HISPANIC NOTES
& MONOGRAPHS
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
SAIN'
SAINT JAMES
(From the Painting by El Greco in the
Hispanic Society of America)
K 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 If
Illustrated
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Ubc Itnicberbocfecr prcee, flew #orh
CONTENTS
iii
BOOK TWO: THE WAY
(Continued)
CHAPTbR
PAGE
IX
. CAPUT CASTELLAE
3
Las Huelgas
IO
The Cathedral
29
Strangers and Pilgrims .
60
X
. THE FORDS OF CARRION .
7i
Villalcazar de Sirga
. 84
'
Carrion de los Condes .
. 96
Benevivere .
112
XI
. SAHAGtiN . . .
. 118
Sepultados .
• I5i
S. Pedro de las Duenas .
. 160
The Pilgrim Turns Aside
to
S. Miguel de Escalada
• 165
XII
. PULCHRA LEONINA
• 175
S. Isidore
. 186
HISPANIC NOT
ES
I
iv
WAY OF S. J AM
ES
CHAPTER
PAGE
Doctor Egregius .
. 2I4
Leon the Fair
• 238
XIII. THE HEATH AND THE PASS
. 278
Astorga
• 293
The Port of Rabanal .
• 304
XIV. THE PASSAGE HONOURABLE
• 317
XV. IN THE VIERZO
• 349
Cacabelos
. 361
Villafranca .
• 367
XVI. BY SIL AND MINO
• 381
The River Road .
. 382
In Galicia
. 410
The Unknown Church .
• 425
Whinny Moor
. 461
Mountjoy
. 480
NOTES ....
• 493
I
HISPANIC NOT
ES
ILLUSTRATIONS
v
ILLUSTRATIONS
s. JAMES, Frontispiece
(From the painting by El Greco)
PAGE
BRIDGE OVER THE PORMA ... 45
BENEVIVERE . . . . .114
Photogravure
A PILGRIM IN BLACK-LETTER . -157
THE CHURCH AT ORBIGO . . . 204
Photogravure
A LITTLE TOWN IN LEON . . . 235
THE PASS OF RABANAL . . . 285
THE BRIDGE OF ORBIGO . . . 327
THE MOUNTAINS OF THE VIERZO . . 354
Photogravure
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
vi
WAY OF S. JAMES
PAGE
VEGA DE VALCARCEL .... 399
A PILGRIM IN JET . . . . 445
A PILGRIM IN SANTIAGO . . . 483
I
HISPANIC NOTES
BOOK TWO
i
BOOK TWO
THE WAY (Concluded)
!*
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
2
WAY OF S. JAMES
-
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
3
IX
CAPUT CASTELLAE
Entonges era Castylla un
peguennj. rryncon:
Amaya era Cabega y Fy-
terofondon,
Era Monies d'Oca de
Castylla moion,
Moros tenien Car ago en
aquesta saQon.
— Poema de Fernan Gongales.
WITH all the coming and going by dili-
gence and mule, Burgos had ceased to be
merely a cathedral site, graced by a few
famous churches, where one stopped over,
twenty-four hours at the most, arriving at
unsuitable hours, whithersoever bound, and
departing in the middle of the night. Jehane,
who had descended once in a snow-storm
on the fifth of June, quoted the proverbial
preference of Ferdinand the Catholic,
AND MON OGRA PHS
I
WAY OF S. JAMES
The prob-
lem of
personality
"Seville for summer, Burgos for win-
ter." It had become to the imagination a
centre; if not a metropolitan, yet a capital
city, a place of bath-rooms and quick
laundresses, where one could buy gloves,
notepaper, eau-de-cologne, neckties; of
one hotel, at least, European in its stand-
ards. There the traveller foredone may
subside upon the conventions of the trained
servant, a mechanism more perfect than
any lifeless, and more impersonal. Only
when one has sustained relations acutely
personal, albeit friendly, precisely because
so friendly, with everyone who fetches
water, at request, or food, or candle, with
the very mule, clever and whimsical, that
one rides, — it is only then that one under-
stands why civilization was driven into
the ignominious and unhuman conventions
of domestic service. As on a featherbed,
the exhausted personality declines and
sinks.
So doubtless felt earlier pilgrims, par-
ticularly such as made the stretch from
Najera to Burgos in a single stage, on
horseback. Those who walked, took the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
road more easily, but all, even those in
the eighteenth century who came in by
the coast-line, passed through S. Domingo
de la Calzada, and after losing their way,
or risking it, in the magnificent defile of
Pancorbo, had still to cross the mountains
of Oca by Villafranca and the hermitage
of S. Juan de Ortega. The roads may still
be found marked on the quaint map that
Murray offers to travellers.
S. Lesmes, not he invoked in the cathe-
dral for backache, "hijo de Burgos, abo-
gado del dolor de rinones, " but his sponsor
who was a French monk, from Chaisc-
Dieu, had built a little hut outside the
walls, and there watched for pilgrims and
waited on them. As soon as he was
settled in the cell that Alfonso VI gave him
in 1 09 1, near the chapel of S. John the Evan-
gelist, under the walls of Burgos, he devoted
himself "peregrinis sedulo ministrare, tecto
recipere, cibo recreare, morbis liberare."
The guardsman, Enrique Cock, who was
on duty in Burgos in the sixteenth century,
says that his body was in a church of his
name outside the eastern gate of the city. *
Pancorbo
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S. JAMES
Helpers
and
Harbour-
ers
The church is there still, but the city has
flowed out and flowed around it. The
little stream that you cross before reaching
it, represents I suppose the old moat. It
is still lonely.
A very late Gothic retable, now in the
apse of the south aisle of S. Lesmes, was
probably in the Capilla Mayor. It is
dedicated to the Helpers and Harbourers,
and to the pilgrim saints who can be
counted on to assist a pilgrim. The
central scene shows the Via Dolorosa,
Christ bearing the cross aided by Simon the
Cyrenian and Veronica. On either side
are S. John who took Jesus' Mother into
his own house, and S. Mary who washed
Jesus' feet and anointed them; above these
S. James as pilgrim, and S. Jude, with
halbert and book, who went all the way to
Persia. In the upper part of the centre
are S. Michael, who haunts the high moun-
tain and is invoked by those in peril of the
sea, S. Catherine who was carried by the
angels to the sanctuary on Mount Sinai,
far-sought place of pilgrimage, and S.
Julian the Harbourer in wayfarer's dress
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
7
ferrying over the poor leper in the freezing
midnight, while his wife stands under a
shelter on the shore holding the lamp,
alight. In the predella, between the donor
and his wife, is represented the Pietd, the
last office of all. The carving, which is
Gothic only in the same sense as Damian
Forment's little retable from Monte-Ar-
agon, breathes the same delicate charm
as the fragrant piety of the themes.
The Hospital del Rey lies a couple of
miles out of the modern town, beyond the
The
Puente de los Malatos (the Lepers' Bridge).
Leper's
The Chronicle of the Archbishop D. Roder-
Bridge
ick says:2
The noble king D. Alonso made
moreover a Spital full of houses, and a
church, and all needful, and gave it
much riches. This is the Spital which is
The Spital
near Burgos, that is called the King's
Spital. There he put many women who
served the poor and the pilgrims that
went that way, and gave them good
milk if they stayed the night, and served
the sick until dead or well. And in that
Spital they fulfilled the works of mercy.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
SS. Mi-
chael and
James
WAY OF S.JAMES
Founded and endowed by Alfonso VIII,
the present building is Plateresque and
later, excepting for the early Gothic door-
way. On the doors are carved, at the
right, Eve listening to the serpent, on the
left, Adam working, still in his fig-leaf
apron. The doors themselves are later,
of carved walnut: on the left SS. Michael
and James with a pilgrim, on the right the
whole throng of pilgrims. The inlaid
inscription reads: Beatus qui intelligit
super egenum et pauperem in die mala
liber aUt eum Dns Jacob ee aptle. Inside,
the church has little interest other than
sentimental. The pictures,'- probably vo-
tive, are appropriate: in one the Blessed
Virgin, arriving at Bethlehem very weary
and ill, is turned away from the inn: the
screaming hostlers and the staring boy are
touched in like a line of Chaucer. Into a
dresser are set the Wayfarers' saints,
Raphael, Roque, James and Julian.
The so-called Arcos de la Magdalena
and the ruinous and deserted store rooms
on the right of this, are all that remains
of the church which Alfonso VIII built
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
9
and Ferdinand III restored, with marvel-
lous Mudejar coffering in the ceilings,
friezes of wrought plaster, and capitals of
cut stone still Romanesque in style.
The Abbess of Las Huelgas kept her
rights over this hospital until 1868. It was
ruled under her by a Prior, or Commenda-
dor, called also sometimes Rector, and
assisted by thirteen Brethren, who kept
through various vicissitudes the right
The Cross
to wear the cross of Calatrava, wearing it
of Cala-
however with a difference — vis., a castle or
trava with
a differ-
in field gules, on mantles and tabards.
ence
Enrique Cock3 reports that in 1592 the
Hospital still maintained confessors in all
languages, for those that went to Santiago
de Galicia. The hospital is still in use,
and in good repair: if my concern were
with the Plateresque style and even later,
I should linger in the courts a longer space.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
10
WAY OF S.JAMES
Las Huelgas.
E pois tornous d Castela
de si en Burgos moraba
e un Hospital facia
el, e su moller labraba
o Monasterio das Olgas.
— Cantigas en Loores a Santa Maria.
To the Cardinal Aldobrandini is at-
tributed the famous sentence: "If the
Pope were to take a wife, he could
not find a fitter than the Abbess of
Las Huelgas."
The Knight of Rozmital remarked1
of the convent that the retable of the
high altar is of silver; that the nuns
Great
ladies
are all handsome and are all very great
ladies, commoners not being admitted;
that they receive the King and his
suite with great culture and entertain
them with sports and other diversions
like dances, songs, and the like, and take
them into fair gardens full of trees and
exquisite plants.
Las Huelgas (as who should say Les
-
Loisirs) was a country lodge of Alfonso
VIII, with plenty of wood and water.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
ii
The privilege by which he gave it over for a
convent of Bernardines, is dated June i,
1187; the bull of Clement III was dated
at Pisa January 2, 1187, and confirmed by
him May 22, i 188 : it was of no diocese, but
held obedience directly of him alone. The
nuns were already established in 1187, and
their first abbess, Dona Sol, was designated
as such in the Privilege. She had come mi S°l
from Tulebras, near Tudela, in Navarre.
The Chapter General of France, and
William Abbot of Citeaux, in September
of that same year, gave them the right to
hold an annual Chapter General of Spain,
on S. Martin's Day. It was not easy to
manage. The visiting dignitaries might
come only with five servants of either sex
and six beasts of burden (six persons in all)
and there were houses earlier established
which did not care to come. Guy Abbot
of Citeaux came in person after the synod
of 1 199 to support those claims of authority
for which the royal founders had expressly
stipulated; and in the end the abbey of
Tulebras had to release from the obedience
of the mother house, the abbesses of
AND M ONOGR APH S
12
WAY OF S.JAMES
Daughter-
houses
Abbesses
preached
Gradefes, Canas and Peraltes. Of the
abbeys and priories that obeyed, without
question, not only in Castile and Leon but
even in Navarre, Aragon, and Galicia I
believe, the list is long and not much
disputed. The roll of daughter-houses in-
cluded: Perales, Gradefes, Carrizo, Fuen-
caliente, Torquemada, S. Andres de Arroyo,
Tulebras, Vilefia, Villamayor de los Montes,
Otero, A via, S. Ciprian. The abbess had
power over sixty-four towns: she could
lawfully confer benefices, proceed against
preachers, discipline secular clergy, receive
at first hand instructions of the Pope's
dispositions in both matrimonial and civil
cases, appoint the visitors for pious works,
license preachers, preside at synods. But
the abbesses of Las Huelgas, in generation
after generation, had a man's mind and
will, and a man's ways: they were varonil,
of the same haughty race and temper as
Queen Blanche and Queen Berenguela.
They undertook to give the benediction to
novices, and in explaining the gospel to
preach in public, and hear the confessions
of their nuns and lay sisters. Citeaux
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
protested to the Pope, who wrote in 1210
and charged with the reprimand the Bish-
ops of Palencia and Burgos and the Abbot of
Moreruela, which was the oldest Cistercian
house in Castile or indeed in Spain. But
complaints and admonitions both were
repeated often.
A bull of Gregory IX, dated July 30,
1234, says that the benediction of abbesses
shall take place in their own church and
not in the cathedral, to which came citizens
and villagers: plainly they were strong in
all the people's hearts. For long the
ceremonials of the Kings of Castile took
place in the abbey church: on November
27, 1219, Ferdinand III was knighted at the
altar: he put on the baldric and took the
sword lying on the altar : his mother buckled
his belt after Bishop Maurice had pon-
tificated and blessed the arms. It is said
that the statue of S. James which at such
times was fetched from the Apostle's
chapel and placed on the high altar, was
able to move its arms : it put the crown on
the head and the sceptre in the hand of
Henry I, and gave the accolade of knight-
absolved
and
ordained
Ferdinand
III
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
Alfonso X
hood to Ferdinand. In Villard d'Honne-
court's notebook are designs for similar
devices, to make an angel turn as the sun
travels, and to make the lectern eagle
bow at the words of the Gospel.
In 1254 Alfonso X el Rey Sabio, was
crowned there, and in the course of the
same festivities he knighted Edward I of
England, then Prince of Wales, and married
to him his sister Leonor of Castile. Three
years later, when Elvira Fernandez was
abbess, Berenguela, the daughter of Ferdi-
nand the Saint, arranged certain matters
about the way of life. There should be a
hundred ladies and nuns, all noble, forty
younger girls to fill up gaps as they occur-
red, and forty converses, or lay-sisters, who
wear white veils, for the service of these
ladies. An author writing in Monumentos
arquitectdnicos about the middle of the
nineteenth century, says that the ladies live
in little separate houses, scattered through
the vast walled enclosure. There are not
many now, but they are still ladies, with the
air and the gentleness of the great. When
Alfonso XI was crowned there, in 1331,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
the Chronicle of Juan Nunez de Villaizan2
describes the overpowering splendour and
pomp of the immense assemblage, all the
prelates who came for the ceremonies, and
the lords, the gentlemen and the knights of
the cities and towns, called together by the
king's order; and the king himself vested
in his royal robes "worked in gold and
silver with devices of lions and castles,
with orphreys all of pearl and very thick,
and many precious stones, rubies, sapphires
and emeralds in the orphreys," his mount
a horse "of great price," provided for his
person on that great day, with the saddle-
bows covered with gold and silver, with
many stones, the caparison and cords of
the saddle and the headstall and reins of
the bit of gold and silver thread, worked
so subtilely, that never was made in Castile
so good work or so convenient. The king
had put up a little lodge by the convent
portal, which yet is standing, whence he
issued forth in this guise, and proceeded to
the church with his greatest nobles about
him, who had buckled the spurs upon his
feet, and when he reached the church door
Alfonso XI
AND MONOGRAPHS
16
WAY OF S . JAMES
Henry of
Trasta-
mara
unbuckled them again. Behind the great
secular nobility, vested in robes of great
price and followed by her ladies, came
Mary the queen, escorted by the prelates,
mitred and cross -bear ing: the Archbishop
of Santiago, the Bishops of Burgos, of
Palencia, of Calahorra, of Mondonedo and
of Jaen; an unloved wife, an unprized
queen, the mother of that Peter who was
to be called the Cruel, and to die by a
bastard's hand. Henry of Trastamara
in his turn, was crowned at the same
place with almost equal splendour; John
I, when he was twenty-one, on S. James's
Day, assumed the crown himself, crowned
his wife Leonor of Aragon, and knighted a
hundred knights. Thither too came that
poor young gallant king who had to ride
a-hunting for his dinner, and dared his
epigram of the twenty kings in Castile.
With the monstrous regiment of the
Catholic Kings hard days came on houses
that had been "quasi episcopal" and
'nullius diocesis." In 1490 D.Juan Arias
de Avila, Bishop of Segovia, claimed
apostolic letters to visit, and a right to
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
make the abbess's tenure of three years
only. The nuns appealed to Innocent
VIII, who named three Cistercian abbots
to investigate. They examined, deposed
the Bishop of Segovia's abbess, and re-
stored the rightful and perpetual one, and
the obedience of daughter-houses. The
abbots of Citeaux delegated their powers
to the abbess, and kept solely the right of
visitation. About 1500 they could not
send visitors, on account of war between
France as a whole and Spain as a whole,
a state which had never existed before. Fer-
dinand and Isabella got bulls, and named
secular ecclesiastics as visitors; this was a
grave affront, of course the abbess appealed
to Rome. By a bull of Clement VII, 1 5 26,
such persons must bring as adjoint judge, a
Cistercian abbot, and in 1559 Paul IV de-
clared that the sole right of visitation and
reform in Las Huelgas, the daughter-
houses, and the Hospital del Rey, lay in the
abbots of Citeaux. But the pressure was
too strong. Leo X had already restricted
the number of admissions to daughter-
houses, on the ground of poverty, requiring
The
monstrous
regiment
AND MONOGRAPHS
18
WAY OF S.JAMES
The end of
independ-
ence
merely the permission of the Abbess of Las
Huelgas, which was, in the circumstances,
an empty right of veto. In 1 58 1 the Abbot
of Poblet, as visitor, gave leave for each
lady to have a lay maid -servant , that
meant a sad dwindling of the forty con-
verses. In 1587, under Philip II, Sixtus
V proscribed finally the perpetual tenure
of an abbess and reduced it to three years :
and in 1603 the power of Citeaux was
replaced by the Council of Castile, under
Philip III.3
The entire convent is enclosed by walls
that contain within their circuit, besides
the mass of buildings and others scattered,
three interior cloisters and one down the
flank of the church; the so-called compds,
west of the church, on which the gate tower
of Alfonso XI opens, the compds de afuera,
flanked on the outer side by a little hamlet,
to which the public is admitted and on
which opens the transept porch, the only
exterior door into the church; also a large
meadow, gardens, and vergel.
The transept of five bays and the five
parallel apses are earlier work than the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
rest, and being open to all have been often
studied. The porch lies just north of
transept and apse, like a continuation;
eastward the Clerks' chapel opens, of three
bays and a chevet, and westward a smaller
and lower vestibule to the porch, called
the Knights', perhaps for the sake of
some of the tombs there. The tower
over this belongs to the foundation though
towers were prohibited by the Cistercian
rule.
When Alfonso VIII endowed the church
in 1187 he said that it was then a-building:
Sr. Lamperez points out that none of his
great foundations, so far as known, fall
earlier than the conquest of Cuenca, 1176.
In 1199 he says "we have built," which
proves that the necessary then was finished,
i. e., choir, chapter-house, refectory, and
dorter, with some of the cloister. In 1214,
when he died, the buildings were in a fit
state for the great ceremony of his son's
coronation. Not, however, until 1279
was the nave ready for the translation of
the founder's ashes from the chapel in the
claustrillos to the tomb made ready in the
Early part
H99
AND MONOGRAPHS
20
1180-1215
1215-1230
Saumur
WAY OF S.JAMES
nuns' choir, which is to say the nave of the
church. The final consecration of altars
took place in that year, which appears
therefore to mark a temporary conclusion.
The Clerks' chapel, dedicated to S. John,
was finished 1288.
The transept and chapels and the claus-
trillos are earlier in style than the rest,
were built, say, 1180-1215; and the nave
and great cloister, 1215-1230. The tran-
sept, very high, has sharply pointed arches,
and a French cross-vault, i. e., French of
Paris. The capitals, a crochets, under a
square abacus, are earlier than those of
the nave. The central compartment is
vaulted in a domed sexpartite vault that
seems to have arisen out of the Angevine
system of vaulting. M. Enlart4 would
trace back to Saumur the vaulting of all
the chapels eastward, where the square
plan is brought to an octagon by arches
thrown across the corners, which them-
selves carry lesser triangular vaulting
systems. Now Saumur, which lay in the
land of Queen Leonore, was also a place
where pilgrims halted to revere the relics
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
21
of saints and, besides the vaults it lent to
Castile, the porch near by set a copy along
the road, more than once.
The chapter-room is the largest that I
was ever in, sustained by four polygonal
piers set around with clustered shafts,
almost like English grouping, but also by
vaulting shafts against the walls on three
sides. The capitals of these piers, and of
those between the door and its flanking
windows, were never carved, apparently,
although in France the practice was to
carve all the sculptured parts before setting
them up. The capitals of the wall shafts,
and those on which descend the ribs of
the vault upon the cloister wall, are much
like those of the nave, the abacus being,
as there, octagonal. The zigzag dear to
English builders enframes the three arched
openings, and it also recurs in conjunction
with the English dog-tooth, about the
doorway to the Chapel of the Saviour. The
small cloister looks like work of the twelfth
century, with its continuous arcade of
round arches interrupted once in the centre
of each side by the broad face of a buttress ;
and Candes
Capitals
unwrought
Los Claus-
trillos
AND MONO GRAPHS
22
The Nuns'
Choir
WAY OF S.JAMES
and on this is carved the likeness of a
palace, with doorway curtains looped back
and twisted about the jamb shafts. The
capitals are mostly of long, much veined Ro-
manesque leaves, laid, sometimes straight
sometimes twisted about the tall bell, and
ending in volutes much curled, of strong
projection.
The church consists of nine bays of
quadripartite vault; and the nave serves
as nuns' choir, the southern aisle as a sort
of vestibule ; and the northern, in which are
many royal and princely sarcophagi, is,
like the other, cut off from the nave by
the high backs of the stalls. There is a
long, pointed western window without
tracery and something like a lantern in the
next bay eastward. The sills of the clere-
story are level with the polygonal capitals
of the vaulting shafts. Eastward, a pair
of altars flank the grating that opens on
the transept, and the tomb of the founder
which stands in the centre of the floor
shows him giving the donation to the abbess
and her nuns.
The system of vaulting is not Angevine
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
in the least, but French of the Royal Do-
main. The capitals of the nave arcade
were, when I was there, still embedded in
plaster, but the lower parts of the clerestory
were freed, and the capitals of the vaulting
shafts, under their octagonal abaci, pure
and fair.
The Great Cloister, called of S. Ferdi-
nand, was possibly built in his time but
the doorways were of the fourteenth
century, and the upper gallery and its sub-
structures and the enclosure of the lower
pretty well disguise the original design.
It may be that the three pointed and
moulded arches, between buttress and
buttress, represent the original arcade, and
were grouped under a larger discharging
arch, as at Fontfroide and Poblet. The
cloister is barrel- vaulted upon great arches,
but not so very long ago it had a ribbed
cross-vault; if that was the original ar-
rangement the great arch was necessary,
but if the present barrel-vault replaces a
primitive one, the low pointed arcade
may represent the whole. The corners,
vaulted en rincdn de claustro, are adorned
French
vaulting
Cloister of
S. Ferdi-
nand
AND MONOGRAPHS
24
Leafage
Moulded
plaster
WAY OF S.JAMES
with the loveliest free leafage, and with the
castles of the founder in between the jamb
shafts, that might become the thirteenth
century, though a curious debased form
characterizes the arch of the door head,
which seems, notwithstanding, original and
carries on the intrados the same castles,
always without lions. Two of these have
wooden doors formed of stars and inter-
lacing polygons, that betray the presence
of Mudejar workmen. This leafy work,
though it supplied perhaps a model to Olite
and Leon, is quite different in execution,
larger and looser than that.
Mudejar work in plaster is everywhere:
along the barrel-vaulted ceiling of passages
that run out from the Great Cloister; at
the head of walls below the springing of the
vault; or saved from ruined structures and
built up for its own worth. The stranger,
passing through the labyrinth bewildered,
remembers confusedly a wealth of halls and
rooms adorned with strips ^and bands of
marvellous plaster work, stalactite vault-
ing in the chapel of S. Salvador, and in the
chapel of S. James a ceiling of artesonado.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
The little rectangular chapel of the
Patron of Spain stands off by itself, be-
tween the garden at the foot of the apse,
and the chapels and other buildings clus-
tered around the daustrillos. The entrance
is a simple horse-shoe arch that descends
upon marble shafts that one would think
antique, and the capitals very delicate and
deeply cut, of the SevilHan style, imitated,
says Sr. Lamperez, 5 from the Roman com-
posite, but surely affected by the Byzan-
tine of the sixth and seventh century.
These, he thinks, may be of the twelfth,
though close parallels occur in work at
Seville of the fourteenth. From the
rectangular antechapel with a modern
timber roof, you pass to the square chapel
by a horse-shoe arch bordered on both
faces by abundant plaster ornament
rather tawdry, that includes the shell of
S. James and something much like knots
of ribbon, but the chapel has a deep
frieze of interlacing lines and polygons that
is elder and quite unlike. For the best of
this I cannot undertake to set a date, it
may represent building of the twelfth
Chapel of
Santiago
Marble
capitals
AND MONO GRAPHS
26
Chapel of
the As-
sumption
Crossed
ribs
WAY OF S. JAMES
century; for the worst, I should believe
almost anything, it cannot be earlier than
the fifteenth.
The Chapel of the Assumption, nearer to
the claustrillos, opens from a narrow ante-
chapel vaulted in three tiny domes, ot work
like that mentioned at the Hospital del
Rey. The arch of the entrance is fringed
with heavy dangling stalactites that recall
Saragossa more than Toledo or Granada,
and a rich interlace of cusped arch-forms
filling the ends of this. The chapel proper,
square on the floor plan, is brought to an
octagon by squinches placed very low on
the walls and formed themselves by two
curved triangles that meet in a ridge.
While the structure is different, the effect
is like in a way to the vaulted corners of the
apse-chapels. The three eastern faces of
this octagon are adorned with a cusped
arcade, and the vault is of that Mahomedan
style in which eight ribs cross, without
meeting at the centre, leaving there as in a
chapel at Salamanca a deep star. This
may belong to the time of Alfonso the Wise.
That of the Saviour has no antechapel:
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
it stands in a little court alone, foursquare,
and decorated on the face with weather-
worn fragments of plaster moulding that
must have been fetched from elsewhere,
besides a delicate border on the intrados
of the arch. The fragments built in, repre-
sent the filling of spandrels and jamb-faces.
Of the Cufic inscriptions here, one says:
"The empire is God's" and one, "Thanks
be to God." The dome, within, of superb
stalactite vaulting, once painted, cannot be
earlier than the fifteenth century.
It was the great privilege of the present
writer to visit this convent, by signal
kindness of the Papal Nuncio, and through
the generous assistance of a brilliant young
canon and the amiable indulgence of the
Archbishop ; the gentle ladies, some of them
speaking French, and all the language of
soft tones and benign regard, were hospi-
table, were helpful, and were patient.
When time dragged, they put in some
prayers, but they betrayed neither an
inevitable ennui as they accompanied their
visitor, nor an equally inevitable curiosity;
they never hurried. When the work
Chapel of
S. Saviour
Cufic
AND MONOGRAPHS
28
So, the
Queen's of
Naples
White
prayers
WAY OF S.JAMES
was done and the Abbess's hand was
kissed — "the fingers of the said lady be
right fair and small and of a meetly length
and breadth" — the visitor was guided
back to the Locutorio, where sweet cordials
and delicate cates of convent making were
offered, and, for the first time, some real
conversation, through the double row of
bars. The gentle nuns having enquired
the date of the pilgrim's sailing for home,
which was close at hand, promised their
prayers through all the hours of danger,
from German mine and submarine, begin-
ning Saturday morning and lasting till
Monday. Those white prayers are a debt
never to be discharged. The Abbess was
like the young queen of Naples as Henry
VIFs ambassadors described her, "right
fair handed, and according unto her per-
sonage they be somewhat fully, and soft,
and fair, and clean-skinned. 6 " Las Huelgas
is to-day a convent like another, different
only in unfailing good taste. Taste, while
all things pass, is left. It belongs to the
ambience, to the immortal history of the
place, to the imperishable dead.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
29
The Cathedral.
Andando por su camino
unos con otros hablando
allegados son a Burgos.
— Romance.
Burgos, head of Castile and chamber of
the kings, is Castilian and nothing else,
History
Ponz to the contrary notwithstanding: x the
antedating
visible city, indeed, being younger, in date,
ments
than the great figures which glorify its
name and whose effigies, a little travestied,
adorn the arch it built for Charles V.
Burgos has no Roman or Visigothic re-
mains, for in such times it was not; it has
no Romanesque or Mozarabic; it has
nothing, in fact, before the thirteenth
century, except its legends. The see was
transferred from Oca, destroyed by the
Moors before 1074, to Burgos by 1088,
and in the ruins of the Archbishop's pal-
ace, just now coming down in 1915, a few
delicate capitals may be the remainder
of the palace that Alfonso VI made
over.
As said already, Alfonso the Emperor
founded Las Huelgas, and the small cloister,
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
An
Angevine
queen
(Gothic
Architecture
1,36)
An English
bishop
WAY OF S.JAMES
los claustrillos, belongs to his time. To his
English wife Leonor, the daughter of
Eleanore of Poitou, is credited the Angevine
character of the eastern portion of that
church itself, the apses and transepts, with
its high vaults, its strong and nervous
ribbing; and the pure capitals, of sparse
and delicate leafage, of the nave and aisles,
which fall within the reign of S. Ferdinand,
are very like those of the vaulting ribs in
the cathedral, and almost identical with
the form which Street sketched, I think
from the clerestory. The capitals at Las
Huelgas have in addition the characteristic
of an octagonal abacus, very rare except
in English work.
There is a tradition in Burgos that
Bishop Maurice was an Englishman.
With S. Ferdinand he laid the first stone
of the cathedral on S. Margaret's day,
July twentieth, 1221. Gil Gonzalez Davila2
calls him a Frenchman, but the two tradi-
tions are reconcilable if we assume that
he came from the continental domain of
Henry II, more considerable in every way
than his island kingdom. At any rate, he
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
inew French work and could bring French
workmen, for he had gone across France
and through the Rhineland to Spires in
1219 to fetch a wife for the young king
Ferdinand.
The Queen Berenguela had selected the
princess, Beatrice of Suabia, cousin of the
Emperor D. Fadrique (this will be Frederic
II, Stupor Mundi) daughter of D. Philip
who was elected Emperor of Rome, and of
Dona Maria the daughter of the Emperor
of Constantinople, — her name was really
Irene. The ecclesiastics chosen to make
the arrangement were Bishop Maurice of
Burgos, Abbot Peter of Arlanza, Abbot
Roderick of Rioseco, and Peter Odoario
Prior of the Order of the Hospital, who was
a saint. They waited four months for an
answer, and then returned with the bride,
bringing her home by way of Paris, where
they were detained again to be entertained
by Philip of France. "And the noble
queen Dona Berenguela, " says the Chroni-
cle,3 "when she was assured of the coming
of the damsel Dona Beatrice, went out
much accompanied with noble companions
The Won-
der of the
World
AND MONO GRAPHS
Ricas hem-
bras y
infanzonas
Cathedral
of 1075
WAY OF S.JAMES
and with religious men and masters of the
Orders, and abbesses and ladies conventual,
and other ladies of hers, ricas hembras and
infanzonas, plenty of them and a goodly
company, and went accompanied in this
guise to receive the noble damsel Dona
Beatrice, from Burgos as far as the city of
Vitoria." And as they returned, came Don
Ferdinand with an escort of knights every
whit as fine. The third day before the
Feast of S. Andrew, the king was knighted
at Las Huelgas, and in the same week was
married in the Cathedral.
That was the old cathedral, that Alfonso
VI began in 1075. Dr. Martinez y Sans4
says that the Chapel of the Crucifix, its
sacristy, and the passage to the Arch-
bishop's palace, now called, without any
reason, el claustro viejo, being all visibly
older than the rest, belong to this church.
Bishop Maurice had, the musical may care
to know, an organ. In 1223 the organist,
"Magister in organo" signed a document,
and in 1 2 53 the Apostolic visitor gave orders
to pay forty maravedis for a "doctor en
organo " to play at the accustomed solemni-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
33
Organist
Choir of
ties, and half as much more to repair the
organ. It was in 1374, a century and a
half later, that at Lyons an organ was a
novelty and an amazement. 5
Two years after the marriage of S. Ferdi-
nand, the new Cathedral was already begun.
Cean Bermudez6 tells how the work
went on so fast that the whole was finished
in Bishop Maurice's time: the Chapter
could say the office in the new choir, i.e.,
the east end, in 1230. In sober truth,
however, the work was not yet done in the
time of Alfonso XI, 1336. The cloister
and chapel of S. Catharine belong to the
time of Henry II; the towers remained
unfinished for two hundred and twenty
years, and were brought to a conclusion by
the bishops Alonso de Cartagena and Luis
de Acuna.
The plan of the present cathedral is
fairly simple and very French, with a long prench
choir, three aisles, vast transepts of three pi an
bays and, perhaps, square apses to north
and south beyond the ambulatory. There
is French precedent for that. Leon has
still one. The nave had six bays, the choir
AND MONOGRAPHS
34
Notre
Dame
de Paris
WAY OF S.JAMES
and its aisles three, and then the aisle
turned through five bays, out of which
opened five chapels, the easternmost being
dedicated to S. Peter. It is called in a
document of 1382, "una de solemnioribus
suis ecclesiae capellis." Of the three bays
of choir aisle, the westernmost must have
had a plain wall, dividing it from the
transept apse. This awkwardness Soissons
was to solve and S. Yved de Braisne. In
Paris, when Bishop Maurice was there,
Notre Dame was standing whitely by the
river for an ensample; choir and nave were
done and the great portals, we know, for in
1223 the facade was finished up to the ring-
ers' gallery. Whether or no he brought
an architect thence, he brought the style.
Burgos among Spanish cathedrals supplied
the first instance of French Gothic, elder
than Toledo or Leon. * ' Fortiter et pulchre
construxit ecclesiam Burginensam, " writes
Luke of Tuy. The west face, with its
long lancet windows and towers square
up to the spire, looked once rather like
Notre Dame. It is not hard to think away
the doors, restored in 1790, and the pierced
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
spires which are German in idea and the
work of a German master, Hans of Cologne.
Burgos, says Justi, is the last boundary to
which the cathedral of Cologne throws its
shadow. For the rest, in spite of all the
overlay and decoration, only one structural
element is not Gothic of the Isle of France :
the lantern or cimborio.
This is a common Romanesque feature, a
characteristic Spanish one, inevitable in
Castile. French cathedrals have a flee he at
the crossing, but on his way home Bishop
Maurice, if he wanted a precedent, could
have seen a well-developed lantern at
Poitiers and Saintes and Aulnay, and he
would have known the great dmborlos of
Zamora, Toro, and Salamanca, and have
ridden past that of Irache, crowning a
French transitional building. Dr. Martinez
y Sans supposes no such feature was con-
templated at Burgos till the days of D. Luis
de Acufia. 7 At any rate the Knight of
Rozmital in 1466 saw it either finished or
well under way, for the narrative notes that
the cathedral "has two elegant towers of
cut stone and a third was building when we
35
(Miscel-
\aneen
I. IS)
The
shadow of
Cologne
Cimborio
AND MONOGRAPHS
Master
Hans
WAY OF S. JAMES
were there." 8 The cathedral Libra Redondo,
the diary of events, sets down the western
towers as begun September 18, 1442, and
finished September 4, 1458.
It is supposed, partly on the strength
of an eighteenth-century inscription, that
Bishop Alonso of Carthagena, returning
from the Council of Bale, brought back
with him the German architect, Hans of
Cologne, to finish the projected towers.
He had completed the first and got along
well with the other when in 1456, the Bishop
died on his way home from Compostella,
and D. Luis de Acuna y Osorio took his
place.
Of Master Hans we know a good deal
from 1449 to 1480, but never, explicitly,
that he worked on those towers through
which the stars shine. Nicholas V had
given a bull in 1447, and Master Hans was
Master of the works by 1454. The mon-
strous lettering that constitutes the chief
ornament, may be of Arab tradition, it is
certainly of German taste. "Fulcra es et
decora," it reads, and then, "Pax vobis-
cum," and again, "Ecce Agnus Dei."
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
37
Whoever built them, built well, for they
have stood; in 1692 repairs were needed,
and others were made in 1749, and finally
a restoration in 1790; that is all. Over
the central doorway the tympanum was
once occupied by the Assumption with
saints and angels in the archivolts; that
on the north figured probably the Annun-
ciation, and on the south the Coronation:
on the jambs stood saints. The western
statues stand, one group for SS. Julian,
John of Sahagun, and Vitores, all hijos de
Burgos, and the older ones for Bishop
Maurice, S. Ferdinand, Alfonso VI and
the half mythical Asterio. The others,
ill used by man and the elements, I do not
know.9
It is probable that Juan de Colonia made
also, for his first patron, the Chapel of the
Visitation, the work not being recorded
in the cathedral books because it was done
for a private person. Alonso de Carta-
gena, de buena memoria, was one of those
brilliant young humanists that Spain
reared to match Italy's. He edited Seneca,
and contributed to the Cancionero General,
Hijos de
Burgos
Alonso de
Cartagena
AND M ONOGR APHS
Aeneas
Sylvius
Gil de Siloe
WAY OF S.JAMES
and served on missions of diplomacy; as a
boy he was a King's Councillor, at thirty-
two a canon of Santiago, and of Segovia,
and in his later years planned a great
history of Spain to surpass those of Roder-
ick of Toledo and Luke of Tuy. Of him,
said a Pope in Rome, the humanist Aeneas
Sylvius, that he could not for shame sit
down in the chair of Peter, if Alonso of
Burgos should stand before him. Says
Hernando de Pulgar: "He spoke little
and choicely, and that right cleanly: his
aspect waked reverence, no unseemly
word was spoken in his presence." * ° Still
fair he lies, silent and pure, where Gil de
Siloe made the tomb, with little saints
around the base like the weepers at Pam-
peluna and at Dijon, and the Virgin at one
end in her Visitation and at the other in
her Decension. Amador de los Rios says J x
that the figures stand for SS. Gregory,
Jerome, Paul, Peter, Augustine, and
Ambrose, Ursula, Casilda, Dominic, Juan
de Ortega, Vitores, and Lesmes; and the
dead Bishop sleeps above. It was logically
the last Gothic tomb, and at Miraflores
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
39
the work of the same sculptor (he died in
1466) is Renaissance, like that of Michel
Colombe. It should be noted, moreover,
that the symbolism of those extraordinary
virtues about the tombs of the Kings in
the Charterhouse who wear a ship or a
clock or a church on their head, is that of
French carvers, and theirs alone. It is
impossible that Gil de Siloe, however, should
have made the tomb of Bishop Luis de
Acuna, as Cean Bermudez thought; it was
instead Diego his son, and the contract
was signed June 2, isig.12
That very splendid prelate, who turned
three chapels into one to make a fitting
sepulture (that of S. Antolin, by which
you come in, that of S. Anne, and behind
them that of the Holy Conception) pre-
scribed in his will that his effigy should lie
lowly. "And because I know not if
our Lord will let me make my tomb,
because those things are more wind of
the world than food of the soul, I bid
that no more shall be made than a stone
in which is figured my effigy, a palm
high and no more, that when they go
French
virtues
Wind of
the world
AND MONOGRAPHS
40
D. Luis de
Acuna
D. Gon-
zalez de
Lerma
WAY OF S. JAMES
over my bones, they shall know where
my body lies."13
The high marble tomb, of the sort so
admired in Spain, stands where no one
could stumble over it, even in the dark. The
work is a little coarse, but picturesque:
in roundels figure virtues; Justice, Wor-
ship, Charity, Fortitude, Abstinence,
Peace, Temperance and Prayer. In the
Chapel of the Presentation another such
tomb holds D. Gonzalez de Lerma, in the
place ceded to him in 1520. The tomb,
standing free in the midst of the great
chapel, is attributed to Felipe Vigarny, who
is said to have made also a retable there,
which was taken away in the eighteenth
century and perhaps placed in Las Huelgas
opposite the entrance. On the medallions
at the sides of the sarcophagus, in curious
company, are S. Francis between Justice
and Faith, and S. Jerome between Forti-
tude and Hope. The canon's figure passes
for a portrait, "for the founder was well
known to the artist, Maestro Felipe, with
whom he personally made the contract."14
I go too fast, however. The retable in
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
these years was one erected in 1426 by
Bishop Alonso: the Knight of Rozmital
says that " it is so fairly chiselled and
painted that it far surpasses all that I have
ever seen: there is also a statue of the
Virgin all silver gilt, which weighs three
hundred marks, and the workmanship
worth as much more."15 The present
retablo mayor was made by Rodrigo de
la Haya between 1562 and 1580.
In 1481 Master Hans was dead, and his
son Master Simon was master of the works
for thirty years. His grand work was the
chapel of the Constable, founded by D.
Pedro Fernandez de Velasco, Count of
Haro, Constable of Castile, and his wife,
Dona Mencia de Mendoza, daughter of
the Marquis of Santillana and sister of the
Great Cardinal of Spain. In the second
generation the German family is well
naturalized, and there is in the splendid
eastern chapel nothing to be called out-
landish in the literal sense. The chapel is
octagonal, like those of S. Ildefonso and
Santiago in the same position at Toledo,
but set on an almost square base which
The Virgin
of the High
Altar
Master
Simon
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
The most
fertile
school of
good archi-
tecture
is brought by deep recesses at north,
south and east into something nearly
cruciform, and the transition to the octagon
is made by pendentives, the art of which
may have come from the Rhine or from
north-eastern France. In the cloister chapel
of S. Catharine, dated September 13, 1316,
the transition is made, as at Las Huelgas,
by throwing an arch across the corner and
regularly groining behind it.
Llaguno says16: "Simon de Colonia
died before 1512, and his merit in archi-
tecture was great. He knew not, or did
not use, the antique orders, but he left
established in Burgos the most fertile
school of good architects that then was
among us, as is proved by there having
been natives of that city, its neighbour-
hood and its mountains the better part of
those who were esteemed in all the six-
teenth century."
Francisco his son filled out another thirty
years as master of the works. In 1540 a
letter arrived from the Bishop and chapter
of Astorga, asking, "If there be yet living
a master of the holy Church and its chantier
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
43
named Colonia, may he be sent to them,
that he may undertake their church, as he
has already examined it."17 In his day,
however, Gothic was dead or dying: he
undertook for Bishop Juan Rodriguez de
Fonseca, in 1516, the beautiful Plateresque
door called " de la Pellejeria." " It looks, "
said Madoz, x 8 '" like a sumptuous retable
set up against the wall." As late as 1532,
payments for it were made to the imaginero,
Bartolome de la Haya, who was not a
Dutchman, but belike a Dutchman's son,
tracing his inheritance back with his
name, to The Hague. All that family's
work, notwithstanding, Bartolome 's door
and Rodrigo's retable, are right Spanish,
and unperturbed. It occurs to me, how-
ever, that la Aya was a Pyrenean peak,
among those very hills whence came other
image-makers. Burgos, if she drew blood
from the north and ideals from the south,
yet kneaded all into the Castilian stuff.
The contract for the tomb of Bishop
Acuna, July 2, 1519, stipulated that all
the work shall be "del romano, "i.e.,ot the
Renaissance, in accordance with a sketch
Master
Francis
AND MONOGRAPHS
44
WAY OF S.JAMES
submitted, and that for the altar of S.
Anne in the same chapel "toda esta obra
ha de ser labrada e ornada de obra de
romano," 1 9 which, by the way, the present
altarpiece of that chapel may hardly be
called, but rather belated Gothic, attri-
butable in part to the same Diego de la
Diego dela
Cruz who had collaborated at Miraflores a
Cruz
generation before.
Of the superb Acuna's cimborio, built at
his own expense, we have only vague ac-
counts. The famous praises, often quoted
with application to the present lantern,
belong to that one. Charles V, when he
suggested that it should be kept in a jewel
casket, had used the mot already for Giot-
to's tower. As said before, it must have
supplanted an earlier one, commenced
at the same time with the transepts, and
The first
perhaps never quite finished, in the same
cimborio
style as the lantern of Las Huelgas. It
seemed very high, "in auras evexit":
it was of stone, with many effigies, crowned
with eight pinnacles, carved with skill
and delicacy — so much may be perceived
through the ill-sorted Latinity. A Bishop,
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
47
who had seen it, writes in a document of
"the lantern, which is one of the fairest
things on earth, " and the chapter thought
it sumptuous. In 1535 the piers were
giving way: the Master of the Works, true
to his type, propped up a little and added
eight statues, and collected payment.
One Canon still unsatisfied warned, in vain,
Juan de Lerma, Arch-dean of Briviesca,
and in the early morning of Tuesday, the
fourth of March, 1537, the lantern fell.
S. Thomas of Villanova was canonized
partly on having predicted this. Within a
few hours the Chapter had met and ap-
pointed a committee to attend to the re-
building: they voted all they could afford,
the Dean and a canon who had been
absent, made a generous offering on the
same day; and the archbishop, the Con-
stable, the people of Burgos, gave magnifi-
cently.20
He that made it anew was Felipe Vi-
garny, of the diocese of Langres: the work
was done by Juan de Vallejo and Juan de
Castaneda, architects of the Cathedral,
but the model was executed by one Juan
March 4,
1537
Felipe de
Borgona
HISPANIC NOTES
48
WA Y OF S. JAMES
Juan de
Langres
Felipe
Vigarny
de Langres, entallador, in 1540, for the
sum of 12,000 maravedis. The style now
is a superb full-blown Plateresque: around
the interior, in a frieze of great letters,
run the words: In medio templi tui
laudabo te et gloriam tribuam nomini tuo
qui fads mirabilia. If the idea of using
letters for a decoration is to be traced
back to the Arabs who had lived and
worked so long about Burgos, the am-
biguous phrasing which verges, in the
vain glory of a possible application, on
blasphemy, must be referred to the Re-
naissance. It was finished in 1567.
Master Francis had died in 1542.
In spite of his bye-name, de Borgona,
and his being referable to the diocese of
Langres, Felipe de Vigarny had a father in
Burgos, and a brother called Gregory.
Dr. Martinez y Sans21 believes, notwith-
standing, that he was no Spaniard, though
in 1532 he had worked for the chapter
thirty-three years already. He put his
son Joseph into the cathedral clergy.
There is no evidence that the painter Juan
de Borgona, working in New Castile at the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
close of the fifteenth century, was related
to him. Gil de Siloe had a son Diego, a
famous figure of the Renaissance, and
married his daughter to another of the
profession. Bartolome and Rodrigo de
la Haya occur successively a generation
apart. We have seen, in the three genera-
tions, Colonia, from the place of origin,
become a mere family name. The great
chantier of Burgos bred and trained, as Llag-
uno testifies, great men, conserving a great
tradition, so that the sixteenth century
lantern is yet congruous with the thirteenth
century church.
Sumptuous it is, and the whole church.
Consider, for instance, that overlay of
pinnacle and balustrade, in the triforium,
which so vexed Street. If there is an end
to ascesis, there is enhancement of magni-
ficence. The stalls, designed by Vigarny
and his pupils, were executed after 1507
and before 1512: that is a short time for
so great a work, more's the pity. They
do not well stand comparison with any
of Toledo, even by those who prefer his
style to Berruguete's. The themes are told
49
family
AND MONOGRAPHS
WAY OF S.JAMES
Glass
Arnao de
Flandes
by Sr. Amador de los Rios 2 2 and so may be
spared here; they are picturesque and re-
gional, giving a fair field alike to S. Casilda
and to the chickens. Those across the
western end were added after that was
closed, and accepted in 1608. 23
The glass, which was broken by a pow-
der explosion in 1813, had already suf-
fered. In 1542 from the Chapter's chapel
were removed various stained windows,
and replaced with clear glass, to give more
light. On the other hand, the rose of the
south transept is still almost intact, where
the sun casts on the floor a disc of gorgeous
mosaic. There was a complete school of
glaziers.
In Burgos was born the famous Arnao de
Flandes, 2 4 and he married Agnes Vergara,
and owned houses there. The contract
which conveys these (1512), is witnessed
by Diego de Santillana. Nicholas de
Vergara was his son, and inherited them,
and Juan de Arce, vidriero and vecino de
Burgos, is witness to the document, dated
in 1550, and is named in 1551 as the
maestro de vidrieros there while Nicholas
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
holds that position at Toledo. Before
this family, a Master John, glazier, was
living in Burgos from 1427 to 1433; and in
1498 Juan Valdivielso had bound himself
for ten years to take charge of the windows,
and with him in the contract is associated
Diego de Santillana, but certain chapels
are excepted, viz.: that of the Countess
(which we call the Constable's) and those of
the Bishops D. Alonso and D. Luis, that is
to say, of the Visitation and of the Concep-
tion of Our Lady. Thirty years later,
the Chapter was buying from Valdivielso
three windows for the chapels of S. James
and S. John: in 1538 one Francis, perhaps
his son, was in the pay of the cathedral
and Caspar Collin, Juan de Arce, his son
Juan, and his grandson Pedro, were the
masters in charge from 1544 to 1590: the
office was held by Valentin Ruiz from 1611
to 1631, and under him were fetched from
Cuenca, for the windows of the lantern and
other windows, seventy-two dozen pieces.
With all that, in 1645 Francisco Alonso was
making new windows for the lantern.
The conclusion of all this is, that the glass
Juan
Valdivielso
Juan de
Arce
AND MONO GRAPHS
Navagero
Weighing
souls
WAY OF S.JAMES
was, a great part of it, fairly late, and may
be imagined by recalling other work of
the same craftsmen, Juan Valdivielso and
Diego de Santillana at Avila, Arnald de
Flandes and Nicolas de Vergara at Seville.
Navagero found it large and beautiful
but dark and cold; to the Venetian, ac-
customed to coloured marbles and mosaics,
and the frescoes of Giorgione, it could
not seem other. But the stone of which it
is hewn, within and without, is white al-
most like marble till the centuries have
tinged it a deep grey, so that the Con-
stable's Chapel fairly dazzled when it first
was reared. It is easy to see why Spanish
people prefer this church to all others, with
its bossy splendours in the midst and
glorious chapels opening back and back,
an effect to which the great rejas of
choir and ambulatory add no little mag-
nificence.
The figure sculpture is of all the centuries:
that of the north transept fagade the earli-
est, with a Christ as Judge in the tympanum
between the intercessors, his Mother and
the Precursor; the weighing of the souls
HISPANIC NOTES
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53
below ; figures in the archivolts embodying,
some of them, local legends, and the
twelve Apostles standing in the jambs,
across the transept face, and even on the
flanking buttress. This arrangement, which
will recall the west front of Tarragona,
and is due, like that, to a thin wall which
affords little space for the niches in suc-
cessive recesses, may have supplied a
suggestion for the curious Apostolado,
flattened against the facade, imitated
from Estella at Olite. The sculpture is
heavy and rather dull.
