vaulted, is of no particular style or age, it
is mere building, no more. About the
twelfth-century cloister, which disdains a
vault, for the hugeous rock overhangs it,
are set the chapels that devout ages have
shapen; one of lovely late Gothic, the arch
cusped within and crocketed above;
another in the stately beauty of the late
Renaissance, with column and cornice,
pediment and orb; and the cloister itself
barbarously carven with Scripture history
after a fashion strictly its own.
S. Juan de la Pena is building of the same
sort as S. Cruz, modified in part, first, by
survivals of the earlier hermitage, secondly
by directly oriental motives, thirdly by
its remote inaccessibility, its neighborhood
to Jaca, and the presence probably of a
body of workmen continuously engaged
about the great abbey, who would gradu-
ally create a style of their own, that is to
say by a chanticr. This I have thought
to recognize elsewhere, sometimes. It re-
mained an hermitage, occupied by anchor-
ites, till the time of Sancho Garces I, who
organized them as monks cenobite, with an
HISPANIC NOTES
S. James and Pilgrim, from S. Cernin, Pamplona
THE WAY
abbot under the rule of S. Benedict. s At the
end of the tenth century the Abbot Paterno,
or, according to some, Garcia, called from
France by Sancho el Mayor, introduced
the discipline of Cluny; the monastery,
however, was never subject to Cluny, and
was in some measure under the authority
of the Bishop. When Abbot Garcia died
the king called a Mozarabic hermit, S.
Inigo, 6 from his cave in the mountains of
Jaca. The dignity of the abbot began
humbly, but came to be magistral, or
equal to episcopal, and could once compete
with the greatest in Spain. He was a great
lord not only in the church but in the king-
dom. Sixty-five monasteries depended on
his, and these not only priories but lesser
abbeys as well. There were likewise num-
bered a hundred and twenty-six secular
churches, among them S. Pedro la Rua of
Estella, of which the prior was a professed
monk of S. Juan.
The tombs in the atrium, while mostly
of the thirteenth century, have among them
dates like 1089, 1091, 1 123. In the cloister,
one dated 983 can hardly be original: here
181
The
history
HISPANIC NOTES
182
WAY OF S. JAMES
The aspect
Horseshoe
arches
too the inscriptions commemorate abbots
mainly of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. Sancho Ramirez, we know,
rebuilt the monastery and church in the
end of the eleventh century; in 1094 Peter
I left the siege of Huesca to attend the
consecration and, among others, went to it,
as said, Bishop Godfrey of Maguelonne.
The body of the little church, as you come
upon it descending the glen, looks like no
more than a transept, with high, formless
wall on either side, enclosing, northward,
the atrium and whatever remains of monas-
tic building, and southward the cloister
and its chapels ; the whole niched under the
vast rock and smothered in boskage.
The tiny shrine is roofed with a simple
barrel vault and ends at the east in a wide
sanctuary cut off by three semicircular
arches. This is primitive arrangement,
Asturian and Mozarabic. There is little
to see; rebuildings and repairs have added
nothing new but have left nothing marked.
The crypt below, however, is divided down
the centre by a row of piers on which rest
true horseshoe arches, and the door which
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
183
opens from the church upon the cloister is
of horseshoe form, and of masonry different
from the wall around. These are rem-
nants of the original cenobium founded in
the ninth century by Sancho Garces. On
the other hand, the cloister was not finished
until the twelfth.
It lies there, four square, without a vault
and without a garden. Of the arcade, two
Rock-
sides are still quite perfect, one has per-
roofed and
ished completely and been built up with
simple brick piers and arches, and into the
fourth, that next the church, have been
built a couple of capitals quite different in
style and half a century later. One of
these shows a tangle of creepers and crea-
tures, and the other, griffins carrying off
sheep. These are in the same style as the
capitals of S. Domingo de Silos, but cer-
tainly not by the same hand as that, nor
ancient in
yet as those at Estella, sometimes referred
the sun
to the work at Silos. The themes are
worth recording; they run as follows:
i . On the farthest corner begins a Scrip-
ture history with the Creation of Adam,
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I
1 84
WAY OF S. JAMES
Capitals
and Adam and Eve. These corners, with
four shafts clustered against the outer
faces of a pier, are very fine; of the rest,
the shafts are sometimes double, some-
times single, under a large capital. The
history goes on:
2. The serpent tempting, Adam and
Eve abashed, God rebuking them. Adam
ploughs with two horses, like the men
on the mountain below, while Eve spins.
The sacrifice of Cain and Abel.
3. The Annunciation, Visitation, Na-
tivity, Announcement to the Shepherds.
4. Angelic warning to Joseph in
slumber. Flight into Egypt. Joseph
carries scrip and cloak over his shoulder,
people look out above an arched gate-
way not in the form of a horseshoe but
one very familiar throughout Spain, in
which the abacus projects and the
circular arch is set back as far as the
line of the jambs below.
5. Epiphany; the Three Kings; Her-
od's soldiers; doctors pointing out places
on the scroll they are consulting.
6. Ruined: there was a castle with a
king sitting in it: probably the Massacre
of the Innocents.
HISPANIC NOTES
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185
7. Two kings: for the rest, ruinous.
8. The Three Kings riding away.
9. Presentation.
10. Temptation.
ii and corner: Two scenes of boats;
. Christ walking on the water.
The next, the north side, bears on the
corner:
i. The Miracle of Cana.
2. Christ and his disciples with
Wayfaring
staves, in talk, Mary entreating them.
theme
3. The raising of Lazarus and the
feast in the house of Simon.
4. Entry into Jerusalem, with the
foal of the ass, Zacchaeus in the tree,
and the gate of Salem.
5. The Last Supper, Washing of feet.
6. Betrayal : the Jews in high caps.
Then a corner, quite different: four
saintly figures within scroll work, and
on the other face, Christ in a mandorla
between four angels with scrolls, whose
wings meet and form the edge. Of
course restorers have been here, but they
were restricted. One may conjecture
that the Old Testament series once filled
one of the sides now destroyed, and the
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1
i86
WAY OF S.JAMES
Character-
istics
Death and Resurrection of Christ, with
possibly a suggestion of the Last Judg
ment, the other.
The work is curious, excessively barbar-
ous, and quite individual. I am tempted to
associate it with the more archaic portions
of the other great work at Estella, the
portico of S. Miguel, but only after a long
interval. Here at S. Juan the modelling is
done at times with little more than incised
lines; the hands as well as the heads are too
large for the figure, hair and beard are
indicated by curving parallel lines. The
high cheekbone is emphasized by a special
line, and the eyes, in Scriptural phrase,
"bung out," the socket deeply hollowed
and the eyelid and pupil carefully worked
on the bulging feature. In spite of all
this, the scenes have not only dignity but
feeling.
These, it is tempting to associate with
the early Lombard sculptures, at Cremona
and elsewhere. 7 There is likeness to the
Ferrara figures on the door jambs, where
Master Nicholas worked. It would be
possible, of course, that the messengers
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
constantly going and coming between this
powerful monastery and Rome, should have
fetched a master workman as they returned
through Lombardy. The relation was close.
In the great struggle to suppress the Moz-
arabic use, that is to say the Hispanic, S.
Juan played a great part. "The Roman
use was introduced into Spain," says
Sandoval, 8 "from S. Juan de la Pefia, in
March on S. Benedict's Day, era 1071
[that is, 1033 A.D.], the Roman legate
fixing himself there." It is, indeed, more
likely, on the whole, that the model should
have come from Italy than that the lonely
mountain abbey, where all the architecture,
while sound and strong, is of the simplest
and of the region, should have supplied
masters to Lombardy and the Emilia. A
chantier once established and we have the
opinion of Sr. Lamperez that the convent
and its dependencies were building steadily
from the middle of the eleventh to the
middle of the twelfth century the style
would develop with little modification
other than refinement and growing power
to express beauty on the one hand, and a
I8 7
of the
chantier
AND MONOGRAPHS
188
WAY OF S. JAMES
Silos
constant approach to nature on the other.
We may, provisionally, discuss this style
as if it commenced where we find it first,
at S. Juan.
The two capitals compared with those of
S. Domingo de Silos must be treated apart.
They are probably from another and a
later cloister, the sole remains of it. The
work is ruder and less lovely than that at
Silos: for instance the locks of hair curled
at the tip on the griffins' back are more
summary, less oriental and exquisite than
the lions' manes at Silos. There is a
capital at S. Eutropius of Saintes, of birds
pecking at monsters, which, though with-
out entrelacs, is identical in the forms of the
birds, and uses precisely the same detail to
express respectively the long quills of the
wing and the short feathers of the body
and tail. The capitals of Aulnay are of
the same sort: now the church of Aulnay
(1135) lay on the pilgrim Road and S. Eu-
tropius of Saintes (consecrated 1096) was
one of the great shrines for veneration.
These capitals could have been, at best,
oriental only at second or third remove,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
but the tombs of the ricos-ombres in the
outer court have devices directly borrowed
from the East. The tombs are mere semi-
circular pigeonholes in the bounding wall,
hollowed to hold a few bones or a handful
of dust; the arch of the upper range deco-
rated with a chequer or billet, that of the
lower with the hollow and ball that ap-
peared at S. Cruz. Within this lunette a
central disc is adorned with arms, or an
elaborate cross, the chrism, a griffin en-
closed by a twist, a lion or panther in a
border decorated with eight spindles: these
came directly from the East, and the daisy
dropped at S. Cruz came with them.
Here, then, in and near Jaca, we have a
strong Romanesque style of building that
appears as nearly as possible autocthonous,
and a type of decoration that goes with it,
developed in part, probably, from the
Roman and, in part at least, drawn from
the general stock-in-trade of Romanesque
builders. In Jaca cathedral there is little
else. At S. Cruz there is a hint of French
masonry and an Eastern decorative motive.
At S. Juan, superimposed upon the Spanish
189
Traits
oriental
and
regional
AND MONOGRAPHS
190
WAY OF S. JAMES
French
Italian
Returning
building and possibly later than the
Eastern trinkets, persist the remnants,
scanty but sufficient, of work done in the
manner of Aulnay and Saintes. I should
add that the carving of the abaci through-
out the cloister has the direct and vigorous
forms of the French work cited, and not
the more flowing and luxurious grace of
those at S. Domingo. Finally, something
Italian-seeming must be admitted.
The good woman jingled her keys, the
guide expected us to remember that he
had not breakfasted; we left the ancient
walls, where decay has been just decently
arrested, to their proper quietude and,
recrossing the brook and climbing again
the steep path through thickets, sat down
in the convent orchard to eat the luncheon
we had fetched and go to sleep, face down
in the grass, thereafter.
When we awoke it was not much past
noon, a storm-cloud was pouring over
the farther mountain range, and the guide
consented to start for home instead of
waiting, as stipulated, till four o'clock.
The kindness nearly cost him an apoplexy.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
The heat was superb. There is no other
word for that air of the Spanish noontide
which is like brandy in your blood: dry,
white, thrice distilled, you draw it in like
a perfume, you absorb it like an intoxi-
cant.
The mules, after their kind, walked
among rolling stones on the extreme outer
edge of the mountain side; the tree-tops
danced below. The Pyrenees were vapor-
ous. The intervening air boiled as above
hot metal. The lame dog who looked
like a wolf raced ahead, dug himself a cave
under the shady side of some brow or knoll
ot clay and lay in the cooler redder earth
till we had gone well past, then dashed
ahead again. After we repassed S. Cruz
we found the horses again stepping and
stumbling down the brook, each with a
log banging at his heels: noonday rest
was over. By the grange men were piling
logs again: we drove back to Jaca in the
dust that choked like soot and arrived in
time for tea and a long sleep before the
long dinner and the walk thereafter to a
bit of park along the water-side.
191
the tides
of the day
changed
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1 92
WAY OF S. JAMES
Alfonso el Batallador,
While kings of eternal evil
Yet darken the hills about,
Thy part is, with broken sabre.
To rise on the last redoubt;
To fear not sensible failure,
Nor covert the game at all,
But fighting, fighting, fighting,
Die, driven against the wall !
Garcia Iniguez was ruling his kingdom
of Sobrarbe when he took Pampeluna from
the infidel. The county of Aragon lay
between the two streams called by that
name; one comes down from Canfranc
and the Pyrenees, and runs on one side of
Jaca; the other comes down from the Port
of Hecha. The first count, D. Aznar, of
Vive con
great lineage, was serving under D. Garcia
noble
oscidia , . .
at the siege of Pampeluna and was sent
by him with some companies of men of that
country to the city of Jaca. The Moors
were not expecting attack and it fell as
soon as Pampeluna, in the year 759.
Others say that he came in from France
with his vassals and took it, and then
Garcia, pleased with his valour and nobil-
I
H IS PAN 1C NOTES
THE WAY
ity, gave him the title of Count of Aragon.
Jaca is a city on the slope of the Pyrenees,
in antiquity inferior to none in Spain.
It was muy ventures a, more than any other
in Spain. As it was the port and entry of
France, the next year four kings and an
immense army came up from Navarre and
Sanguesa to retake it. Thanks to the
women, they did not. The fuero of Jaca
was probably given by Gelindo Aznar, the
second count of Aragon: so given, because
the Goths had prohibited the imperial (i.e.,
the Roman) code. Sancho Ramirez in
1073 did not change this in any wise: he
kept the Gothic code, he did not impose
the imperial: he owned no lord in the
world but the Roman pontiff. That last
clause will bear discounting it was
written by an ecclesiastic in the seven-
teenth century. 1 Actually, belike, the
Roman pontiff got what was left after the
Lion's share had been measured.
Alfonso Sanchez, his son, the second
Alfonso, who was to be known as el Batalla-
dor, the lord of battles, was born at Hecha,
in the mountains. There the lords of
193
Jaca
ancient
and
muy ventu-
rosa
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194
WAY OF S. JAMES
The Happy
Warrior
. . . Parts
muy
principal
Aragon held always royal hunting lodges,
and kings had their sons brought up there
because the cold clear air, on the very
peak of the Pyrenees, made them strong,
robust, and soldierly. At the age of seven
years, or possibly of ten, he was put in
charge of a monk at S. Juan de la Pena;
the abbot named for his tutor D. Galindo de
Arbas, prior of S. Salvador de Puyo, who
took Alfonso with him and taught him
grammar and the other humanities. This
the king recalls in a privilege dated 1108.
He was to be, always, a great gentleman
and a great soldier. He was crowned at
Huesca, and on the same day a Grand
Rabbi of the Jews there, was converted
and baptised, the king standing god-
father; in 1 1 06 he stood godfather to a
greater convert, that Petrus Alfonsus who
composed the Disciplina Clericalis.
As his name reveals, he was born to be
the Happy Warrior. Mariana calls him a
great captain in soul, of valour and forti-
tude unparalleled, the glory and honour
of Spain. He shared all his winnings with
God; he was generous, pious after his kind,
HI.S PANIC NOTES
THE WAY
and strong as his Pyrenean rocks. To the
brother whom he succeeded, and to the
brother who succeeded him, he was staunch
and generous, giving all the service that
they asked: fortunately, this lay in the line
of right conduct, and their careers, if not
unshadowed by personal grief and regret,
by too early death, and a vocation re-
nounced, yet never ran counter to the
glory of religion and of Spain. To hold
up Spain with a strong clasp, and to put
the fear of God into the Moors, was D.
Alfonso's concern: God gave power to his
arm, and strength to his party. In the
unhappy matter of his marriage with Dona
Urraca, he seems to have acted like a
gentleman and a king, never letting per-
sonal relations override political. The
heiress of Galicia, Leon, and Castile, part-
ly in her own right, partly in transmit-
ting that right to an infant son, Dona
Urraca had the same virile strength as
Queen Blanche and Queen Berengaria in
the next century; but she had not their
austerities. Since she allowed herself the
same liberties as a man, it is small wonder
195
de las
glorias de
Espafla . .
so, F16rez
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196
WAY OF S.JAMES
Arch-
bishop
Roderick
that her husband treated her with the same
directness as a man. In the west her
matrimonial difficulties were made the
excuse for faction and rebellion: in the
east, his matrimonial connexions gave a
good ground for conquest and annexation.
In the Historic, Compostellana D. Alfonso
is painted with horns and hoofs; in the
Chronicle of S. Juan de la Pena, Dona
Urraca is a scarlet woman.
Roderick of Toledo, who must have
known some who had known him, has only
good to say, calling him in the Chronicle
in Romance "a very Catholic prince, a
constant benefactor of the religious, who
lived always in a fervid zeal to increase
the faith of Jesus Christ and continue war
against the infidel." No other king of Spain
had conquered so many lands from the
Moors, nor entered so many times in battle
with them, and always triumphed. He took
Valencia; he took Saragossa, esteemed im-
pregnable since Charlemagne's vain exploit
and tragical retreat. His brilliant raid into
the south did, probably, all that he expected
and more. We know, through the re-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
luctant admissions of Ibn-ag-Cairafi of
Granada, how the Christians called him
down with the offer of twelve thousand
warriors to help him, and among their
names not one a boy's or an old man's. a
Coming in September ot 1125, he spent a
year and six months harrying the fairest
lands of the Hagarenes, along the east
coast and throughout the south. His
expedition supplied a kind of counterpart,
a revanche, for that of Almanzor, in the
north, a century and a half before.
Queen Urraca had just died, in childing
of a bastard, say some chroniclers, but she
was to have her revenge of the husband she
had so hated. It may be that the poison
she brewed for him had done some work,
had touched some cell in the brain or
twisted some fibre. A curious unexplained
incident recorded near Malaga is just
tinged with the fantasticality that passes
over into fatality. "He had a little boat
built," says the Arab, "and caught fish
which he ate." It seems to come straight
out of the Third Calendar's tale in the
Arabian Nights. Was it done for a vow,
197
The Arabs
Fatality
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198
WAY OF S.JAMES
Roman
galleys
on coins
already
or, as his enemy prompts, to be talked of
afterwards? His wit and judgement had not
failed: when they were passing the defiles
of the river Salobrena he glanced up at
the cliffs and said to one of his knights (a
sheik of the country heard and reported) :
"What a tomb, if anyone above threw
down sand on us! "
After conquering Saragossa, Tarragona,
Calatayud, and Daroca, and generally
speaking all beyond Ebro, he turned to-
ward the confines o Catalonia. He took
Alcobia and laid siege to Lerida, coming
down the Ebro in galleys: for the Ebro
used to be navigable, in Vespasian's day
boats went as far as to Logrono; in the
fifteenth century, they could still get up
to Pampeluna. Lerida did not fall, and
he threw himself into Mequineza; then in
August of 1133, leaving that high-towered
castle in good hands, he came out and
attacked Fraga. Winter came, with great
cold and excessive rain: he had to send
the army home, every man to winter in his
own house. Again he tried the siege in
February and in April. Then Valencia
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
was lost. Battle was joined on July i7th,
and the king was killed. The Black Book
of Santiago says, under the feast of SS.
Justa and Rufina: "Era 1172 fuit inter-
fectio Christianorum in Fraga." Com-
postella would be glad, for Galicia had, on
the whole, backed Urraca, or at any rate
regarded the recurrent difficulties with her
like quarrels in the family. The great
archbishop, out there, was dying like an
old lion among jackals: the news must
have struck on his heart. "But indeed,"
old Briz Martinez says, 3 "when he died it
was as when a tree falls, any man can hack
at it, however once prized." He had lived
too long, and his star had over- watched
the ascendant by an hour. That is the life
of many men ; perhaps, if truth were known,
of all except the early dead. The wheel of
fortune that turns so slowly and never
stops turning, that brings a man to the
topmost pitch, will swing him down again
unless Death cuts him loose. The Happy
Warrior is he full-armed and dead in
the morning of battle. Men never found
Alfonso's body, or his royal arms or a sure
199
When D.
Alfonso
died
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2OO
WAY OF S.JAMES
Coronica
General
cap. 966,
f. 261 v.
Some say
he lived on
as pilgrim
sign of him: and there is another story of
his end which belongs to S. Juan de la Pena.
Hither at the last, in September weather,
had come cl Batallador from the defeat
at Fraga, to die. He had conquered Sara-
gossa and Tudela and Bayonne, he had
helped the Cid at Valencia; for thirty years
he had been winning, and had taken many
cities, and now the tide had turned. He
got off his horse and went to his bed. On
the morning of the seventh he bade close
all the doors of the monastery, and so he
died. What was the thought in all that
bolting and barring before the end? Not
against powers of this world, one fancies,
but against elemental, and the powers of
the rock and the air, and the prince of the
powers of the air. Or was it the desperate
determination not to die, to imprison still
the escaping soul, and catch and cage it
yet? By his will the kingdom was to be
shared among ghostly warriors who were
trained men-of-arms, knightly monks, who
could count on having God behind them,
the Order of the Temple, of S. John of Jeru-
salem, of the Holy Sepulchre.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
So passed the grand fighter, but the
memory of him stirs and wakes at times
in Spain. Of such great figures of the
Middle Age as this Alfonso, and Dona
Urraca his spouse, Ferdinand the Saint,
and Diego Gelmirez the prelate who so
nearly was another pope, I can evoke only
a cloudy and fleeting image, a flitting shape,
a shadow on running water. But of their
presence is ever aware the pilgrim in Spain.
There is an ancient legend, told in many
lands, of a traveller falling asleep in a
plain or a valley or on a hillside where
once was fought a battle: how in the night
under the sailing moon he hears faint
tramplings, the neighing of horses and
trumpets blown, steel clanging, and heavy
bodies falling, or he sees at such times the
pale wraiths clash and strive and lose at
the last all soundlessly. And when the
sun is up again, the dew hangs strung on
gossamers, in her quivering spires the lark
trills, the tall seeded grasses wave in the
freshening wind, yet unf alien.
201
Shadows
of smoke
on running
water
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2O2
WAY OF S.JAMES
III
THE BATHS OF TIERMAS
D'ailleurs, voyage t'on
en Espagne ? Au fond on
y fait plutot des pelerin-
ages. G6mez Carrillo.
AT Jaca we watched the young nobility
of Spain training boy scouts: we paced
the grey flagged streets between the grey
stone houses: we sat in the cathedral, early
and late, but, though cool and grey, it is not
so good as some for sitting in. The Core
takes up too much room. All the cen-
turies have bedecked and bedraped it, not
so ill neither, and it is a comely, friendly,
experienced place, not moving or edifying.
At the last we climbed a ladder and sat
down on the top of another yellow motor-
omnibus bound for Tiermas.
The road, tree-planted, follows the river
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
westward, all the way. The cities sit up
on hills; you see them from far, and pass
them, and see them far. Berdun, which is
one of these, boasts a great church dedi-
cated to S. Eulalia, but Aymery Picaud
knows nothing of it, nor do I. The wide
white plain is bounded by blue mountains
that hardly change; the vast blue sky is
strewn with white piles of cloud that sail
and sail; the car climbs hills at full speed
and swings around curves like a boy's
sling, and you know that if it skidded you
would be slung into the next kingdom like a
boy's stone. When a shower passed over
we pulled a rug over our two heads : the car
sped through it and into blue again. In
one place an old man in a wide hat was
raking up and turning in the sun a square
yard of daisy heads, curing them for I
know not what tisane. Elsewhere two
old men went down a road dangling empty
wine flasks, their white shirt sleeves, their
alpargatas and white socks and long black
stockings, their broad black sashes and
velvet vests, the dress of Aragon. The
Sierra on the south approached, the river
Set on a
hill
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204
WAY OF S.JAMES
thermae
bed on the north widened; its sandy banks
between the shallow pools were not more
arid than the land on either side, just
diversified with purple pebbly rock and
grey aromatic shrubs, rosemary, juniper
and cistus. The great back of a hill lifted
a few grey houses against the windy blue,
and around the curve of it we drew up at
the Baths of Tiermas.
These thermae the Romans knew, and
bequeathed a name and an old red
porphyry tank, no more. The charm of
Tiermas is older than they, is old as the
elements. The landscape is like that of
the Sistine Creation of Adam, but the
ringing sky and the clear wind are older
even than the rocks and marl, are ageless
and immortal.
It is hard to tell another what we found
in Tiermas to like it so. Not, surely, the
sulphuretted hydrogen of the waters, which
flavoured the drinking and the cooking.
The very pillows and table-napkins tasted
thereof. The inn at Jaca bad been excel-
lent after its kind, and that a kind which
while entirely Peninsular was for goodness
HISPANIC NOTES
The Old
THE WAY 205
almost European: we liked it well enough.
I dare say if we had stayed, in Tiermas, at
the new large hotel across the tiny square,
we should have been merely bored and
impatient with the wide shady hall and
wicker furniture, with the private chapel
for the convenience of priests stopping
at the house, and the upper gallery, yet
more private, therein, for the reserve of
great ladies; with the airy dining room and
its conventional little tables and conven-
tional long meals. But after reading the
tariff painted up on a board in plain view
we crossed over to the Old Inn. They
took us up, past the steaming stone tanks
of the basement where you sat to soak in
the very troughs of a thousand years ago,
down long whitewashed corridors that re-
called the Springs of the last century in
Virginia, into a pair of huge bare rooms,
scrubbed and empty and airy. You saw
outside the windows a clean sky piled with
white clouds, and the vast heave of a hill
where a thread of road crept and wound
and men and donkeys crawled up at
nightfall to the ancient town and trotted
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2O6
WAY OF S.JAMES
Why we
liked it
down in the early day; and all night a few
lights pricked through there like low-
swung stars; and you heard a tree below
in a courtyard, rustling softly.
We ate plain meals, but well-tasting, at
a long table with casual men travelling,
like otirselves, modestly; and with the
housekeeper and the bookkeeper, who, not
thinking themselves too good to sit down
there, maintained decorum and interest
in the talk. Provision was made, in the
explicit tariff posted in every room, for
travellers yet more modest, who brought
their own provisions and had the use of a
kitchen granted. The card also enumer-
ated the meals to which pension entitled
one: a good early breakfast, or, if one was
not used to that, then a substantial meri-
enda (in American, "snack") at ten o'clock;
almuerzo, as big as a dinner, at one; at five
chocolate with azucarillos and a glass of
water; dinner about nine; and I believe a
snack at bed-time, which occurred some-
where after midnight, but we never waited
up for it. It could not have been the
friendly insistence on chocolate the instant
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
of our arrival, the cold water and the
azucarillos, so delicious when we were
dusty and faint. Perhaps it was the
space within doors and without, that we
so loved, or the wind that blew out of the
clean spaces of the sky. There never was
anything like this wind, not even that
which blows on a hot day after strong rain.
There we rested : I remember that I read
the whole of The Golden Ass in old Ed-
wardes's version, where the quaintness
decently disguises the indecency, in the
long afternoons, in the big silent room.
We sat on the sun-warmed rocks by the
roadside in cool twilights that evoked all
the aromatic scents, making friends with a
pair of silly brown sheep that regularly
forgot us over -night; looking over at Mon-
real, away down stream, situate on such
another hill, brown against the blue moun-
tain.
One morning we climbed to the ancient
city above us, to find no more than the
ground plan of a castle that a king's and
a cardinal's jealousy had ruined; and the
shapeless form of a church that Jesuits'
207
The wind
of the
world
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208
WAY OF S.JAMES
A
prophet's
chamber
piety later had erected and deformed with
a baroque altar-piece. Considering the
date and the general formlessness of the
brick agglomeration, it was curious to see,
notwithstanding, all the members of Jaca
cathedral here: the open southern porch, the
western tower, the shallow transepts and
low square above the crossing; only here the
apse is square-ended like the other termi-
nations. Above the church porch, reached
by a fine flight of steps, is a little apart-
ment, inhabited. I have seen the same at
S. Ciprian in Segovia, and at Fornells on
the Catalonian frontier. Of the deliberate
desolation of the town in the sixteenth
century I spoke too hastily: one of the
town gates does survive, built into a house,
and through it the winds blow. In the
view the Sierra de Leyre rises grandly,
wooded chiefly with scrub-oak up the side
and topped for uncounted miles by pali-
sades like those along the Hudson.
Another day we pushed up into this
sierra in search of the venerable abbey of
S. Salvador de Leyre, motoring for about
an hour along the highway to Yesa, there
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
taking a couple of donkeys and old women
and at the church dismissing them with
half a notion of walking home across
country. But we did not risk it, for that
the way dipped down at least twice out of
sight of landmarks, we could clearly per-
ceive, and that the land was cut up with
sheep tracks and the little foot-ways by
which each man goes in the morning to
work his own patch of mountain ground,
the long plough lashed upon the donkey's
back, and comes home at night with a
stack of green fodder piled above it.
Therefore we walked back as we had
come, to Yesa, over stony land like mons-
trous pudding-stone, and disputed the way
with a brook or two, and soaking springs.
Awaiting the motor, we made friends with
the men, who hardly at all mistrusted us;
the women who gossiped, an hour at a
time, with a water-pail like a churn borne
easily on the head; the children who were
dressed like old women and like them
covered the hair, tying a kerchief under the
chin. We saw trains of mules go through,
and again loaded waggons, three or four
209
. . . And
to bis
labour
until the
evening
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2IO
WAY OF S.JAMES
together, and everything stopping at the
toll house to pay according to its value.
We sketched, I recall, an old wrought iron
knocker, on a street door. The church
had no interest to offer, in whitewashed
nave or blunt tower. Not one house in the
village possessed a pane of glass: wooden
shutters closed the windows at need.
Protective
colouring
These brown Spanish towns have the
same trait as some birds and insects and
even furry things, of protective colouring.
Without contour or colour to distinguish
them, they disappear into the landscape
at even a little distance. Men were
building that year a road for automobiles
to go up to S. Salvador, so for those who
read this there will be no more of grey
donkeys and stony tracks.
Leyre.
Heureux qui voyage On y prend passage
En ces lieux benis: Pour le Paradis.
Hymn of Lourdes.
Many pilgrims must have visited the
abbey, for it is very venerable and lies
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
only a few miles above the ancient track,
yet none brought such gifts as they left
in towns along the Way. In Navarre
it lies, just over the frontier, but I find it
called in old histories court and heart of
the realm. At times it was the seat of the
diocese now named of Pampeluna, and for
long it held a right that the bishop should
be selected from thence. It lasted for at
least a thousand years; S. Eulogius visited
it in 851, and it was not burned till 1835.
The wealth was unspoiled until after the
seventeenth century. The range of the
eighteenth-century monastery, roofless and
empty-windowed, dominates the plain
front of the church for a long way up the
road. A donation signed in 908 still
exists, but the foundation is older, for
f nigo Arista we know restored it, and the
present crypt, I am pretty sure, belongs to
his restoration and therefore to the ninth
century. Benedictines had been fetched
to it, from Cluny, before 1022. In 1090
Sancho Ramirez conceded to it the exemp-
tions of Cluny: he had then probably
commenced the upper church, for under
211
A
thousand
years
but as
yesterday
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212
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Bishop
of Com-
postella
the reign and in the presence of Pedro
Sanchez his son, Peter I, the consecration
took place in 1098. *
Present likewise was Bishop Diego of
Santiago, his own church being well under
way and the decoration in the hands of
workmen of the same school. The work
at Compostella is very different in quality
from any here, that is to say, in beauty
absolute; it is less archaic than some on
this portal and purer and earlier than the
rest. A chance such as this for the student
to make comparison is precious as rare.
The church then consecrated must have
consisted of three apses, circular, and quite
plain without; and then two bays of barrel
vaulting, the aisles excessively high and
narrow. On the western face of the last
pier are attached shafts, their capitals in
the same style, as if in preparation for
continuing a nave that was never to be
built. Possibly this eleventh -century build-
ing had actually a nave, later to be pulled
down: possibly the western door was com-
menced early and duly reared but the
junction with the choir never effected.
213
Archaic
THE WAY
In 1230 the Cistercians were introduced:
"because of abuses," says a historian.
Benedictines dislodged them from 1270 to
1273 only, then they returned for good,
and some time thereafter built the present
. Poitevin
nave of a single great span. In style the
building, says Sr. Lamperez, 2 is Poitevin
of the most archaic, and it belongs to the
eleventh century; the Cistercians length-
ened, raised and vaulted it. This great
span excels as a wonder that which at
Gerona Guillermo Boffy planned in 1416,
and precedes it by a generation if not two.
The vaults are of the fourteenth century
indisputably, and should be compared with
those of the church of Ujue in Navarre.
The portal as it stands was put together,
largely out of earlier material, in the four-
teenth century. The grotesques, which cer-
tainly are not earlier than that, are curi-
ously crude, not so much barbarous as pue-
rile. Like S. Juan de la Pena, S. Salvador
lay out of the world, out of the main
stream, and there is danger of dating every-
thing too early and mistaking archaism for
age.
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214
WAY OF S.JAMES
School of
Toulouse
It is impossible, for instance, to admit
that the figures in the tympanum belong to
Carolingian times, that is to say, to Ifiigo
Arista's building. They are of the school
of Toulouse, and they are provincial imita-
tions of work accepted and mature. We
have no dated work in Toulouse earlier
than S. Sernin, consecrated 1098. The fig-
ures of Christ and the angels built into
the choir enclosure there, show how that
art began: these at Leyre show how it
could end.
Similarly in the crypt the capitals are
quite literally barbaric, carved chiefly with
parallel grooves and spirals that may be
intended to imitate the Ionic volute but
curve the wrong way. Madrazo gives
some drawings of these. 3 In France, I
think the capitals cited by Courajod 4
without a date in some remote Breton
churches, may be of the same kind; and
those of the ninth century at Cruas, in the
Ardeche, though better, suggest them.
The division into nave and aisles, in the
lower church, is further complicated by a
row of shafts and arches carried midway
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY 215
down the nave and even through the apse
of it; and another transverse row, which
makes four bays in all from east to west.
Owing to the fall of the ground, the apses
of the crypt open well into the light, as at
S. Martin de Unx, in Navarre, at Saintes
and Auxerre in France and in so many
other early Romanesque churches. The
low arches, stilted, carry a barrel vault,
and inside the arch of the main apse are
cylindrical shafts of which the capital is
merely a larger cylinder incised with a few
lines.