The north door is usually locked, chiefly
because of draughts, and because it offered
the cathedral as a short cut, too convenient
by far, from the upper to the lower part of
the city. Thirty-nine steps lead down into
the transept. On the 4th of November,
1519, Diego de Siloe showed his drawing
for the staircase to the Bishop and Chapter,
and a Frenchman, Master Hilary, made
the reja or balustrade. Dr. Martinez y
Sans, writing in 1866, recalls that the last
time the portal was left open, was at ser-
vice time, to make attendance safe when
Puerto de
los
Apostolcs
The gilded
stair
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54
WAY OF S.JAMES
ways were icy and dangerous, during the
bitter winter of 1830. 2 s
The south transept has hitherto enjoyed
a picturesque approach, by a winding
Puerta del
Sdytft^ntcil
street and up successive steps, between the
cloister and the Bishop's palace. The
carving is fresher and more imaginative
than that of the north, especially a noble
Bishop on the central post, that tradition
will have for Bishop Maurice, whom God
keep. Above, the Christ of the Apocalypse
is enthroned amid the tetramorph, with the
Evangelists writing at desks around Him;
the twelve Apostles sit below. On the
jamb appear Moses and Aaron, who in the
freedom of their posed drapery would do
credit to Vigarny, SS. Peter and Paul more
in the manner of the thirteenth century,
and two empty niches. The motive of the
evangelists at writing desks may be seen
in twelfth-century work on the flanks of
S. Benoit-sur-Loire. It goes straight back
S. Benolt-
sur-Loire
to Carolingian ivories, but here it is pro-
bably copied from the portals of Leon.
The intercourse was close between the two
capitals, and moreover the first architect
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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55
of Burgos whom the cathedral archives
name, is that Maestro Enrique, who died
in 1277, on the tenth of July, and who was
master at Leon as well. 2<s
At the time of restoring the west front,
four statues were saved and now stand in
niches high upon the buttresses, though it
took all the Royal Academy of S. Ferdi-
nand to get them back there in 1805.
Justi suggests that the figures in the
cloister called by the name of Ferdinand
and Beatrice of Suabia, were made origin-
ally for this portal. If so, they are pro-
bably Solomon and Sheba, and the ring
that the king holds out is that celebrated
in Rabbins' lore and the Arabian Nights,
and the so-called sons of S. Ferdinand will
be the three Kings of Orient and Herod.
In any case, they come well along in the
thirteenth century. The best argument
know for the historical interpretation,
is the ugly and unbecoming but quite
German headgear of poor Beatrice of
Suabia.
The door which from the south transept
gives entrance to the upper cloister, that I
AND MONOGRAPHS
The west
front
Cloister
door
WAY OF S.JAMES
saw last completely hung, wall and window,
with priceless tapestries, is later than the
wall in which it opens, and is of the four-
teenth century. The debased arch of the
lintel, diapered, like the jambs, with lions
and castles, recalls those of Leon, but the
figure sculpture shows no such likeness:
it presents in the tympanum the Baptism
of Christ, a dove big as a wild swan de-
scending from the peak, and the archi-
volts contain two rows of statues under
canopies. The jamb figures, SS. Mary and
Gabriel on the left, King David and Isaiah
on the right, have a rich warmth, a human-
ity not bought at the sacrifice of solemnity,
that I find it hard to convey. The gesture,
the living quality, in the address of the
angel to Mary, is as conscious and as
happy as the soft reserve of her face shad-
owed by the veil, as conscious as the
shadow Rubens threw over the face of
his niece by marriage, and much more
touching. David, bearded, crowned, and
trying to read his own scroll, has a gleam
of the innate splendour of that David at
Dijon of which it is a few years elder only.
HISPANIC NOTES
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The carved doors, given in the fifteenth
century by Bishop Louis of Acuna, are in
much the same style as the retable in his
chapel.
To Ponz27 the Puerto, de la Pellijeria,
for some reason, seemed less meritorious
than the rest: so much the better for the
taste of good Ponz, born in a dark hour.
Nevertheless, overlaid with a web of lace-
work of the most exquisite patterning, and
rather beautifully planned with column and
frieze and that due subordination of parts
and that sense for scale, that were as
much wanting in the Constable's Chapel
as in the Toledan church of S. John of the
Kings, it is all but altogether lovely. The
feast of S. Mary of Burgos falls in August,
when M aria assumpta est, but the flowering
lily of Lady-Day is the device of the Chap-
ter and figures freely here. Bishop John
Fonseca at the top, adoring the Madonna
enthroned and supported by SS. Peter and
Paul, reliefs of the martyrdom of the two
SS. John, and four figures in shell-topped
niches, the Baptist with S. James on the
left, the Evangelist with S. Andrew on the
57
AND MONOGRAPHS
Choir-
enclosure
WAY OF S.JAMES
right, these are second only to the purely
architectural parts of obra romana, the
best of the portal. The round arched door
itself, with little statues under canopies
sliding, apparently, in their groove like
balls on a wire, and underneath, what was
probably conceived as a Renaissance
variety of cusping (save the mark!) like
the plant forms which supplant the crocket-
ing above, provokes impatience and does
a little recall by its ineptitude, though not
by its form, the German late-Gothic at Ulm
or Augsburg, the old strain showing in the
third generation, now, precisely in the
operations of the shaping spirit of imagi-
nation.
The tras-sagrario, the ambulatory face
of the choir enclosure, although it occupies
only the five bays of the apse proper, is
planned like those of Amiens, Paris, and
Chartres. Five panels show the Agony
in the Garden, the Way to Calvary, the
Crucifixion, the Deposition and Resurrec-
tion (a singularly unhappy conjunction)
and the Ascension. The second of these
keeps something of the unity and narrative
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
59
power that fifteenth century artists knew
how to enforce; castle, armour, and dis-
tant landscape are transposed from Gothic
forms to Renaissance without perceptible
Of early
Renais-
loss. By Vigarny are the central three;
sance work
the two flanking, by Alonso de los Rios.
The first contract was signed on July
17, 1498, between Geronimo de Villegas,
Prior of Covarrubias and obrero (which
must mean here general supervisor) of
the fabric of the holy church of Burgos,
and Felipe Vigarny, Burgundian, of the
diocese of Langres, giving him "one arch
12 feet by 12, as shown in the pattern by
Master Simon, in which is to be, all of
imagery of stone, the history of the going
out from Jerusalem: the price to be 200
ducats of good gold the said Felipe not to
take his hand from the work, except it
were for the journey to Santiago. . . ,"28
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
6o
WAY OF S.JAMES
Strangers and Pilgrims.
Somos peregrinantes.
y al separarnos tristes, bien sabemos
que, aunque seguimos rutas muy distantes.
alfin de la Jornada nos veremos.
The journey to Santiago is always there,
waiting. Figures pass upon it, coming
out of the mist and going into the darkness
again. The mother of Bernardo del
Carpio, in the old romances, is sometimes
Charlemagne's sister gone on the pilgrim-
age, kidnapped and carried off by the
Count of Saldana. " The story of Roland
was chanted at an early date," says the
"Restau-
greatest of Spanish critics, "by French
rador
jongleurs and devout pilgrims who came,
espiritual
precisely, by Roncesvalles to take the
de Espafta"
Way of S. James, whose pilgrimage was the
principal link between Spain of the Re-
conquest and the peoples of central Europe,
who thus began to communicate to us
their ideas and their arts. The influence
increased and grew to an actual affranchise-
ment in the court of Alfonso VI and his
Burgundian son-in-law": and again he
speaks of "the great stream [of pilgrims]
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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61
which periodically overflowed Spain,"1
and, he might have added, fertilized the
land like Nilus.
The town was entirely lost to history by
the beginning of the sixteenth century, but
not to commerce. At the last great epoch
Navagero was present, and he calls it
quaintly :
a good city ... it has good houses,
the streets are narrow, and in especial
one where the merchants live is called
Navagero
the Cal Tenebroso, and the rest of the
again
town is scarcely gay, there being few
spots which are not melancholy. To the
dulness of the city corresponds that of
the sky, almost always cloudy ; it being
rare to see the sun clear. The sun, like
other kings, comes to Burgos seldom. A
few lords and gentry live there, who
have good palaces like the Constable's
and that of the Count of Salinas, but
the greater part are rich merchants who
go their rounds not only through Spain
but through all the world, and have
here good houses and live very merrily,
the men being the best-bred I have seen
in Spain, and great fanciers of foreigners,
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62
WAY OF S.JAMES
the women generally handsome and
dressed decently.2
In the twelfth century Edrisi, the Arab
geographer, had written:
From Medina Carri6n to Medina
Burgox is two days' journey: Medina
Edrisi
Burgox is a large city, divided by a
stream, walled and defended on all sides.
In the forefront of the city are the Jews,
and there is a girdle of inaccessible
walls that protect the market, the mer-
chants, the town and its riches; it has
a central causeway, fortified; owns a
great number of vineyards and under
its jurisdiction are villages and inhabited
places.3
Out of the thousand years of Burgos,
Three
three pictures swim up:
visions
The first, the Cid at nightfall seeking
his own house to find it barred against
him. He had seen Bivar that morning,
sacked and untenantable:
The portals standing wide,
The lockless postern gates, the perches
bare,
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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63
The missing furs, the mantles stripped
away,
The falcons fled, and gone the hawks
in mew. 4
The king's warrant had ridden faster than
he, and that night when he reached his
house it was bolted fast, when he called
The Cid in
his servants none came, when he struck
the door with his foot, before he should beat
it in, they sent a girl-child, nine years old,
to tell him. So he wheeled and rode down
hill, and at S. Mary's entered and said a
prayer, and outside the gate encamped in
the dry river-bed of Arlanzon, where
Martin Antolinez brought him bread and
wine.
Enrique Cock, by the way, at the end
of the sixteenth century, had but summary
knowledge of My Cid Ruy Diaz. "There
is also to be seen by the gate which leads to
S. Peter's, a very old house that the
neighbours say was the house of Cid Ruy
Diaz of Vivar, the famous captain in his
time, who took the city of Valencia from
the Moors."5
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
£/ Santo
Cristo
Mme.
d'Aulnoy
WAY OF S.JAMES
Every traveller and every pilgrim knew
the Santo Cristo of Burgos. The crucifix,
now in the cathedral, was formerly kept
in the convent of S. Augustine, beyond
the Puente de Vega, the Meadow Bridge,
and shown on Fridays, like that under
Ribera's painting in Valencia, with im-
pressive ceremonial. The chapel was hung
with thick cloth of gold, and lighted by
more than a hundred lamps of gold and
silver; besides these, writes Mme. d'Aulnoy,
sixty silver candlesticks taller than the
biggest man and so heavy that it takes
two or three men to move them, stand on
each side the altar, and crosses between
them set with precious stones. Votive
crowns, like those elder of Guerrazar,
hang over the altar, adorned with dia-
monds and flawless pearls. The crucifix,
above the altar, almost life-size, is covered
with three veils all broidered with pearls
and precious stones; when these are raised,
which is only after elaborate ceremonies,
and for very distinguished persons, several
bells ring, everyone is kneeling, and the
place and the sight move deep reverence. 6
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
This is in 1679. "The priests," said the
secretary of the Knight in 1466, "touch
His members with great reverence, singing
and ringing all the bells."7 Tetzel, his
companion, spins a long knightly romance
of the finding of it. Manier,8 in 1719,
heard a mass there early and then had time
to note down all the silver candlesticks and
flower pots that filled him with a kind of
reverence in themselves, before the candles
all were lighted and a priest vested in a
chasuble drew aside by a cord, one after
another, three curtains: one of black stuff
painted with a crucifix, one of red watered
silk, and lastly one of gauze, through which
the miraculous image showed already. It is
still said, to-day, to be covered with human
skin, to have real hair, nails, and toe nails,
substance elastic under a finger's pressure,
and joints so exquisite that members,
being lifted, fall naturally. Manier wrote
down that it has been known to sweat, that
it must be shaven once a week and the
nails cut as is done for that at Orense.
"We bought," he ends, "little Christs of
paper, and silver, Delorme two and I one.
Tetzel
Manier
AND MONOGRAPHS
66
Churches
at nightfall
WAY OF S.JAMES
They had touched the Christ." This
sounds like a story out of a letter from
some Pelerinage rationale to Lourdes.
"Two hundred years ago," wrote the
Bohemian, "that Cross and that Body
worked in the monastery great miracles,
and have brought some dead back to life;
but since then it has left off working them."
The chapel at the foot of the cathedral,
made out of a bit of old cloister, holds the
sacred figure now, and at nightfall is full of
veiled women and silent men, that come
and go. A son's examination, a daughter's
marriage, perhaps are the miracles it still
accomplishes: the very air of the place is
anodyne.
Every town has these little churches,
that stay open after dark for a few veiled,
whispering women. They have a special
feeling, like the scent of dried leaves, like
the taste of night air, like the hushed
Friday evening of the return from Calvary
in Ribalta's painting. To Spanish women
they are very comfortable. The subdued
glow of light, the warm smell, the rustling
human figures, offer something of the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
attraction of the hearth, without the ennui
of home. The great point is that in
church one is never bored; that prayers
lull, like the nursery rocking-chair, while a
solemn little child, not more than seven
years old, goes lighting the candles and
ringing the bell with anxious care, pounding
in his soft shoes from one end of the church
to the other. It will be hard to break
women of the habit, at winter nightfall,
while men are in the cafes, of going to
church.
Navagero passed over the Image with
the mere note that there is a crucifix,
much revered, that all Burgos visits every
Friday, but Navagero, having spent un-
pleasant days in Burgos, as prisoner of
Charles V, does not linger so over his
notes as when he describes the gardens and
fountains of Granada. For the great scene
of that humiliating winter of 1527, when
"we stayed in Burgos from the 17 Oc-
tober till the 22 January," as he re-
cords, it is possible to go to Valdes, the
humanist and courtier, the brother of
that John Valdesso whose Divine Con-
The De-
claration
of War
AND MONOGRAPHS
68
WAY OF S.JAMES
siderations Nicholas Ferrar translated anc
The Em-
John Inglesant read. He describes, 9 in one
peror's
of the Dialogues of Mercury and Charon,
Latin
how the ambassadors of the League de-
Secretary
clared war and departed on that twenty-
second of January:
The next day there came to the palace
the King-at-Arms of Francis I who was
called Guyenne, and him of Henry VII]
who was called Clarencieux, and asked
speech of the Emperor. He appointed
it to be in public on that very morning,
between ten and eleven, sitting with
much pomp in the principal hall of his
palace, and around him standing many
great lords and prelates of all nations,
that were in his court. The Kings-at-
Arms, who stood at the upper end of the
hall, each with his coat-of-arms or her-
ald's tabard hanging over his left arm,
went straight to the Emperor and after
making three bows to the ground, knelt
at the lowest step of the dais. Thence
the English King-at-Arms, speaking for
both, said:
"According to old laws and customs,
we come before Your Majesty to say
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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69
some things on the part of the Kings of
France and England our masters. We
beg you to give us safety while we await
Didlogo de
our answer, and have us conducted safely
Car6n
to our own lands."
The Emperor promised. The French
King-at-Arms read a Cartel — and truth
to tell, I thought he was going to preach
from the words he began with.
Then, follow at some length, the mutual
grievances and the explanations inter-
changed, and the King of England's Cartel
is rougher:
. . . very haughty and much more shame-
less, threatening by force of arms to make
him do what he would not for love. The
Emperor listened and replied with grav-
ity and majesty, smiling sometimes to
hear the lies these kings allowed them-
selves to tell. Then he rose, and call-
ing the French King-at-Arms, explicitly
warned him to send back Spanish subjects
and to recall his own within forty days —
and with a fyial taunt dismissed them
both. And the messengers having put
on their tabards, in sign that their per-
AN D MONOGRAPHS
I
70
WAY OF S . JAMES
sons, as heralds, were sacred, went back
to their respective ambassadors.
So "Messengers, 'tis not your fault,"
A German
says Bernardo del Carpio, in the Romances,
Emperor
before he threatens the kings. Charles
however was no Spaniard in looks or tem-
per. Sitting in the seat of Sancho and
Alfonso, he wears their ways, but he is a
Teuton. Except for the splendour of the
setting, the graceful symbolism of the ac-
tion, the tone of time that suffuses the
scene, the one name might have been Wil-
liam, the others George and Alexander.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
7i
X
THE FORDS OF'CARRION
Ponenlas por quince dias,
Que no pueden por mas,
non,
Que se vayan a los prados
Que dicen de Carrion.
— Romance.
As in this life things are never finished, I
had to leave a bit of the Way untrodden.
We shall come back, Jehane and I, and
make the pilgrimage with other poor
souls, for we have not measured the road
from Burgos to Fromista. Twice, early
in the year and late, we tried to make the
journey from Burgos, but though Aymery
Picaud estimated it as one day's stage, the
liverymen disagreed, and indeed refused to
travel it at all, until near to Castrojeriz.
Again, we sent out, in Fromista, to hire a
AND MONO GR A PH S
I
WAY OF S.JAMES
From
Burgos to
Fr6mista
tilbury, or saddle-horses, mules, or any
manner of cavallerias, but everything was
on the threshing-floor and would be there
for a fortnight longer. Lastly, I thought
to come up by diligence from Villaquiran
on the railway, to Castrojeriz, and bisect-
ing thus the road, long after Harvest Home,
attempt it successively in both directions.
But when packed and booked for the dili-
gence, a telegram summoned, and the
business of passports held me in the north,
till the time came to sail for home. The
irony is, that they are rebuilding the old
road, and have pushed already as far as
Itero del Rio Pisuerga, and by the time
this page is printed and read, any man in
his motor may go where in three years we
could not get, past Rabe de las Calzadas
which the Romans called Deobrigula, past
Hornillas del Camino where Anseis made
his last stand, past the city that pilgrims
persistently called Quatre-souris, where Sr.
Lamperez1 mentions a Collegiate church of
superb transitional style, with Romanesque
carving and a French rose-window, that
just possibly he has seen no more than I.
HISPANIC NOTES
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73
At Hornillos there was a shrine: in 1360
Bishop Juan de las Roelas, being in Avignon
with fourteen other bishops, arranged that
each should give forty days of indulgence
to whomsoever, in each diocese, should
visit S. Maria of Hornillos on certain
days.2 That was a good bishop, kind to
his own flock, and thrifty.
When the church at Castrojeriz was
building, in the last third, perhaps, of the
thirteenth century, many miracles marked
the progress. Says Alfonso the Wise, in
his Cantigas: " Many folk come thither to
keep their vigils, and gladly give their
labour to the works, to help make a tower
or a portal : and for that wood was fetched,
stone and lime and sand; and in this way
they began so great a church that it must
soon be finished, and there were many folk
but not too many."
One day when a great crowd was in the
church listening to a sermon, a huge timber
fell on them from the top of the church,
but though the size and the height were both
enormous, yet no one was hurt. Then
there was a stone-mason, who daily praised
Hornillos
Castrojeri
AND M O N O G R A P H S
74
WAY OF S.JAMES
the Blessed Virgin, and he was on the top
of the rising wall, laying stone in mortar,
and fell, and in falling called on her, and
Miracles of
Our Lady
caught a hold by two fingers of one hand,
no more, and hung there till after awhile
people came and got him down. There
was another mason who gave his work
without pay, for devotion. The poet says:
When they were making the church
that is called of Almazan,3 at the upper
end of the town, many excellent masters
worked there for what they gave then
[which I take to mean the current rate
of wages] , but there was one who would
take no pay. He was a maestre de pedra,
and worked well, squaring the stones
well, and laying them even, and one day
his foot slipped and he fell from the
highest point, and in falling called on the
Viigin S. Mary, and when his head struck
the stones he was not hurt in any way.
The last story is the best of all, in the
sense of actual life that it communicates,
its reality and modernity . You fairly look
on at what happens, with the narrator:
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
75
In Castrojeriz this was that I want
to tell you, where to make the church
that I have already spoken of, men went
underground to dig sand: and the hill
fell on them, and as a man shuts a door,
they were enclosed. They were given up
for dead: but at last when the hill was
•
dug away they were found safe, praying
to the Virgin S. Mary who had kept them. 4
Castrojeriz already in 1213 had a house
of Antonites, the first in Spain estab-
lished against the plague of S. Anthony's
fire.5
In Fr6mista a sirocco was blowing, hot
and fierce, that cast the dust into your
teeth, blinded, and stifled. The forlorn
Fr6mista
little deserted town, situated between a
small river and the Canal of Castile, with
avenues of blasted trees and winding
streets of earthen-coloured houses, with a
handful of noble desolate churches, and a
plentiful lack of cafes, wears the oddest
likeness to Palencia, which was always
a powerful city, capital and cathedral, —
was in short a rich relation. One single
youth, D. Domingo by name, united in
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
S. Martin
WAY OF S.JAMES
his person the offices of sacristan and or-
ganist for all the churches : disinterred from
an interior called a cafe", while shadows on
the close-drawn blind clustered and crowded
to observe, he sent for a few of the keys
and walked on in the direction of S. Mar-
tin. For that, isolated in a whirl of dust
and pelting gravel, everyone had the same
word, "Es bonita, pero restaurada, " as who
should say : "A fine woman before she had
smallpox. ' ' The name of the restoring archi-
tect nobody remembered (it is D. Manuel
Anibal Alvarez); he had done his work
thoroughly; swept out, along with plaster
and gilding, altars and retables, even to
the organs and stalls, to the very holy-
water stoups, and set up in the apse a
table on five legs; by the entrances, an-
tique cauldrons on little tables; for the
sitting, a few benches, — nothing else what-
ever. The capitals are- all re-cut. The
building, says Sr. Lamperez,6 is carefully
reconstructed in many of its parts. The
altar table, however, is old, saved from
a destroyed church at Nogales, and the
legs are copied from scraps found with it. 7
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
77
The church lies thus waiting for the seven
devils of tourism that walk through wet
and dry places, and the sweeping and
garnishing are the ultimate desolation of
Fromista.
It is a noble church notwithstanding,
of that virile Romanesque of the twelfth
century that French builders carried with
Dona
them over mountains, rivers, and seas: a
Mayor
Benedictine foundation of Dona Elvira,
of the
Romances
the Queen of Sancho el Mayor. The
reader will remember how at Najera the
lists and stake were made ready for her,
and how, for his treachery, she cut off her
own son D. Garcia from those parts of
Castile which were her heritage: and how
"fue entonces la reyna tornada en su
honrra primera que oviera, et aun en mayor
assicomo dize la estoria," — "so the
Queen had her honour again, better than
at first , as the story says . " 8 B ut in the end
when D. Sancho the king was dead, and
D. Ramiro the bastard who defended her,
and the kings her three sons all dead, she
came back into Castile, and here she en-
riched the monks whom she had fetched
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WAY OF S.JAMES
Dofia
Urraca
with the gift of her vines and cornlands and
her abundant flocks in Asturias, and the
quarter which lay about the church, and her
vassals who were householders therein.9
This was in 1066. She "founded" the
church, says Yepes, in 1076, and built a
whole barrio or ward, in Fromista, called
after S. Martin, and gave it to the monas-
tery; calling herself in the act of dona-
tion "ancilla Domini," which is equivalent
to beata or monja, — the phrasing sug-
gests a sort of royal sisterhood like that
of the Queens of Aragon at S. Cruz. She
passed her life in S. Martin with chaplains,
monks and clerks, so that her name drops
out of history and Garibay thought she
was long dead.
Sr. Lamperez does not fail to admit10
that the date is surprisingly early consider-
ing how perfect the architecture and how
rich the sculpture: as Dona Urraca in in8
annexed the monastery to the great abbey
of S. Zoyl of Carrion, it is at least plausible
to suggest that the building occurred then.
This point of chronology should be con-
sidered in connection with that of S. Pedro
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
79
de las Duenas, built in mo or thereafter:
the style there is no later. The richness
and perfection of ornament, in abacus,
string-course, and corbel, seem to point
to the twelfth century: although in this
sort of reasoning it is hard not to rely on
something else dated in the twelfth century
because contemporary in style with these.
With three doors, three apses, three
parallel barrel- vaults, a pair of small
western towers, strong lofty transepts and
a lantern over the crossing, here is the
pure Poitevin style: but if the surprising
little towers came straight from western
France, the octagonal lantern came from
further East, brought, like that of Irache,
along the road of pilgrimage. It rests on
squinches adorned with small reliefs of
the four evangelical beasts ; and the capitals
are partly historied, and partly early leaf
forms, and rather oriental interlaces.
The handicraft is Spanish. You have the
ball in a claw, two lions with but a single
head, two rows of lions; you have, also, S.
Martin, the Temptation of Adam, the
Madonna and Child in Majesty, the
AND MONOGRAPHS
Early
splendours
A pilgrim
of the
East .
8o
WAY OF S.JAMES
Lantern
S. Pablo
S. Maria
torturing of a saint: monsters, birds, and
saintly legends everywhere. An old draw-
ing that Quadrado publishes, r r shows the
lantern a story and a half higher than at
present, and flanked by a heavy staircase
tower over the north transept, with which,
he says, it communicates by a pasadizo a
manera de puente, a flying staircase. This
recalls the arrangement at the Templars'
church of Torres. Now the Templars were
all about here; just a little south of Fro-
mista, but not, I think, upon the pilgrim
road, stands a Templars' church at Tama-
ra. ' There Quadrado saw x 2 a portal like
that other to the north, more than half
way to Carrion on the highway, at Villal-
cazar de Sirga, a great encomienda.
The church of S. Pablo in Fromista is a
transitional building with a heavy pillared
front; that of S. Maria del Castillo is late
and insignificant Gothic, but it shelters a
noble painted retable in twenty-eight
panels of the early sixteenth century. It
has still two hospitals, one called after S.
James and the other dedicated to the Palm-
ers; and it claims by nativity S. Pedro
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Gonzalez Telmo, whom Tuy claims by
adoption and sepulture.
In 1456 an honest labourer named
Pedro Fernandez de Teresa was steward
of the hospital of S. Martin; it burned, and
he rebuilt it, borrowing the money from a
Jew named Matutiel Salomon. When the
term came the money was not ready: the
Jew got out an excommunication. So
Pedro raised the money somehow, and
thinking the matter settled, though the
day of payment had passed , neglected to go
before the judge for his quittance. Shortly
afterwards he fell sick, and on S. Cathar-
ine's day, November 25th, the Cura came
with the Sacrament, but the Host stuck to
the silver paten. After a long conversation
the Cura found out about this affair, and
absolved him and communicated him with
another Host, for this one still stuck.
The man died shortly after, probably in a
good state, since with so singular a miracle
our Lord warned him to absolve his soul
of blame.13
In a tilbury we got over the ground
between Fr6mista and Carrion, turning
8l
A miracle
of the Host
AND MONOGRAPHS
82
I Quiin
camina sin
dolor . . . ?
A French
church
WAY OF S.JAMES
aside from the present highway to visit
Arconada, where Quadrado14 asserts the
old calzada ran, where in 1047 the count
G6mez Diaz founded a monastery of S.
Facundo to take care of pilgrims, and where
— though he says the church survives, and
another of the Assumption yet elder and
more venerable, " mud-built and unvault-
ed," — we found just nothing at all to admire
except luxuriant vines upon adobe walls.
The Senor Cura was kind and bewildered,
sure his church had nothing for us, and we
eyed another church quite like it, on a
hilltop in a stubblefield, and declined his
courteous offer to take us there and show
it also if we liked.
The itinerary runs: Poblaci6n de Campos,
Revenga,Villovieco, Arconada, Villa-Sirga,
Carri6n: not far from Fromista stands a
little French church with admirable but-
tresses and early pointed windows, all
alone by the wayside. Poblacion, though
wanting a proper sort of name, is an impos-
ing city piled high on the steep bluff above
the river Cieza. There Manier and his
companions gleaned in a vineyard till all
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
four were drunk on the ripe grapes.15
There Enrique Cock was quartered, the
night the king lay at Fromista. x 6
All the two days on either side of Carrion
de los Condes, we moved in the green water-
meadows of streams and runnels that feed
the river Carrion, and strained eyes at the
cross-roads to find the ford where Fernan
Gonzalez met King Sancho Ord6nez and
flouted him there. They met, says the
Romance, ' ' al vado de Carrion . " 1 7 Smiling,
the king wheeled his mule; the count, with
haughty grace, spurred and checked his
steed, and spattered the good king with
water and with sand. Then said the good
king, with altered gesture: "Count, you
are proud! You go too far!" When he
passes from rebuke to threat, the count
answers rashly: "What you say, good
king, is ill-seasoned. You come on a fat
mule, I on a light steed; you wear a silken
vest, and I a shirt of mail; you bear a
scimitar of gold, and I a lance in hand;
you bear a kingly wand, and I a steely
javelin; your gloves are scented, mine are
of bright steel; your cap is for holidays,
The ford of
Carrion
AND MONOGRAPHS
84
WAY OF S.JAMES
mine is a polished casque; you bring a
hundred mules, and I three hundred
horse." The king went home ill-pleased.
Vilialcazar de Sirga.
Lorsqu'ils allaient, au bruit
du cor ou des clairons,
Ay ant le glaive au poing, le
gerfaut ou le sacre,
Vers la plaine ou le bois,
Byzance ou S, Jean
A' Acre,
Partir pour la croisade ou
le vol des herons.
Aujourd'hui, les seigneurs
aupres de chatelaines,
Avec le levriev a leurs lon-
gues poulaines,
S'allongent aux carreaux
de marbre blanc et noir;
Us gisent la sans voix,
sans geste et sans ouie,
Et de leurs yeux de pierre
Us regardent sans voir
La rose vitrail toujours
epanouie. — Her&lia.
The church of Villa-Sirga is, if not pre-
cisely lilium inter spinas, yet surpassing
as a palm tree in an orchard; so pure, so
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
fine, so French. The Templars were un-
done so long time since that little remains
recorded of their history, and nothing is
known about S. Maria here, except that
Archbishop Gonzalez of Toledo, and after
him Campomanes, J cite it amongst the
encomiendas that the Templars possessed in
Castile, and Ponz relates that it was said
to be the third church they had in Spain. 2
But it was built on French lines, in the
middle of the thirteenth century, and
fortified, and never finished: a grand
tower, reared above the north transept
has been pulled down, and the battlements
overthrown ; and the west end was not com-
pleted. The plan recalls churches in the
Soissonnais and the diocese of Laon : now the
Templars had a house at Laon. The east
end is square, the transept has an eastern
aisle, the tower and the chapel of S. James
add another bay to the strong projection of
the cross and give the stepped look: there
are three bays at the east, the main apse
projecting a trifle, then five, then seven,
and the nave, if finished, would have lent
due weight to the grand breadth and
Templars'
church
like the
Soisson-
nais
AND MONOGRAPHS
86
WAY OF S. JAMES
O altitude!
Porch
height. The style within, pure to austerity
evokes an 0 altitudo! Here are leaf
capitals just uncurling, strong shafts and
simple mouldings. The eastern windows
were framed by the same hand as the little
chapel we sighted near Fromista; the
transept rose is a wheel of fifteen spokes
that carry pointed arches interlacing, two
with two, and, where they cross, quatre-
foils, and cusping at the heart. The
doorways occupy the first bay of the nave,
widened for them, and the southern opens
on a magnificent porch, high as the nave,
that once continued at aisle-height all
down the south flank and, according to
Ponz, entirely around the nave3 like the
church of Nuestra Senora del Camino,
just west of Leon. This porch would
come out not so unlike in effect to the
arrangement at Las Huelgas, also French
building and monastic, where the entrance
is by a transept porch, and a little cloister
runs down the church . Quadrado as already
cited once saw the like in Tamara, smaller,
with less carving.
Into this porch opens also the transept
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
chapel of Santiago by a doorway precisely
like the other except for having three
shafts in the jambs, and three orders of
little figures in the archivolts, instead
of five. It belonged to the Order in
Leon. Now that chapel, though rebuilt
in the fifteenth century, is a part of the
original, and contains a tomb precisely
like one made, in Aguilar de Campoo, by
Anton Perez de Carrion for someone who
died in 1305. The sarcophagus stands
on six lions, the effigy lies with falcon on
wrist and three dogs at his feet. That
points to the date I should like to assign
for the porch, the closing years of the thir-
teenth century or the earliest of the next.
The tombs of the Infant D. Felipe and
his wife must have been set up in the
western part of the nave, at some time
shortly after his death in 1274, but this
could have been done before the work
westward was quite discontinued and the
face of the church walled up. A double
band of sculptured figures under arcades,
which was probably prepared for the
western face, will have been built into the
AND MONOGRAPHS
88
Portal
WAY OF S. JAMES
face of the portal then; being too long for
its place, it turns the corner on either
hand, with two apostles at each end above
and below, on the left, the servant of the
Kings, who has lost his horses. Two
foolish faces of the fifteenth century,
built into the central group, fix a possible
date for the operation. In the upper
row Christ is enthroned amid the tetra-
morph, between the twelve apostles;
in the lower row the Madonna, enthroned,
holds the Child on her left arm and a
flower in her right hand, S. Joseph and the
Annunciation fill up the niches on the
right, and the three Kings approach on the
other side. The figures stand under
tabernacles, separated by columns of the
purest thirteenth-century work; the capi-
tals, canopies, and statuary of the door-
ways are fifty years later, issued out of the
same school, budded on the same rod, but
iull-blown. The air of the interior is
Ike spring, that of the Apostolado, mid-
May; the portals savor of the heart of
June, say, Barnaby bright, when is all
day and no night.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
89
The prince D. Philip has a romantic
history. The fifth son of Ferdinand the
Saint, he was reared by the Archbishop
D. Roderick in Toledo, and taught by
Albertus Magnus in Paris: he was titular
abbot of Valladolid and Covarrubias, and
archbishop elect of Seville; he should have
been the primate of all the Spains : then in a
fit of fantastical chivalry, he threw it all
up, extricated himself from Holy Orders,
flung himself into the world to marry a
princess wronged. Christina of Norway
had been brought to Spain to marry
Alfonso X, but the Wise King decided to
keep his old wife, even though childless.
It was cruel hard for the young princess, it
was intolerable. That the prince D. Philip
spoilt his life for her sake, could not avail;
she wasted like a snow princess, and,
shrunken, faded, she died and was no more
than a name. Her very tomb is lost to
memory, though once, belike, in Covarru-
bias, it was glowing. D. Philip took
another wife, Leonor Ruiz de Castro, a
princess of Portugal, and plunged into
politics, but his brother he never forgave.
The Infant
Don Philip
Christina
of Norway
AND MONOGRAPHS
90
. . . Son
eternas las
horas .
. . . eternas
lasdesven~
turas . . .
WAY OF S. JAMES
His life was spoiled; he set the great nobles
against the king, and the kingdoms against
one another: he carried the torch, and
kindled brands, and lighted a great flame,
at the court of Navarre and at the court of
Portugal: he sought distraction among the
knights of the Moorish king of Granada,
and courtly dalliance, and far-fetched
chivalry like his own: and coming back to
the north, he conspired in support of his
wife's claims with her brother Ferdinand
and her uncle Don Nuno Gonzalez de
Lara. His little son was dead — he lies
in the same tomb : of his daughter Beatrice
we know nothing, except the name, which
had been his mother's. He died at forty-
four, worn out and unappeased, and his
tomb is covered and crowded with busy
figures, long histories and tiresome cere-
monies, and his effigy is habited like any
fopling's, in the fashion of the court.
Hawk on wrist, with sword drawn, the
effigy lies, legs crossed like the English
Templars. "His hounds they lie down
at his feet": over his head is reared a
canopy flanked by towers. The lowest
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
stage of these is an open arcade of the
same Mudejar cusping noted at Torres,
and the miniature edifices recall, as well,
Vera Cruz of Segovia and Eunate, above
all, Neuvy-S. Sepulchre. The intention is
plain, and the reminiscence of Jerusalem.
The Mudejar cusping, and the rosettes
which here adorn the pediment of the
canopy, were also seen and drawn by Car-
derera on the sarcophagus of Alfonso el
Baiallador, at Monte-Arag6n, and he
quotes from Fr. Pedro de Huesca, the
privilege of Alfonso II, given in 1174 for
the remission of his sins and the repose of
the soul of his uncle the King D. Alonso,
"et animae regis Adefonsi qui in ecclesia
Jesu Nazareni Montis Aragonis requies-
cit, " where already in 1134 Ramiro II had
endowed to the same end a lamp and a dole
in that chapel.4 On Templars' churches
and Templars' tombs you find the motive.
In the eighteenth century a Bishop
violated the sepultures, and found the
princely figure still uncorrupted, still fair
and smooth, arrayed in the embroidered
robe of kings. His epitaph ends: " — jacet
S. Sepul-
chres
on Tem-
plars'
churches
and tombs
AND MO NOGR APHS
WAY OF S. JAMES
Our Lady
of Villa-
Sirga
hie in ecclesia B. Mariae de Villasirga cujus
omnipotenti Deo anima in Sanctis omnibus
commendetur. Dicant omnes Pater noste
et ave Maria."5 He quarters, with the
castles, the imperial eagle of Suabia, and
the red cross of the Temple.
Here at Villa-Sirga there was a miracu-
lous Virgin, who in the thirteenth century
worked many marvellous cures, and espe-
cially in desperate cases, where other saints
had failed. In a way hers seems to have
been like the modern devotion of S. Rita,
the advocate of the impossible; in another
way, like that of Our Lady of Lourdes
deliberately bent to cut out others older
and well established. Lourdes has entirely
eclipsed La S alette, but even when the
competition was keenest, Villa-Sirga did
no great harm to S. James. It was not
:or want of energy, nor for lack of novelty;
S. James is of the twelfth century, she of
the thirteenth; S. James is Romanesque,
she is Gothic. But a miracle-working
image, and a new cult without roots in the
soil, could not divert the stream that from
he beginnings of mankind has moved
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
93
westward and ever westward under the
stars, even unto the end of the world.
The Virgin of Villa-Sirga was apparently
a carving, something like, perhaps, that
exquisite Princess who flowered on the
Stem of Jesse, under the feet of S. James,
on Master Matthew's door, for she is
called once the Virgin of Jesse.6 She
Virgin of
began working Miracles as suddenly as
Jesse
Her of Or San Michele. 7 "This was in the
time that the Virgin began to work mira-
cles whereby she cured many," says the
Wise King in a pretty verse with a prettier
burthen :
Esto f oi en aquel tempo
Que a Virgen comecon
A fazer en Vila-Sirga
Miragres, porque sanon
A muitos d'enfermidades
Et mortos ressociton,
Et porend' as gentes algo
Comegavan d'i fazer.
Come sofre muj gran coita
O om' en cego seer,
Assi f az gran piedade
A Virgen en It' accorrer. 8
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
94
WAY OF S.JAMES
Her
Miracles
The fourteen Miracles related in the
Cantigas will be found in Appendix III
faithfully rehearsed. On examination it
appears that the first time this Virgin is
mentioned she is explained as the Virgin of
Jesse, at a place two leagues from Carrion
called Villa-Sirga; that the first two
miracles happened more by accident than
by intention; that the fourth, fifth, sixth,
seventh, and eighth are quite local; so are
the twelfth and fourteenth . The thirteenth
is very pretty but it is a commonplace of
hagiography, and there is nothing to dis-
tinguish this from scores of other sea-faring
stories. In the third and the eleventh
S. Mary is effectual where S. James had
Failed; in the ninth and the tenth she super-
sedes him. The fourteenth borrows from
the fifth miracle of S.James: the fourth,
which is to reappear further along the road,
belongs also to the cycle of the Apostle.
The fifth miracle might supply a datum
;or the building; if one knew what King
Alfonso brought up Moors to fight in
christen land, one would know when the
church was a-building. The last miracle
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
95
related, and the most real, straight out of
life, which tells what befell a virtuous
youth of Mansilla de las Mulas, implies
also that the church was still in building,
The Virtu-
ous Youth
and it falls fairly late in the book. Now we
know that some of the poems were written
before the middle of the century, others
not until 1279. This seems to sort with
the architecture of the church as ob-
served.
Over the portal of the church, below
the Apostolado, may be seen a shield
carved with four fleur-de-lys, and in the
midst of them a swan. On the piers of
the crossing stand stone figures under
canopies, and above the retable, against
the eastern wall, a gigantic fifteenth -cen-
tury Calvary that recalls some of the
carved and painted wooden figures of
the Sienese contado. The painted retable
is admirable, the remains of something
very splendid, una verdadera joya, and
another, smaller, stands in the north apse.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
96
WAY OF S.JAMES
Carrion de los Condes.
Ya se parte el rey Alfonso,
de Toledo se partia . . .
d Carrion es llegado
d la vega que ende avia.
— Septilveda.
TVv»i
Ibn-Khaldoun the historian says1 that
Ibn-
Khaldoun
the Beni-Gomez ruled in the land that
stretches from Castile to Zamora, and
that their capital was called S. Maria.
That was the city which we call, after them,
Carrion of the Counts. In their day, D.
Gomez Diaz and his wife Dona Teresa
were lords and counts of Carrion, Saldana
and S. Marta, and in 1051 they founded a
monastery which they dedicated to S. John
Baptist. The Count died, the Countess
took the habit there, and in 1093 was
buried in the odour of sanctity.2 The
great Countess had borne many things,
by others' fault and her own, and God had
stood her friend. Dona Teresa had not be-
haved well, as we say, about a certain lady
whose company the Count, her husband,
much frequented, and when the poor lady
was brought to bed of twins, she cited in
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
97
triumph the common mediaeval notion
that for two babies there must be two
fathers. Not long after the Countess
herself bore twins, and in horror, shame,
and terror of her husband's imminent
application to her own case of the same
logic, she rose from her bed and fled for
sanctuary to the abbey. At the river no
boat was found; so she spread her cloak
on the waters and borne upon it she
crossed safely with the two innocents,
finding in the miracle3 not only protec-
tion but vindication.
Their son, Fernandez Gomez, brought
up S. Zoyl with him from Cordova,
where he had been serving the Moorish
king as a good knight. Their second
son, Garcia Gomez, brought monks from
Cluny to the abbey now called S. Zoyl.
Here endeth the first lesson, after the
coming of Cluny. 4
The beginning of the history is spotted
with shame and horror. In the Recon-
quest, Alfonso the Great took the town, or
else built it straight up from the river-
meadow, brand-new, and used it for a
A legend of
twins
The first
lesson
AND MONO GRAPH S
98
WAY OF S.JAMES
Parricide
A flame out
of the sea
frontier fortress. Coming back from before
Toledo, where he had put the city to
ransom, he took Quincialubel, and slaugh-
tered half the town and carried off the
other half. Then he came to Carrion,
and a servant of his own, called Adam, had
conspired his death, and he took the man's
sons and had them kill him, there on
the spot. So the Silense, s quoting from
Sampiro. The Cronica General wraps up
the horror in ambiguous words, to the
effect that "the king knew how Damo, a
vassal of his, who held the castle of Carpio,
went about to make a rising, and hold the
castle, and kill the king his lord, if so he
might; and the king sent to his vassals to
take him."6
On a Sunday afternoon in June, in the
year 939, a flame came out of the sea and
swept over Castile : It burned many towns
and cities, and men and beasts, and in the
very sea it burned up the masts of ships,
and in Zamora burned a whole quarter and
very many houses, and in Carrion and in
Castrojeriz, and in Burgos a hundred
houses, and in Briviesca and in Calzada
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
99
and in Pancorbo and in Belorado and many
other towns: the annalist of Burgos notes
it in these words, 7 and that of Compostella
and that of Cardena.
Farther down on the same page, over
against the year 1072, the last named
writes: "The Leonese were routed and
the king D. Sancho took the king D.
Alfonso his brother, after Golpejares, in S.
Mary of Carrion: and in that same year
the king D. Sancho was killed in Zamora."
Golpejares is a green meadow, by the
waters of Carrion, and in a green meadow
by the walls of Zamora, Vellido Dolfus
came upon D. Sancho: so fast walks fate
with soundless feet. When the battle was
lost, and the town, D. Alfonso had barri-
caded the church; when he was a prisoner,
and chained, he put on the black habit at
Sahagun: when the new year came, he
rewarded town and convent richly. In
due time Alfonso el Batallador held Carrion
against Dona Urraca, and named as Count
his cousin Bertrand de Risnel, who was the
son-in-law of Urraca's old lover Count
Pedro de Lara, and brought him over to the
AND MONO GRAPHS
Meadow of
Golpejares
100
WAY OF S.JAMES
Councils
and Courts
He of the
good name
king's party: a situation ironic perhaps,
but probably satisfactory to all involved.
Other great days the city was to know:
an ecclesiastical Council, sitting under the
great Bernard of Toledo, in 1102, and
another under the greater Gelmirez of
Santiago, in 1130; a splendid Cortes in
1137, to which came as a guest Ramon
Berenguer, Count of Catalonia and King
of Aragon, with his spouse the heiress
Petronilla: and another in 1188 when the
tragic Alfonso IX of Leon was knighted and
did homage to his cousin of Castile. The
dearest privilege, given by S. Ferdinand
and his mother, viz., that the place should
be never alienated or given over by the
crown, Henry of Trastamara violated,
giving the lordship to one of Du Guesclin's
men, Hugh Carbolayo, but after Najera
Carbolayo was out of the way.
To Carrion belongs the Rabbi Don Sem
Tob, he of the good name, who offered to
the King Dompeter a sheaf of moral
maxims, sententious and courtly, delicate
and dry, like a wreath of immortelles.8
The Count of Benavente seized and fortified
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
IOI
the town in 1472, and when the princes Fer-
dinand and Isabel recovered it, two years
later, they had the air of merely assisting
it. The fortress they pulled down, though
Thesecond
lesson
they mended the ancient walls; and with
their passing the second lesson is ended.
Thereafter came quiet:
Quiet of old men dropping to the worm.
The city was burned through an unlucky
accident, in 181 1 , and the archives perished.
On the steep clay bank the crumbling
houses cling, the toppling churches drowse.
Every decade the gullies are washed deeper;
every year the outskirts trail further into
the dust. The very church of 5". Maria del
S. Maria
Camino, that gave a name to the town, and
del Camino
took a name from the Way — as who should
say, S. Mary Roadside — languishes in a
distant straggling street that dies away
among threshing fields into the provincial
turnpike. The bridge that was built in
the eleventh century yet spans dry shingle
and the green memory of a spring torrent;
but the palace of the Counts is gone, and
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I
102
WAY OF S.JAMES
Santiago
Arch-
figures
all but gone the Hospital de la Herrada,
that Gonzalo Ruiz Giron built in the thir-
teenth century.
Gone too is the greater part of the church
of S. James, and rebuilt in 1849, but the
three parallel Romanesque apses yet sur-
vive at one end, and at the other the original
facade. Next door to this, a pointed arch-
way gives access to a lane, and two good
Romanesque capitals are built into the
front of the adjoining house. The facade
of the church, . a low rectangle, has just
room above for the glorified Christ and his
apostles; below, for a round-arched door,
and a space of blank wall on either hand.
The base of the tower is masked by this.
Over the door is no tympanum, but a
semicircle of twenty-four small figures is
set between the outer and the inner order,
on the radius of the circle, as at Soria and
Toro, and at Santiago. These are some of
them making music, one harper intoxicated
with his own melody; others at labour, of
the smith and potter for instance: two
men fight with bucklers and clubs and
one woman tears her cheeks in grief. The
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
103
style is not precisely like that at Soria;
more, but not entirely, like that of Com-
postella; it is rich and savoursome, humor-
ous without loss of dignity. It goes back
possibly to the same source as S. Juan de la
Pena and Estella. The more it is studied,
the more it appears to share the sound
humanity of Giotto's Jabal and Tubal-
Cain.
In the jamb on each side stands a single
shaft, worked with chevron and flower,
and carved in the upper quarter with
the figure of an angel in low relief: these
angels, though their faces have wasted
and gone, belong by their draperies to the
school of Toulouse. These are slimmer
and subtler than the little creatures
above, and were carved earlier, when the
art of the place was still a little exotic
and the small chantier had not ripened and
mellowed. The capitals represent, on the
north, Dives tormented and Lazarus, above,
looking on; on the south, Lazarus licked
over by gigantic dogs and a Jew in a conical
cap burying him in a sepulchre. The ob-
vious moral was brought to bear on the
Dives and
Lazarus
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104
WAY OF S.JAMES
A postal ado
cockle-
shells
town, in the interest of the pilgrims. A bit
of carving above the capital of Lazarus is
curiously like the wreathen marble pillars
in the Gloria of Santiago: that was finished
at the end of the twelfth century.
The mighty frieze above is Romanesque
of the opening thirteenth century. Sister of
the Apocalypses of Vezelay and Moissac,
the group is far less mannered: and while
the apostles belong plainly to the school of
Toulouse, the rich sappy life that runs
through them draws from the soil. The
Christ has the serenity and the amenity of
the Christ of Amiens, but a positive like-
ness of feature to the S. James of Santiago
and his Lord above. The ample mantle
falls apart upon his breast, to show a tunic
woven or embroidered thick with cockle-
shells. The columns and the cusped arches
and tabernacle work that they sustain show
a strong likeness to that tomb at Zamora
which Street drew m La Magdalena, and
assigned to the thirteenth century.
Though the frieze as a whole was long in
making and different hands are apparent,
the unity of the chantier imposes itself on
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
105
the mingled elements, Benedictine, Tou-
lousan, Compostellan, and Castilian (as
in the likeness to Zamora) and that of
La Pena. The monks of S. Zoyl in the
twelfth century had craftsmen always
occupied: their wealth, with the stream of
pilgrims, forced into flowering something
very exquisite.
Another such Apocalypse as this, Ponz
saw at Benevfvere, which might have been
carved any time after 1161. A day's jour-
ney to the north, at Moarbes, the frieze was
copied in the thirteenth century: there the
capitals of the shafts are of fine early Gothic :
the arcades are cusped in a Mudejar form,
with five divisions, and crowned with taber-
nacles identical with those in the dome-
windows at Torres. 9 The same scheme of
decoration was very ill-wrought at S. Maria
del Camino. Lastly, there is that already
discussed at Villa-Sirga. All these examples
lie within a very small compass: parallels
to them may be found in the Apostolado at
Estella and the upper part of the portal at
Sangiiesa. It is customary x ° to look also
to the topmost band of sculpture on the
Monks of
S. Zoyl
Other
instances
AND MONO GRAPHS
io6
WAY OF S.JAMES
French
motives
Spanish
style
facade at Ripoll; but that explains ignotum
per ignotius; in it the arcade is wanting
entirely, the figures are massed and treated
as in continuous action, and when all is
said, it remains the top row of a huge
architectonic whole.
In these Apostolados, of which the earliest
surviving was probably that of Carrion,
two French motives are united: the tym-
panum, Apocalyptic, found at Moissac,
V6zelay, Conques, Autun, Perse, Cahors:
and the band of statues under the arcade
found at Pons, Poitiers, Angouleme,
Ruffec. This last has already been seen
imitated at Sangiiesa. The motive is all
French; the style on the other hand goes
back to that which, at S. Juan de la Pena,
seemed to have come from Italy: it also is
carried on to Santiago, where the three
currents meet to mingle: this, and that of
Toulouse, and that of Chartres. Both the
French motives are strung along the Che-
min de S. Jacques. The particular com-
bination at Carrion may well have been
one man's idea, for the mark of personality
is as deeply cut there as on the Gloria of
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
107
Santiago: and the piece at Villa-Sirga has the
air of depending on it, and not on the origi-
nal French source. Sangiiesa, on the other
hand, looks to France: lies, indeed, nearer
to France.
A different arrangement obtains within
reach of Estella, and, whereas the former
keeps to the last Romanesque and transi-
tional elements, this Navarrese one is for
the most part developed Gothic. A row of
apostles was prepared at S. Miguel, before
a French master took hold, and the one at
S. Sepulcro was put under the eaves by
someone, possibly, who had stopped in
Carrion: then a set was placed at Olite, and
the arcades were framed but the statues
never carved at Artajona, and it is prob-
able that their position was determined in
some measure by the peculiar circumstances
of the north transept at Burgos, and the
portal at Sasamon copied from it, where the
apostles prepared to stand in jamb-recesses,
after the French manner, have not room
enough, because the walls are thin, and are
returned against the wall, flat. At Tarra-
gona the same difficulty is met differently.
Navarrese
type
AND MONOGRAPHS
io8
WAY OF S.JAMES
Back-wash
in France
5. Maria
del Camino
Lastly, at a shrine on the road of the
returning pilgrims, in France at Candes,
near Saumur, where S. Martin died, ap-
pears in the late thirteenth century an
Apostolado (or row of Saints, perhaps)
imitated probably in part from these, in
part from that of Tuy, and Bordeaux
which is derived from Tuy. Street saw and
drew this half a century ago, * z but he was
not familiar with the churches on the
Road.
While Santiago of Carrion was always a
small and a pilgrim's church, S. Maria was
worthy to be a Colegiata. The nave of
four bays opens on a high transept, and of
the three parallel apses the central one is
rebuilt, those on the sides consist of a bay
of barrel-vault and a semidome. The small
one on the south is unspoilt, and the north-
ern is perfect, though pierced to give ad-
mission to a seventeenth -century chapel.
The crossing has a strong quadripartite
vault, very domical, like the transept: all
the wall-ribs are present. The only capi-
tals now visible are in the crossing and
transepts : the piers elsewhere show simply
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
109
the abacus. Those on the great piers east-
ward recall the transitional forms at Sa-
hagun and S. Pedro de las Duenas; one,
however, is a semi-oriental motive, of rich
coiled leaves, that appears also in the
arcade of Santiago in the town. Above
the clerestory of the nave is plaster of the
seventeenth century, but it is quite possible
that the original vault survives underneath.
The north aisle has a round barrel-vault
much depressed; the south aisle a pointed
barrel-vault, and it leans outward, thus ex-
plaining, as at the convent of the Sar, the
existence of the magnificent south porch on
quadrant arches that serve for buttresses.
The nave arcade, rather low, of two orders,
sharply pointed on the south, less acute on
the north, has no capitals, but a Roman-
esque flower in the string course. Below
the aisle windows runs a billet-moulding.
Eastward of the north apse lies the
chapel of the Licenciate D. Antonio Pas-
tor, who died in Seville in 1625; a very
charming Madonna and child, like a
Duccio repainted, ends with a half-length
of the donor, like Pedro Campana's fig-
Roman-
esque
under
plaster
AND MONOGRAPHS
no
WAY OF S.JAMES
Wayfarin;
themes
ures. A chapel of the early sixteenth
century opens out of the south transept,
and a sacristy, east of that, corresponds.
The presbytery, under a Churrigueresque
dome, and the main apse, are all rebuilt;
two sixteenth -century tombs being set up
in the wall of the choir and looking un-
commonly well there.
The western door, now walled up, cannot
be earlier than the thirteenth century.
The sculptures are gone, but there were
never many: the capitals bear a lion and
a harpy. The plain west door and splendid
south door recur in conjunction at S.
Maria de Estibaliz, on the Road near
Vitoria. The south portal here is almost
pointed in the inmost order, and adorned
only with the billet and a noble torus.
A pair of calves' heads, on either side,
project at the top of the jambs: one capi-
tal bears lions and griffins in entrelacs,
and the other Abraham and the Angels,
in a degraded Toulousan style. The
row of figures in the archivolt is de-
graded too, or simply crude, and goes a
long way toward recalling the monstrous
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
in
forms on the door at Aulnay. In the span-
drels above, figure S. Martin, and Samson
dominating the lion: the former for his
charity to others, the latter for his mastery
of natural brutality. Under the cornice, so
close that the corbel figures, very like those
of Fromista, strike down into the composi-
tion, is a frieze of the Epiphany, Herod,
and the Massacre of the Innocents, much
attention being given to the horse-back
riding. This was returned against the
buttresses when the porch was built, and
the doorway strengthened: the artesonado
roof is a fine thing; and the front of the
porch is later than the rest.
The building here is about contemporary
with the church of S. James and the portal
is copied, but the city could not command
the same workmen, and between the two
is a world of difference. The frieze, how-
ever, though not subtle, nor exotic, nor an
unexpected apparition of personal genius,
like a sort of falling star, is full of
movement, vigour, and masculinity, and
not wholly unrelated to the little archivolt
figures of the other.
South
portal
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112
WAY OF S.JAMES
Yes, surely as Carri6n was once a strong-
hold of kings, so surely there worked and
thence went out a strong and lovely genius,
Magister
Ignotus
that touched men to finer issues for a
century or twain. The lamp is shattered,
but the light in the dust is not dead; his
name, his birthplace we know not, only his
immortal part. Yet with a few more cen-
turies of sun and storm, or a few months or
hours, if Spain should go to war — and what
thereafter? "Alexander died, Alexander
was buried, Alexander turneth into dust;
the dust is earth, of earth we make loam."
It provokes the ancient retaliation: "Did
these bones cost no more i' the breeding,
but to play at loggats with them?"
Benevivere.
Vita bonis brevis es>, sed
prodiga vita malignis,
Plus durat gratis spin a
nociva rosis.
— Becerro de Benevivere.
The abbey of Benevivere lies a league
west of Carri6n, on the right hand of the
way, in a fair land, well watered, apt for
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
garden and flax fields, so that it might be
one of the leafiest parts of Castile; fertile
for herds and flocks, not wanting the other
gifts of life in game, fish, birds, etc. : so D.
Antonio. x The Carrion divides and re-
unites, a score of times, its clear and strong-
running waters, and there the traveller
now splashes through a glittering ford, and
again sets the hollow bridge to echoing
with hoofs and wheels. The wet green
stuff smells fresh in passing. Then a scent
of rosemary blows over the pasture land,
and the tangled garden crackles under foot
and yields sweet odours to the sun. The
founder was D. Diego Martinez, lord of
the houses of Villamayor and Salvadores,
a great Master of the Order of Santiago,
who had stood close in the confidence of
Alfonso the Emperor, Sancho the Long-
Desired, and Alfonso VIII after him, who
made over his palace and alcazar to the
monastery and hospital of Benevfvere and
retired thither, about 1161, -and died a
monk. His entire history is told in a Latin
poem of the twelfth century preserved at
the Archive National, and called Vida de el
Ponz
testifies
AND MONOGRAPHS
114
Founder's
tomb
WAY OF S.JAMES
Senor Dego Martinez Salvador fundador dc
Benevivere llamado el Santo. 2 Free-handed,
truth-telling, straight-speaking, religious-
minded, well-conducted — such is his char-
acter with which begins the poem, curious,
indeed in its crabbed affectations, in its
reiterations and alliterations, but in ab-
stract or summary intolerable, the dullest
conceivable.
His tomb stood in the chapel of S. Michael,
and was magnificent for that age, says the
cultured Ponz, and the epitaph is explicit :
"Hie jacet Venerabilis memoriae Didacus
Martinez, Domus Beneviverensis aedifica-
tor, Patronus ejusdem Domus, cujus anima
requiescat in pace. Obiit era MCXIIII,
non. Novembr." By which it appears that
he had fifteen years to tell his beads in the
sun and watch the walls rising. The last
church, again testifies Ponz, 3 happy enough
to have seen it, looked too modern for the
twelfth century, and might have been built
at the charge of a descendant, D. Diego
Gomez Sarmiento, c. 1382. 4 The noble
family, housed like kings, after death, in a
crypt beneath the high altar, kept the pat-
HISPANIC NOTES
Benevivere
THE WAY
H5
ronage to itself: plenty of later building
might be seen in church and monastery both,
but the retable was ancient, and duly ac-
commodated with trasparentes for its appre-
ciation, though that came but seldom.
Seldom, it seems, came to Benevivere "a
connoisseur who understood art, both the
rules, and the laws of its growth." Over
the door of the church stood theApostolado,
Aposlolado
which must have belonged to D. Diego's
and Car of
edifice, and in the midst the Car of Ezekiel,
Ezekiel
in which went the Saviour of the world
drawn by the animals of the Apocalypse.
To the ordinary reader this would express
something identical with the engraving of
Titian and the window in the church of
Brou,butthenotesof 1787 are trustworthy;
where one makes a record, another can read
it. The Chariot of Aminadab, in Canticles
vi, 12, was identified by the Middle Age
with the Car of Ezekiel, and the four-
headed beasts about that with the four
Apocalyptic beasts5: it so figured in Bede's
Commentary6 and Honorius of Autun. 7
M. Emile Male publishes such a car from
a window of Suger's at S. Denis. 8 In his
HISPANIC NOTES
I
WAY OF S. JAMES
A pretty
wilderness
day Carderera sketched the portal, showing
statues under arcades flanking the doors
and a porch apparently of the time of the
Catholic Kings, for the mouldings of the
debased arches are adorned with balls. 9
The church that the traveller will find
to-day is only a convent chapel in the
Churrigueresque style, with a shocking
gilt altar-structure at the east end, but one
rather pretty and Plateresque at the side.
The doorway is good pointed work; the
gate to the farmyard is crowned by the
cross of S. James, and the shields quarter
castles and lions with thirteen counters.
In the deserted garden poplar and willow,
hawthorn and acacia have overgrown
their bounds: a stone water-tank lies warm
in the sun, a latticed summerhouse broods
cool above a stone table; leafage rustles
and lisps everywhere, among fresh runnels
in the wide and dusty plain.
Hereabouts the traveller should find
shivering and trembling under the inquiet
airs, that wood of lances that burgeoned
in token of coming martyrdom, which
Turpin tells of:
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
"7
"And also some of the Crysten men,
the day tofore the battayle, did do amend
and array their harneys, and set their
tents nigh a river named Ceye [Cea], and
So
pight there their spears, even in the
Caxton
place whereas the bodies of S. Facond
and S. Primitif rested, where after was
made a church devoutly founded, and
also a strong city by the moyen of the
said Charles, and in the place where the
spears were pight, our Lord showed
great miracle. For of them that should
die there and be glorified martyrs of
God and crowned in heaven, their spears
on the morn were founden all green,
flouresshed and ieaved which was a
precedent sign that they which should
die should have the joy in heaven. Each
man took his own and cut off the boughs
and leaves with which the leaves were
planted and under-rooted, whereof in a
little while after grew a great wood, which
standeth there yet."10
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
Ii8
W A
Y OF S. JAMES
XI
SAHAGUN
Un matinet, quant fu
I'aube esclarchie
S'exunt li rois o sa bacelerie
A Saint Fagon est li os
repairie
La sejorna et prinst her-
bregerie. — Anseis of
Carthage.
So we came to Sahagiin. On the abbey
that once held more than royal power, the
word is written: Pulvis es, et in puherem
reverteris. The Benedictines there owed
obedience to Cltmy, but none to Bishop or
King, hardly even to the Pope, and, says
Sandoval, "as the monastery of S. Peter
of Cluny gave name to that religion, so
this house gave name to its religious, call-
ing them 'of the order of Sahagun.' I saw
among -papers at Toledo," he adds, I "a do-
I
HISP ANIC NOTES
THE WAY
nation that the King D. Alfonso VI gave,
Era 1136, and one of the witnesses, 'Dida-
cus Abbas religionis Sancti Facundi.' "
Now of the great church remains not a
tower, not an aisle; hardly a capital clings
to the crumbling brickwork.
No stone was ever quarried out of this
land of reddish clay-bank and yellowish
dust, and the carriage from afar was very
costly, so men built as in the plain of Shinar :
they used brick for stone, arid slime had
they for mortar. It bakes and cakes in the
tireless sun like a river-bed in drought, and
when it rains, you would say that all the
town is rotting back into primeval slime.
This was the place of pride, the seat of
wrong; it supplied dictators to thrones, and
priests to the Primacy of the Spains. Here
the mighty Bernard of Toledo organized
his forces, before he proceeded to the re-
conquered capital of the Visigothic mon-
archy; hence came that Archbishop D.
Roderick who fought by S. Ferdinand's
side and wrote out his life, though he did
not live to enter Seville in the triumph.
Hence came Maria de Padilla, to whom so
119
The sin of
Babel
Bernard of
Toledo
AND MONOGRAPHS
120
WAY OF S.JAMES
Ezekiel,
xix, 10-14
much is forgiven because she was much
loved. The Vega of Sahagun, once com-
pared to that of Granada for beauty and
fruitfulness omnibus fertilitatibus affluens,
still lies, bounded as of old by two rushing
streams, whose swift divisions and gurgling
rivulets lap and gush and trickle, from the
girth and strength of a mill-race to a glitter-
ing thread in the dust. I had been — not
sitting, indeed, in the ruins, for not a stone
lay anywhere to sit upon, but prowling
like the hyaena or the jackal, striving to
realize where once were aisles and courts,
apses and galleries and Gothic cloisters:
and coming home along the sordid alleys
and across the sorry squares, I had met a
friendly girl whose pride in that huerta,
the watered garden-land, was a living thing.
She took me walking through the dusty
green ways, beside the turbid waters, while
the sunset burned still and red along the
hot plain. I cannot tell what grew so
silvery green in those few poor acres, nor
what boskage bent and rustled above the
paths, dipped and swayed with the mur-
muring waters, only that it was green in a
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
121
barren dry land. Then she fetched me
back past vacant places on the outskirts,
where under a long cattle-shed gypsies had
lighted red fires and were cooking by the
uncertain flare. It was the desolation of
the owl and the hedgehog.
I have tasted the finest hospitality in a
shepherd's hut on the cloud-wrapped
mountain-side, and in the vale of the
Mino found the townsfolk, though curious,
gentle as softly crowding sheep; but the
slow corruption of Sahagun has corrupted
nearly all the race, and the children are
ready to spit upon or to stone a stranger
as they would a strayed dog; and the pros-
perous women's hospitality does not reach
to sharing a seat in a church. When at
S. Pedro de las Duenas next day I asked
leave to step inside a courtyard to photo-
graph the tower, the good wife cursed me.
God knows what she said, and may He
forgive her, for the neighbour who stood
by paled at the words. The inn at Saha-
gun, however, offered a friendly hostess,
and a clean bed in a room high up, over-
looking the poor mean square; a little
The Peli-
can and the
Porcupine
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122
WAY OF S.JAMES"
daughter was fair and caressing; the land-
lord, under some pressure, accepted his
duty of hospitality and himself t acted as
escort to keep off the mocking crowd of
children. The Cura of S. Lorenzo, too, took
a genial interest in the photographing, and
by acquiescence, assisted. Yes, there are
Christians yet in Sahagun.
The history of the sanctuary of SS.
Santos
Facundus and Primitivus goes back to the
Domnos
Decian persecution, and the humble shrine
of the martyrs was already a place of
pilgrimage when for the abbot Alfonso,
flying from Andalusia, King Alfonso the
Great bought the little church by the river
Cea, on the Roman road called Strata or
Calcinata. A new church was probably
built for him: this was in 874. It is men-
tioned in the charter by which Ramiro II
gave to the monks S. Andre's in Araduey
in 934:
Ambiguum esse non potest, quod pie-
risque cognitum manet, quoniam dum
esset olim illo in loco villa et ecclesia
parrocitana, motus misericordia avus
I
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123
meus serenissimus Princeps Adefonsus,
emsit ea a propriis dominis et dedit eum
sub manus abbati Adefonso qui cum
sociis de Spania advenerant hiric region!
habitanles ad construendum ibidem
monasterium sanctimonialem, sicuti est
usque et fecit test amentum."2
In 883 this was destroyed by Abo-
halid, governor of the King of Cordova;
burned, says the Chronicle of Albelda, to its
foundations. "Sed per castrum Cojancam
ad Cejam iterum reversi sunt, domumque
sanctorum Facundi et Primitivi usque ad
fundamenta diruerunt."3 Nothing could
be more explicit. Alfonso says in a privi-
lege4 dated nth November, era 943 (i. e.,
A.U. 905) that he and his wife Ximena will
restore and enlarge and dower it.
In the tenth century it was rich and
frequented by pilgrims. Ramiro II loved
Pilgrims
the monks well, and in his writings was
always publishing and praising their vir-
tues of recollection, continuation in the
service of God and in divine worship,
perseverance in prayer, charity to the poor
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
I24
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Twins
and to pilgrims, civility and goodness also
in hospitality to the principal lords. s In
951 the King Ramiro, wanting to win SS.
Facundus and Primitivus, offered to the
Abbot Vincent, for the sustenance of his
monks, and guests and pilgrims who should
be at Sahagun, a monastery dedicated to
S. Lawrence at Queza between the river
Arafoy and the castle of Saldana, the patri-
mony of Bernardo del Carpio, with two
cities called Pedrosa and Quintana, with
all their confines and possessions. In
975 King Ramiro confirms and declares
the donation of a servant of the royal palace
called Ansur, a great servant of God and
of much charity toward poor pilgrims and
captives. Ansur, we happen to know, also
put his sons there, as much for learning as
piety.6
Here, for a brief while, Alfonso IV so-
journed, having laid aside sovereignty, and
longed for it again, and died at last in
prison; so the monkish chronicler quietly
points his moral. 7
Then Almanzor came. The Becerro
Gotica of Sahagun records, under date of
HISPANIC NOTES
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125
28 November, 988: "Campaign of Alman-
zor this year, how he destroyed the city of
Leon and the monasteries that lay in his
path." Eslonza and Sahagun were com-
pletely destroyed, either that year or in the
raid of 996. " Domum Sanctorum Facundi
et Primitivi subvertit," says Abbot Ordono
of Eslonza, and Luke of Tuy and Roderick
of Toledo say the same. 8
Ferdinand the Great is said to have
rested himself, in visits, from his splendour
and state, sharing in the choir offices,
putting on the black habit and eating at
the silent table; once, when he had care-
lessly, reaching out a hand, knocked off his
glass and broken it, he replaced it with a
golden cup set with precious stones. 9
In the eleventh century it was very rich,
perhaps the greatest power in Spain; the
centre and source of French influence, the
agent and the sign, at once, of the triumph
of Roman domination. It ruled ninety
monasteries. Gregory VII gives to it in
1083 all the prerogatives and qualifications
of Cluny in France. OnMay roth, 1079, Al-
fonso VI had refounded Sahagun in a char-
Ferdinand
the Great
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126
WAY OF S.JAMES
Customs of
Cluny
ter confirmed by Bishops Pelayo of Leon,
Bernard of Palencia, Simeon of Burgos and
Eremo or Eredon of Orense, and many
counts and knights, with the rule of S.
Benedict, conformable to the customs of
the monks of S. Peter of Cluny. None
should have power in that monastery but
the King as such and as protector of the
monks, and the abbot as father and prelate
and director of the same. On the petition of
the King, Pope Gregory sent Cardinal
Richard to Leon to change the ancient office
of these provinces to the Roman use. Dur-
ing the Legate's stay was elected Abbot of
Sahagun, in 1080, the Frenchman Bernard,
later Archbishop of Toledo. x °
The anonymous and entertaining chroni-
cler whom the good father Escalona has
printed, x * says that in the eleventh year of
his reign (i. e., in 1076) Alfonso got a bull
from Gregory, and in the fifteenth year (i. e.,
in 1080) he got from Hugh of Cluny monks:
first Robert came, then Marcellinus, both
were unacceptable: lastly Bernard came.
Alfonso took Toledo and made Bernard
archbishop there, and Diego was abbot:
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under this abbot, Diego (1088-1110), the
house was at its height. In 1092 the Queen
Dona Costanza died and there was buried.
Seven years later the king married Berta
of Lombardy and consecrated the church,
with the assistance of Bishops, Abbots,
knights and nobles of Spain, and Bernard.
The next year Berta died and she too lies
buried there. He founded a city where had
been merely dependents of the monastery
and a few rare houses of some noble men
and matrons who came, as one should
say, to make a retreat, in fasting seasons,
such as Lent and Advent. They were wont
to come to hear the divine office, and made
disturbance and annoyance for the monks.
The new city was made up of Gascons,
Bretons, Germans, English, Burgundians,
Provencals, Lombards, and many other
merchants and men of strange tongues,
and thus they peopled and created no small
city.
This chronicle plays the same part, at
Sahagun, as the Compostellana at San-
tiago, and like that presents the figure of
a great churchman in his habit as he lived.
AND MONOGRAPHS
127
Abbot
Diego
The new
city
128
WAY OF S.JAMES
The two are precisely contemporary. Else-
where the good monk draws a picture
like Lorenzetti's, of the City under Good
Government :
In the time of King Alfonso no city
nor village had need to be fortified with
So in Siena
ramparts, for everyone kept peace and
rejoiced in security, for the old sat each
under his fig- tree discoursing of peace
which then burned brightly; the lads
and maids wove long dances in the cross-
ways, taking great solace and plucking
the sweet flower of youth ; and the very
earth was glad of the labourers as they
enjoyed the same earth.
Thus in the twelfth century, half in imita-
tion of Scripture, half in imitation of the
Latin authors as he knew them, writes the
Benedictine of his own lifetime, praising
the King his benefactor.
It is well that he should compel the
remembrance that Alfonso VI was some-
Alfonso VI
thing else than the mere heartless and
perjured tyrant who purged himself in
S. Gadea from the charge of fratricide
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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and bore My Cid Ruy Diaz a grudge
thereafter, afraid but longantmous. He
was, it is well to recall, the strong knight
and scrupulous for his royal promise,
who took Toledo and left their chief
mosque to the Moors: and who thereafter,
when Dona Costanza and Bernard the pre-
late, in his absence, seized that mosque and
baptized it for a church, and word was
brought to him thereof in camp, rode
back swearing to burn Queen and Bishop
together in the market-place, for they had
broken a King's word. Sahagun had shel-
tered him when disinherited and in danger,
had lent him the black habit for a while,
and was even, for his protection, to do yet
more, if there be truth in the legend that
Sandoval records of Peter's vision, the
monk of Najera: "Now the monks of
Cluny had fetched the soul of the King D.
Alfonso out of the pains and trouble in
which with others he lay, and lifted him to
eternal rest."12
One word more. There were not Chris-
tians enough in Spain to accomplish the
Reconquest. Alfonso could not have taken
AND MONOGRAPHS
129
el que gand
Toledo
Peter of
Ndjera
130
WAY OF S.JAMES
and French
Crusaders
Toledo without French crusaders, and of
these the best were Burgundians, and in
Burgundy the house of Cluny rounded them
up and despatched them to the promised
advantages spiritual and temporal. The
song of Roland in their ears, these knights
of S. James rolled back the Moslem power
— and afterwards? Did Job serve God for
nought? Between the Kings of Spain and
the house of Cluny there was a business
arrangement, and the Kings, being what
they were, paid right kingly.
The feudal system was never strong in
Spain: outside of the domain of the Kings
of Aragon it was hardly known, and feudal
rights, being unfamiliar, galled the more.
After the establishment of this city,
troubles with the townsfolk were incessant,
and the chronicler records at tiresome
length the quarrels and offences. One time
in winter, for instance, the insubmissive
vassals, having caught two or three monks,
amused themselves by alternately freezing
them in the snow and thawing them at the
stake. A folk which was entirely Spanish
would not accept kindly the French privi-
HISPANIC NOTES
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leges that Alfonso tolerated and imposed.
Says La Fuente, J 3 who is, after all, a repre-
sentative clerical: "Bernard, accustomed
to feudalism and the tyrannical laws of
France, made Alfonso VI sign a Fuero de
poblaciones, so different from the sort that
Castilian towns had generally, that instead
of giving franchises and liberties to the
people, it laid on them many hindrances
and vexations for the sake of the convent,
so that they could not buy or sell except by
will of abbot and monks. Even the bar-
barous and unchristian custom of the duel
was sanctioned," i. e., the ordeal of battle,
with fees to be paid for field, arms, and
palisade. "The penalties are so grotesque
and disproportionate that while a homicide
costs only 100 sueldos, one adversary's
knocking down another costs 70, and the
same for breaking a tooth, knocking out an
eye, or cutting off a limb." We have lived
to hear the same complaint charged against
judicial awards in railway injuries. "How
much more religious, equitable, and sensible
are the fueros that Ferdinand I gave to our
celebrated Benedictine monastery of Car-
AND MONOGRAPHS
Cluny was
paid in
privileges
132
WAY OF S.JAMES
dena. Instead of making exorbitant im-
positions, the charges on the townsfolk are
moderate and proportionate, and instead
of imprudent exemptions, not even the
beneficed clergy of the villages were exempt
from the Ordinary." Then he quotes,
pungently, the proverb that Chaucer had
Not worth
recalled, about a monk out of cloister and
an oyster
a fish out of water.
Elsewhere he takes up again the arraign-
ment of the monks of Cluny:14
We have seen that the advantages of
their coming into Spain, were problem-
So La
atic: for if they reformed one monastery,
Fuente
on the other hand they disturbed others
and the benefits were very fugitive. Avid
of exemptions, contemners of Spanish
men, things and traditions, monopol-
izers of tithes, froward with the Bish-
ops, meddling in politics, and going on
some points so far as to be forgers and
swindlers, they eclipsed with their defects
and abuses the high deeds and undeniable
virtues of others, whose name should be
respected as their memory is grateful.
The influence of Cluny which began
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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133
with D. Sancho el Mayor early in the
eleventh century was greatest from 1070
to 1120; and by that time it fell into
decline.
In Spain, as in France, Cluny was doing
Rome's work for what could be made out
Doing
Rome's
of it. Not always, nowever, were these
work
strong-hearted Frenchmen enough bitted
and bridled. "S. Gregory [i. e., Gregory
VII] once called the monk Robert, the
favourite of Alfonso VI and his wife,
maladito and wrote to Abbot Hugh to
fetch him home along with the other monks
going about in Spain." The offense was
that Robert had opposed the abolition of
the Mozarabic rite; and more serious
trouble lay with his successor, the legate
Richard, who did indeed enforce the Roman
use, but wanted to take everything for his
own abbey of Marseilles. * s
So the French wife of D. Alfonso laid her
own hand to the building at Sahagun.
"The most noble queen Dona Costanza,"
says Sandoval,16 "of the royal house of
France, a king's daughter, seeing that
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
134
WAY OF S.JAMES
A stately
pleasure-
iouse
nothing is so sure as death and that her
tomb was to be in this sanctuary, built a
great lodging for herself next to the chapel
of S. Mancio. After her death the King
gave it to this house (1093) with the church
of the Magdalen that stood within the
same palace, and baths near the palace
which had been the queen's and some mills
desiring that the palace should be for guests
and pilgrims." Fray Prudencio Sandova
himself knew old monks who had heard
from others who had seen, that it had most
lovely halls, and the timber work of the
roof gilded costily, like a royal work, in
fine. The account suggests a Mozarab-
Romanesque anticipation of the palace of
the Duques del Infantado, now asylum, in
uadalajara, for orphans of the soldiers
who have died in wars in the Peninsula or
oversea. For the meek shall inherit the
earth.
Little more of the history is of interest.
Alfonso VI fostered the abbey in every way.
During the twenty-four years of his reign,
every bishopric that fell in, he gave to
his house : he was buried there, with his
HISPANIC NOTES
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wives and sisters. Alfonso cl Batalla-
dor, when in 1112 he was ruling in Leon
and his wife Dona Urraca had retired to
Galicia, put in his brother Ramiro as Abbot
there. A heavy hand had Ramiro el Rey
Monje, he of the Bell of Huesca, and
though he left a convent in the Narbon-
nais to serve his brother's need in that on
the Cea, and went back to it again when
he could, yet Leonese monks would ill
brook an abbot of Aragon, nor was Nar-
bonne less far from Burgundy. Finally,
after two years, the rightful abbot came
back and was sworn and enthroned afresh.
From this same Dona Urraca, her son,
Alfonso VII, took refuge later there and
was well received by the Abbot and monks,
but he seized their gold and silver and
burned their privileges, then in 1129 re-
stored them all.17
The great translation took place in 1213.
'Translata sunt de veteri ecclesia ad
novam V. Idus Junii lit should be Janu-
arii] era MCCLI, regnante Adefonso Rege
Castellae, abbate Guillelmo in isto monas-
terio presidente."18 This is at the end of
AND MONOGRAPHS
135
The Bell
of Huesca
136
WAY OF S. JAMES
A Dow-
ager's
Chapel
the reign of Alfonso VIII el de las Navas,
the husband of English Leonor.
The power of Cluny fell as fast as it roce.
By the middle of the thirteenth century
only twenty-two monasteries were sub-
ject. Sahagun sank into the rich pro-
vincial life of a handsome dowager,
supplanted on the steps of thrones by the
daughter-house of Citeaux.
The chapel of S. Mancio, say the guide-
books, still survives. Nothing correspond-
ing to the description can be discovered
there. It was built all of stone, very fair
and proportionate, says Escalona, with
three almost equal aisles, fifty feet by
thirty in all; cross-vaulted; you see in the
walls of it many columns of stone, small
and delicate and full of carvings which
show great antiquity. There were Byzan-
tine capitals apparently. Maestro Perez
thought (this is Escalona's theory) that
this might be the parish church which
Alfonso III bought, and in which were the
bodies of the holy Martyrs. Maestro Perez
seems to have thought wrong. Certainly
no record exists of its foundation, but
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
137
another almost as good, that in 1153 the
head of S. Mancio was brought to Sahagun.
An altar stone records the consecration of
an altar to S. Benedict, April 13, 1183, by
the Bishops Ferdinand of Astorga, Peter
of Ciudad Rodrigo, and Alfonso of Orense.
It is possible, however, that the chapel was
a part of the building of Queen Constance.
The abbey church claimed nine hundred
years, in Escalona's time: only Cordova,
even among cathedrals, could call itself
elder. It had three aisles, the central twice
as high and much broader. The stone
vaults of the nave were rebuilt in brick in
1766: the aisles remade, eight feet lower.
The walls of Alfonso III remained intact:
they were of "hormigon," small stones set
in mortar; and under Alfonso VI the abbot
Diego, because years and waters had made
gaps in them and they were coming down,
cased them in cut stone outside and in,
leaving, within, the ancient fabric. This
work, because of the exorbitant price of
stone, took a long time, from uioto 1300.
That is the tradition. The transept was
very large and fair, a church in itself; the
The Abbey
Church
AND MONOGRAPHS
138
WAY OF S.JAMES
dome and
transepts
two quires
half -orange of the dome was made in 1766
under the direction of Pedro Pontones
when the vaults were altered and the
ceilings painted: but there must have been
a lantern before. There were five altars in
the transept alone (this seems to mean
opening on it), the High Altar being dedi-
cated to S. Benedict and carved by Gre-
gorio Hernandez. The Coro or quire in
the nave had walnut- wood stalls of 1441,
and seven altars around the outside, with
gilded retables and two more that were
farther west. This arrangement, or some-
thing very like, may still be seen in the
cathedral ot Palencia. At the foot of
the church was the door to the chapel
of S. Mancio; and another quire, with
another organ and walnut-wood stalls very
simple but select, stood above it. After
the earthquake of 1756, the vaults of the
chapel sagged and had to be supported by
a wall which left it disfigured and useless.
The Dormitories had been burned in
1692 and rebuilt with four courts and an
infinity of cloisters, balconies and passage-
ways; burned again in 1769 and again built
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
139
up. The Novitiate, finished in 1776, was
entirely self-contained, even to a bakery,
The
and quite cut off from the rest. The
Monastery
novices came out only for Acts of the Com-
munity. The Gothic cloister seems to
have survived; "muy distante de la gran-
deza y hermosura correspondiente a las
demas obras." Church and refectory stood
on a lower level than the later buildings:
to them one went down eleven steps. The
three-
monks' cells comprised, each, sala, estudio,
roomed
and alcoba, rather more than in the great
cells
Charterhouses. The rest of the walls, says
Escalona, were of brick or earth encased in
brick, which explains the entirety of the
ruin. There were fires in 1812, rebuilding
in 1829, fire again in 1835. 19
It is well to recapitulate. In the last
quarter of the ninth century the Cordobese
built a church, which we may call for our
Recapitu-
lation
purposes the first, and consider finished,
First
say, at the opening of the tenth, destroyed
church
by Almanzor at the end of that century.
Another church, the second, replaced that,
and the real question is whether that which
Abbot Diego spent his stone upon, and to
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
140
Second
church
Asturian
type
WAY OF S. JAMES
which the relics were not translated till
Abbot William's time, is this second church,
or a third. Rubble, if easily destroyed, is
patched easily, and the sense of continuity
under repairs is peculiarly strong.
It seems that that early church, whether
built about 880 or after 905, would have
three aisles and three apses, possibly of
horseshoe form, timber roofs, marble col-
umns and capitals like those which make
a holy-water stoup in S. Lorenzo. Some
capitals are preserved also in the Museum
at Leon. The style of these is what
Spaniards call Latin-Byzantine, and in-
deed is more Latin than that of the
cloister at S. Miguel de Escalada, or the
sanctuary of Santiago de Pefialva. They
seem to be earlier precisely as they are
less oriental.
There is no sound reason to identify this
Abbot Alfonso, first abbot of the Santos
Domnos, with one of the same name who
escaped from Cordova and in 913 built or
rebuilt S. Miguel de Escalada, though Sr.
Diaz Jimenez will have it so. Many Chris-
tians came north, for they had to come.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
141
The immigration in the tenth century
included not only monks but workmen of
various sorts, and among them a number
of Mozdrifes, brickmakers, who, according
to a document of 915, peopled the town of
Quint ana that Ramiro II gave in 951 to
Sahagun. In Val de Soz in 1024 were
weavers of tiraz, a rich silken stuff that was
made in the Caliph's palace at Cordova.
They are called in a lawsuit Muzarabes
tiraceros. There were Mozarabic work-
men in plenty through all this region, and
they set their mark upon it.20 We may
securely picture the first church after the
model of Escalada.
As I said in an article published else-
where, 2 x it is not only easy but necessary to
arrange the group of Leonese capitals in
chronological order, Sahagun, Escalada,
Penal va, but you do not date them there-
by. They might belong, at Sahagun, to the
church ruined in 883 or to that ruined in
996; at Escalada, to the building conse-
crated in 914 or to the alterations reconse-
crated in 1050; at Penalva, with the church
of S. Genadio of 937, or with the consecra-
Mozarabic
work
Dates
AND MONOGRAPHS
142
WAY OF S.JAMES
As at
Tournus
The Great
Church
tion-stone of 1105; that problem, thus
posed, may be left awhile.
Sr. Lamperez says,22 on the authority
of Sr. Soler, that at the end of the ninth
century, *. e,, after Abohalid's raid, the
roof was vaulted, with a barrel vault in
the nave and a quadrant in the aisles, and
of this remains one "boveda en botarel, " or
transverse quadrant vault. It is inside the
only remains of the ruins, a chapel at the
east end of the north aisle, now used to
store shovels, baskets, etc. That surely
would have to come from France and might
better be placed after Almanzor's raid.
By that time pilgrims would be passing,
and one might, so to speak, bring it.
Just two hundred years after the estab-
lishment of the first church, Alfonso VI
and Abbot Diego began the great church
contemporary with Cluny and Vezelay.
Still with three aisles and three apses, it
took from Cluny the wide transept, the
central tower and spire, yet put that not
over the crossing but, for safety, in the
brick building, over the straight bay, cross-
vaulted, that preceded the apse. There you
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
find the like, through all this region. It
seems possible that the transept had two
apses diminishing in size, on each side of
the central one. The compound piers were
planned not to carry ribs, but for a barrel-
vault or a groined voute d* aretes. A few
capitals which remain show the transitional
form of a leaf -bud just cracked out of its
casing, or a ball in a claw. A later develop-
ment of the same form is found at the
daughter-house of S. Pedro de las Duenas.
Another form resembles somewhat, except
for greater richness of detail, the triforium
capitals at Laon in northern France, leaves
laid flat against the bell of a capital that
swells out softly but strongly in a concave
curve. The abacus has a lower, moulded
portion, and an upper carved with lozenge
or flower, star or leaf with everything
except the dogtooth, which seems not early
enough.
One who had information about the
church as it stood before 1835, Sr. Soler,
says23 the capilla mayor had, as often in
Spain, niches in the plain sides of it, reach-
ing neither to pavement nor to vault, but
AND MONOGRAPHS
143
Capitals
144
WAY OF S.JAMES
Like
Ba'albek
The ques-
tion of
Towers
on the south side one did extend to the
vault and was of double depth. This is
most intelligible if understood of some ten-
tative toward the plan of S. Pedro la Rua
at Estella and Souillac in France, niches
not yet developed into proper apsidioles
and derived possibly from a Roman model,
the niches hollowed out of the wall in a
hemicycle being common enough. The
apses were very shallow. The piers, he
says, were like those of Ve"zelay, the vault-
ing compartments square and without a
wall-rib, the windows small : all that is true
of much building that reaches westward
hence even to the Atlantic. He thinks that
King Alfonso and Abbot Diego certainly
rebuilt the apses, transept, and four bays
of the nave, and vaulted at least the chapels
and the ends of the transepts. He denies a
tower, and on that rests a general denial
that the source was French. Towers being
feudal privilege, the abbot would have
added them at the east end and the gates,
f he had had an architect competent. If
the architect were by chance an English-
man he could not. French monks of Cluny
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
did not always build towers in Spain, nor
are all Spanish towers of French origin.
In France, even, they were not invariable.
Cluny, indeed, and S. Martial had towers,
but not Vezelay. Nowhere in Spain have
we such towers as the French. On the
other hand, the noble series of S. Isidro,
Zamora, Las Huelgas, la Antigua at Val-
ladolid, are all detached campanili and im-
ply the passage of Lombard builders.
The late Sr. Velasquez once told Sr.
Lamperez that he had seen and sketched a
stone which said that the author, i.e., archi-
tect, of the work, was William the English-
man.24 In respect of the plan, this, if
true, would account for the want of an
ambulatory, but leaves one still expecting
two transepts or a square eastern chapel
or something less indigenous on the whole
to the Leonese Mark. The brick building
at Sahagun is proper to the land.
That William sticks in one's head.
After all, Walter Courland, an Englishman,
built S. Hilary of Poitiers in 1049 and then
settled near Civray.25 Alfonso VIII had
indeed an English wife, but her relations
French and
Lombard
AND MONOGRAPHS
146
WAY OF S.JAMES
William
the Eng-
lishman
and riches lay for the most part on the con-
tinent. In her time was built the cathedral
of Cuenca, with lancet windows and other
characteristics curiously insular; then also
was constructed the church of Las Huelgas
in the purest Angevine style. Say that she
gave a style to Cuenca yet no architect's
name has come down; it would be curious
that she should have given, along with the
architect, to Sahagun, so little not Penin-
sular. To whatever date that stone may
have belonged, — and down to the seven-
teenth century we have no evidence of
such thorough restoration as should entitle
a man to call himself author of the work, —
whether it commemorated indeed the work
of the Great Church, or some later bene-
faction, chapel or chantry, the form of the
name suggests at least the wayfarer, the
outlander who passes. Whether he came
as a pilgrim and stopped for seven years
like one in a fairy tale, or for twenty like
one in a romance, to do what was needed,
and then took up his sack of tools in some
green spring twilight and finished out his
vow to S. James, or whether he was fetched
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
147
express for a particular piece, he was a
romero: like the unknown workmen at S.
Mary's of Sangtiesa and S. Michael's of
Estella, he belonged on the road.
Of the parish churches, 2 6 S. Tirso is prob-
ably the earliest. In 1078, on March ist,
the King, being in the monastery with his
sisters Urracaand Elvira, D. Pelayo, Bishop
of Leon, Bernard of Palencia, Peter of
Astorga, counts and knights unnumbered,
released the vassals and goods of this mon-
astery that they need not pay pecho nor
any other tribute, and moreover gave to it
the church of S. Tirso that, he said, stands
next to those of the Holy Bodies, — as you
see to-day that between them goes only a
narrow street: so Sandoval. 2 7 The church
has three bays and a transept, three aisles
and two apses, the north-east corner be-
ing now square; the side aisles open into
the transept by horseshoe arches, but the
central is pointed. One capital, the only
one distinguishable under thick yellow
wash, is fluted, goudronne. A splendid
timber roof recalls some at Toledo. The
oblong tower over the eastern bay is pierced
s. Ti
AND MONOGRAPHS
148
WAY OF S.JAMES
Side
cloister
S. Lorenzo
with windows, that once had grouped
marble shafts under a trapezoidal block:
these, like the tall blunt arcades that adorn
the apse, are plain, round arches, not quite
fully semicircular. The apse of S. Lorenzo
is elaborated with pointed horse-shoe arches
under others plain and round, or in square
panels, recalling Mudejar work at Toledo,
and in the tower it is hard to distinguish
the blocked windows from possible blind
arcades. A long cloister runs down the
south side of this, as down the north side of
S. Tirso, giving on the square in each case,
and though the present fabric of these is
not discoverably ancient, it must represent
a part of the original church, for it repeats
that of S. Miguel de Escalada.
Inside, S. Lorenzo has three aisles and
apses, and no transepts; three bays of
nave on pointed arches, without a capital
or a column in the building; it had once
wooden roofs throughout, the central
vault being of the seventeenth century;
the apses put a pointed barrel-vault before
a cul-de-four, two bays of it in the central
one: the church belongs to the last years
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
of the twelfth century or later. La Fuente
supplies a founder, Walabonso, 834, but the
name is suspect, and the date too early.
The pair of beautiful capitals that serve
foi a holy-water stoup, are too fine to have
been made for any but the titular church
of a neighbourhood, in those times.
In the ruined church of Santiago pointed
arches of marble, down the nave, are
moulded, rest on marble shafts, and rise
almost to the roof, but the three apses on
the outside divided into rectangular panels,
use only the round-headed arch in decora-
tion, plain horse-shoe, outer and inner orders
both of horse-shoe form, in the lowest range.
The tower is a mere stump at the west.
The church of the Trinity, on the other
hand has a fine tower, but is otherwise
quite rebuilt.
Uphill from the river bottom where the
town crumbles away, lies the church of S.
Francis, called La Peregrina after the
image on the altar. This absurdly pretty
Virgin wears real black hair and flowered
brocade, with pilgrim's cape and staff and
gourd. When she goes in procession
AND MONOGRAPHS
149
Santiago
Trinidad
150
WAY OF S.JAMES
La
Peregrins
through the streets, she puts on, in addition
a blue velvet coat of eighteenth-century
cut and a broad-brimmed hat turned up
with a cockle shell. A seventeenth-century
painting in the sacristy shows her wearing
such a hat over a white kerchief, and a coat
all sewn over with such shells. In hanging
sleeves and a full-bodied gown, she cured a
sick baby in 1718. The church, spacious
and well whitewashed, is all of the seven-
teenth century within; outside, the tran-
septs reveal little coupled windows and
some panelling of cusped arches on the
north flank and above the door. The apse
has a single row of pointed arches slightly
tiorse-shoe in form. The sacristy is said to
hide a fretted roof under the present ceiling.
The upshot of all this is that for very
nearly a thousand years church building
went on upon this clay-bank. The Roman
.egionaries and the Visigoths had made
cricks: Mozarabic workmen from Cordova
brought their skill and their forms; the
northern architect, whether Burgundian
monk or wandering Englishman, though
le imposed his own structure, in plan and
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
I5i
in decoration conformed perforce; the
Mudejar
Mudejar style of reconquered Toledo,
work
transplanted easily in a genial soil.
In a sense, the reign of the Catholic
kings, or, say, the year 1500, is the close of
strong regional activity in Spain, sets an
end to grand building and individual life.
After that, "under the King, nothing."
In another sense, 1835 is a date to mark:
it is the beginning of the Dissolution in
which we now live. Sahagun was burned
in that year, like Poblet, and like Ripoll,
where the good old canon died of grief for
the lost MSS.
Sepultados.
Tres anos despues de muerto
la tier r a me pregunio que
si le habia olvidado, y yo
le dije que no.
Sepultados or hacheras, are racks, some-
thing between a prie-dieu and an umbrella
stand, that hold usually three tapers, thick
as one's ankle, lighted in Mass-time and
thereafter carefully extinguished and locked
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
152
WAY OF S.JAMES
Likewise in
Covarru-
bias
At
Madrigal
delas
Altas
Torres
the priests
pray there
up in the box which constitutes the base.
Sometimes this bears the name and date
of a dead person, but one rack can do for
a whole family. The machine is broad
enough to accommodate the devotions of
two persons abreast.
The nave of such churches as I found in
action on Sunday morning was completely
blocked by these, an abuse not much more
tolerable than our grandfather's cushioned
and curtained pews. The poor and the
stranger had to hear their Mass from the
floor of the aisle or a bench under the
western gallery. These good women of
Sahagun in black cashmere, with their
maids in black cotton, knelt there behind
three candles tall as a child, that burned,
while the women minded their prayers.
This custom is not purely Leonesel believe:
observances very like it are described as
existing in the Asturias, and the popular
explanation, when one exists, is something
syncopated, like a magical formula re-
duced to a jargon: that when burial was
still permitted in churches every family was
accustomed to kneel on its own ancestral
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Pain des
slab: the three tapers, which are sometimes
two or even one, but never more, stand
easily for all the dead of the family, how-
ever many.
Guillaume Manier, being somewhere in
this region, gives an account of what he
calls pain des trepasses. All about in this
country, he says, in the villages, they make
small loaves of about a pound weight, that
they call the bread of the dead. They
carry these on Sunday to church, with a
twist of candle that they burn alongside —
at least, the women. The priest comes and
blesses all the loaves, and then the women
carry them home and give them as alms to
the poor.1 This practice, early in the
eighteenth century, is a yet more primitive
use: the lights and food for the departed
souls made ready, faithfully, by those who
still love. It is more than possible that
the woman setting down the loaf and the
lighted candle by her side in church, was
setting them upon the very grave. At
Monreal, east of Pampeluna, we found the Monreii
baskets and the candles, set away in cor-
ners of the empty church, but not, of
153
AND MONOGRAPHS
154
WAY OF S. JAMES
course, the bread; and the clean old woman
who stood knitting in a doorway to watch
us, would not admit that it was used. " In
other villages, yes," said she, "but not
here."
The English physician Andrew Boorde,
in the Introduction to Knowledge, which he
dedicated to Mary Tudor in 1542, throws
out a good deal of quaint lore, like words
thrown at dogs. The chapter on Castile
contains the following passage:
In all these countries [of Spain] if
any men or woman or child do die, at
their burying, and many other times
after that they be buried, they will make
Keening
an exclamation, saying: "Why didst thou
die? Hadst thou not good friends?
Mightest thou not have had gold and
silver and riches and good clothing?
For why didst thou die?" crying and
chattering many such foolish words;
and commonly every day they will
Prayer-
bring to church a cloth, or a pillow car-
carpets
pet, and cast over the grave, and set over
also at
it bread and candle-light, and then they
Madrigal
will pray, and make such a foolish ex-
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE W A Y
155
clamation, that all the church shall ring.
This will they do although their friends
died seven years before; and this foolish
use is used in Biscay, Castile, Spain,
Aragon, and Navarre."2
It is interesting that though he went to
Compostella and lived there for many
The little
months, he did not notice the use of
lights
lights in the province of Galicia. The keen-
ing, however, if it may be called such, is
a famous Gallegan custom: Sr. Murguia
quotes the cry of a bereaved mother who
was a fishwife in Santiago: "Strong castle,
who overthrew thee? How did death
come near?"3
Tetzel, the garrulous secretary of the
Knight of Rozmital who wrote his account
in the vernacular, observed in the Bisca-
yan land, very splendid and costly tomb-
stones that were cared for with strewn herbs,
flowers, and burning lights. 4 The graves
are outside the churches, he says, which
contradicts the testimony of other travel-
lers, and the women kneel and sit by
them always, whether in Mass-time or
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
156
. . . para
las
tumbitas
WAY OF S.JAMES
not, so they are little in church. In 1852
a French traveller watched at Tolosa
women kneeling on a black carpet between
two candles, who asked for prayers for the
dead: "entre deux flambeaux demandaient
des prieres pour leurs pauvres morts." s
In 1908 the "Paris paper Le Gaulois,
published, in the guise of an article on the
painter D. Ignacio Zuloaga, an interview
with him, perhaps not imaginary, in the
church of S. Jean de Luz. The men are
in the high side gallery characteristic of
the Basque churches, looking down into
the nave, where, upon a pall spread out on
the church pavement, in the midst of the
crowded congregation, burned a large wax
taper in a silver candlestick. "And behind
the symbolic candle, separated from the
rest of the faithful, veiled in crape, wrapped
from head to feet in the ample and sombre
mantle of mourners, melancholy, the
Widows knelt." The painter pointed and
whispered: "In our villages of Navarre
and Guipuzcoa, each of them must bring
to Mass on Sunday a basket containing
a loaf of bread, and this offering of the un-
HISPANIC NOTES
of
of
man .
4$
A Pilgrim in Black Letter
V
^n-
I
THE WAY
comforted is afterwards given to the poor,
that they may pray God for those who are
no more." (
In the dim church of Sahagun, among
the black and shrouded figures, the little
lights glimmered like a sort of perpetual
All-Souls' Eve. It was as if the souls came
back, parent, child, or spouse, for the brief
while that on the altar God, too, is mani-
fested, and were visible in the form of the
little flame, like those that so often flicker in
deserted churchyards, or above forgotten
battlefields. The souls of the living are the
delight of the world: the souls of the dead,
lonely, not unfriendly, might well yearn
toward those of their own race, and be
indeed invoked by them for comforting or
fortitude. Women that have to bear
children, women that are aged and child-
less, in especial seek their communion.