In the early part of the upper church
the capitals, while primitive, do not lack
grace. The arch of the aisles is very stilted
and at the entrance to the apses stood a
shaft under the arch; this was cut away at
some period to accommodate retables now
perished but luckily the capitals were left.
The barrel vault of the aisles is much higher
than the nave arcade, a curious trait which
may be associated with the same relative
lowness of the arches between nave and
aisles in such pre-Romanesque churches as
S.Juan de Banos and 5. Salvador de Val-de-
and
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216
WAY OF S.JAMES
French
instances
Dios. At any rate, some account must be
made out for it, considering the uncommon
height, normally, of the nave arcade in
those churches of Poitou which S. Salva-
dor most recalls. The interior, if the nave
as planned originally was ever done, would
have looked like those of Chauvigny and S.
Savin, or S. Hilaire of Poitiers which cer-
tainly was, after a fashion, completed, with
the same exceeding height and exceed-
ing narrowness, and with a timber roof,
by the end of the eleventh century. s The
great difference between the French
churches and this lies in their acceptance
of the ambulatory chapels: but the S.
Hilaire consecrated in 1049 had a great
apse and two small ones eastward of the
transept, and the present arrangement be-
longs to a reconstruction in the twelfth
century when the edifice was vaulted by an
architect who seems accountable for the
present absurd arrangement in the nave, as
well as for an ambulatory with four chapels.
The piers there are cruciform, a three-
quarter column on each face, so also at
Chauvigny, which lies on a frequented
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
road. Half way between there and Poi-
tiers, S. Julian had a shrine. There was a
straight way for builders to come, sum-
moned or on the tramp.
The nave, only two steps lower than the
older part, consists of three bays of fine
ribbed vaulting and one, narrow and a trifle
taller, at the western end. Like the Poite-
vin churches of a single nave, it has strong
round lateral arches against the wall, and
on the south, in the first bay, another great
round arch, higher, that springs from about
the springing of the present vault. In that
same bay, on the north wall, is a good late-
pointed window of two lights, cusped, under
a cusped triangle, and this bay ends, on
each side, with a shaft against a pilaster,
as if there had been an intention while the
walls were going up to continue the eastern
part. In the next two bays a round-
headed window comes just under the la-
teral arch on the south side, having one
shaft in the jambs and beautiful fantastic
capitals, one of birds with their necks
interlaced. A similar transitional window
in the west wall has, however, early Gothic
21
Nave
AND MONOGRAPHS
218
WAY OF S.JAMES
A long day
capitals. In the south wall a very beautiful
little door that opens into a chapel led
once to the cloister: the head of the round
arch is strongly moulded, the tympanum
carved on the outer face with the labarum
in low relief; the capitals of the three shafts
in each jamb are adorned with plant forms
stylized without loss of feeling for the pine-
tassel and cone, the young shoots of the
vine, and others.
Of the portal I am entitled to speak in
some detail, as to iconography and style
both, for I spent the best part of a day in
watching it. At the convenience of the
motor omnibus we had set out in the sun-
rise and were to return at dusk. We had
inspected the church exhaustively, and the
crypt and the capitals and the mouldings
and the vaults. We had raised and laid
again all the probabilities of date and
provenance, and photographed everything
accessible. Jehane has a nice sense for
the look of a century, which she educated
long ago at the Museum of the Trocadero;
her rough guess is always suggestive.
The old women who had peered and lis-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
tened after us went home again, and
there was nothing to do but watch the
portal and as the sun moved try another
photograph. We lunched on potato ome-
lette and cold breaded chops ; Jehane slept
on the grass and woke and consumed such
of the chops as remained and wandered off
to exchange amenities with the caretaker,
her dog, and her donkey: I had nothing to
do but look at the portal.
The convent of Leyre was planted on a
spur of the great sierra which runs off at
about half the height, on the very spine or
ridge of it, so that eastward the windows of
the crypt look into the sun over falling
gullies and copsewood, and at the west a
narrow terrace, well shaded with holm-
oak and walnut, is sustained by a low wall
of stone. Over this you may lean and,
looking over plantations where once were
forests, even into the kingdom of Aragon,
rest at last upon the bare flanks of the
Pyrenean outliers. Opposite the portal
this wall swells into a hemicycle and
receives a stone bench: lying there in the
sun waiting while the shadows moved, in
219
Windows
that look
into the
sun
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22O
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Abbot
Viril
known also
at Samos
the quiet of a land inhabited, while the
insects sang a tiny tune from which you
missed the constant thrill ot the cicada,
where danced the blue-mailed flies, the
gossamer-winged gnats, while a dog barked
far away, I thought of the abbot Viril.
In his day the whole mountain side was
thick forest, and the tiny church which he
knew, and the cluster of cells, was walled
in, houses and herb-garden, against the
wolves. From this station he looked out
on the heaving top of a vast wood, that
filled the valley except where the white
road ran, and the river's course was marked
by a brighter green. It is said that one
evening at the hour of recreation, Viril
went out the convent gate and down to a
clear spring, under a rock, in the outskirts
of the wood, pacing quietly, breathing the
evening cool and the grassy sweets, but
troubled in mind. If Heaven were indeed
all music, eternally prolonged, he had an
instant fear that one might, in the end, be
bored. This was right Spanish, the ennui
and the orthodoxy both. The shocking
thought would not away, and the good
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
old man was mightily perturbed. Above
the spring a little brown bird on a bough
sang and sang, now so softly, now so
rapturously, that he stayed his walk. It
sang, may be, three minutes and then
spread wings and flew away, and the abbot
turned back, for night was thickening
under the trees. His sight was troubled
in the dusk, for when he reached the con-
vent gate he hardly knew it, nor yet the
porter's face, and the brothers, coming in
from recreation, looked unfamiliar. They
stood about staring a little silently, and
one said a word about calling the abbot,
and Viril said, quite gently, that he con-
ceived himself to be the abbot, and they
fell silent again. One who had slipped
away came back anon, bringing the abbot
and the old, old monk with whom he had
at the moment been engaged. This one it
was who remembered in the puzzled talk
that followed, to have heard long since
how three hundred years ago an abbot
Viril, going out at twilight, had never
again come in: for the three minutes of the
bird's song had been three hundred years.
221
"O grey-
brown
bird I"
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222
WAY OF S.JAMES
Evensong
The Court
of Silent
Dreams
So Viril was assured of the joy of heaven
and in three days, having received the
sacraments, his soul passed thither and his
body was buried beside the dust of his old
monks. 6
Three bright flies, in metallic armour of
blue and green, hung in the sunlight. Yes,
that is Spain, the thought went on, you
listen to the magical bird's song, and the
sound of it is never out of your ears again.
There is a poem by Sung Chih-Wen, I
recalled, to the same effect : then / n the court
of silent dreams I lost myself again.
Little by little in the changing lights
details became clearer, figures grew recog-
nizable, intentions defined themselves. It
is highly convenient to go to a place in your
own automobile and when you have seen
enough to go away again, but to stay there
much longer than you like is more instruc-
tive.
The whole portal, seen from far, is
merely a projection on the flat face of the
church. Pious hands have screened the
worn sculptures with a bit of penthouse
roof, otherwise it is as the last rebuilding
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
223
left it, six hundred years ago. The rather
low arch of the tympanum encloses six
figures and the traces of a seventh that
were made for some such place but are
merely built in here. They are of the
school of Toulouse, and represent Christ
blessing, with a book, between SS. Mary
and John, SS. Peter and James also blessing
and with books, finally, in the left-hand
corner, a little seated figure writing on a
tablet with style in one hand and eraser
in the other, as in the miniatures of manu-
scripts a scribe is figured. Unluckily his
head is gone, and the whole of his mate
at the left. Madrazo 7 would have these
figures to represent, besides the Saviour
and His mother, SS. Nunila and Alodia,
W. MM., on her right and His left, and
SS.Viriland Marcianatthe ends. The last
two identifications may be right, the other
figures, however, are not meant for women,
but, one of them, for the Beloved Disciple
beardless and bareheaded. Madrazo also
says 8 that Cean Bermudez read on a stone
on the north side, " Magister Fulcherius me
fecit," but does not care to admit that it
SS. Peter,
James, and
John
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224
WAY OF S.JAMES
Mailre
Foulques
' who
sups with
the devil
could have been right since Fulcherius or
Foulques would be a Frenchman. There-
fore he would amend Fulcherius and let
the unknown architect take his chance
with a Roman name !
The archivolt includes three main sculp-
tured orders with decorative moulding
between, and a broad billet outside; of
these, the innermost is decorated mainly
with plant forms, the next two with gro-
tesques based mainly on animal forms, lastly,
a broader row no less grotesque, of which
some details are masks and some are mon-
sters but most are human, a man hugging
his knees; and some musicians, one with
fiddle, one with harp; likewise a man
supping out of a pot with a long spoon, as
the proverb says in certain circumstances
you must. I conceive all of this, like a
certain leaf or shell pattern (recalling the
wild mallow of garden paths) which runs
through the reconstruction, bordering the
tympanum, for instance, and decorating
the abacus of one of the jamb shafts, to
be of the fourteenth century. On each of
the flat buttress-pilasters that flank the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
225
jambs, stands a saint, a lion above him
and another under his feet. The lions are
Lombard-looking, one eating a sheep; the
figures Toulousan. So are the capitals,
carved, two with birds, their necks inter-
laced, or with animals, one being early
Gothic. Finally stretched across the top
of the projecting mass of the portal, and
filling the spandrels, are figures and parts
of figures remotely Toulousan, left from
an earlier fagade. On the capital of the
central shaft, which is formed by four
seated men, the drapery is very finely
worked and reminds me on the one hand
of the seated Saviour at Avila, and on the
other of the zodiacal figures at Toulouse.
I conceive this capital to be a bit of re-
pairing, done by a master passing who
was familiar with Languedoc and Castile.
Heads of the evangelical lion and ox jut
out as if to support a lintel.
In the mass of sculptures built about this
arch, not all are plain, but some are un-
mistakable: chief among these, in the left-
hand spandrel, the great S. James with his
staff and book. A head alongside seems
Avila and
Languedoc
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226
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Trans-
figuration
that of one dead or sleeping. Above, in the
row of statues just under the cornice, you
have, first, S. Michael (or possibly S.
George) with the long triangular shield of
the twelfth century, trampling upon the
conquered dragon's scaly folds, then,
blessing, the Christ of the Mount of
Transfiguration, between the chosen apos-
tles. Two of these have beards curled and
parted, like those of Toulouse; the third,
the Beloved, is again young and beardless,
and points to his book. In a triangular
space on either hand, near the summit of
the arch, angels are trumpeting to Judge-
ment through great olifaunts, and above
them, next the young S. John, are, amongst
others on a smaller scale than heretofore, a
couple of women whom I take to be of the
risen righteous, and a man in pilgrim cloak
and sun-hat, in suppliant posture. On
the northern half, which is the Saviour's
left, you find hell-mouth, figured as a gi-
gantic mask with eyes, ears, and ribbons
dangling down from the lips: a devil points
it out to a man. Jonah lies under his
whale, which is curved like a dolphin.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Into the remaining space on this side the
Annunciation and Visitation have been
tucked away. In the former the angel,
in accordance with Byzantine iconographic
use, has one wing folded back over his
shoulder like a cloak, and the other
stretched out behind his outstretched
hand which holds a cross a beautiful
bit of symbolism that I do not recall else-
where. Over the Visitation broods the
Holy Ghost. 9 The women wear hanging
sleeves with a close wrinkled sleeve below,
and veils drawn up about the face to form
a wimple.
Now for the interpretation of all this.
The early church was Poitevin in style, as
shown by the great height and narrowness
of the aisles and the use and proportions
of the longitudinal arches. Churches of
this type have room for much sculpture
on the facade, even for several distinct
themes; Notre- Dame-la-Grande accommo-
dates more figures, and more apparently
con fused but really coherent symbolism than
this of Leyre could ever amount to. In a
church dedicated to S. Saviour the patronal
227
The An-
nunciation
The Key
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228
WAY OF S.JAMES
The
cypress
The whale
feast is kept on August 6, the Feast of
the Transfiguration, and the scene upon
Mount Tabor belongs therefore among the
sculptures. The reader may recall that
at the cathedral of Santiago at Compo-
stella, Aymery Picaud saw this same
Transfiguration occupying the west door-
way, whence it was displaced by Master
Matthew's Apocalypse, and a motive
somewhat similar in the face of the
south transept above the doors, Christ
and S. James, the cypress of the moun-
tain and Abraham who awakens for he
has seen the Day of the Lord. The
head I noted here at Leyre, I take to be
Abraham's.
The theme of the Last Judgement was
firmly established in the south by the
middle of the twelfth century. At Beau-
liei , at Autun, at Espalion, the angels are
trumpeting and the dead are rising. Jonah
appears here, fantastically indeed, but no
more irregularly than on the pulpits in the
south of Italy, to enforce the great mystery
of the Resurrection. Lastly, somewhere
among the innumerable arcades of this
HISPANIC NOTES
THE W A V
style room was found, as at Notre- Dame-
la-Grande, for the joyful mysteries of the
Incarnation, the Angelic Salutation and
the Magnificat. These all belong to that
church of which just enough was finished
tor consecration in the last year of the
eleventh century, to permit the daily Mass
and the monastic office. It may be that the
saint upon the south jamb, and his fellow,
quite worn away, on the north, are a trifle
later in date than the mass of the work,
and that the figures in the tympanum are
not only more archaic but actually elder.
The same difference of date among statues
of a single fabric is noticeable at Compo-
stella.
What I have shown is that the carven
work here at Leyre may fairly be dated
at the outset of the twelfth century, 10
may fairly be explained by comparison with
that at Santiago and, being off the route
of pilgrims, loses the advantage of that
constant interchange of reminiscence and
innovation, suggestion and combination,
which was the making of a church like S.
Mary's at Sangiiesa.
229
Off the
track
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230
WAY OF S.JAMES
Sangiiesa.
The City speaks :
Casada soy, rey Don Juan,
Casada soy, que no viuda;
El moro que a ml me tiene
Muy grande bien me queria.
Sanguesa lies really not very far from
Tiermas, though the river Aragon likes to
turn and wind with many doublings in
between, and the road which follows the
The river
Aragon
river makes a great business of it. The
motor omnibus does not follow at all, but
strikes across northward and combines at
another station with the good little electric
line that runs around and about from
Pampeluna into the remote valley of
Roncal and, on another fork, half-way to
Roncevaux. The ancient way, however,
made but one stage from Jaca to Sanguesa
that lies fair and lovely by the green
water's side. Passing through the town,
you climb a long hill and come out in a
sort of upper world, with heights and
valleys of its own and a great sweep of
clean bright air through which you look
across to a brown city lying on a brown hill-
I
HISPANIC NOTES
Eunate
THE WAY
side, like a rock on the sands: that is Sos,
in Aragon. It is perhaps a good moment
to name a peculiarity noted more than once
hereabouts, how you may climb and climb,
with long loops and windings ot well-
metalled road, and come up at last into, so
to speak, Beanstalk-country, with its own
hills and dales, from which you do not
again descend. Above Sanguesa it would
seem you could walk on forever in the
bright fierce heat, and when you turn back
and descend the long declining road that
grows after a while into a street, you are
in an equally valid world below, by the
river. Not far from here lies Javier, where
S. Francis Xavier was born, a seat of pious
memories and Jesuit architecture.
Sanguesa, called la que nunca falto, was
founded virtually by Alfonso el Balallador,
who in 1132 gave exemptions and privileges
to the free men of Sangtiesa la Vieja, which
was most likely Rocaforte, if they would
settle on the plain below his castle. There
was a ford and a bridge, there, and it was
frontier, and on a main road, so the castle
had to keep the way and the men had to
233
The Bean-
stalk
country
Ford and
bridge
HISPANIC NOTES
234
A palatine
church
WAY OF S. JAMES
keep the castle. The year before, he had
made a gift to the religious ot S. John of
Jerusalem of his palace which stood near
the bridge and the church within it: de la
Iglesia de S. Maria que estaba dentro del
patio del rey al principio del bur go nuevo. l
That cannot quite have been the present
church. Unluckily the next useful date
falls too late, being that of concessions
made by Philip of Evreux, the spouse of
Queen Jehane, counted as Philip III of
Navarre, in 1330, when par causa del diluvio
de agua era perdida gran parte de la villa. a
S. Mary the Royal is a noble transitional
church of the late twelfth century with an
octagonal dome of the early fourteenth
carried on squinches: it has three apses
arcaded round inside, high up, three aisles
of two bays, but no transept, and a western
gallery. The main arches are all pointed
and a strong quadripartite vault, beauti-
fully ribbed, descends upon clustered piers
with two columns on each face and another
in each corner to receive the ribs. The
capitals are mainly of Romanesque form,
developments of the acanthus or applica-
HISPANIC NOTES
235
THE WAY
tions of the eagle; one pair shows griffins,
elsewhere lions are eating a creature; all
beautifully conceived and executed. The
eastern capitals of the main arcade are
early Gothic, the later, on a larger scale,
are by a master. The design of a Nativity
is like that of the Rood-screen at Chartres
and the pulpit at Siena; the man riding
on horseback belongs to a corresponding
Epiphany, and the head of the follow-
ing horse comes around the corner. The
bases are high, with griffes in the corner.
The west wall is chiefly occupied by an
organ, the central apse by a monstrous
retable.
Probably by reason of some disposition
of other buildings around the original
patio, the portal occupies, the first bay
of the south face. We have seen, already, p
that Spanish architects took kindly to side
portals. It was itself at some time rebuilt.
In the upper part two rows of statues in
round-headed arcades recall the southwest
of France. In the lower half a great pointed
doorway is set, with statues against the col-
umns of the jambs; the tympanum being
The side
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236
WAY OF S. JAMES
Confusion
or com-
bination ?
occupied by a Doom, and with the twelve
apostles under arches and a Madonna and
child; the archivolts filled with figures.
The triangular spaces left on either side
of these are crowded with sculptures, some
left over from the earlier version of the
portal, some carved in the Spanish style
of the late twelfth century, for the places
they now occupy, to fill up gaps. The
upper part suggests the style of Poitou,
the tympanum recalls Languedoc, the
jamb statues are of the school of Chartres.
M. Bertaux 3 thinks the whole portal was
made at once in the thirteenth century,
with its disproportion and confusion, as
children make play-houses with shells and
pebbles. He is probably mistaken: six
leagues beyond Pampeluna on the other
side, at Puente la Reyna, you will find a
portal built all at once, and it comes out
quite different. Sr. Lamperez suggests 4
that perhaps the church of Alfonso sur-
vives in the head (i. e., the east end), the
plan, with the portal up to the springing
of the pointed arches, and the outer walls:
the windows moreover and the vaults of
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
the apse and jambs of the door are in
keeping with other Spanish work of the
early twelfth century. In a restoration
executed about a century later the piers
and vaults of the nave will have been made,
and the portal altered. The tympanum
has been cut, he notices, to admit of a
pointed arch, and in the face of the jambs
the columns do not spring from the ground
but commence rather high up, which shows
that the earlier doorway lacked columns.
Lastly, in the first quarter of the thirteenth
century was built the lantern, of perfect
early Gothic. The upper part of the
tower is of the fourteenth, or fifteenth
century. Straightway thereafter, the dis-
tinguished architect adds that S. Mary's
may have been completely rebuilt about
1 200, using only scraps of the earlier
church, and finishing the tower lantern in
the first third of the thirteenth century.
From this the reader may judge how diffi-
cult is Spanish archaeology. In remoter
parts of Navarre, at Aybar, only an hour
away, or at S. Martin de Unx, the con-
temporary style is quite different: heavy,
237
Alterna-
tive dates
AND MONOGRAPHS
238
WAY OF S.JAMES
Foot-path
wayfarers
Romanesque and hugeous. The present
business, however, is not with dates so
much as with sources, not with precedence
so much as inter-relation. We have seen
that at Leyre when the Cistercians rebuilt
the nave they made the portal out of frag-
ments of the old facade: we shall see that
at Puente la Reyna when Knights of S.
John built the church of the Crucified
and the King built that of S. James, the
form of the portal is logical, the sculptures
keep appointed places, the order is plain
as in Tuscany or Normandy. If then S.
Maria was built and rebuilt, so to speak,
before our eyes, we may recognize in the
workmen who collaborated, and combined
so strangely such alien elements, precisely
those pilgrims who were passing incessantly
along the road.
In the Middle Age it has been said
already craftsmen wandered about, and
the builder's trade was less stationary than
most; the parallel of theComacine masters
established a precedent halt a millennium
before; the note-book of Villard de Hon-
necourt is evidence that a man in the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
thirteenth century was sketching in Cham-
pagne and Switzerland, in Artois and in
Hungary. Here at Sangiiesa appear (they
have already been evoked) plain tokens
that such workmen have come along and
stopped a bit, left their handiwork and
their teaching behind. Even when they
came from very far, on their pilgrimage
they had passed by the great shrines of the
west of France, on the long Atlantic slope
where English armies were already counter-
marching and destroying; or else they had
come down through the high volcanic land
midway between that and the immense
river Rhone, where rocks were coloured like
the skins of beasts and pied and banded
churches broke up out of the ground, down
into the soft luxurious plain of Languedoc,
and always the ways of building and the
forms ot ornament were fresh and living in
their minds.
As late as the fourteenth century churches
were built, in the part of France repre-
sented by the departments of Vienne and
Charente-Inferieure, with arcades across
the upper part and statues under every
239
Flandresin
Artoys. . ."
AND MONOGRAPHS
240
WAY OF S.JAMES
". . .&Pont
puis d
Blaye "
arch, and they were begun at least as early
as the eleventh. The church of Perignac,
near Pons, 5 on the road from Saintes to
Bordeaux, illustrates such an arrangement
with two rows of arcading, a large window
in the centre of the upper row, a Madonna
enthroned with the child in the centre of
the lower. This sort served as a model
for S. Maria at Sangiiesa. Under a deep
cornice, sustained by animal heads, heavy
and very plain, run the two rows of double-
shafted arches: six figures occupy the upper
arcade and in an oblong space in the centre
the Christ sits enthroned, blessing, between
the four living things. The ox and lion
at His feet are not treated symmetrically
but face the same way, to the spectator's
right, which is precisely the blunder a local
workman would make in handling a theme
unfamiliar; but the lion has the right
Chinese smile, like that of Moissac. Two
angels flank this and in the outermost
arches are S. Peter and another saint:
eight more saints, among whom S. James
alone may be distinguished, leaning on his
staff, occupy the lower range; they are
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
241
probably all apostles and with the two
above and the human image which re-
presents S. Matthew in the Tetramorph,
make up the eleven. On the tympanum
of the door, below, the lowest third (or
something more) is occupied by what
should fill a lintel if one there were, another
arcade, round-headed, sustained by single
shafts patterned over with the chevron,
meander, spiral, etc., like that at La Char-
ite-sur-Loire. The Virgin crowned and
seated on a Roman chair holds the
Child upon her left knee. Here is not the
Sedes Sapientiae, the venerable Madonna
of Majesty with its ancient unalterable
frontality, but head and shoulders are
turned a little eastward, the right arm is
laid across the body, to hold the Child's,
and the head is a little inclined. The
portal of Cahors, now on the north side
of the church but once at the west, puts
into the lower part of the tympanum, above
the lintel, a similar arcade. Above sits a
gigantic Christ, with cross-marked nimbus,
between four trumpeting angels: He has
the mitre-crown of Moissac and the bare
Charilc-
- Loire
AND MONOGRAPHS
242
WAY OF S.JAMES
Weighing
Souls
shoulder and breast of Beaulieu but no
wound. He blesses with two fingers and
the thumb. On His right two rows of the
blessed crowd towards Him; on His left
the reprobate, above, are chained into a
long gang; below, the angel weighs the
souls, which is a French motive. Looking
back over the whole length of the Way,
I recall it in only two instances, here and
at Estella, on parish churches, and on the
two cathedrals of Burgos and Leon. Hell
is a sprawling monster with horns, teeth, and
tongue, but the fourteenth -century motive
of the Jaws of Death has not yet appeared.
On the other side of the angel, three charm-
ing women lean one against the other, and
you divine that they are saved.
Coming to the jamb-figures, we have
further to look for origins but the case is
clear. Three queens from Chartres came
all the long way. Wasted though they
are almost to the state of the dead, some-
thing of the old dignity and loveliness yet
clings about them. That nearest the door
has still the level brows, the troubling
smile, of her lovely worn sisters in the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
north. Opposite are men, more ruinous,
and grimly jocular without their noses, like
the French Death's head, le vieux Camus.
The sculptor of these six statues was trained
in the school of Chartres, which reached
from Senlis down to Bourges and from
Etampes in the west, to S. Loup de Naud
in the east. Moreover, one capital above
the innermost figure on either hand is
crowned with tabernacle work like that of
Chartres, though the bell of the capital is
filled with leafage: some workman combin-
ing remembered motives at his wanton
will. Of the other capitals, the two western-
most show the Expulsion from Paradise
and the Presentation in the Temple when
the ancient covenant was fulfilled; 6 and on
the east side one is given over to the Mas-
sacre of the Innocents and the other to a
Romanesque development, very fair and
free, of the acanthus and volutes. Someone
began working a diaper on the intervening
shafts but never finished.
Five rows of little figures, in the archi-
volt, are set on the line of the arc in the
French fashion and not on the radius as at
243
School of
Chartres
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
suckling
snake "
Leyre and in the west of Spain; and in
three cases the mouldings in which they
are set are carved very deeply with diaper
and zigzag, meander and spiral. There is
some evidence here of an alteration, of
plan at least: in the innermost row an
isolated head, which would be expected
at the peak of the arch (as it lies in that
above), falls to the right beyond one
figure; in the outermost row, the highest
figure on the left faces like those on the
right. The themes are confused likewise:
you will see a fine king and several ot the
Apocalyptic elders, with lamp and viol,
and prophets with scrolls, and confessors or
hermits, and in this company a naked lady
suckling at her breasts a serpent and a
toad. An angel holds a little soul on its
knees, a man sharpens some weapon on an
anvil, a jongleur turns his heels over to
touch his head. Some of the Signs of the
Months are plain: winter with cup and
platter, a man killing a hog, another graft-
ing, another holding his falcon; a mermaid
grasps the two Fishes, and the Twins are
knights with long shields, as at Chartres.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
245
Aquarius guards his waterpots, and re-
membering the ladies at Toulouse fondling
the signs of the Lion and the Ram, one
recognizes here one man holding the sign
of the Bull and another that of the Goat.
They are romantic figures that might
pass for the "jeune homme caressant sa
chimere."
The entire portal projects a little and is
further enframed by buttresses all the
way up. When it came to gathering up
the fragments that remained, some of these
were continued around the corner of the
eastern buttress and against the chapel
wall that projects on the west. The mate
to a great winged ox, for instance, and a
broken eagle, in one of the spandrels, is a
lion, again very Chinese about the head,
built into that chapel wall. In the same
left hand spandrel occur also: the Tempta-
tion and Fall, Cain killing Abel; S. James
on a great horse trampling naked men; a
doe suckling her young; a rose, and a
great interlaced knot of a sort that occurs
at Ley re. That knot came probably from
the Black Sea; it is found not only on Me-
Jeune
homme
caressant
sa chimtre
AND MONOGRAPHS
246
WAY OF S.JAMES
Knot
rovingian fibulae and on a capital in the
tower of Brantome, but on an angel's breast
in a capital at Constantinople, on the door
jambs of Ferrara cathedral as well as the
cloister-capitals of S. Bertrand de Com-
minges. 7 Along the top ramps a row of
scaly monsters, done for the place, opposite
which you find a beautiful row of dragon
and sphinx forms contemporary with
Puente la Reyna. The right-hand spandrel
in the main is more confused, but in com-
pensation you have, built into a corner of
the buttress adjoining, an exquisite little
Wise Virgin holding her lamp in veiled
hands; and, somewhat above, a seated
figure of Christ teaching, with three dis-
ciples about him. Here too appears a pair
of lions of the Lombard breed.
All this work covers, then, at least a
century, implies at least one rebuilding,
and represents three separate regions of
France contributing. The distance is not,
even on toot, a day's journey from Jaca;
the difference is indescribable. Jaca, a
capital deep-rooted in antiquity, was the
seat of kings, the heart of Aragon; Sangiiesa
HISPANIC NOTES
THE \V A Y
was a stage upon the Pilgrim Way, the
creation of political exigency.
The church of Santiago looks battered
and shapeless, both within and without.
It was built in the transitional style, at the
beginning of the thirteenth century perhaps,
with nave of four bays, aisles, apses vaulted
in a chevet, and a great tower over the
beginning of the central apse. The main
arches are all pointed, and also the clere-
story windows in the western part; the
quadripartite vault rests on strong vaulting
shafts that come down to huge round
columns. The capitals are all crude except
the pair, of three each, at the eastern end
of the nave; the shafts ot the window
jambs also have Gothic capitals. The
portal, pointed, carries on each side three
shafts, their capitals a development of the
acanthus leaf, rich and fine but ruined by
paint. From S. Nicholas, ruined and gone,
which once owed obedience to Roncevaux, 8
the capitals have been fetched away, and
are preserved in the Museum at Pam-
peluna: they are strong Spanish Roman-
esque.
247
Santiago
S. Nicholas
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248
WAY OF S.JAMES
S. Salvador
Carmen
S. Salvador is of the fourteenth century,
with a single great nave of six bays, quadri-
partite vaulting. The whole apse is car-
ried up into a tower. Madrazo says 9 an
earlier portal still exists inside the present
one of the fourteenth century. In the upper
stage of this the Saviour shows His wounds
between two angels that hold the cross and
lance, and SS. Mary and John who kneel to
intercede in the corners. Below, on the
left, the dead are getting up out of stone
sepulchres, are marshalled in a long line,
at last are tumbled pell-mell into hell-
mouth, which now is a monstrous and
practicable pair of jaws, suggested doubt-
less by the business of mystery-plays.
The Carmen is a lovely little brown
thing, with a door round -arched above
thin mouldings, and some storied capitals,
along with leaves and a genre theme with
the Annunciation, Nativity, Flight into
Egypt, and Epiphany. At right angles to it
stands a good stone building with an ogee
doorway running up into eight huge arch
stones, and a pair of ogee ajimcz windows.
But indeed everywhere in the town yet
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
stand good secular buildings; here and
there on a ruin is stuck a great coat of
arms, and superb roofs on carved consoles
are common. Of a palace in the calle
Mayor one wing is late Gothic and all the
rest Renaissance: on another elsewhere are
twisted columns and under the root still
more wonderful consoles with pendants.
The town has shrunken; fig-trees, flowers,
and donkeys flourish inside the compass
of the ancient walls. The castle, says
Cean Bermudez in his Adiciones to
Llaguno, 10 was built by Miguel de Goyni
for Charles the Noble.
There are, indeed, plenty of dates at
hand for Sanguesa, but few of them fit.
For S. Mary the Royal 1131 is too early
and 1330 too late to stand for much. By
1232 the King of Navarre was a French-
man, Thibaut, Count of Champagne and
Brie, but he was little in his kingdom, and
the French style of the church is not that
of the east. When another French line
succeeded, under Charles the Noble, the
workmen were Spaniards all. Sanguesa
not only commanded the best workmen in
249
Domestic
architec-
ture
Dates
AND MONOGRAPHS
250
WAY OF S.JAMES
Masters of
the works
Navarre, but formed masters highly ap-
proved. In 1410 the masters of the works of
Charles III were Simon Lopez and Miguel
de Goyni, the former built the castle in
Puente la Reyna, the latter that of San-
guesa. 1 1 The castle of Feliciana at Sos,over
against Sanguesa on the slope of Aragon,
had been built in 1130 by Mestro Jordan
for Ramiro cl Monge. In 1415 Miguel de
Poyni (probably the same as that Miguel
above) was master and director of the
royal works in Sanguesa, building mills
and other edifices. In 1419 Andres de
Soria was master ot the works there. x ' In
1594 Master Juan Verrueta, of Sanguesa,
took up and finished the stalls at Huesca,
on the death of Nicolas de Verastegui. 13
The citadel opens from the calle Mayor,
by a wide loggia dated 1560; it contains a
little street fringed with houses and then a
great brown building, wide and low, with
towers at each end. The townsfolk are
grave and courteous as those of Aragon: a
woman alone may haunt the streets for
a day without disturbing their dignity.
The children are courteous, almost like
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Italian children; they eye one like shy but
friendly dogs, and make a wide d6tour,
and shrink away as one turns and catches
them watching.
Almost Italian, indeed, is the fair courtly
air of the little pinkish city, the clean,
unfrequented brown streets, the forgotten
palace fronts of late Gothic or early Renais-
sance, the sense of a long life delicately
lived and now declining softly, not ignobly.
It was some saint's day that called for a
procession about the town, and balconies
were hung with old brocade and new, with
the stuff called turkey red, and grass-green
bunting, and calicoes striped in scarlet and
yellow like the cigar ribbons, with checked
table cloths and white bed-spreads for
want of better. The procession was a
scanty thing, that came out of the cavernous
church with yellow flames dancing in the
darkness; first a popping of rockets in-
visible in the noon, then a rush of old men
and young women with yellow flickering
candles held aslant, promptly to blow out;
then the singing men in albs freshly
gauffered and deeply edged with lace, their
251
Life deli-
cately
lived
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252
WAY OF S.JAMES
A kind of
scarlet
pink
harsh antiphon rising up and again lost,
in the windings of the streets, like the
sound of surf to men inland; then incense
blue in the sunlight; finally the Blessed
Sacrament under a canopy, set in a bouquet
of such vestments that my eyes drew my
feet about the entire city and back again
till the black church doorway had swal-
lowed up the singing men and the extin-
guished candles and the sanctimonious old
women and the pitiful old men, the starched
little girls and the bigger girls in white
cotton gloves. They were not so old, those
vestments, nor embroidered, nor excessively
rich, but they were of a kind of scarlet
pink like the sound of flutes and bassoons
and hautboys, that one could not have
enough of. I sucked it up thirstily: I
could have knelt on the cobblestones to
keep it longer, and the bored antiphon of
the singing men, the hiss of the inane
rockets, the scrupulous hangings along the
appointed streets were all undertone, the
mere accompaniment to the colour of that
obbligalo.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
253
IV
PAMPELUNA
En Paris esta dona Alda
la esposa de don Roldan;
trescientas damas con etta
para la acompanar:
Todas visten un vestido,
todas calzan un calzar,
todas comen d una mesa,
todas contian de un pan....
Las ciento hilaban oro,
las ciento tejen cendal,
las ciento tanan instru-
ments
para dona Alda holgar.
Romance.
THERE were processions in Pampeluna
early every morning, and at any hour of
the day one would hear the call of pipe and
tabor and then the running of countless
little feet, and suddenly about one surged
a skurrying hundred or so of panting little
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I
254
WAY OF S.JAMES
Giants
and
Cabezones
boys and girls in blue smocks, all running
as they ran in Hamelin Town, till the mass
thickened like boiling gruel and around
a corner came the Giants. Every self-
respecting Spanish town takes out, on the
patronal feast, and Corpus Chris ti, and
other suitable dates, at least six of these
figures. They are built of papier-mache
and wicker, dressed in calico and velvet,
and carried on invisible men's shoulders.
There is a king and queen, a Moor and
Mooress, and in Santiago the other couple
are pilgrims, in Pampeluna they are knight
and lady. They are, so to speak, the big
brothers of the Marionettes. They exe-
cuted a sort of minuet before the Cathedral,
and led the procession when S. Firmin in
person, or at any rate some bones believed
to be his, went down every morning to
assist at a mass in the church of his name.
Along with the Giants, however, Pampeluna
enjoys a dozen other gigantic mannikins
of fixed type called Cabezudos; a sailor, a
cleric, a heathen Chinee, an old person in
a tie wig, and the like, which are merely
heads worn on the shoulders ot men in
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY 255
costume. Hobby Horse is there as well,
with a bladder full of pease to bang boys
over the head; more than once we came Hobby
upon a very tired Hobby Horse refreshing
his bladder and his hot face in a town
fountain. All these were abroad, to cer-
tain knowledge, from seven in the morning
till twelve at night, how long before and
after remains unknown, in honour of S. Fir-
min, the apostle of Picardy and the patron
of his birthplace Pampeluna.
We had left Tiermas hurriedly at night-
fall, because of the approaching feria, and
the Manager had given us a letter to a
personal friend of his, one Roque, who was
a porter at the station of the electric line.
Without his recommendation we could
hardly have found where to sleep, but
Roque, after reading the letter aloud,
by an odd bit of formal courtesy that en-
chanted us took up the bags, on some
good excuse showed us to his own niche
of two rooms and a half, full of anti-
macassars and blue vases, and went on
across the street to a Casa de Huespedes.
This belonged to a stout lady who, under
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256
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Feria
The Abb6
pressure of the combined recommendations
of the Manager and Roque, dislodged three
men just making an evening toilet with
plenty of hair tonic and clean towels, and
gave us a room just as wide as the window,
looking on a fairly wide street. We did
not, in truth, sleep much, nobody did;
but we went to bed regularly, which few
did. The meals went on without per-
ceptible interval, for the three dislodged
gentlemen and many more were accommo-
dated in Roque's and other adjoining
niches, whence they came in for endless
luncheons and dinners. I think nearly all
the other people at table were men, and
they all looked like commis-voyageurs
and their patrons, except one ecclesiastic,
a comely young abbe", grey-haired and
spoiled as a woman. He would stand in
the doorway to be admired, and then ad-
vance se dandinant, swinging his hips and
petticoats. His voice and smile and hands
were soft, and he struck one as somehow
improper, even before the night he stood
longer than usual in the doorway and one
discovered that he was dressed in a grey
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
sack suit. The civilian dress was very
becoming: "Perhaps," said a priest to
whom we related this one time, " he was a
military chaplain; they allow themselves
great liberties!" At any rate, there he
stood, thus he dined; the thing is incredible
but it happened. In the memory of that
smiling corrupt face I have forgotten every-
thing about the house of La Francesa
except the poor fat francesa and her
sleepless daughters and the darkness of
the kitchen where something always was
going on.
In the streets something was always go-
ing on too: first the procession to S. Firmin,
and a solemn mass at the Cathedral
with an orchestra of fiddles and other viols;
then a concert of military music for which
a whole street served as salon dc musique,
penny chairs ranged up the steep ascent
and the band at the top. After luncheon
the bull-fight lasted from two to nearly
six, and after dinner there was the play.
But after the bull-fight and before dinner
there happened, in the Paseo, the prettiest
thing we have ever seen in any land or
AND MONOGRAPHS
258
WAY OF S. JAMES
Bath and
S. Cloud
Watteau
animated,
fragrant,
and
troubling
city, the Promenade. The very best at
Bath or at S. Cloud cannot have shown
anything like such beauty. For the S. Fir-
min, the nobility and gentry of Navarre
come in, the county families. The level
Paseo is not more than half a mile long,
from the central square to the city gate,
and where the penny chairs were ranged
in a double row on either side the central
walk of trodden earth, the families settled
themselves for talk, pulled up into knots,
spread out into crescents. The elders had
a year of news to give and hear; the girls
walked up and down with their brothers or
cousins, and of course brother and sister
could walk with another brother and
sister. The men were slender-waisted,
distinguished, tall enough, with a charm-
ing carriage and beautiful hands. The
loveliness of the women was like a Watteau
animated, fragrant, and troubling. There
were no hats, and few of the little wilette
of Chantilly that have grown so common,
but golden Spanish blonde and silken
Spanish lace; the sumptuous state of
white mantillas, the various grace of black
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
mantillas, the courtly kind that lies in a
deep ruffle on the shoulders, the delicious
chenille kind that is daring, the heavy-
worked kind that is romantic. Over one
arm lay a folded shawl, of cre~pe or soft silk
or embroidered in brilliant flowers; in one
hand a folded fan. The women were very
lovely, very well dressed, very well bred,
but their loveliness and their breeding and
their dress found its own right expression
in their own traditional attributes, fan,
shawl, and mantilla.
The mantilla is not easy to wear, and it
takes an hour to put on, and a paper of
pins; the hair must be dressed high and
very firmly ; the tall comb will lend further
height and stability, then every fold of the
lace is separately modified and securely
pinned with an infinity of black pins. It
exacts, moreover, great beauty of feature,
great refinement. Rich contours and soft
flesh matter not at all, but the head must
have beauty of modelling, and have a noble
bony structure, and contours attained by
breeding through hundreds of generations.
The mantilla, the fan, the shawl: the
259
Mantilla
AND MONOGRAPHS
26o
WAY OF S.JAMES
shawl
and fan
The
beauty
and the
night
Spanish figure is the finest in the world;
the carriage and walk is like Hers whom
^Eneas watched through the trees and
knew Her by it, for nothing else could
move so divinely. Shawl, mantilla, and
fan: the Spanish hand is a miracle, a non-
pareil of beauty. For an hour and a half
every evening the nobility of Navarre
walked in beauty there, in rustling and
murmuring of silk, and voices, and dark
leafage; warm puffs of perfume through a
night wind blowing out of dark and moun-
tains; a luminous dust filling all the space,
above which hung a pale sky infinitely
remote.
Recalling the S. Firmin, I recall only this
space, glowing, moving, scented, mur-
murous, like a syringa bush on a night of
fireflies. The city I knew already, having
stayed there once in January when the
sign of S. Julian of the North was augury
of hospitality and afforded for the sunless
hours a stove in the hotel dining-room. Of
those long hours in a Spanish winter, after
dark and before dinner, how by the natives
they may be passed least intolerably,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
something shall be said later. For a
woman alone, they are hard. She has
been out seeing things while the daylight
lasted and is honestly tired; moreover,
most churches close at nightfall and the
rest have nothing by any chance worth
seeing even were they not wrapped in a
midnight of their own, just starred with
votive candles. She cannot walk up and
down the pavement, in the light of shop
windows, as men are doing. She goes
back to her room at the hotel. There she
cannot go to bed to keep warm, for
dinner is still three hours away; she makes
her tea, then fills a rubber hot-water-
bottle, and wrapping it and herself in a rug
lies down under a faint electric bulb to
read and shiver and not dare to doze. At
S. Julian of the North, to the discomposure
of the waiters, I was able to carry the Chan-
son de Roland into the dining-room, and
after the good American fashion to put my
feet on the stove and digest in comfort the
day's disillusions.
To look for Charlemagne I had gone to
Pampeluna and I had found the eighteenth
261
A woman
alone
unless
stout and
grey . . .
The day's
disillusions
AND MONOGRAPHS
262
WAY OF S.JAMES
The
eighteenth
century
. . at
noon upon
the peak of
Heaven..."
century, a misadventure always discon-
certing. The Ayuntamiento was rather
charming with columns and entablatures,
pediments and inverted consoles, and
wrought iron balconies. The Plaza de la
Constitution, like that in front of the cathe-
dral, was Greco-Roman in its intentions,
but vaguely picturesque in its arcaded side-
walks, its individual balconies, its terraces
and doors opening upon them, up among
the slated roofs. The cathedral was flat-
headed: now a Gothic building wants a
gable roof, and flying buttresses, and
pinnacles that function. The other ancient
churches, S. Cernin and S. Nicolas, were
shockingly restored. And . . . and . . .
a woman alone will meet, from time to
time, a little personal annoyance, even
from priests, that however inevitable, yet
leaves her hurt.
If Charlemagne is not at Pampeluna, yet
the Pyrenees are there; it is possible to
walk almost around the town, in the crys-
talline noon, on turfy ramparts and
crumbling walls, and look off to azure
luminous heights and tender vaporous
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
foldings till it is as if one should walk in
the very heart of a star sapphire.
The old cathedral of Pampeluna was
fair as a moon even among fair churches.
It was a hundred years in building and
stood for less than twice that time : founded
by Sancho el Mayor who was a wise man
and a canny. He had introduced the rule
of Cluny into S. Juan de la Pena; he was
about to do the same at S. Salvador de
Ley re, when the abbot and his friends
among the nobility, by way of diversion,
urged in assembled Cortes the more im-
mediate need of restoring the cathedral.
"Certainly, since you recommend it," said
the king, "and to that important end we will
apply, amongst other revenues, those of
S.Salvador." This was in 1023. A great part
of the building, however, was done under
Bishop Peter of Roda, who filled the See as
late as 1115, and coming himself from near
Toulouse, knew whither to send for work-
men. He also substituted for the monks
who had served the church till then, canons
regular of S. Augustine, whose rule of life in
common was to leave its mark upon the f ab-
263
Pulchra ut
luna
Peter of
Roda
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264
WAY OF S.JAMES
French
coadjutors
ric of the second church. In this action he
had the advice of the abbot Torneros, the
prior of S. Sernin of Toulouse, the arch-
bishop of Auch, and others. His successor,
Bishop William, was a great fighter, who
served el Batallador, his king, on many a
field; Bishop Sancho de Larrosa, who con-
secrated it, knew how to get rich gifts; 1
but certainly we may leave to Bishop Peter
and his craftsmen the glory of what survives
from the portal of 1 1 24 or a cloister adja-
cent, eight lovely capitals built up in a
niche of the present cloister. The detail is
richer and freer than any now in the mu-
seum at Toulouse, the style is identical.
The church and quarter of S. Cernin,
contemporary with this work, form another
link with Toulouse. Just about this time
Alfonso el Batallador, in a document given
at Atafalla (Tafalla) in September of 1129,
had sent to repeople the burg of S. Cernin,
destroyed some time before. S. Cernin
or Serninus, S. Saturninus, was Bishop of
Toulouse, and some historians will have it
that the francos to whom the king gave
privileges were not merely free men but
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Frenchmen, in particular of Cahors, ex-
pelled by Philip, or possibly Albigensian
refugees. Now the Cahorsines, we know,
gave a pope to Rome and money lenders to
Dante and Europe; there is no reason why
they should not have settled in the suburb
of a royal capital, under a French bishop's
protection. Whosoever they were, the
king conceded to the new population of the
plain of S. Saturnine of Irunia, amongst
other rights, the fuero of Jaca in respect of
the departments of Justice and the Treas-
ury, and forbade any Navarrese noble or
cleric to settle there; the ground about
might not be built upon ; the quarters over-
looking it might not build towers or other-
wise domineer or menace; the citizens
were to elect three candidates of their own
from whom the Bishop must select an al-
calde, and this burg alone might sell wine
or bread to pilgrims.
S. Cernin is the oldest Gothic church in
Navarre, and belongs to the second half
of the thirteenth century. This dictum of
Madrazo, confirmed by Lamperez, 2 leaves
one to wonder into how late an age may
Qui vulgar-
tier Caorci-
ni dicunlur
AND MONOGRAPHS
266
WAY OF S.JAMES
A rare plan
come down all the late-Romanesque and
Transitional building. In the curious plan
of the original part of this church, occurs
an ingenious modification of a French
motive, rather rare, but developed at
Estella six leagues away on the same
Camino frances, the three chapels opening
directly from the apse without an ambula-
tory intervening, as at Souillac and Cahors.
At Souillac and Estella the apsidioles are
treated as mere niches and the central apse
is the main thing: at Cahors the choir is so
railed round, in the central apse, as to
leave a procession path and access to the
chapels: here at S. Cernin the chapels are
the main matter and the high altar is
placed in the central one. The west door
of this church has been quite spoiled but
there are some traces of a porch or an ar-
cade that would have harboured tombs.
The north door is sheltered by a porch of
five bays stretching along the whole north
side that, like those of Ripoll and S. Miguel
of Estella, is later than the portal itself
but not so much later. It contains a few
tombs or traces of them. Outside, at the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
entrance, S. Saturninus stands upon the
bull of his martyrdom and his pendant is
S. James with a kneeling pilgrim, in long
gown, skin rain-coat, wallet and staff.
The door itself, though at first glance it
looks like much fourteenth -century work
in Navarre, on examination appears finer
by far, with a very noble distribution and
subordination, among the multiplied mould-
ings of jamb and archivolt, into major and
minor systems. The six capitals on either
side correspond to a strong projection and
their re-entrant angles to pronounced hol-
lows. In the tympanum sits Christ as
Judge, between SS. Mary and John, and a
monk in the right-hand corner interceding:
an angel in the corresponding angle trum-
pets to Judgement. The lintel, or lower
part of the tympanum, is occupied by an
arcade of eight cusped and pointed arches
grouped into pairs by shafts; the spandrels
between them are occupied by tiny angels.
In the arcade the dead are (i) rising from
their tombs, (2) coming to Judgement, and
(3) worshipping their Redeemer; (4) others,
agonized, led off to hell and boiled in a pot.
267
Figured
on p. 179
Tuba
mirum
spargens
sonum
AND MONOGRAPHS
268
WAY OF S.JAMES
Symbolism
The historied capitals begin, on the left,
with a larger group tinder the boss that
terminates the dripstone; it represents
the Annunciation, and the series continues
with the Visitation, Nativity, Presentation,
etc., down to the Flight into Egypt, the
Epiphany figuring on the projection which
sustains the lintel. On the other side, the
largest, outermost scene is the Harrowing of
Hell, thence (reading inward) the history of
Palm Sunday in great detail, with Zaccheus
in the tree, the walls of Jerusalem crowded
and a man coming out of the gate ; the Last
Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the Way
to Calvary, Deposition, Maries at the
Tomb, and Noli Me Tangere and, upon the
corbel that sustains the lintel, the Resurrec-
tion. In the peak of the arch is set a
series of isolated figures: Christ crowned,
with a book, the Eternal Father holding a
crucifix, the Dove hovering above, and the
risen Christ. Finally, the hood moulding
swirls up into a glorious finial that sup-
ports a Calvary, the Crucified between
SS. Mary and John.
In all this figure sculpture the elements
HISPANIC NOTES
signifi-
cance
THE WAY 269
and origins are mingled. The iconography
of the capitals is French is French of
France but the symbolism is original and
exquisite in its arrangement of correspond-
ences, bringing the Epiphany, the Mani-
festation of God's Humanity, into relation
with the Resurrection, the Manifestation
of His Divinity; and, in the same way, the
Annunciation to Mary that the close of
Eve's long expectation was at hand, into
relation with the Apparition of the King of
Glory in Limbo, to take up with Him the
spirits in prison. The main figures of the
tympanum are of the later cathedral tradi-
tion. The little figures stuck against the
mouldings, with the structural irrelevance
that nobody could break a Spaniard of,
are Spanish motives, perhaps: they left
their mark on churches in Navarre and
Navarrese painters as well.
The difference of privilege in the different
quarters of the town, for a while adjusted
by Sancho el Mayor early in the eleventh
century, led to a great war in the thirteenth
at the end of which the French took and
burned it, 1277; but though the cathedral
AND MONOGRAPHS
270
WAY OF S.JAMES
The New
Cathedral
was sacked the fabric escaped. Again in
1422 Charles the Noble gave to the city the
so-called act of Union, which finally reduced
the surviving three-quarters under a single
civil government. But the great gift of
this king was the new cathedral of French
Gothic. In 1390, the very year of his
coronation, on the first of July, the greater
part of the cathedral fell in sudden ruin,
wrecking the choir and most of the rest,
but without loss of life. The west front
escaped, for Moret's continuator writes in
the eighteenth century, de lo antiguo sdlo
quedd la puerta del frontispicio, que ahora
vemos. 3 The king, it is said, had already
begun some works within, both to beautify
and to admit light: it is easy to conjecture
injury to vital parts of the strong old Ro-
manesque, with its lofty barrel vaults light-
ed only from the aisles, now out of date
and ill-understood; at any rate in 1397 the
reconstruction was begun. Much beautiful
building had been commenced already,
how much it is hard to say, by Bishop
Arnald of Barbazan, 1317-1355: a glorious
chapter-room, and a cloister of which the
HISPANIC NOTES
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French
east and north wings were finished and
escaped destruction: at their angle, along
with the doorway into the south transept,
and three precious monuments of the thir-
teenth century, the Epiphany of Jacques
Peyrut and the tomb of the Infants of
Luna. The south and west sides of the
cloister belong to the fifteenth century,
with three other doors hardly less beautiful :
that into the Refectory, that close at hand
but at right angles to it, which leads into a
court or garden, and that called la Preciosa.
The cathedral, says M. Bertaux, 4 was
begun under a French prince, Philip of
Evreux by a French bishop, Arnald of
Barbazan, and finished at the end of the
century under a French king, Charles the
Noble, who was born at Nantes and edu-
cated at Paris. After this there is nothing
to find out about the cathedral, it is simply
all French; but not French of Paris, be it
remarked. The real comparisons must be
made with the south, Bayonne, for instance:
and the real sources of the style lie often
not in the Royal Domain.
gainst the door of the south transept
271
French
prince
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WAY OF S.JAMES
Assumpta
est Maria
which, like the cathedral itself, is dedi-
cated to the Assumption, stands a grave
and queenly Madonna, rather Spanish of
face, offering to her divine Son the Book.
In the jamb and archivolts are the Works
of Mercy, the Strong Women of Scripture,
angels making music, and others of the
company of heaven bearing an antiphon
on a scroll, a cadence from the Song of
Songs: "Who is this that cometh up
from the Wilderness leaning upon her Be-
loved? Assumpta est Maria in Coelum."
The symbolism here, and in the figures of
Church and Synagogue at the Refectory
door, is significant in Spain, where such is
rare. The tympanum, greatly admired, is
just a little absurd: of the early fifteenth
century, it represents the Dormition in the
midst of a thick crowd, angels tiptoe and
pushing to look on, apostles wiping their
eyes on the sheet, on their clothes, or a
napkin, and a swarm of little angels buzz-
ing above with a napkin for the little soul
that, dressed as for a birthday, is held up
by a leaning Christ with curled hair and
beard: Franco-Flemish, pronounces M.
HISPANIC NOTES
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273
Bertaux, 5 and whatever he means by that
is probably the truth : provincial, that is to
say. It looks almost as if copied from
embroidery, rather than developed in a
strong iconographic tradition.
The door called la Preciosa comes next
perhaps in date to this one, flanked by SS.
Mary and Gabriel on elaborate panelled
bases under canopies. The three bands
of the tympanum show scenes from the
later life of the Blessed Virgin, culminating
in her Entombment, at which assists an
admirable group of knights. The five
little conversation-pieces in the lowest
register suggest, in their arrangement, con-
temporary French ivories, with a notable dif-
ference, the number of persons engaged.
One great beauty of the ivories is the
simplification enforced, the reduction of
every action to its fewest figures: but here
is no syncopation, everything, rather,
expanded and "practicable." When the
Blessed Virgin addresses the apostles before
her death you count the twelve of them;
their miraculous arrival at Jerusalem, like
that of S. Michael in the row below, occurs
La Preciosa
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274
WAY OF S.JAMES
So the
Cursor o*
the World
in the foldings of a cloud with crinkled
edges. I take it that the practice of
miracle plays must account for this treat-
ment, as it will for that of the Crucifixion
in the north-west corner, where the groups
are smaller but the action more dramatic.
There, in the upper range, you have, first,
the three Maries, leaning upon each other
in a lovely and apparently traditional
group, fair as the three Graces; then the
Madonna sustained by S. John. On the
other side of the Cross Longinus testifies
with a fine gesture, and two soldiers and a
Jew expressively marvel. As in the early
painting preserved in the inner sacristy, the
Tree of the Cross is a real tree, gnarled and
barky, in accordance with a legend that
the Cross itself flourished with leaf and
bark from noon to compline on the day of
the Crucifixion. 6 Noli Me T anger e and
the meeting of S. Peter with the Magdalen
are studied stage tableaux. In the lowest
range the jaws of hell are a machine, and
the Sepulchre a sarcophagus large enough
to hold a man or two. One curious detail
not to be passed over is the likeness of this
THE WAY
to the Easter Sepulchre which still sur-
vives in some English churches, for in-
stance, at Lincoln, and the soldiers tucked
up to sleep under the three arcades that
sustain it.
The door into the Refectory, flanked by
Church and Synagogue that suggest Stras-
burg much sooner than Leon, depicts,
above, the Last Supper and then the Entry
into Jerusalem. This supper table, with
its dishes of fish, its flat loaves, its goblets
and ewers, recalls the enchanting panel
painting of Solsona, precious for the
examples it affords of Hispano-Moresque
pottery. The original sculptural source of
this Cena is to be looked for at S. Gilles in
Provence. In the lunette above, both the
crowd and the tree are treated decoratively ;
the fortified city of Jerusalem with her
towers, her bulwarks, betrays how fair
was Pampeluna under Charles III, muy
noble y muy leal. There is more than a
hint of the Renaissance in this tympanum;
though different, it should be about con-
temporary with the door of the Assunla.
Inside the Refectory, the base of the lec-
275
Cena of
Solsona
AND MONOGRAPHS
276
WAY OF S.JAMES
Hue and
Cry after
the
Unicorn
La Barba-
zana
tor's pulpit is carved with the Hue and
Cry after the Unicorn, with a verve highly
stimulating but quite secular, and the
capitals are of the same kind. A shallow
niche encloses, under the Pelican in her
piety, two viol players, a centaur with bag-
pipe, a man rending a lion, a lion rending
a man, and all the familiar and secular
imagery which is at its best in the cloister
of Leon.
Lastly, against the delicate mouldings of
la Barbazana, the chapel of Bishop Arnald
where yet he lies, someone fashioned statues
of SS. Peter and Paul, resting them on
figured bases in the same style as the carv-
ings in the Refectory. These great figures
of the apostles are rather fine, and belong
to Spanish art well along; they are later
by a century than the jamb-figures of la
Preciosa. They are later by two genera-
tions than the Epiphany on the same wall,
which is signed "Jacques Peyrut fist ceste
istoyre." 7 The figures of the two standing
kings are truly Gothic still in feeling, and
the grand Madonna and kneeling first king
may indeed suggest work that began their
HISPANIC NOTES
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century at Dijon, but in no other sense
than would any dawning Renaissance.
The asp and basilisk coil under her feet
as at Amiens. Close to this signed work,
not, alas, dated, is the tomb of the Infants
of Luna. In the niche above, on either
side the Crucified stand three little figures
as Burgundian as possible. D. Lionel of
Navarre was a bastard son of Charles the
Bad, a splendid and romantic figure, dead
in the flower of youth. He married Dofia
Elf a de Luna and died in 1413. 8
Of slightly earlier date, indeed, is the
tomb that Janin Lome of Tournai made
for Charles the Good, he being yet alive,
in 1416. Its place, formerly in the Coro, is
now in the ancient kitchen of the chapter.
The contract still exists by which he was
to have stone para las obras et ymaginies
de las sepulturas del Rey nuestro Seynor et
bien assi del Rey su padre, a qul Dios
perdone, que ha fecho et entiende fazer el
dicto John Lome en la iglesia de S. Maria
de Pamplona. 9 This has twenty -eight
little weepers under canopies around the
base, and the effigies of King and Queen
277
The
Infants of
Luna
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278
WAY OF S.JAMES
An altar-
tomb
recumbent under other canopies, on the
black slab atop. The flat head of those
canopies is used for an inscription, easy to
read by walking around the monument;
against the feet are the queen's greyhounds
and the king's mastiff: otherwise, as on the
tombs at S. Denis, the drapery lies as if the
statues were erect. Of the other tomb, in-
tended for Charles II, nothing seems to be
known, but I found in one of the eastern
chapels an altar built above and around
what seemed to be a tomb with a few such
weepers under canopies: these may have
been designed for that.
It is hard to see just why, when Spanish
work for once was in direct contact with
the Royal Domain, there should be little to
betray the characteristic style of the Isle of
France. Champagne, Burgundy, and the
Flemish border are what can be identified
the only deduction is that there is no d
priori in archaeology and that you can
barely trust, not documents ever, but
simply the look of things.
A little faded painting still stains the
wall above the Infants of Luna; just a row
HIS- PA NIC NOTES
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of perishing saints that look French as the
little statues do, pure and lovely. French
mural painting in the fifteenth century,
unless markedly Italianate, was much of
a kind. In the sacristy is preserved a
small and ruinous panel, very precious, of
the Crucifixion, that is usually denied to
the sight of travellers but was lent to the
exposition at Saragossa in 1904 and there
written up by M. Bertaux. I0 When I
examined it in 1912 it seemed to me some-
thing quite wonderful: done in the same
style as the contemporary French minia-
tures, and very like the Parement de
Narbonne, with the same dependence on
outline and flat washes of tempera barely
discernible, but full ot character. The
scene of the Crucifixion fills the greater
part of the panel, the Pelican and the sun
and moon being above, the Madonna and
two other Maries on one side and a rather
grotesque S. John on the other; in the
border nine prophets with scrolls on each
side and two bishops below. Under all
this, a church of three aisles, a Bishop en-
throned in the centre giving a book to a
French
painting
AND MONOGRAPHS
280
WAY OF S.JAMES
A genial
fellow
monk: only parts of the body and hands
are left. People on the right and left are
both secular and religious, one clerk has a
rolled document, another a book, an ecclesi-
astic a roll: six people, between and smaller,
are kneeling, one at least has a book. On
the steps of the throne a genial fellow in
gown and hood, with gloves, has one hand
bare. Lamps hang in the aisles; the arches
are cusped, with open curves, not horse-
shoe, and marmosets in the spandrels; the
capitals leafy. Above the arms of the cross
are figures that seem to be the Church and
Synagogue, but sorely ruined. So much I
transcribe from notes taken at the time.
Now, knowing more about Spanish manu-
scripts, I have only to add that from the
reproduction in the Saragossa monograph
may be made out a musician playing the
viol on the Bishop's left, and in the crowd
under the arch beyond him, an elephant in
royal housings. A lady in this crowd wears
a coif not unlike that of Anne of Brittany;
a layman on the opposite side, a hood of
fifteenth -century fashion. The roofs are
covered with overlapping tiles such -as you
HISPANIC NOTES
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find, variously indicated but intended alike,
in Spanish manuscripts all the way from
the Ashburnham Pentateuch (which seems
to be Visigothic), through the Bible of S.
Peter of Roda (called also the Bible de
Noailles) and the Canligas del Rey Sabio.
I should add that the head-dress of the
holy women, a veil that f-alls in scallops
past the cheek, is worn in French ivories in
the fifteenth century and in a little Annun-
ciation of that date in Vich. There is a
fifteenth -century ivory at Paris, I think at
the Cluny, which is very close to the main
scene of the Crucifixion : there is a reliquary
of a Holy Thorn at Pampeluna which is
even closer.
In short, the style proves later and
perhaps less French on study. The upper
part goes back to a common Carolingian
tradition rather than a direct French
source: the lower part is absolutely in the
Spanish miniature tradition and later
than the paintings to the books of el
Rey Sabio. I should suppose that the
Greek gift of the Lignum Crucis was the
occasion of the panel. 11 The mottoes,
281
The Ash-
burnham
Pentateuch
The Caro-
lingian
tradition
AND MONOGRAPHS
282
WAY OF S. JAMES
which M. Bertaux has published, all
bear on the single theme of the Tree of
the Cross:
On the title of the Cross:
"Similis factus sum pellicano solitudi-
Sacra Arbor
nis." Amen. Ps. ci, 72.
Crucis
The Church:
"Ecclesia. Fasciculus myrrh dilec-
tus meus mihi; inter ubera mea com-
morabitur." Cant, i, 12.
Angel:
"Angelus. Beati qui lavant stolas
suas in sanguine agni." Apoc. xxii, 14.
On the right side:
" Jeremias. Ego quasi agnus mansue-
tus qui portatur ad victimam." xi, 19.
"Osseas. Vivificabit nos post duos
dies, in die tertia suscitabit nos et vive-
mus in conspectu ejus." vi, 3.
"Joel. Germinaverunt spetiosa de-
serti quia lignum attulit fructum suum."
ii, 22.
"Joannes. In hoc cognovimus cari-
tatem Dei quoniam pro nobis animam
suam posuit." Ep. iii, 16.
"Ambrosius. Finis fidei mee iste est:
finis fidei mee Filius Dei crucifix us est."
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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283
On the left side:
["Ezekiel. Et erunt] fructus ejus in
cibum et folia ejus in medicinam."
xlvii, 12.
"Daniel. Post hebdomades LXXII
fit mundo
occi [detur Cristus]." ix. 26.
semi tn lucis
"Sofonias. Expecta me, dicit Do-
minus, in die resurrectionis mee in futu-
rum." iii, 8.
"Petrus. Peccata nostra ipse per-
tulit in corpore suo super lignum
Crucis." Ep. ii, 24.
Of the cathedral itself I see no reason to
speak at length. Street has characterized
it with warmth and appreciation. I found
the arrangement of the eastern part, based
on the equilateral triangle and the hexagon,
dry, fantastical rather than intuitive, and
rather dull. The detail of mouldings , tracery
and capitals is pleasanter than one has a
right to expect, which is often the case in pro-
vincial work. The Coro that fills up the nave
with solid masonry, the west front that Ven-
tura Rodriguez applied in the eighteenth
century, are not relevant to the general en-
joyment that Gothic alone can afford.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
284
WAY OF S.JAMES
Looking at the plan, one may conjecture
of that lost Old Cathedral of Peter of Roda,
for which Peter of Paris in 1186 got the
The Old
Cathedral
relics of S. Firmin from the north, that it
belonged to the grand group of S. Sernin of
Toulouse, with high dark barrel-vaulted
nave, aisled transept, and ambulatory
with chapels. It had a westerly cloister,
like Burgos, and probably towers flanking
the last bay of the nave, like Bordeaux
and Bayonne. Against the transept face
was built the new cloister, while the com-
mon life still obtained, that had a square
fountain house for ablutions in the corner
next the Refectory. This is turned into
a chapel now, and enclosed with ironwork
that came, according to tradition, from
the field of Las Navas. Four Latin verses
are written above the doorway:
Cingere quae cernis crucifixum ferrea
vincla
barbaricae gentis funere rupta manent:
Sanctius exuvias discerptas vindice ferro
hue, illuc sparsit stemata fustra pius.
Anno 1212.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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The old chapter-house still stands, where
it belongs, eastward of the cloister, open-
ing upon it by a door between two win-
dows, and vaulted in a great star: the square
plan is brought to octagonal by arches
thrown across the corners and vaulted them-
selves, as at Burgos and in the eastern
chapels of Las Huelgas.
Pampeluna remains in recollection with
all the eighteenth-century virtues, clean,
prosperous, just a little old-world, very
decent. The beggars wear a brass badge
as Dean Swift once recommended, and are
both healthier-looking and better-dressed
than their neighbours.
Outside the town, on the upper side,
beyond all the walls, dry ditches and em-
bankments, the road forks. One way runs
back into Old Castile; the other east and
north. As we stood and looked toward
France, a diligence jingled by with two
women atop, on the road to France. It
was irresistible, or all but. But the wind
blew keen from Spain, and the pilgrim
road went west, and we turned our faces
where the starry stream still goes.
285
Chapter-
house
The road
to France
AND MONOGRAPHS
286
WAY OF S.JAMES
V
SAINT SEPULCHRE
Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the
companions of Christ 1
White Horsemen who ride on white
horses, the Knights of God !
They, for their Lord and their Lover
who sacrificed
All, save the sweetness of treading
where He first trod 1
THE curious may care to know that,
finding it impossible to pronounce in-
The house
of a
telligibly those Spanish diphthongs which
hundred
are a ripple of vowels, I had secured in
doors
Pampeluna a postcard of Eunate, and
mildly proffered it at the ticket window of
the diligence office and in conference at
Puente la Reyna. It sufficed. The church
of Eunate lies, not many miles thence,
quite isolated in the broad and fertile
valley of the Izarbe, to which I drove over
I
HISPANIC NOTES
The Queen's Bridge
THE WAY
in a sort of buggy. It is a pleasant, soli-
tary little place: not even the women cut-
ting hay and turning brown moist earth,
will cross three fields to say a prayer. The
priest comes seldom. Like a boulder in a
mountain pasture, it lies there detached
but not incongruous.
I know a little about circular churches,
less about octagonal, but some, I am
credibly told, exist in Asia Minor; I know
also one at Laon, one at Le Puy, and one
at Segovia in Spain, all three given popu-
larly to the Knights of the Temple : likewise
an ermiia at Torres, on the Logrofio road.