Vet all men, indeed, under stress, invoke
the memories of their house, and call up
the figures of their fathers, to resist and
endure, in the certainty that what the
dead would not do, the living shall not.
Like the wronged Empress of so long ago,
159
for the
alma
peregrina
The souls
of the dead
HISPANIC NOTES
i6o
WAY OF S.JAMES
Confucius:
the Shi-
King
we are great in their strength and our virtue
is their honour — "I think of the men of
old and find brave thoughts possess me."
S. Pedro de las Duenas.
Alia arriba suena, ritmica
y sonora,
esa voz de oro,
v sin que lo impidan sus
graves hermanas
que rezan en coro,
la campana del reloj
suena, suena, suena,^ ahora,
y dice que ella marco,
con vibration sonora,
de los olvidos la hora.
— J. A. Silva.
Once over the ancient bridge, on the
pale plain the road runs straight, and the
pale poplars of the river seem to follow
the road southward toward Palencia.
Above walls and trees the earthen-coloured
tower rises afar and the clustering village
is no more than the grange of a luxurious
abbey, farmyards, stables, and dwellings
for teamsters, labourers, artizans. The
Duenas, the ladies, are there still; one
I
HISPANIC N OTES
THE W A Y
161
hears their invisible voices crying and
wavering in the piteous plainsong of the
morning Office, inside a close grate and a
crape curtain. A cloister and chapter-
house of the twelfth century lie behind that
clausura: the Cur a showed through what
walled door in his sacristy he would pass
to carry the viaticum if one of them came
to die suddenly and without warning.
A good soul, this Cura, friendly and rather
animal, he invited me with a sort of per-
sonal cordiality that was touching, to stop
and hear my Mass that morning there;
but he could not help me to sight of the
conventual buildings, nor could his kind-
ness sweeten the disappointment. Later,
by kindness of the Bishop of Leon and the
Nuncio himself, I was able to carry a
letter of admission to the Abbess. Un-
luckily, the ladies had just commenced
making a Retreat and the chaplain had
seized the moment to take a vacation, and
the convent threshold was not to be
crossed.
The Romanesque of the church is fairly
late in its complete and ripe fruition of a
Plainsong
AND MONOGRAPHS
1 62
WAY OF S.JAMES
Classical
survivals
type, and is chiefly remarkable for the
precision with which the capitals observe
the old classic division into upper and
lower parts, the volutes on the corners and
the projection on the centre of each face,
some having even rudimentary cauliculi
here. Some of them show lions shaved
like poodles, one the Apocalyptic beasts, one
a curious array of little figures which might
be the Duenas, and others that form of
ball under a claw or beak which has been
cited at S. Benito. A bold abacus is
usually billet-moulded. The piers are rect-
angular with two semi-columns attached.
The church proper consists of a nave and a
south aisle of two bays only, both with*
very deep apses, the former covered like its
apse with a star vault of the sixteenth
century, which replaces, probably, some
sort of dome or lantern in the eastern bay,
and in the western just such a noble bar-
rel-vault, comparable with S. Martin of
Fromista and S. Peter of Huesca, as still
covers the aisle, sustained on strong trans-
verse arches.
The original north aisle and a north
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
163
cloister walk, of the familiar Leonese-
Castilian type, were at a date unde-
termined converted into a parish church
of two aisles and one apse, by break-
ing down the north wall of the church,
and running up partitions between the
outer piers of the cloister, and between
those of the north side of the original nave.
The roof of this is lower than it once was,
the space above it, in the north nave wall,
being filled in with late bad stuff, and so,
at present, is most of the length where
once the north aisle wall existed and then
was broken down ; communication between
the two aisles of this odd little church
being secured now by a timber-roofed
section at the west, contiguous to the
nun's quire though cut off by solid walls.
As the lower part of the whole church
was built of stone, the tower rises not over
the sanctuary as at Sahagun but over the
high nave vault, and the aisle vault ad-
joining is high, as for a transept. Outside,
the apse has an arcade, and the tower one
range of windows opening by horse-shoe
arches and another above, with round-
AND MONOGRAPHS
Side clois-
ter once
164
WAY OF S.JAMES
The King's
Butler
headed ajimez windows ; the capitals are ol
marble, transitional or early Gothic. It
should be of the thirteenth century.
In Spain, as in Germany, existed monas-
teries which received only the great of this
world. S. Pedro was of these. 1 The abbey
was founded by Ansur, 973, and given to
Abbot Felix and the abbey of Sahagun,
refounded 1080 and made up of nuns from
Sahagun and from S. Maria de Priesca in
the mountains of Liebana. The first
abbess was Dona Urraca in the time of
Abbot Diego. His epitaph says that he
built it: "Monasterium Sancti Petri de
Dominabus construxit; et Moniales ibidem
instituit": but the epitaph belongs to the
fourteenth century. 2 Sr. Lamperez points
out that this, construed literally, would
make the building in 1109-1110, Dona
Urraca having come in the first year, and
D. Diego died in the second. He is willing
to accept that conclusion, but for my
part I sometimes doubt if the church was
commenced so early, chiefly because of its
size, certainty of execution and perfection
of detail, but if there were no other reason,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
165
there remains still that, given the costliness
of stone, it could hardly have been begun
on so great a scale when the abbey of
the Santos Domnos had just commenced
building. Compare, however, the date of-
fered for S. Martin of Fr6mista. S. Pedro
on page 79
may possibly be transferred to the end
of the twelfth century and called regional
and belated.
The Pilgrim turns aside to S. Miguel de
Escalada.
Depuis longtemps leurs voix
sont mortes
Depuis longtemps, au coin
des seuils,
Leurs memoires, au coin
des portes,
Dorment fanees avec des
feuilles. — Camille Mau-
clair.
The Esla was crossed at Mansilla de
las Mulas, and the Porma, or rather its
Pictured
affluent the Curueno, at Puente de Villa-
on p. 45
rente. A hospice was there, for in 1726
Manier stopped in it. x
The Roman road from Sasamon, through
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
1 66
WAY OF S.JAMES
Roman
roads
Mansilla
delas
Mulas
Carri6n, to Mansilla and Leon, can hardly
have passed through either Sahagtin in its
river-bed, or S. Miguel on its clay -seamed
hillside, but Father Fita says that such a
road passed by Escalada and that the great
Way of Sancho el Mayor was built on
Roman foundations, if not all the distance
between Burgos and Leon yet at any rate
beyond Carrion. It was along the last
section of this that to visit an ancient
priory I struck back from Leon, between
rows of mighty poplars, and crossing the
Esla at Villarente, a colourless village that
rose up out of the soil only when you were
hard upon it and disappeared again when
you were past, thence I struck into an-
other highway following the river north-
east.
At Mansilla the river was green and
wide, under crumbling wall, pyramidal-
topped. The town was dry and decent as
its own ancients, brown as a hare, clean as
a kitchen floor; and behind the town hung
purple cloud, under which the houses
burned incandescent as at the Last Day.
It was a youth of this town who gave to S.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Mary of Villa-Sirga a block of stone for the
fabric when he was there on a pilgrimage:
the song says that he bought it and I
suppose it took all the money he had.
The story is not quite credible at the close,
but it is entirely convincing and life-like.
Virtuous youth has a hard role at the best,
but this lad is romantic and rather charm-
ing.
A young man of Mansilla — it is el Rey
Sabio who tells the story — was persecuted
by a girl in the town who loved him with
inordinate fury. He had no care for her
because he was set on another and a better.
He vowed a pilgrimage to Villa-Sirga and
she pestered him to take her with him; he
refused. She went, all the same. As they
crossed a mountain she urged him again to
comply with her, and he answered, " Not if
you died for it : most especially not on the
way to the Glorious, " and this time she was
a little ashamed. At Villa-Sirga he slept
in the church, and bought a stone for the
works, and offered it and his prayers, and
went away joyful. On the way home the
girl said, "Why won't you marry me?"
AND MONOGRAPHS
167
Virtuous
youth
1 68
WAY OF S.JAMES
Who
makes all
sorrows
cease
And he said: "Because I am keeping
myself utterly for the Virgin Mary. Now
I pray you put your thought on some
other thing, since I have shown you my
heart in this matter." But she meant he
should die for it. As they came into the
town she disordered her dress and scratched
her face and screamed, alleging that he had
ravished her by force and cruelty on the
road in a lonely place on a mountain. Her
parents went to the Magistrates, and none
would believe him, and they hanged him.
He reminded S. Mary of his gift bought
with his money, and she came bringing
the block of stone. So he stood on it.
So supported, the rope could not strangle
him. And anon his parents came, and
others, and they saw and heard him, and
all praised Her who makes our sorrows to
be glad and to be repaid.2
An Eastern proverb says that for him
who wears shoes, the whole earth is covered
with leather. For an American, not used
in his own country to such road-making,
all foreign roads not bye-paths are equal
to the King's Highway, they seem so good.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
169
Ford
Because Ford, and after him other writers,
have said that the trip to Escalada demands
two days, I have to state that I left Leon
in the crystalline early light, in a bob-tailed
omnibus behind a pair of ordinary horses,
saw all there was, rested and fed the beasts
and myself, and was at home for leisurely
1 -1- 1 A i ^1 ^1 1 i confuted
tea and a twilight hour in the cathedral
before dinner. To visit, as well, Eslonza,
Sandoval, and Gradefes would, indeed,
require two days or even more, as the
roads are said to be in parts impassable
for wheels. Ford went, apparently, by a
road on the other side of the river, but he
can hardly have travelled more miles. It
would be absurd to assert that a woman
alone, unused to the saddle, should be a
stouter traveller than the great English-
man, but I may perhaps say modestly
that with light saddle-bags I have often
outrun his estimate by virtue of much
resolution and urgent haste, and I have
never yet been compelled to market for my-
self, or in his phrase, attend to the provend,
simply because I was content to share what
those about me ate. I should, indeed, as
AND MONOGRAPHS
i yo
WAY OF S. JAMES
Civil
Guards
soon think of buying, like Beckford the
author of Vathek, for a journey into Spain,
rugs and carpets.
An omnibus built to hold three on a side
instead of nine, with only one occupant, is
unrestful: it affords no support for the feet,
no prop for the back, and not even the
length in which to go to sleep The driver,
by the way, slept well, on the front seat,
all the return journey, while the horses
took care of him. I watched the tawny
stubble burning in the blue and golden
midsummer, and on meeting a couple of
the Guardia civil plucked the driver by the
coat through the front, and tumbled out
the back door to photograph them. They
accepted the attention civilly but sur-
prised; good creatures, it added another
item to all I owe to their unobtrusive good
will. At last we turned off to the river side,
where at a great house, half farm half resi-
dence, we left the horses. The yard proper
was inside of walls and gates, long verandahs
flanking it and the bake-oven projecting
through one of the walls into the meadow,
with a little shelter outside all of its own.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
We were to see, that day, all the Arca-
dian life: harvesters in a level meadow
threshing by driving warm dark oxen yoked
to a sledge, round and round upon the
outspread sheaves, and girls raking the
grain into hillocks. In Italy every grange
and every village has its builden thresh-
ing floor, of noble masonry often, but
think in Spain I have never seen more
than a communal patch of trodden clay.
We sat on a hummock of dry grass,
waiting for a brace of fishers to put us
over the river: they were handling a net
held by wands in rectangular form, rigged
with two bows on a bending rod. It
seemed impossible to empty without spill-
ing, but the fishers spilled only into the
boat, a short, deep scow, nearly square,
and I crossed among the silvery death-
throes of trout and perch. On the sweet
grass of the runnels and the rosemary and
thyme of the dry river-bed, fed soft brown
sheep, kept by a wise white dog and a
darker puppy that joined us and would
have served for guide, wanting a better,
among the little channels, to take us by
171
Et ego in
Arcadia
AND MONOGRAPHS
172
WAY OF S.JAMES
5. Miguel
de Escalada
foot to the further bank. The shepherds
wore fawn-coloured shaggy sheepskins, one
for a sort of apron, the other for warmth
across the shoulders. With their help we
passed across, beyond grass and sparkling
poplar growth, to the washed red hillside
against which the church was fairly in-
visible. The woman who had the keys
was cooking her husband's dinner in the
village by the shore and, as I waited, I
climbed over the gate and occupied myself
with the exterior of the church, spelled out
inscriptions, pondered the forms of carving
built into a door-head, the capitals, uni-
form and curious, of the long south cloister,
the exquisite ajimez window in its west
wall. After the guardian had come, and I
had been measuring and photographing
for a while, I mentioned to my driver
that as the day was cool, we should start
back at two o'clock. This he did not
fancy, counting on a proper nap after his
luncheon, but I would not be gainsaid.
The horses, he urged, were indeed fed as
ordered, but not watered and could not
travel after drinking. Then let him re-
HISPANIC NOTES
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173
turn, water them, lunch and have them
harnessed against my coming. At this
point he sincerely pressed the impossibility
of my walking a mile alone in the country,
back to the farm. Reassured of my
courage (propriety was lost beyond re-
covery), he went at last, and when I had
quite done I walked down, the good woman
carrying the paper satchel of lunch, with
wine and water, to a fence-corner under a
big tree already marked on the ascent.
She was a good woman, and though not
unmindful of her husband still waiting,
she offered to stay for company. "It is
quite safe here? " I asked again, and I wish
I might convey with what vivid contempt
for the natives in lift of eyebrow and
shrug of shoulder she gave me to under-
stand that in that part of the country one
was entirely safe.
With Ford still in mind, I will say with
what the hotel had sent me out: Im-
primis, a cold omelette; item, two rolls (no
butter, of course); item, some cold chicken;
item, a packet of little sweet-cakes; plums
aplenty and a bottle of wine and water
AND MONOGRAPHS
Like a fig-
ure of Mr.
Hewlett's
174
WAY OF S. JAMES
mixed, rather too strong, but that was
the liberality, and the wine is lighter in
Leon than in the Rioja. A thrush sang
all the while I ate, and I left one roll,
neatly wrapped in paper, on a stone by the
way, hoping some person or creature,
passing by, would eat the good white
Yet still
bread. The puppy was waiting where a
made with
fence had to be climbed, the fishers were
wheat—
apprized and watching to ferry over the
river, the harvesters paused to gaze and
wave, and at the farm while I waited for the
horses that were not harnessed, a wonderful
old lady who climbed upon the rear step
to talk through the door, wore a very
wonderful old ring. That is the sort of
day one often had; the adventures were all
intellectual.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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175
XII
PULCHRA LEONINA
En argen Leon contemplo,
Fuerte, purpureo, triunfal.
De veinte santos ejemplo;
Donde estd el rico templo
Real y sacerdotal.
Tuvo veinte y quatro reyes
Antes que Castilla leyes,
Hizo elfuero sin querellas:
Liberto las cien doncellas
De las infernales greyes.
COMING from Galicia, the traveller in
Leon is immensely struck by the beauty
of the physical types. Brown, not olive,
'
the women have a long face, very nobly
modelled. The beauty of the bony struc-
ture imposes itself, indeed, with men and
women both, and not those only of the
lower class. But also, from Orense east-
ward, emerges a fair type with blue eyes
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I
1 76
WAY OF S.JAMES
The lion's
fell
and wheaten hair that may be reckoned
as the Visigothic, the sangre azul. The
landscape is pale gold, stubble and straw-
stack, threshing floor and upland, that
changes only into tawny gold and then into
gold embrowned, where the ploughing has
begun already. Here lies the lion's fell,
flung down in the sun. Miles upon miles,
hours upon hours, you see the same, till
you recall the old-fashioned jewels of
women, earrings and ouches, fashioned of
rose-gold and green gold and pale yellow
gold of the rock-vein, and orange yellow
gold of the river sand : so here the golden
green of poplars along the water-courses,
dark gold of raw tillage, pinkish gold of
earthy waysides. The tawny upland is
dotted with brown church towers all just
alike : you look up after an hour and think
you are come back in a circle. All along,
the road on a summer morning is brave
with chicory and a few poppies, like angels
of Fra Giovanni, the sky as blue as glass,
as clear as water, as pale as the children's
eyes.
Coming from strong Castile, you feel
HISPANIC NOTES
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177
an unguessed grace, a charm, a spell of the
exquisite, the quintessential, in the lovely
venerable land which has lived past all but
pure beauty, and built the honeycomb in
the lion's mouth, as over the pale golden
plain you see, above the winding poplars
of the Esla, the spires of Leon.
Except that it lies low, Leon will remind
you of Chartres, not merely in the virginal
loveliness of S. Mary's church, nor yet in
possession of a secondary church enough
in itself to dignify a town, and others yet,
noble and venerable, in crowded out-of-
the-way quarters and lonely suburbs: but
in the way that the great cathedral rises
out of the town from afar, spires and tran-
sept gables and flying buttresses. Only
here you miss the steep roof, of blue slate
as at Rouen, or of green copper as at
Chartres: here a low covering above the
vaults is negligible, leaving pinnacles and
gable-roses traced against the air. Just
the French effect of the little houses and
the great church, of the hundred roofs
and the lovely grand uplifted creature,
is hard to convey, but those know it who
Chartres
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178
A long
story
WAY OF S.JAMES
have watched for Amiens across the bright
Picard plain, or come upon Chartres in the
tawny rolling land of La Beauce. It is
like that favourite banner-figure of the
fifteenth century, the tall Madonna of
Mercy, whose cloak the angels hold out
and hold up to shelter underneath so many
tiny human creatures.
Leon, which had, says a stanza of the
sixteenth century, four and twenty kings
before Castile had laws, was fated always
to be a provincial capital. When Legio
VII Gemina was quartered there, it had
less importance than Tarragona or Meiida;
during the Reconquest, Oviedo, as a safer
residence, was preferred; after Seville was
taken the kings were seldom here. The
town could not but live, like all the rest of
Spain, in health and wealth through the
Renaissance and after, and enjoy some fine
town houses, of Guzman and Luna, Vi-
llarente and Gutierrez, just as it preserves
Roman tombstones and altars. It can
afford a sixteenth-century palace for the
Ayuntamiento and one of the eighteenth
century, with balconies and pyramids, for
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
the Casa Consistorial. On the other side
of the city, the removal of a sixteenth-cen-
tury facade from the house of Luna re-
vealed one of the thirteenth century.
Where the Romans raised them, the walls
still stand: whence the great lords went
forth, their descendants, perhaps, starve
and shiver, in the narrow streets a strait-
ened and declining life goes on. You may
walk for half an hour, in some quarters of
Leon and for that time in the winding
street visible ahead not a figure moves,
though Quadrado says that there are
today familias antiguas y hidalgas, surviv-
ing in the modest condition of labourers.
For the Romans. Leon was a frontier
post, a garrison town. Legio VII Gemina
was recruited in the Cantabrian hills, and
was for the most part quartered here.
During the summer of 68, when Galba rose
against Nero and was proclaimed in Clunia,
the legion was raised in Iberia amongst
Iberians, and some of them were odd lads. x
When Galba took the legion to Rome his
chief officer was a Spaniard from Tolosa
Antoninus Primus. Then it was sent to
179
Legio VII
Gemina
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180
Altar to
Diana
WAY OF S.JAMES
garrison Pannonia, and stayed there long
enough to leave traces: in the war against
Vitellius. it was brigaded with some Mysian
troops. The Senate gave to the Legion
the title of Felix, which was inscribed on
the column at the bridge of Chaves. In 70,
they came home, and Leon was founded,
and the wall the Romans builded lasted
until the coming of Almanzor. 2 Dedica-
tions to the Server! have been found built
into it, an altar to Diana and another
inscription with a monstrous bear-skin,
set up by keen sportsmen among the
officers, and a dedication to the nymphs
of the springs, the Xanas who still appear
in Asturian folk-lore.3 Only in the last
century a Roman Mosaic was found in
these parts, that represented Hylas and
the Nymphs. There must have been very
many stones turned up or turned over in
the Middle Age, and puzzled out, letter by
letter, before they were used again. Luke
of Tuy commences the history of Leon
with the martyrdom of a centurion and
his wife and their twelve sons, whom I have
a great desire to classify as the Sun, the
HISPANIC NOTES
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181
Moon, and the Twelve signs of the Zodiac,
since that sort of interpretation is fash-
ionable: and still I believe that the names
are all words that were deciphered pain-
fully, now a word on one stone, now one
on another, and all the stones, to the
finders as to the donors, were consecrate,
were sepulchral, were sainted. So the good
folk worshipped the images they evoked of
young knightly soldiers too early dead,
where the Romans had set up a devotion
to half-deified Emperors, and Empresses
the patronesses of armies, and there was
small difference. Luke names, then, as
martyrs of Christ the centurion Marcellus
and his wife the blessed Nona, and their
sons Claudius, Lupercus, Victoricus, Fac-
undis and Primitivus (worshipped at
Sahagun and claimed at Orense also),
Emeterius and Celadonius (worshipped at
Calahorra and all along up and down the
Ebro), Servandus, Germanus, Faust us,
Januarius, and Martialis, — this or another
Martial was servant of the Apostles
and buried at Limoges, as he admits
elsewhere. 4
Sun, Moon
andTwelve
Twin
Brethren
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182
WAY OF S.JAMES
Second
century
steles
Delphi,
Oms,
Jerusalem,
and Mecca
The most curious among the remains
are the funeral steles, carved with crescent,
rosette and helix, Syrian emblems all, and
likewise with horse-shoe arches. s Most of
these are in Leon museum still, some at
Madrid. Dr. Holland6 suggests that the
carvings of the steles have talismanic value
and a Mithraic allusion; something very
like, but without the horse-shoe curves,
appears manifestly on Coptic tombstones
of a later age at Cairo.7 Certainly they
represent a stream of oriental thought and
feeling, perhaps of practice and worship,
that flowed into Spain, probably from
Syria.
Legio VII Gemma, like Crusaders,
brought back from service abroad tags of
Eastern lore, older superstitions and newer
divinities. So, we learned that the Holy
Sepulchre enshrined such another Black
Stone as Emessa and Mecca, which pil-
grims, worshipping, touched through the
interstices of such a net as covered the Om-
phalos at Delphi. What happens, Kipling
describes, and his testimony is good be-
causehe is not explaining antiquity but, like
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
antiquity, bent on business of the empire.
And man on man got talking
Religion and the rest,
And every man comparing
Of the gods he knew the best . . .
Till we'd all ride home to bed
With Mohammed, God and Shiva
Changing pickets in our head.8
This question of the infiltration of
Syrian and other cults from Asia Minor
and the lands east of the Mediterranean,
the amount and the kind, is as important
as that of the architecture, though not
identical. It will reappear further along
the Way; meanwhile a note may be added
that one possible remnant of the worship
of Mithras survived at Leon in a very
ancient use. " Mithras was always the god
invoked as the guarantor of faith and
protector of the inviolability of contracts, '
says Cumont . 9 Now Quadrado mentions I °
that upon the ark or shrine of S. Isidore
oaths were taken in both civil and criminal
causes, in full assurance that the perjurer
would die within the year, and accepted by
the courts, until the Catholic Kings stopped
1 83
Syrian
cults
Mithras
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1 84
WAY OF S.JAMES
Custom
of the
country
this, like all other local usages, by a cedula
dated 1498. The custom possibly was
ancient as the city.
"Inde Legio urbs regalis et curialis,
cunctisque felicitatibus plena," according to
Aymery of Parthenay. Guillaume Manier
adds a curious circumstance: the pilgrims
west-bound stopped at S. Marcos, on the
Way, but in returning they stopped at
S. Anton in the city. He adds: "Us n'ont
point de chaises dans toute 1'Espagne.
L'on s'accroupit ou Ton se tient droit.
Les bourgeois ont des tabourets de
bois." This is confirmed by the Knight
of Rozmital, and by Purchas's Pil-
grim. x x
It was at Leon on the return journey
that he and his companion went looking
for work, being tailors both, and dis-
cussed matters with one there, but did
not fancy working on women's clothes
as well, according to Spanish custom.
They made the excuse of looking up
the third fellow, who gave himself out
for a cobbler, and so got away "and
we have not yet been back" he ends
HISPANIC NOTES
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185
with a blunt jest. The German traveller
Sebastian Ilsung, too, keeps a record of
corals and other beads bought there,12
which implies a fair or booths of such
trumpery stuff as pilgrims and tourists
buy dear, finding it portable, indifferent
that it is far-fetched, for agates do not
grow in these mountains and Leon con-
trols no coral seas.
It was a regular stop on the crowded
road which had grown more important
than any other road. Where the Bishop
D. Pedro left that money for altar lights,
pilgrims and the poor were not forgotten,
for the tithes of four cities were appointed
for the succour of their necessities; finally,
after other provision, the cathedral laun-
dress got a tithe of S. Adrian de Vega. 1 3
Speaking from the tourist's point of view,
the town has two hotels, and whichever
one you go to, you wish you had tried the
other. Neither can lawfully be blamed,
except by the tourist, if one runs a cafe
chantant under the best bedrooms, and the
other, asking a price that would be dear in
Madrid, stands at the noisiest and narrowest
The two
inns
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1 86
WAY OF S. JAMES
part of a street that recalls the famous
epigram levelled against Perugia, where
the piazza is no more than the fag end of a
stradoccio. This hotel, however, is a pal-
ace, literally, and the other sets a good
table. Being once in Leon at a feast time,
when there was no room in any inn, nor
house, not a bed in the town, I found the
cleanest and quietest of lodgings close to
the railway station, in charge of the res-
taurant people.
S. Isidore.
Quand nous f times dedans Leon
De la vieille Castille,
Nous chantdmes cette chanson
Au beau milieu de la ville;
Les hommes, femmes et filles
De toutes parts nous suivoient,
Pour entendre la melodic
De ces bons pelerins fran$ois.
— Chanson.
Coming to S. Isidoro from S. Miguel,
you pass from an indigenous art to an
imported. Noble as is the strong Roman-
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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187
esque building, with its bold transepts and
parallel apses, its high clerestory and
superb barrel vault, the sidelong view,
in coming up on it across the square
where once a palace was, suggests the
great churches of the south-west of
France.
A nun's church stood here already in
the tenth century (916) dedicated to the
A nun's
Baptist: Alfonso V, in the eleventh rebuilt
church
or more probably repaired it in ladrillo y
lodo which if not wattle and daub, is cer-
tainly brick and mud; just such a one
perhaps as S. Miguel. He is said to have
made the sepulchres for his ancestors in
the Pantedn or royal burial-place at the
west end, like S. Louis in S. Denis, but
that was only a beginning. They were
again reconstructed, for it is evident, even
deducting the Latin verses that Morales
copied and I omit, that the epitaphs
were put there long after the burials. His
own epitaph says:
Hie jacet rex Adefonsus qui populavit
Legionem post destructionem Almanzor,
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I
1 88
WAY OF S. JAMES
> et dedit ei bonos foros, et fecit ecclesiam
hanc de luto et latere . . . obiit era
MLXVf(io27) ...
Within a half century Ferdinand the
Great and Queen Sancha rebuilt in the
French style, as already said, dedicated
the new church to S. Isidore, December
21, 1063; and in 1065 were able to add
relics from Avila of S. Vincent and his
sisters Sabina and Cristeta. There too is
buried the Infanta Urraca, she who was
Queen of
good friend to the Cid, and whom her
Zamora
brothers robbed, in the days of the Almenas
de Toro, and her epitaph is this:
Hie requiescit donna Urraca regina
de Zamora, filia regis magni Ferdi-
nandi. Haec ampliavit ecclesiam istam
et multis muneribus ditavit, et quia
beatum Isidorum super omnia dilige-
bat, ejus servitio se subjugavit. Obiit
eraMCXXXVIIII (noi).2
The honour of the design belongs to
Ferdinand perhaps, but he could not have
I
HISPANIC NOTES
T H E W A Y
lived to see much of it, dying in 1065, and
the work must have been in the hands of
his daughter conjoined with him in this
enlarging. Of the church that was built
and the burial chapel beyond, the transepts
are probably now in place, with the Puerta
del Per don and the two side apses, possibly
also a part of the Panteon.
The transept face, for all the difference
in splendour and delicacy, is planned like
those of which Aulnay is a lovely though
late example. As capitals, string-courses
and corbels are identical here and in the
apses, they must have been built together.
Dona Urraca, dying in noi, had for
sisters-in-law a fair number of the French
wives of Alfonso VI, and could command
her style: the figures at right and left
above the door, SS. Peter and Paul, are
of the school of Toulouse. So are the
others built in above the larger south
portal, SS. Vincent and Sabina in the
spandrels, above them figures from a
Zodiac, music-making angels, two of these
half-lengths in a roundel like Renaissance
ornament.
189
Transept
portal
South-
flank door
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190
WAY OF S. JAMES
Zodiacal
Figures
The Zodiacal figures were drawn nearly
fifty years ago by Sr. Velasquez Bosco
for a study in the Museo Espanol de An-
tiguedades: 3 he saw them less ruinous than
we, and his testimony has peculiar value,
because, though he was mightily interested
in the Dragon and the Serpent,4 his thoughts
turned rather to the Midgard snake. It
appears on inspection that various of them
are involved with great serpents after the
manner of certain Mithraic reliefs, and it is
fair perhaps to invoke for comparison the
statue at Aries. 5 Leo is killing a Serpent,
Sagittarius is caught in the coils, Capricorn
goes off at the tail into a long snake. The
Twins are a charming pair of young saints,
their arms over each other's shoulders,
holding between them a reliquary; they are
certainly intended either, as Rada y Del-
gado pointed out, for the Santos Domnos
of Sahagun or the soldiers of Calahorra and
La Calzada, or else for greater manifesta-
tions of the Twin Brethren in which S.
James played a part.
On the other hand, the marble tympa-
num of the Puerto, del Perdon is com-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
191
posed of three pieces all adapted from
ivories: in the centre the Deposition, on the
left the Ascension in which the Christ has
wings and even with these must need the
two Apostles to push Him up, and on
the right the three Maries at the tomb
with an angel whose long beautiful wings
are folded above the whole composition.
Comparing this with the silver-gilt book-
cover in the Louvre or the similar ivory in
the Bibliotheque Nationale, comparing the
figures of Apostles in the Ascension with
Rhenish adaptations of Byzantine motives,
and the central group with the later
Carolingian ivories, the precise nature and
extent of the debt becomes manifest.
Provincial work this is, bending to its own
use material at hand, with deliberate mod-
ifications apart from the consequence of
its imperfections.
The tympanum of the south door is
more confused: it is supposed to represent
the sacrifice of Abraham. If so, most of
that chief's army is looking on, and trains of
servants, the drapery of the central figures
being Toulousan again. But the upper
Carolin-
gian ivories
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WAY OF S.JAMES
The
antique
Roman
part is filled by the Agnus Dei in a small
roundel held by two flying angels and to
right and left of them are two more side-
long figures half recumbent, in positions no
more impossible than the archivolt figures
at Saintes and Bordeaux. M. Bertaux
points out6 that this tympanum (and, he
thinks, the other) was cut down to fit the
place. There was a little cutting at the
centre, but I should like to lay stress on
what Street had seen already7; that you
have here the remains of that rare thing, a
rising lintel, such as occurs elsewhere on
the Way at Conques in Aveyron and at
Barbedelo and 61. Maria del Sar in Galicia.
Besides the ivories and the French
churches, one other source for this work
must not be overlooked : the antique Roman.
The magnificent rams' heads which sustain
this lintel, and bulls' heads under the
statues of SS. Vincent and Sabina, are
copied from Roman altars. The roundel
which holds the Agnus Dei, and its pair
of sustaining winged genii, are taken from a
Roman sarcophagus, and the figure of
Abraham's servant who stoops to relace
HISPANIC NOTES
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193
his sandal, is inspired by the antique.
Tuscany in the fourteenth century would
more befit such items as these than this
far-off land and the twelfth: it is perhaps
The
the strongest evidence of the power of
Toulousan
Toulousan influence that the Renaissance
Renais-
which breathed and brought to flower
sance
there could waft spring airs so far, and
wake such buds of promise.
This south door belongs to the recon-
struction of Alfonso VII the Emperor,
assisted by his sons and by his sister
Sancha, in 1149, which was due to the
apparition of S. Isidore on horseback in
the Christian ranks, at the battle of
Baeza. 8
This is Dona Sancha 's epitaph:
Hie requiescit regina domina Sancia
soror imperatoris Adefonsi, filia Urrace
regine et Raymundi. Hec statuit
ordinem regularium canonicorum in
ecclesia ista; et quia dicebat beatum
Isidorum sponsum suum, virgo obiit
era MCLXXXXVII (1159) pridie kal.
martii.9
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I
194
WAY OPS. JAMES
Competi-
tion
The truth is that, as Alfonso VII could
never handle Galicia, he took up and
pushed hard the effort made by his for-
bears a century and two centuries before,
and tried here to set up a rival to S. James,
as Villa-Sirga was to attempt it a century
later, and with no more success. The
quiet Doctor Egregius was disinterred and
translated, tricked out as Matamoros, but
it would not do. The great S. James still
ruled the ascendant, and the pilgrims that
revered the Hispalensis on their journey,
still pushed on till they came to the haven
where they would be.
It is more than possible that the building
since the death of Ferdinand had never
really stopped, and that when this door and
anything else was rebuilt, the idea of a recon-
struction was less necessary than magnifi-
cent . Do n a Sancha had recently transferred
thither the Canons Regular of the cathe-
dral, exiled to Carvajal or superseded on ac-
count of the changes introduced by Bishop
Diego, 1 144. You can trust a pious woman
to bring to nought the reforms most needed.
The venerable memorial stone says :
HISPANIC NOTES
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195
Sub era MCLXXXVII [A.D. 1149]
et quodum, pridie nonas marcii »f« facta
est ecclesie Sti. Isidori consecratio per
manus Raymundi Toletane sedis archi-
episcopi et Johannis Legionensis episcopi
et Martini Ovetensis episcopi et Ray-
mundi Pacensis episcopi, is et aliis
Consecra-
quoad jutorib us Petro Compostellane se-
tion
dis archiepiscopo, et Pelagio Mindunien-
si episcopo, et Guidone Lucensi episcopo,
et Arnoldo Asturicensi episcopo, et
Bernardo Saguntino episcopo, et Ber-
nardo Semorensi episcopo, et Pedro
Avilensi episcopo, cum aliis octo ab-
batibus benedictis, presente excellen-
tissimo imperatore Adefonso, et infanta
domina Sancia, et rege Sancio et rege
Fredenando, et infanta Constancia,
domno Petro con vent us Sti. Isidori
priore.10
In brief, three kings were there and
about all of the bishops of Spain, but
Raymond of Toledo consecrated.
The architect was Petrus de Deo, more
than half a saint, as his epitaph shows, — I
follow Risco's text11:
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I
196
WAY OF S. JAMES
Hie requiescit Petrus de Deo quii
superedificavit ecclesiam hanc. Iste
Petrus de
fundavit pontem, qui dicitur de Deus
Deo
tamben; et quia erat vir mirae abstinen-
tiae et multis florebat miraculis, omnes
eum laudibus praedicabant. Sepultus
est hie ab Imperatore Adefonso et
Sancia Regina.
Perhaps if he had been Leonese, the stone
would have said so. He was bridge-
builder, like S. Benezet, and Master
Matthew, and Peter the Pilgrim. Now
that he is dust, and his bridge is broken,
the very place of it unknown, "only the
,
actions of the just smell sweet and
blossom."
He had a great invention, as the nave
shows, admitted to be his work, with the
storied capitals, Jacob wrestling with a
devil, Christ in Majesty between angels,
Daniel taming a lion while two more look
on, angels taking up a little soul in a man-
dorla, monsters and goblins, birds pecking
quietly at leaves. Long ago Street pointed
out the evidence of some sort of change in
the plan before the vaults were built: the
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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197
easternmost of the aisle-shafts comes down
past a window. If the church were planned
and begun all at once, from east to west,
and slowly built upward (this was the pro-
cess at S. Sernin of Toulouse1 2) or if there
were a later destruction and re-edification
of the vaults, either would explain the great
richness of the capitals and cornices of
the south apse. It makes more probable
the suggestion that the building went on
steadily from Ferdinand's commencement,
and that the consecration at the middle
of the twelfth century marks merely the
finishing of what was begun after the middle
of the eleventh.
The plan and description of the interior
with its six bays, barrel-vaulted in the
nave, groined in the aisles, its western
gallery, and main apse rebuilt after 1513,
is familiar, or should be, from Street's
account. There is no lantern, nor any
lifting of the vault, at the crossing, but the
barrel-vault continues straight. Into the
transepts, of two bays, likewise barrel-
vaulted, the arches which open are fringed
with cusping, and the western door is not
Built at
full
length?
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198
WAY OF S.JAMES
Moulded
bases
Pantedn
only cusped, likewise, but is of horse-shoe
form. The bases of the columns are
curious for being ornamented with cable
or ball or some other moulding around the
bottom of the shaft. The same practice
obtains at S. Miguel de Lino, above Oviedo,
and at S. Esteban de Ribas de Sil in
Galicia. Some of the plinths are circular,
worked with a billet, some square, and
afford good seats.
The Capilla de S. Catalina or Pantedn
is perhaps, except the tower, the earliest
part of the building. Cylindrical columns
hold up a groined vault, of which six
bays are painted (two deep, three broad) :
westward of that, it runs into a dark
cloister walk, and to the north, by open
arches filled with iron screens, gives upon
the cloister that flanks all the church.
The capitals are more massive but also
earlier than any in the church, and some
motives are nearer to the East: two grif-
fins drinking from a cup (this occurs at
Montierneuf in Poitiers), two doves, ser-
pents, Daniel with the lions, the rhino-
ceros delivered of her young by the mouth ;
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
some saintly legends ; Christ raising Lazarus
and healing the lame. In some of these
capitals are traces of the style of Auvergne.
Here too, very finely stylized, are the pine
cones that to the latter Empire symbol-
ized immortality. The carvings of the
abaci are pretty much in one style, full
twelfth-century and give unity to the
whole.
The paintings I should wish to date at
the end of the twelfth century: not earlier
by reason of their great beauty, not later
by their archaism. They have been
referred back to France. This I cannot
feel. The choice and treatment of themes,
the details, the symbolism, all point to
Constantinople, and most of all the style.
French mural decoration of the Middle
Age was not monumental, but narrative.
The Apostles at Cahors are like patronal
figures in a window; the Scripture histories
at S. Savin are like successive pages of
miniatures; the apse decorations at S. Aven-
tin are like a story-book. Some of these
compartments are like, indeed, the solemn
frontispiece of an antiphonary; more are
199
Pine cone
Paintings
AND MONOGRAPHS
2OO
WAY OF S.JAMES
Byzance
like a mosaic; one is an adorable pastoral
that may preserve the faded flush, the lost
fragrance, of the palace walls that were
burned by Count Baldwin.
On the eastern wall was the Crucifixion,
now quite perished and gone, and the
Nativity, just discernible above an altar;
on the south the Annunciation and Visita-
tion, and the Flight into Egypt, with maids
spinning in the low corners of the lunette.
The soffits of the arches by which the
bays are divided are covered usually by
patterns, diaper or scroll, but one shows the
Hand of God blessing between Enoch and
Elijah; elsewhere below, with explanatory
lettering, "S. Martin said: Go, Satan!"
S. Gregory writes to the elders; SS. Mar-
cial and Pucerna are here. One reviews
the labours of the months, a French motive
in sculpture that passed into miniatures.
In the north-east bay, the theme is taken
from the Apocalypse, Christ seated among
the seven candlesticks, and S. John pros-
trate before the angel essaying the same
oriental and well tucked-up posture as
George of Antioch before the Virgin in the
HISPANIC NOTES
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201
mosaic at la Martorana and the donor
in the great eleventh-century mosaic, of
Eastern make, at S. Paul Without the
Walls. The middle b^y shows Christ in
a mandorla seated on the rainbow, with
the book, and the four evangelists have
the heads of the Apocalyptic beasts, as
in some of the frontals at Vich and in
Barcelona, and in the dome sculptures
at Armentia. The colouring here, as in
the Last Supper, is very rich, with
much deep red and blue besides the
ochres, the brown and yellow earths,
usual in Romanesque painting. The
south-east vault is given over to the An-
nouncement to the Shepherds, treated as a
pure pastoral. The angel hardly counts.
The shepherds have a rustic grace. Be-
sides the sheep and grazing cows, young
goats butt frolicsomely, as in a tag of
Horace, a dog drinks from the cup a
shepherd holds for him. The whole is
deliciously designed, and enclosed in a
few sinuous lines of foliage and water.
The north-west vault is occupied with
four scenes: The Betrayal: Pilate wash-
or
Alexandria
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202
S. Martial
of Limoges
WAY OF S.JAMES
ing his hands: S. Peter denying to the
servant, the cock being set off by himself:
Simon with the Cross, S. Peter weeping.
Here is a bit of suggestion new to me^ but
probably taken from some mystical trea-
tise. At the other end, in the south-west,
the Massacre of the Innocents is more like
French treatment and more like the thir-
teenth century, than any of the others. But
the great central composition is in the grand
Romanesque manner, twelfth-century and
Byzantine, with a gigantic Christ and
Apostles gloriously grouped. In the cor-
ners the cock appears again, and two saints,
S. Thaddeus bringing a fish and S. Marcial
wine : S. Matthias (Macias) is present also.
Now the great abbey of S. Martial at
Limoges lay on the pilgrim route, otherwise
I hardly see how this disciple of S. Peter's
could have got here. In the upper cham-
ber he had held the towel at the washing
of the feet. * 3 It is quite impossible to think
that this should be the portrait of a
donor who was a steward, as M. Ber-
taux believes14: but M. Bertaux be-
lieves many impossible things, even that
HISPANIC NOTES
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Turpin's Chronicle was composed in
French.
This painting is very beautiful: it will
have been the last loveliness added to the
church when Petrus de Deo was long
dead, and the Emperor his patron, and the
Queen Sancha, who called herself the spouse
of Isidore. This Pantheon seems to me
neither the original church of Alfonso V,
as Street15 would have it, nor a narthex
after the kind of S. Benoit-sur-Loire, as
M. Enlart deems, T 6 but precisely what its
name declares, a burial place: vaulted,
but opening on two sides into a cloister.
The Spanish Kings have always needed
this, counting from the Chapels Royal of
Granada and Palma back to the apart-
ment which at S. Juan de la Pena, whatever
its original form, still enshrines the dust of
the earliest Kings of Aragon. Ferdinand I
was not called the Great for nothing: he
meant to leave a great race and dealt out
Spain among them, and he made, it is
conceivable, provision for them not only
when on earth, but when in earth.
In this low chapel of six bays the Kings
AND MONOGRAPHS
203
A burial-
place of
kings
204
Epitaphs
WAY OF S.JAMES
of Leon were buried and their women
folk and their good men. One Ramiro is
"vir fortis," and something more, "et
benignus" the clause ends. Another epi-
taph reads: "Hie requiescit domnus Gar-
sea miles strenuus comitis Ranimiri."17
Of the restless Urraca who was by her
marriages Countess in Burgundy and
Queen in Aragon, and by her lovers
the mother of some good knights, "Hie
requiescit domna Urraca regina et mater
imperatoris Adefonsi."18 She had, be-
sides the powers, all the sins of a strong
man; she had, besides the waywardness,
all the charm of an unscrupulous woman.
What came when she and Diego Gelmirez
of Compostella fell out, silken petticoat
against serge cassock, we shall see at
Santiago, but always, whatever the out-
rage, it would seem she had only to come
and to listen, then to speak a little, and
anon all went her way. "She was of
gracious speech and eloquence," says the
Anonimo of Sahagun.
Alfonso IX is absent, the husband of
Berenguela and father of Ferdinand the
HISPANIC NOTES
The Church at Orbigo
THE WAY
205
Saint, Piisimus rex as he is called in the
epitaph of his daughter Leonor19; a tragic
figure in his youth, a sorry figure in his
age. Two good women were his wives, and
the Pope took away each, and at the last,
when Kings mustered for battle in the valley
of Tolosa, Alfonso of Castile and Alfonso
of Portugal, Sancho of Navarre, Peter of
Aragon, then Alfonso of Leon was absent.
There is a belief in the city that on the
night before the battle, a steady, heavy
sound was heard in the streets, as of an
army marching, and a great knocking at
the door of S. Isidro. A clerk watching
in the church asked, "Who calls?" and the
answer came that the count Fernan
Gonzalez, and Ruy Diaz the Cid, were
come for Ferdinand to fight along with
them in the next day's battle. All of
Spain is in the story.
Requiescit, say these epitaphs, preserved
Morales and others while still one
could decipher the worn stones, but in-
deed the poor bones have never been sure
of rest: for when Veremund fled to the
mountains before Almanzor, we read that
A Folk-
Tradition
HISPANIC NOTES
206
WAY OF S. JAMES
he carried with him, with a touching and
manly piety, the bones of saints and the
. . . under
ashes of kings; and only a century ago
the drums
the French soldiers are believed to have
and tramp-
broken open the sepulchres and flung
lings . . .
upon a dust-heap the remnants of royalty,
as they had done at S. Denis.
It is said that the stones before the high
altar of the church sweated three days,
and then came news that Alfonso VI was
dead. Luke of Tuy has a long story
about him, but the best passage in the
chronicle of that ardent historian and able
bishop, sometime clerk of S. Isidro, is the
account of the last days of the great
Ferdinand. Doubtless Lucas had the
record of his passing, hour by hour, from
a contemporary record cherished by the
canons :
When all the cities and castles of the
Celtiberian land had surrendered, the
sweet Doctor Isidore appeared to him
and apprized him that • the day of his
going was near, and in this langour of
body, having come to Leon in the month
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
207
of December, he prayed an abiding
place in the house of S. Isidro. He
entered the city IX Kal. Januarii on
the Sabbath day, and after his custom
adoring the body of the saint on bended
knees, he prayed that because he saw
the terrible hour of death coming upon
him, yet by the intercession of the choir
angelic his soul should be free from the
powers of darkness and should stand
before the throne of Christ his Redeemer.
On the night of the Nativity of our
Lord, as the clerks were singing the
Christmas matins, the King was sud-
denly among them, and with what
strength he had took his part till the
last Psalm for matins. It befell that
his verse — for at that time we sang,
after the Toledan use, verse and verse
about — that his verse was; 'Be wise
all ye that are judges of the earth,'
which to the great king Ferdinand fell
not ill-suited. Because while he yet
lived he governed the kingdom in Catho-
lic wise, and ruled himself humbly and
strongly. Then when the dear Son of
God was making bright the universe,
and as our lord the King felt his members
Passing of
King
Ferdinand
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208
Tuum enim
est regnum
el potestas
WAY OF S. JAMES
fail him, he desired Mass to be sung,
that by receiving the body and blood
of Christ sustenance should be given
him, and so went to bed. On the
morrow, by the true light's coming, he
perceived what was to be, and he called
to himself Bishops and Abbots and
certain religious men, that they might
confirm his end, and with them he was
carried to the church, adorned with
royal ornaments and a gold crown on his
head. Then on his knees before the
altar of S. John Baptist and the bodies
of S. Isidore the Confessor and S. Vincent
the Martyr, with clear voice he said to
the Lord: 'Thine is the power and
Thine the Kingdom, Thou art above all
kings, to Thy Empire are subdued all
Kingdoms in heaven and in earth. Now,
the Kingdom that I received from Thee
and that I ruled by Thy free will a while,
behold, I give it back to Thee, likewise
my soul, taken out of this greedy world,
that in peace Thou receive it, I pray.'
Saying this he took off the royal mantle
that he wore about him, and laid down
the jewelled crown that bound his brow,
and alone and prostrate, in tears, for
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
mercy he entreated the Lord. Then from
the Bishops he took the sacraments of
penance and extreme unction, and put
on a hair shirt for the royal habit, and
scattered ashes on his head for the golden
diadem. And in this penitence he abode
before the said altar for the two days
that God gave him to live. When there
came another day, the third, at the
sixth hour of the day in which the feast
of S. John the Evangelist is celebrated,
from the hands of the pontiff his soul,
as we believe, passed to heaven. Thus
in good age, full of days, he went away
in peace. Era MCIII."2
So died one not lightly called Great, a
mighty figure: one to be invoked when
Spain's hour came.
Nowhere is history so poignant as here
in Leon, where on the very altar-stone
monks graved the epitaph of that gallant
young count of Castile, who came to a
bloody wedding:
Hie requiescit dominus Garcia qui
venit in Legionem ut acciperet regnum,
et interfectus est a filiis Velo comitis. 2 x
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210
WAY OF S.JAMES
The
Bloody
Wedding
The romance of the Infant D. Garcia is
something more than epical, like that of
the Cid or Bernardo del Carpio. It is the
sort of grand tragedy, linked at a thousand
points with the history of the land and the
lordship, that the Greeks knew how to
employ, mingling pity and terror, the ele-
ments of irony and foreboding. Everything
unites as in a great art: the slaughtered
knights in the midst of the marriage feast;
the love at first sight, too sudden and
strong to come to good end; the sacrilegious
treason of the murder ; the tender flower of
the Count's own youth; and at the last,
vengeance terrible and patient as that of
Electra and that of Gudrun.
King Veremund's sister, Dona Sancha,
is especially marked, at the outset, for her
lovely ways, tall and fair "y de muy
buenas costumbres" and Count Garcia of
Castile will marry her. He comes to the
wedding in Leon with the King of Navarre
at his back to act as a sort of official parent
or sponsor, but when he pushed on im-
patiently with forty knights to see his
bride, the King stayed encamped in the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
meadow by the waterside, at Barrio de
Trabajo. Then there met the count the
three counts of Vela, landless men, Ruy
Vela, Diego Vela, and Inigo Vela, and they
kissed his hand after the Spanish fashion
and asked for their lands again which his
father had taken away: and he gave them
back their lands and they kissed his hand
again and did homage as his men. The
Bishop D. Pelayo comes in procession, and
they all hear Mass in S. Maria la Regla,
and then only is he free to look for his
bride. He saw her, "and talked with her
after his desire, and when they had talked
a good part of the day, so greatly were they
pleased one with the other, and they loved
each other so well, that they could not
part nor do without each other." But the
Princess is troubled: "Infant, you did ill
not to wear your arms, for you knew not
who wishes you well or ill." He answered
and said to her : " Dona Sancha, I did never
ill nor wrong to any man in the world and
I know not who could wish to slay or do
me other ill." Then Dona Sancha an-
swered that she knew there were men ill
211
" These
violent de-
lights have
violent
ends . .
AND MONOGRAPHS
212
WAY OF S.JAMES
disposed in the land, and when the Infant
D. Garcia heard her, his heart grew right
heavy. And the traitors went out and took
counsel to slay him and made fast the gates
of the city that none might enter or depart.
According to Luke of Tuy and D. Rod-
erick, they slew him before the door of S.
John the Baptist, none of his own people
knowing it, and the blow was given by
Count Ruy Vela, his godfather, who had
held him at the font. But the poem says
that they set up lists in the street, and
At the
when the xCastilian knights were at sport
lance-
there with them, they slew them all. And
playing
the Infant being in the palace in converse
with his bride, knowing nothing of his
death prepared, when he heard a noise and
a calling for arms in great confusion, he
hastened out into the street to see what it
was. And when he saw his knights dead,
his heart was right heavy and he wept full
bitterly. The counts came round about
him with their lances to kill him, and Ruy
Vela his godfather laid hands on him, and
the Infant when he saw himself thus beset
began to ask them not to kill him, and
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WA Y
promised to give them great lands and goods
in his country. So the Count Rodrigo was
willing to do this, but Inigo Vela waxed
wroth and said: "Don Rodrigo, before
we killed the knights this might have been,
but now is no time for such talk."
The Infanta Dona Sancha, when she
knew that Count Garcia was taken, came
out as fast as might be and when she saw
him she cried and said: " Counts, kill
not the Infant, for he is your lord, and I
pray you that you kill me first, before
him." Ferrand Llaynez struck her in the
face. And when he saw that, with the
great pain he had being held there, D.
Garcia began to speak them ill, and call
them dogs and traitors. So they gave him
great wounds with the lances that they
held, and slew him. Then the princess for
the great grief she had, flung herself upon
him, and Ferrand Llaynez took her by the
hair and threw her down a flight of steps.
So King Sancho comes too late, and the
murderers escape to Monzon and are
caught and burned alive all except the
traitor Llaynez who deserted them and
213
Landless
men
Oyen doblar
las cam-
panas . .
AND MONOGRAPHS
214
WAY OF S.JAMES
got away in disguise. They caught him
finally. Dona Sancha had been married
meanwhile to Ferdinand, the King's son
of Navarre, "for hers in peace or strife
was a queen's life," but she had made
the person of the traitor the price of her
acquiescence, and she killed him, slowly
and horribly, herself: carted him about and
made a show of him, "in all the cities and
market-towns in Castile, and in the land
of Leon where the treason was done."22
Doctor Egregius.
When the Chapter was
ended I was sitting as
guest-master in the porch
of the guest-house, and I
was amazed and revolved in
my mind that which I had
seen and heard. And I
began to think subtly for
what reason and for what
special merits, such a man
deserved to be promoted to
so great a position. — Joce-
lin of Brakelond.
Isidore of Seville, Doctor Egregius, was
immensely learned, hence his name: he
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
wrote, among other things, a history of the
Gothic kings which is still the ultimate
authority, and in the Etymologies a com-
pendium of all human knowledge which is
still cited as evidence in matters relating
to the seventh century. In succession to
tiis brother S. Leandro, he ruled the See of
that city from 599 to 636; he trained S.
Braulio of Saragossa and S. Ildefonso of
Toledo, and later corresponded with them;
tie argued with a Syrian bishop on a point
of orthodoxy and convinced him; he pre-
sided at the fourth Council of Toledo;
he composed a Rule for the monastic life
which was later dispossessed by the Augus-
tinian from Italy and the Cluniac from
France. He is held to have arranged also
the Mozarabic Office, to which Spain clung
so stubbornly for so long, and which is still
the daily Use in one chapel of the Metro-
politan church of Toledo. He died in April
of 636 and was buried:1 his epitaph might
have been, Honour to Religion, Glory oj
Spain. Then the Moors came.
Still he was remembered and cited, like
S. Braulio and S. Ildefonso, S. Toribio and
215
Etymolo-
gies
Mozarabic
office
AND MONOGRAPHS
216
WAY OF S.JAMES
Witnesses:
i. The
Silense
S. Julian, on points of discipline, dogma
or science. The Silense,2 writing at the
close of the twelfth century, cites the Ven-
erable Leander on the case of Hermengild,
and anon the Blessed Isidore on the ex-
ploits of King Wamba.
This same chronicler, who was a monk of
Silos in Castile, and possibly thereafter
bishop in Leon, wrote out, some pages
further along, the story of the translation
of S. Isidore's relics from Seville to Leon.
The king Ferdinand the Great sent thither
for the body of S. Justa, Virgin and Martyr,
and the body could not be found. The
Moorish king, Benabeth, was sorry, as he
explained to the commissioners, Bishop Al-
vito of Leon, Bishop Ordono of Astorga, and
Count Muno with an escort of knights,
but what could he do? Then to Bishop
Alvito appeared in sleep a venerable old
man, and recommended his body as a
substitute, that they should not return
empty-handed: "Ego sum Hispaniarum
Doctor, hujuscemodiurbis Antistites Isido-
rus." 3 Then he vanished. As the Bishop
hesitated, he reappeared again, and then a
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
217
third time, striking with his staff on the
ground to show where he lay. So they
dug and found the bones, and the great
fragrance shed abroad perfumed the hair
and beards of all like a cloud of nectar and
a dew of balsam. The Paynim king gave
them a magnificent pall to cover the
sarcophagus, and they took it back to
Leon. But Bishop Alvitus, who had seen
the Apparition, had died in Seville with-
in the week; and they carried him also
home for burial. On reaching Leon (this
part is not in the Silense) they put the
bodies each on a beast of burden, and
the creatures took them diverse ways,
S. Alvito to the cathedral, S. Isidore to
the convent.4
Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo, writing his
Chronicle about 1119, is briefer, but indeed
2. Bishop
he is everywhere succinct: under the title
Pelayo
of Ferdinand I he says:
He brought up the body of S. Isidore
the bishop from Seville the Metropolis,
to Leon, by the hands of Bishops Alvito
of Leon and Ordono of Astorga, Era
AND M ONOGR APHS
I
218
WAY OF S.JAMES
MLXVI. He made the translation of
the holy martyrs Vincent, Sabina and
Cristeta from Avila: Vincent to Leon,
Relics
Sabina to Palencia, Cristeta to S.
Pedro de Arlanza. He lived in peace,
reigned twenty-eight years, and died,
and was buried in the city of Leon with
his favourite sister Sancha the Queen,
Era MCIII.5
In Oviedo, then, less than a century later,
it was not known that Bishop Alvito had
died in the south, though Alvito, says
Florez,6 was a Spaniard of Galicia. He
was a monk of Samos and not of Sahagiin
as some have held, and had, belike, no
relation with Cluny. But a monk of
Cluny
Cluny wrote the story of the Translation,
as Florez says, 7 confirming the Bollandists,
and told of the death of Alvito; and the
church of S. John Baptist in Leon was
hurriedly consecrated on December twenty-
third by a bishop as hurriedly appointed;8
and later that was the abbey of S. Isidore
and the monks of Cluny there held sway.
Now I should not wish for an instant to
I
HISP ANI C NOTES
THE WAY
219
insist that the bones in the ark under the
splendid Saracenic textile given by Aben-
hamet were Bishop Alvito's: but I must
point out how convenient it was for every-
body that the one person who had seen the
Apparition should be dead. Two women,
one of whom was named Melanie and the
other Bernadette, saw Apparitions, and
did not die, and their lives were not pleas-
ant: they ended, the one in exile, and the
other in confinement.
This was not the first attempt to get a
good thaumaturge for Leon. In 932,
according to the Coronica general,9 the
King D. Sancho of Leon, with the counsel
of his wife Dona Teresa and his sister the
Infanta Dona Elvira, sent D. Velasco
bishop of Leon with a party of knights to
Abderraman, King of Cordova, to confirm
the peace already made and to have him
send up the body of S. Pelayo that he
martyred. Pelayo, who was a princely
and a virgin martyr, died shortly after 921,
and his relics were enshrined in Oviedo by
another King Sancho in 1067. 10
The reason why King Ferdinand espe-
Alvito,
Melanie
and
Bernadette
S. Pelayo
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220
WAY OF S.JAMES
S. Justa
and the
Syrian
Goddess
Civitas
curialis et
regalis
cially wanted S. Justa I do not know, nor
anything about her except that she and
Rufina, for refusing to assist in the rites
of the Syrian Goddess, were killed in the
third century. * x
So Ferdinand the Great took what he
could get: the scholar's bones; and his
grandson Alfonso VI was a good friend of
Cluny and a great builder of churches,
and the abbey flourished. To this Alfonso,
& que gano Toledo and established Arch-
bishop Bernard there, is due probably the
privilege mentioned by Luke of Tuy, I2
that Leon had no Archbishop nor Primate,
but was a royal and a priestly city: "Legio
civitas Sacerdotalis et regia . . . et nulli
unquam subdantur Archiepiscopo vel Pri-
mati": Aymery already had heard the
boast. To him succeeded, at one time or
another, his grandson Alfonso VII, whose
mother Queen Urraca was holding Galicia
as she might have held a fierce dog by the
collar, dangerous possibly to her but
always to an assailant. With the great
Archbishop Gelmirez, who had protected
him as a child and crowned him as a boy,
HISPANIC NOTES
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221
trained him and fought for him, D. Alfonso
was never on good terms. The stream of
pilgrims that tramped through Leon west-
ward bound or straggled back on the way
home, spent money and said prayers there,
to be sure, but they saved their best for
S. James. There was every reason, politi-
cal, economic, and commercial, at Leon,
why a good concurrence, a healthy competi-
tion, to S. James, would, as we say, pay.
This was tried, as we have seen, at Villa-
Sirga: there it sprang up even as the fire
among thorns, and died away as quickly.
Earlier kings had tried importing relics
and endowing churches, without much
effect: the only chance lay in creating (as
for certain processes of black magic) a
sort of double of S. James.
Hitherto Isidore had been the quiet Doc-
tor still. Luke of Tuy has a story, some-
where, that has been elsewhere recited,
of how the great Doctor S. Isidore her
Spouse appeared to Queen Sancha show-
ing her the couch13 prepared for her
in heaven, if she would only wait for it.
It seems D. Alfonso, when his mother
Competi-
tor of
Santiago
The Book
of the
Miracles of
S. Isidore
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222
WAY OF S.JAMES
Successor
of S.James,
said Juan
de Robles
died in 1126, was crowned there in state,
and at his crowning he seated Dona Sancha
beside him, called her Queen, and made
her partaker of his crown and throne, a
little too much in the manner of the
Ptolemies. x 4 Isidore had good reason for
his warning about perfect virginity of body
and soul, though the address is entirely in
the manner of the early church, and the
Priscillian practice. But shortly before
1149, when the king was lying before Baeza
and had news that the Moors were coming
to relieve the city, S. Isidore appeared in
the night, heartening him, precisely as S.
James had appeared to D. Ramiro in the
Rioja, and saying that he would be his
helper against the Moors next day.
Now mark how legends are formed. The
Archbishop D. Rodrigo, who rarely writes
expansively except from personal knowledge,
states briefly the fact that I have given,
and adds that for the miracle which he
recognized he made the church of S. Isidore
in Leon, of Canons Regular. T 5 Luke of
Tuy relates that the Blessed Isidore "se
datum esse domine illi, et suo generi de-
HISPANIC NOTES
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223
fensorum": that when the king had con-
quered and had come back to Leon with the
loot and with great glory, he decreed a
confraternity to be formed in that city
in memory of so great a miracle and in
honour of S. Isidore the Confessor. Then,
richly dowering the church, he consecrated
it Domino,16 which means to the Lord
Isidore, as appears from the sentence
just quoted, and these titles of Dominus
and Defensor are usurped from Santiago
Matamoros, Patron of Spain. The Canons,
whom he put in with perpetual right, as
we have seen, Dona bancha had at heart.
So much the history; out in the Book of
the Miracles of S. Isidore, that he composed
for Queen Berenguela, there is more.
When S. Isidore appeared, as a Venerable
Pontiff, shining like the sun, near him
could be seen a shining right hand with a
fiery sword, and to the King's question,
"Who are you?" he answered: "I am
Isidore, Doctor of Spain and successor by
grace and preaching of the Apostle S.
James, whose is the right hand that you
see going with me for your defense."
3. Arch-
bishop
Roderick
4. Luke of
Tuy
AND MONOGRAPHS
224
WAY OF S.JAMES
5. Coronica
general
Moreover, in the battle he was seen on a
white horse, holding in one hand the
sword and in the other a cross, and above,
the right hand of S. James with a sword.
This Apparition is, of course, the duplicate
of that at Simancas, where the other figure
was again the local saint, S. Emilianus,
and the description by Gonzalo de Berceo
has been quoted already : here the intention
of getting rid of S. James is unmistakeable
and the method is identical with the depart-
ure of the Cheshire Cat. The reason it took
this form will be shown shortly. In the
Coronica general it is said17 that the
Emperor saw Isidore in the forefront of
the battle heartening himself and all of his,
and the discourse is as simple as an old
nurse's to a child sick or frightened: but
the foundation of the church and the
establishment of Canons Regular is all at
Baeza, for the Coronica general belongs to
the south. The pity is that Lucas, Bishop
of Tuy and sometime clerk of S. Isidore,
who can tell a straight story and a credible
when composing history for men, should
stoop to the absurdities of current lore
HISPANIC NOTES
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225
Ciudad
when he deals with a woman, though she
be a queen.
The Apparition at Ciudad Rodrigo
shows the same evolution: the Archbishop
relates that when the rebel Ferrand Rodri- „
Rodrigo
guez with a host of Moors was marching
on the city, S. Isidore appeared to a sacris-
tan who slept as a guardian in the church of
S. Isidore outside of town, telling him the
Moors were coming and bidding him send
for King Ferdinand II of Leon, who
arrived in time.18 In the History of the
Tudense, the Blessed Isidore appeared to a
Canon and Treasurer of a monastery of
his, named Isidore (this is what we call the
lie with circumstance) , sending the message
and adding that he and S. James would be
in the battle. Unluckily I have not at
hand the version of the Miracles, but as a
later writer testified19 that a white dove
(It but
confirms
came down and sat on the king's helmet,
it is fair to conjecture that something
occurred on the battlefield. Luke was,
after all, as Bishop of Tuy, virtually suffra-
gan of Santiago, and in later life gathered
up a good bit of lore and converted a fair
AND MONOGRAPHS
226
Merida
WAY OF S.JAMES
measure of allegiance, for the benefit of
the Apostle, there in the Land of S. James,
at the world's end.
Another story goes much the same as
the last: how after the taking of Merida
Alfonso IX of Leon was there with a hand-
ful of men, and how the Moors came up in
multitudes under a great leader (Aben-
futh, Luke calls him) who had expelled the
Almohades from Spain. Fuit Dominus
cum Rege Adefonso, and the heathen were
overthrown, and their king gravely
wounded; Badajoz was taken, and Elva
and other castles, and D. Alfonso came
back praising God and S. James. For in
this war visibly appeared S. James, with a
multitude of shining soldiers — again the
"white horsemen who ride on white horses,
the Knights of God." For the Blessed
Isidore, so the next sentence goes on,
appeared to certain in Zamora, before Mer-
ida was taken or the war undertaken, and
said to them that he was coming to help
King Alfonso with an army of Saints, and
that he himself would hand over the said
city and give victory over the Saracens in
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the field. Here the two cults are set one over
against the other; the reader may choose:
the reader must remember also how S.
James was seen going to Coimbra with the
keys of the city, as Luke indeed related. 2 °
But, he continues, for his vow's sake the
King set out for S. James's in Galicia, and
lie died on the Way, and was buried at last
in Santiago beside his father. 2 1
In the light of all this, it would appear
that the knocking on the door of the
church on the night before the battle of
Las Navas will have been to rouse the
Blessed Isidore and summon him, as S.
James arose and went to Coimbra. There
is a possibility that this saint took the
form of the Shepherd who showed the
kings the way across the hills, for Luke is
mysterious on the subject, and calls him
divinitus quidam quasi pastor omum. 2 2 But
the Coronica general accepts him for a
simple mountaineer, that knew the paths
because he had kept cattle among them
and taken rabbits and hares: for the great
Chronicle is content to see the hand of God
everywhere equally plain, in that gathering
227
The Shep-
herd of Las
Navas
AND MONOGRAPHS
228
WAY OF S.JAMES
Confrater-
nity of
S. Isidore
as for a kind of Armageddon, for the
battle of the host of the Lord God. 2 3
Scattered stories exist of vows, one of
Ferdinand III before he went to take
Cordova,24 and an apparition to Bishop
Cyprian of Leon, warning Alfonso VI not to
raise the siege of Toledo25: but apparently
the cult was not a complete success. The
confraternity that Alfonso VII founded
had a banner; it hung, I fancy, with a
multitude of others in the Capilla de
Santiago, like the tattered and dusty flags
at S. George's chapel at Windsor, and the
faded row that swings in Henry VI Ps
above the indifference of herded tourists.
Morales26 saw it still preserved: "a great
square of sendal, something like taffety,
which Alfonso the Emperor, Dona Urra-
ca's son, had broidered with all the manner
in which S. Isidore appeared to him before
Baeza and made him gain the battle."
It is embroidered on both sides alike, a fine
piece of work; the Saint is on horseback,
pontifically vested, in a cope, with a
cross in his hand and a sword raised in the
other, and above, an arm coming down
HISPANIC NOTES
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229
out of the sky, also with a drawn sword.
The theory that legends derive at times
from images, finds matter here. In 1170
the knightly Order of Santiago was
Indistin-
guishable
founded, for which this banner would
from
serve admirably; in 1255 the Confraternity
Santiago
of Santiago was flourishing in Leon, and
buying houses.27 S. James was stronger
than his competitor, and absorbed him.
Still, S. Isidore had to have a legend;
and that of the Cerratense, 2 8 taken partly
from Bishop Lucas but augmented by a
good deal of his own, has a value for us
as indicating what functions were expected
of this doppelgdnger of the Apostle. It
belongs strictly to the Leonese cult and
enumerates marvels and miracles, on any
Legend of
other explanation surprising in irrelevance
Martin of
Cerrato
and incredibility, gathered up anywhere
out of folk-lore:
I. The Saint as an infant was taken
by his nurse into the garden and there
left among the olives and forgotten: a
few days after, his father was sitting in
view of the garden grieving, and saw
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
230
WAY OF S. JAMES
Bees
Like Apol-
lonius of
Tyana
and heard a swarming of bees, an im-
mense murmuring, and on going thither
found the babe lying there, and the
bees going in and out of his mouth, and
others on his face, others all about him.
The father snatched up his baby with a
cry and with tears, and the bees flew up
and disappeared. This is uncommonly
like the Cretan Zeus, whom the bees
nourished with honey on the Idaean
Mount.29
II. When he was a young man and
very expert in science, having heard
the fame of Gregory the Great, on
Christmas Eve he read the first lesson at
the Cathedral and, walking out of the
church, anon he was in Rome for Matins :
Gregory recognized and embraced him,
and after the lesson which follows the
Gospel he came back to Seville where the
Clerks were singing Lauds. The theme
of the adventure is a commonplace of
story-telling, the finest instance I know
of a variant being that by D. Juan
Manuel, the eleventh Ensample of
Count Lucanor, where it is told of a
Dean of Santiago; but this very story,
mutatis mutandis, belongs to the Arch-
HISPANIC NOTES
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bishop of Santiago D. Pedro Munoz,
who filled the See, 1205-1222, in the days
of Alfonso IX.
III. There was a great drought in
Gaul and Spain, so that crops failed,
trees and grass were burnt up, and many
fell sick: and as he came home from a
journey to Rome, in divers cities the
folk came out to meet him with crosses
and lamps, that he should entreat God
for them, in especial the people of
Narbonne. He raised his hands and
prayed, and where the sky had been
clear and the sun burning, a storm
came up, abundance of rain fell, the
season was bettered, health restored,
the harvest was abundant. That he
was a rain -maker still in Leon, the story
of Dona Sancha attests.
IV. On approaching Seville he learned
of a great dragon vomiting flame that
had laid waste many suburbs: the
dragon was called Mahound, to whom
the Old Enemy appeared and warned
him to quit Spain and go into Africa to
a great people that should be, teaching
them the precepts of Satan, for the
iniquities of Spain were not yet full. So
231
Rain-
maker
Dragon-
killer
AND MONOGRAPHS
232
WAY OF S. JAMES
when the messengers of Isidore came to
Cordova they could not find Mahound,
and they followed him to the sea, and
some were captured and the rest went
home. The dragon of the Cerratense
seems quite as real as that of Queen Lupa
Seville,
on the hillside above Padron, whose
Padr6n,
earlier habitat had been at Guadix near
or Guadix
Granada : it is hard to say here if we have
allegory turning into myth, or folk tale
about to be euhemerized.
V. In the place which is called S.
Eulalia he met a hugeous monster that
bellowed and breathed flame; at his
approach the beast bent its head and
waited and the saint dismissed it into a
place where it could hurt no creature.
S. Eulalia
As S. Eulalia was the original dedication
of the church at Iria: this monster, called
also a dragon and a serpent, is mani-
festly a doublet of the foregoing with
some suggestions of the bulls.
The two remaining miracles have noth-
ing notable, nor yet the account of S.
Isidore's death, except for the sweet
fragrance of all spices that his grave shed
abroad. But in the account of the Passing
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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of S. Isidore, De Trans itu, written by the
clerk Redempto,30 edited by S. Braulio of
Saragossa, the story of his death is copied
after the death of Ferdinand the Great at
Leon, as Luke of Tuy has preserved it for
us, and as it was doubtless recorded in the
abbey there. The interminable action
drags out its weary length in the church
of S. Vincent. I am uncertain whether
there was any early church of S. Vincent in
Seville, apart from the Legend of S. Isidore,
the more as Vincent of Saragossa, the
reputed Deacon and loyal companion of
S. Valerius, seems to have been an heretical
bishop, but the relics of S. Vincent of
Avila were laid up in Leon.
One thing more must be observed, that
the feasts of S. Isidore were solstitial:
though he died in April, they were kept
July 25 and December 30. The complaint
of Dreves31 that there were no hymns
preserved at Leon except a magnificent
printed Toledan Breviary of 1483, sug-
gests that S. Isidore was never, in the
literal sense, a popular saint. On the
other hand, as rain-maker and patron of
233
The
passing of
S. Isidore
A faded
Sun-god
AND MONOGRAPHS
234
WAY OF S.JAMES
husbandry, S. Isidore the Ploughman, as
soon as he was split off in the thirteenth
S. Isidore
the
century and developed a separate identity,
Plough-
had an immense success. His life was
man
written by John the Deacon, whom Fr.
Fita will have to be Fray Juan Gil of
Zamora, though Dreves argues that Juan
Gil was not good enough to have writ-
ten the hymns that adorn the life.32
One sure thing we know, that the gentle
ploughman, who could find springs and
whose wife could raise the thunder, is
the same ploughman in whose honour D.
Ramiro taxed every yoke of oxen from
the Pisuerga to the sea. You may see
him yet on the coins turned up at Sara-
gossa, 3 3 alongside such horsemen as those,
Celtiberian beyond question, that are
on Celti-
found at Calahorra, at Cascante and in
bericin
coins
the whole region of the Ebro basin. This
is the other great seat of devotion to S.
James, the light of whose presence shines
over Saragossa.
Galicia was hard to hold at the best of
times, and the Pilgrimage must have been
a great trial to the central states. Very
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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237
early we find traces of alliances, first between
Galicia and Astorga, in the Priscillian
persecutions, then between Compostella
and Oviedo, between Leon and Toledo.
In the later Reconquest the Alfonsos,
sixth and seventh, and Ferdinand the
second, were very Toledan; Cluny stood
behind Bernard, and Galicia was claiming
the Primacy, which would have been in-
tolerable. It was quite bad enough that
she should be Apostolic. The unhappy
Alfonso IX loved Santiago and was buried
there; Luke of Tuy loved him, and belike
if most of the histories had not been written
in Castile, we should see him differently.
In his time, S. James begins to reassert his
primal place and power: in the time of
S. Ferdinand, the centre of interest is
shifted to the south, never to come back
into Leon. It is pleasant to remember
that the Doctor Egregius, however fraud-
ulent, was not ungrateful: he appeared
to Ferdinand I and insisted on a proper
tomb for S. Alvito.34
How Leon
felt
HISPANIC NOTES
238
WAY OF S.JAMES
Leon the fair.
Esta en Sotileza
S. Maria la Regla is the most purely
French of any of the Spanish cathedrals,
Spanish
and the most entirely of a piece. Burgos,
Cathedrals
enjoying much later work, German or
Burgundian, and all florid, planned from
the start heavier and more massive, and
then over-laid, century after century, with
ornamentation, strikes travellers as just
what they were prepared for. Toledo with
the five aisles and chapels beyond, wanting
visible transepts, with the slow curve of
the double ambulatory and further accre-
tion ot sacristies, chapter-rooms, and
pantheons, treasuries and vestuaries, is
like nothing else perhaps in the world
except some slow-moving, slow-smiling
Sultana, jewelled and veiled and elephant-
gaited; but Leon is a Church as we of the
north conceive it, is a daughter, simply, of
the Isle of France. Lyon d'Espagne, they
say in France and the phrase means little,
but you cannot hear, in Spanish, Leon de
Francia without a vision of the pure pale
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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239
church that crowned the curving hill of
Laon, "chaste as the icicle that's curded
by the frost," and withal a perception of
its kinship to this.
Pure is this, pure as Salisbury and per-
haps a little for the same reason of restora-
tion, but more, I think, because so long ago
the life flowed away from the land of Leon,
counts, prelates and cardinals preferring
first Toledo and Seville, and then Valla-
dolid and Madrid. No one was really
interested to build here churrigueresque
chapels and Greco-Roman ciboria.
Part of the lovely ascetic look, however,
for ourselves, is owing to the architectural
forms, to the length of the sanctuary, the tT
strong projection of the transepts, the
vigorous pentagons of the eastern chapels,
the loftiness and the light. Steeples flank
the nave at north and south and leave the
six bays of it looking very lofty and
slender. The last or easternmost of these
is really a west transept aisle, the sim-
ilar aisle on the east being built up into
a pair of large chapels dedicated, on the
south, to the Nativity (founded by Bishop
French
AND MONOGRAPHS
240
WAY OF S.JAMES
Transept
aisles
like
Bayonne
and West-
minster
Cabeza de Vaca, 1446-1459): on the
north to Nuestra Senora del Dado. Here,
in the old Spanish plan, would have lain a
pair of minor apses, parallel with the main,
and such formerly did exist in the earlier
cathedral. The choir, then, consists of
two bays, the presbytery of another bay
and an open chevet of five, the altar
standing about half way back in that.
Out of the ambulatory open five chapels,
most of which shelter early paintings, and
on the wall which encloses the sanctuary,
the tras-sagrario, are the tomb of Ordono
II and some early paintings. The south
transept opened over against the bishop's
palace, as at Rheims and Sens, but the
north gives into a sort of porch or passage
to the cloister portal; the south portal at
Bayonne has somewhat the same arrange-
ment but there the vaulted space is used
for sacristy. The vaulting in this pas-
sage-way is late, but the arrangement
must have been original Through it is
reached the chapel of S. Jamee, lying east-
ward of the cloister planned, like Henry
VII 's at Westminster and S. George's at
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Windsor, for the stalls of a knightly
order. Around the wide cloister lay once
the canonical buildings, for the chapter
lived under monastic discipline, and a
favourite motive of decoration shows a
canon offering a church to Our Lady of
the Rule.
Because this has so the excellence of a
French church you grudge the likeness,
and you may want to slight the windows,
remembering the grand tale that, com-
mencing at Chartres, counted Rheims and
Bourges, and Le Mans, Lyons, and on to
such small ones, and so out of the way, as
Auxerre and Clermont. But they are
nevertheless, and in spite of much modern
stuff, the finest in Spain, perhaps the only
complete set. Leon is the only church in
Spain where you move as in the heart of a
jewel. Tall ranges of saints fill the cleres-
tory with ruby and amethyst, most of all
with sapphire. From the porch you go
down a few broad steps and drink their
gaze like wine. The apse burns blue with
the fervid glory of Vega. Only at its
supreme point here in Leon, though much
241
S. Maria
de la Regla
Glass
AND MONOGRAPHS
242
WAY OF S.JAMES
Mary
Tudor
at times also in Burgos, Seville, Toledo,
and even in the great Romanesque and
transitional churches which are the pe-
culiar glory of Spain, does one get that
mounting ecstasy — as though the spark
which trembles on the apex of the soul
were suffused into one's whole being. To
bring that to pass, by colour and form, is
the property only of pure Gothic.
The clerestory windows are mainly of
the thirteenth century, the northernmost
of the nave being devoted to Spanish saints,
among them SS. Leander and Isidore, and
being perhaps the gift of Mary Tudor
before her marriage, in 1547. Of the same
radiant thirteenth century is the western
rose, and probably the northern. The
southern was replaced, late in the fifteenth
century, by a pair of pointed windows, and
when these were shot to pieces in civil war,
it was restored again, by copying from the
northern , in 1 849. x The four great windows
of each transept are chiefly of the four-
teenth century, also the western window
of the triforium; the rest of the triforium
having been blocked up for safety, until
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
half a century ago. The six of the sanc-
tuary and five of the chevet are also four-
teenth century work, restored throughout
in the sixteenth century. Those of the
apsidal chapels are chiefly of the sixteenth.
For the benefit of three superb windows
in the Chapel of Santiago, Bishop Juan de
Villalon (1419-1424) made lavish loans on
the rents of the fabric. In 1424 Maestre
Joan de Aragon received 5000 maravedis due
to him on their account: also the chapter
paid in that year 10,000 maravedis to
Lope de Alemana, merchant of Valladolid,
in payment for glass, lead and tin used
for them. In 1419 a contract was closed
with a merchant of Burgos for glass to be
fetched thence; it came to 20,000 marave-
dis. Master Balduin (probably French)
in 1442 drew his salary as glazier. In
1520 glass was again bought: in 1551 the
chapter voted 35,000 maravedis a year to
Rodrigo de Ferrara for making new win-
dows and restoring the old. The list of
cathedral glaziers in the seventeenth ce i-
tury is known but holds little of interest. 2
The little old church, made out of the
AND MONOGRAPHS
243
Glaziers
244
WAY OF S.JAMES
Eleventh-
century
church
Sorep
S.Salvador
baths and palace in the reign of Ordono
II (914-923) of which the architecture
was three-aisled, however, was restored by
Pelayo, hardly the Bishop of D. Gar-
cia's time. His will,3 dated November 10,
1073, recites, after an account of his educa-
tion and studies in Santiago of Galicia,
and the cruel destruction wrought at Leon
by Almanzor and Abdelmelic, how he
raised anew the three ancient altars of
the Virgin, the Saviour, and the Baptist
with S. Cyprian. Spain offers an astonish-
ing number of very ancient dedications to
the Saviour. He made refectory, houses
and cloisters around the cathedral, where
the canons lived as regulars; enriched
with new books the library already large,
and fitted out new vestments at great
expense, adding rich altar furniture, and,
amongst other things, with the help of the
Princess Urraca, an admirable cross; and
finally purified and consecrated anew the
profaned temple on the day of the date
annually celebrated thereafter. The King
Alfonso and his sisters Urraca and Elvira
were present, eight Bishops, and various
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Abbots, Counts, Knights and Countesses,
who, all of means, offered an abundance
of jewels and fat lands. This sounds as
though, in the raid of Almanzor the church
had been merely burned out, the vaults
and windows perhaps falling in, but the
walls remaining. It can hardly however
have been the original tenth-century church
that Alfonso VI saw at the outset of his
reign, thus re-established, nor would it
have lasted on, unaltered, through another
century.
Luke of Tuy says that the founder of
the present church was Bishop Manrique,
1181-1205: "Tune reverendus episcopus
Legionensis Manricus ejusdem Sedis eccle-
siam fundavit opere magno, sed earn ad
perfectionem non duxit."4 He can hardly
have seen the stones laid. We know of
an architect Pedro Cebrian, who in 1175
was master of the works of the cathedral, 5
and a book of obits of the cathedral pre-
serves the following: "Eodem die VII
idus Julii sub era MCCCXV obiit Henricus
magister opens."6 This date does not
coincide with Maestre Enrique's death-
245
Bishop
Manrique
Peter
Cebrian
AND MONOGRAPHS
246
WAY OF S.JAMES
Master
Henry
day as kept at Burgos, but the learned Dr.
Martinez y Sans 7 suggests that as his wife
and daughter Isabel continued to dwell in
Burgos and for the latter an anniversary
was kept, his residence was probably
there and the Burgos date July ID is the
right one and 1277. That year is too
late to touch the life of any architect who
commenced before 1205, "for though
men be so strong that they come to four
score years, yet is their strength then but
labour and vanity, so soon passeth it
away and it is gone."
A convocation of all the Bishops in
Madrid in 1258 sent out letters urging the
faithful to assist, and conceding indul-
gences for alms-giving8: Alfonso X in 1259
made a great gift of money "in nova fa-
brica ecclesiae construendis " 9 and in 1277
he exempted from taxation twenty stone
cutters, a glazier and a smith. When the
council of Leon met in 1273 the clergy
found the church well under way, and
sent out a missive offering indulgences to
those who should help with their goods
toward the finishing, for, because it was a
HISPANIC NOTES
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247
very sumptuous work, it could not be
finished without their help. In 1303 the
Bishop D. Gonzalo Osorio (1301-1313)
restores to the chapter a percentage levied
on property at Saldana, which had been
devoted to the work of the church, because
the work is now in a good state, thanks be
to God.10
The vaults were not closed until the
fourteenth century. Under the Bishop
Fray Alfonso de Cusenza, who followed
Juan de Villalon and ruled till after 1435,
one Guillen de Rohan was master of the
William of
works. So says his epitaph in his lovely
Rouen
Gothic chapel in Tordesillas:
" A qui yace maestre Guillen de Rohan,
maestro de la iglesia de Leon et aparecia-
dor de esta capilla que Dios perdone;
et fino a VII dias de Diciembre afio de mil
et CCCC et XXX et un afios." IX
His name is entirely French. Ponz, I2
by the way, says that a French master
worked upon the trascoro; in the end of the
fifteenth century perhaps, or even earlier.
For the Tourney at the Bridge of Orbigo
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
248
French
Masters-
Nicholas
Frederic
Theodore
WAY OF S.JAMES
a marble figure of a herald was made by
Nicolas Frances, master of the works of S.
Maria de Regla: that famous Passage of
Arms befell in 1433. 13 The stalls of the
quire were made under Bishop Antonio
Jacopo de Veneris (1460-1470) by Fadrique
(possibly Ponz's Frenchman), John of
Malines, and Copin of Holland: some
of them, possibly by Rodrigo Aleman,
whose work we know at Plasensia and
Toledo.14 In 1481 a contract was made
with Maestre Teodorito to build and set up
the stalls in the choir — i. e., the sanctuary.
In 1503 a mass was established "for
Benito Valenciano, for the work he did
and the cloister he made, in which he
spent 3000 maravedis. Item, resolved to
admit an obit and mass for Pedro de
Medina or abate it, according to prece-
dent for workmen."15 In 1513, "three
memorials for Alonso Valenciano for cer-
tain buildings that he made." Juan de
Badajoz16 was master of the works from
1513, when he altered S. Isidore, at least
till 1537, when he went to work on S. Zoyl
of Carrion, leaving behind him the design
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
for S. Marcos that Guillermo Doncel was
to carry out in part, 1537-1543. The rest
of the facade of S. Marcos was left for the
eighteenth century.
Spanish ecclesiologists, indeed, have
made out a good case for the commence-
ment of frustrated works in the interval of
peace which marked the too brief marriage
of Alfonso IX with Dona Berenguela. The
French workmen, then, when they came at
last, found trained assistants, quick to
learn but sure in the end to modify and
mitigate and transmute the alien quality:
from Cebrian to Juan de Badajoz the
succession is hardly interrupted. There
were restorations before 1852 and after
1860; the last restorer was Sr. Demetrio
de los Rios, 1880-1901. The cloister is at
present disembowelled. The statues are
many of them quite out of place. Quadrado
saw, T 7 in the left-hand door of the south
transept, the Virgin and child, with the
Magi, and S. Joseph with two angels: no
statues except S. Froilan being about the
central portal there. These have been
since redistributed, and possibly restored.
AND MONOGRAPHS
249
and others
Restorers
250
WAY OF S.JAMES
Street
speaks
Leaving these master builders and com
ing back to the dates of building, it is
to be remembered that Street says posi-
tively: "It will be impossible to admit
that any part of the existing church was
built much before A.D. 1250. . . . The
churches which are nearest in style to
Leon are, I think, the cathedrals at Amiens
and Rheims, and perhaps the later part
of S. Denis. Of these, Amiens was in
building from A.D. 1220 to A.D. 1269,
and Rheims from A.D. 1211 to A.D. 1241.
But both are slightly earlier in their
character than Leon. In all three the
chapels of the apse are planned in the
same way, that is to say they are polygonal
and not circular in their outlines, and the
sections of the columns, the plans of the
bases and capitals, and the detail of the
arches and groining ribs are as nearly as
may be the same; and in all these points
the resemblance between chem and Leon
cathedral is close and remarkable ... I
venture to assume therefore that the
scheme of Leon cathedral was first made
circa 1:230-1240." l8
HISPANIC NOTES
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251
Bishop Truxillo came to the same con-
clusion, though writing at the last mo-
ment when you would expect it, for he
died in 1592.
So subtle and delicate is the design
of that edifice, he cries with a fine
Bishop
rapture, that those most cultured in
Truxillo in
the arts marvel and affirm it the phoenix
1592
sole and unique; for there is none like it
in Spain nor Italy. Nor is the source
known. But notwithstanding that this
and the Duomo (as they call the principal
church of Milan) resemble each other in
finish and perfection, yet that is broader
than long, and less proportionate, and less
beautiful. So may be seen how the artifi-
cer who made this was unique in his art,
neither Spanish nor Italian, for if he were
he had built in the manner of those prov-
inces. It is overpowering to see in this
such singularity of wit and of hardihood.
He knew how to form in his understand-
ing and phantasy an idea of such perfec-
tion as here is seen in execution, and
dared to put into execution such a work
that the present age is afraid, and marvels
that it should stand and be sustained.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
252
WAY OF S. JAMES
Bishop
Arnaud
And that is a good account of Gothic,
whoever wrote it, or whenever he saw it. I9
There is no getting back of Street's
conclusions, based on study and compari-
son of the tell-tale forms. Bishop Manrique
must pass into the dim backward, along
with Bishop Pelayo, but Master Henry
comes forward again. If he died in 1277,
he was a young man of genius, whom
cathedrals competed to honour, not half a
century before. Among the list of bishops
there is one Bishop Arnaldo, who ruled in
1235, French by name and belike race.20
Unluckily, he ruled only one year and then
for four the see was vacant, but he comes
precisely where a Frenchman was wanted
to make a commencement, and he follows
hard upon the accession of S. Ferdinand.
Ferdinand III, the son of DofiaBerengue-
la, was nephew to that Blanche of Castile
who set her own name with her son's, S.
Louis ( 1 226-12 70) , to much church building
in France. The great north rose of Char-
tres is called after her the Rose of Castile.
She could, and more than likely she did,
send workmen to Leon formed in the
HISPANIC NOTES
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253
great school of the Royal Domain, and it is
noteworthy that with the points of com-
parison for the figure-sculpture, in France,
she had direct connection. The western
porch is liker to the transept porches at
Chartres than they are to anything else,
and these she had a hand in building: the
sculptures, moreover, of the tympanum
have been with propriety compared with
those at Bourges, and Blanche had estates
of her own in Berry.
We have seen, however, that the cathe-
dral would have had its own chantier where
building was constantly going on. The
abbot's church of the tenth century, that
Almanzor destroyed, had to be somehow
replaced, and in the great last third of the
eleventh century , the age of Cluny and Saha-
gun and Vezelay, of S. Martial of Limoges
and S. Sernin of Toulouse and Santiago of
Compostella, Pelayo had doubtless got to
work before Archbishop Diego Gelmirez of
Santiago. Peter Cebrian, just a century
later, was in charge of the chantier before
the election of Bishop Manrique de Lara.
The only remains of the earlier fabric
Blanche of
Castile
AND MONOGRAPHS
254
WAY OF S. JAMES
Early
statues in
the cloister
in the
Museum
are sculptural. Of three small statues,
built up under an arch in the south clois-
ter, two at least belong to Pelayo's
work: S. Paul (or a prophet) with sword
and scroll, and the Saviour, seated, with
a book. The third, a queen, stands un-
der a horse-shoe arch. To Peter Cebrian's
work, perhaps, or to the commencement
of Bishop Manrique's, belong two rather
small and very precious figures of marble
in the Museum of S. Marcos: the Ma-
donna and the Saviour, both crowned
with a mere brow-band set with gems.
Rather shorter in their proportions, the
forms are very much simplified in the fig-
ure of Christ, with better definition in the
Madonna's, and the drapery treated with
freedom and delicacy. She holds the Child
on her left arm and He plays with the end
of her veil, a motive Duccio loved though
he treated it very differently. The Saviour
stands in a long and narrow mandorla,
about the tips of which cluster the Evan-
gelical beasts : His tunic is edged around the
throat and down the front with a rather
simple pattern, and His book is bound pre-
HISPANIC NOTES
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255
cisely like those of S. Peter and S. James on
the north transepts. This mandorla may
have been influenced by the figure at Lugo,
c. 1177. A little pair of figures standing
among other scraps in the cathedral cloister,
is contemporary with these : they belong all
to the very dawn of the thirteenth century
or the end of the twelfth and show a con-
scious and perfect art, exquisite in its sensi-
bility and reticence, en sotileza.
The south portal is fairest. In the
tympanum above the central door Christ
sits enthroned amid the four creatures
and beyond them the Evangelists write at
desks. It is, I need hardly say, a sign that
work is provincial, and workmen borrow-
ing an idea, that the Evangelists should
figure thus twice over in a single composi-
tion. There is a curious reminiscence
of Conques in the bending angels above.
The lintel proper is carved all over with
leafage like that in the main door at the
west. This lovely though late-seeming
motive occurs I believe at Noyon, and on
the Way into Spain at Bordeaux in the
side portal ot S. Seurin, dated 1260, and at
South
portal
The Way
AND MONOGRAPHS
256
WAY OF S.JAMES
French
parallels
Las Huelgas about the doors of the cloister
called for S. Ferdinand. It may be seen
again at Tudela in Navarre on the door-
way of S. Maria, and at Olite. In other
words, the seed of these delicate leaves
may have come with the architects sum-
moned from the Isle of France, or with
one wandering along the Pilgrim Way,
and S. Ferdinand, liking the motive, used
it twice at least, and the workmen of
Navarre copied.
In the archivolts are a row of angels with
candles and another of angels making
music, the other bays occupied with leaf-
age. On the mid-post stands S. Froilan,
with a gesture not so much of benediction
as of accueil and an ardent face, almost
too expressive, already quite Spanish in
feature. This will be about contemporary,
I should say, with the south porch figures
at Chartres, the S. George and S. Theodore
perhaps: later than the confessors there,
anticipating in a way the bishops of Ber-
trand de Goth at Bordeaux. The statues
in the jambs are of the purest thirteenth-
century type but belong to the latter half
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
from
of the century: — the Virgin Annunciate,
the Virgin in Presentation and Simeon,
and a King and Queen. The Angel Gabriel
is missing and a fine prophet, perceptibly
smaller in scale, from the west front,
occupies one niche. The Virgin recalls the
older statues of Rheims, for instance, Eve
caressing the Serpent, in her forehead, R
slightly bombe, and her smile over-subtle
and over-wise. The king and queen are
smiling more frankly: she, with a delicate
shrinking gesture, cannot be meant for
poor Beatrice of Suabia, but perhaps for
that young Joan of Ponthiers whom King
Ferdinand loved from the first sight of
her; so D. Roderick says. 2 1 On the south-
western transept door where Quadrado saw
this statue in 1850, Street noted fleur-de-
lys also figuring in the diaper. That would
suggest either a positive French gift or
memorial, which is the less likely, seeing
that good Queen Blanche who had set her
own castles into the window at Chartres
died in 1253, or else that the image fig-
ured indeed the Infant of France and niece
of S. Louis. Though the other Virgin is
257
AND MONOGRAPHS
258
WAY OF S.JAMES
Madonne
Reine
the Madonne Reine, a crowned Queen
almost as cold as that of Laon, though
she has not the human quality of Pierre de
Chelles's at Paris, or the nobility of Viol-
let-le-Duc's at S. Denis, she stands alien,
aloof, as in a pale halo of the moon: not-
withstanding, her pose, turn of head and
gesture, with that of the child, show that
one of these statues belongs with another,
this with Simeon, both with the Annun-
ciation.
At S. Seurin of Bordeaux, in the side
porch, as already noted, the use of leafage
on the lintel and in the archivolts recalls
this, and there the canopies above the
statues, are much like those on the north
portal here. Expressly excepting the fig-
ure-sculpture, for the statues themselves
are quite unlike the Spanish, it might be
suggested that the upper part of this
portal at Bordeaux in the architectural
sculpture, is influenced by the work at
Leon: that a returning pilgrim who had
seen at least the transept portals building,
and possibly lent a hand thereto, brought
borne and used the memory of them.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
259
The north transept portal of Leon is a
little the earlier, the forms are more archaic.
Here the western aisle-doorway is walled
up, while the eastern never existed, and
altars are set against the walls. As
travellers will remember, the transept
portal which opens on the cloister at
Bayonne, employs two doorways in much
the same fashion. The lions and castles
on the base of the door- jamb mark a date
when the two crowns were united in one
person and make impossible, in any case,
one earlier than 1230.
Over the central door Christ blesses from
a mandorla and the angels hold it up. In
the jambs belong an Annunciation, and
four Apostles: — SS. Peter and Paul, Philip,
and a most curious S. James in the place
of honour, with the face ot a Chinese sage,
wearing a high conical cap decorated like
his wallet with a cockle-shell and carrying
his staff and bourdon and the book of the
Epistle that all Spain has popularly attrib-
uted to him.22 It is the author of the
Epistle, S. James Minor, who should by
rights be coupled with S. Philip, their
North
transept
of Serapis
or
Dioscuri?
AND MONOGRAPHS
260
WAY OF S.JAMES
Twins and
other
brethren
feast being celebrated conjointly on May-
Day. Indeed, the whole relation of these
two cousins, that were both named James
and were grandsons of S. Anna, seems to
have been confused in the Middle Age.
S. Philip figures in a retable just inside this
door, along with SS. Peter and Paul, de rig-
eur on such occasions, and SS. Thomas, An-
drew, John, Bartholomew and James, all, be
it noted, buried in the East. Luke of Tuy
says 2 3 S. Philip was buried with his daugh-
ters in Heliopolis of Asia; Simon Cleophas,
who is either Jude or bracketted with
him, was Bishop of Jerusalem after James.
Painters of the fifteenth century treated
the family motive exhaustively, but the
possibility was prepared in the thirteenth.
These figures, of the thirteenth century,
are of a technique quite different from
that of the south door, and much less
nearly French : the head of S. Peter, though
more developed, reminds one of work
done at Estella, it seems a part of the art
that began at S. Juan de la Pena. The
Madonna on the central post is that called
del Dado, removed in 1655 to the chapel
HISPANIC NOTES
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261
of her invocation just inside, and restored
only of late. A ruined gambler threw his
dice at her in a rage, and the blow drew
blood: a seventeenth century miracle, of
small edification. She fits well into her
own setting here, wearing the floriated
crown of the latter thirteenth century,
and holding a rose in her right hand,
and the Child, who blesses, enthroned on
her other arm. Of all the Virgins at
Leon, she has most of the human and
queenly aspect, like those, also on a north
transept, at Paris and S. Denis, already
invoked for comparison: a right royal
lady, sister to those wise and strong and
wholly splendid, Blanche and Berengaria
of Castile.
The west front of the church, Spanish
architects believe, was finished like Laon
or Amiens, and afterwards the porch was
added. Certainly the sculptures range in
date trom the thirteenth century, in the
tympanum and archivolts, to the fifteenth
in the figures of the Salwtor Mundi and
the Baptist. Two objections there are to
the hypothesis: one that the porch does
Virgcn del
Dado
West front
AND MONOGRAPHS
262
WAY OF S.JAMES
The
Golden
Gate
Northern
not look like an afterthought, and the
other, that without it the west front would
be no more glorious than the transepts,
and this, I think, never happens. The
Golden Gate of the Temple, the Gate called
Beautiful, is always the western in France.
There are ugly and awkward things about
this fagade, the deep cleft between nave
and towers, for instance, bridged by fly-
ing buttresses that only make it worse;
though they were admired and copied at
Astorga and reproduced at Westminster;
and again, the heavy projection and
abrupt horizontal termination of this
porch. But Leon appears, in the inevit-
able comparison with France, provincial,
and these are precisely the imperfections
of those a long way off the centre.
Another sign of inadequacy is the pre-
sentation of heaven on the lintel of the
north-west door, out of its place, possibly
too reminiscent of the delicious Paradise at
the centre. The whole tympanum here is a
iittle confused, indifferent to the sequence
of events, so long as the dogmatic im-
portance is enforced. The centre of the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
263
lower register is occupied by the Nativity
of our Lord, which takes place in a bed,
with women in attendance, but the Byzan-
tine tradition reasserts itself with the
tiny altar on which the child is laid up for
ox and ass to adore, and the laver for
washing it equipped with a good Spanish
water-pot. At the left-hand end remains
room for a poetic and tender sculpture
of the Visitation, and on the right' for
the Angels' messages to Joseph and to
the shepherds. Above, the Madonna en-
throned in the centre receives two of the
three Kings, one being still engaged with
Herod: the flight into Egypt finishes this
row. In the peak is depicted the Massacre
of the Innocents. In all the forms here
the noble simplicity of the thirteenth cen-
tury is just touched in the minor parts
with a dawning tinge of the fourteenth
century expressiveness and conscious charm
and quaintness: the central figure is still
hieratic and austere. The archivolts show
a scheme entirely French, and a treatment
bent on telling the whole story since there
is to be a story. In the innermost row
tympanum
archivolts
AND MONO GRAPHS
264
WAY OF S.JAMES
Open-eyed
justice
To a green
thought in
a green
shade
you have Jesse and the seven kings, his de-
scendants, making music: in the next the
history of the Baptist: in the outermost
local Numina, three confessors and three
bishops, and then the story of S. Froilan.