There is also the church of S. Marcos in
Salamanca. It is conceivable that they
fetched their plan from the East for those
churches and this. The forms, however,
of column and arch, of moulding and capi-
tal, are those of the region round about.
The church is an irregular octagon with
three-quarter columns and capitals at the
corners and corbels under the roof. The
pentagonal apse has the same column
and corbels, and a window with jamb
shafts, a bold roll-moulding, and a plain
287
Circular
churches
This,
octagonal
HISPANIC NOTES
288
WAY OF S.JAMES
and domed
dripstone. On five of the eight sides a
strong pointed arch in the masonry of the
wall reaches a trifle higher than the apse.
It is roofed by slabs of stone overlapping
from cornice to centre, laid with plenty of
mortar. Wild grasses wave there. The
entrance is now at the west and a strong
north door is blocked up on the inside by
a wardrobe; a winding stair goes up to roof
and bells in a projection that on the out-
side rather spoils the proportions but was
once the base of a belfry. In the body of
the church, the shafts in the corners of the
octagon go up to a plain string-course level
with the sills of windows, which are open
in the second and third sides and in the
others are blind niches: from the capitals of
these shafts rise others, smaller, to sustain
a curved rib, on top of which, again, rests
each of the eight square ribs that support
the dome. About at the haunch of this
occur openings (now covered by the roof-
tiles), in shape alternately lozenge and
octagon.
The apse is enriched by simple repeti-
tions: the entrance arch consists of two
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
orders resting on capitals built into the
wall, and the vault rests on four ribs which
come down on shafts to the window sills.
Around inside, an upper arcade has four
round arches and one pointed, a lower
arcade, all pointed: the shafts which sus-
tained this are hidden by the steps which
go around the inside just above the floor.
The capitals are made chiefly of leaf
forms, but a few show interlaced gro-
tesques and a few show early Gothic. All
this is strong building, albeit clumsy.
The thing really characteristic about the
church door, outside, is the local style:
dripstone carved with a row of debased
human grotesques, as at S. Miguel of
Estella and El Crucifijo of Puente la
Reyna; jamb capitals constituted by a
rich interlace, as at the same two churches;
archivolts carrying a leaf, the grape, and
for the rest, rounds and hollows.
An amazing octagonal cloister encom-
passes the church outside, but can never
have had a roof, or some traces of that
would remain on the walls. The cloister
has been, to be sure, ruined, built up
289
strong
and
regional
AND MONOGRAPHS
WA Y OF S.JAMES
An open
cloister
plainly by restorers, and roofed along
the masonry with tiles, but now as always
it remains a mere enclosure, a cincture
and not a shelter or screen. It is hard to
recall a parallel for this. In the ruined
cloister of S. Juan de Duero, at Soria,
though the alleys are roofless now they
had once a timber roof, and the cloister
ran around inside an enclosing wall of the
Commandery. Only three of the sides at
Eunate retain their capitals and their
noble coupled shafts: one of these shows
Oriental motives, and one perhaps the
figures of Templars, the rest interlace, or
leaf forms, all of a sort that cannot be
earlier than the twelfth century.
About this cloister Sr. Lamp6rez T offers
an interesting suggestion, starting from
the common admission that the circular
churches of the Middle Age have a double
origin, deriving possibly from Roman
temples like that of Minerva Medica and
the so-called temple of Vesta on Tiber
bank, or else, equally well, from the Holy
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, rebuilt by Syrians
for the Christians at the end of the seventh
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
291
century. This was from the tenth cen-
tury the goal of pilgrims and crusaders,
and the Military Orders, born under its
shadow, built after its fashion. As has
been said already, in the twelfth century
(1134) King Alfonso Sanchez in his will
invited them to the inheritance of his
kingdom of Aragon and Navarre. Their
power belongs to the time of Sancho the
Wise, 1 1 50-1 194, counting from the founda-
tion of Ribaforada in 1157. Supposing,
then, that they built a commandery here in
the last third of the twelfth century, they
had a chance to evoke, in the Spanish up-
lands, the Sepulchre to which they were
dedicated. Now S. Jerome speaks of an
uncovered, concentric atrium which existed
around the Holy Tomb, so constructed
"not to intercept the space by which the
Lord rose into Heaven," and this was
preserved in restorations of the seventh,
ninth, and eleventh centuries, though it is
covered now. If it was already covered
by the end of the twelfth century, still
the Templars might be familiar with the
passage in S. Jerome. This plausible
AND MONOGRAPHS
Holy
Sepulchres
The Vir-
gin's also
2Q2
WAY OF S.JAMES
Virgin of
Eunate
conjecture would make the arcade now
standing, the inner side of a gallery
that surrounded the church which would
stand, then, in the centre of a wide cloister
garth. 2 That there was a whole monas-
tery, of many buildings, all round about
the present church where now the plough
goes, is well known: labourers still turn up
the stones and expose the remains of walls
and foundations.
In 1312 the Templars left Navarre, but
their Virgin is still there: unfortunately I
did not know of her existence at the time
of the v 1 'sit, and the woman fetched with
the keys did not trouble to mention her;
as for the priest, he was miles away. Sr.
Lamperez compares her with those of
Ujue, Villahuerta, and Irache (now in
Dicastillo) and considers them all to be
of the first third of the thirteenth century.
Some other observations of his are of value :
for instance, that there is nothing Cister-
cian about the place, but it may be com-
pared with the eastern end of Leyre and
the cloister of S. Pedro la Rua (I should
urge that the art is not so finished by far)
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
293
and other constructions of the region.
The capitals inside, he says, are all leaf
forms (I am not quite sure of this, but
most of them are) and to the Corinthian
Syro-
scheme they unite a Syro-Byzantine man-
Byzantine
manner
ner. He feels that, in the grotesques of
the north door, with a fantastic fauna
alternate a series of personages that seem
meant for priests in hieratic vestments.
He traces two hands in the work: the
church strong, robust, energetic in orna-
mentation, the cloister slimmer and very
fine and free in decoration. But the two
may well be contemporary.
The right name of this strange temple
is the Basilica of Auriz. Its picturesque
bye-name, Eunate, comes trom two Basque
roots, and means "the house of a hundred
doors."
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
294
WAY OF S.JAMES
Puente la Reyna.
Quan lo rius de la fontana
S'esclarzis, si cum far sol,
E par la flors aiglentina,
El rossinholetz el ram
Volfe refranh ez aplana
Son dous chantar el afina,
So Jauf re
Dreitz es qu'ieu lo mieu
Rudel
refranha:
Amors de terra Ion hidana
Per vos totz lo cars mi dol;
E non puesc trobar me-
zina. *
Unlike Estella, first mentioned in 1076,
and Sanguesa, called into existence as a
lower town in 1131, Puente la Reyna is a
very ancient place. It was, for sure, before
the Moors; it was, perhaps, before the
Romans, for it lies on a main road at the
crossing of a river; but in importance it
ranks simply with those other twelfth
century towns which were stages along the
track of the pilgrimage. The bridge was
the work of Dona Mayor when Sancho III
was building the great Way across Navarre,
or possibly of her daughter-in-law, Dona
Estefania, the queen of Garcia Sanchez, el
de Ndjera. The town figures in the reigns
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
of Sancho the Noble and Sancho Ramirez,
in the eleventh century, and in 1 1 22 Alfonso
el Batallador dowered it well, with privilege
of wood cutting and tillage, and water
free, "for the desire I have," he wrote,
"that here shall come to dwell all peoples,
and that they shall make a great and
excellent town." When, he wrote that
phrase about all peoples, he meant more
than Navarrese, or even Spaniards: Lom-
bards and Proven gals, Normans and
English, Flemings and French, Burgun-
dians, Germans and Dutch, Hungarians,
Irish, Tuscans and Romans and half
Saracen Sicilians, all who passed incessantly
on the same journey westward, under the
bright stars. The real life of these towns
was from the twelfth century to the
fifteenth only, and the greatest centuries
of the pilgrimage though not the most
crowded were the centuries of the Recon-
quest, the eleventh, twelfth, and thir-
teenth, when Spain was just, as we say,
opened up for the rest of Europe, as a fresh
field for enterprise. There was a hearing
at the capitals and the castles, for poets
295
All peoples
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296
WAY OF S.JAMES
The
Peddler's
Wallet
like Guillermo Aneliers who wrote the Civil
War of Pampeluna. 2 There was a market
for the peddler, with thin silk from Sicily
and thick silk from Lyons, or furs from
Muscovy and beyond; and at the very
core of one of the saddle-bags, safe from a
fall on the mountain side or a slip in the
ford, something, enamel or jewel, small in
size, light in weight, and more precious
than the ingot gold. That peddler was
your great purveyor of taste. You see him
as painted up in S. Isidore of Leon, in the
month of May, leading his donkey, in
eleven-hundred-something: and again in a
background of the Grimani Breviary, at
1500. In May, when the snows were out
of the mountain passes and the spring
floods had gone down, he set out from
Marseilles or Venice or Barcelona, or
Toulouse, maybe, or Bruges, where he
would have wintered in comfort. He
loaded the two beasts which are all one
man can manage, with a few things of the
very best, with Flemish cloth and linen
from the fairs of Troyes. To great ladies
he brought a veil of cypress lawn, to great
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
abbots a bone, or enough embroidered
stuff to make orphreys for a vestment. 3
To the adventurous youth of Christen-
dom, Spain offered a never-ending Cru-
sade without the sea passage. In 1085
French knights were enlisted for the siege
of Toledo; in 1096 for Huesca, in 1118
for Saragossa, in 1116 for the defense and
re-peopling of Tarragona. There were so
many Franks at the conquest of Toledo
that they gave their name to a quarter; at
that of Valencia nine years later, that they
left it in streets along the coast-wise-
lying towns. There I saw it. Bretons,
Aquitanians and Gascons figured in the
Aragonese conquest: the Crusader's vow
was commuted to the Normans at Tarra-
gona; Seville was divided into the streets
for Genoese, Franks, etc. The White Com-
pany of Du Guesclin, the Black Prince's
troops, came and went across the north,
and left their wounded sometimes, and car-
ried off sometimes their girls.
A pilgrimage was only a little less exciting
than a crusade, and needed less experience:
it could be made during convalescence
297
A never-
ending
crusade
AND MONOGRAPH S
298
WAY OF S.JAMES
Messen-
gers
and
students
or retrenchment. Monks were always
travelling, messengers constantly coming
and going between Rome and the great
abbeys, great clerics moving on diplomatic
business between kings. The circle of
European politics suddenly included four
more kings at least, as possible husbands
for daughters and fathers for queens: the
Spanish kings married, so to speak, very
widely. Daughters established in strange
lands sent home strange folk with gifts
and letters ; alien queens in the land brought
their households and their ways when
they came. Spanish students made their
way to Padua and Bologna, to Oxford, and
above all to Paris, where the College of
Navarre was founded in 1304. On the
tramp they took in as much of the world as
could be embraced; other nations by the
thirteenth century came to Seville and
Irache, and in Barcelona the B. Ramon
Lull lectured to four thousand students.
Clerks came down either to get learning
from the Arabs in the south and east, or
to pick up the scraps in the northern towns
as these were retaken. Monks came
HISPANIC NOTES
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across the Pyrenees in hungry droves, and
settled down in the plains of Castile and
Aragon like grackles in a cornfield. The
best of them intended to sit by a king's
shoulder: the least of them could count on
a grange or a mill. Where churches and
castles were building, and convents and
whole cities, labour must automatically
move, workmen must press, sure of good
wages and steady work. Where great
crowds are assembled, vast numbers con-
gested or in motion, there you will find the
vermin that like close lying, warm sitting,
thieves, robbers, pickpockets; also the pro-
fessional cheat, or confidence man; and the
relic-monger. So, too, the huge and shift-
ing company will take kindly to diversion,
and give up to the professional entertainer
an honest livelihood, one fairly earned.
Puente la Reyna would be full of fiddlers,
story tellers and jongleurs, and many of the
same occupation as S. Mary of Egypt.
Police duty would not be light in such a
place. The town was in the hands of the
Templars from 1 146 until they were ruined,
and they were succeeded by the Knights
299
Monks
Profession-
al enter-
tainers
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300
WAY OF S.JAMES
Knights of
S. John
of S. John. These, both, were soldiers and
were monks, they ensured discipline and
military justice, which has the great virtue
of certainty.
Their church, El Crucifijo, 4 was not
finished till after 1487, under John II.
The chancellor of Navarre, D. Juan de
Beaumont, in 1448 founded, with Papal
approbation, a Hospital of Frailes Com-
mendadores of his order, in the place where
the Templars had kept one for the pilgrims
going to Santiago de Galicia, it being then
ruined by wars and calamities of time past.
To celebrate the solemn foundation a
provincial chapter was held in Olite, to
preside at which the Grand Master sent
a special representative, and to magnify
which Eugenius IV gave many graces and
indulgences. These included the faculty
for a confraternity of three hundred mem-
bers, whose alms should sustain the hospice.
The king himself and his son the prince
of Viana were members. Sir John Beau-
mont, who was Grand Prior of the order as
well as institutor of this Confraternity of
the Crucified, desired to be buried in their
HISPANIC NOTES
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church, but at the time of his death in 1487
it was not finished, and only in 1577 were
the bones moved thither. Today the
church is ruined, between the restorations of
wealth and the destructions of war: the
tombs survived down to 1836. It would
seem from the description preserved and
the recollections of old men in the yo's
and 8o's, that it was in some way influenced
by that of Charles the Noble. Standing
in the Cap ilia Mayor, on the Gospel side,
it was fashioned ot choice alabaster, with
a kneeling effigy likewise of alabaster and
an epitaph in rather bad Spanish verse, but
the urn or sarcophagus was adorned round
about with figures recalling the great
lord's burial : priests, the celebrant, deacon
and sub-deacon, the sacristan and acolytes
with candles. This may, of course, be the
description of one of those long ceremo-
nials that in the fifteenth century filled the
niche in which a tomb was set. Through-
out the northeast of Spain, at the tomb of
Mosse"n Frances de Villa Espesa, in Tudela,
at that of Bishop Lope de Luna in Saragossa,
on fragments of others in the Museum at
301
A ruined
sepulchre
AND MONOGRAPHS
302
WAY OF S.JAMES
The
Crucified
Lerida, you find them. But, considering
the position, it may well be that an altar
tomb like those at Dijon and Pampeluna
was ordered and commenced and that in
the sixteenth century the family, at the
time of translation, completed it with a
more fashionable sort of effigy.
The pointed south door of El Crucifijo
survives, though wasted by weather.
Three shafts in the jamb are patterned
over with knops and other diapers: the
capitals were apparently in the style of
some at S. Miguel of Estella and at Eunate,
a sort of interlace with creatures caught in
the creepers. The abaci have a leaf pattern
or entrelacs. Of the archivolts: the in-
most order is of these very fine entrelacs
that recall, in their spirit and felicity, the
work at Bari by the eastern sea, and Trani
that great entrep6t of the Crusaders. In
the next order is a pattern that I have not
seen elsewhere and that resembles nothing
but the crimped curls of butter that come
in with your coffee and croissants in France,
but whereas those are incredibly thin, these
are rather solid, almost like the half of a
HISPANIC NOTES
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303
fluted spindle. Follows, in repetition, an
elaborate complete ornament made out
of the honeysuckle: then a row of gro-
tesques, some leaf, some animal forms, pine
cones, an angel, a head, beasts and birds,
harpies, and birds pecking; lastly, a large
leaf for the dripstone. Sr. Lampe'rez
suggests 5 that the carvings are imitated
from Byzantine ivories. The archivolts
are, excepting the row of grotesques, quite
unlike anything else that I know in the
region, and those grotesques are unlike
in detail, though in method of application
similar, to those at Leyre and Aulnay.
The artisan copied such forms as fell under
his hand and applied them as he was used;
the sculpture of the jambs, though cunning
and over-refined, is in a style disused else-
where after the Romanesque age, or at
any rate after the transitional style, and it
is well to have the dated example.
At the church of Santiago, in the heart
ot the new town, the western door is very
plain, with a round arch, early Gothic
capitals, and the chrism in the tympanum.
The south door, however, is magnificent
Oriental
carvings
Santiago
AND MONOGRAPHS
304
The two
Wrongs
Days of
Creation
WAY OF S.JAMES
and full of delight, though cruelly worn by
weather, especially on its western half. The
jambs are of a style to be found at Estella,
where five shafts are separated and flanked
by others much slenderer, topped each
with a human head. The richly carved
abacus and storied capitals are carried in a
continuous band fr,om the face of the door
all the way across the buttresses that flank
the entire portal. On the face of the east
buttress this band is filled by three lions,
on the west by four syrens or harpies; the
style is like that of the latest decorative
work at Sanguesa but much finer. They
represent probably, for all their beauty,
the two great Wrongs: sins of Wrath, the
lions; sins of Desire, the harpies. Above
this on the western buttress is a headless
relief of a man fighting a lion that symbol-
izes the strife of soul and body; that on the
ease is too worn to decipher.
There is no tympanum; the round arch
of the doorway is deeply cusped and the
face of it carved with a series of seven
medallions or scrolls of the days of crea-
tion. In the archivolts, the innermost row
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
contains chiefly birds, and the next gro-
tesques: the outer ones, Scriptural scenes:
a pair of prophets, the Visitation, the
Announcement to the Shepherds, and
Flight into Egypt, the Epiphany, Herod
and the Kings, the Massacre. Cruelly
wasted, but still fair, it is all late and rich
pictorial sculpture. I should not dare to
suppose that it was earlier than the second
half of the thirteenth century. In justice
it should be said that Sr. Madrazo 6 wanted
to give it to the time of Sancho the Wise or
Sancho the Strong, a hundred years before
this, at the same time referring the forms
of the portal to the contemporary style of
Poitou and Saintonge. In any case it is
older than the church, which was built
completely over in the fifteenth century,
probably under Charles the Noble, who
reared himself pleasure palaces here, with
bosques and parks. In 1410 Simon L6pez
was master of the works at the castle. 7 Of
the workmen or the work on the church, we
know nothing. Very high and wide, of a
single span, the vaulting rests not on
columns but on the semicircular inner
305
Scenes of
the
Infancy
AND MONOGRAPHS
306
WAY OF S.JAMES
Inward-
jutting
buttresses
S. Pedro
face of buttresses of which the projection is
inward, into the body of the church. This
is the practice at Albi and other places in
the south of France, and over the border,
at Irun and S. Sebastian. The space be-
tween the buttresses is regularly vaulted
over in a narrow bay, to form lateral chap-
els: the transept is deeper than these;
the portal opens out of the last bay on
the south : a rococo retable blocks the apse
and a still more rococo organ the western
gallery.
There is a third church, S. Pedro, plain on
the outside, with a western door rather like
that of Santiago and an interior of the
latest of the fifteenth century. In the
twelfth century the townsmen of Murula-
barren, attracted by the advantages which
D. Alfonso el Batallador and D. Garcia el
Restaurador had offered, migrated hither
en masse and settled in the quarter of S.
Pedro; they may have built this church.
For some reason, Cisneros spared the
fortifications of Puente, and the hugeous
wall, 8 built against and into, brown and
high, looms behind the sycamores of a
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
shabby Paseo which gets nothing from the
river, not even a view of the beautiful
Queen's Bridge. Inside, the streets are
narrow, and the children ignorant and
wretched the worst crowd, perhaps, that
a woman alone had ever to deal with. The
woman in question was driven to earth at
last in the Town Hall, ringing the bell there
very much in the temper of the poor old
horse who nibbled the straw rope in the
famous story and sounded the appeal
for justice. The town clerks and council-
lors were all at home and asleep in the long
noon, but a frank old woman, who lived in
the tower, was persuaded for a while to
lend a chair, a kitten and some attention.
She felt it not only natural but laudable
that children on seeing a woman alone
should assume she was dissipated (borracha
was the word), and hustle and hoot her,
and after a bit, growing sleepy herself, and
having run through all her family history
and that of her husband's relatives, she
wanted to lock up, and sent the strange
woman packing. By this hour, however,
the children were in school, under the
307
" Company
with
honesty"...
AND MONOGRAPHS
308
WAY OF S.JAMES
Padres
Escolapios
charge of the quaintly named Padres
Escolapios, so that it was possible to escape
to a bench under the dusty sycamores, and
to wait there for the returning diligence.
Government schools are said to teach
something about a common humanity, and
manners toward the outlander; where only
parish and Jesuit schools are found, they
wot not of such things.
When the diligence came, it had not a
vacant seat: the driver and conductor,
undisturbed, recommended not as an alter-
native but as the only action, sleeping at
Puente and taking that which would pass
early the next morning. One had no night
things, one could not believe that any inn
might be tolerable, one simply didn't see
how, at the end of a long day, to walk the
ten miles or more to Estella, but certainly
one was not going back like an abandoned
cat to the hooting and hustling children of
those streets. As a last resort, the woman
alone became a lonely woman, very pitiful
afraid to sleep in a strange place by her-
self, afraid to leave a timorous Jehane by
herself overnight in Estella. Incontinent,
HISPANIC NOTES
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309
four strapping Navarrese lads packed them-
selves into the space provided by sta-
tute for three, and in contentment that
amounted almost to hilarity, the dili-
gence swept on to Estella. For this un-
expected repudiation of law, decency, and
invariable Spanish practice, may places
be found hereafter for the driver, the
conductor, and the four Navarrese, among
the blessed.
1 Sepulcro.
Happy day and mighty hour,
When our shepherd, in his power.
Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword,
To his ancestors restored,
Like a re-appearing Star,
Like a glory from ajar
First shall head the flock of war!
At about the same distance from Estella
in the opposite direction lies another ex-
ample of the same rare type of church as
Eunate, finer and more splendid, albeit
unknown. El Sepulcro of Torres, octago-
nal, has dome and lantern, projecting apse,
and separate staircase turret intact. The
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
310
'Bosomed
high in
tufted
trees "
WAY OF S.JAMES
Logrono road curls around a hill-set city, and
then in a wide curve sweeps down steeply
to the shallow river valley: and thence you
look across to Torres on the ascending hill,
and catch the sun on lantern tower and
arcaded sides. Travellers, on the other
hand, approaching from Viana, may see
from the post-road the tower reared above
thick trees, and guess what must sustain
it. Yet the church, unknown to Madrazo,
remains such, undivined-by Sr. Lamperez;
a French ecclesiologist, it is said, driving
through the country eight or ten years
ago, before private motors had grown
general, saw, and stopped to see more and
to photograph, and was much molested by
the crowding curious children. They are
indeed tiresome as gnats, but not bad-
hearted, except one boy, cross-eyed and
cross-spirited; and their elders rebuked
and dispersed them a dozen times, but al-
ways they gathered again, filling the open
doorway of the empty church, and blotting
out the patch of sunlight on the floor.
While the stranger who so intrigued them
was taking measurements and photographs,
HISPANIC NOTES
El Sepulcro
THE WAY
the Mayor arrived and exchanged a few
civil phrases, likewise a tall spare person
all in cool linen clothes, the richest there-
abouts. He supplied the recollection of the
earlier passer-by, who can only, in conjec-
ture, figure as M. Bertaux. Down at the
inn on the post-road, friendly folk kept deli-
cately out of the way, and the traveller
lunched alone, and alone awaited, over a
novel, the evening coach to return, without
so much to bear as a curious glance from
the hall: with only a murmur of voices
quiet as summer flies, reading and dis-
cussing the newspaper that she had brought
down that morning by chance. Oh, the
courtesy of these small Spanish places, so
conscious yet so sure! Just because it is
not spontaneous and necessary and per-
sonal, as in Tuscany, it tastes the sweeter.
Here the landlord still feels himself the
host, and the traveller the guest. The
pretty daughter of the house, who served
the table, was found in calico at the early
arrival, and dressed herself in serge for
dinner, and dressed her black hair, and
craved pardon because the cares of house
313
Spanish
courtesy
versus
Tuscan
HISPANIC NOTES
WAY OF S.JAMES
A little in
history
and kitchen prevented her sitting down to
entertain. The same careful grace marked
the gentle hunchbacked postman who had
fetched the key and opened the church;
after his round with letters, he came back
prepared to remain as escort or depart as
interruption, with no will except to know
the other 's wish . The day would have been
sweet enough with human pleasantness,
apart from the sportsman's zest in hunting
churches and finding such game.
The town of Torres figures a little in
history, like any other: near the road there
was in old times a monastery, and the
church attached to it, of very good and
firm architecture, which D. Ximeno Galin-
dez gave to Irache in noo. l The parish
church, which is dedicated to S. Peter, has
only a small establishment.
When in 1134 Alfonso el Batallador left
his kingdom by will to the three Orders of
the Hospital, the Temple and the Holy
Sepulchre, 2 the Canon Giraldo, who was
sent over to take possession in the name of
the third, was unluckily sir clerk and not sir
knight, and the Order consequently in Spain
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
315
was ecclesiastical and not chivalrous. In
The Order
1141 the Patriarch and Chapter in Jerusa-
of the Holy
lem ceded their claims on the kingdom, and
Sepulchre
received in return from Ramon Berenguer
territory and vassals to found a church in
Calatayud, next to the Mozarabic quarter.
Alfonso VII of Castile took a liking to the
Order while he held Calatayud, and intro-
duced it into his dominions, giving it pro-
perty in Toro and Zamora; in Salamanca,
the church known now as S. Cristobal; in
Segovia, that dedicated to Vera Cruz 3
and wrongfully assigned to the Templars
which was dedicated in 1208. In Logrono
the same canon Gerard, who founded the
church of S. Mary at Calatayud, founded
a church and chapter: the King had given
his palace there to the Order, and this will
be 6". Maria del Palacio. In Aragon, there
were houses also at Borja and Huesca, and
in Catalonia the Colegiata of S. Ana;
there were houses in Valencia and Mallorca.
Of the two nuns' houses, that in Saragossa
still exists, and these Comendadoras are
the only living members of the Order in
Comenda-
doras
the world. I can find no mention of a
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
3 i6
WAY OF S.JAMES
lArriba,
canes,
arriba!
daughter house at Torres, but this is not
evidence that there was none: a document
ot 1303 is signed by Fr. Joanne Petri de
Torres, among other witnesses, and the
same Fray Juan Perez of Torres was
Prior in the years 1385 to 1391. In 1489
the military orders of the Holy Sepulchre
and of S. Lazarus of Bethlehem and
Nazareth were suppressed and their goods
made over to that of S. John, by Pope
Innocent VIII in the Bull, Cum solerti
meditatione. The Bull was not everywhere
well received; in Aragon it was ignored.
I find the Prior of Calatayud exercising
jurisdiction spiritual and temporal in the
early sixteenth century, over the five
towns that still belonged to the Order
lin Aragon?]: Nuevales, Tobed, Torralba
de los Frailes, Codos, and S. Cruz de
Tobed. Torres, however, is in Navarre,
and La Fuente says explicitly that the
Order had two provinces and by the same
token celebrated chapters. 4
The Prior of Calatayud took precedence,
and called himself sometimes Grand Prior.
His church was begun ii44, s consecrated
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WA Y
317
first in 1156, finished and again conse-
crated i249. 6
In consequence of the dates, fixed by the
Baptistery at Parma, at the beginning of
the thirteenth century, and the Crusade
King Ty-
balt in the
under Theobald of Navarre, in Anatolia
Taurus
and the Taurus, in the second quarter, the
church of S. Sepulchre at Torres must be
assigned to a time well along in the thir-
teenth century.
The wall arcade outside is pointed;
noble columns run the full height at every
angle ; noble windows fill the centre of each
bay in the stage above and admit light
through pierced stone tracery into the
interior; two windows under the wall ribs
flank the apse. The door is a low round
arch, a third of a circle, with the Patri-
archal cross carved on the tympanum,
with the hood-moulding carved in dog-
tooth, and a leaf on the abacus at the
jamb. 7 Shafts and capitals are lost. The
corbels under the roof are fluted in four
scallops, horizontally, the nearest thing to
this being the supports of the cornice at
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WAY OF S.JAMES
Celanova
also
Cuenca
and
Fr6mista
Celanova, where the Mozarabic work goes
back to the ninth or tenth century. The
cornice is a shallow hollow in which lie
balls, a Romanesque motive in Spain,
already seen about Jaca and on the way to
S. Juan de la Pena. The lantern, floored
and blocked up, like that of S. Cruz de la
Ser6s, has a small, round-headed window
in each face and a column with blunt
capital at each corner, a heavy cornice,
and a door that opens on the western side,
to which lead steps from the staircase
tower. This lantern and the access to it
resemble probably those originally at S.
Martin of Fromista. The roof, like that
of Eunate, consists of heavy slabs of stone,
now well sunk in mortar. It carried once
a stone cross over all, but that being
destroyed not long since by a thunder-
storm, a clock was set in, of which the face
occupies the south wall, and the weights
hang down, outside, in the north-west angle
between church and tower.
Inside, a low stone bench runs all around,
and the shafts of the lower range have
disappeared, but their capitals, billet
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
319
moulded, project from a string course of
the same pattern, and on these descend
the upper columns. Outside and inside,
the church has a tripartite division marked
by horizontal lines: without, one crosses at
the springing of the wall arch, and the
other at the sills of the windows: within,
one at the point where the arch of the apse
springs, and the other where the dome-ribs
and the vault begin. The capitals of the
upper range are varied: an oriental rosette
of whorls, a centaur, a formal pattern based
on the honeysuckle, pine cones, a leaf
pattern based on the acanthus, network,
leaf and pine cone, leaves in two rows
forming a rich and broken pattern. It is
vaulted with ribs that pass across and
leave an open star at the centre: these
come down on the shafts just named, at the
corners, and on corbels fluted like those
without, in the middle of each side. This
sort of vault Street saw in a chapel of the
cloister at Salamanca, and the present
writer saw in one at Las Huelgas. It is
Mude"jar: the workmen may have come
from the Mozarabic quarter of Calatayud,
Capitals
and vaults
AND MONOGRAPHS
320
WAY OF S. TAMES
Mozarabic
and
Templar
or from elsewhere: in 1211, a certain
Miguel de Burgana gave to the Prior and
the Canons a Saracen slave that he had in
Gotor. 8 In the vault appear eight tiny
windows of pierced stone, crowned with
Muddjar cusping like some at Toledo, and
by tabernacles, "heavenly Jerusalems"
like those of the school of Chartres. The
same sort of tabernacle reappears on a
capital at Sangtiesa, which belonged to S.
John of the Hospital, at Villasirga, which
was a Templar's church, at Carri6n close
by, and at Moarbes copied from Carrion,
but these are not the only instances, even
along the way. In the case of Sangiiesa,
Torres, and Villasirga, it may refer to the
earthly Jerusalem, of which the lords in
ome sense all were knights. At theentrance
to the sanctuary, where under a pointed
arch a section of pointed barrel-vault pre-
cedes the semi-dome, stand two columns
with wellmoulded bases and storied capitals :
on the north, the Deposition in a form that
seems copied from Master Benedetto's at
Parma, 9 on the south, the empty Sepulchre
left after the Resurrection, as at Aries.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
The design on the abacus I do not under-
stand, unless it was imitated from metal
work. In the upper part of the two bays
nearest the apse, windows open, their jamb
shafts duly storied in the Romanesque vein.
Here, then, is oddly assorted matter,
gathered up by the side of the Way: capi-
tals derived from Greek, from Roman,
from Romanesque, and from Oriental
sources, handiwork recalling Mude"jar,
French, and Italian artizans. The re-
miniscence of Parma might seem far-
fetched, on the writer's part, or fortuitous
on the sculptor's, were it not for another
still more striking at Estella, in the Last
Supper of S. Sepulcro there. Thus it falls
into place, and clinches the link already
forged, in old records, of pilgrims passing
along the great routes. It is possible that
whoever brought the design of the Deposi-
tion, brought also the way of building,
having seen Master Benedetto's Baptistery,
commenced in 1196, well under way; and,
though simplifying, imitated the structure.
One more note : I recall at this moment only
two places in which a window is pierced at
321
Sources
AND MONOGRAPHS
322
WAY OF S.JAMES
Another
pilgrim-
"Iconium's
turban 'd
Soldan"...
the point where a plane is tangential to a
curved wall: these are, the apses in the
Terra di Bari, at Bitonto and Bari, for in-
stance, and these windows in the dome of
the Sepulcro. Now all that Terra di Bari
was full of pilgrims and crusaders, arriving
and departing; Trani was an important sea-
port. Straight through it ran the road to
Brindisi. Lombard builders and French
were there: Roland too; the knights, Oli-
ver, Archbishop Turpin, and all the Chan-
son de Roland on the cathedral pavement.
Though there are examples in the high-
lands of Asia Minor, recorded by Miss
Lowthian Bell, of the apse- windows, I am
not aware that this particular architectural
device in domes is oriental: if it was in-
vented in Italy, returning travellers might
bring it with them; if in the Anatolian
plateau, then the Crusaders of Navarre.
Their trobador king Theobald, who had
embarked with them at Marseilles in 1239,
led them straight into the Taurus to fight
the Soldan of Iconium. T The road into
France ran by Parma, Borgo S. Donnino,
and Modena, and the road from France
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
323
to Santiago passed near S. Cruz and S.
Juan de la Pena, through lands certainly of
the latter. So this exotic church need not
be fetched like the Holy House of Loreto,
through the air: there is a good road all
the way.
A good
road
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
324
WA Y OF S.JAMES
VI
TOWN CHURCHES
Arga, Ega y Aragon,
fazen d Ebro varon.
IN the midst of vineyard and olive-
garth, with noble approaches and skilful
gradients, the road runs fast, past Puente
la Reyna and Cirauqui, down to Estella
on the Ega. After you have crossed the
Queen's Bridge, there is a great patch
of green and bosky mountain-side to get
around by long white loops of road, but
for the most of the way, little towns lie
close: Maneru, where ancient houses stand
about a mountain stream, and which be-
longed as early as the thirteenth century
to S. John of Jerusalem, and as late as the
sixteenth paid heavy taxes to el Crucifijo,
just back there on the road : Cirauqui, that
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
climbs surprisingly up the rock and rears
a church portal reddish brown like porphyry,
pointed and cusped and rtpousst with
innumerable mouldings, ' two church towers
further away ennobling the steep streets.
By Lorca the grey of olives hangs like
smoke over the brown soil; Lacar huddles
among low vineyards; in other towns
unnamed a flat mail-bag is dropped or a
letter snatched, without stopping, from a
waiting woman. After Villatuerta, twice
burned in the Middle Age, the road de-
clines into the softer valley of the Ega,
where fruit-trees dispute the enclosure
with grape and olive, and the retreating
hillsides are terraced into gardens. The
Ega, green like a Swiss torrent and flecked
with white, draws the road swiftly up its
course and past a straggling suburb of
mills and tanneries, over which towers the
Aposlolado of S. Sepulchre: at last the road
broadens and pauses at Estella.
The phrase used regularly for these
towns is the just one, they are situated on
the old road, that is to say alongside it. A
French highway, as you follow it, runs
325
Little
towns
AND MONOGRAPHS
326
High street
WAY OF S. JAMES
into a village and out again, and the High
Street of English towns is often a segment
merely of the line stretched from sea to
sea. But here the little towns draw their
walls about them, and lock out the passing
troops, the tramping pilgrims : even where,
as at Estella, a suburb throve on the
farther bank of the river, still there was
a clear track left for the road and those
upon it, against which gates could be
barred.
When Sancho Ramirez was building the
Pilgrims' Road he determined that it
should pass thereby and a town be estab-
lished. The monks of S. Juan de la Pena
held a place less than a league off, Zarapur
by name, and they wanted the road to go
their way and bring traffic and custom of
sorts. The story reads like the early history
of railways, in the intrigues and pressure
brought to bear. The king won, after a
fashion, the road passes through Estella,
but he had to yield to the monks what
tithes and churches were just coming into
being, and a tenth of the royal rights. As
late as 1174 the abbey was adjusting
HISPANIC NOTES
The Thursday Market in Estella
THE WAY
matters with the Bishop of Pampeluna, and
keeping in its own hands the control of S.
Miguel and S. Sepulcro, while S. Pedro la
Rua remained as always a direct depen-
dency. Sancho the Wise, when he founded
the church of S. John and peopled its
parish, gave it to another monastery
Irache. After that things went easier:
townsfolk bought rights for themselves,
that Thursday market under Jehane's
window they purchased from Theobald 1. 2
A sweet place it is, and a comfortable,
the burgher using always to sleep soft and
feed high. Aymery Picaud stayed there,
and liked the cooking : he praised the bread,
the fish, the wine. We stayed there long,
in the Casa de Gorgonio that outlanders
would call the Hotel Comercio, where the
son of the house is a heaven-born cook, and
about whose ceufs a la Bgckamel Jehane
still feels as felt Aymery about the fish.
The house was clean, kind, and quiet. We
had choice, on arriving, of two dining-
rooms: whether to eat at a little table quite
alone in the room except when motor-people
stopped for luncheon or dinner and hurried
329
Thursday
market
HISPANIC NOTES
330
WAY OF S.JAMES
Mesa
redonda
on, or for a lesser price, at the long table,
which Spaniards idiomatically call mesa
redonda, partake of the identical meal
served hotter. There we elected to practise
Spanish and good manners. On the rare
occasions above mentioned it accom-
modated the chauffeur at the other end,
but he looked as a rule more interesting
than his employers, and had always more
to tell that was wanted about roads and
distances, inns and connexions.
The upper town, called Lygara, was
peopled by Sancho Ramirez at the end of
the eleventh century with francos which
may mean free men and may mean French-
men, i. e., subjects from the north side of
the Pyrenees. El Parral, the vine-garth
around S. Miguel, was constituted by
Sancho the Wise in 1187, who gave the
same rights as other freemen enjoyed on
condition of a sort of ground-rent. In the
same year he had founded the church of
S. John on the Sands, in the river-side
place called el Arenal, in which the Jews
congregated. This he gave to the monastery
of Irache. The town was reduced under a
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
single government only in 1266, by the
Frenchman Theobald I. The Jews, who
had enjoyed by the laws of Navarre liberty
of person and property, were under the
same king driven out of their quarter;
they gathered in the steep streets around
the castle, and walled their Ghetto, which
however was sacked with slaughter in 1322
under the direction of a Franciscan friar
Pedro Olligorzdn. In 1329 the townsfolk
again sacked the Ghetto, though walled
and gated: the land where it stood still
lies waste. Later on, when in 1492 the Jews
were expelled from Castile and Aragon, the
queen and king of Navarre, Catherine and
Jean de Labrit, wrote to the governing
body of Estella to give the exiled Jews free
passage and aid, and "give settlement in
Estella to as many as possible, for they are
a docile people, easily subject to reason."
In the end, unfortunately, the king of
Navarre had to yield to the general up-
roar and the fixed policy of the Catholic
Kings, and the Jews had to move on.
The truth of course is that in the first
place they were too prosperous, and in the
331
Jew-
baiting
AND MO NOGR APRS
332
WAY OF S.JAMES
Burgos,
Bruges,
and
Estella
second place the feuds between Francos
and Navarros had been patched up that
year of 1329, and the town had need of
blood. It is said that ten thousand died
at this time in Estella alone. The town,
naturally, throve. When after the battle
of Salado the value of gold fell by one-sixth
in consequence of the quantity of precious
metal in the booty taken, the old chroni-
cles state that the effect of this was felt
in the markets of Burgos, Bruges, and
Estella, these being the greatest trading
centres. As early as 1254 the tabla de
cambio of Estella was universal, or nearly.
The rich merchants filled up, in the thir-
teenth and fourteenth century, the streets
that the Jews had built above the river-
side, and they built them a church de-
dicated to S. Salvador del Arenal. Early
in 1264, Theobald I had given to the
Dominicans the church of All Saints on
the hillside above, which had been a
synagogue till Garcia Ramirez el Restau-
rador gave it to the Bishop of Pampeluna.
Commerce flourished. Alfonso of Cas-
tile, 61 de las Na-vas, on February i, 1205,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
gave to the merchants of Estella the right
to traffic in all his realms and lordships,
without any person's impeding them, and
Jaime I el Conquistador, in midsummer of
1254, gave them the right of trade and
contract in all his realms under royal
protection.
The merchants had the best of it at
Estella, but at times they had suffered,
like those elsewhere, under the feet of their
betters. In 1206 Sancho the Strong gave
the city to the Lord of Vizcaya, D. Diego
L6pez de Haro: he entrenched himself in
the castle and thence made raids into
Castile. During the wars of Charles the
Bad, the men of Castile lifted the cattle,
and burned the palaces and houses, but
in 1390 a privilege of Charles the Noble
gave the town equal rights with Pampe-
luna. The fueros of Estella are often
quoted as a sort of norm of liberty. In
spite of the Castilian raids and the flood
of 1475, when the river Ega rose and
destroyed half the city and that the best,
the palace of the Dukes of Granada still
remains one ot the few grand examples of
333
D. Diego
L6pez de
Haro
AND MONOGRAPHS
334
WAY OF S.JAMES
Domestic
Roman-
esque
domestic Romanesque. The carved capi-
tals of the great columns have the vigour
and fire of the cloister at Soria. Other
palaces also, fallen from their high estate,
line the winding street that leads to the
church of the Sepulchre. The castle was
destroyed by the jealousy of Cisneros.
The luxury of the fifteenth century is
reflected in sumptuary legislation of Charles
the Noble. A pragmatic says: "Inas-
much as the King is certified that the
principal cause of the poverty of the city
consists in the excessive dressing and
ostentation of the ladies and other women,
he ordains, taking example from ancient
princes and from the kings of Castile and
Aragon, that the said ladies of Estella
shall not be so bold as to wear upon them
either gold or silver, in chains or garlands,
or in any other thing excepting girdles and
buttons of white silver, ungilt, and, if they
desire, on the sleeves only. Further, that
they may not wear pearls nor precious
stones, orphreys nor toques, nor buttons
where there is a gold thread, nor furs of
gris, except, in the long sleeves, trimming
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
335
of otter the width of half a skin, and the
purfles of the front of a mantle a finger
broad of ermine, no more, nor wear scar-
let cloth nor clothes of gold or silk. . . .
Licence, however, is given to wear clothes
already made till they are worn out but not
to make new. Item, this ordinance applies
also to the Jews." 3
Not only were there French-born sub-
jects filling the quarters of Estella, there
were French shrines. Sancho the Strong
in 1 201 built and endowed a sanctuary for
Our Lady of Rocamadour , just about at the
time when the church of S. Pedro la Rua
was building too. He had had a bad time
in Africa, and once safe home, he gave to
the Monastery of S. Mary of Rocamadour,
on the road of the pilgrims as you go out
of Estella, twenty-three moneys of gold in
perpetuity, charged on royal rights in the
Old Slaughter-house, and eighteen more
charged on the mills of Villatuerta. Of
this, thirty-nine was for lights for the
Virgin's altar, for his own soul's good and
his parents'; of the other two, for incense
one, the other for a preacher on certain
A sumptu-
ary prag-
matic
AND MONOGRAPHS
336
WAY OF S.JAMES
Fueros de
Navarra
The
Mountain
Mother
feasts. The ancient fueros of Navarre re-
cognized Rocamadour as a privileged place of
pilgrimage, like Rome, Jerusalem, S. James,
and Overseas, and protected debtors during
a fortnight's absence:
" Ata que tiempo non deve ser peyndrado
omne que va en romeria. Nui ynfanzon
que va en romeria non deve ser peyndrado
ata que" torne. Si va a S. Jaime deve ser
segure un mes; a Rocamador XV dias; a
Roma III meses; a Oltramar un aynno; a
Iherusalem un aynno et un dia." 4
Across the river and up the hill, the shrine
of Notre Dame du Puy is referred by pious
tradition to a miraculous apparition of stars
in 1085. It is more likely that the devotion
came from the greater Virgin of the same
name in Velay, whose shrine was flourishing
at that date and lay on a pilgrim route, and
whose Bishop in the tenth century had gone
to S. James. The miraculous image may
be of the thirteenth century. There are
only two documents, in the archives of the
city, that bear upon the church: in one,
dated 1386, Charles the Noble acknowl-
edges the gift of some mills from Mossen
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Pedro Godillo, Prior of S. Mary of the
Peak (S. Maria del Puig); in the other,
dated 1174, the Bishop of Pampeluna gives
the church of Puy to the seventy members
of the brotherhood of Santiago on condi-
tion of their paying three maravedis to the
Bishop and his successors. The officers of
this confraternity included in 1322, D.
Benedict of Limoges; and their goods, and
those of the Confraternity of Nuestra
Senora de Salas, were in the hands of
Frenchmen as trustees: Jean Pate, Dean
of Chartres, Hugon de Visac, and Alphonse
Robray, for "it was not intended that the
said goods nor any part of them, should be
put in the power of our lord the King." 5
For the great churches we hold no docu-
ments, and must read as we may, from the
stones, of their buildings and rebuildings.
About 1200 is the date accepted for the
cloister of S. Pedro la Rua, and the church
itself, with well-pointed arches, can hardly
be earlier. It lies so nearly at the top of a
steep hill, that the west end runs blindly
up into a tower, and down into buttresses
and substructures, and the main doorway
337
S. Mary of
the Peak
S. Peter
Roadside
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
Portal
occupies the second bay on the north,
another opposite, of pure early Gothic,
admitting to the hill-crowning cloister.
The pointed arches of the north door are
decorated with patterns, billet, dog-tooth,
and various chevrons, spirals and diapers,
without a tympanum; the arch curiously
cusped like that of Cirauqui. On the shafts
in the jambs the capitals are partly deco-
rated with leaf forms, and partly with very
oriental motives: two bearded griffins
a/rontt on one jamb, and on the other a
mermaid holding her two tails, a centaur
shooting at her, and a superb pair of woman-
sphinxes, crowned, with strong curved
wings and dragon tails.
The church, of three aisles, without a
transept, consists of three bays only, with a
western gallery and the Coro under it. In
the last bay of the north aisle, which is
pinched off at the corner above the steep
hillside, stands an early retable with a gold
ground. The nave has a star-vault of the
sixteenth century, the aisles a strong quad-
ripartite vault with moulded ribs and large
carved bosses, that show S. Stephen stoned,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
339
S. Andrew as Bishop blessing, the Agnus
Dei, etc. The piers, once cylindrical with
four attached columns, are most of them
spoilt. The sanctuary is raised eight steps,
a rare feature in Spain outside of Catalonia
and rather Italian-seeming. It is hard to
see a reason here, where no tomb or shrine
occupies a crypt, unless in mere imitation.
The apses have a bay of barrel-vault, and
then a semi-dome : those on the sides open
upon the central by arches like tomb re-
cesses; the central, arcaded within and
without, has in addition three deep niches
which on the outside barely show as inter-
calated buttresses below the fine Gothic
corbels that sustain the cornice, but with-
in constitute true apsidioles. In brief,
the plan of this apse is French; it corre-
sponds to that of Souillac, which lies only
two hours' walk from Rocamador.
The church still keeps, besides its relic
of S. Andrew fetched from Patras, a Ma-
donna of Mercy; a fine stone statue of the
late thirteenth century, of a Bishop prob-
ably S. Andrew; and a fifteenth century
wooden figure of S. Peter, quite delightful.
Apse
AND MONOGRAPHS
340
WAY OF S. JAMES
Of the cloister, timber-rooted, only two
sides are standing: by accounts of the ruin
it seems they have been repaired within
Cloisters
a generation. The northern walk, along
the church, has storied capitals and the
western, leaf forms or oriental creatures.
Here are the sphinxes and manticores and
estriches and antelopes that Spain in the
twelfth century received from Asian lands.
The great capitals on the coupled shafts
are historied all around, commencing all
on the garden side. Beginning here at the
eastern end, they read on as follows:
The first, finest of all, is very Byzan-
tine : on the narrow sides the Harrowing
of Hell and Christ as Gardener, on the
broader, the Entombment and Maries at
Figured
on p. 349
the Tomb; the Sepulchre itself, a dome
with curtains and a hanging lamp, the
carved sarcophagus, set high on four
legs, and in the last scene, half open, the
winding-sheet hanging over as at Aries,
the angels sweeping down with censers,
are all of more loveliness, softer yet more
poignant, than Europe then produced
ungrafted.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
341
2. The three kings on horseback
before Herod; he talks to soldiers and
they bring him babies' heads; the
Massacre.
3. The Annunciation; Visitation and
Presentation; Announcement to Shep-
herds; and Epiphany.
4. Soldiers fight a lion and a griffin,
and savages fight on the broad faces,
men and lions on the narrower.
5. History of S. Vincent.
6. History of S. Andrew, including
In the city
his interview with devils.
of the
7. History of S. Andrew's dealings
Man-
Eaters
with the proconsul, one Egeas, including
his preaching, judgement, and martyr-
dom when he said "If I doubted the
gibbet of the cross I would not preach
the glory thereof." 6
8. Saintly story, I think the close of
S. Andrew's legend.
9. Corner: nine shafts in all, with
leaf motives, of a kind that occur at
Soria and in the oldest cloister at Las
Huelgas.
On the western side the devices, as I
said, are very oriental, including birds,
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
342
WAY OF S. JAMES
Entirely
oriental
S. Michael
on a Mount
1117
long-necked and twisted, what the elder
English called mantigers, birds pecking,
head to head or back to back, sphinxes
kissing, small lions regardant above leaves
of honeysuckle. These are very like some
at Silos; they are quite unlike the Ro-
manesque motives that came through
France and may be seen at Fontevrault,
S. Eutropius of Saintes, S. Juan de la
Pefia and S. Pedro of Soria. It cannot
be said too strongly that they are not
in the least French, even in the sense in
which the word is used of the portal of S.
Miguel.
Though round-arched, this great door of
S. Miguel belongs at earliest to the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century, the porch
enclosing it to the fourteenth or fifteenth.
The earliest part, probably, is the row of
eight apostles and prophets, who cannot
have been intended for the place in which
they now stand, on either side the arch.
They appear to be copied trom the Prophets
at Cremona. It seems indeed as though
they must have been designed for just such
a grand row as that at Cremona, which was
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
perhaps imitated later at S. Sepulcro of
Estella. Next comes the doorway proper,
with the capitals of the jamb shafts, the
tympanum, and the sculptured archivolts.
Here also appear traces of a pentimiento, for
the figures do not quite attain the just
centre, in the successive rows, and for the
four and twenty elders there is not space
enough to accommodate three couples who
are tucked into the spandrel spaces outside.
Latest, and of finer and more sensitive
work, are the great sculptures that flank
the jambs, of angels killing the dragon and
weighing the souls, and talking with the
Maries at the tomb. None of this work
recalls in the least that of Toulouse. The
iconography of the scene last mentioned is
that of Provence. Now precisely from
Aries and S. Gilles came the great rectangu-
lar sculptured slabs, adapted by workmen
of the school of Toulouse to use in the
Cloister at Silos. This work was known at
Estella, where the cloister of S. Pedro was
under way, and the slabs were adapted by
some inventive master to the facade on
either side the door, possibly with knowl-
343
Angelical
activities
AND MONOGRAPHS
344
WAY OF S.JAMES
edge of what Master Nicholas had done,
in the same way, at S. Zeno of Verona.
In the tympanum you have Christ amid
the tetramorph, between SS. Mary and
Icono-
John Evangelist ; a solemn majestic Christ
graphy
seated within a beautiful four-lobed man-
dorla, His book marked with the chrism.
In the archivolts, row by row, are ranged
all the company of heaven :
i. Six censing angels ;
2. Eighteen of the twenty-four elders,
crowned and making music, the other
six, as said, being placed elsewhere ;
3. Ten prophets with scrolls;
4 and 5. Groups illustrating saintly
legends S. Martin and the Beggar, S.
Vincent, S. Peter, Tobit, Esther, etc.
The capitals run, from east to west, on
one side: (i) Annunciation; (2) Visitation
and Nativity, the Blessed Virgin lying in
bed; (3) Cradle with ox and ass, Shep-
herds; (4) Epiphany; (5) Presentation.
On the other side: (i) Flight into
Egypt; (2) Herod and the Kings; (3)
Massacre of the Innocents; (4) and (5)
.
the scheme breaks down in an interlace,
a man killing pretty little dragons.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
345
Finally, the great reliefs show, on the
left, S. Michael overthrowing the dragon
to S. Gabriel's admiration, Abraham
Weighing
holding souls in his bosom, and S.
Souls
Michael and the devil weighing out
more; on the right, two angels at the
half -open sepulchre, tiny soldiers asleep
below, and three Maries with lovely
spice boxes. 7
The themes and treatment belong to the
cathedral builders of the Royal Domain,
and the technique, the actual forms, are
Spanish. In the treatment of the hair and
eyes I am reminded of the earlier, barbar-
ous style of S. Juan de la Pena, and some
faces in the archivolts, one, for instance,
in the story of Tobias, have the curious
Greco-Buddhist air of those at S. Tomas ot
Soria, which seems to be a graft of that
same stock. The only way to account
for these incoherencies is to suppose suc-
Successive
cessive workmen in charge: a Spaniard
workmen
superseded by a Frenchman, and the
scheme, which came from the north,
carried out by workmen imported from
other parts, from Aragon chiefly. On the
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
346
WAY OF S.JAMES
Ill-
assorted
dates
one hand, S. Juan de la Pena owned this
church, and on the other, Alfonso Sanchez
el Batallador was raiding Soria at about
this time.
Unfortunately it is impossible to delay
the hypothetical rebuilding of the door
to the time when the church was altered,
for this was in the fifteenth century. The
nave, of four bays, is of late Gothic, the
vaulting and the capitals that belong to
it are quite Renaissance in character.
The aisles are quadripartite-vaulted with
large bosses, the nave piers compound,
with shafts in all the angles. The north
transept is early, a bay and a half deep:
the south transept of two bays with a great
middle-pointed window. The apse belongs
to the earlier building, preceded by a deep
bay of pointed barrel-vault before the
semi-dome; the side apses have simply a
pointed semi-dome, and on the north side a
window over that, and a shallower apse in
the half bay. The south doorway, opening
on a tiny walled garden, is early Gothic in
character, the capitals a sort of belated
transitional, like an outgrowth from Irache.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
These two churches, S. Pedro and S.
Miguel, lying both on hilltops, are both
pinched in the last bay of the aisle; S.
Pedro on the north and S. Miguel on the
south. Both want a triforium and a
clerestory, and the two are very like in
style, a style suited to wealthy merchants,
open, comfortable, pleasant, and pretty,
in which one may move about freely to see
and be seen. It is an inland solution of the
same problem that Jayme Fabre and the
other Catalans were to settle after their
own fashion, and that the churches of
Betanzos, near Corunna, met just as well.
Almost as much as early Renaissance
building, is it the expression of a moment of
ease and expansion, the sort of scene in
which to lay the opening of the Decameron.
The tale of the churches is not yet half
told, and two at least cannot be ignored,
that occupy almost a whole suburb, S.
Sepulchre and S. Dominic.
To two monks of S. Dominic, Fray
Miguel and Fray Fortunio, in 1264, Theo-
bald II gave the church of All Saints, that
which had earlier been a synagogue. At
347
Merchants'
Churches
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
A king-
kept
the king's request five years before, Alex-
ander IV had given a Bull, the Bishop of
Pampeluna conceded indulgences, and the
friars preached well and to the purpose.
The convent grew upon the hillside, rich
and gracious; Philip the Fair and Queen
Joan gave baths and a tower; Louis le
Hutin in 1307 ordered the Jews to build up
a wall between the convent garden and the
Ghetto; a great knight and a king's grand-
son, D. Nufio Gonzalez de Lara, in the
fourteenth century bequeathed his sword
and his right arm. The ruined church
stares from the hillside, wrapped in ivy.
Above the refectory the pointed arches that
once sustained a vast barrel-vault still
stand, sharp against the blue, but of the
church or the cloister little is to be seen
except the plan of a mighty nave, as well
suited to the Friars Preachers as the T--
shaped plan of Italian churches, and a
chapel and chapter-room eastward, that,
given also by Count Nufio Gonzalez,
wear the delicate and refined grace that the
fourteenth century kept in remote places. 8
Like the other churches of Estella, that
HISPANIC NOTES
Capital at Estella
THE WAY
of S. Sepulchre is entered from the north
side; and Sr. Madrazo 9 is probably right
in his suggestion that the church which
now stands is merely the north aisle of
a great one projected and half -ruined,
perhaps never finished.
Some church of the Sepulchre there was
in the twelfth century, for in 1174 S. Juan
de la Pefia, renouncing others, still
keeps peaceful possession of S. Michael's,
S. Nicholas, and S. Sepulchre. ' When it
came to be rebuilt, "the merchants made
the door or portal," says the Licenciate
Lezaun describing it in the eighteenth
century with more enthusiasm than sense
as "having images of saints in half re-
lief and others full-figured, admirable in
sculpture and, stuck to the wall of the
church, some tombs or ossuaries with stones
which denote great antiquity." 11
The innumerable thin mouldings of the
sharply pointed archivolt, the late thick
leafage of the very small jamb-capitals, and
the arching of the tomb recesses on either
side, the cusped arches of the curious ar-
cade under the roof, the statues flanking
351
HISPANIC NOTES
352
WAY OF S.JAMES
Cena
Estellaand
Ujui
the door, and the very exquisite sculptures
of the tympanum, belong to the late four-
teenth century a little preceding that
loveliest of the cloister doors at Pampeluna
which offers a passage into the canons' gar-
den. In the peak at S. Sepulchre is fig-
ured the Crucifixion with Longinus blinded,
and another pagan, besides SS. Mary
and John: under that, in a row, the
Sepulchre with soldiers sleeping below, and
an angel sitting above, the three Maries,
Christ bringing up the patriarchs from the
yawning jaws of hell, and the Noli Me
T anger e. On the lintel is set a beautifully
ordered Last Supper, far more solemn than
those at Pampeluna or Toledo. It closely
resembles that on the related portal at
Ujue, but it would seem that these two
astonishing architraves are not copied
one from the other but both, with dis-
coverable likenesses and variations, from
the Modena-Parma-Pistoja group. 12
It is pretty plain, from the mouldings cf
these two doors, the forms of the bases to
the wide jambs, and the treatment of the
capitals, that the portals as they stand are
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
the work of one man. These elements show
precisely that likeness without identity,
which is impossible to a copyist. The
sculptures of the door at Uju6 must be
later than the lintel here, but the group of
the Epiphany is more Gothic in its vivacity
of action and relative simplicity of drapery
than the tympanum sculptures at Estella.
At Ujue", in somewhat the same way, the
apostles at the table are very deliberately
individualized. On the architrave at Es-
tella they are kept back in a straight line,
and the conscious quaintness of Judas's
position, at the front of the table, is given
up. We can, more or less, date the door
of Ujue": Madrazo says 13 he has reason to
believe that it was built, like the nave,
under Charles the Bad, who died in 1387.
The Apostolado that flanks this portal
directly under the roof, is certainly earlier
than the doorway and not made for the
present place; earlier than the statues of
Olite; and in situation more surprising.
Its position is like that of the sculptures
at Carri6n, Benevivere and Moarbes, that
lie along the Way. In the figures of the
353
One artist
Apostolado
AND MONOGRAPHS
354
WAY OF S. JAMES
One style
in two
genera-
tions
Apostles may still be traced the same
style as on the portal of S. Miguel, in the
conventions of eyes, of head, and of hair;
both short and curled, and long and waving.
The style, however, is dying out. If a
great church was planned on this site, the
figures may have been intended for the
western facade as at Carrion, and when
the plan was abandoned in the fourteenth
century, and the main portal established in
the flank of the north aisle, the architect
put it under the roof, in a square-headed
arcade, gave up the Apocalyptic Christ at
the centre and, copying the portal, with
variations, from S. Cernin, adorning the
angle of the archivolts with six little
angels, he set the transfigured Saviour
alone, on the finial that crowns the arches,
which has a little roof all to itself, lifted
above the rest. He carved the tympanum
suitably to the dedication in a style not
identical but possibly contemporary with
the corresponding one at Pampeluna, and
then underneath that tympanum, and
below the level of the jamb-capitals, he
set a lintel left on his hands from the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
abandoned western doorway, carved half
a century before with the Last Supper in
imitation of that at Pistoja.
If the patient reader enquires why
Pistoja, the answer is, first of all, because it
looks like that one, and secondly, that the
connection was facile, for Pistoja claimed
a relic of S. James and was in constant
relation with the shrine of Compostella,
men coming and going incessantly along
the road: the reader will then recall Bishop
Gelmirez's Maestrescitela called Ramiro:
and his letter to his friend S. Aton, abbot of
S. Giacomo in Pistoja, for some articles
to be sent by the pilgrims.
The streets of Estella, excepting that
one which runs past the Ayuntamiento
toward S. Sepulchre in which palace
chambers now lodge donkeys and goats,
are comfortable and friendly; the squares
simple, their sopor tales rather like the
Rows in Chester. The city in greatness
was commercial rather than courtly, and
this is the end thereof. But it keeps yet a
green walk by the green water, planted
with ancient trees, broad and grassy,
355
Why
Pistoja?
Soportales
AND MONOGRAPHS
356
WA Y OF S.JAMES
Green
watersides
Alvar
Garcia
and Juan
starred in spring with flowers, cooled in
midsummer by the swift and foam-flecked
waters. So dense the leafage, so tall and
fresh the grass, one might be walking
beside the Cher or the stripling Thames.
Town churches, like those of Estella
and Sanguesa, seem to have been built
with what means were on the spot, by a
king's initiative. Neither the bishop of
the diocese nor the monastery which was
lord did much except collect tithes. Es-
tella had a chantier from the end of the
eleventh century well along into the
fifteenth. If Alvar Garcia of Estella did
not plan the cathedral and fortification
of Avila, in 1091, as Ponz believed, 14 yet
the plausibility of the attribution remains
more important than the truth of it. In
1348 Pedro Andreo, who was master-mason
of the Kingdom of Navarre, took charge
by royal order of the substructures neces-
sary to support the rock on which stood the
chief castle of Estella, the Castillo Mayor.
In 1387 Juan Garcia de Laguardia, had
been master-mason in his turn, who died in
two years, and his place was taken by Mar-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
357
tin Pe"rez Desteilla, which is to say de Es-
tella. Charles IV, in 1 399, sends this Martin
Nlftrti n
Pe"rez de Estella to work at Olite. An
P6rez
order on the king's treasurer in 1438 calls
for the payment of 149 libras and 4
sueldos carlines to Angel Dastean, mazo-
nero y vecino de Estella, for work that
he had directed and executed in the
palaces of Olite for the royal marriage. 15
The work done in Sangiiesa by other
workmen of Estella has been told al-
ready: the masons of Estella were famous
and were great.
Irache.
"Operuit mantes umbra ejus:
et arbusta ejus cedrus Dei. "
Irache lies on the mountain-side a couple
of miles away, under the Mount of Jurra,
protected from the sickly south wind that
Shakespeare disliked, like other men of the
Renaissance, and open to airs from north
and east, that are cool and health-giving;
once set thick about with oaks and live-
oaks. That the Benedictine foundation
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
358
WAY OF S.JAMES
Monjardin
was very ancient, Yepes 1 shows reason for
supposing: possibly Visigothic, it persisted
under Moorish rule. It is said that when
Sancho II of Navarre went to besiege the
castle of S. Stephen on Monjardin, he
stopped in Irache and made a vow to Our
Lady there, who gave him victory accord-
ingly. 2 He and his son, D. Garcia Sanchez,
it seems, are buried here. To his son,
the Infant D. Ramiro he gave among other
properties the church and honour [estate]
of S. Stephen at Monjardin; this D.
Ramiro, who had made the pilgrimage to
Rome and Jerusalem, had a fate like Ban-
quo's in the play 3 : he spent his last years at
the court of Castile befriending the orphans
of his hapless brother the last King of
Najera, el de Penalen; and he was the
grandfather of D. Garcia of Navarre called
el Restaurador. 4 At any rate D. Garcia,
61 de Ndjera, in 1045 exchanged for Mon-
jardin a convent called S. Maria de Hiart.
This same hill of Monjardin, it will be
remembered, baffled for long the editors
of chansons de geste, until M. Bedier had
the idea of looking it out, geographically,
HISPANIC NOTES
T H E W A Y 359
in the place where it belonged, somewhere
near Estella, and in clearing up one point
more of mere scholarship welded one more
link of his argument that the chansons de
geste grew up along the Pilgrim Ways.
Five years later D. Garcfa founded a
hospice for pilgrims and dowered it well.
At the very beginning of the restoration of
the Church in Spain the monastery of
Irache was very rich, and it came by the
time of the Renaissance to claim nearly all
the land in Estella, and to have many
monasteries dependent upon it: at the
beginning of the twelfth century, there
were at least twenty -six, for the Abbot S.
Veremund besides working miracles, so
that the blind could see, devils were ex-
mund
pelled, and the like, collected monasteries,
and nine more were added in the remain-
der of that century or in the next. The
monks early accepted the Rule of Cluny
but never the authority, nor, indeed, that
of any prelate until 1522; since then, until
1833, it contained a university that ranked
with Salamanca, Valladolid, and Alcala,
and the studio of Sahagun was transferred
S. Vere-
AN D M ONOGR APHS
36o
WAY OF S. JAMES
Yepes
thither, in 1560. Yepes 's chronicle was
commenced here, and printed, two volumes
of it, in 1609 ; the third, dated at Valladolid,
was, the author says,s printed at Irache,
one of the best presses in Spain being seated
in that university. Today a poor handful
of Seminarists walk in the fragrant planta-
tions of box and cypress within the four
cloisters, drink of their springing fountains
fed from mountain brooks: shrink away or
clatter down the glorious cloister where
in 1547 a Renaissance builder dreamed
Gothic. The church, which Yepes calls
more aged and strong than good-looking,
strikes the traveller as a strayed sister of
Zamora, Toro, and Salamanca, and as a
fine instance of the transitional style:
built early in the twelfth century at the
east end, and continued, a little later, west-
ward of the crossing. The three parallel
apses open under their deep semi-domes by
a pointed arch, and the middle one inter-
calates a bay of pointed barrel-vault and
adds a double arcade around the interior.
The transepts consist of one bay each of
quadripartite vault, and the nave of three
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
more bays of the same. The dome rests on
squinches in the shape of shells; there is a
window in each face of the square drum
and in each corner a shaft, resting on a
capital, that carries the figure of an
Evangelist, and the symbolic beast above.
Sr. Lamperez, who has studied and loves
it well, and has published drawings of the
dome, the apse, and the nave, says that
the curious dome (though rebuilt in the
upper part) is not so near to the Salaman-
tine group as it looks, and questions
whether it may be owed to some Syrian
architect "come like so many others by
the cuenca of the Ebro to seek the Camino
francSs." 6
In the second bay on the north opens
a doorway richly moulded on the outside,
with pointed arch and the chrism in the
archivolt. Two coupled shafts, and four
plain, in each jamb, have, nearly all, storied
capitals, some from the life of S. Martin;
the sharing of his cloak and the visit of
Christ wearing it are easy to recognize,
but opposite a knight is fighting a Sagittary
and one savage is fighting another, two
Lamp6rez
A
wandering
Syrian
AND MONOGRAPHS
362
WAY OF S.JAMES
S. Martin
of Tours
dragons, men with swords and shields (one
round and one triangular) a harpy in a
hood and an animal in such another, con-
fuse inferences. These last two belong
to the fifteenth century, whether at SS.
Creus or at Pampeluna. S. Martin of Tours
appears frequently in Spain and all along
the length of this road; the original
church of Iria Flavia was, possibly, dedi-
cated to him 7 before the invention of S.
James's relics, though more probably the
patron intended there was S. Martin
Dumiensis. A scrap of rich arcading was
tried outside the window in the wall above,
but proved, I suppose, too costly in time
and skilled labour. On the whole, this
door should be contemporary with that of
Puente la Reyna.