In the jambs stand S. John Baptist and
David and Solomon, S. Froilan and a
young king, these last two being as char
acteristic as portraits. The sixth image is
that of Justice, her scales in equipoise,
her clear eyes wide, her sword erect. She
comes from a niche between the portals,
where of old right was done and wrong
was punished. In smaller intermediate re-
cesses, on either side the central door, the
twelve apostles belong, and they are mostly
there: S. James in a soft broad-brimmed
wide-awake" hat, S. John with a tub or
tun for his boiling oil, etc. Those on the
south side have a sort of conventional
dignity which may signify imitation of a
foreign model, like that of Peter Vischer's
bronze apostles.
At the centre the lintel is covered with
leaves. The scenes of heaven and hell in
the lowest row of the tympanum are known
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
by Street's description. They were deter-
mined in part by the pilgrim's preoccupa-
tion with the Paradise of Souls: and the
rest is given over to a Christ in Judgement,
His Mother and His well-beloved interced-
ing in the corners. Nuestra Senora la
Blanca on the central post comes perilously
near to the beauty of a maja but she
remains a great lady, and the paint on her
lips and cheeks is like the apparelling of
Esther the good queen, ceremonial and
sacramental. The theme of the Doom fills
all the archivolts.
The tympanum of the southern door is
devoted to the Dormition of the Blessed
Virgin, S. Peter censing the beautiful old
woman's figure, and the Coronation of her
grown young again, beside her son the
Young King. Angels put on the crown. In
two rows of the archivolt stands the angelic
hierarchy and in the third, with a seated
figure that is perhaps that Wisdom who
adorned her house and spread her table
for the guest so long in coming, Who is the
Bridegroom, are the wise and foolish
Virgins. The foolish virgins are just
265
Central
Paradise
of souls
Southern
AND MONOGRAPHS
266
WAY OF S. JAMES
Wise and
foolish
Virgins
Outer
Piers
sweet, idle, self-indulgent creatures, one
with her mirror, another with her little
dog. Two of the jamb figures here are
prophets with pointed Jewish caps, perhaps
related to the Priest Melchizedek who
communicates Abraham inside the west
wall at Rheims. If, as has been suggested,
those figures of Rheims came to their
present place after being supplanted on the
fagade they should belong to the end of the
thirteenth century, and fix a date for these.
A delicious maiden figure alongside them
may be the Sibyl, but the other three
figures are hopelessly lost. A Baptist
clad in sheepskins and a Saviour with the
orb, languishing at each other, have no
place here. They recall to one the sad
end awaiting the fifteenth century.
The two outer piers of the porch are
crowded with statues, some of them not
only better but earlier than those on the
ambs. I remember for instance S. Law-
•ence and an apostle with a book, the latter
evidently contemporary with the David
and Solomon before mentioned, at the
north-west door. All these strongly suggest
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
267
the south porch at Chartres. A prophet,
again, though bareheaded, has the free but
quiet drapery of these at the south-west
and another of this series reveals almost
as old and wise a face as Moses had. The
Church, with cup and staff, crowned and
veiled, is wasted with her eager watching
toward the central Christ and offers the
one instance I know of a Church that can
stand comparison with the frail beauty of
the Synagogue who turns away. A young
queen, Sheba or Esther, and a faintly
ironic prophet, who belongs in the south
transept, complete the early figures: wasted
and weather-worn, they are lovely always,
never mean, rarely over-expressive. Yet
they may belong, even some of these, to the
fourteenth century.
It strikes one afresh, in Leon, how the
French artists quickly copied the types they
saw around them: faces and hands, gesture
and carriage, all are Spanish. It should
be noted also that while this porch re-
sembles those of Chartres in the ribs of the
roof for instance, and the pillars, yet just
such pillars, on which stood just such
Church
and
Synagogue
AND MONOGRAPHS
268
WA Y OF S.JAMES
saints, so far as we can infer, supportec
the outer face of Master Matthew's Gloria.
Pausing for a moment it is well to
Recapitu-
lation
consider the scheme of the sculpture at
Leon, and the order of their work.
I. North transept: tympanum, Apo-
calypse; jambs, selected apostles; tru-
meau. Madonne reine. Work influenced
by school of S. Juan de la Pena, middle
of thirteenth century.
II. South transept:
i. Centre: tympanum, reminiscences
of the Apocalypse of South-western
France. Lintel, Apostles; jambs, An-
nunciation, Presentation and Founders;
style of Isle of France and eastward;
trumeau, S. Froilan, pure French.
2 and 3: flanking doors; local legends:
ruinous: style more provincial; third
quarter of thirteenth century.
III. West Portals:
i. North-west door: tympanum, Life
of Our Lady; jambs, Harbingers of
Christ (probably) and local saints;
arch i volts, corresponding legends. End
of thirteenth and fourteenth century.
2. South-west door: tympanum,
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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269
Death of Our Lady; jambs, prophets
(probably) including the Sibyl; archi-
volts, mystical. Touches of style of S.
Juan, part thirteenth and rest early
fourteenth century.
3 . Central door : Last Judgement, hell
and paradise; jambs, Apostles; archi-
volts, the Resurrection. Early four-
teenth century, in places archaizing;
trumeau, Nuestra Senora de la Regla,
close of fourteenth century. All quite
Spanish.
4. Porch: Possibly influenced by
Master Matthew's, or else exclusively
by the transept porches at Chartres.
Church and synagogue, prophets, Great
Women of Scripture, etc. — asuntos mis-
ticos. Fourteenth century, ripe and
sound.
Two points should be noted in conclu-
sion: first, that now the latest restorer has
A last
removed the awkward balustrade which
word
topped it, the porch fits better into its
place; and second, that while the view of
the spires, one plain, one pierced, suggects
Chartres in many aspects, the view from
the eastward of the soaring apse, recalls
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
270
Cloister
Pride has
fall
WAY OF S. JAMES
the like view of such great Norman churches
as Bayeux and Coutances.
The cloister, of eight bays each way
built in the fourteenth century, keeps its
original groining shafts and capitals. On
August 30, 13 1 6, died D. Alfonso, the son of
the Infant D. John, and left 10,000 marave-
dis to the chapter for the work. 24 Vaults,
tracery and buttresses were remade in the
fifteenth century and are now unmaking
again, which seems a pity, for no restora-
tion is worth the living work of even a
florid age. If we may judge by the elabor-
ate system of lierne-ribs and pendents, the
Spanish equivalent ot fan-vaulting, the
architect, whether Juan de Badajoz or
another, had a pretty fancy. The main
vaulting ribs descend on a kind of corbel,
just above the capital, which is treated on
a larger scale, with a somewhat simpler
motive; and the form of the corbel imposes
a tripartite composition not unlike that
of misericords. You have a mounted
warrior falling between two foot-soldiers,
who recalls the figure at Chartres of Pride
having a fall; and elsewhere a camel studied
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
271
from the real creature and led by two negro
slaves with woolly hair and blubber lips;
a very choice passage is that of the lady
who rides Aristotle, saddled and bridled,
while the court looks on from a tower.
S. Vincent is escorted between two angels:
the Bishop receives a King and a lady with
falcon on wrist; a throned figure with
lions like Solomon's for the arms of his
chair, sits while a couple of Bishops stand
attentive. On the band of the angular
capital below, are strung delicate scenes
from heroic or saintly legen 1, conceived
not without a warm and human humour;
or from daily life; but always just a little
fairer and finer than ordinary life. The
knights who pursue each other around the
clustered shafts, the wrestlers who strive
together while music plays and lovers
have no eyes for them; the joglaresa tumb-
ling before a table ot feasters, while her
mate beats a tambourine, — these are
only a few of the themes of which the
most choicely vivid and fragrant is the
one of the vendimia, the coming of au-
tumn, a swineherd in oak woods with his
The Lai of
Aristotle
Vendimia
AND MONOGRAPHS
272
Sotileza
Tombs
WAY OF S. JAMES
great beast, women gathering grapes into
tall baskets, apples already ripe. The ex-
cellence of this is still en sotileza, so unlike the
coarse luxuriance that you find for instance
at SS. Creus, or the harpies and hooded
asses, dogs and wyverns, that decorate the
transepts at Rouen. Here is none of that
descent from poetry and feeling in archi-
tecture, to skill and dexterity, which Street
deplored as so generally characteristic of
the fourteenth century.
In church and cloister still remain a
large number of tombs, all carved after
the same fashion, of which the most
pretentious is that of Ordono and the
finest a bishop's in the north transept
with a fringe of cusping over the niche.
In the lunette above the recumbent effigy
is the Saviour, crucified or glorified; one
time an angel presents the little suppliant
soul. On the face are rehearsed the
funeral ceremonies and the burial dole to
the poor, passing into a wider notion of
almsgiving. In the tympanum of one of
the cloister tombs25 that figures a glorified
Christ with angels in the lower register
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
273
presenting the soul, the Intercessors are
SS. Mary and James, the latter you may
know by his slaveyn or pilgrim's cloak, not
only by his cockle-hat and staff. It would
be interesting to study the series, and com-
pare them with such a different assem-
blage as there is at Avila, each the specialty
of a particular chantier.
Time presses: the Way is open. In suc-
cession here have been ranged works of
sculpture corresponding pretty closely to
the dates that the archives or the archi-
tectural character can establish. From
the wizened little prophet built into the
wall, to the vendimia capital, exists an
unbroken series of work which fits so into
the frame of the centuries that it becomes
impossible either to claim a date too early
or to allege one too late. After the Saviour
and S. Mary of the Museum, time must be
given for the north door, and the south
door: and the best of the work at the west
door is plainly different from that in the
cloister which is not yet of the fifteenth
century. A great and living art, fed indeed
from abroad but permanent and in essence
S. James as
Pilgrim
Dates
AND MONOGRAPHS
274
WAY OF S.JAMES
Fair
house of
joy and
bliss . . ."
native, existed here, and the fruit of that is
always, in some sort, perfection. Even to
the last, the series of heads upon the facade
of S. Marcos made in the fifteen-forties,
are of the same Renaissance with Peru-
gino's Heroes and Virtues, conscious of
their own loveliness and the power and
sweetness of mere living.
It is hard to leave Leon with half the
beauties unnamed and all unpraised, with-
out a word for the retables, the cloister fres-
coes, the paintings by Master Nicholas,26
or for the choir stalls at S. Marcos and the
Cathedral: nor yet for the sculptures of
gilded alabaster on the trascoro, which
has been opened lately to great advantage,
restoring the long Gothic vista which the
architect intended. In its very purity and
nicety Leon is the hardest of the great
Spanish churches to know, the latest to
love. Yet in some curious way it is this,
not Burgos which is Bishop Maurice's, nor
Toledo which is Pedro Perez's, that en-
shrines the figure of Ferdinand the Saint.
Almost contemporary with the statues
of the south portal, but, if anything, a few
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY • 275
years earlier, is a kingly figure now shel-
tered in a niche alongside the quire, that
one can hardly be mistaken in calling by his
name. The beautiful Spanish face, with its
hollow below the high cheek-bones and
around the veiled eyes, has that same
indescribable air of portraiture that makes
the last and the noblest charm of La Gio-
conda. It was carved in the thirteenth
century. Inspired, if you like, it is, but
faithful as well, and the carver who had a
king to figure knew the face of Ferdinand;
by sight, more than likely; if not thus then
certainly at second hand. This is the
same man as the king on the south portal,
but younger, less the wise king than the
clean knight; more visionary, a warrior
who should be also a saint.
Luke of Tuy says 2 7 that he was grave in
youth, pious and prudent, humble, catholic
and benign. His mother nursed him her-
self, and fed him with all virtues, says
Bishop Roderick, and when he was a grown
man, he obeyed her still.
He was poet too, this Ferdinand, not
above taking advice of his juggler Paja in
A clene
knight
AND MONO GRAPHS
276
Courtly
men who
live in
palaces
WAY OF S.JAMES
the matter of Seville;28 a connoisseur in
music: "He dearly loved singing men and
those who understood that art, and dearly
loved, as well, the court folk who knew
how to make poems and sing them and
joglares who knew well to touch instru-
ments, he understood who did it well and
who ill. ... A goodly speech he had
moreover in all his sayings, not just merely
in showing forth his reason well and very
fully to those to whom he showed it, but
repartee and response also, and how to
make poems and recite them and laugh, and
all the other things proper to courtly men
who live in palaces. And beside all this,
he was dexterous in good ways that a good
knight should use. For he knew well how
to sit his horse and to hit the mark and to
take arms and arm himself very well and
very quickly. He was learned in all kinds
of venery moreover ; and in playing at tables
and chess, and other good games that be-
long to good manners; dearly loving sing-
ing men and knowing their art himself."29
He held Castile by right and grace of his
mother, and Leon by wit of his mother,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
277
and Seville by his own sword, though
before Seville was taken he was a little
weary and said of many matters: — "You
must go to my son for that." He kept
faith with the Moors, and took many
cities without bloodshed. If you read the
Chronicle of the Archbishop D. Roderick
who fought beside his bridle, you close it
with the acquaintance of a good man, one
of those who bring a sure judgement to
all the things of this world because they
Der Weisse
understand the system on which it runs.
Kdnig
The ways of God are plain to them, the
mind of God is accessible to them. This is
the honest and witty king smiling in his
beard on the south transept, that dearly
loved the men who could trobar and
cantar.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
278
WAY OF S.JAMES
XIII
THE HEATH AND THE PASS
Then from the city of
Lions so free
On thy left hand the way
shall thou see
At that Brig that I of have
said,
Over an heath to Astorga is
laid.
That is a city and fair is
set,
There the great mountains
together be met. — Pur-
chas his Pilgrim.
BEYOND S. Marcos, where once at the
cross pilgrims said good-bye, some going to
S. Saviour's and thence along the north
coast and down by the Mondonedo road
into Galicia, and the others straight west-
ward as the stars directed to S. James,
there now stands a signboard of the Royal
I
HISPAN 1C NOTES
THE WAY
279
Automobile Club. Jehane looked a mo-
ment toward the violet mountains and
the green upland pastures, then gave the
word to the chauffeur and we began slip-
ping softly through a blue and golden world.
At Trabajo del Camino, though we walked
about the town and across it, disturbing
few dogs and fewer householders, and in
this stubble found the type-church of all
the strip between the two diocesan cities,'
yet the best we found stood right by the
wayside: a chapel of S. James's, built in
1771 and adorned with a cross-marked
slao above the arched doorway.
The parish church may be, in its founda-
tion though not its edifice, that dedicated
to S. Christopher which King Veremund
gave in 985 to S. Mary of the Rule. I
This oddly named little town, that seems
no more laborious than another, owes its
interest to Dona Sancha, the sister of
Alfonso VII, called Queen in old histories
oftener than Infanta. She was excessively
deiote and called herself, like some old Asian
queens, the spouse of the divinity she
worshipped . 2 One time in 1 1 5 7 when there
Trabajo
del Camino
AND MONO GRAPHS
The Spouse
of the God
280
WAY OF S.JAMES
was a great drought, S. Isidro's relics were
carried nearly to Trobajo del Camino, and
they stuck fast there, would not be budged,
just there where men built the hermitage
called S. Isidro del Monte. Dona Sancha
fasted three days, without sleeping, then she
jCaminante
addressed the saint:
par qu'e
lloras? . . .
Alas, my much loved spouse, how hast
thou taken such annoy against me, nor
wilt thou hear thy worthless spouse.
For thy love I scorned marriage, I would
not wed with a king, and now, scorned
by thee, I am disconsolate and disin-
herited of all good things. O spouse,
well-beloved, hear me now, and have
pity on the people of Leon, that weep
to see themselves forsaken of thy help
and company. Turn, blessed Confessor,
turn back to the monastery of Leon,
that my fathers and those before them
built for thee very devoutly. . . . Then
all wept and four children carried him
home whom four men, right lusty, could
hardly lift. 3
It was sweet to breast the tawny hill,
and drop into the green flush of Valverde,
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
281
where the church is brick and daub, and
the town is daub and brick: and then rise
as a bird rises on stretched wings, to where
the Virgen del Camino stands high upon
the road. The church, built in the six-
Virgen del
teenth and seventeenth centuries, is ex-
Camino
traordinarily noble both without and
within, domed and frescoed, and encom-
passed with a great open porch builded
across the front and down the west and
north sides as well. The loggia is not un-
worthy to name with that outside Arezzo,
though it has not the early freshness of
Benedetto's arcades and capitals: and the
plan of it is that which Ponz says once
adorned that other wayside church at
Villa-Sirga. Notwithstanding, our Lady of
the Roadside here is no better than a gypsy,
intruding like a cuckoo, appropriating
other folk's house and legend. The sanc-
tuary was dedicated, on its quiet height, to
There
S. Michael, and the miracle which the
stands a
present edifice commemorated and en-
wing6d
sentrie. . .
shrines, belongs to the cycle of S. James. 4
In the church they show the chest and
chains that once enclosed a Spanish mer-
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
282
An Argier
slave
S, Michael
Psycho-
pompos
WAY OF S.JAMES
chant who was a slave in Algiers. It is
well to be exact in such matters : this hap-
pened in 1522. He boasted to his owner
that devotion like his could not be neglected
by the powers above, and the owner locked
the fetters upon him, and locked him into
the chest, and sat upon it. A picture shows
it all, in case the sacristan were away. Not-
withstanding, the merchant found himself
at home and free, and at the release all the
bells rang of themselves.
Though Manier knew her, in his quaint
transliteration of what to him was jargon,
as Notre Seille delle Gamine, even Nicholas
Bonfons5 in the Nouvelle Guide of 1583
calls this church Sainct Michel. S. Mi-
chael is reckoned to succeed Hermes,
especially in his function of psychopom-
pos,6 and shrines once dedicated to the
archangel still stand along the road, from
S. Miguel in Excelsis at the entrance into
Spain, past Estella, past Escalada, on
to the place that Aymery knew as Villa S.
Michaelis, somewhere between Triacastela
and Barbadelo. That may be Samos, and
if so S. Julian has supplanted him, rearing
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
283
the great monastery alongside the tiny
chapel; or it may be Sarria, and then he
would be associated with S. Salvador.
The
Saviour
The most ancient Lords in all the land are
and the
perhaps the Saviour (Soter, S. Salvador)
Messenger
and the Messenger.
The miracle of the merchant is still told
through the country-side with a difference
and related as follows by Sr. Aribau:7
A Christian with a great devotion to
Captive in
the Virgin was captive in the country
Moreria
of the Moors, and when the festival came
around he longed to take part in the
romeria, and asked his master for leave
to go, promising to return again and
continue his life as a captive. The
master being an infidel and doubting
moreover his return, refused; then the
Christian retorted that if his Virgin
chose, he would go all the same. The
eve of the festival the master, to mock
his slave, locked him into a chest,
fastened it with a heavy chain, and sat
down on the top saying, "Now we'll see
what your Virgin will do." But so ear-
nestly did the captive beg the Mother of
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
284
WAY OF S.JAMES
Jesus to work a miracle, that on that
night the chest with Moor and Christian
was miraculously conveyed to a place
near the sanctuary. Early in the morn-
ing the Moor woke up and asked,
"What bells are these?" and the Chris-
tian answered gladly: "My Virgin has
heard me and we are now name in my
ain countrie." The Moor was baptized
and died a saint. The Virgin stands
there with the Divine Child in her arms,
and the people say that she is aging, for
every year she seems older.
Twenty years earlier than this, in 1505,
the Virgin had appeared to a shepherd in
these parts in the form of the Field, holding
her dead Son across her knees, but holding
Him upside down, facing earthward, and
with the head at the right and not the left
Wayside
Saints
of the onlooker. There is, by the way, a
somewhat similar Virgin at Salamanca.
The one virtue she has, this Virgin, is that
of all wayside saints, a latch string always
out; though the door keys be elsewhere, a
grated window lets you look, and pray,
before you go on in the dust.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
The Pass of Rabanal
THE WAY
While the sacristan recounted the count-
less miracles that she has done, all painted
up in the church, Jehane stood on the
threshing floor, where the light hung
tangled in a golden haze, and watched the
old sweet earthy labour. Thence we over-
topped a brow and rolled down to S.
Miguel, all ocherous earth, where the only
flowers were flaunting yellow, and a young
son of i five years was watering a burro in
a green and standing pond, to drive him
home thereafter. Beside the good old
earthen tower at the west end of the church,
ran a southern porch, enclosed to form a
flanking room, with higher roof at the
centre over the entrance. The timber roof
was not bad: the holy-water stoup was
an old sacristy washing-fount, with a fat
cherub above swallowing the spout now
plugged. We found but one hachera, with a
painted name: Magdalena Garcia, fallecitf
el dia 27 de Octubre a los jo anos de edad de
1911. Someone, husband or mother, felt
it crueller to have died in the full summer-
tide of life, than at seventeen years, and
set the dates there for the pity of it.
HISPANIC NOTES
287
The
Threshing
Floor
288
WAY OF S.JAMES
S. Miguel
delCamino
The village straggles all around a central
well, and watering pool, and stream and
washing-tank, and encloses within the
circuit of mud wall and wattled hedge,
certain meadows, and poplars and alders
bordering the stubble. When we had
reached the level of the heath again, a
grey vulture napped away, dropping
what dangled dark from his claws. By
the wayside that morning we saw a
dead mule: in the same place that even-
ing we saw a clean white skeleton. Such
is the order, doubtless, at the Towers of
Silence.
At Villadangos (which Manier contrives
to call Bislilialangues) balconies begin to
appear, also thatch, though it is not fre-
quent till leagues beyond Astorga. The
church has the same sort of porch as S.
Miguel just left behind, but this opens with
ballusters on the air and has a good timber
roof within. A bell-arcade at the west end
is approached by the winding stairway
within a brick turret, and a slanting wooden
stairway spans the gap between this and
the ringer's gallery, here a mere roofed
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
289
scaffolding. This is an architecture de-
pendent on wood, with beams under the
cornices, delicately shaped timbers carrying
the eaves tiles, and the very winding stair
built out of squared logs inside the cylinder.
But the admirable disposition of masses
leaves one marvelling: it is proper to all this
region, with the roofs at various levels,
apse and transept, crossing and nave,
porch, and pylon (shall I say?) and the
tall west end without a door, flanked
by a single turret. White wall and red
roof are comely in the sun: at Celladilla,a
league out in the plain, you seemed to see
them flashing.
At S. Martin the church was of the same
sort, but the south porch windowless, and
cut off at either end from the entrance,
which was roofed with a good artesonado
square. The tower was of stone up to the
balcony, the rest new brickwork. Inside,
square artesonado roofs ennobled the sanc-
tuary and transepts, and a longer one about
three-fourths of the nave: the west end,
evidently enlarged, contained a gallery:
the east, the remains of a Churrigueresque
Wood
architec-
ture
S. Martin
AND MONOGRAPHS
290
WAY OF S.JAMES
Helpers
and Har-
bourers
Rome and
Babylon
altar presenting the old figures of the Help-
ers and Harbourers, SS. Martin, Roque,
Michael and Anthony Abbot, along with
intruders. Here Manier received, as the
party went through, a loaf of bread and a
good piece of butter — rare, as he notes, 8 in
Spain. If the reader finds this long itiner-
ary dull, why, so did we. Even Anseis de
Cartage, in the same place, is dull. The
twelfth century and the thirteenth have
left not a trace, nor the fifteenth; the
smug and prosperous centuries that pro-
duced the Duchess in Don Quixote and the
thousand dramas of Lope de Vega, made a
clean sweep and rebuilt after their own
mind. It is excellent building, entirely apt
to express that mind, and the present
use.
That great leveller of all, the plough, has
passed over; the plough that destroys
memories and brings them to light, that
effaces the very plan of last century's
church and the situation of yesterday's
hearthstone, and anon gives up a coin of
Tiberius or a ruling of Sardanapalus: by
which the trodden clay before the judge-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
291
ment-seat and the soaked mud below the
dungeon, yield corn and wine again, and the
ivory idol, the chiselled cup of gold, which
their dead owners never missed, come back
to pamper pride and allure cupidity and
reward iniquity.
At the Hospital and Puente de Orbigo,
even, we found the same church, a town
church now, cruciform, lofty, and muy
hidalgo. Puente de Orbigo has still an air
of accommodating many passers and offer-
ing a long range of gallery to tie donkeys in,
and a wide dusty place, with a cross, to
hold markets. Fishers' nets were drying
against the walls. By this wide river-bed
Alfonso III met a raiding party of Moors
and conquered them: the Chronicle9 says
that the host was enormous and divided as
it came. Bernardo del Carpio overtook
one wing in Valdemoro, and slaughtered
it; and the king came upon the other part
of those Moors that came against him, and
strove with them near the river Orbigo,
and conquered them. What brought those
Moors, Astorga knows. And of the Moors
died more than twelve times a thousand,
Crete and
Mycenae
Puente de
Orbigo
AND MONO GRAPHS
292
WAY OF S.JAMES
as the poem says. And of all those hosts
of Moors that set out, in the end not more
than ten, or very few more, got away with
their lives. We should have liked to read
the poem that day, but I do not know it :
and though Sepulveda would have written
it on the spot, I could not.
Here, by the Bridge of Orbigo, was held
the great Passage Honourable — the Paso
The
Honroso, — where for thirty days ten knights
Passage
Honou r-
met all comers. At the last there were only
able
two who could sit a horse, but they accom-
plished the emprize.
Before reaching S. Just-in-the-Meadow,
already we saw the cathedral of Astorga
looming in the plain like an elephant.
Manier, who had slept out-of-doors the
night before, under the open sky — for the
first time, he notes, a little aggrieved —
got no more for the dole at Astorga than
a piece of bread and a cup of wine. "La
ville," says he, "n'est revetue d'aucune
rarete, non plus de grandeur."10
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
293
Astorga.
Droit vers Astorges, la
cite honoree,
Nous en irons, Voriflambe
levee;
Mauvais fait, etre en terre
desertee, . . .
Astorges est bien garnie
et peuplee. — Anseis of
Carthage.
Pierre de Ries1 may be right, but so is
Guillaume Manier. Astorga is insignifi-
cant. It is hard to believe it, where such
hermits visited as S. Fructuoso and such
bishops ruled as Genadio (899-920) and
Sampiro (1035-1041), to name only those
with which I am personally acquainted,
and so pleasant a man of the world as the
present incumbent. Asturica when it was
the most important station between Braga
and Bordeaux, though Pliny calls it2 urbs
magnified, I yet figure as something too
like the Charing Cross Hotel, offering all
that is necessary and convenient for break-
ing a journey, but nothing for which to
stay on.
The mediaeval town was, like any other,
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
294
WAY OF S.JAMES
Tragical
Histories
not without its tragical histories, its glorious
defeats. In the twelfth year of the reign
of D. Alfonso the Great (that was the
year of our Lord's Incarnation 848) D.
Fruela the king's brother held converse
with other three brethren of the king,
D. Nuno and D. Vermudo and D. Odoario,
and they spake amongst themselves of
how to kill the king, but not so privily
but that the king came to know thereof,
and the king took them all, and blinded
them all for the treason that they laid
to do. And D. Vermudo, although he
was yet blind, went thereafter to Astorga,
and abode there seven years, and sent
thence for a great host of Moors. And
they came, and made a great war, and did
all the harm they could to the king D.
Alfonso, and besieged Grajat. But, indeed,
says the chronicle,3 from the thirteenth
year to the twenty-fifth of the reign of this
king, D. Alfonso, nothing of moment is
there to recount which rightly pertains to
the story, for Moors and Christians were
right weary of striving and slaying one
another, besides that the Moors dared not
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
295
do much before the force of this king D.
Alfonso, who was a strong king and hardy
in battle and had defeated them in many
strifes and routed them in many places.
So the chronicler records the death, instead,
of the Pope Leo and of the Emperor Lo-
thaire, and who succeeded them. But
when the King D. Alfonso saw how, much
ill his brother D. Vermudo did him, he
came down on him with his host, and killed
and routed all the Moors who were with
him; and D. Vermudo and the Moors who
could escape with him, fled away, and the
king took a very great vengeance on those
of Astorga and on those of Ventosa, because
they received D. Vermudo.
Of him I know no more. I dare say he
ended his days at some court in the south,
Cordova or Granada, a blind, shabby
hanger-on, helpless and irascible, as Gon-
zalo Gustos came so near to do. In the
eleventh century another Vermudo, the
third of the name, who ruled Leon, lost
Astorga to Sancho el Mayor of Navarre,
"who was a great prince, and the first
that gave a consistent form and name to
AND M ONOGR APHS
Quedando
desam-
parado
con
hcrmonos
y criados
296
A Tenth
Worthy
WAY OF S.JAMES
various dynasties which then divided Spain,
and in his charters called himself now king
of the men of Aragon, now of the Navarrese,
now of Asturias, Leon, and Galicia."4 His
epitaph, in S. Isidro, calls him simply king
of the Pyrennean mountains and of Tou-
louse5; an evil vengeance of the Leonese
monks, methinks, on their conqueror, to
beat thus the bones of the buried, who while
he lived was a man !
At Astorga, Alfonso el Batallador broke
finally with Dona Urraca, confronting her
with her own sister's charge, that she had
plotted his death with poisoned brewage.
De haber intendado dar yerbas, " was
the word of Teresa of Portugal. The fair
glozing queen for once found herself either
dumb, or fangless; her arts could not
appease her husband, nor her power arrest
the king of Aragon. She fell back on her
counts and captains, and was defeated in
Viadangos, but raised the country, and
in the end there came a snowy midnight
when D. Alfonso quitted Astorga, secretly
and with speed. Almanzor had taken the
city but not destroyed, being content to
HISPANIC NOTES
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297
mutilate merely — the word is desmochar,
the same as horning a bull: he pulled down
the battlements, and they were raised
again. In 1386 the city was taken by the
Duke of Lancaster, old John of Gaunt,
and underwent a siege from Alvar Perez
Osorio which won him the Marquisate,
before it came back to lawful allegiance.
In the war of Independence it stood the
same siege twice, and saw, in the end, the
archives burned. 6 About the siege of As-
torga shines a great light, as about the siege
of Belfort.
The cathedral, begun in 1471, fin-
ished in 1668 or thereafter, was praised by
Street for "a certain stateliness of height
and colour." To el Pelegrino curioso, it
seemed the card or calendar of beauty,
un pincel de oro; you can see him, like Osric,
a-tiptoe with rapture, kissing his fingers.
The west front, with Renaissance detail,
adapts the deep gashes and the flying
buttresses of Leon into something rather
splendid; the retable, by Juan de Juni, has
all the excellency of the baroque, and that
is much. The stalls were carved by
A great
light
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298
WAY OF S.JAMES
Baroque
by late
Gothic
Masters Thomas and Robert, who ended
in 1551 but who had their training in the
florid late Gothic style. 7 Here, with work
that lies within the compass of one life, may
be compared the still irreconcilable beau-
ties of Najera and S. Domingo de la Cal-
zada. On the twentieth of October, 1570,
the Bishop and Chapter of Astorga wrote
for Master Francisco Colonia, of Burgos,
to visit the new cathedral that they were
then building, begging that <;if a master
called Colonia be yet alive, your worships
will give him leave, and if necessary give
him orders, to come and visit this work, for
we remember yet his last visit and we had
rather have him than another."8 In 1621
two workmen of Burgos, Domingo de
Vallejo master of works and Juan de Gandia
painter, made a design of the Burgos reja
for the Bishop of Astorga, which cost 150
reales. He had asked for it, wishing to have
one made for his church.
The church of Astorga, says Sandoval, 9
was constituted of black monks entirely,
and possessed, moreover, twenty monas-
teries of the order. Apparently lovable, it
HISPANIC NOTES
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299
is certainly well-loved. In 1195 a Canon
called D. Pedro Franco founded the feast
of S. Thomas of Canterbury, which is still
kept, with solemn vespers and a procession,
on December 28. It seems that the
Frenchman Peter (for so I read his sur-
name) had been a personal friend of the
great Archbishop, and his endowment,
rich at the outset, has gained in value,
instead of declining until the whole had
finally to lapse into nothingness, as usually
befalls: so love of his dead master, and
love ot his living church, have joined to
make something very fair, and still immor-
tal. l ° In the eighteenth century the retable
of the Purisima in the north transept, and
a Magestad, were designed and painted
by Juan de Pefialosa y Sandoval, canon of
his church and familiar de D. Alonso Mesia
de Tovar, the Bishop of it, who had made
the altar and the silver lamps of the Holy
Mother Teresa of Jesus: this should be
about 1663. In the sides of the first retable
are set a series of eight small landscapes,
the excuse for which is the Litany of
phrases from the Canticles: they are
Cantua-
riensis
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300
WAY OF S.JAMES
Splendens
utSol
Sol
Invict'JS
quite charming, and tenderly, romantically
touched. Possibly the same Canon painted
the landscapes with hermits and angels,
around a retable in the south aisle. The
Majesty named in the inscription, is an
archaic Madonna with the child on her
knee, in a retable, between SS. Genadius
and Teresa; above, the Imposition of the
Chasuble. Since I first was in As torga some
of the splendid vestments have disappeared :
two glorious processional crosses are safe
as yet, but who shall say for how long?
The chapter is very rich in numbers and
ceremonial: S. Peter's Day gave occasion
for state, and the salutation was like kingly
homage, the offertory (I think) made in a
silver basin with silver tokens struck and
kept expressly for these rites. We saw sim-
ilar at Mondonedo, Zamora, and Cuenca.
The remains of a Roman temple sur-
vived down to mcdern times, and into the
Roman walls, in the course of repairing
from age to age, were built many inscribed
stones, of which the finest is now in the
Casa Consistorial. There a dedication to
Sol Invictus is headen by three budded
HISPANIC NOTES
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301
wands like those in the story of Holy Cross,
and a brace of half -moons. 1 l
The city counted once eight parish
churches, four convents, sixteen chapels
and nine hospitals. r 2 Little is left. S. Fran-
cisco is of Friar's Gothic, with five bays
of quadripartite vaulting and a square
sanctuary: down the south side a range of
chapels opening together by two arches,
with capitals carved with ivy leaves and
•grotesques: for the rest, the little church
has a plain square tower, transepts, and
apse: the inside is rococo of 1746. S. Julian
has four good capitals in the western door,
of belated Romanesque: on one an inter-
lace, on the next, Christ giving a scroll
to the saint and his wife; on the other
two, leaf forms and little dragons among
leaves.
We were to come back to Astorga more
than once, and thence to return by the
Bridge of Orbigo for the sake of the Passage
Honourable, but were never quite to be at
home there, as in Leon, or satisfied as in
Santiago. Yet over the ancient town the
wings of the centuries beat.
(and on
Minoan
gems)
S. Julian
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302
WAY OF S.JAMES
Folk-
dancing
Maragatos
At the same end of the city where all
these little churches lie, a part of the old
walls persists, and a park is placed thereon,
with trees, and gravelled spaces, and a view
of far blue hills across the still wide plain.
Here on Sunday afternoons the town band
plays, and all the world dances: nurses
with the baby as with a partner, tiny girls
with each other, young maids and men
together, all manner of folk, for the rap-
ture of dancing. This is not what men pay
to see in cafes chantants, or among the
cave-dwellings at Granada, an art mere-
tricious, laboriously learned, and lewd, more
or less, always, but something as natural
as eating or whistling, a direct and simple
pleasure of movement and skill like skating
or playing ball. Inside a walled garden
near, in a covered space, dance the Mara-
gatos, in ancient folk-dances of men and
women in open order, paired as partners,
six or eight in a square, with upraised arms,
snapping fingers, sudden turnings and
retreats, supple bendings and dainty
dalliance. We had watched Dalmatians
in like dances on the deck of a ship, but
HISPANIC NOTES
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303
the presence here of brown Maragata girls,
with cheeks like pomegranates, gave a
dusky splendour to the sinuous grace of
comely youth, made the dance like famous
descriptions of pheasants in the wood, and
bright fowl in the jungle. That stopped the
moment we were seen, but out on the ram-
part, the dancing went on through the
declining light, while the hills turned to
rose and then through violet to green; with
the coming of dusk the dance ended and
the throng broke up, through one street and
another trailing home.
It was good to dance there, in view of
the hills, as men had danced before, gener-
ations of them; and to see the hills, and
dance, as men will dance tomorrow and
next year, when these are gone. The ruddy
city sits quiet in the plain, untroubled by
our little seasons : before the Romans, and in
the Middle Age, and when the French came
and went away again, and when tourists
rode in a-horseback, and when tourists
rolled in with motors. She cares for none of
these things. It is good to dance, looking
over at the hills, and lie down and sleep.
The wings
of the
centuries
brooding
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304
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Port of Rabanal.
Thin, thin, the pleasant
human noises grow,
And faint the city gleams;
Rare the lone pastoral
huts. . . .
Alone the sun arises, and
alone
Spring the great streams.
Partly in order to take the long day with
my good Francisco Nieto, it happened that,
instead of riding directly into those far
hills, we rode looking eastward from Pon-
ferrada to Astorga. Without this chance,
we should not have known the long warm
hours of aromatic afternoon, and rose-
leaf sunset, and the distant city red in
the rosy plain and never a thought the
nearer, and the slow mounting of the
road into town by the easiest incline,
through fragrant dusk, among the home-
ward-bound: we should not have known
how Astorga could be a bourne, and, as
the horse-shoes clicked on paving stones
and echoed between stone walls, a wel-
comed harbourage.
We had ridden out from Ponferrada
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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305
before a sun-shadow fell, among olive or-
chards, and overtaken figures with sickle
and wallet, or with staff and skin flask, all
walking easily: their voices tinkled in the
early light. We had crossed the ancient
bridge over the Bueza and, turning east-
ward, followed the water through arable
land of vine and grain, over uplands, and
down into a broad river-bottom, for a white
league or more of valley-road, before we
came upon Molina Seca. In 1193 Bishop Molina
Lope of Astorga and the Abbess of Car- J
rizo, Dona Teresa, to whom belonged two
thirds of the town (the other third right be-
ing vested in the monastery of Carracedo) ,
conjoined together and formed the ordi-
nances of government. I In the year before,
the Countess Dona Maria Ponce had ceded
her half-right in the church there to the
Bishop, and received in return something
very like a canonry in the Cathedral, and
an annuity of three hundred sueldos a year
for life. The bishop of Oviedo and the
abbot of Sandoval were intermediaries in
this compact, which is dated September i,
Molina Seca has now a church of
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306
WAY OF S.JAMES
Mount-
ing
the seventeenth century, which is set on a
hill-promontory looking eastward, so that
the noisy river foams far below the apse,
and stands a little apart from the main
street of the slate-roofed town, which
clambers on up, the other side of the stream.
Here, as through all the early days of the
riding in which the long pilgrimage was to
end, the houses had balconies in which liv-
ing went on, the lower story being strictly a
stable.
The mill lay half a mile up-stream, among
poplars; we looked down on grey stone,
grey roof, grey gleaming water. Wild roses
grew hereabouts, and the magenta foxglove.
The way had lain, so far, through rolling
country, by a stream, with work-people
passing, of all of which this was the last.
Hence forward it clomb steadily, for many
hours. Birds flew up from the hedge, birds
hung overhead, birds twittered or called
upon the moor, birds were everywhere until
the wind got up, then they fell silent. We
went up among vast hills, with mountains
in constant view, still starred with snow-
wreaths, looking blue and near, their con-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
307
tours passing from mere flat stage-scenery
exquisite in tone, into the third dimension,
huge shoulders and spurs defining them-
selves in the line of vision, running out
towards us, heaving up almost as though
within touch. The road was the loneliest
ever, a few carts, drawn by small black
oxen, creaking on the track that was some-
times gullied clay, sometimes rolling stones,
but chiefly living rock deep-furrowed. A
handful of faded corn flowers and tattered
poppies lingered on, and the flat, white blos-
som that looks so like wild rose abounded,
spiky orchids, blue scabious, and some-
thing like bergamot; chestnut and acacia
bloomed in sheltered hollows, and in the
dells below.
At Riego, the second town, where storks
dwelt, the wheeling swallows cried. The
earthen-coloured houses stood, their thick
thatch overgrown with moss and stone-
crop, wavering in and out of the line of the
street. Looking back, we saw it brown as a
deer. On the short pasture grass beyond,
magpies danced and took their parti-
coloured flight; beside the golden broom
AND MONOGRAPHS
308
WAY OF S.JAMES
The
cuckoo
grew as well the rare white kind in places
the alpine gentian starred with blue the
turf. The houses of Manjardin were slated,
bright with flat patches of stone-crop
crow-stepped, with flat slates laid step
above step on the gable wall. We drank
from a spring and trough, in the hill above
the town, among cork-trees, and looked
across to Castrelo, safe in its own valley.
By now we were high on the moor, follow
ing along the vast side of the range, among
white heather and acrid juniper and fra-
rant rosemary : a hawk wheeled, that might
have been an eagle, and once, out of that
lonely summer noon, a cuckoo called.
Scrub oak was sparse here, and pines
we saw but rarely throughout the day.
Silently we rode, singly, in the great silence.
Once we passed a snow wreath still un-
melted, that I might have turned the horse's
feet into.
The Port is not like a Swiss col, a sharp
scramble up and a steep descent, but wide
and heaving like a strait in the sea: the
road turns a little, and rises and falls again,
and always we looked off, at the right, to
HISPANIC NOTES
THE \V A V
huge and silent mountains, and between us
and them lay a hidden valley, and little
towns lay safe on the sides, like Espinoso
there, that you could not tell from one
another, and all unreal. Of a truth, though
Florez in the life of Bishop Amadeus, 1141-
43, records3 that the church of the Camino
de Santiago, in the place called Espinoso,
was founded by Miguel Juan, Presbyter,
and along with the Hospice called del Ganso
given by him to the Cathedral of Astorga,
it is easier to believe that the village has
moved across the brook, than that the
road ever left el Puerto. The place was
hallowed earlier: when S. Toribio in the
fifth century came home from Jerusalem
with relics, he came to a Port between
Asturias and Galicia, and made a chapel in
the Sacred Mount. 4 Miles ahead, Francisco
pointed out the cross that stood in the Port,
and anon, by straining eyes we saw, where
the sharp crests dipped, the thin line of the
iron cross, like a semaphore station. Florez
wrote5 a hundred and fifty years ago:
"The brook of Val Tajada is born in the
mountains of Astorga, at the Port of Fonce-
AND MONOGRAPHS
309
el Puerto
WAY OF S. JAMES
A hospice
once
baddn, close to the Iron Cross, where the
famous camino frances for Santiago enters
the Vierzo: on the height a hermit named
Guncelmo founded, for the pilgrims, the
church of S. Saviour, with various houses
for Hospice of the pilgrims. Alfonso VI
gave privileges, but in 1106 the founder
himself made over the whole to the Cathe-
dral of Astorga. It is in the top of the
Port." So far the Augustinian: I saw no
ruins of church or hospice.
This will not be the same, though very
precisely contemporary, with that hermit-
age which was founded by the hermit Gar-
celeian on Monte Irago, under the same
venerable invocation, and which Alfonso VI
and his wife Isabel freed from all taxation
on January the twenty-fifth of 1103,
because the pilgrims lodged there going to
S. James.6 Aymery Picaud names the
Monte Irago directly after Rabanal and
before Molina Seca, and Florez speaks of
"Monte Irago, hoy Puerto de Rabanal,"
south of Foncebadon, sometimes called S.
Salvador de Irago. The name is common
to the mountain of the two Ports, he says.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
3ii
But Francisco Nieto says that it lies in
another direction from Ponferrada and
George Borrow supports him. Dozy 7 cites
the reference in a gloss on the Cronica
Rimada:
A los caminos entro Rodrigo, pessol 6 a
My Cid
malgrado;
as Pilgrim
de qual disen Benabente, segunt diseo
en el romance;
e passo por Astorga, 6 Ileg6 a Monte
Yrag(l)6;
complio su romerya por Sant Salvador
de Oviedo.
For his purposes it imports that the line
should end at S. Salvador, which gives the
assonance: for our purpose, it is good that
the copyist idly filled out the ordinary
course of events: after Santiago, a man
finished his pilgrimage by S. Salvador of
Oviedo. Dozy desires also to cast back to
"an epoch when Monte Irago was better
known, more celebrated than Benavente," 8
not a hard matter, since Benavente was
repeopled by Ferdinand II (1157-1188) and
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I
312
WAY OP S. JAMES
Fonce-
bad6n
received its fucros from Alfonso IX some
time before 1206: whereas along the pass
the stream of pilgrims had poured in-
cessantly since the eleventh century.
We lunched in the town of Foncebadon,
sitting on a bench, at a table, under the
vaulted entrance to a stable. An old
woman at a counter dispensed bread and
wine, as in a shop: up five steps lay her huge
kitchen chimney and bake-oven, which, as
she knew us better, she let us visit to warm
chilled fingers, and up a flight of stairs
lay the family rooms from which her pride
barred us. This is in the country of the
Maragatos, about whom, as Florez says, 9
one could easily write a whole book and
had better, therefore, say just nothing at
all. In Astorga I have lodged with Mara-
gatos, in the Hotel Roma, so named, belike
out of compliment to the parochial clergy
who habitually put up there; and eaten
their cooking, very rich and strong-
flavoured and very delicious, and admired
their handsome women, strong and muy
vdiente, and made friends with some of
them. I think when I go again into those
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
parts I shall carry such messages, and such
pass-me-ons, that the good woman will let
me go upstairs. Except for technical hos-
pitality, she was kind enough, as was all the
village. There a brook trickled and dripped
down the chief street, dammed at one place
and another to form a pool under which old
women washed rags. Thatch was still the
rule. The Cura was asleep but his house-
keeper came with the keys, pretty and
civil-mannered. The church had nothing
in particular to distinguish it, except a sort
of shed down the south side, that served for
shelter and storage. Nearer to Astorga we
found churches with charming porches at
the west, a pent-house roof supported on
columns.
The heights were past by now, but
dragging skirts of cloud that hung upon
the mountains, made a Scotch mist, until
we came to Rabanal, which has three
churches but only one of them ancient.
The Senor Cura was unluckily away, his
steward, in charge, was asleep, and none of
the women of the family would consent to
waken him. So though that of Rabanal
313
Rabanal
AND MONOGRAPHS
314
WAY OF S. JAMES
All good
Christians
compan-
ionable
was the only Romanesque church encoun-
tered in the day, it went unseen: it was
evidently much altered, with a belfry rising
against the west face, but a square apse
with one column still attached, and a porch
that opened with two arches on the south
side. Francisco was so ill-pleased and so
profoundly shamed by the conduct of the
women, that he shared all his grievance
with a sleek priest who rode into S. Cata-
lina, in a handsome soutane, on a superb
nag, and the priest lent a friendly ear and
sympathy. Spain keeps still something
of the social standard of Greece, where all
free citizens were equals.
Between this pink pleasant town and
windy Rabanal, had lain a wide region of
upland grass, then willows and poplars
about dry water-courses, dried-out oak and
box, and pasturable heath, and as we
emerged from the last tongue of cork and
scrub-oak boskage, towers, if you knew
them, were discernible in the wide plain,
and the furthest of these was Astorga.
The traveller for whom that outlook has
opened, keeps it forever unforgotten.
HISPANIC NOTES
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315
Et Franc s'en tornent sere les un bosquel;
I val avalent, puis pasent un ruisel.
A tant monterent le mont de Ravenel,
Estorges voient, ki sist en un monchel.
Li murs n'est pas de caug ne do quarel,
Aihs est de tere, haut en sont li crestel
Et la tors fors del plus maistre castel.10
The view was like the sea in extent, and
lightly broken and striped, now with a
crest, again with sunstreaks: here and there
swam a brown city in the blue. The ap-
proach, with the bourne in view, is the
longest that I have ever known : hard by S.
Catalina, under the wall of a finca, we
shared the last biscuits, the last cups of
The last
wine, standing at the heads of the horses,
cup of wine
and pushed on with what strength we could
infuse into them, past lisping grain, past
gathered hay, down powdery slopes silvered
with the warm soft dust, while the walls
and towers, red against the grey-blue east,
defined and reared themselves. It came
to be like a dream, at last : the horse moving
on, foot after foot, he never stopped, we
never spoke; and when we reached the city
in the dusk, soft-footed creatures moved
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I
316
WAY OF S.JAMES
inside like the beasts in a fairy tale: huge
butchers' dogs, low on the legs and rather
like bears except one that was like a mon-
strous wolf, but none unfriendly. All that
night, in sleep, the solitude of the lonely
hills clung about me like the scent of rose-
mary, like the cool damp mountain mist.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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317
XIV
THE PASSAGE HONOURABLE
"Man is a shadow's dream!"
Opulent Pindar saith:
Yet man may win a gleam
Of glory, before death.
IN the year of Our Lord 1434, the feast
of S. James the Apostle fell on a Sunday.
When King John II and Queen Maria and
the Prince D. Henry, and D. Alvaro de
Luna, Master of Santiago and Constable
Ano Santo
of Castile, with all the court, were keeping
Christmas at Medina del Campo, on Friday,
New Year's Day, at the first hour of the
night, came in Suero de Quinones and nine
other knights armed all in white, and with
very humble reverence presented by a herald
a petition of which the substance was this:
It is a just and reasonable desire
that those who be in prison or out of
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
Enrique de
Villena
writing a
consolatory
epistle to
him
WAY OF S . JAMES
their own power should desire liberty,
and as I, your vassal and subject born, lie
imprisoned by a lady now a long while
since, in sign whereof I wear every
Thursday this iron fetter on my neck as
is well known in your magnificent court,
and throughout your kingdoms, and
beyond: now then, mighty lord, in the
name of the Apostle S. James I have
devised my redemption, which is three
hundred lances, with heads of Milan
steel, to be broken by me duly in the
shaft, and by these knights who are here
thus armed, breaking three with every
knight or gentleman who shall present
himself, the time to be within fifteen
days before and as many after the day
of the Apostle S. James, the place, on
the straight road by which most folk
must pass going to the city wherein
is his tomb. And ladies of honour
must know that any of them who pass
at this place where I shall be, who has no
knight nor gentleman to bear arms for
her, shall lose her right-hand glove.
But your Royal Majesty is not to enter
into this essay, nor the very magnificent
Lord Constable D. Alvaro de Luna.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
319
So when the king had consulted with his
chosen men, he gave license, and the herald
cried the king's leave with a loud voice, and
Suero de uinones asked one of the gentle-
men in the hall to take off his helmet, and
he thanked the king for this leave so neces-
sary to his honour and hoped to do him
service thereby, and the ten withdrew and
did off their armour and arrayed suitably
XXII
returned to the hall to dance, and at the
Chapters
end of the dance the twenty-two Chapters
of the emprize were read out. They began :
In the name of God and of the Blessed
Virgin Our Lady and of the Apostle our
Lord S. James, I, Suero de Quinones,
knight and born vassal of the very
high king of Castile, and of the house
of the magnificent Lord his Constable,
give notice and have you to wit the
conditions of this my emprize. . . .