The western porch is later and rather
odd: five little graduated round-headed
windows under a pointed barrel-vault oc-
cupy the upper part of the face; below, a
pointed arch of five orders, strong and
square, rests on the four shafts in either
jamb and is crowned by a plainly moulded
dripstone. In front of this the deep
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
porch is sustained by three transverse
arches, pointed, resting on capitals, and
these on corbels figuring busts or heads and
arms: a bearded man, a beautiful woman
in a coif, a negro, another woman, etc.:
outside, the trumpeters of the Doom.
The door itself has lovely ironwork.
The rebuilding of the dome was all but
finished in 1597 when it fell, the builder
being saved by a miracle of S. Veremund:
according to the Bollandists, he was about
to lay the last stone when he heard a voice
that said the abbot summoned him and was
scarcely in safety before the whole fell in.
This miracle resembles pleasantly some
which will be met later on, at Castrojeriz.
Yepes testifies that the tower was finished
in 1609 and the rebuilding done within the
forty years, preceding, dormitories, stair-
ways, cloisters, courts and fountains. The
effect of the church, however, with its
strong plain arches and coupled columns,
its austere early capitals and early vaults,
and absence of triforium, is to recall the
early Cistercian building, strictly contem-
porary, south and west of Rome. The
363
The
AND MONOGRAPHS
3^4
WAY OF S.JAMES
Syrian
dome
Ancient
usage
rich Benedictines here, lying close to the
Way, attracted the new forms in archi-
tecture and embodied them all, from the
Syrian dome and its great Evangelical
sculptures, down to the lovely curving
star-patterns of the cloister vault. When
Alexandei II was engaged in trying to
wrest their own ritual from the Spanish
church and substitute the Roman use,
this abbey sent two precious MSS. to
Rome, a missal and a sacramentary: the
latter had been copied at the monastery of
Albelda.
The monks when, as I said, they were
reformed in 1522 by Fray Diego de Saha-
gun, the Abbot of S. Benedict of Valladolid,
still kept some of their ancient customs.
For instance, when a monk died each priest
among his brethren gave him seven masses,
and those not in orders recited ten Psalters;
on the day of his death they fed thirty
poor men, and for thirty days of mourn-
ing thereafter they entertained a poor man
in his place in the refectory, to whom
they gave the dead monk's portion. In
Yepes's day the ration was still a dole, but
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
365
the poor man was not fetched into the
refectory, the monks finding that sort of
guest embarrassing. The old way was
very striking, in its transsubstantiation of
pagan into Christian use, its consecration
of the food and drink once offered to
A Chris-
tian trans-
substanti-
ation
speed a lingering soul on its latest longest
journey, by the word of the Son of Man,
the "done unto Me."
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
366
WAY OF S.JAMES
VII
THE LOGRONO ROAD
S'en istres de la ville sans nule
destourbance
E tant esploiterent on la Jesu
sperance
Qu'ati Groing furent venus.
La Prise de Pampeluye.
LEAVING Estella, the road turns, ever
and anon, running for a space between
high, bare hills, crowned by ruins of hermit-
age or castle, all one now, past where
Irache suns its low massy dome on a bland
slope: through the welcome greenery of
woods, in the scent of box or juniper; past
a widening golden valley where brown
towns couch like hares in their forms;
smooth and swift it runs to the pretty
place, with its water-side church, of Los
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Arcos. Hereabouts, in the twelfth cen-
tury, a man met a merchant, barefoot,
carrying chains to Santiago, and heard how
he had been sold thirteen times into slavery
and S. James had delivered him. Indeed,
the Apostle was not well pleased with
the contract, 1 but God Almighty, whose
patience is eternity, held him to it. Some-
where between Estella and Logrono the
tale as it was told shortened a dusty mile
or twain.
The superb cloister of Los Arcos imitates
Pampeluna and anticipates Najera; the
belfry, of openwork, flamboyant, is more de-
serving of Charles V's famous mot about
the coffer, than either tower to which
he fitted it, that of Burgos or that of
Florence; the church itself is a luxurious
piece of rococo enamelling, a scented
casket, lined all with what looks like
Spanish leather, of colour laid over silver-
leaf, and fitted all with gilded Churri-
gueresque altars, exquisite and effeminate.
It is possible that the fifteenth century
church still exists under this gilt and
jewellery, fard and ceruse, but it would be a
367
A Miracle
of
S. James
(No. xxii)
HISPANIC NOTES
368
WAY OF S.JAMES
Los Arcos
sad pity to go restoring, for Spain has a
plenty of the fifteenth century elsewhere,
but nothing so good in its own kind as this,
like a portrait-study by Nattier.
The town claims to have been known of
Ptolemy; 2 it was favoured in the second
half of the twelfth century, Sancho the
Wise exempting townsfolk in 1175 from
obligations of bakery and butchery even
to the king; 3 but what it holds of that age,
if anything, I know not; from the fifteenth
to the eighteenth century it was a part
of Castile. It enjoys a feria in August:
to watch families reuniting for the feast,
Jehane leaned over, from the motor-omni-
bus, one day as we passed through, just in
time to see a sleek little black priest with
a pink nose, called Enrique, seized by a
bigger girl and kissed soundly on both
cheeks.
The wind blows strong-scented and
earth-warmed. The way runs on past
sparse grain fields, in wide turns and long
descents, past Sansol steep-scarped; past
Torres climbing a river bank and rearing
above tufted trees the tower and cross of
HISPANIC NOTES
THE W A V
369
the Holy Sepulchre; past Viana, founded
in 1219 and cherishing still some crumbling
walls, a strong church tower, and the
memory ot a brief and tragic principate. 4
The red soil of the Pyrenean outliers
below Pampeluna, tinged as though with
Christian blood undried, has yielded to
yellow earth and yellow rock, and the very
dust is impalpable gold. About the walls of
Viana the road turns once more, and then
lies straight as a stretched string across
ten miles, from that last hill-spur to
the Ebro. There at Logrono S. Juan de
Bridge and
Ortega built a bridge, or perhaps only
Bridge-
rebuilt, for the fuero of 1095 makes men-
Warden
tion of one. Thereon stood a chapel dedi-
cate to S. John, but in the flood of 1775
the Ebro took it. s
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
370
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Spires of Logrono.
Abolladas los concavos arneses
Y las huecas celadas sin resplandor,
Sin file las espadas.
Lope de Vega.
At Lbgrono we crossed an iron track,
saw and might have touched railway metal,
but we never travelled by rail till the other
side of Burgos. Always the road invited,
and the motor or diligence set out and
arrived, grey with dust, crowded, and
from the broad seat on the top we felt it
licking up the miles. Considering that the
railway runs there, it is curious how few
ecclesiologists have visited the town, or
even know its whereabouts, or have so
much as heard of its churches. Not
The Rioja
so was it once. Today the city is in-
deed commercial, but still historical. The
heart of the Rioja, all the red wine
flows through. Situate at the crossing of
a great river, Logrono was always self-
important : the earliest knights knew it, and
John of Navarre and Walter of Aragon,
and poets of Padua and Verona; the pil-
grims made havoc of the name but relished
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
37i
the hospitality; even Purchas's 1 rhymester
remembered, out of the confusion, "Then
to the Gruon in Spayne." Jacob Sobieski,
who went on the pilgrimage in the spring of
1611, describes the city 2 "on the abundant
river Ebro, built after the Spanish fashion,
for in Spain there are no such notable
Steeples
buildings always as in other places, and
above all they want height. ' ' This means
probably that the northern eye missed the
steep roofs, but it is oddly charged against
this of all places, for the steeples of Logrono
were right famous: Enrique Cock 3 counts la
Redonda, el Palacio, S. Pedro, S. Bias and
5. Bartolomi, "that all have lofty belfries
that make a fair view from afar"; and
Lope de Vega wrote, in much-admired
lines, of
Esa ciudad que superior preside
a estas amenidades,
y con sus torres las estrellas mide,
gloria de Espana, honor de las
ciudades.
" They use linen windows instead of
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
372
WAY OF S. JAMES
La diana
glass," the noble Pole goes on, "for cool
and for shade, which does not contribute
so much to the gayety of a place as glass
in the windows."
The town lies fragrant in memory with
the scent of ripe grapes and sprinkled
pavements, cooled with little runnels that
crept into a pool by every tree in the
Plaza, full of the sound of soldiers' move-
ments, from the bugle's reveille that they
call in Spanish la diana, to the band-
concert that went on in the square past
midnight. All day the blue uniforms
hung in view like dragon-flies under a
bridge, and the shuffle and purr of marching
squads held the ear, or the quick rattle of
a cavalry trot. Those were perilous times
in Spain, of which the writer may not
speak, no more than one visiting in a
house when trouble befalls. We dropped
eyelids, stopped ears, and triple-sealed the
doors of speech.
To be called later "ciudad muy noble y
muy leal, " as early as 926 the name appears
in documents: the men are called, in 1076,
"gente dura y terrible." At two great
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
moments, well remembered, was their
temper approved. In 1336, the Castilian
army, routed, fell back upon the town, hard
pressed by the Navarrese under Gaston
de Foix himself, hot-foot and drunk with
victory. Then Ruy Diaz Gaona held the
bridge against them all. Captain and
citizen of Logrono, with but three soldiers
he saved the city. He died, but not too
soon, and Ebro took his body, and washed
it down to the deep eddy that yet keeps,
secure, his bones, his memory, and his
name. 4
In the sixteenth century they stood a
siege, with artillery, from May 25 to the
Feast of S. Barnabas, and the little garrison
beat off the French who had conquered
Pampeluna and overrun Navarre in that
year of 1521, and still they celebrate the
feat on Barnaby Bright.
The fifteenth century rebuilt Santiago
and the two S. Maries: that called la Re-
donda and that called del Palacio. The
latter carries, plump in the middle of
everything, a most lovely spire, smooth-
sided, crocketed and stone-cased, the price
373
" gente
dura y
terrible '
Ruy Diaz
Gaona
AND MONOGRAPHS
374
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S. M. del
Palacio
Salisbury
Senlis
of which was that the central piers of the
church had all to be monstrously built up
and the interior spoiled. "Do you sup-
pose, " said an acolyte, spotted with candle-
grease, shaking his bunch of keys, "that
they would have spoiled the vista for
any thing less?"
Certes, this is the fairest spire in all
Spain. Madrazo s compares it with that of
Sanguesa which it surpasses in size, and
that of Olite which it resembles in the
perceptible entasis of its ribs; but the only
just comparison is either with Litchfield and
Salisbury, or, better yet, with Chartres
and Senlis, set as it is with gables all
around, like that lone lost spire of the
sleepy city in the sweetest of the Isle of
France.
No Spaniard drew the plans for it.
Sancho the Wise and Sancho the Strong
commissioned the church; Alfonso VII
made it over to the Order of the Holy
Sepulchre and it became the seat of a
Provincial Chapter. 6 Though in the four-
teenth and fifteenth century the church
was rebuilt, the strong transitional style
HISPANIC NOTES
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of the late twelfth century still appears in
the trascoro and flanking aisles; a single
western bay in each. Eastward of the
Renaissance rebuilding, a vast Gothic
transept rears three bays of star- vaulting;
then the apse appears sixteenth-century
again; the retable is dated 1581. Shallow
side-chapels cling under the walls of the
transept, and the cloister, star-vaulted, is
of the sixteenth century.
In 1435 by a bull of Eugenius IV, the
Collegiata of Albelda was transferred to
S. Maria la Redonda. The church, in
spite of accretions a domed and painted
oval salon at the west, a bleak eastern
transept like the hall of a ducal house,
with three domes and an eastern doorway;
the aisle-apses being pierced to admit to
this does show, in the part intermediate,
the late fifteenth-century Gothic of all
this region at its richest, loftiest, and most
splendid. Without proper transepts, it
consists ot four bays, aisles, and nave,
four shallow chapels opening along the
south aisle. Great piers carry a few
thin shafts. The vaulting is very high
375
La Redonda
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376
WAY OF S.JAMES
Alivio de
caminantes
and very fantastical; the rejas, retables,
and tombs are abundant and good, and
vastly enrich the interior, which is, fur-
thermore, entirely painted, vault and
aisles, with dim greens and blues, dull and
tawny golds.
S. Bartolome, however is of another sort,
dedicate to the Far-traveller whose legend
is so enviable to travellers. "Little, but
good," says Sr. Lamperez. 7 Built in the
thirteenth century, rebuilt in the four-
teenth and fifteenth, it has three apses of
pointed barrel- vault, transepts and crossing
raised with a star-vault, one bay of nave
and aisles and a western transept lifted
high on the south side into the tower, and
filled elsewhere by a low gallery enriched
upon the bosses with rather good Renais-
sance heads. The only original capitals
are those of the piers to the main apse,
which has abacus and string-course of
billet moulding. On the south side little
round-headed windows are set in the clere-
story place.
The whole is of a noble stone, grey
within, biown where weathered. The
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facade, built in the fourteenth century,
combined the two chief ornaments of
Estella: the crowded tympanum, multiplied
mouldings, and reedy shafts of the door
proper, with a wide band of sculpture
stretching back from the jambs across the
entire front, carved with the history of
S. Bartholomew. But under this runs a
blind arcade, diapered, in the French fash-
ion, recalling, a little, Bourges, and, a little,
Noyon, and, in a way most of all, the pure
and early Gothic porch near Saumur, on the
pilgrim's road. The tympanum and lintel,
the former still showing its original arch
under the later debased curve, have been
lowered from their proper place, probably
when the gallery was built inside, and
leave room for a triangular window. If
this portal belongs with those of Estella
and Pampeluna, Ujue and Artajona, it is
the latest and the coarsest in workmanship.
The capitals of the lower arcade are in
the same style as those of SS. Creus; the
spandrels above them are crowded with
little figures rather more delicate: above
the canopies of the statues swarm other
377
at Candes
The Five
Portals of
Navarre
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378
WAY OF S.JAMES
personages, like Zaccheus and his friends
in the palm tree. The large reliefs begin
their story at the right-hand door-jamb,
and continue around the south corner,
then recommence in the corresponding
corner on the north, and end again at the
jamb of the portal. The work is coarse
and racy ; a flaying of the titular saint out-
rivals Spagnoletto's; the Apostle, flayed, is
too like that too-famous image in Milan.
On the south side the scenes are quieter
in conception and a trifle earlier and graver
in work. In the tympanum, the Saviour,
erect, holds up His wounded hands, S.
Mary and S. John kneeling in desperate
intercession; below, the twelve apostles
stand free, under rudimentary canopies.
The story condensed is this:
S. Bartholomew the apostle went into
The
Golden
India, which is in the end of the world.
Legend
And therein he entered into a temple
where an idol was and he as a Pilgrim
abode therein. And the temple was
full of sick people, and could have
no answer of that idol, therefore they
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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went into another city whereas another
idol was worshipped named Berith, and
Berith said: Your god is bound with
chains of fire that he neither dare draw
breath ne speak after that Bartholomew
entered into the temple. He hath his
hairs black and crisp, his skin white, eyes
great, his nostrils even and straight, his
beard long and hoar a little, and of a
straight and seemly stature, and it is
twenty-six years that his clothes never
waxed old ne foul. The angels go with
him which never suffer him to be weary
ne to be an hungered, he is always of like
semblant, glad and joyous. He seeth all
things tofore, he knoweth all things, he
speaketh all manner languages and
understandeth them, and he knoweth
well what I say to you. And when
Polemius king of that region heard of
this thing, which had a daughter lunatic,
he sent to the apostle praying that he
would come to him and heal his daughter.
And when the apostle was come to him
and saw that she was bound with chains
and bit all them that went to her, he
commanded to unbind her and then anon
she was unbound and delivered. And
379
Nor moth
nor rust
nor hunger
nor thirst
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38o
WAY OF S.JAMES
anon then they set cords on the image
for to pull down and overthrow the idol
but they might not. The apostle then
O f*
commanded the devil that he should
So Greco
painted
issue and go out, and he brake the idol
all to pieces. And forthwith all the sick
people were cured and healed. And it
was told the king Astrage his God Bal-
dach was overthrown and all to-broken,
and when the king heard that he brake
and all to-rent his purple in which he was
clad, and commanded that the apostle
should be beaten with staves, and that he
should be flayed quick and so it was
done. Then the Christians took away
the body and buried it honourably. 8
Logrono, practical, seated at a centre of
traffic and exposed to all passing armies,
all chances of victory and defeat, was
content to adopt and adapt motives en-
countered close at hand. At Estellayou
feel how the townsfolk took what they
could get of money and privilege, and built
after their own fashion, hiring their own
workmen. The king might fetch, for
Pampeluna, an architect from Paris, the
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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38i
abbot might fetch a builder from Gascony,
as for Iranzu in 1776 did Abbot Nicholas
Cathedral
the brother of Bishop Peter of Paris, 9 but
and
in Estella and Logrono the Spanish style
convent
appears alive and growing, taking what
builders
it can, where it can.
Along the Battlefield.
The breath of dew and
twilight's grace
Be on the lonely battle-
place.
Across the wide plain between Logrono
and Najera, where the Black Prince's
army moved softly in the grey dawn, even
to the bridge where Roland fought for
three days with Ferragus, the track runs
as on a bowling green, and Logrono in the
morning sun lies comfortable, purchasable,
and Najera in the dusty noon, filthy and
fly-specked, crumbles red into the arid
river-bed. But if you had turned long
since your dusty feet toward home, and
at the day's end were moving back from
the west just beginning to burn stilly about
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3 82
WAY OF S.JAMES
As one that
travels
toward the
darkening
east
the huge sun's pyre, then you should see
with the counted miles blue hills arising
fold on fold, enchanted in their quietude,
magical in their vaporous amethyst. The
dusty chicory burns whitely in little
patches ; the wind is warm with the memory
of the day and fresh with the hope of the
dark. You do not see Logroflo in such
approach, for it lies low upon the river:
you see but mountains softly folded, wide-
encircling, far as the eye can trace them
or the memory tell, enclosing and allur-
ing the Road back into the misty Pass
where dripping hemlocks and streaming
crags still echo the olifaunt. Southward,
among sharper peaks, lies the abbey of
S. Millan, and that of Albelda cavern-
hewn; northward the twilight swallows up
the ranges.
Hereabouts was the battle: and O, how
green the corn!
Here the most strange and splendid figures
of that gorgeous, lusty, heady fourteenth
century of Froissart's are brought together
as in a chanson de geste: Edward the Black
Prince, Bertrand du Guesclin; the tragic
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383
and bitter Peter, the subtle and deadly
Bastard; the Captal de Buch, Olivier
Clisson. They had the most outlandish
and romantic titles: the Begue of Villiers,
1'Allemant de S. Venant, the Souldich
de 1'Estrade.
"Then they dislodged and took the
Great-
way to Navaret, and passed through a
hearted
country called the country of the Gard,
gentle-
men . . .
and when they were passed then they
came to a towne called Vianne. There
the Prince and the duke of Lancastre
refresshed them, and the erle of Army-
nacke, and the other lordes, a two days.
Then they went and passed the river
that departeth Castell and Navar at the
bridge of Groygne among the gardeyns
Bridge
under the olives, and there they founde a
of Logrono
better country than they were in before;
howbeit they had great defaute of vitayle.
And when that king Henry knew that
the Prince and his people were passed the
rjver at Groygne, then he departed fro
saynt Mychaulte where he had long
lain, and went and lodged before Navar-
ette on the same river. When the Prince
heard that king Henry was approched,
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I
34
WAY OF S.JAMES
he was right joyous, and sayd openly:
By saynt George this bastarde semeth
. . . mas no
to be a valyaunt knight, sythehe desireth
chides que
so sore to find us; I trust we shall fynde
el vivir
eche other shortely."
The Spaniards characteristically never
went to bed at all: they supped well, and
talked awhile, and at midnight were ready
for business:
The Prince and his company went
over a lytell hyll, and in the descendyng
therof they parceyved clerely their
enemyes comyng towarde them; and
whan they were all discended down this
mountaine, than every man drue to their
batayls and kept them styll, and so
rested them, and every man dressed
and aparelled hymselfe redy to fight.
There in the April weather, in the early
light Sir John Chandos came up. He
brought his banner rolled up together to
the Prince, and said:
Sir, behold here is my banner; I re-
quire you display it abroad and give
me leave this day to raise it; for sir, I
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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385
thank God and you, I have land and
heritage sufficient to maintain it withall.
Than the Prince and king Dampeter
took the banner between their hands and
spread it abroad, the which was of
silver a sharp pyle gules, and delivered
it to him and sayd, Sir Johan, be-
holde here your banner: God sende you
joye and honoure thereof. Then sir
Johan Chandos bare his banner to his
own company, and said, Sirs, behold
here my banner and yours, keep it as
your own; and they took it and were
right joyfull thereof, and said, that by
the pleasure of God and saynt George,
they wolde keep and defend it to the best
of their powers. And so the banner
abode in the hands of a good Englysshe
squyer, called Wylliam Alery, who bare
it that day, and a quitted himself right
nobly. Than anon after thengylsshmen
and Gascoins alighted of their horses,
and every man drew under their own
banner and standerd, in array of ba-
tayle redy to fight: it was great joye
to see and consider the banners and
pennons and the noble armery that was
ther.
es una
escuela de
honor . .
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3 86
WAY OF S.JAMES
In the wind that runs before the sun, the
pennons shivered : the white flag of S. George
shook out its red cross above twelve hundred
flickering pens els ot the free companies.
They were bad men, no doubt, but they
were good soldiers, seasoned. In the pale
level sunrays lance-heads twinkled, steel
caps glittered : the bugles that had cried in
Spanish
the night, sang now for the fight. The
slingers
English bowmen were well matched with
Spanish slingers, whom they liked no
better than had the Romans before then.
Sir John
"That day sir Johan Chandos was a
Chandos
good knight, and did under his banner
many a noble feat of armes; he adven-
tured himself so farre that he was closed
in amonge his enemyes, and so sore over-
pressed that he was felled downe to the
erthe; and on him there fell a great and
a bygge man of Castell, called Martyne
Fen-ant, who was greatly renomed of
hardynesse among the Spaniards, and he
did his entent to have slayne sir Johan
Chandos, who lay under hym in great
danger. Then sir Johan Chandos re-
membred of a knyfe that he had in his
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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387
bosom, and drew it out, and strake this
Martyne so in the back and in the sydes,
that he wounded him to dethe as he
lay on him. Than sir Johan Chandos
tourned hym over, and rose quickely on
his feet, and his men were there about
him, who had with moche payne broken
the prease, to come to him whereas they
saw him felled."
In this battle the Chancellor Ayala, the
being
historian and poet, was taken prisoner, as
indeed in
rebellion
he relates himself. He barely mentions
his own in a long list of names, x for he is
more preoccupied with Mosse"n Beltran de
Claquin, and el Vesque de Villaines, and
Du
Guesclin
D. Garci Alvarez de Toledo Maestre que
fuera de Santiago, and el Clavero de Al-
cdntara, who was called Melen Suarez,
and other good knights who were taken,
too, by those in white surcoats with scarlet
crosses, whose cry was Guiana, Sanl Jorge !
"There were of Spaniards and of
Castyle, mo than a hundred thousand
men in harnesse, so that by reson of
their great number, it was long or they
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WAY OF S.JAMES
could be overcome. King Dampeter was
greatly chafed, and moche desired to
meet with the bastard his brother, and
said, Where is that whoreson, that
calleth himselfe king of Castella. And
the same king Henry fought right
valiantly where as he was, and held
his people togyder right marvellously,
and said: Aye good people, ye have
crowned me king, therfore help and
aide me, to keep the heritage that you
have give me; so that by these words,
and such other as he spake that day, he
caused many to be right hardy and val-
yaunt, whereby they abode on the felde,
so that because of their honor they
wolde nat flye fro the place."
His cry that day, says Pere Lopez de
Ayala, was Castile! Santiago! and he rode
The
a great grey Castilian horse, in a shirt of
Bastard's
escape
mail, until, when the day was lost and the
horse was spent, a squire of his, Ruy
Fernandez de Gaona, came up on a little
jennet and exchanged, saying: "Lord,
take this horse, for yours can't move."
The king took it and got away from Najera,
taking the Soria road for Aragon.
I
HISPANIC NO-TES
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389
"The batayle that was best fought and
lengest held togyder, was the company of
sir Bertram of Clesquy, for there were
many noble men of arms who fought
Mosos
codiciosos
and held toguyder to their powers, and
de honra. . .
ther was done many a noble feat of
arms. And on the Englysshe parte,
specially there was sir Johan Chandos,
who that day did like a noble knight,
and governed and counsayled that day
the duke of Lancastre, in like manner as
he did before the Prince, at the batell
of Poycters, wherein he was greatly re-
nomed and praised, the which was good
reason; for a valyant man, and a good
knyght, acquitynge hymselfe nobly
among lords and princes, ought greatly
to be recommended."
If the ordeal ot battle means anything,
this day the issue declared for that Don
King
Peter, who wanted to be called the Just.
Dam peter
"The Prince [Edward] had indeed with
him the flower of chivalry, and there were
under him the most renowned combatants
in the whole world." What sumptuous
phrases they had, these men that made
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I
390
WAY OF S.JAMES
history as they wrote it, and what magni-
ficent certitudes! Here with these words,
unlike enough to the actuality of the
sullen and ferocious Englishman named
less from his black armour than his black
heart, and of his host of alien and mercen-
ary invaders, our good knight and loyal
servitor evokes the very figures of the
great-souled, the Happy Warriors, the
"White Horsemen who ride on white
White
horses, the Knights of God,
Horsemen
Forever, with Christ their Captain,
forever He!"
"Than the Englysshmen and Gascons
lept a horsebake, and began to chase
the Spanyardes, who fledde away sore
disconfyted to the great ryver: and at
the entry of the bridge of Navaret, there
was a hideous sheddinge of blood, and
many a man slain and drowned, for
divers lept into the water, the which was
deep and hideous, they thought they had
as Keve to be drowned as slain. And in
this chase among other, ther were two
valiant knights of Spayne, bearing on
them the abyte [habit] of religion: the
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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one called the great priour of saynt
James, and the other the great maister
of Calatrave. They and their company,
to save themselfe, entred into Navaret,
and they were so nere chased at their
back, by Englysshmen and Gascoyns,
that they wan the bridge, so that
there was a great slaughter. And then
englysshmen entred into the city after
their enemies, who were entred into a
strong house of stone; howbeit, inconti-
nent it was won by force, and the knights
taken, and many of their men slayn,
and all the city overron and pylled, the
whiche was greatly to the Englysshmen's
profit. Also they wanne king Henries
lodgynge, wherein they found gret
richesse of vessell, and jowelles of golde
and sylver, for the king was come thyder
with great noblenesse, so that when they
were disconfyted, they had no leisure
for to return thyder again, to save that
they had left there. So this was a hide-
ous and a terrible disconfyture, and speci-
ally on the river side, there was many a
man slain; and it was said, as I heard
after reported of some of them that were
there present, that one might have seen
391
I Ay, qui
buen
Caballerol
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392
WAY OF S . JAM PS
the water that ran by Navaret to be of
the colour of red, with the blood of men
and horse that were there slayn. This ba-
tayle was bytwene Naver, and Naveret,
in Spayne, the yere of the incarnacyon
of our Lorde Jesu Christ, a thousande
thre hundred threscore and sixe, the
thirde day of Aprill, the whiche was on
a Saturday." 2
As at Cologne upon the winding Rhine,
and among the stony deserts of the Bouches
du Rhone, as on the sacred plains ot Chalons
and of Poitiers, so here the quiet air is
swept with confused alarms of struggle
and flight, is thickened and cloudy with
the figures of clashing armies that like the
tides withdraw and return again. Half a
millennium before Henry of Trastamare,
Charles the Emperor had gathered the
most renowned combatants in the whole
The most
renowned
world, and camped in sight of Najera,
whence the hosts of Spain and Aragon came
prepared and glad. "Moult fu beaus
Feragus": the time was early summer, the
time of birds' singing, the time of love-
making,
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HISPANIC NOTES
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393
This geant issued out of the town and
demanded [combat] singular, person
against a person. Charles, which never
had refused that to person, sent to
him Ogyer the Danoys. But when the
geant saw him alone on the field, without
making of any semblant of war he came
alone to him and took him with one hand
and put him under his arm, without
doing him any harm, and bare him
unto his lodgings and did do put him in
prison, and made no more ado to bear him
than doth a wolf to bear a little lamb.
. . . After that Ogyer was borne thus
away, Charles sent Raymond d'Aube-
pyne. When Feragus saw him he bare
him away as lightly as the other. 3
Last came Roland. Roland went to
pray in the dawn, S. James and S. Michael
came always when he called them, he
SS. James
and
Michael
talked theology to Feragus in the pauses
between thrust and parry, and found
him a stone for his head when he
slept exhausted, and in the end pricked
the poor gentle giant in the one spot vul-
nerable, and so the Bridge of Najera was
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394
WAY OF S.JAMES
won, and the city baptized. 4 The battle
occupies three days and three thousand lines
and more. There is not a word of history
in the whole, yet it was by some other
virtue than the author's vain imagination
that precisely there, where he had never
been, these figures of ancient song, muy
noble y muy leal, "peopled the hollow dark
like burning stars."
S. Mary the Royal.
Mother of misericord,
For thy dead is grief in thee?
Can it be, thou dost repent,
That they went, thy chivalry,
Those sad ways magnifi-
cent? Lionel Johnson.
Najera in the Sunday noon consisted of a
rotting cliff and a bone-dry bed of stones;
between them, dirt and flies and good
Christians. Bells tinkled for the last
Mass, dogs quarrelled, children cried out;
Kindness
the arid heat droned and hummed. While
the narrator went to look for S. Mary
the Royal, Jehane was welcomed with
a shaded room, cool water, and hospitality
1
HISPANIC NOTES
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without grudging from a little tavern
keeper. His reward came immediately
and thirty-fold, in the drinks he sold to
those who drifted in to stare. Meanwhile a
small boy, and a smaller Cur a, were giving
to the narrator more counsel than comfort:
the church, it appeared, belonged to a
convent of frailes, who through the noon
hours were bound to dine and sleep, and
for neither knocking nor ringing, for neither
the Pope nor the King, would they open the
door before mid-afternoon. Just the glim-
mer of a chance, however, searching and
bitter inquiry brought out that a certain
ecclesiastical dignitary of the town might
stir them up. Anyway, we went about to
see: and at a corner the good lad raised a
cry and set off running: the convent door
it seemed, was not yet closed, a beggar
woman who waited along with me was
confident it would not close until she had
her daily mess. We knocked and rang at
intervals, she and I and a few loungers,
and when at last the brass wheel spun in
the door I could see at a glance the green
of cloister-garth as background to the
395
apostolical
and ecclesi-
astical
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396
WAY OF S.JAMES
brown of frieze cassock. At the crack
liai
I made my plea, of a long day's journey
breeding
only half measured yet, of recommenda-
tions from the Apostolic Nuncio, of a book
in course of writing; and anon two tall
Franciscans, incredibly clean and kind,
were talking with me in the cloister and
unlocking for me the church. It was not
just for pride in their church that they fore-
went the meal and the Recreation that
echoed in discussion and laughter from
the upper galleries of the princely cloister :
it was that they did, as a matter of daily
practice, take the stranger in. Though
the need, in this case, was not for soup
but for photographs, not to feed but to
see, it mattered no whit, and that they
wonderfully discerned.
Kings of
The city of Najera was probably an
Ndjera
Arab foundation; it played a part in the
Reconquest and at one time was a sepa-
rate kingdom from Navarre. Seven kings
reigned there and these are they: 1
i. Sancho Abarca (Sancho II of
Pampeluna), gos-c. 926. He won
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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397
back from the Arabs most of the Rioja
(which the Chronicle of Albelda calls
Cantabria) even from Najera to Tudela.
He married Dona Toda.
2. His son (D. Garcia) he called to
share the throne, giving him conquered
land on the right bank of the Ebro with
the title of King of Najera. Abderraman
brought up a huge army and though D.
Garcia fell back and Ordono II of Leon
came to his help, yet the two kings were
Valdejun-
defeated in the battle of Valdejunquera.
quera
Abderraman pushed into France by Jaca
and Somport and D. Garcia followed
after him and recovered as far as Cala-
horra. He founded Albelda and with
his queen Dona Teresa gave much to S.
Millan. He died in 970.
3. His son Sancho kept the kingdom
for eighteen years against Almanzor, by a
sort of guerrilla practice, now withdraw-
ing, anon harrying the Moor. He died
in 995 and is buried in S. Maria on the
north side, with his queen Dona Urraca.
4. D. Garcia el Tembloso was no
coward: he fought at Calatanazor in 998,
Calata-
and died the next year. Dozy explains
ftazor
this famous victory as a pure fabrication 2
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
398
WAY OF S.JAMES
to salve the Spanish pride: it has raised
for us at any rate the mysterious wailing
figure on the shores of Guadalquiver
who cried aloud in a grievous voice, in
Arab and Spanish, thrice:
En Calatanazor
perdid Almanzor
el tambor!
5. Sancho el Mayor, whose queen
Dona Munia or Elvira is also called
Dona Mayor. She built the bridge at
Puente la Reyna. In 1001 she signed a
document conjointly with him and with
D. Ramiro, who is called Regulus.
He was a bastard son of the king's, but
his mother was a great lady, either Dona
Romance
Caya of Aybar, or a Castilian heiress. The
of Dona
Chronicles and the Romances both tell
Mayor
one story about this prince. The queen
had a horse fleet and sure given her by
the king, and her eldest son begged it of
her, and in the end, by the advice of her
castellan, she refused to give away the
king's gift. Then her eldest son conspired
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
399
with his two brothers to accuse her to the
king, involving the castellan, and there
was nothing for Dona Elvira but the
ordeal of fire. At the day and hour, how-
ever, a good knight came, and the young
The Good
Knight
men, bethinking themselves, sent a monk
of Najera, to stipulate for pardon if they
should confess, and in the end they did.
The champion was D. Ramiro. Then the
queen put out D. Garcia her eldest son,
the mischief-maker, from the inheritance
of Castile, and the kingdom of Aragon
which was her own she gave to D. Ramiro
her stepson. That was a great woman,
say I.