When the chapters had been read,
Suero de Quinones gave a letter to Lyon,
King-at-Arms of the most mighty king of
Castile, declaring all these things, for him
to carry into all lands and kingdoms, and
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
320
The Lists
WAY OF S . JAMES
into the courts of the kings, and read it
publicly there; and he gave him what was
necessary for such long journeys : and so it
was sent into all Christendom so far as
might be. Meanwhile Suero was making
provision for the lists, and the entertain-
ment of so many, and all things needful,
and he sent to cut wood from his father's
estate which lay only five leagues from the
Bridge. Close to the camino frances was
a fair forest, there they built lists, one
hundred and forty-six paces long, and en-
closed with a pale of the height of a lance.
Seven galleries were built around the lists :
one at the end near where Suero de Qui-
nones and his companions were to enter,
whence they might view the jousts when
they were not jousting. Two others, on
opposite sides of the lists, were for the
strange knights when not engaged: two
more at opposite sides were set, one for the
judges, King-at-Arms, heralds, trumpets,
and for the scriveners who were provided
to keep an exact and sworn record of all
that passed ; and the other for the generous,
famous, honoured knights who should come
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
321
to honour the Passage Honourable. And
indeed many came. The other two galleries
were further along, for other folk, and for
the trumpets and officers of the knights
and gentlemen who should come to the
Passage of Arms. At each end was a gate-
way, and by one entered the Defensors and
there the arms and shield of the Quinones
were set in the banner raised on high ; and
at the other entered the Adventurers and
those who came to approve themselves in
arms, and there was hoisted another banner
with the arms of Suero de Quinones. Like-
wise there was made a herald of marble, by
Master Nicholas the Frenchman, Master of
the works of S. Maria de Regla of Leon, and
it would appear from the account that this
was dressed and hatted, and set by the road-
side as a signpost, at the Bridge of S. Marcos
pointing the way to the Bridge of Orbigo.
On the Saturday, two weeks before S.
James's, three knights presented them-
selves, Meister Arnold of the Red Wood
(Micer Arnaldo de la Floresta Bermeja, says
the scrivener) of Brandenburg, and two Val-
encians. The German had been there wait-
A German
first
AND MONOGRAPHS
322
WAY OF S. JAMES
What pipes
and tim-
brels! . . .
ing for a fortnight already. On Sunday
morning the trumpets and other minstrels
sounded at dawn and the hearts of the
warriors were moved and braced for the
play at arms, and Suero de Quinones and
his nine companions arose and together
heard Mass in the church of S. John in
the hospital of the Order of S. John which
was there, and returning to their lodgings
shortly sallied out as follows:
Suero de Quinones came out on a big
horse, caparisoned with blue housings em-
broidered with the device and fetter of his
famous emprize, and above the device each
time were broidered letters that said,
77 Jaut delivrer; he wore a habergeoun of
three-piled velvet brocaded in green, and a
huca of blue velvet three-piled. His hosen
were of Italian grain, and so was his high
cap (like that worn by Pisanello's courtiers
and Masolino's foplings); and his riding
spurs Italian, richly gilded: in his hand a
gilded tilting sword, naked. On the upper
part of his right arm he wore his device
richly worked in gold, with blue letters
round about that said :
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
323
Si d vous plait de ouir mesure
Certes je dy
The
Queje suis
Device
Sans venture.
He wore the arm and leg pieces of his
armour with goodly grace. After him
issued forth three pages on very fair horses,
their habergeouns blue powdered with
the same device. The housings of the first
page were of coloured damask turned up
with zibelline marten, and all embroidered
with heavy silver work; and he wore on his
head a helmet above which was figured a
great gilded tree, with green leaves and
gilded apples, and about it twined a green
serpent in semblance of that tree in which
they paint that Adam sinned, and in midst
Where
of the tree a naked sword with letters that
Adam
said Deliver me. He carried his lance in his
sinned
hand. The second page had habergeoun
and hosen of grain, like the first, and hous-
ings of three-piled velvet brocaded in blue.
The third was like the others but the
housing, was cramoisy. After Suero de
Quinones went the nine companions of his
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
324
WAY OF S . JAMES
The IX
Compan-
ions
emprize, one after the other, on horseback,
dressed in habergeouns and hosen of Italian
grain, with high caps of the same, and their
hucas embroidered with the fair device and
fetter of their captain Suero. Th e housings
of their horses were blue embroidered with
the same device, and above each device
embroidered letters which said, // faut
delivrer. After these came two great fair
horses, drawing a car full of lances with
strong Milan points, of three sorts, some
very weighty, some medium, and some
light but apt for a fair blow. Above the
lances were apparels of blue and green
embroidered with oleanders with its flowers,
and in each tree a figure of a popinjay;
and over all a dwarf that drove the car.
In front of all went the trumpets of the king
and those of the knights, with Morisco
atabales and axabebas, fetched by the judge
Pero Barba: and near the captain went
many knights a-foot, some of whom led his
bridle-horse, lending honour and authority;
these were D. Henry brother of the Ad-
miral, and D. Juan de Benavente son of
the Count of Benavente, and D. Pedro de
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Acuna, son of the Count of Valencia, and
D. Henry his brother, and other generous
knights. This will be I think Valencia de
D. Juan, and the whole party seems to be-
long for the most part to this region in Spain ,
Manier, l for instance, naming hereabouts
Mayorga de Campos, which is mentioned
just below. In this order Suero de Quinones
entered the lists and made two turns about
and stopped before the place of the judges
and required that without respect of amity
or enmity they should judge what was to
pass there, making the arms equal among
all and giving to each the honour and pro
that he should deserve for his valour and
stress, and that they should show favour
to strangers if one by chance wounded a
Defensor and were attacked by others
than his opponent; and the judges accepted,
and made some additions to the Chapters
which Suero had published. Then arose
D. Juan de Benavente, the eldest son of
D. Rodrigo Alfons Pimentel, Count of
Valencia and Mayorga, and prayed Suero
de Quinones to take him for a substitute
if by anything he were hindered in finishing
AND M O N O GR A P H S
325
Valencia
de D. Juan
326
WAY OF S . JAMES
Monday
his emprize; and D. Henrique and D. Pedro
de Acuna and the others claimed that privi-
lege, and Suero adjusted this. No more
befell that Sunday.
As Monday began to dawn the music
sounded, moving the humours of the
combatants to put more zest and power
into their hearts, and the two judges went
to their place with the King-at-Arms, and
the herald, and the pursuivants Bamba and
Cintra, and the trumpets, and the scriveners
to give testimony of what the tilters did.
Suero in his tent had a chapel, and altar
with precious relics and rich ornaments,
and certain religious of the Order of the
Preachers to say Mass. Suero de Quifiones
was twenty-six years old: Micer Arnaldo
de la Floresta Bermeja was twenty-seven.
They broke three lances between them,
and he invited the German to dinner and
they were conducted to their lodgings
with much company, and Suero disarmed
in public.
In the afternoon he wanted to continue
with the Valencians, but his cousin Lope
de Estumga claimed the turn and would
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
3?9
not yield it. Ten more knights arrived
that Monday. Lope de Estufiiga was
tilting with Mosen Juan Fabla until it
was full night and so dark the encounters
could not be seen for good nor ill, therefore
the judges pronounced that joust finished.
Next day Diego de Bazan as Defensor met
Pero Fabla the Valencian and broke three
lances thereafter among other things, and
Per Fabla felt cheated because he had not
jousted with Suero de Quinones; and
Rodrigo de Zayas sent to ask if he might
wear the armour of Diego de Bazan and
his opponent that of Mos6n Pero Fabla.
Suero replied that while not constrained to
either of these things he granted them.
So the tilting went on every day, and the
opponents invited each other to dinner
afterwards. Two ladies passed, Leonor de
la Vega and Guiomar de la Vega; the
former was married, the latter a widow,
and Juan de la Vega the husband was
with them. The King-at-Arms asked
for their gloves, and Mosen Frances Davio,
an Aragonese knight, offered to redeem
them. Juan de la Vega thanked him, say-
HISPAN I C NOTES
Diego de
Bazdn
330
WAY OF S. JAMES
Christian
devotion
of the
pilgrimage
Dealings
with a nun
ing that he had not known of this adventure
nor was prepared for it, and that he desired
to finish his pilgrimage, and thereafter he
would return and encounter it. So he left
the gloves in pledge. But the judges anon
decided that they should not be detained,
lest it seemed to go against the Christian
devotion of the pilgrimage and the known
knightliness of Juan de la Vega; because
moreover many knights were competing
to deliver the gloves. Therefore they sent
them by the pursuivant Bamba to the
city of Astorga to give them to the owners.
On the day that Mos6n Frances Davio
jousted against Lope de Estuniga as Defen-
sor, at the twenty-third course Estuniga ran
against him so hard that he broke his leg,
and the lance-head flew into the air and
went over the judges' box: with this the
essay was completed and the judges bade
them go in peace. Mose"n Frances said
aloud, before sundry knights that heard
trim, that he vowed to God that never in
bis life again would he have dealings with a
nun, nor love one, for up to this time he
lad loved a nun for whose contentment
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
he had come to make this assay of arms,
and whosoever caught him loving a nun
again, might call him any sort of black-
guard. To which say I — this is good Mas-
ter Pedro Rodriguez de Lara, the scrivener
— that an he had any of the nobleness of a
Christian or even the natural shame with
which we all contrive to cover our faults,
he would not announce a sacrilege so scan-
dalous and so dishonourable to the monastic
estate, and so insulting to Jesu Christ.
And methinks the quiet scrivener, albeit
no gentleman, is the better man.
That same day there came to Suero de
Quinones the King-at-Arms and the
herald, saying that a gentleman called
Vasco de Barrionuevo, servant of Ruy
Diaz de Mendoza, Mayordomo of the
King, had come to prove himself in the
adventure, but that he had not yet been
knighted and he prayed for knighthood.
While he waited at the gateway of the
lists, Suero went thither with his nine
companions, going on foot with much
music and accompanied by a great throng
of nobles and other folk, and when they
AND MON OGRAPHS
The scriv-
ener
speaks
A yong
squier
332
knighted
WAY OF S.JAMES
came he asked Vasco if he would be a
knight, and as Vasco answered Yes, he
drew his gilded sword, saying: "Do you,
a gentleman, propose to keep and guard
all things due in the noble office of knight-
hood, and sooner to die than fail in any of
them? " He swore so to maintain them,
and then Suero struck him with the naked
sword on the helmet, saying, "God make
thee a good knight and give thee to fulfill
all the conditions that a good knight must
keep." So he was knighted, and Suero
returned to his tent in like manner as he
had come, and straightway entered the
lists the noble knight Vasco de Barrionuevo
as Conquistador, against Pedro de los
Rios as Defensor of the Passage Honour-
able. This is a pretty scene, but not so
fine by half as one that comes anon.
On the Saturday even of that week
Lope de Mendoza, son of Diego Hurtado
de Mendoza, Master of the Horse to 'the
king, presented himself and was overthrown
in the sixth course. Then he sent to say to
Suero de Quinones that sithence he had
run these encounters in the service of a
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Lady whom he loved much and who loved
him not, he prayed to be allowed more
jousting to gain her good-will. Suero
answered with discretion, promising if he
would tell who was his lady, to send and
inform her how good a knight and great a
warrior served her, but to joust with more
than one, or after breaking three lances,
was contrary to the conditions of the
adventure: and therewith he went to his
tent and disarmed.
Sunday was the eighteenth of July,
and in honour of the approaching feast
and of the Apostle no jousting was held:
on that day arrived to present himself
to the judges to assay the adventure,
Mosen Bernal de Requesenes, Catalan, of
Barcelona, saying that he was boune on
pilgrimage to Santiago of Galicia and then
to Jerusalem; and as he promised to keep
the customs, he was admitted, and his
right spur was unbuckled and laid on
the French cloth before the judges' seats.
This was done in every case, and when
a knight's turn came he reclaimed the
pledge and wore it.
AND MONOGRAPHS
333
The right
spur
334
WAY OF S.JAMES
An ances-
tor of the
Manche-
gan?
The history of each day's tilting is never
quite the same as another's, and it makes
better reading than base-ball recounted in
detail, but here only a very little may be
told. Wednesday and Thursday of that
week were idle for lack of adventurers, but
on Thursday, which was the twentieth, ar-
rived at the Passage Honourable Gutierre
de Quixada and his nine companions, boune
to S. James. He had sent a herald on
ahead, called Villalobos, to announce him
coming and his intentions, and he was re-
ceived by the King-at-Arms and herald with
fair thanks for coming, and a question
whether he had need of anything for their
expenses. Quixada asked for the Chapters,
and replied further that they could not joust
until the next day but desired the first
turn then, and that being of the country
they were well provided, but would ask if
in need of aught. So they pitched their
own tent. They desired to choose adver-
saries, but this could not be. To the
question whether Gutierre himself would
commence, he answered that they had
ordained their proper order, and the first
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
335
to challenge would be Juan de Villalobos
and Gonzalo de Castaneda; but on the
Saturday Gutierre Quixada would enter
the lists, and with him Garcia Osorio.
Suero de Quinones himself came out
against Castaneda, desirous to prove
himself against a knight so famous and
hardy in arms, and in the fifth course
wounded him severely in the thick of the
arm, and the lance broke off in the wound.
So Castaneda went back to his tent thus,
but before going he said in a loud voice that
he had been in many breakings of lances
as dangerous as this and more, and none
had ever had the better of him save now
Suero de Quinones, and that he was well
pleased to have been overcome of so
valorous a knight; and Suero gave him
thanks for his good words. But Master
Peter bears him a grudge for certain
courtesies of the combat that he might have
observed (though in no wise unknightly),
and is well content that he should go
home sick and sorry.
On the even of that day after Castaneda's
misadventure, came the King-at-Arms
Indeed the
Marquis
of Villena
once raised
the devil
for him
AND M ON OGR APHS
336
WAY OF S.JAMES
with a letter from two Catalans, brothers
in arms, then in Leon, as nearly as possible
to this effect:
We wot. my lord Suero de Quinones,
that you hold a passage in the Bridge of
The Cartel
Orbigo, on the pilgrim road of S. James,
having made there an emprize of arms
whereby the knightly pilgrims and
gentlemen who go to the said pardon are
disturbed in their devotions, and hin-
dered in the pilgrimage, as for their hon-
ors they are compelled to comply with
your willful emprize: which being seen of
us, we left Catalonia with all the speed
we might, hoping to serve God and the
Apostle S. James, and we offer ourselves
both, to break all the lances contained in
your cartels with the conditions therein
named: desiring to arrest your moles-
tation of the devout pilgrims within the
time you took, that the pilgrims may not
receive more prevention from hence on.
To accomplish this, we ask for the en-
counter within two days, for we cannot
be held up longer, having business of
much importance to despatch in other
parts. This letter goes signed with our
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
337
names, Franci de Valle and Rimbao de
Corbera, and sealed with our seals of our
arms divided duly and orderly.
If this history were fiction, and in truth
it is good enough to be, I should point out
here how the right Spanish grudge against
the Catalan comes out, casting for the quar-
The
relsome and braggart r61e and for the van-
Catalans
quished, and for that of churl, the Catalans.
Suero replies with self-control and discre-
tion, nay more, with nobility and wisdom,
for he is a gallant creature, that by Portugal
King-at-Arms he had received on Saturday
the eve of S. James their letter, that he
thanked and prized them duly, for their
intent, but that the terms of the Chapters
forbade. "I write no more fully," he
concludes, "because my hands are needed
for more honourable things." They wrote
again, urging that they had come not to
break three lance but to do battle a todo
trance (which is a routrance),with him and
any companion he should select. Suero
repeats that he cannot overstep the Chap-
ters, but, as provided there, they can tilt
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
338
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Feast
of the
Apostle
with a part of the armour removed, and be
sure of meeting two blameless knights. D.
John of Benavente, however, wrote to
them that as soon as his particular vow
was fulfilled, he should like to meet them,
with or without Suero, and when they
refused to consider him, their intent
being toward Suero, he broke off commu-
nication. Meanwhile Gutierre Quixada
begged Suero de Quinones to accept him
for companion if a meeting took place. On
S. James's Day Suero made ready to joust
without three pieces of armour, and the
judges consulted with Portugal King-at-
Arms and sent him back to his tent, very
ill-content.
By this time adventurers were arriving
fast, and the party of Quixada took a long
time. One person, Anton Cabedo, servitor
of Anton de Deza, after being received was
judged unsuitable and his spur returned.
Suero as Defensor met Juan de Merlo as
Conquistador, and was wounded in the arm
so that the last course could not be run,
though he wanted and petitioned to run
it without lances since he could not hold
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
339
one. The surgery that the wound involved
was very painful, and Juan de Merlo was
very unhappy, and sent him a very beauti-
ful piece of armour, and Suero in sign of
cordial love sent him a mule that ambled
very softly, for the long journey into
France that he had to go. This Juan de
Merlo had also a party with him.
It was on Wednesday the 28th of July
that the two Catalans arrived, and accepted
the conditions duly, and went to salute
Suero de Quifiones who received them
with much honour and respect and provided
lodgings.
On the Saturday a lady passed, Dona
Inez Alvarez de Biezma, and her husband
was on pilgrimage, but a squire of Pedro
de Acufia asked for the honour of redeem-
ing her glove. Then came Dona Mencia
Tellez and Dona Beatriz and Dona Ynes
Tellez; these did not wish to yield their
gloves, but did it perforce, and two squires
and Benavente undertook to deliver them.
Suero ordered the last gloves returned, and
the squire redeemed that of Dona Ynes de
Biezma and sent it to her at Leon.
The long
journey in-
to France
AND MONO GRAPHS
340
WAY OF S.JAMES
A squire of
low degree
Lope de
Estuniga
That same Saturday even came a gentle-
man called Pedro de Torrezilla, of the
company of Alfon de Deza, but none of the
Defensors would tilt with him, saying that
he was not noble; which when the generous
Lope de Estuniga heard, he sent to ask if he
should knight him. Pedro de Torrezilla
was grateful to him but said it might not
be, for that he had not the means where-
with to support the honour of knighthood
though he was in truth nobly born. Such
discreet discourse enchanted Lope de
Estuniga, and he believed him nobly born :
and to do him honour armed and entered
into the lists and ran four courses with-
out encountering, and as it was already
night the judges bade end the tilting, pro-
nouncing the joust completed, though they
both would fain have gone on with the
emprize. When they unhelmed to know
each other, Pedro de Torrezilla was amazed
that a knight so generous as Lope de
Estuniga should have humbled himself to
tilt with a poor gentleman like himself,
and he offered himself to his service to the
utmost of his powers, and Lope protested
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
that he was as much honoured by tilting
with him as with an emperor, and took
him to supper in the great hall of the
captain Suero. This is the pretty passage
awhile since referred to.
Still on that same evening came Lope de
Sorga, who was to have been one of the
Defensors but broke his leg: he was ill-
content not to be admitted now, nor yet
allowed for a substitute, and ended by
preparing a letter to post along the Camino
frances, offering to redeem any lady's
glove. A Lombard trumpet who had
been on pilgrimage to Santiago de Galicia,
and had heard that at the Bridge of Orbigo
was a trumpet of the king of Castile very
distinguished in his art, had come thirty
leagues to try music with him. The
Spaniard was the victor in the competition
and invited him for as long as he would
stay. By this time it was apparent that
all the adventurers could hardly be met
within the diminishing time, and the
tilting was fast and frequent.
On Tuesday morning the Catalans came
out and started to arm. Suero de Qui-
A veray
parfait
gentil
knight
A Trumpet
Major
AND MONO GR A PHS
342
WAY OF S. JAMES
A bone-
setter
nones sent the King-at-Arms and the
herald to ask them to wait until the
morrow, because all the Defensors were
unfit, either wounded or lamed: they
answered that this was their day and they
should arm and go into the lists. The
Judges when they knew the modest request
and the churlish reply, took the King-at-
Arms and the herald and went to where
they were arming and remonstrated and
enjoined them. That day came a great
master algibista or bilmador (what is called
now an osteopath), fetched by Suero to set
to rights the sprained or dislocated hands
and arms of the knights, and he did it well.
Then Suero and his companions considering
how short a time remained and how much
there was to do in it, sent to ask the
Catalans if they objected to a few en-
counters of knights who had been restored,
with some of the adventurers. They an-
swered that the day was theirs, and if
there were any knights with set bones dis-
posed to try arms, they vrould do as well as
any. Then quoth Suero, a little grimly,
They shall get what they ask for." But
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
they fell back on the judges' ruling of the
morning, that there should be no tilting that
day. Thursday morning Diego de Bazan
stubbornly went into the lists, against his
captain's will, for he was not yet recovered
of a wound. Against him was Mose"n
Rimbao de Cervera, on a fine big hand-
some bay that he had brought from Aragon:
and both took heavy lances. In the first
course Rimbao struck Bazan on the
beaver, splintering his lance and leaving
the point there: and Bazan was dazed,
though he did not lose his lance, but what
with that and what with the wound, the
judges offered to Rimbao another knight
to complete the joust. The Catalan
wanted no more tilting with anyone, say-
ing that his duty was satisfied. Bazan
was insisting that he had been dizzy all
the morning. Then came Lope de Aller,
he too against the will of Suero for he had a
fever, but it was impossible to argue with
him, to encounter Mosen Franci del Valle,
the Catalan, and at the fifth encounter
Lope was badly wounded under the arm,
the lance head breaking off. That was the
AND MONOGRAPHS
343
Ill-chances
344
WAY OF S.JAMES
The death
of Esbert
de Clara-
monte
in mortal
sin
end, though Lope did not quit his horse,
and said the wound was nothing, and when
he was disarmed and it was tended, it ap-
peared not dangerous. Suero's Maestrc-
sala was sent to invite the Catalans to dine
with himself, as during the jousts Suero
fasted on Thursdays in honour of Our
Lady the Virgin Mary, and they accepted.
At this point the plain narrative seems to
have declined upon satiric comedy.
The next day Suero encountered with
Esbert de Claramonte, Aragonese, whose
horse was unmanageable; he asked Suero
to exchange, and they did. But in the
ninth course Suero's lance struck the visor
and entered the eye, killing him almost
instantly. The Aragonese and Catalans
made great lamentation, and Suero no
less, and paid all honours to the dead body,
and all attentions to the departed soul.
He sent for his confessor, Master Fray
Anton, and other religious, who told him
that the church made no provision for
those that died in such exercises, which
involved mortal sin, but at Suero's entreaty
carried a letter to the Bishop of Astorga,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
and promised, if leave were given, to take
the body to Leon and bury it in the chapel
of the Quinones in S. Isidro. 2 Meanwhile
an anchoress of S. Catherine who lived
at the bridge-head of Orbigo, came and
stayed there until night. The friar came
back without the license, and the Aragonese
was buried in unconsecrated ground near the
anchoress, with all the honour possible, and
many tears of the knights who were there.
D. Pedro de Velasco, the Count of Haro,
arrived on Saturday, returning from
Santiago, and talked with them all and
marvelled at the arrangements, and sat with
the other good knights looking on in the
place opposite to the judges'. By now,
for want of time, the knights ran only
a few courses, they protesting. So came
Sunday, August the eighth, and only two
of the Defensors were able to bear arms,
and there were many adventurers with
whom to comply, and little time. All
that day they jousted. D. John of
Portugal then came, saying that Suero had
promised to meet him, and now Suero was
out of the lists he would content himself
345
Chapel of
the
Quinones
AND MONOGRAPHS
346
WAY OF S. JAMES
Greater
danger,
greater
honour
with Lope de Estuniga. He was reminded
of what the Chapters prescribed. On
Monday the last day, when at dawn the
trumpets began to sound and the knights
to array themselves first to hear Mass
and then to joust, Lope drew aside Portugal
King-at-Arms and Monreal the herald, and
certain noble gentlemen, and sent advice
to D. John that to commend himself
the more to his lady he might lay aside
some armour and might use heavier
lances, for the greater the danger, the
greater the honour. D. John would not
tell Lope what he meant to leave off, and
in the end the judges forbade this dis-
arming, but allowed the heavier lances.
They each wounded the other a little, and
then as it was dinner time the joust was
declared done. In the afternoon Sancho
de Rabanal, as Defensor, met Ordofio de
Valencia, and after him, since all his com-
panions were wounded or disabled, he tilted
with Fernando of Carrion, a gentleman of
D. John's company, and in the fifteenth
course broke his last lance, and they went
to their lodgings.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
347
That was the ending of the Passage
Honourable, except for some correspond-
ence with the two contentious Catalans,
and the fetter was duly removed, and the
feasting and pageantry were fine enough to
make another story. And the scriveners
who had written down all as it befell,
made copies, and the king laid these up in
S. Maria de Nieve,in01medo,inTordesillas,
in Villafruchos, in Valencia de D. Juan,
and in the village at the Bridge of Orbigo.
The situation was not unique. That
quaint person, Nicholas of Popplau, with
whose expeditions and opinions the reader
many times already has been regaled or
will be, travelled all over Europe with this
sole intention of getting honour in the
lists . His huge lance was somehow strapped
to his travelling-carriage, his charger was
led behind; kings and ruling princes showed
him hospitality and humoured his fantasti-
cality. In Seville however he met other
folk as travelled as he, and resented the
tone of the place. What he thought and
said and says he heard about Spanish
women, this is no place to tell. What he
Nicholas of
Popplau
AND MONO GRA PHS
34«
WAY OF S.JAMES
observed of the relations of the Catholic
Kings, Ferdinand and Isabel, has historical
value. Riafio, 3 who edited some bits of his
narrative and feels that his account was
admirable of the English court under
Richard III, cannot understand where he
got such false notions of the Spanish. For
all his punctilio and fine ways, the knight
Nicholas was no paladin at heart.
Yet this was, after all, as good a way to
encounter the world and learn men and
The Grand
manners, as going on the Grand Tour
Tour
with or without a tutor. Beside Suero de
Quinones with his courtesies, his self-
control, his command of delicate situations,
Coryat seems too crude, and the Compleat
Gentleman of Peacham too like a petit-
maitre.
The knights are dust,
Their good swords rust,
Their souls are with the saints, we trust.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
349
XV
IN THE VIERZO
A tomillo y romero
me htieles, nina.
— Como vengo del campo
no es maravilla.
"Do you know Angel Gancedo?" I asked
the postman as we went up from the sta-
tion, fasting, in the early light.
"He is dead, Senora. He died poor."
The postman came back twice and thrice
to that, with malignant pleasure. Angel
Gancedo spoke English, and went about
with English people, to the trout-fish-
ing or into the mountains, but he died
poor.
Possibly it was that which set me wrong
with Ponferrada, x and the tiresome Casa
Consistorial like all the others in Spain,
and the indifferent inn, which was, God
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
350
WAY OF S.JAMES
Casa de
Servando
help us, little more than a tavern, as indeec
observed my friend Jose Iglesias of Tora
de los Vados. There, when one got, with
great persuasion, a room to wash and rest
in, one still got not rid of the boots and
trousers of the last occupant, and the
smell thereof, except by putting them
into the hall. As for the bed, it is best
forgotten. The ill fame of the Casa
de Servando, indeed, supplies mirth all up
and down the road, so that when we asked
Emerita of Villafranca to recommend a
good house in Astorga, since in Such-a-one
the beds were not above reproach, she
answered innocently and set the table in a
roar: — "You're wrong; that's the place at
Ponferrada."
I disliked it from the start. I resented
the high castle of Templars, remembering
low it is impossible to know anything
about Templars or to believe in them,
excepting, of course, in a historical sense.
Yet Ponferrada bred my good Francisco
^ieto, and his mules who took us to Ca-
racedo and to Penalva, and lastly across
he Port of Rabanal, patient, courteous,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
35i
resourceful, kind, unselfish, enduring; only
not to be called untiring because he came
back from journeys that I bore easily, so
haggard that I was ashamed of the good
food and the soft living which had stored
up such strength in me unworthy. Of hills
Hills and a
Moon
like those which stand about Jerusalem,
moreover, the inn enjoyed a view, and,
during every stay, of that full moon which
has been lost to literature for a century
and a half — the refulgent lamp of night.
The mountains of the Vierzo 2 are magical.
Their slow-lifting, delicate contours, their
quiet foldings, the vaporous blue of their
distances, the green of their woods and
their brooks, could draw a man in the
seventh century as much as Petrarch, as
much as yourself. Fructuosus3 loved the
green soft bank and the clear cold fount,
and turned his back on cities, from time to
time, for refreshment. A few hermits
would appear, to share his meditations,
and there must be a settlement, with herb-
gardens, dove-cotes, and fish-pool, and, I
suppose, wattled huts where the landscape
did not offer caves, and some sort of Rule of
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
352
WAY OF S.JAMES
A garden
and a
lovesome
spot . . .
A dressed
Virgin
Life. The good saint, foreseeing that the
time would be short before he must go
home and be bishop of Braga, sighed no
doubt, as one by one they limped up the
steep road, or splashed along the marshy,
but he made them comfortable before he
went on himself. Of S. Pedro de Montes,
S. Valerius writes4 that beside pine and
yew they could grow cypress, laurel,
roses, lilies, and myrtle, having terraced
for a garden the southern face of the
mountain, for water perhaps diverted the
brook somewhat further up, and even then
most likely they would have had to wrap
some of those trees in straw from Advent
to Easter. Now, the wild woods are thick
down to the valley-bottom where a little
river turns and hesitates, and the brook
runs down the only road for the last part
of its way.
In the church of S. Pedro, on trestles
in the nave, just as she had been carried
lately in procession, stood a lovely Spanish
Virgin with the fairest hands imaginable,
long braided tresses of real hair, earrings,
and a frock of brocade so old that the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
353
colour had changed in the light and stayed
fresh in the folds. This was not, however,
what I had come into the wilderness to
see. Allowing for the renovations and
the restorations, it seemed likely that the
church would be of the thirteenth century
with alterations in. the fifteenth and per-
haps the seventeenth: it could give me no
more. Francisco had a glass of wine: I
should have liked another, but the good
priest, conceiving of feminine tastes after
the manner of Rousseau's Julie, pressed
the offer of new milk, and reluctantly
allowed the substitution of fresh cool
mountain water.
Then we rode down the long hill, danger-
ous with rolling stones, difficult with run-
ning water, and at the bottom we came
into a valley of enchantment. For whereas
the first part of the day the way had lain
up hill, by long loops and levels of well-
built road that at last turned the moun-
tain's flank, baking the odorous rosemary
in the full sun, hewing the rosy marble to
afford a track, clinging to the mountain-
side like a bracket, above which reared
The
Happy
Valley
AND M ONOGR APHS
354
WAY OF S.JAMES
The sound
of church-
bells
the heathery brow, below which a stone,
springing off the road, rolled and leaped
into dense treetops and no more was
visible, so that all the way to S. Pedro de
Montes was savage and there Francisco
told a tragical history, on the other hand
the valley in which we .travelled afterwards
was full of the sound of church-bells, and a
cool stream ran glittering silently under
leaning trees, sun-flecked and shivering.
It seemed the place where care was not,
nor time that brings old age, nor change
that brings pain, except the happy chang-
ing from the burgeoning to the fall of the
leaf, from green corn to gold. As we
turned a sharp corner by a wall, there
flickered four flails, gilded by the temperate
sun.
The story Francisco had told was of a
boy, a soldier from those parts, who de-
serted from his regiment in Cuba because
his sweetheart wrote so pitifully begging
him to come home to her. When he
arrived she was married to another man.
He killed the pair of them. Among the
rocks and peaks he took refuge and stole
HISPANIC NOTES
The Mountains of the Vierzo
THE WAY
355
food from the shepherds to sustain life,
until at last a whole regiment hunted him
down among the fastnesses and killed him
like a wolf or like a were-wolf. The his- A were"
tory was cruel, because so unnecessary. So
are good men turned to ill use.
We came by imperceptible ascent to the
village of Penalva, stone-built, brown and
compact, and the priest was awakened
and the church unlocked. With horse-shoe
arches and apses both east and west, it
proved most curious,5 well worth the pil-
grimage.
It was at Penalva that Francisco un-
strapped the little camera from the saddle
bow and told me not to leave it there
when I dismounted, for even if the villagers
were all honest, the mule might rub it off
against a flight of steps or a wall. I
thanked him, promised and forgot. We
lunched by running water, on a green bank,
a mile or so beyond Penalva, for Francisco
had no notion of retracing all the long way,
and meant to skirt the other side of the
valley in the afternoon, trusting to discover
a descent, at S. Cristobal or elsewhere.
HISPANIC NOTES
356
WAY OF S.JAMES
The road
to Camelot
Within half an hour of setting forth again he
made out one through woods, upon rolling
stones: I sent him ahead to have some-
thing to fall against it I were to fall, put the
bridle over my arm, and walked down in an
abstraction, the pretty creature slipping
and stumbling behind with a great clatter.
I had mounted, at the foot of the mountain,
and ridden a mile or twain, before realizing
that the little camera was gone, and then I
cried out to Francisco, heartily ashamed,
and he offered to return and search.
That, of course, could not be allowed: the
day was waning and he was all f or-wearied :
but to each person that we met, riding in
along the valley road, he told the loss and
the reward of a dollar for the machine,
dead or alive. It was like a bit out of the
Mort d' Arthur, that return, in the long
afternoon light, by water meadows, poplar-
set, and through a beechen grove: the en-
counter now with a stout man riding briskly
on a fat mule, now an old man walking
swiftly in his soundless alpargatas, now a
brown youth treading heavily after the
long day, or a woman sitting her beast
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
357
sideways; and to each the same speech
made, and request, and thanks. Next
day one man rode twelve miles in to town,
to report that it was not upon the trail,
for every foot had been examined, but that
women and children were out searching
the mountain side. And on the tenth of
October here at home in America I had a
letter from Francisco to say that it was
found. He kept it safe until I passed
that way again, and it is still in use.
His idea of responsibility, augmented by
the sort of kindness I have met, nearly
everywhere, from his class, carried him so
far that I stood shamed. A stupid memo-
randum, copied from a footnote, mentioned
another church of the same type called,
as I wrongly supposed, S. Peter of the
Pots, S. Pedro de las Ollas. He could tell
me at once of a S. Thomas with the same
curious addition, but that would not do, it
must be S. Peter. Therefore, when we
had reached home at the clear dark end of
twilight, hearing the Angelus from very
far, when I was too stiff to drop off the
animal unhelped, and he was fairly spectral,
S. Tom6s
de las
Ollas
AND MONOGRAPHS
358
Ese
joven . .
Bishop
Osmund
WAY OF S. JAMES
he set out, in spite of dissuasion, to find
that sanctuary. First he tried the post
office: they knew it not. Then he tried
the Singer Sewing Machine agency: even
they had nothing which referred to it.
Lastly he commenced a canvass of all the
parish priests in town, to learn from one
that it was of a surety S. Thomas that was
wanted, for the architecture was like that
which we had gone so far to see, and
moreover the church had been visited not
so long before by that young man from
Granada, by whom the Cura intended
Sr. Gomez Moreno himself.6 So after an
elaborate interchange of civilities next
morning, the Cura himself accompanied
me, under a large umbrella, to the potters'
suburb not half an hour away.
The story of the town is characteristic,
at Ponferrada: the bridge was built at the
end of the eleventh century, for the con-
venience of pilgrims going to S. James, by
Bishop Osmund who sounds like an English-
man: the place got town relations and
rights from the neighbouring villages as
soon as the bridge was begun. What with
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WA Y
359
these and the pilgrims, it was soon a real
town, and secured its fueros from Alfonso
IX of Leon. In 1 248 the bishop exchanged
the tolls of Ponferrada for some property
rights that the Chapter held. The Tem-
plars fortified it, and in 1218 and 1226 they
were ruling there, as appears from docu-
ments.7 When they fell, the Counts of
Lemos succeeded; when these were ruined,
the Catholic Kings took possession, in 1486.
They may have found it hard holding. It
had been the scene of the last act in the
feud between the Counts of Lemos and the
Counts of Benavente, and when Ferdinand
and Isabel had hurried thither, it was in a
blaze of civil war. The count of Lemos
had crushed Pimentel's men and broken up
the engines of war, but Royalty cowed his
followers . They excused themselves , saying
they had thought only to serve the Kings
in preventing the Count of Benavente
from seizing all Galicia as he had tried to
seize Corunna. As this Corunna episode
had been, apparently, a device of the Kings,
or at least connived at by them, and been
defeated by the spirit of Corunna men, it
Counts of
Lemos and
Benavente
AND MONOGRAPHS
360
WAY OF S.JAMES
was a good answer. But it was those
greater than Pimentel who had seized
Galicia, and held it in a hard fist.
The Pelegrino curioso, when he was at
Ponferrada, made an expedition to Carra-
The Curi-
ous Pilgrim
arrives by
cedo, lost his way, lodged in a peasant's
hut; and then another day he and his com-
the south-
panion got safely there and saw Nuestra
ern road
Senora de Carracedo. They were making
a good cloister there, he says and affords
thereby a date, 1577. So he wrote a poem
to Her, and after they had cooled off they
went on to Villafranca. But while he was
stopping in Ponferrada, which he said was a
tiresome place, he met an hidalgo sacerdote
who told him all about S. Pedro de Montes.
At that time it was occupied by the Co-
mendadores of the Holy Ghost who wear
a white cross on the breast. It passed for
a good priory. The body of S. Genadius,
he learned, was claimed by the church of
S. Miguel.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
36i
Cacabelos.
Tant chevatichtrent et par
nuis et par dis
Que a S. Jaques vinrent d
un Mardi. — Raoul de
Cambrai.
In the freshest hour of the young June
day, Jehane met me as the night-mail just
checked speed at the junction, and from
the sweetly-lying, the pastorally-named,
Toral of the Fords, Jose Iglesias drove us
over to Cacabelos. The road ran between
trees closely planted like the roads into
Carri6n, and the scent of hay was every-
where, and the rustling of leaves overhead.
The town lies upon a brimming stream, and
about the strong old bridge grew up, be-
like, the thronging fairs and markets that
it enjoys;1 it gained its rights in 1130.
Sr. Caceres Prat will have it that in
antiquity, under the Roman dominion,
the bridge and the road were there and a
town thereby, for many Roman remains
are still turned up in the vicinity. 2 Before
the twelfth century it belonged already to
Santiago de Compostella, for in 1108 when
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
In
Francigeno
itinere
WAY OF S. JAMES
it had fallen into ruin, the great Archbishop
rebuilt the bishop's lodging and many other
houses, and mended and consecrated anew
the parish church : " Idem quoque Episcopus
quanta in francigeno itinere vigili exercitio
condidit," begins the chapter in the Com-
pos tell ana which relates how great was the
traffic between Leon and Astorga, and how
"in propriis B. Jacobi mansionibus locum
requiescendi minime reperisset," it being
quite unfit for any man, and how the
habilaculum without being pretentious had
to be comfortable.3 In 1130 after the
Council of Carrion, D. Diego got a new
concession from the king, 4 keeping out all
tax-collectors, sheriffs, judges, and persons
in authority except his own.
The town is made of one long street, a
square, and some lanes: it contains a few
fine plain strong houses of stone, the latest
dated 1713, with carving over windows
and door. Another has two balconies of
very noble wrought iron, spindles, brackets,
and arches all choicely forged; and else-
where some grilles at downstairs windows
are forged in a square chequer pattern.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
363
The church sits in a backwater from the
quare and is entered under a western
tower, quite new, rebuilt after a thunder-
lt. Artesonado roofs nave and aisles,
and the aisles are very lofty: the body of
the church consists of two wide bays, prob-
ably once four more proportionate, on huge
rectangular piers: the single apse, with a
deep semidome, opens on a wide bay con-
ceived in the manner of a transept, to
which the roof in all three compartments
(central, left, and right) though plastered,
keeps the artesonado shape. Between this
and the nave are stretched three arches,
like an iconostasis in pre-Romanesque
churches. A large chapel at the west end
of the south aisle yet keeps a vast barrel-
vault and semidome; there, outside, the
buttresses and corbels are still discoverable
under plaster, and inside, remain two strong
capitals of the twelfth century, crude.
Their parallels exist in remote Gallegan
convents, like Meira and S. Esteban of
Ribas de Sil. Of a truth, the affinities
of this wayside church are various: that
of the planning, with eastern bay and
Thunder-
AND MONOGRAPHS
364
S. Isidore
and
S. Zita
WAY OF S.JAMES
the iconostasis, is with S. Juan de la
Pena, and Ujue* on the one hand, and on
the other, with Escalada and Mazote:
that of the high aisles, equal and roofed
alike, is with such sanctuaries as S. Julian
of Moraime and S. Marina de Aguas
Santas. One thing it is not : it is not in the
least regional.
But it is of the land and the town,
homely as bread; at one altar flowers
invoke S. Isidore the Labourer with
his plough and yoke of oxen; at another
a lamp is tended before sweet S. Zita
of Lucca, the patroness of maid-ser-
vants. She was born in 1218, she died
in 1278, s and it is probable that a passing
pilgrim left here the fragrant devotion
and the shining name in the earliest years
when her drudgery was made divine. In
ThurkiWs Vision, as in many rood-lofts
and windows in England,6 she is con-
founded with S. Sitha who is S. Osith of
England. It is, however, possible, in view
of the bishop's name cited earlier, and re-
peated in the inscription at Pieros quoted
below, that there was an English bishop
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
365
who brought an English cult, and that
ater on, when he was forgotten and Eng-
and less nearly allied, a like name sup-
Dlanted one become unrecognizable, and
:or S. Osyth, the Queen and Abbess, was
substituted S. Zita the maid-servant.
Aymery says this river is the Cea.7
Over the water at the bridge-head is an
infinitesimal suburb. There probably, as
certainly at S. Miguel del Camino, the
Mourning Mother has possessed herself of
an earlier sanctuary. The wayside church
of Nuestra Senora de las Angustias has an
iron grate in the door, that to none, and at
no hour, may the sight of her be forbidden.
She is a great miracle-worker, with a retro-
choir, closet or reception chamber, where
the dressed-up image over the altar may be
spun around for admiration, but what with
silver coif and crown, and brocades and
velvets, flowing away over hoop-petti-
coats, nothing was to be made out of the
image.
Not far beyond, uphill, lies Pieros, rich
now in fruits and orchards, but venerable.
From the church of S. Martin, Florez
A miracle-
working
Virgin
AND MONOGRAPHS
366
WAY OF S.JAMES
had copied the stone built into the sacristy
wall, that tells a little:
Pieros
Ecce domus Domini et porte celi, ecclesia
difusa et non
divisa in honorem S. Martini episcopi et
confess or is,
S. Salvatoris cum XII apostolis et Sancte
Marie Virginis, et aliorum
plurimorum sanctorum martirum, confes-
sorum atque virginum
et aedificamt Petrus presbyter ipsa ecclesia
et Aharus
Gar sea et uxor sua Adosinda et Rodericus
presbyter complevit earn et ornavit omnia
bona qui ibi est intus et foris, in diebus
Adefonsus rex regnante in Legione et in
Toletum, et consecravit earn Osmundus epis-
copus As tori-
cense sedis sub era CXXIIII post M quotum
XIII Kal. decemb*
Manier and his companions barely es-
caped an ugly adventure at Cacabelos, by
reason of impertinent civilities offered to
some girls and resented by some officers
who happened to be at hand. 9
After Pieros the plain was lost : the way,
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
367
though scrupulously shaded, grew steeper,
and whatever was not climbing up hill was
pitching down: so in a suburb of Villafrahca
we separated from D. Jose, to spare the
sleek little horse the cruel street that rattles
down to a brookside only f> scramble up
again. That same suburb is well set out
with inns and populous with travellers,
and musical with their bagpipes and coplas
that were on the evening air to come across
the gorge and call at our windows, and at
Old
customs
the top of it yet waits Santiago, the pil-
grims' church. So ancient and authentic
was our simple impulse to dismount.
Villafranca.
Lour se pensa le roi qu'il
feroit grand fantise
A fer plus demorance fa
tourner en franchise
Le zamin a la vote dou
bon saint de Galise.
— Nicholas of Verona.
Why one should like one town on sight
and dislike another, is hard to see. Pon-
ferrada could not content; not though the
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
368
A noble
street
WAY OF S.JAMES
ruins of the Templars' castle were the best
of their kind, broken yet strong still,
yet lofty and well-ordered; not though
the mountain setting was grand enough to
evoke a shudder from the eighteenth cen-
tury. " A little city in frightful mountains
where it is shut in as by a precipice, " says
Manier. x On the other hand, Villafranca
enchanted me from the start. Before-
hand it was figured only as visited by
English addicted to fishing, and as terminal
of the branch railway; and the irregular
shallow hill-spur that served for the
principal square had neither distinction of
form nor nobility of enclosure.
Yet, as one was to learn later, the steep
little alleys pitching down toward the river
ended all in a very distinguished street paral-
lel with the stream, set on either side with
noble houses. The city must have thriven
not only in the twelfth century, but even
as late as the seventeenth, for many houses
scattered through it bear huge coats-of-
arms and there is, besides, this whole
street of palaces, built as at Genoa, with
rather fine seventeenth century armouries
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
369
and rather plain round vast doorways.
That street, in truth, for all the difference,
was like one in Italy: in the same way it
evoked a long life, past, stately and not to
be forgotten. On the first evening, climb-
ing the long spur up and still up the labour-
ing hill, Villafranca seemed to have some
of the beauty of Cuenca and other moun-
tain towns with waters rushing about their
base, and clouds dragging about their
crests, windswept and high-hung. Again
the Italian parallel recurs — think of the
long flank of Subiaco, or of Radicofani
hung against the sky! As at Cuenca, you
can go up forever, past the last houses,
on up into the hills.
The city was founded 1070, 2 as Villa
Francorum. The monks of Cluny kept
two hospices there, one dedicated to S.
Lazarus, and possessed a church, S. Maria de
Crunego 3 (i.e.Clumaco). The other hospital
is still in occupancy, with a comfortable
reek of chloride of lime; with a plain, ser-
viceable cloister full of sweet-smelling stuff,
pot-herbs and medicinal plants and some
flowers for vases. The chapel though
Towns
high-lying
AND MONOGRAPHS
370
WAY OF S. JAMES
The chap-
book of the
Abbot
John
clean with whitewash is plastered and
shabby, tawdry with stupid pieties though
fragrant with the best of the garden.
It was at this town, called from the name
of the stream Villafranca de Valcarcel,
that the Moors moving south under the
renegade D. Zulema, met and slew the
Christian host, and thence they passed
along the road destroying every village and
town, and there was none to resist. And
thence on you would see Christians wander-
ing through the hills and the rocks, by
fifties and hundreds, lost like the creatures
and hapless among these mountains, men
as well as women, and the women with their
children, crying and making sounds like
sheep when you take their lambs away. 4
This is strictly fabulous matter, out of the
chapbook of the Abbot D. John de Monte-
mayor, but the stamp of truth is here.
Where Almanzor passed, you saw and
heard such things.
The church of S. Francis is of Friars'
Gothic, with a square apse, sanctuary
windows of three equal lancets under a
cusped rose, and a supurb artesonado roof
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
over the nave. The ruined castle has a
tragic story of the common sort, how the
lord loved the wife of the seneschal and
killed him, and could not show his face
there again. He was D. Pedro de Toledo y
Osorio. The convent of the Annuncia-
tion enshrines a better legend, which a
tinsmith told to me at S. Francisco,
standing up in the windy tower among
the bells, and pointing to every spot as
he named it, in Villafranca or in Corullon.
D. Maria de Toledo was bent to be a nun;
she escaped from the castle at Corullon
with that intent. When her father, the
Marquis was reconciled, and visited her
at the convent: "Ya que eres religiosa,"
he said, "sea fundadora." So pride licked
its wounds. He was D. Pedro de Toledo,
Viceroy of Naples, who built the Alcazar
as well, and raised the church to the rank
of a collegiate. A Franciscan thaumaturge
beatified in 1881, the Blessed Laurence of
Brindisi, had known and loved the saint-
ly girl in Naples, and, vowed to poverty,
promised her the only gift he had to leave,
his poor bones. Through a chain of cir-
371
The
tinsmith's
tale
AND MONO GRAPHS
372
The
Peninsular
War
S. Maria
WAY OF S. JAMES
cumstances, when he died, years later, in
Lisbon, his bones actually came into her
possession.5 At the opening of the nine-
teenth century the English retreating
to Corunna, stole the treasures and the
pictures, broke the urn of the Blessed
Laurence, and profaned the graves of the
Marquesses, finally burned the archives of
the town. Judge if they who were called
allies, left a memory well-loved. English
people have a curious delusion that Span-
iards love them yet and are aware of an
obligation because the Duke of Wellington
chose Spanish soil on which to fight
Napoleon.
S. Mary's church, the Colegiata is very
high and spacious, with a central dome,
and the quire a solid- walled room, also
pacious. The vast western narthex that
held once the tombs of the Marquesses
and the shrine of the Blessed Laurence, is
now a bleak rectangle, top, bottom, and
sides. Out of this open aisles, one bay,
with chapels almost the whole breadth
of it, and then a bay of loftier transept.
The nave, above the quire, has a vault as
HISPANIC NOTES
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373
high, soaring above aisles and apse; the
capitals are goldsmiths' work, decorated
like candelabra; the retables and stalls of
all ages.
S. Nicholas, of the seventeenth century,
shapeless and battered without, within is
very noble, transepts, dome, and apse, and
a grand nave, the flanking side chapels
being pierced through lateral walls with
an effect of aisles. Angels hang in the
spandrels: old processional banners of the
Blessed Laurence bedeck the transepts;
and the carved walnut of the retablo ma-
yor is duly graced with pictures and images.
But work ot a latter age, even so greatly
conceived, so exquisitely adorned as these
churches, is not all that Villafranca affords.
Across the stream, at the end of a strug-
gling suburb, a long way toward Corullon
lies the church of S. John.6 Local tradi-
tion claims that it belonged once to the
Templars; the name suggests an emendation
to read, "the Hospitallers." It is of typical
Romanesque, with corbelled apses, attached
columns, and carved door. Up the hill,
over against the height climbed the night
S.Nicholas
S.Juan
AND MONOGRAPHS
374
WAY OF S.JAMES
Santiago
before, I found the church of S. James.
There the pilgrims had built them a church,
had celebrated romerias, and even kept
jubilees, to which witnesses the built-up
door in the north wall of the nave, carved,
capitals and archivolts, after French de-
signs. Near it stood once the hospice for
pilgrims and the hermitage of S. Lazarus.
Now the church sits out, lonely, on the
grassy hillside, above the last street's end.