Sancho el Mayor conquered from the
Arabs Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, and
from Leon all the land between Cea and
Pisuerga, and divided his lands among
his four sons, and died in 1035.
6. Garcia IV 61 de Najera, con-
quered D. Ramiro and took Aragon,
reconquered Calahorra, dowered S. Ma-
ria de Najera, and after reigning
twenty-four years, four months and
some days, died fighting his brother
Atapuerca
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
400
WAY OF S.JAMES
Ferdinand of Castile, in the battle of
Atapuerca, in the year 1054.
7. Sancho the Noble el de Penalen,
was killed in the wood by his brethren,
1076. With this for an excuse, Alfonso
VI of Castile took the Rioja and Sancho
Ramirez of Aragon took Navarre.
This is the end of the kings in Najera.
The wife of D. Sancho the Noble is called
in her epitaph, like Chaucer's lady, "the
And good6,
White" for her sweet soul's sake, and
fair6, white
Placencia for her gentle ways, but for all
she hete. . .
her pleasantness her paths were not of
peace. When the king was murdered, she
disappeared from history.
There was another good queen Blanche
buried at Najera, the daughter of Garcia
Ramirez el Restaurador , wife of Sancho el
Deseado of Castile, mother of Alfonso VIII
&, de las Navas. She bore a son, and died;
but her husband lit a silver lamp above
her tomb, that burned for centuries.
The church was dedicated on Saturday
the 1 2th December, 1052, and endowed
with most amazing gifts. The complete
inventory of that dowry has been pub-
I
HI SPAN 1C NOTES
THE WA Y
lished by Dr. D. Constantino Garran and
may be bought on the spot, so may be
spared here: instead, we may consider a list
of the books that a king borrowed thence
at one time. In the thirteenth century,
Alfonso X borrowed, against a receipt and
in good form, from the prior and monks
of S. Mary of Najera, besides other books,
the Bucolics and Georgics of Virgil, Epis-
tles of Ovid, Thebaid of Statius, poems
of Prudentius, two books of Donatus, the
great grammar of Priscian, the Consola-
tions of Boethius and his commentary on
the ten predicaments, Scipio's Dream of
Cicero, the Libra Juizgo (the Visigothic
code), a catalogue of Gothic kings, a treatise
on jurisprudence ("un libra de justicia"),
the History of the Kings, the History of
Isidore the Younger, and the Book of Illus-
trious Men by S. Jerome or S. Isidore or
both. 4
According to tradition, the foundation of
Najera was on this wise: D. Garcia was
hunting and pursued the prey into a cave
where he found an image of the Virgin.
He adored and built a church. The cave
401
Books
borrowed
AND MONOGRAPHS
4O2
WAY OF S.JAMES
Virgen de
la Cueva
del
Alc&zar
Independ-
ence
is there to prove it, westward of the church
but opening into it, and the tombs of the
kings lie within or before it, and the image
reigns at the high altar of the church. It
is completely habited and not easy to see,
but from photographs appears archaic
work of the thirteenth century. In the
cave is enshrined another image, the
Virgin of the Alcazar, that Sr. Lamperezs
attributes to the close of the twelfth.
Of the early church and sepulchre of
kings, founded in the beginning of the
eleventh century and consecrated 1056,
nothing remains: the church was rebuilt
by Prior Pedro Martinez de S. Coloma,
1422-1456; the cloister in the next century;
the royal burial place, by Fray Rodrigo de
Gadea, 1556-1559. D. Garcia Sanchez had
brought monks from Cluny and settled
them there; in 1486, on Monday the 8th
May, the monks elected their first abbot
independent of Cluny, D. Pablo Martinez
de Urunuela. *
In the church, the transepts and nave
of six bays are unusually high, with vault
sexpartite or star-ribbed; there is a true
HISPANIC NOTES
403
Albi and
THE WA Y
clerestory and a curious series of openings,
like a triforium, on the south, which gives
access to the vaults. The apses are square;
the buttresses, without, cylindrical and
big as towers, like those of Albi and ot
Assisi. There are low galleries over the
transepts and the west end, all these in
clausura of course; and a glorious south
chapel of two bays with stalls and tomb
recesses; but nothing breaks the soaring
beauty and noble grace of this thrice royal
church. The stalls,- late Gothic, were
made in 1495 by Master Andrew and Mas-
ter Nicholas: the organ doors, in Antwerp
now, were painted perhaps by Memling.
The Claustro de los Caballeros is built,
lofty and long, in five bays by seven of
plateresque that simulates Gothic; begun
under Abbot Juan de Llanos (1517-21) it
was ended under Abbot Diego de Valma-
sida, (1521 -28) ; on either side the walls, on
every pier, a canopied niche had once held
a saint, and tomb recesses open down three
sides of it. Here lies that Lopez de Haro
called, by exception, the Good, and a
quaint use survived about his tomb from
AND MONOGRAPHS
404
WAY OF S.JAMES
Examen de
varones . . .
In
S. James'
church
he sleeps
his death in 1214 down into the last cen-
tury. When a Corregidor or a new Council
was elected in the city, the Council went
in procession from the Casa Consistorial
to the tomb, on which was laid a pall, and a
carpet was laid on the pavement, and two
candles were lit. Then, they standing in a
semicircle, the presiding member handed
the sealed ballot to the scrivener, and he
broke it open and read the election aloud.
Eastward, in the chapel of Holy Cross,
lies like a foundress Dona Mencia Lopez
de Haro. Her mother was a sister of
Ferdinand the > Saint, her first husband
was a knight of his, for whose honour and
glory she defended, with a handful of
gentlewomen and maidservants her castle
of Martos, when the Moorish king Alhamar
besieged her there. In her widowhood, a
king of Portugal married her, infatuate
with her beauty, her charm and her person-
ality, and she ruled the realm as though
it were her own inheritance. In the end
Portugal was lost, D. Sancho died for-
lornly at Toledo, while she came back to
Najera where she had grown up, and
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
405
founded this chapel, December 7, 1272,
with four chaplains, "that masses might
be sung for her soul every day, even until
the end of the world." Did she feel that
they were needed so?
Door of the Holy Sepulchre
AND MONOGRAPHS
406
WAY OF S.JAMES
VIII
TWO ROAD-MENDERS
The world is his house.
He serves all men alike;
ay, and for him the beasts
have equal honour with the
men. No man is depen-
dent on his earnings, all
men on his work.
Michael Fairless.
TRAVELLERS in Italy may recall, some
of them, a valley hidden away in the heart
of the Central Apennine, behind Gubbio,
between Scheggia and Fossombrone. It is
entered through a land bare as the,Sistine
Creation of Adam, it is left by the Furlo
Pass where the Romans ran their road
through the living rock of the mountain
flank. The capital city is Cagli. As,
before an invading race, the indigenes
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
407
withdraw to mountain fastnesses, and the
last tribe of those who once held the land
smoulders away among the highest peaks,
so, before the railway and the factory town,
Italy found asylum there the romantic
Italy of our grandfathers' past, of Claude
and Wilson, of Richardson and Byron, and
under the stone-pine and the vine-wreathed
elm, dreams eternally. In much the same
way the campo about S. Domingo keeps
still unspoiled the romantic Spain of the
Elizabethan and the Augustan age. Here
tawny Spain, lost to the world's debate, re-
joicing in the abundance of corn and vine,
salutes the coy dawn with the tinkling
bells of mule-trains, and wakes the early
moonlight with pipe and guitar. Translu-
cent grapes, flushed peaches, freckled
pears, with white and powdery bread,
strong and limpid wine that glitters like
jewels in the reddened glass, these trans-
mute into something venerable and sacra-
mental the ancient sun-burnt mirth. On
every hand the land is green, and the
campo of La Calzada is famed as far as
once the huerta of Sahagun. The cool well-
Romantic
Spain
AND MONOGRAPHS
408
WAY OF S.JAMES
Unspoiled
water is abundant, wholesome, and delicious.
The town plants poplars and sycamores
in multiplied rows along the roadside,
till camino becomes paseo, turning the
dusty track into a place of solace and
refreshment. Women are handsome here,
babies clean, men devout. Only of late a
narrow line of railway has pushed down
from Haro, and the spell of the sleepy
centuries is not yet rent. It is strange in
a world of trippers and tourists to find a
happy land so abounding in its own kindly
life, and a church so richly undespoiled,
still intact of dealers and restorers.
Two saints hereabouts in the twelfth
century took care of God's poor and God's
pilgrims, Dominic of the Causeway and
John of the Bramble-Bush. Says Govantes '
and the account seemed good enough for
Madrazo 2 to transcribe with only verbal
alterations: In the eleventh and twelfth
centuries there were a number of saints
whose piety was directed to helping pil-
grimages to holy places, and who mended
old roads, built new ones, erected bridges,
and founded hospitals and hospices. This
HISPANIC NOTES
A Mountain Town
THE WAY
fell in with the wishes of Alfonso VI.
Possibly S. Domingo had retired to an
anchorite's life in an old palace or castle
which stood where now the city stands, a
league to the south of the bridge by which
the Roman road crossed, that ran from
Italy to Astorga; and seeing the distress
of the pilgrims he set about relieving it.
The river Oja, though usually a slender
stream, gets up in thaw or in rainy weather
and is dangerous enough. He probably
built so far from the Roman bridge and
turned his road out correspondingly, either
to take the stream where it was narrower,
being nearer to the mountain, or to get a
better foundation for the piers. Beside
the bridge he built a hospice or free lodg-
ing and served there humbly: thus the new
settlement began. In the Flos Sanctorum
it is said that S. Domingo was an Italian,
who for love of God sold his patrimony and
distributed it to the poor, and then, to be
more entirely in the state of a pilgrim and a
stranger, passed over into Spain and sought
admission in the Benedictine convent
of Valbanera. He was denied for alleged
411
S. Domin-
go de la
Calzada
HISPANIC NOTES
WAY OF S. JAMES
S. Domin-
go de Silos
illiteracy; the same happened at S. Millan.
This was about 1050: that year the locusts
ate up everything, and S. Gregory of Ostia
came preaching a mission: S. Domingo
joined him and stayed with him until his
death. Then he settled down in a place
of thick forests and shameless highway-
men, built his cell and a chapel to Our
Lady, and afterwards burnt off the woods
and built a causeway. Here S. Domingo
de Silos visited him, and the two held holy
converse together, and he approved his
labours and travails. 3 Alfonso VI when,
after the death of D. Sancho l de Penalen,
he took possession of the kingdom of
Najera, gave to S. Domingo all the land
he needed for his works, and he built a
little church, consecrated 1105. There he
lived, attending to travellers and in
especial nursing those who needed him,
till he was very old. He died in 1109.
A hundred years later, his figure enters,
familiar, easy to identify, in the Vision of
the Ploughman Thurkill : though the Eng-
lish chroniclers could not recognize his
name, the Pilgrims knew it perfectly. He
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
413
is the Warden of the Basilica which is the
gathering-place of souls and the goal of the
long Causeway, and S. James himself com-
mits the visitor to his charge. The Apostle,
by the way, figures there in a mitre as
Metropolitan and Primate of the Spains;
and for the same reason he is arrayed with
mitre and crozier when, with S. Millan, in
the Apparition of Simancas, they turned the
day. Gonzalo de Berceo is explicit about
Twins
the nature of the great twain :
White Horsemen who ride on white
horses, O fair to see,
They ride where the rivers of Paradise
flash and flow.
Now the abbey of S. Millan de la'Cogolla
lies not many miles away, to southward of
S. Millan
the Road, and, as related, legend connects
S. Domingo with it: the account which
determined Thurkill's vision in this part,
will have been picked up here inLaCalzada.
The place was called in those days, Bur-
go de Santo Domingo. The new road, the
safe crossing over the bridge, the convenient
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
414
WAY OF S.JAMES
Bishop
Covel
Kings
reside
lodging, the good site, the level, fresh,
fertile and healthful land, drew settlers.
The Bishop of Burgos laid a hand on them,
the Bishop of Calahorra warned him off:
the case was put to arbitration by the king's
order and Calahorra was sustained; this
being in 1137. Alfonso VII the Emperor,
who had seen to this, with his wife Dona
Berenguela, dowered the city in 1147 with
a share of woods, mountains, pasture and
grass- land, and water rights. In 1152
the Bishop, D. Rodrigo Cascante, raising
the church to collegiate rank, decided to
enlarge and rebuild. In 1168, with royal
help the work was begun ; in 1 180 the offices
were sung in the new church; 4 in 1232
Gregory IX transferred thither the see,
at the request of the chapter and Bishop
D. Juan Perez, the situation of Calahorra
being both unwholesome and perilous.
The lordship of the town belonged to the
chapter till in 1350 S. Ferdinand took it
over to the Crown, giving an equivalent.
The king D. Peter rebuilt the walls; his
successor D. Henry died within them, on
Sunday the twenty-second of May, 1379.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
In 1440 the shrine of the saint was ordered
by Bishop D. Diego Lopez de Zuniga.
In 1517 the cloister was begun, finished in
1550. The splendid detached belfry was
built in 1762-67 by Master Martin, at the
expense of Bishop Porras.
Says Cean Bermudez : s the king D. Alonso
VIII and the Bishop of Calahorra and
Najera, D. Rodrigo Cascante, laid the first
stone: the work lasted seventeen years,
and was not finished when in 1180 the see
of Najera was transferred thither, though
the divine offices were celebrated. It
consists of three naves, and is of a robust
and heavy architecture, without grace or
elegance, as were all the edifices of that
age. It was finished in 1235 when it was
raised to a cathedral. This is hard to
reconcile with the sentence before, about
the transference of the see : all accounts are
indeed fairly confusing. The name of the
see, according to Govantes, runs still "of
Calahorra and La Calzada," though Ma-
drazo says it was joined to Burgos in 1574.
The abbey church was certainly dedicated
to S. Saviour, as the retable indicates,
415
Robust
and heavy
AND MONOGRAPHS
416
WAY OF S.JAMES
Towers
like
S. Leonard
French
plan
though some confusion is caused by a kind
of joint-ownership with S. Mary, explicable
by a tradition that Madrazo 6 also records
of the original site's being that of the
little sanctuary of the Virgen de la Plaza,
against the great belfry. As there must
have been some such tower before Master
Martin's time, it is worth noting that at S.
Leonard de Limoges, on the same Cause-
way, the tower is isolated similarly.
This church was begun, then, in 1168, and
within twelve years was fit for use. There-
after building went on, and then rebuilding.
The original plan is plain, and is French;
and especially is the structure French, pier
and rib. The nave is three bays long, the
westmost of only half the size, as though
it stood once between two western towers:
and the eastern end had a chevet of five, an
ambulatory and three radiating chapels
with a plain bay in between these. The
Lady-chapel survives, and the next bay
north of it: the rest has been rebuilt. The
north transept is a plain strong rectangle
vaulted octopartite, like the nave. The
south transept has been rebuilt with a
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
chapel eastward and a portal of the full
transept width, to fit the shrine of the
Saint: also, the bay just west of this, clear
across the church, aisles and nave, is as
high as the crossing and as richly vaulted.
Though, where only one transept aisle
occurs, it is usually on the eastern face, I
believe this arrangement to represent an
original divergence from the norm for the
sake of the crowds of pilgrims, giving, with
such a lofty western aisle beyond the
transept, a vast and noble environment for
the shrine.
Master Pedro or Juan Rasines rebuilt,
in the beginning of the sixteenth century,
the capilla mayor. Andres de Najera began
the stalls in 1517; in the end of the same
century they were moved down, and dam-
aged, and a lawsuit followed: in 1825 they
were damaged again by fire, and repaired
with faithful care by a local carver. The
retablo mayor belongs to the first half of the
sixteenth century, it is beautiful Renaissance
work in the style of Berruguete. About
this woodwork discussion rages.
The stalls of S. Maria la Real, at Najera,
417
Western
transept-
aisle
Stalls
AND MONOGRAPHS
418
WAY OF S.JAMES
Con sumo
prolixidad
Master
Andrew at
Najera
were carved by Maestre Andres and Maes-
tre Nicolas, in 1495, saysCean Bermudez 7 ;
"con suma prolixidad por el gusto gotico";
Madoz 8 says they were executed in 1493
by two brothers called Amutio, of Jewish
persuasion, citizens of CaVdenas, a town a
league off; who, Dr. Garran 9 adds, were
disciplined by the Inquisition. This detail
he had from his father, the late D. Restituto
Garran of Acedillo, who supplied the
information to Madoz, and who learned
everything from old monks, his intimates,
that knew by heart the traditions of the
monastery. He wants this Master Andrew
to be the same with Andres de Najera or
Andres de S. Juan, of whom Cean Bermu-
dez says, in a manuscript note intended for
a second edition, x "it appears from trust-
worthy documents that he designed and
carved the stalls of S. Benito of Valladolid
in 1528; and likewise carved the quire of
S. Domingo de la Calzada." The quire
of Najera the present writer has not seen
for it is in clausura, but views of it are
published by Dr. Garran, by D. Pelayo
Quintero, ' I and by Sr. Marti y Monso, 1 2
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
419
and from these it is easy to understand the
beautiful late flamboyant traceries and
delicate fifteenth-century forms. A phrase
of Street's occurs to mind, where he calls
a tomb "in no sense unworthy of a good
Gothic sculptor." That was Master An-
dre's, a good Gothic sculptor, and by the
same token incapable utterly of the
luxuriant loveliness of the stalls in S.
Domingo.
For these Sr. Marti y Monso has pub-
lished abundant documents. 1 3 They were
Master
begun in 1517, Andre's de Najera being
Andrew of
Ndjera
master of the works. He lived at that
time in S. Domingo. For some reason
not stated, the chapter in proper person
made the contracts with the several work-
men: these were, Guillen de Holanda
(who was not necessarily William the
Dutchman), Juan de Castro, Francisco
de S. Gil of Burgos, Ortega of Cordova,
one Lucas of Burgos, and one called the
Burgundian for whom a notary signed.
This last could not have been Felipe
Vigarny, but it is worth remembering that
Maestre Andre's was possibly working in
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
420
WAY OF S. JAMES
Andr6s de
S. Juan
Burgos and in relation with Vigarny four
years earlier, for, says Dr. Martinez y Sans,
in 1513 the work of Master Philip was
valued by the master-mason Andres de
S. Juan. 14 Moreover in Valladolid in 1533
he served on the same commission with
Vigarny and one Julio Romano, about the
valuation of the retable of S. Benito, that
Berruguete had just finished. I s To have
taken two or more workmen from Burgos
into the Rioja, makes it more likely that
Maestre Andres was really formerly at Bur-
gos, and this contract gives us another
Frenchman, of name unknown, who lived
once in Burgos in the time of Maestre Felipe
Vigarny, sculptor (before 1498-after 1532),
and Juan de Langres, T 6 entallador (known
1522-1532). From S. Domingo, Maestre
Andres went to Valladolid, where he was
working pretty steadily, between 1522 and
1528, on the stalls of S. Benito : he was living
however in Covarrubias in 1521, and as
late as 1531 he reappears in the Calceaten-
sian account-books as master of the works
on the trascoro. 1 7 Apart from questions
of style, it is unlikely that Master Andrew
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
should be judging Renaissance work in
1513 if he had finished mature Gothic
work twenty years before, and it is almost
impossible that one of the judaizing broth-
ers of the fifteenth century in the Rioja
should move so freely and be fetched from
so far in the second quarter of the sixteenth,
as an expert qualified and highly esteemed.
He would be, if nothing else, at any rate
too old. Here then within forty years,
between 1493 and 1533, we have two
Masters called Andrew and quite possibly
three, working from the Ebro to the
Pisuerga, in Navarre, and in both parts of
Castile.
Before the retablo mayor comes up
again the whole question of likeness and
unlikeness in names and personalities, of
documentary evidence and the evidence
of style. The retable is a noble and
precious work of the Spanish Renaissance,
a shade less mannered and agonized than
Berruguete's at S. Benito. Straight at the
sides, level at the top and bottom, it bent
into three planes to accord with the curving
apse; also, it wants a proper predella. In
421
Retable
AND MONOGRAPHS
422
WAY OF S.JAMES
Nudes
Formente
the central place is the Salvator Mundi,
above that the Assunta, above that an
oculus or almond-shaped glory for the
Host. On either side are four great panels
of the life of Christ where, as nudes, the
Baptism supplies a pendant to the Resur-
rection; between and beyond these panels,
figures, singly or in pairs, are set between
columns and under cornices, and flanking
all, another row of statues, freer and more
sinuous, rises from a sort of console formed
by leaning figures. As in the Milanese, the
columns are treated like balustrades and
candelabra; the friezes, frankly heathen,
depict not only young fauns and old
centaurs, but tritons and sea nymphs,
Eros and Amphitrite, and the nude is not
confined either to sacred persons or to
putti.
For this also, Sr. Marti y Monso pub-
lishes some documents. 18 It seems that
the sculptor was named Formente, that, a
citizen of Saragossa, he was living in 1539
and was dead in 1543; that of his two
daughters one called Esperanza, married
Bartolome Garcia and the other, Isabel,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
left no other heir: the daughter and niece
of these, Ursula Garcia, was married to
Jeronimo Daza, and in 1 569 she gave power
to Juan Garcia and Juan de S. Cruz to try
to recover for her money which the Dean
and Chapter of S. Domingo were still
owing on the retable, as they had admitted
in 1543. Now, of course, there is a sculp-
tor ready at hand, Damian Forment, who
lived one time in Saragossa, and made two
retables there, and one in Huesca, besides
one for Poblet in 1517, and some earlier
work at Gandia. But he was supposed
to be dead by the time the second quarter
of the century commenced. Cean Ber-
mudez ' 9 cites a document of the chapter
of the Pilar dated 1511; then he mentions
the retable of Huesca contracted for in
1521 and finished in 1533, also Gothic;
and finally refers to two notes in the MS. of
Martinez: first, that in this retable For-
ment changed his style, being influenced
by Berruguete; and second, that when
Charles V wrote to the chapter, begging
for the services of the sculptor when they
had done with him, it was too late, for he
423
and
Forment
AND MONOGRAPHS
424
WAY OF S.JAMES
Huesca
Saragossa
had died shortly after completing the
work, and the canons had buried him
in the cloister. There the sacristan still
shows an epitaph, which is not Ferment's,
as Carderera pointed out, but of his com-
position, being put up by him to the
memory of a pupil Pedro Monjois. Carde-
rera also says that the name of the sculp-
tor does not occur in the book of Obits and
Anniversaries, which he has scanned, and
which one would expect to record a
memorial of him. Still, the evidence is
negative both ways: if Forment did not
necessarily die in 1 533, yet he did not neces-
sarily live to quit Huesca. To these two
works we must add the retable of S. Pablo
in Saragossa, given conjecturally by Cean
Bermudez and since confirmed by docu-
ments. These three have everything in
common: the curious shape, raised over
the central compartment, the tall canopied
predella, the rich interlacing pattern of
the frame, like stallwork; the deep canopies
over groups and about figures, and in this
Gothic setting, the plastic style of the
Florentine Renaissance. This, unluckily,
HISPANIC NOTES
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is not all we have of his authentic work:
Sr. Tramoyeres 20 has unearthed the con-
tract for the retablo mayor of Poblet.
Dated April 2, 1527, it was drawn between
Abbot Pedro Quexas and Damian Forment
del regne de Valencia, living in Saragossa.
In 1531, a thousand ducats were still due
him on it. This is pure Plateresque work,
made up of columns and niches from which
most of the statues have gone, but one
standing figure keeps the grave beauty of
early art. Lastly, he was to make a re-
table for the cathedral of Barbastro. The
base, still unfinished, fell to his daughter
at his death, and was only completed in
1560 by a pupil of his, Juan de Liceire.
From the plates of retable and base that
Sr. M. de Pano publishes, 2 ' I should say
that the groups in the base were his and
the design of the enframing parts, but not
the detail of these: the style shows still
the transition to pure Plateresque, to the
style of silver-smiths and not of wood-
carvers. Everywhere his beauty is a little
hard, and the richness is mere overlay.
He was of Valencia, not of Aragon, but his
425
Poblet
Barbastro
AND MONOGRAPHS
426
WAY OF S.JAMES
Archaic
Lucas
Forme nt
archaic quality of resistance serves him
like a northern strain, and his is a pure
but not a stubborn art. In every work of
Forment's that we know for his, the groups
are enclosed in boxes or niches; the figures
have a setting and background as in
painted retables; the framework is made
of mouldings and vegetation; the foun-
dation of the retable is in one great
plane, and not bent obliquely. With three
Gothic and two plateresque works, we
have plenty on which to base a judgment,
and as in the case of Maestre Andres, so
here in the Forment case, the judgement
confirms the first opinion. The retable of
S. Domingo is not by the same man as the
retable of Huesca. 2 2 There was at least one
other Forment, in the sixteenth century,
who was also a sculptor by profession:
Lucas Forment, in 1552, was witness for
Innocencio Berruguete about the recum-
bent effigy of Pedro Gonzalez de Leon.
He was then twenty-four and had known
Berruguete for four years, and his testi-
mony was rather flippant, viz.: "If he
himself had that piece of work to do
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
he would not do it unless they gave him
more." 23
The ritual choir, but not the architec-
tural, is denoted by the Spanish use of the
word core, and it is necessary to have in
English some such distinction of terms when
the stalls are looked for in the nave. I
venture to propose the revival, merely, of
the elder English form quire, as it appears
for instance in the rubric that provides for
an anthem " in quires and places where
they sing." The quire, then, of S. Domingo
is covered on the south side with paintings
of the life and legend of the saint, in their
original sixteenth -century frames. Opposite
these is a chapel consecrated to a local devo-
tion, with a statue of the titular, the Blessed
Jerome Thermosilla, a mitred Abbot in a
black cloak over white habit and scapular.
In a chapel once dedicated to the Baptist
and S. Martin but now oddly enough to S.
Teresa, a tall retable that antedates some
of the rebuilding and the present invoca-
tion, yet dim-glimmering with tempera and
leaf -gold, reigns above an altar-tomb of a
knight and two wall tombs with recumbent
427
The quire
AND MONOGRAPHS
428
WAY OF S.JAMES
The tombs
effigies, these of the fifteenth century,
another with a kneeling pair of the seven-
teenth. The central figure is D. Pedro
Juarez de Figueroa, Lord of the town of
Cuscurrita, of the family of the Dukes of
Frias and Counts of Haro, who died in
1418. In one of the niches lies next to
his spouse Dona Juana Fernandez, with a
book in his hands and two more at his bed's
head, D. Pedro Gonzalez de Santo Domingo
y Samaniego, sometime Corregidor of Viz-
caya and the Encartaciones , founder of one
of the Mayorazgos included in the house of
the Marquesses of Cerifiuela that possess the
place. That word Mayorazgo means here,
manifestly, a title and the estate which
goes with it, devolved upon the eldest
son. It also means property and inherit-
ance, and is used at times as a proper
personal title of the eldest son before, but
also after ( I think) he has come into the
property: the Mayorazgo de Labraz is just
such a title as the Master of Ballantrae. An
old flag hangs here : it is the banner of the
Alferez Perpetual of the city, an honour
which Philip II bestowed on his guards-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
man D. Francisco de Ocio in 1566. The
trascoro is adorned with huge oil paintings
of the Passion; Maestre Andres's carvings
have disappeared. In the chapel of the
Magdalen, on the north side, lies D. Pedro
Carranza, Apostolic Protonotary and Maes-
trescuela of Burgos Cathedral, in a lovely
rich tomb carved in the head of the niche
with the Annunciation. He built the
chapel and ordered the tomb in 1539.
The chapel of S. Andrew belongs to the
Mayorazgo of Tejada: there rests D.
Fernando Alonso de Valencia, sometime
canon of the cathedral, who died in 1522,
and another canon, his kinsman, D. Juan
de Valencia: the statues, vested exquisitely
and nobly conceived, are from the hand of
some unknown Burgalese sculptor.
The shrine of S. Dominic stands in the
south transept painted and gilded and
carved with a wealth of ornament and
a complete history of his miracles. The
wrought-iron grille is painted and gilded
likewise; and the whole is just such another
as that of his disciple S. Juan. The statue
of the titular was made and placed in
429
Burgalese
sculpture
AND MONOGRAPHS
430
WAY OF S.JAMES
. que
canto la
gallina
asada
1789, the sculptor being Julian S. Martin
of Burgos (1762-1801.) Above the west
wall of this transept, behind a grating, a
fine pair of white fowls cluck and scratch
in memory of the most famous of the
miracles. 2 * It was painted by Palmezzano,
perhaps from Melozzo's designs, in the
fifteenth century at Forli, where the chapel
is dedicated to S. James, the church to SS.
Blaise and Jerome. 25 It was painted also
in the Aracoeli, in Rome, by one Juvenal de
Orvieto, in 1 44 1 . Jacob Sobieski mentions 2 6
that the French Pilgrims, and more espe-
cially the Poles, feed the white chickens
thinking that if these eat, they will get
safely to Santiago. The editor suggests,
a little vaguely, that the chickens may
have prompted the story. This story, as I
conceive, although it occurs within the
full light of history, offers a very delicate
instance of a mythopoeic process; being
probably invented apres coup to explain
some Roman relief discovered in the
twelfth century here, somewhere along
the line of the Roman street. Mrs. Arthur
Strong publishes one found in the Rhine-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
431
land 27 which shows all the dramatis per-
sonae of this legend: persons seated, by in-
tention the family and the judge, and stand-
ing, by interpretation the father, and the
roasted fowl on the table. The tablet bears
suggestions of the cult of Mithras; such
Mithras
another might easily turn up under the
plough in Spain to-morrow.
Sieur des Orties.
This was the little fold of
separate sky
Whose pasturing clouds
in the soul's atmosphere
Drew living light from
one continual year.
The House of Life.
The day was yet young when at Zal-
Entrar de
duendo we quitted the modern highway
prisa . . .
and for some three miles crossed a high
rolling moor, odorous with box and rose-
mary, flushed with heather, glad with
larks, cooled with hill-borne airs, to reach
the shrine of S. Juan. So we came down,
past a carved stone cross, into a green valley
among rustling trees, with broad smooth
turf before the door and stone benches in
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
432
WAY OF S.JAMES
. Yes
descanso
el trabajar
the shade for the elders of the hamlet.
The Cur a had said his Mass long before,
and gone elsewhere to say another, but
at the return we encountered him inside
his house-door unsaddling the rough ass
like a younger and less troubled S. Joseph.
S. John his patron I imagine as a figure not
unlike this, small and friendly, but keener,
with the engineer's face, square chin and
overhanging brow, spare cheek and puck-
ered eyelid, for he spent his life at laying
out roads and then making them, at plan-
ning high bridges, wide-arched in mid-
stream, narrower in the shallows, and then
cutting the stone and placing it. He spent
his best days working in the sun and direct-
ing other workmen, but he ended them
here, in a grassy dell, on a stone bench
under whispering trees. He would get up
when a pilgrim came around the turn,
meet him, and ask the news as they reached
a quiet room, swept and scrubbed, deep-
windowed and strong of door, cool in mid-
summer, warmed in snow-time; and from
the hearth where the white ash always
winked and lisped, fetch warm water and
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
if needful wash a man's feet; he would
dish up a stew, tasting of meat, and savory,
out of the little blackened pot that sim-
mered there, and fill a horn cup from the
bloated wine-skin in the shed, and lastly
show a bed, warm, well-shaken up, and
clean. He slept usually on the floor
himself. He who had given orders so
long would hand out a little joke with the
piece of bread for breakfast; he would
answer questions and remember news and
report the state of the roads and the run
of the weather to outgoing travellers,
from the account of those returning. He
whose advice kings had requested would
serve the meanest, and tend the foulest,
and wait upon the lustiest, a tiny trot-
ting old man, white headed and white
handed with age, with tanned and shrivelled
face. In 1080 he was born; 1 he died in
1163.
Certainly he began this church; with
three apses, the central one arcaded and
adorned with carved capitals and small
windows under a second set of arcades.
Inside, the semidome of this apse is carried
433
y el servir es
seHorio . . .
AND MONOGRAPHS
434
WAY OF S. JAMES
Late
Gothic
stalls
on four curious heavy ribs that taper
upwards, and are nicked along the edges
with the same desire to decorate as S.
Cuthbert's abbey shows on the high hill
at Durham. Each apse is preceded by a
pointed barrel-vault, but the high crossing
and transept of two bays are of sound
transitional vaulting, quadripartite. The
nave consists of but a single bay, rebuilt,
with six ribs for the aisles and eight for
the centre, and is filled up with a choir
gallery. The lovely late Gothic stalls,
up there, though neglected, recall not un-
worthily those that Najera keeps closed
away, and those that Celanova boasts
were fetched from Sahagun. Behind the
north apse a passage leads to the cloister,
and by a turning stair, to the upper cloister
and tower. The eastern capitals of the
transepts, and these of the chapels opening
therefrom, are original: on the north side,
in a style recalling the tabernacles at 5.
Juan de Ducro in Soria, the Annunciation
and Nativity; on the south side, more
delicate, under tabernacles, the Annuncia-
tion and Visitation, the Epiphany and
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
435
Massacre. The piers of the crossing have
finely moulded bases and pretty grijfes;
on the western transept face, capitals
and balustrade are flamboyant and more
commonplace. They belong possibly to
the time when Bishop Pablo de S. Maria
restored the church, the rents, the income,
and the offices, sending Jeronymite monks
from Fres del Val, in 1434. 2 Sr. Lam-
perez distinguishes in the early work two
hands: the saint's own, on the lesser apses,
Early Ro-
and the lower parts of the central one and
manesque
the transepts, and another on the high
building
walls and vaults; the stones, he says,
testify. 3 F16rez confirms this, 4 saying
that this building, begun in 1138, got as
far as the crossing, being all of stone. He
was the most famous architect of his time
in Castile, says Cean Bermudez, s and this
notion of his genius is confirmed in turn
by Sr. Lamperez, who says: "S. Juan de
Ortega appears to us as a master of grand
and robust conception, and of the purest
Romanesque style, which is somewhat
archaic in details, and belongs to no deter-
mined school of architecture." Here, that
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
436
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Shrine
Lord of
Nettles
is to say, the creative imagination has
perfectly fused the matter and brought
forth personal and perfect work.
The shrine" of the saint, which is simply
a rich canopied tomb not unlike the royal
tombs in SS. Creus, stands in the chapel of
S. Nicholas, now the parish church. This
was the original chapel that S. Juan built
in thanksgiving to S. Nicholas of Bari, on
his return from the Holy Land, and there
he must have said his daily Mass for many
years, for he was not only monk but
priest, ordained by Bishop Pedro Nazar of
Najera. In the course of time men had
come to live with him; amongst these, two
nephews of his named John and Martin,
and he had organized them under the Rule
of S. Augustine and had his household
confirmed by the Pope in Rome in ii38, 6
and had his valley confirmed by the King
D. Sancho in 1 142, so that in his testament
of 1152, he calls himself quaintly Senior
de Hortega, the Lord of Nettles.
The chapel was rebuilt by Isabella, who
had come in pilgrimage, seeking a child,
in 1477: now the saint was himself an only
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
child, for twenty years desired, and he
"was an especial mediator in this need,"
says the chronicler. He gave to Isabel
her three tragic children; the prince D.
John, cut off in his first flowering, who
lies inurned at Avila; Joanna the Mad,
and the most unhappy of English
queens, called Catharine of Aragon. It
is recorded that when the monks in the
year 1450 in the time of Bishop Alonso
of Carthagena, Fray Gomez de Carrion 7
being then prior, wished to translate the
body of the Saint into the church, and to
that intent, in the presence of many nobles
and prelates, opened the tomb, there came
out from it a multitude of white bees, with a
sweet odour; they hummed about, they
even stung the obstinate, and the tomb was
closed again.
Here we are again in the richest vein
of folklore: all over the world bees are
souls, and it becomes apparent how under
the form of bees he kept the hosts of
unborn souls, ready for women who should
come to beg for babies. There is a Tyrolese
figure of Frau Holda who lived in a moun-
437
White bees
AND MONOGRAPHS
438
WAY OF S.JAMES
Frau
Holda
S. Rita
Helper and
Harbourer
tain and kept the souls in a big chest, not
half so pat as this. S. Rita of Cascia has
also a swarm of these white bees, but as
she was beatified only in the seventeenth
century and canonized in the twentieth it
is not easy to discover from her legend as
then drawn up and confirmed what she does
with them.
A pretty story Florez also preserves, of
an ivory crucifix which the king D. Alfonso
gave to him, in which he took much delight
and carried it about and conversed with
it, and one day when he had no one to
assist at Mass, the Crucifix responded
and helped him to the end of Mass. Cer-
tain of his miracles as Helper and Har-
bourer are carved around the base of the
cenotaph (the body itself lies in a stone
coffin underneath) much as those of S.
Sebald may be read about his shrine in
Nuremberg: on the east side S. Nicholas
appearing to him in a ship at sea: on the
south, the restoration of a man that fell
asleep by the roadside and a loaded cart
passed over him; and the return of the
robbers who had stolen the saint's cows
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
and wandered all night in a fog, and in
the morning found themselves with their
booty at the convent door. The north
side begins with the history of how his
ass, when he was once in Najera, broke
its headstall, and the saint when cob-
bling it wounded his own eye with the
needle, but when the Bishop came to con-
dole with him, God restored the sight and
he arose joyfully to greet his noble guect.
The other history is not in Ribadeneyra
or Florez: two dead men lie under trees,
the saint prays and anon a monk receives
the two men under a florid Gothic door.
An altar set against the west end hides
the remaining subject. It was set up in
1474; the verja is dated 1561. The style
is charming, fresh, luxuriant, and delicate.
With James and his brother and cousin,
we could wish to make three tabernacles,
for it is good for us to be here. Spes lumen
splendor* is the only inscription on the
shrine: perhaps it means that John of the
Nettles was set, like a lighted candle, in a
golden candle-stick.
These moors are a part of the mountains
Spes lumen
splendor
AND MONOGRAPHS
440
WAY OF S.JAMES
of Oca, and from the higher levels we
looked across green tilth and unripe har-
vest, where church-towers drew tree-tops
about them, under a low-hung sky, to a
lofty blue chain of hills, along which
sunstreaks chased the shadow-streaks of
. . . y salir
corriendo
rain. From Zalduendo to Burgos the
road is modern and rather dull, easily
flowing over the unfrequented hills till the
high shoulder of Miraflores was lifted into
sight at a turning, and in the basin of the
Arlanzon the city lay, every spire and
tower plain, familiar, and very fair.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
441
NOTES: BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I
See, for the matter of this chapter, the
following books, used often too freely or too
generally for page reference:
Dieulafoy, Art ^n Spain and Portugal
Strzygowsky, Orient oder Rom Id., Klein-
Asien Butler, Architecture and other Arts
Spiers, Architecture East and West Rivoira
Le Origini delta Architettura Lombarda
Lasteyrie, L' Architecture Religieuse en France
Michel, Histoire de 1' Art Lampe'rez, His-
toria de la arquitectura cristiana espanola en
la edad media Street, Some Account of
Gothic Architecture in Spain.
1 Gayet, L'Art Arabe, p. 7.
1 Lampe'rez, Revue Hispanique: 1907; vol.
XVI, p. 565.
* Phene Spiers, Architecture East and West,
PP- 153-198.
In The Thousand and One Churches with
No. 32, plan p. 199, cf. S. Juan de Banos;
with a base in this church, p. 220, and a
capital, p. 216, cf. S. Miguel de Linio: with
Ala Klisse, p. 451, cf. Sahagun. This is
the extent of likeness that I have found
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
442
WAY OF S . JAMES
among the churches explored by Miss Bell
and Sir William Ramsey.
* Since these pages were written, that
brilliant and picaresque figure in contempo-
rary letters, has passed into the greater glory.
In January of 1917, Emile Bertaux died for
France: Dona ei requiem sempiternam. It
seems best, however, to let the pages stand as
they were once written in the hope of meeting
his eye and enjoying his commentary.
6 The words are: "Le maitre d'oeuvres
. . . de la cathedral de Tolede etait Frangais,
s'appellait Petrus Petri, Pierre fils de Pierre,
et mourut en 1290." In the plan of the
cathedral "cette alternance ne se voit que la
et dans tin dessin de 1'album de Villard
d'Honnecourt, donne" comme le fruit de sa
collaboration avec Pierre de Corbie. Le
maitre d'oeuvres Petrus Petri serait-il Pierre
de Corbie, mort en ce cas tres ag, ou son
fils. " C. Enlart, in Michel, II, ii, 1 1 1.
i He wrote Les Architects des Cathedrals
Gothiques.
8 The Commendatore Rivoira is not exempt
from this charge in his latest book on L'Archi-
tettura Musulmana.
Out of a clear sky comes an American
instance to hand. "If the unmistakable
evidence of northern imitation did not exist
in the literature itself, the strong current of
influence in the arts would justify us in
searching for it or even, examples failing, in
assuming that its traces were lost. The arts
spring in their entirety from across the Pyre-
nees, and are a voucher for the French domi-
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
443
nation which we have already discovered
[read, asserted] in much of the epic, popular
and cultured, in religious, lyric, and drama-
tic verse, in encyclopedic, sententious, and
narrative prose." The false process of the
first sentence being assisted by the false
statement of the second (italicized here for
convenience) the great gulf between influence
and origin is safely passed. V, Post, Mediae-
val Spanish Allegory, pp. 278-280.
10 Kleinclauz, Claus Sluter, p. 42.
11 Album de Villard de Honnecourt, pub-
lished by the Bibliotheque Nationale and
printed by Berthaud Freres, Paris.
CHAPTER II
Gaston Paris, Histoire Poetique de Charle-
magne Dozy, Recherches, II, Le Faux Turpin,
pp. 372 seqq. Bdier, Les Legendes Epiques,
III Fita and Guerra, Recuerdos de un viaje
Baring Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle
Ages.
1 Bdier, Les Legendes Epiques, III, 98-9.
1 Thomas, L'Entree d'Espagne, Societ6 des
Anciens Textes Francais, Paris, 1913.
1 Cf. Roger of Hovenden Rfrum Brit. Script.
II, 147: "Port of Cise was called Port of
Spain."
This identification is probably wrong.
The Sant Mart of hearsay was more likely S.
Marta de Tera in the diocese of Palencia, a
pilgrimage place with a Romanesque church
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
444
WAY OF S . JAMES
and sculpture of the decadent school of Tou-
louse.
* Mussafia, La Prise de Pampeluna, Vienna,
1864.
6 So substantially, says M. Bedier, op. cit.,
HI, 134-
^ La Prise de Pampelune, 1. 5686.
" Id., 1. 5836.
9 Id., 1. 6025.
10 Alton, Anseis von Karthago, in Biblio-
thek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart.
Vol. 194, Tubingen, 1892.
"/<*., 1.3538.
1 * In this matter of S. Charlemagne cf. Gas-
ton Paris, Histoire Poetique de Charlemagne,
pp. 58-66.
1 J Bouillet, Liber de Miraculis S. Fidis, 1897.
CHAPTER III
Pita et Vinson, Le Codex de S. Jacques
Fita y Guerra, Recuerdos de un viaje Acta
Sanctorum Dozy, Recherches.
1 Delisle, Notes sur le Recueil: Passim.
2 Analecta Hymnica, XVII, 218.
Murgufa, Galicia, p. 419.
* For the dates and incidents of the Miracles
v. Appendix.
5 Fita, Recuerdos de un viaje, p. 43.
6 1 should not have analysed the Codex
so fully in this and the following chapter, if
I had known sooner that it figures in Ward's
Catalogue of Romances! It is also discussed
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
445
by Friedel under the title Etudes Compostel-
lanes in Otia Merseiana, but to little purpose,
for lack of comprehension how things stood
in Spain.
7 G. Paris, Histoire Poetique de Charlemagne,
p. 58.
*Caxton, Golden Legend, "The Life of
S. James the More."
' Fita, Recuerdos, p. 69.
10 For the Apparition at Simancas consult
Gonzalo de Berceo in the Life of S. Milldn:
. . . Vieron dues personas fermosas y
lucientes,
mucho eran mas blancas que las nevies
recientes;
vinien en dos caballos plus blancos que
cristal,
arrnas quales non vio nunqua omne mortal:
el un tenia croza, mitra pontifical,
el otro una cruz, omne non vio tal. . . .
Et que tenia la mitra e la croza en mano,
essi fue el apostol de Sant Juan hermano,
el que la cruz nia e el capiello piano,
esse fue Sant Millan el varon cogellano.
Vida de S. Milldn, stanzas 437, 438, 447.
"P. Claudel, Corona Benignitatis: Anni
Dei, p. 83.
12 Fita, Recuerdos, p. 63.
'* Congres Scientifique, Bruxelles, 1894: L.
Duchesne, Les A nciens Recueils des Legendes
Apocryphes.
1 < Gomez Carrillo, Flores de penitencia,
pp. 11-14.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
446
WAY OF S. JAMES
1 s Duchesne, . Jacques en Galice, in A nna-
les du Midi, 1900, pp. 145 seqq.
16 Cf. Espana sagrada, XX, 473.
CHAPTER IV
Fita et Vinson, Le Codex de S. Jacques
Daux, Les Chansons des Pelerins de S. Jacques
Baron Bonnot d'Houet, Pelerinage d'un
Paysan Picard Fita y Guerra, Recuerdos de
un viaje- Bdier, Les Legendes Epiques
Friedel, Etudes Compostellanes.
1 Published, the former in Fita, Recuerdos de
un viaje, p. 45, the latter in Leclerc, Histoire
Litteraire de la France, XXI, 276. Also in
Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, XVII, 210, 213.
* Fita y Guerra, Recuerdos de un viaje, p.
45-
a Murguia, Galicia, p. 45.
L6pez Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A. M.
Iglesia, VI, 51, 84.
s Pierce Butler, Legenda Aurea, p. 12, citing
Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Prasdicatorum, I,
514. This quotation , which I am compelled to
take at second hand, was certainly not under-
stood by Dr. Butler. Considering the life
and acts of Fray D. Berenguel and his devo-
tion to S. James for protection during the
stormy months that followed his election, it is
likely that what he projected was a much
fuller collection of miracles brought up to
date. Indeed, in Caxton's Golden Legend
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
the story of Hermogenes and that of the
Translation are given "as Master John Be-
leth saith," and the miracles thereafter "as
Calixtus the pope saith," and "Hugo of
S. Victor rehearseth," and "Hugh the abbot
of Cluny witnesseth." In short, they corres-
pond fairly well with the Book of S. James.
How much of this was in the original text of
the Genoese, I am not in a position to say;
only I know that the loss of Archbishop Beren-
guel's intended compilation, can never be
enough deplored.
6 De P seudo-Turpino (1865) and Romania
XI (1882).
7 Fita y Guerra, op. cit., p. 44.
8 In Otia Merseiana.
9 M. Adrien Lavergne says (Revue de Gas-
c<ttgrte,XXVII,XXVIII,p. 76; 1887) that this
is the Hospice of Montjoy at Compostella.
The Mount I know, and thereon a church de-
dicated to S. Mark, but no hospice. There
was a Mount of Joy where first the Roman
pilgrims came in view of the Eternal City: if
there stood a hospice it would satisfy the
rhetoric, that is rehearsing the old triad of
Rome, Jerusalem and Compostella. ' ' Whoso-
ever wishes to go to the holy city Jerusalem,
let him always direct his courses toward the
sun's rising, and so, God being his guide, shall
he come to this holy Jerusalem. From the
western side the Mount of Joy was a con-
spicuous object; and from this mountain it is
one mile to the city." From How the City of
Jerusalem is Situated, c. logo, published by
Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society.
447
AND MONOGRAPHS
448
WAY OF S.JAMES
10 This has been said to us in another form:
Quien lengua lleva, a Roma llega.
"Reprinted, the Spanish part, in Appen-
dix.
13 Villa-amil y Castro, Pobladores, ciudades,
monumentos y caminos antiguos, p. 109.
'3 Dozy, Recherches, II, 87.
'* Lopez Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A. M.
Iglesia, V, 91. Cf. also Murguia, Galicia, p.
417.
's Quadrado, Asturias y Leon, p. 623.
I6 G. Parthey and M. Finder, Itinararium
Antonini Augusti, p. 204.
J ? Boletin de la Real Academia de Historia,
XXI (1892).
CHAPTER V
The substance of this chapter is drawn
chiefly from Pardiac, .S. Jacques le Majeur
et le Pelerinage de Compostelle Lavergne,
Les Chemins de S. Jacques en Gascoigne
Villa-amil y Castro, La peregrinacion a San-
tiago de Galicia Murguia, Galicia L6pez
Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A. M. Iglesia
Victor Le Clerc, in Histoire Litteraire de la
France, XXI A eta Sanctorum.
1 It should be noted for later comparison
that in England the Milky Way was called the
Walsingham Way, and that Glastonoury was
identified with the Isle of Avalon, whence the
three Queens came and fetched Arthur of Brit-
ain when he was dead. V. Gaston Paris,
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
Conte dela Charette, in Romania, XII, pp. 459-
534-
* Fita y Guerra, Recuerdos de un viaje, p. 54.
J Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards,
III, xxxii.
Recherches, II, 277. In view of the date
c. 830 often given for the Invention, the
importance of this incident is apparent.
Dozy seems not to have questioned it. His
MS. dated 649 of the Hegeira, *'. e., A.D. 1251,
by Ibn-Dihya (died A.D. 1235) draws from
Tammam-ibn-'Alcama, died A.D. 896, who
had known personally Al-Ghazal and his
companions. Op. cit., 267, 268.
5 Cited by Sr. D. Francisco Fernandez
y Gonzalez in Boletin de la Real Academia
de Historia, 1877, I, 461.
6 Cahier and Martin, Nouveaux Melanges,
IV, 320.
7 Morales, Cronica general, Bk. IX, chap. vi.
8 Cf. La Fuente, Historia eclesidstica de
Espana, III, 537.
Quoted by Govantes in his Diccionario
geogrdfico-historico, Secci6n II, p. 176.
10 Okey, The Story of Avignon, pp. 21-26.
11 Lopez Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A. M.
Iglesia, V, 82.
12 L6pez Ferreiro, op. cit., IV, 75-76.
1J Fita and Vinson, Le Codex.
'< Espana sagrada, XXXV, p. 246.
*sld. ibid., XXXV, 108.
16 Id. ibid., 137.
17 Galicia, 419, note.
18 Roger of Hovenden, in Chronicle: Rerum
Britannicum Scriptores, II, 117.
449
AND MONOGRAPHS
450
WAY OF S. JAMES
' Murguia, Galicia, 426. Reprinted here
in Appendix.
Cf. Colas, La Voie Romaine de Bordeaux a
Astorga dans sa Tr aver see des Pyrenees, in
Revue des Atudes Anciennes, 1912.
19 Luke of Tuy in Hispaniae Illustratae,
IV, 104-5.
11 G. Paris, Legendes du Moyen-Age.
" Villani, Chroniche Florentine, Bk. VI, 90.
3 * Murguia, Galicia, p. 425.
a Froissart, Chronicles of France, England.
and Spain, Bk. I, chap. ex.
as Michel, Le Pays Vasque, p. 337.
Histoire Litter air e de la France, XXI, 290.
17 The Stations of Rome and The Pilgrms' Sea
Voyage, E. E. T. S., 1877, vols. 25-26, p. 37.
'* Arber, English Garner.
J. R. Mene"ndez Pidal, Poesia popular,
xlvi, p. 273.
* J. R. Mene"ndez Pidal, op. cit., Ixiv, Ixv.
J* Bonilla y San Martfn, Flores y Blancaflor,
1916.
a* Acta SS., May, vol. vii, 144.
JJ This, at any rate, is how Enrique Cock
the guardsman understood it, and he brought
away a white chicken feather in evidence.
Jornada de Tarazona, p. 52.
Dante, Vita Nuova, xli.
NOTES: BOOK TWO
CHAPTER I
'La Fuente, Historia eclesidtica, III, 299.
a Fita and Vinson.Le Codexde S. Jacques, p. 7.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
45i
*A. Lavergne, Les Chemins de S. Jacques en
Gascoigne, p. 15.
* Quadrado, Aragon, p. 314.
s Fita, Elogio de la Reina de Castilla Dona
Leonor, pp. 9-10.
CHAPTER II
Briz Martinez, Historia de la fundacion y
antiguedades de S. Juan de la Pena Cronica
de S. Juan de la Pena Sandoval, Historia de
los reyes de Castilla y Aragon Pedro Abarca,
Los reyes de Aragon La Fuente, Historia ecle-
sidstica Yepes, Coronica general de la Orden
de S. Benito Rodrigo Xime"nez, Cronica de
Espana Quadrado, Aragon Victor Bala-
guer, Instituciones y reyes de Aragon Lam-
pe'rez, Historia de la arquitectura, and Notas
de una excursion.
1 We who are worth as much as you and can
do more than you, we choose you king that you
may guard our rights and liberties; and
between you and us one who has more author-
ity than you. If not, then, not!
2 Cronica de Aragon, Edition de 1499, fol.
3 and fol. 17, quoted by Quadrado, p. lix.,
note.
J Briz Martinez, Historia de S. Juan de la
Pena, lib. I, cap. xxix.
La Fuente, Historia eclesidstica, III, 534.
Jaca: the Cathedral:
1 Lampe'rez, Notas de una excursion a S.
Juan de Bonos . . . S. Juan de la Pena in
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
452
WAY OF S. JAMES
Boletin de la Sociedad Espanola de Excursions,
(1899), VII, 177-
1 Lampe'rez, Historia de la arquitectura, I,
375. 381, 674. For a general discussion of
developed Romanesque, cf. Robert de Las-
teyrie, L' Architecture Religieuse en France.
3 Quadrado, Aragon, p. 295.
Sandoval, Historia de los reyes in Cronica
general, XII, 208.
s La Fuente, Historia eclesidstica, III,
354-
6 Charles de Lasteyrie, L'abbaye de S.
Martial de Limoges.
S. Juan de la Pefia:
1 Briz Martinez, op. cit., p. 77.
* Lamperez, Espana moderna, October,
1899; also LampeYez in Boletin de la Sociedad
Espanola de Excursiones, 1899, VII, 177.
J Op. cit., p. 324.
i Op. cit., II, xiv.
s Briz Martinez, op. cit., I, xxix.
6 La Fuente, op. cit., Ill, 303.
J The suggestion of this I owe to Professor
Kingsley Porter, who after studying photo-
graphs of these capitals and the portal at
Estella, proposes the converse of it.
8 In Cronica general de Espana, XII, 208.
Alfonso el Batallador:
1 Briz Martinez, op. cit., i, xxii, and xii,
ix.
1 Dozy, Recherches, I, 348.
i Op. cit., p. 792.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
453
CHAPTER III
Govantes, Diccionario geogrdfico-historico
Section II Llaguno, Noticias de arquitectos
y arquitectura Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono,
and Museo espanol de antiguedades Lam-
perez, Historia de la arquitectura Iturralde y
Suit, Las grandes ruinas mondslicas de Na-
varra Enlart, in Michel, Histoire de I' Art, I,
, 558 seqq. Bertaux, in the same, II, i,
214 seqq.
Leyre:
1 Diccionario geogrdfico-historico, I, i, 438-
446.
1 LampeYez, Historia de la arquitectura,
I, 593-
> Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono, I, 545.
4 Lemons professes a I'ecole du Louvre, I,
577-579-
s Lefevre-Pontalis, Congres archeologique
de France, 1913, p. 302: an article also in
1903.
6 Iturralde y Suit quotes Historia del
monasterio de Leyre, in Las grandes ruinas
mondsticas de Navarra, pp. 307, sqq.
1 0p. cit., I, 560.
8 Museo espanol de antiguedades, V, 209;
also in Diccionario geogrdfico-historico, I, i,
441.
S. Luke, i, 41.
10 To confirm or connect this consult, in
addition, Lasteyrie, L 'Architecture religieuse
en France, Baum, Romanesque Architecture
in France, and the fine series of plates in the
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
454
WAY OF S . JAMES
series called Archives du Commission des
Monuments Historiques.
Sanguesa:
1 Diccionario geogrdfico-historico I, 297.
2 Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono. II, 488.
J Michel, Histoire de I'Art, II, 258, 261.
Historic, de la arquitectura, I, 602.
5 Pons occurs in the second Chanson des
Pelerins:
"A Lusignan avons passe",
a Saintes, a Pont, puis a Blaye."
Quoted by Lavergne, Revue de Gascoigne,
1887, p. 175.
6 Genesis, iii, 15-16.
i Minns, Scythians and Greeks, passim;
M. Anatole de Roumejoux, L'Ornementation
Merovingien et Carolingien, in Congre s A rchio-
logiquede France, 1894, PP- 3 X 7> S P.P.'
8 Madrazo, op. cit., p. 495.
' Id. ibid., p. 493.
10 Noticias de los arquitectos y la arqui-
tectura, I, 87.
1 ' Op. et loc. cit.
11 Op. cit., pp. 27, 92, 95.
1 J Pelayo Quintero, Sillas de coro, p. 112.
CHAPTER IV
Diccionario geogrdfico-historico, (s. v. Pam-
plona) Iturralde y Suit, Misceldnea Ma-
drazo, Navarra y Logrono, II Alvarado, Guia
del viajero en Pamplona LampeYez, Historia
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
455
de la arquitectura Bertaux, in Michel, His-
toire de 1' Art, II, ii Street, Gothic Architecture
in Spain.
1 Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono, II, 212-
216; Moret, Annales, xvii, c. vi, i.
2 Historia de la arquitectura, I, 348.
J Quoted by Madrazo, op. cit., II, 341.
Michel, Historia de PArt, II, ii.
i Id. id.
6 Cf. Cursor Mundi, 11, 16859-16868 (E. E.
T. S.).
? Madrazo, op. cit., II, p. 290, note.
8 Madrazo, op. cit., II, pp. 317-318, 521-
Madrazo, op. cit., II, pp. xlix, 1, Ii, and
351-353. A digest of this in French was pub-
lished by Bertaux in the Gazette de Beaux
Arts.
1 Exposicion retrospectivo de Zaragoza, p. 41 .
1 * Madrazo, op. cit. , 1 1, pp. 337-8. I oweafinal
chance to examine this treasure, more jealously
locked up every year, to the landlord of the
Grand Hotel. After examining the houses of
La Francesa and 5. Julian, 1 were ungrateful
not to pause and praise this one, where were
found European ways and cooks, quiet and
space that seemed luxurious, rest, and, from
the landlord, untiring kindness and interest.
CHAPTER V
Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono, II and III
La Fuente, Historia eclesidstica. III, IV, and
Espafta sagrada, L Llaguno, Noticias de los
AND MONOGRAPHS
t
456
WAY OF S . JAMES
arquitectos y arquitectura, I Diccionario geo-
grdfico-historico de Espana, I Yanguas, Dic-
cionario de antiguedades de Navarra Altamira,
Historic, de Espana y de la civilizacion espanola
Lamperez, Historia de la arquitectura Itu-
rralde y Suit, Misceldnea and Las grandes
ruinas mondsticas.
1 Cultura Espanola, VII, November, 1907.
2 It would seem, however, that the open
arcading stuck in the mind of thirteenth-
century pilgrims, for it figures in Thurkill's
Vision. V. Appendix.
Puente la Reyna:
1 Jaufre Rudel.
1 Cf. Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono, II, p.
200, note; and Iturralde y Suit, Misceldnea,
73-77-
3 Cf. Lamprez, Historia de la arquitectura,
I. 309-339, and Altamira, Historia de Espana,
vols. I and II, 216-555, passim.
4 Traggia, in Diccionario geogrdfico-his-
torico, I, i, 263, s. v. Puente la Reyna; Ma-
drazo, op. cit., II, 538-540; Iturralde y Suit,
Las grandes ruinas, 242.
s Op. cit., I, 617.
6 Op. cit., II, 540-547.
7 Llaguno, Noticias de los arquitectos y ar-
quitectura, i, 87.
8 Madrazo, op. cit., II, 547-548.
1 Sepulcro:
1 Traggia, in Diccionario geogrdfico-historico
I> i. 387, s. v. Torres.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
457
1 Briz Martinez, Historia de 5. Juan de la
Pena, p. 806.
J Cf. Street, Gothic Architecture in Spain, I,
130, 260.
La Fuente, Espana sagrada, L, 139.
* Id. id., 143.
4 Cf. La Fuente, op. cit., 133-138.
7 The cross of the Order is the double cross
fleurie, a cross of Lorraine, with two bars end-
ing in fleur-de-lys. Torres wears that with
a difference. At the present moment it is
familiar enough as the badge of the 79th
Division, U. S. A.
8 La Fuente, op. cit., 1, 141.
Cf. A. Kingsley Porter, The Development
of Lombard Sculpture in the Twelfth Century,
in American Journal of Archaeology, 1915, vol.
XIX, p. 148, note.
10 Iturralde y Suit, Las cruzadas de Navarra
en tierra santa in Misceldnea, pp. 24-30.
CHAPTER VI
Yepes, Coronica general de la Orden de
S. Benito Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono, III
Govantes, Diccionario geogrdfico-historico
de Espana, I Iturralde y Suit, Las grandes
ruinas mondsticas, and Misceldnea Lam-
pe"rez, Historia de la arquitectura Llaguno,
Noticias de los arquitectos y arquitectura
Serrano- Fatigati,Pcrtadasartisticas Venturi,
Historia delVArte, III A. Kingsley Porter,
Lombard Architecture.
1 Iturralde y Suit, Portada de la iglesia de
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
458
WAY OF S . JAMES
5. Romdn en Cirauqui, in Las grandes ruinas
mondsticas, pp. 246-249. Cf. the church
door of Montmoreau in France and, in gen-
eral, Lasteyrie, L 1 Architecture Religieuse en
France, figs. 235, 378, 581, 582; likewise S.
Michel de 1' Aiguille in Le Puy, where the
Estella road was well known.
I Traggia, in Diccionario geogrdfico-historico,
I, i, p. 264, s. v. Estella.
J Yanguas, Diccionario de las antigiiedades
de Navarra, s. v. Estella.
* Traggia, op. et loc. cit.
5 Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono, III, 49,
125-
6 Caxton, Golden Legend, The Life of S.
Andrew the Apostle.
' Fine plates of this portal, among others,
may be consulted in Serrano-Fatigati, Por-
tadas artisticas.
8 Madrazo, op. cit., 53-56.
Id. ib., p. 98.
10 Traggia, op. cit., 268.
II Quoted by Madrazo, op. cit., p. 94, from
an unpublished MS. entitled, Memorias his-
toricas de Estella, compuestas y dedicadas d la
ciudad por el licenciado D. Baltasar de Le-
zaun y Andia, abogado de los Reales Concejos y
vecino de ella. Ano de 1710. Anadidas con
algunas noticias que no tuvo presentes el his-
toriador, por otro hijo de la misma ciudad, en
el ano 1792.
13 Cf. Venturi, Historia dell'Arte, III, pp.
64, 296, 937.
'* Op. cit., p. 297.
'< Viaje de Espana, XII, 309.
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
459
'sLlaguno, Noticias de los arquitectos y la
arquilectura, I, 71, 105.
Irache:
1 Yepes, Coronica general de la Orden de S.
Benito, III, 165.
Madrazo, op. a/., 127.
* " Thou shalt get kings, though thou be
none": Macbeth, I, iii.
* Garran, 5. Maria la Real de Ndjera, p. 23.
s Op. cit., iii., 365.
6 Historia de la arquitectura, I, 599; v. also
447. 595 sqq.
Madrazo says, op. cit., 136, that there were
once tribunes above the aisles, now blocked;
Sr. LampeYez, however, testifies, p. 596, that
there was no more than a beginning. Ma-
drazo 's whole discussion of the abbey, pp. 128-
155. is admirable, drawing from Yepes and
other sources both rare and unprinted, and
likewise from the data of D. R. Velazquez
Bosco's expedition in 1883, with his students,
among whom was Sr. Lampe'rez.
7 Yepes, op. cit., i., 240.
CHAPTER VII
Thomas, L' Entree d'Espagne Madrazo, Na-
varra y Logrono, III Diccionario geogrdfico-
historico Froissart, Chronicles of France,
England, and Spain Lampeiez, Historia de la
arquitectura Garran, S. Maria la Real Pere
L6pez de Ayala, Cronica del Rey Pedro.
1 V. Appendix.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
460
WAY OF S. JAMES
1 Traggia, Diccionario geogrdfico-historico
s. v. Los Areas I, i, p. 456.
Madrazo, Navarra y Logrono, III, 158-9,
1 68.
Established by Charles the Noble in 1423,
extinct under John II, in 1461. V. Diccion-
ario geogrdfico-historico de Espafia, I, it, 44.
s Govantes, Diccionario geogrdfico-historico,
Secci6n II, p. 107.
The Spires of Logrono:
1 Purchas his Pilgrims, VII.
J Riano, Viajes de extranjeros, p. 241.
* Jornada de Tarazona, p. 57.
* Govantes, Diccionario geogrdfico-historico,
Secci6n II, Logrono, 106.
s Navarra y Logrono, III, 560.
6 LaFuente, Espana sagrada, L, p. 140.
7 Lampe"rez, Historia de la arquitectura, II,
289.
'Caxton, Golden Legend, The Life of S.
Bartholomew.
Madrazo, op. cit., Ill, 202.
Along the Battlefield:
1 Pere Lopez de Ayala, Cronica de los reyes
de Castilla, vol. I, pp. 557, 559.
1 Froissart, Chronicles of France, England,
and Spain, Bk. I., chap, ccxli.
3 Caxton's Lyf of the most Noble and Crys-
ten Prince, Charles the Great, Early English
Text Society, extra series, XXXV, ii, 221.
< The English romances are too farcical
to supply happy quotations, nor is the measure
other than the butter- woman 's rank to market :
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
461
"Charles com to Nasers with his doussy
peers to see that Paynim.
He asked withouten fail of King Charles
battayl to fight against him:
Charles wondered tho when he saw him go
he beheld him each-a limb,
For sithen he was y-bore he no had y-seen
before none that was so grim."
Rouland and Vernagu.
E. E.T.S., vol. XXXIX, ii.
S. Mary the Royal:
1 The Chronology of the Kings of Ndjera,
as given by Fr. Moret, was published by
Govantes in his Diccionario Geogrdfico-His-
torico de Espana, Secci6n II, where I found it,
pp. 131-133, and supported by documenta-
tion in Appendix 3, pp. 245-248.
a Dozy, Keener ches I, xiv.
J J. R. Mene'ndez Pidal, Primer a cronica
general, cap. 791 ; pp. 474~475-
4 Cahier et Martin. Nouveaux Melanges,
IV, 39-
.* Op. cit., II., 502. This architect's analysis
and judgement of the building, though just, is
severe, and allows little for the splendour of
magnitude.
' Garran, op. cit., pp. 72-3.
CHAPTER VIII
Lampe'rez, Historia de la arquitectura
Madrazo, Navarra y LogroHo, III Govantes,
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
462
WAY OF S. JAMES
Diccionario historico-geogrdfico, Seccion II
Marti y Mons6, Estudios historico-artisticos.
1 Diccionario geogrdfico-historico, Secci6n II,
pp. 176-180.
1 Navarra y Logrono, III, 695-6.
3 Ribadeneyra, Flos sanctorum, II, 68.
<So Sr. Lamperez, op. cit., II, 210. D.
Ignacio Alonso Martinez, S. Domingo de la
Calzada, p. 80, says 1158. The later date is
the likelier.
s Llaguno, Noticias delos arquitectos, I, p. 30.
6 Madrazo, op. cit., 698, 701.
?Cean Bermudez, Diccionario historico de
los mas ilustres profesores, I, 30.
8 Madoz, Diccionario geogrdfico s. v. Najera,
30.
Garran, S. Maria la real de Najera, p. 54.
10 Published by Marti y Mons6 in Estudios
historico-artisticos, p. 83.
1 * In 