The building is of the familiar parochial
Romanesque, with a timber roof and high
windows, round-headed and deeply splayed.
The apse, preceded by one deep bay of bar-
rel-vault, opens from the nave by an arch
that rests on each side on one column of
which the capital is excessively crude: three
windows in the apse proper are framed in
two orders, with a shaft in the jamb with
good moulded base, and abacus continued
back and carved with scroll forms, and capi-
tals approximating to the leafy forms of the
transitional style. The church is deserted
and wretched, but not unclean. Outside,
the apse projects strongly;. two columnar
buttresses, two plain corbels and a moulded
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
375
string-course at the level of the sills,
breaking the surface. The windows repeat
the disposition of the interior: one capital
shows the Visitation, a pilgrim's theme;
and one, plump quail billing, the quail
being symbolical of desert places, studied
quaintly from the life.
The whole Puerta del Perdon, like the
portals of Saintonge, projects a little from
the face of the north wall; the arch is
pointed, and of the mouldings above, two
are plain, the next a very rich design of
leaves, Byzantine perhaps in origin, worked
like a cornice on the two faces of the order:
and finally come Apostles in pairs, arranged
over-lapping as at Civray and Echellais in
Poitou.7 At the peak, Christ blesses with a
book but without a mandorla, the interval
between Him and the Apostles filled up with
acanthus: the drip-stone, again, is carved
with curling leaves. Five shafts stand in
the jambs, and on the eastern side their
capitals are storied, with motives copied
from the painted windows of northern
France. The outermost, set above the
moulded edge of the projecting portal,
Wayfaring
themes
French
windows
AND MONOGRAPHS
376
Three
Kings
came
riding
WAY OF S. JAMES
shows a palace, Herod's or Pilate's, with
heavy eaves and arcades above and below,
not unlike the Palace of the Dukes of
Granada at Estella: the next, the figure of
the Crucified between SS. Mary and John.
The figure, in a large loin-cloth, hangs
heavily, legs straight, feet parallel, and
head inclined and crowned: the motive is
like that of the twelfth century Crucifix
at Toulouse but the treatment is later.8
On the other face of that capital stand the
three Maries, just as in a roundel at S.
Denis or Chartres or Bourges. The three
kings come riding; they lie in bed together
where an angel swoops down from a curled
cloud overhead; on the innermost they
worship the Mother and Child. On the
western or right hand side appear, instead,
leaf forms, harpies, and a wilderness of
lions that suggests the Carrand diptych.
Of two stones, a little to the left of the
door, one looks like a disused lintel built
in: it says Era D XXV III, VI Kal
Sept . . . D. Raimundo. . . . The rest
is not quite decipherable, but it seems to
offer a prayer, perhaps for his soul. The
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
other says . . . de Haro ... no more.
Murio el hombre y murio su nombre.
When I arrived at Villafranca for the
first time, minished and brought low,
by what I quite forget, one effect was
that on meeting the decent landlady, with
her widow's black, her calm command
of the situation, I opened by offering refer-
ences and written testimonials to my moral
and financial standing and my serious
pursuits. She reassured me in the con-
secrated formula, as grateful as Oremus
to the devout: "A woman can always
make herself respected." She was used to
English ways and Englishwomen, she went
on, for they came for the trout-fishing.
I was to hear later of one such who
rode with her husband cross-saddle. May
her way be smooth wherever she fares, for
she saved my character for me in the town.
Asking about what we call, in England,
"terms" I got a quaint response: "For
travellers, so much, for others, more, but
as you are alone I shall count you as a
traveller. And have no fear, Madam,
that you will meet with anything but
AND MONOGRAPHS
377
References
378
WAY OF S.JAMES
Travelling
men
Vanli
courtesy at the table of my house . " Travel-
lers, "viageros, " as presently appeared,
were simply maj antes, " travelling men" as
we say in America, and I had no cause
to regret sitting at the long table and not
in a private dining-room like, doubtless,
the English lady who rode with her hus-
band. Never was anything so clean as
that old great house, so quiet, so kind.
All the early travellers remember the
town. Manier notes9 that they had a good
bed, "fort bien couches a 1'hopital," that
the town is surrounded with mountains,
that in the morning they had bread and
broth before setting out: and this is the
first appearance of the Gallegan caldo.
The Franciscan pilgrim Buonafede, * ° who
came back from Santiago by a way not
very familiar to me, that passed through
Monforte de Lemos, came out at Villa-
f ranca and liked the place : it was comfort-
able and dignified. The Pelegrino curioso
sets down that it belonged to D. Garcia of
Toledo who died in 1578, and that it has a
good Vega — meadow land, or tilth, — and
that around this land are certain houses
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
379
of wood called orrios, which I take to be the
characteristic horreos or thatched buildings.
Jehane herself later on, was to approve
the situation and the establishment, and
abide there certain weeks and days, tak-
ing long walks into the mountains or
beside the streams, breasting the steep-
est crest for a far glimpse of the castle
of Ponferrada, brown on grey, and fol-
lowing the river among noble chestnut
groves, through flowering meads, to Coru-
llon. The Romanesque and the fruits of
Corullon are famous, in especial the figs:
a local proverb warns, ambiguously: — En
tiempo de los figos non fai amigos. She
found there the gardens of Adonis withering
in neglected churches; and well-mannered
schoolboys who turned out for the strangers
and saluted with a fine grace, and spoke
with one voice a fair "Buenos dfas!"
On the establishment I laid the charge
of finding a guide, trustworthy in both
senses, approved in character and in
knowledge of the roads, with two animals.
It was not easy, probably. Antonio, when
he appeared, aged eighteen, uncommonly
En tiempo
de los figos
Gardens of
Adonis
AND MONOGRAPHS
38o
WAY OF S.JAMES
ugly, seemed to have no more wit than
God had given him, and at times even less;
I suspect he was a pis alter. Three days
out, he mentioned that his friends all said a
woman who would go off that way was not
worth. ... I never quite made out the
phrase, though I have heard it, first and
last, three times or four, but spoken always
rapidly, and under the breath. The idea
is, that she could not be worth much. In
fine, he was fatally compromised by com-
ing. Then I turned in the saddle and
laughed. "Boy, " said I, " I am forty- two,
old enough to be your mother. I can't
compromise you, nor you me." "Truth, "
said Antonio after calculation, "she is
forty-one." By this you may know him.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
38i
XVI
BY SIL AND MINO
Tomad d D. Garcia
d Villafranca de Val-
carce, e Ponferrada e
Valdoros, hasta la villa
de Palaz, e dadlo a
vuestras figas. — The
Cid's advice to King
Ferdinand.
WE set out from Villafranca an hour and
a half late. I am, look you, fatally a ration-
alist, disposed to believe that those paid for
doing something know how to do it. So
when poor Antonio had replaced for me the
pack frame by a good saddle and the halter
by a proper bit, I accepted, under restric-
tions, indeed but still for the nonce accepted,
his certitude that a little grey donkey for
him was equal to the journey. Alas ! even
the dainty brown mare that I mounted was
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
382
WAY OF S.JAMES
to prove unequal to it, though valiant
always; and in truth, the grey donkey
kept ever ahead, during the three days
Antonio and I wandered about. Only
Grey
Brother
grey brother, having, besides, the scarlet
saddle-bags, and a torn sack, very ill-
adjusted for the most part, refused to
carry Antonio except at a snail's pace, so
that in the end wherever the road was very
good he went afoot to save time, and when-
ever the road was very bad, he went afoot
to save the burrillo. I hope, at least, he
rode the whole way home.
The River Road.
Stretched aloft and adown I
see
Two roads that part in
waste-country:
The glen lies deep and the
ridge stands tall;
What's great below is above
seen small,
And the hill-side is the
valley-wall.
The morning light was sweet, the valley
road was fair; blue and green were glad
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
and fresh-coloured in the clean air and the
white road ran fast, turning and winding
as the river turned, following a dell up
almost to the head, and doubling back
along the mountain's flank to the main
Line and grassy meadows and trembling
poplar-shade. The stream was broad and
brown, white rapids alternating with still
pools where the light lurked as in a gem,
and the hillside was rich with underbrush
and low-growing green, with grass and
flowers. Chestnuts on the right, poplars
on the left, gladdened the birds, hour after
hour, and other trees there were, the true
oak and the walnut among them, green
leafy trees all, not the grey and black of
cork and live-oak as around Leon, nor the
leprous whiteness of sycamore and eu-
calyptus as on the Atlantic edge: but hard-
wood trees, which accept the winter and
burgeon for the summer, among which
birds can nest in leafy shade, and sing and
twitter as the wind rustles their translucent
screen. Broom was gay, and the magenta
foxglove not yet past, and other flowers
whose cousins I had gathered in the Swiss
AND MONO GRAPHS
383
The river
road
WAY OF S.JAMES
Pack-
mules
valleys, yellow and purple, marked by
their colour the declining season, and by
their presence the moist and fertile region.
We overtook a group of pack-mules,
their drivers walking together, and were
passed by them in a village where I halted
to record a doorway, and again repassed
them, and lost them at last, I know not
if before or behind or whether they turned
aside following the highway. For we left
the highway after Vega de Valcarcel, not
to come back to it until the next day at
even-fall, and then with an ill will. The
mountain ways were sweeter, shaded and
musical at times with swift streams, or
cloven through brilliant rock with brilliant
water glittering at times below.
The villages are not wretched. New
houses are going up, others are dated
in the eighties and nineties. The archi-
tecture is at first the familiar Alpine kind,
conspicuous for balconies above the door
and dung-hills before it; then thatch sup-
plants slate, and presently all yields to the
curious structure of flattish stones with
slate roof or thatched, called on the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
heights a "pallaza." They have glass in
the windows. These houses being built
of loose stones, unsquared, with roofs of
straw, the material imposes no form and
they have no form, not circular nor rec-
tangular nor even polygonal, but a sort of
wavering oval, sometimes, and sometimes
the shape of a cucumber or a blunt and
swollen crescent.
Vega de Valcarcel was sweet as is the
name: the meadow was there, new mown,
the valley, green, the keep, ruined, crown-
ing the hill across. Two castles, in truth,
guarded the passage there, but one lies
back of the huge and hollow hill, invisible
from the friendly river of the Sil that still
we followed for a while.
The diocese of Leon had a right, in the
Middle Age, to certain churches in Galicia,
among which were that of Valcarcel, and
the Archdeanery of Triacastela. x A great
good deed for Spaniards as well as out-
landers, was the act of Alfonso VI, in 1072,
by which, in gratitude for the recovery of
his kingdom of Leon from his brother D.
Sancho, he freed the way of tolls and
385
Vega de
Valcarcel
AND MONOGRAPHS
386
WAY OF S.JAMES
Seven
Brethren
imposts. It opens like a romance:2 "In
the port of Monte Valcarcel, there was a
castle where all passers-by paid tolls."
The better part of it is quoted earlier.
A legend cited by Quadrado in a note,
to the effect that seven brothers, called
Valcarces, by night recovered the Castle of
Saracin with seven slim staves, and are com-
memorated therewith in the arms of the
town, is worth attention because it permits
us to identify this halt with the Castrum
Saracenicum of Aymery Picaud.4 It is
called Valle "Carcerio" in a document of
1178. The English kept a hospital here,5
and in 1177 Henry II applied to Ferdinand
II for a safe conduct to visit Santiago in
expiation, possibly, of the death of Becket.
The church is not formless, though little
and low, with a timber roof for the nave
and a barrel- vault for the sanctuary,
painted, to be sure, in imitation of ribs.
At the west a round arch opens into the
tower. The lines are good though low,
the buttresses sound, the tower strong with
windows faintly pointed. These little old
churches are like the old women. You
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
387
cannot guess at their age after a certain
point.
The inn, situated above the provision
store, was a prosperous place, with tables
for Antonio and his like downstairs, and
upstairs a long table for the better sort,
and clean bedrooms running back to look
over the meadow. I rested a little, while
the luncheon was preparing, and visited the
green fields and the bright stream, and
at table explained all that I had of plans.
A poached egg in a cup of consomme is
remembered as a special delicacy of my
youth, at certain summer luncheons with
a charming woman, already then grey-
haired, who understood the world and the
art of living well in it. But two fried
eggs and garlic in a soup-tureen full of sour
bread are not the same. For manners I
had put out of sight as much as possible
of this, and then lunched thankfully on
thick chunks, like oaken plank, of ham, and
fried eggs nature, that were excellent, while
the raucous red wine attempered the heavy
bread. Lastly, the landlady unlocked some
pears in sugar, of which I appreciated
Luncheon
AND MONOGRAPHS
388
RuiteUn
Las
Herrerias
WAY OF S.JAMES
more than she could quite have wished:
and with her, two nieces, and a shy small
daughter, whose eyes were as large as her
braids were long, I took counsel about the
next stage. Certainly to Triacastela it was
a full day's journey, for a neighbour of hers
made it sometimes, and to Cebrero only
half a day, but there were places in between
the two: the Cur a of Cebrero would put
me up, or I could enquire for a house that
took guests at Padornelo.
"I can always ask," Antonio had said
already, when taxed with ignorance of the
way we went, and he was to ask, and I as
well, all along: we were to leave a trail of
misinformation floating in the bright air
of those three days.
Ruitelan was where, like the pilgrims,6
we crossed, and there we left the King's
Highway, as it runs now by Piedrafita,
and left the last of Antonio's knowledge.
He had gone to Corunna with mules and
he knew the Camino real, but not this
strange itinerary. At Las Herrerias, in the
lush green of the river bottom, a hospice
was situated formerly, perhaps that named
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
389
in a bull of Alexander III7 as in English
hands, in the twelfth century. Manier
could have saved me some asking if I had
only known him then, for he had been over
all this ground, by Ruitelan and Las
Herrerias and La Faba, 8 and the Pelegrino
curioso had pushed on eagerly enough,
and as he climbed that tiresome crest of
Cebrero, talked to his companion of the
strangeness of the land of Galicia, with its
abundance of wild fruits and orchard
fruits, "with such exquisite ways in saying
gracious words, " e. g. the name for a pig.
From under hedgerow trees you saw, on
the opposite river-bank, in a ruined keep,
a sunny circle of beehives, warm in the
southerly shelter as in the dead lion's fell, —
"ex fortis dulcedo." In one town, beauti-
fully set among chestnuts, with a wooden
cross where the ways parted, the parish
church had the Renaissance silhouette: an
open arcade for bells at the west end, a
low nave, and a high square eastern por-
tion with pyramidal roofing. Noon was
not past before we began to climb, leaving
La Faba, with a strong stone church of the
The name
of a pig
AND MONOGRAPHS
390
The moun-
tains of the
Vierzo
WAY OF S.JAMES
familiar type, low west porch and high
west tower, a rectangular nave higher
than most, and a sanctuary with a square
east end.
As we climbed, the mountains lifted
about us, until in the winding of the road,
an open track on the edge of open pasture,
we could look across to all the blue heights
of the Vierzo, and the crests that enclose
Villafranca, already dear and unattainable.
We travelled along the side of an enormous
mountain, and looked down its dappled
flank, among cloud shadows on grain
field and grass land, on hedge and stone
wall, to a winding brook at the bottom,
above which swelled up another huge
hillside. And always under the piled white
clouds, behind the far blue heights, yet
other heights swam up, bluer and farther,
till I could have thought to recognize the
mountains that encircle Penalva and their
snow-wreaths whiter than cloud. Ahead,
against the sky, in a cloven hollow hung a
belfry and a few high-shouldered roofs,
formless, unreflecting.
The pass of Cebrero lies at 1293 metres
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
39i
above sea, and the ancient hospice with
its church and huddle of huts, lies in the
very crotch of the pass: the hospice is the
priest's house now, stable and cooking-
hearth below, and a range of good rooms,
to judge from the windows, above the
heavy wooden stair. Thus it was in the
twelfth century. Those upper rooms I
did not see, for the Cura was asleep and
must not be aroused, though he had the
keys of the church I had come so far to
see, and the imp of perversity that harbours
in one's bosom saved until the farewell a
message and introduction that I had for
the Senor Coadjutor. Then, indeed, the
servant would have called him, the excellent
pock-marked woman whose kindness had
taken me upstairs and down, by the pri-
vate entrance, into the church : and whooe
apprehensions had asked a limosna, an
alms, for the Madonna's image before she
could unveil it. The Senor Coadjutor
was somewhere below, whether in the
village or the valley I do not recall, and
the Senor Cura slept on, and the servant
would not take a personal gift of money for
The Pass
of Cebrero
AND MONOGRAPHS
392
A Miracle
of Faith
WAY OF S.JAMES
what she had done. So in the end I
thanked her with what grace in Spanish
I had, and there was the end of the visit,
but not of the venerable priory.
They keep there a Santo Milagro, a miracle
like that of Orvieto and that of Daroca
where, in a mountain pass, God had made
Himself flesh, shed drops of Blood to
hearten the soldiery entrapped by Moors,
and a white mule led the assault thereafter.
My good friend D. Angel del Castillo avers 9
that the lonely village hides a San Graal, the
very Cup that Monserrat cannot show nor
S. Juan de la Pena, though Valencia adores
a Chalice: at any rate it enshrines a story.
It seems that one Sunday there was a
very heavy snowfall, but notwithstanding
that a labourer from thereabouts tramped
two leagues lest he should miss his Mass.
When the Vicar marvelled, "I should be
a poor sort," said the labourer, "not to
do that much for the sake of seeing God."
" But God is up in heaven, " said the Vicar,
not ill-naturedly, and vested and com-
menced the Mass : then turning at the right
moment to offer the sacred elements to the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
393
abourer, he discovered in them the Very
Flesh and Very Blood of the Lord. Fr.
Yepes passed there in the course of a
ourney and adored, and added to the
legend already rehearsed the information
that the precious ampullae were taken out
in procession on Corpus Christi Day and
Our Lady of August and Her's of Septem-
ber : and when any person of quality passed,
or pilgrim, the monks, vested and with
lighted candles, showed it with much
decency.10
The little church, low but strong and
not ignoble, with a squat tower and deep
porches built to offer refuge from wind
and snow but hardly space for drifting, is
all of loose flattish dark stones, roofed with
blue slates. Inside, the curving timber roof
is ceiled with plank in the nave, and slopes,
pent-house-wise, above the aisles, sustained
by two strong transverse arches there.
The church consists of three square-ended
apses, and three heavy bays of round thick
arches, with probably capitals, or the
remnants of them, under the whitewash
of centuries. The apses of the aisles are
Church
AND MONOGRAPHS
394
A shaped
coffin
WAY OF S.JAMES
of two bays of barrel- vault with a cornice
at the springing, in the southern a couple
of pointed tomb recesses, and another
opposite which has been pierced through
to the sanctuary. This corresponds, in
its imperfect way, precisely to the delicate
and much-praised disposition of the east
end in S. Francisco of Pontevedra. The
barrel-vault of the central chapel is divided
by an arch which descends now on corbels
but once on pilasters like those of the sides.
The western porch is two stories high,
reached above by a light gallery. Chapels
open off it, in one of which stands an
enormous font: elsewhere, a stone coffin
shaped for head and shoulders.
This royal hospital and priory of S.
Maria of Cebrero depended, according
to Lopez Ferreiro, x I on S. Pierre of Aurillac,
and was founded toward the end of the
ninth century, under the Benedictine rule,
by Count Gerard of Aurillac. Morales,
in his Viaje, notes12 that "El Cebrero is
not now [1579] an abbey but a priory, with
a hospice, connected with S. Benito at Valla-
dolid: three or four monks reside there,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
395
to look after the grange and the hospice,
a good work, for this Port is very hard
and it lies on the regular route of pilgrims,
and there would be much suffering without
this refuge for the poor. " He found there
no memorial of the foundation. A privi-
lege of Dona Urraca, the daughter of
Alfonso VI, the great Countess of Galicia,
is dated March 2 , 1128. Unluckily she
died in 1126. It is said elsewhere13 that
Calixtus II on his pilgrimage to Santiago
while yet Guy of Vienne, left there a
Lignum Crucis, but that pilgri age is now
denied. The Catholic Kings had arranged
that the connexion with France should be
dissolved and the rents turned over to the
Benedictines of Valladolid, and afterwards
the priory was united to S. Vicente of
Monforte de Lemos, in 1496. This was a
part of their policy. With edifying de-
votion they had passed by there ten years
before, when in 1486 they were bridling
and breaking Galicia.
The Pelegrino curioso here is more
than usually garrulous and sympathetic.
Besides the story of the Santo Milagro for
Aurillac,
then
Valladolid
AND MONOGRAPHS
396
Cat-stairs
WAY OF S.JAMES
which I have to thank him, he says : " The
church, so broken down and destroyed,
gave no hope of such grandeur and mystery
as there is within: but it is so cold and
so windy that no es de espantar — it
does not strike awe. Four monks were
kept there; they serve much to pilgrims;
in short, here is great charity and a good
hospice." Then he pushed on to oamos
and chatted with the monks there, putting
to them a case of conscience, something
intricate in consanguinity and marriage.
Next day he went on to Sarria, stopped
in Puerto larin, and Palaz de Rey. In
this country, he noted, they use a sort of
cat-stairs or raised sidewalk like stepping-
stones for those who travel on foot, to
keep out of the way of riders. We en-
countered this about Orense. He was a
good walker, he had good eyes and ears;
he has proved trustworthy everywhere
that his notes could be checked. Not for
the first time he has run ahead of me now.
If one could but see Cebrero in winter
sometime, like my friend D. Angel, when
it has snowed for six grey days and frozen
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
for six long brilliant nights, when the huge
flanks of the mountain are one unbroken
white, softly lifted where stone walls ran,
softly dimpled where watering-places lay;
the brook, black below, showing only at a
few rare spots in the swelling shadowless
white, and the mountains blue and far,
crested and flecked as with foam. In the
grey house-walls, without angles and al-
most without shadows, yawns the black
doorway; on the heavy roofs of thatch,
heaped each with billowy and unbroken
white, not a chimney breaks the soft
swelling: as you pass you see forms stir in
the flickering darkness and hear the crackle
of twigs upon the central hearth; and the
soft breathing of beasts that share the
same roof kindly, and yield their warmth
to their masters' needs. The low grey
hospice is shuttered and smoking, the low
grey church tower, with its bulbous pyra-
mid and purple slates, tinkles and hardly
stirs the stillness. The road that winds
down between the huts is soiled and trodden
perpetually, and presently, when the sun
and wind have worked, the creatures will
397
Cebrero
in winter
AND MONOGRAPHS
398
WAY OF S.JAMES
A seeking
wind
come out, small soft sheep, mild staring
cows, and find grazing spots in southerly
pastures and on the sunny side of walls.
One cannot fancy Cebrero in spring, with
delicate spring-flowers, uncurling leaves,
and lisping runnels. It must always be
bleak winter there or bleak mid-summer,
with a seeking wind among the grey walls
and in the blackened interiors a fire always
smouldering.
The road dipped a trifle, just past
Cebrero, and followed the hollow of the
opposite mountain, winding along the great
flank and visible far ahead, mounting,
imperceptibly. At S. Esteban de Linares,
called in the twelfth century Linar de
Rege, I halted to visit the church. It was
lonely, empty, all but vacant, yet it has
tower, timber roof, and square apse, open-
ing by a round arch, that rests on an
abacus, but has lost capital and shaft.
The vault of the apse comes down to the
floor without perceptible break: the doors
and windows are square, lintel-built, except
the outside entrance to the tower, which
has round-headed door, windows to match,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
401
a capital at the springing and a cornice
above, both of these in the shape of the
seventeenth century. The tower has but-
tresses, the rest none. It seems likely
that the forms of the early part were
imposed by the structure, of loose stones
that move too easily among themselves,
and that for the tower, the seventeenth
century was rich enough to import a
different stone and a stronger mortar.
Linares is a tiny hamlet with a tinier
church. The Cur a is no longer in residence,
he has pulled down his house and gone to
live elsewhere. Workmen in the filthy
road stood about and marvelled, not too
openly, as I swung up across the saddle,
and adjusted the flaps of the riding-suit
into something very decent even for their
eyes. Winding between dung-hills, we
passed a desecrated chapel, possibly that
once dedicated to S. Roque; the roof had
fallen in and strewn the floor with slates,
beasts had been stabled there, for the oaken
door was sound upon its hinges; on the
altar had lain stable trash and old clothes,
but a square hollow showed where the
HISPANIC N OTES
4-O2
WA Y OF S. JAMES
The
Countess's
Hospice
consecrated stone had been reverently re-
moved to safety. Well, in West Virginia
I remember what was once a church serving
as a smithy: out of the lancets of the apse
sparks flew, and in the nave horses stamped
and men sweated. Soon the little church
of Linares will be only a heap of loose
stones, very serviceable to mend a wall or
frame a window, and God will not be
insulted any more. Few pilgrims go to
Santiago now, and those who travel, use
the train.
At a higher altitude, on a turn of the
road that looked over toward S. Stephen's,
we passed where once stood the hospital
called "de la Condesa, " whether Urraca
or another, I know not. The church
stands very nobly on a spur, looking far
abroad, with tower at the west and apse
at the east, of granite all. The hamlet I
remember as greener than most places
thereabouts, and the road as fetlock deep in
mud, both circumstances due to the soak-
ing springs that may have originally fixed
the site of the hospital. " There was one
once, " the people still know. Here Manier
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
mentions 1 4 the all but universal thatch —
"ou les maisons sont couvertes de chaume
relie, de distance & autre, comme des
cerceaux sur le toit." He slept that night
at Fonfria, where I also was to sleep, as
you shall see.
Another stretch of road in long lacets,
always the mountain rising on the left,
always on the right the deep clove, and the
far views coming at a sudden turn, and
sometimes a bit of high pasture on a rocky
spur, with stone walls and tangled blos-
somry in the untouched corners. There, in
the angles of these stone fences where spring
snows melted early and autumn suns lay
long, I saw, rarely, now two or three stalks,
now one alone, perhaps a dozen in all, of a
most lovely strange lily, pink, curled and The pink
freckled like the tall Chinese lilies of my
grandmother's garden; but the stalk carried
a whole handful of blooms in a sort of
pyramid, and each of them was no bigger
round than a large narcissus, and their
colour belonged in that Spanish scale of
colour based on magenta, not coral pink,
nor tea-rose, nor mauve, nor saffron, but
AND MONOGRAPHS
403
404
Padornelo
WAY OF S. JAMES
a sort of paler rose freckled with deeper
colour than the far more common fox-
gloves. In Padornelo the houses were
built of larger, stronger, squared stones:
but I saw no house in which I could sleep,
as I thought. Nevertheless, this little
mountain burgh, of half a dozen stone
houses strung along the road, is very vener-
able: at the beginning of the twelfth cen-
tury Oveco Sanchez bequeathed it to Diego
Gelmirez the bishop of Santiago. x s
Past another grey stone village, clean by
very aridity, where I had no wish to sleep,
there came suddenly a steep col, made of
live rock and baked clay. I climbed five
minutes hard on foot, the animals strug-
gled over with scrambling, clattering hoofs
and tender cajoleries of Antonio, then
before us, under floating cloud, a greener
world flowed down to shady depths where
verily might have lurked the Mino, and to
white villages strung on scraps of white
road where might have been a bed pre-
pared. The sun hung right ahead now,
and the veils of cloud that had swung so
free in the blue, caught and trailed behind
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
A mile
and a
us on the long crest that we had to turn
and follow. They poured over the ridge
and flowed down about us for five minutes,
then swam off into the blue clear air again.
A mountain road, forever forking down
to farms or merely to haymakers, a guide
that knew no more than I, not even the
direction in which to look for Triacastela,
mists assembling as the sun dropped fasti
The animals were spent, and still the hay-
makers measured the distance as a league
and a goodish bit. Therefore at Fonfria, b
in the best house, at the far end of the
village, we asked a bed, and found the
warmest kindness, and comforts we had
no hope for.
The house was built of good-sized stones
and had a blue slate roof; and in the roof
a little dormer out of which curled blue
smoke. For the rest, it looked like those of
Cebrero. As I think of it I make out that
the two main rooms, four-square, were
fashioned in the midst of it, as one should
inscribe a rectangle in an ellipse, and the
segments at the sides served various needs.
By one we entered, through a sort of stable,
405
AND MONOGRAPHS
406
WAY OF S. JAMES
Fonfrfa
and up three steps, upon the foyer; and
out of that, on the left, down four steps
again, opened a kind of narrow irregular
atelier with a window, where the loom
stood, and the great wheel for winding
yarn. They spin, I think, upon the distaff
always. The square raised hearth, in the
midst of the great room, was enclosed by
benches on the four sides. I dropped down
on one of them to thaw my feet and hands,
and to make tea, Antonio having sensibly
suggested that, for, look you, I was stiff
and weary. While the family sat on other
benches and stood about, I called Antonio
to the warmth and rest he needed more
than I, just as next day I was to say with
authority: "This is no time for customs;
sit down across the table and eat and drink
what there is." My hostess fed the tiny
crackling blaze about the bouillotte, and
after tea was made, cooked for me a supper.
When I alighted, after the assurance of
beds, her first word had been a hope that
we had brought white bread, for none but
black was there. Well content, I supped
on eggs fried in lukewarm oil, dipping the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
sitter brown bread therein, and moistening
t with good wine. "We have tea and
coffee both," she said proudly, but I had
no need to touch their store. She was, it
seems, of Leon, and lived there: her
daughter, at service in Madrid, had peaked
and pined in the unkind air and for her
health the two were visiting these shepherd
folk, her cousins. But as one acquainted
with capitals, she took charge of proceed-
ings, gave up to me her own carved bed in
the other great dark-beamed room, down
which stood permanently the heavy table
and its appropriate benches, the "table
dormaunt ' ' of Chaucer. She withdrew her
daughter from the other bed, to leave me
the room alone; showed how the window,
shuttered and glazed, was fastened open,
'for we sleep with the window open at
night," she said; and drew out of vast
chests great coverlids woven of linen and
wool, in scarlet, blue, and green, in tufted
patterns. It was a part of her pride, that
she could make up so many extra beds
on short notice, for herself and the quiet
daughter, and Antonio, somewhere, yet
AND MONOGRAPHS
407
Shepherd
folk
408
Late
daylight
WAY OF S. JAMES
still pile over mine yet more and more of
these great counterpanes, rather like some
of our Colonial work. Spare raiment
hung from the black rafters, and I was
warned not to be afraid when the shepherd
owners should pass through this room to
get to their own that opened out of it, but
they came so softly and passed so silently,
the wonder is I heard them.
There had been a walk, however, in the
late daylight of those altitudes, to see the
village and its green uplands beyond, and
the plain little church of S. Mary conse-
crated in the year 1200, by Bishop Alonso
Ramirez of Orense 1 6 and to drink deep at
the fountain cold as the village name.
The church has a nave and apse like other
parroquias of the region, but, in addition,
on the south side a barrel- vaulted sacristy
and then, down from that, pent-house-
like, runs a side cloister or aisle, somewhat
[ike that of Rabanal ; this has, however, no
opening to the sacristy and only one to the
church. It recalls, in truth, the early
Asturian type, like S. Salvador de Val-
de-Dios: and the nearer parallel, found
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
409
between Leon and Astorga, is later in date.
Then there was a bustle and a soft
noise and little cries and muffled bounces:
the sheep were come home. In Switzer-
land you have seen the goats come down
irom the mountain sensibly, in single file
or by two and three through the narrow
tortuous street, stand up and drink from
the fountain, their pretty hoofs against
the stone basin, their pretty heads just
dipped to the cold water, and then disperse
each to her own house, discreetly, some
called, some trotting away alone, tinkling a
little bell. The sheep here came in silly
huddled dashes, an old woman pouncing
on one and carrying it along by the wool
of its brown back: they ran up steps to
stable doors to stand at bay, and when a
handful was sorted out and driven off there
would be a wrong one among them, and one
wanted, left behind.
The day was not dying at all: it went
on. Rosy streamers floated above the
valley in the azure air: the green slopes
were brilliant as if with dew. I have
never seen dew in Spain, the mountains are
AND MONOGRAPHS
The sheep
4io
WAY OF S.JAMES
Gilboa
like the mountains of Gilboa, but the air
was crystal and not too cold. I slept well
under the coverings that the shy sweet girls
who smiled so silently, had woven, and the
evening and the morning were the second
day.
In Galicia.
En Galicia, falta puli-
cia y sobra malicia.
— Refran.
On this second day the way ran on
through green dells and above steady
streams, climbing only to descend again.
The villages were dipt in chestnut groves,
or reached and left again by leafy lanes.
Straightway from Fonfria the road plunged
downward; and over outcropping rock,
and rolling cobblestone, the horses slipped
and the walkers stumbled, even into the
Tria.es. stela
wide valley where the church of Triacastela
bears above the porch three carven castles.
The castles are gone long since, and the
ancient church that saw Bishop Recared x
in 913 ; that which stands there is typical of
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
411
the region and larger than most, with a
deep apse square-ended, a porch below
the western tower, porch and tower of the
year 1790. In 919 the king and queen
were restoring there a monastery dedicated
to SS. Peter and Paul, which Count Gaton
and Dona Elvira his wife in the end of
the ninth century had fitted out with
•
books, ornaments, curtains, and all, and
declared neither public nor private but
exclusively for the monks, who under the
rule of Abbot Sanctus were fighting the
Milicia
good fight in the armies of the Lord. But
Dei
now the king only three years later turned
it all over to Santiago, with all thereto
appertaining, vessels, furniture, and fit-
tings, and a bell of cast metal.2 In 1068
the Infanta Dona Elvira gave a dona-
tion to Compostella of various villas in
Lemos, Triacastela and elsewhere in Gali-
cia.3 The church is good Romanesque
with high, round-headed windows deeply
splayed, a flat timber roof, and a trium-
phal arch projecting from the apse wall and
very finely shaped: behind that a deep bay
of barrel-vaulting and then a semi-dome.
AND MONO GR AP HS
I
412
WAY OF S. JAMES
Not a
perra chica
On the outside, the apse has buttresses and
plain corbels: and the wall which encloses
the churchyard, here, as at Barbadelo, car-
ries crosses at intervals as if the Stations
might sometimes be preached out there un-
der the sky.
Here in the tall grasses I saw Antonio
trying to make one cigarette into three,
and being moved by pity, came to a fresh
understanding with him. When the bar-
gain first was made, fancying he might have
trouble in hiring the animals, I had offered
to pay half the amount in advance, and to
make sure that they all got proper food
I had arranged to pay their keep and his
with my own upon the journey. But his
family and friends, thinking, it appeared,
little of his wit and less of my character,
had taken from him every perra chica, so
that the poor lad had not wherewith to
pay for the white wine and biscuits which
refreshed me in a little shop at Triacastela,
cool and brown as a Rembrandt. He had
not even the price of cigarettes. There
against the church wall, forlornly rolling
up his crumb of tobacco, he was too pitiful
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
413
"or justice, and as I had refreshed him,
so now I proffered a dole of a duro a
day, to be deducted from the final payment.
The village is like another, like nearly all
of these two days. Forgetful of the world
that has forgotten it, long since, it lan-
guishes along the years, from haying to hog-
killing, and around to the spring planting.
The road, as I have said, lay often through
woods of chestnut and pollard oak, with
meadows below full of haymakers, with
Indian corn and cabbage, with pigs and
cattle as well. The people seemed not too
sadly poor; though frugal, not under-
nourished; but the dirt was everywhere,
as indeed it must be where pigs frequent
the street.
The old road follows the heights, but
we turned aside into the Vega of Sainos,
to visit, on hearsay, an old church and
a rich church, and to sleep at a town on
the railway, missing, possibly, thereby,
Villa S. Michaelis, S. Michael's town,
along the Way. At least, nothing we
passed through had the look of the arch-
angel. Manrique4 records a legend that
AND MONOGRAPHS
Samos
WAY OF S.JAMES
The Lost
Pilgrim
William of
Aquitaine
William of Aquitaine, on his pilgrimage,
never reached Santiago, but died in the
odour of sanctity at the convent of S.
Michael, "in ipso itinere quod Gallicum
adpellant, a frequentia Francorum pere-
grinantium." He places the convent in-
deed, in Leon, but the adjacency to
Triacastela which was subject to the see
of Leon would explain such an error. Ex-
cept for this I should risk a conjectural
identification with Samos, where the orig-
inal chapel was under the advocation of
the Messenger.
No memory of the pilgrims survives,
not even in the dedication of a church, no
trace of French skill or French Romance,
not even a rough archaic carving of the
Three Kings who came from far. The
very road had forgotten whence it set out,
and whither it was bound; it turned and
forked, recrossed the stream, struck up
through a village to some high-lying lonely
grange: it halted where three ways met in
a chestnut grove, before such a tall stone
cross as the Three Kings take for rendez-
vous in old manuscripts. In the heat the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
415
quiet air smelt of hay making, the very
bees were still.
Lastly a descent past ivy-mantled walls,
the enclosure of a vast domain, dipped
under an ivied gate and entered Samos.
The Harbour of Refuge was the sentimental
title to a Pre-Raphaelite picture, but it
expresses what a monastery must have
looked in the tenth century, what for a
moment I saw as we emerged on the open
valley-bottom, with river and garden and
great four-square pile of building. True,
this is a building of the eighteenth century
looking big as the Escorial, but under the
shoulder of the mountain fronting sun and
breeze, the monks had always harboured,
the villagers had squatted always about
their skirts. With true religious indiffer-
ence, they refused us refreshment or re-
pose. Inn there is none.
Now Samos lies aside from the itineraries
and the Pilgrim's Way unless it be indeed
Villa S. Michaelis, and it was a vain im-
agination to go hunting for the monastery
there. It is colossal still: it was opulent
once: it is, like all places tainted with
The Har-
hour of
Refuge
AND MONOGRAPHS
416
WAY OF S.JAMES
A Votive
Painting
monasticism, unrighteous, unapostolic, and
unkind. Such houses as there were where
travellers might rest and eat, refused to
take us in, all three of them.
At the Hospital del Rey, near Burgos,
they have a picture which I take to be
votive : the Grateful Offering, the memorial
at once and emotion of one who had
known unkindness elsewhere. To the
little tavern at Bethlehem comes a tired
donkey: a tired man leads the lagging
beast, and a woman, weary and ill, can
hardly sit on it, but the landlady warns
them away and her son mocks the way-
farers. Twice and thrice on this journey
I was to recall that picture, and the last
time to make in wrath the Scripture
application. This time, however, I simply
rode back to the best of the places, which
was also the village store, and with difficulty
getting down off the drooping beast, told
the mistress that she would have to feed
me and it. If I have taken orders for
forty years, yet I have given them for
twenty, and at such a moment the habit of
authority availed. If she had no ham,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
she admitted eggs, if she had no soup, on
the stove stood caldo, and there were, as
always, bread and wine, which alone
would have, indeed, sufficed for ourselves
and the creatures. Then said I to Antonio,
when he had unsaddled these and found
them hay, "This is no time for customs,"
and together we ate and drank and were
refreshed. Thereafter he went off to feed
his beasts with bread soaked in wine and I
sought the monastery.
The foundation was Benedictine,5 the
dedication to S. Julian, not the Hospitaller,
who hung, with all his Roman panoply, in
a ridiculous gilt glory above the high
altar. An ancient chapel that local tradi-
tion takes back to the sixth century, had
passed on the function of its patron when
superseded, and just the other side of the
village we were to pass a shrine of S.
Domingo de la Calzada, and these few
names, like the gypsy patteran, made glad
with assurance that I had not lost my Way,
still I was among the Helpers and Har-
bourers. In the oldest stones, in the names
that cling like swallows' nests on a wall,
AND MONOGRAPHS
417
SS. Julian
and
Basilisa
S, Michael
4i8
Cristian
Catolica
a y
WAY OF S.JAMES
hung the memory, lost among men, of the
perpetual pilgrim train.
From the grey square of buildings came a
subdued yelping, as from a box of puppies,
that rose and fell in the quiet sunlight,
never wholly dying away, never quite
bursting out of doors. It seemed like a
drowsy barrack, at first, but it was the
monks' day school. A woman on the
tramp like myself, old but strong and
seasoned, sat down under a green bank,
untied her kerchief and combed her grey
hair, smooth as flax and dark as iron
there in the windless sun-steeped air, as
the Magdalen combed her ruddy tress in
the Asturian Romance.6 In the huge
nave of the church, choked up by the
quire that blocked the floor and the lattice
that guarded the tribunes, a lay brother,
filling lamps with the sweet oil of the olive,
was so friendly to the stranger at the
outset, and so sorry, so anxious to help,
somehow, when he discovered by close
questioning that the stranger was not
cristiana, which is catdlica by inter-
pretation, that there was almost danger
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
he would perform, in the imminent need,
baptism on the spot. He was a little
consoled by unfeigned admiration of the
glorious circular sacristy, built as for
the garde-robe of kings, lighted from the
noble dome and furnished with presses
and mirrors in every niche. As to the
little church, it was nothing to see: not a
capital, not a carved stone, not a curved
wall was there to tip you the wink. All the
same, the serene and kindly courtesy of
men assembled in the provision store,
proffered it: at home, they would be
loafers in a corner grocery: at Samos they
were — caballeros. In between these two
churches stands the ghost of one that was
building with enthusiasm in 1228, sister to
the great cathedrals of S. Ferdinand. 7
For the afternoon, there was no choice.
The highway ran to Sarria and there would
be an inn. The highway glared, but it
ran straight over knolls and up again,
edged with youngling trees, ardent as a
furnace, alluring as a gypsy trail. Once a
signboard marked where a fork came in
from Incio. The very flies in iridescent
AND MONOGRAPHS
419
A little
church of
the ninth
century
A lost
church of
the
thirteenth
420
WAY OF S.JAMES
For las
cumbres
Sarria
mail were gorgeous. The creatures pat-
tered softly on the ringing road-metal.
Once where we pulled up suddenly we
crossed the ancient Way, that cuts the
high road here at an angle, missing Sarria,
as it passes from Sil to Mino. Sandy and
not all unused it runs between banks of
gorse and scattered pines, holding the crests
and making toward the western sky.
It would have been pleasanter for the
traveller to miss Sarria, for the town being
small was not charitable, and being on the
railway was not innocent: children hooted
at the strange woman, and for a gibe called
her Alemanal When we pulled up to ask
directions from two respectable citizens
they urged the inn at the railway rather
than that of the town, less perhaps for the
stranger's sake than to save the discredit of a
public uproar. The inn at the railway proved
clean, however, as such places mostly are,
and after I had seen a man's valise taken
out of my room and myself watched the
linen changed and fresh cool water fetched,
I washed and drank and rested a brief space,
high up there above pollards set in a green
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
meadow about a cool mill, opposite to the
sunset where later hung a small little
moon, then went out looking for the tiny
ancient church under the vocable of the
Saviour. Young men in the streets were as
insolent as the children had been, but not
so conspicuous, and a little rectory maid
was the very virtue of charity, taking me
where I would go and keeping company
while I worked.
At the beginning of the twelfth century
Queen Urraca gave the church of S. Saviour
in Sarria to the Bishop of Mondonedo.
Half a century later, notwithstanding, the
Count D. Rodrigo for his sins offered it
to the bishop of Lugo in perpetuity, as
King Ferdinand had given it to him.
This incident shows one reason why there
are so so many donations in the early his-
tory of Spanish Sees, viz.: that the same
thing could be given over and over, to
different people.8
The tiny church belongs to the first
years of the fourteenth century probably,
though all the motives are belated. The
western doorway, pointed, has the ball
421
Repeated
donations
AND MONOGRAPHS
422
WAY OF S.JAMES
S. Salvador
Cypress
trees
ornament in the mouldings and no tym-
panum. The capitals are crude: a seraph,
leaf-forms, and two lions with but one
head between them. A door in the north
side (which is the street side) is pointed
also: the mouldings have both ball and
dog-tooth: the tympanum is carved with
a king holding up both hands, between
two trees and crosses. This is the Trans-
figuration, and the cypress trees are a part
of the scene, as on the Puerto, de las Platerias
at Santiago; the other emblems offer a
mystical application. The door has cur-
ious hinge-irons, good though simple. The
apse has slim columns, and corbels: the
windows are deeply splayed. Inside, the
flattish vault and western gallery belong to
the fifteenth century: the sanctuary is pre-
ceded by a bay of barrel-vault: all arches
are pointed, and the bases are strongly
moulded with good griffes; on the other
hand, the capitals are as archaic as English
Norman, some fluted or crimped, some with
crude leaf-forms. According to D. Angel
del Castillo, 9 the apse belongs to the end
of the thirteenth century, and the doors
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
Twin
to the fourteenth, unless, indeed, the
western should be attributed to the
fifteenth.
There was once a jongleur called Alvaro
Gomez de Sarria. In 1230 the ill-fated
Alfonso IX of Leon died in the convent of
Villanueva de Sarria, when on pilgrim-
age to S. James;10 and the poor dead
body was carried the rest of the way and
buried in Santiago beside his father's.
Besides the parish church of S. Saviour
there was a chapel dedicated to S. Cos-
mas (which probably implies and includes
S. Damian) in strata publica peregrinorum,
existent in 1260; and the hospice was
large, we may infer, for in 1219 a docu-
ment was signed by the Comendador, a
Has pit alar ius, and a Prater Hospitalis. 1 1
In 1304 the town was made ovei to
Alfonso de la Cerda by the kings of
Aragon and Portugal. In 1328 the county
of Sarria was yielded to D. Alvaro Nunez
Osorio: it is now a marquisate and one of
the titles of the duke of Alva. x 2 Manier,
in 1727, slept at Sarria and bought there
zapatos, which turned out bad leather.13
AND MONOGRAPHS
423
WAY OF S. JAMES
An old
priest
The church of S. Marina, which was old
and noble, has been rebuilt.
After the hand-maiden had gone back
to her kitchen cares, finding the town
impossible I struck down a road that
began below the castle and went off toward
the railway; and sitting on a stone wall to
admire sunset lights on gardens and distant
hills, I rashly gave a good evening to an
old priest in the road. For the piously
reared in northern climes, used to viewing
the parson as a public servant in friendly
livery, it is hard to remember that in the
south honest women can have few dealings
with priests. The day was done, and the
day's work; it was the hour for a small
table and a tall glass, and since these
could not be, for a little relaxing conversa-
tion. So I gave him good evening and he
admired the camera, and anon suggested
that if one were going down-hill he could
take his walk that way. He was an old
man and a humorous, trotting slowly
down the road with his stick and curious
about one's business, and why one's
senora de compania was not along at the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
425
moment. His voice was friendly and in-
cessant, the air was mild, and one laughed
at his jokes without listening to them, till
suddenly one did listen and discover that,
in full current of reminiscence, he was
recalling the Seminary at Corunna and the
amiga with whom he lived quite as if they
had been married. He laughed again in a
senile mirth regretful of the past and en-
regretful
tirely impenitent. In the circumstances,
and im-
penitent
one did not see the joke; but being then
near the inn, with courteous brief farewell
one left him behind in four steps, to read
in the troubled look of Antonio and the
ambiguous looks of three others, on the
bench before the door, that an honest woman
must not keep company with priests.
The Unknown Church.
The son of morn in weary
night's decline;
The lost traveller's dream
under the hill. — Blake.
We were to start at five the next morning ;
we did get off at six, but Antonio was
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
426
Fate and
bad map
WAY OF S . JAMES
weary as the rest of the creatures and from
the very start we lost our way and had to
cast back and enquire and then enquire
again. While Antonio could not under-
stand directions, I could not understand
Gallegan: we were the helpless shuttle-
cocks of fate and a bad map, for nine
hot hours. We did indeed reach Barbadelo
without too much delay, and set the horses
to graze while a Baptism went on in the
church porch, followed by a Mass at the
altar.
The church of Santiago de Barbadelo
lies at least two miles off the highway,
inaccessible to carriages but nobly placed,
with its half-dozen of houses, amid grassy
pastures and leafy groves, the land drop-
ping away to the south and east, so that
from that side the tower would draw the
eye, as its bells the ear. Aymery mentions
it, but Villuga omits it and names Sarria
instead: Morales overlooked it, the Curious
Pilgrim ignored it: therefore perhaps al-
ready in the sixteenth century the road was
diverted and the church neglected. There
was once a hospice also on the hillside there.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
The porch is ample and architectural, not
merely the lowest story of the tower.
The tower, indeed, rises at the end of the
north aisle; opens, admirably, into the
church by two moulded arches; and rests on
strong columns with capitals curiously
carved, one with wyverns, another with
lephants done from hearsay, whose wav-
ing trunks are implausible but decorative.
The stair fills all this tower-stage, which is
decorated, further, with two string-courses,
one of billet, tne other of the old barbarian
twist, used at Naranco and S. Miguel de
Linio. The inside of the west door is
elaborately treated also, with a zigzag
around the arch and rosettes on the inner
face.
The nave shows no preparation for
vaulting: it must have had a wooden ceil-
ing and an apse, like other churches here-
abouts. The apse has been rebuilt, and a
sacristy on the south side : but the approach
to the sanctuary is still by a bay of barrel
vault carried on strong columns of the
same sort as those of the tower. An old
door on the south side has been built up,
AND MONOGRAPHS
427
Santiago
de
Barbadelo
Twist
428
WAY OF S.JAMES
Griffins
Crook
and an altar placed in the recess, but the
billet moulding above remains: the door
on the north side repeats within the same
mouldings as the exterior, of zigzag, half-
lozenge, and twisted cord. Inside of these
orders the stones are laid with radiating
joints, as though no tympanum were
intended, but it has now a high lintel
and blank tympanum. The windows, set
very high, two on a side, are spoilt on the
south, but on the north are richly adorned,
with hood-moulding and heavy shafts:
the western one shows on the inside one
capital of that early Gothic which looks like
a ball in a claw, and another of two lions:
the eastern shows one capital half way
between the Gallegan cabbage-leaf and
the true early Gothic, the other, a pair of
griffins drinking from a chalice. This
motive is found also at Montierneuf, in
Poitiers, in the ambulatory which was
built in the eleventh century. In the
hood moulding appears a curious motive,
that I may compare for convenience to a
shepherd's crook, and that I shall have to
discuss at length on reaching Mellid. I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
think the origin of it is in France. Outside,
the shafts have thick leaves in two rows,
and the drip-stone is billet-moulded in
cable and chequer forms. The capitals of
this north door, on the outside, are: on
the east, two lions aj) 'route regardant, and
corresponding on the west a very curious
composition: on each face of the capital,
two serpents intertwined, one drinking
from the Chalice and the other eating of
the fruit of the Tree. Two of the serpents '
heads hang above the Chalice, at the
angle of the capital; the other two are
pasturing from trees at the extreme inner
edge of either face.
The porch is built of timber and roofed
with slate, but sustained on high stone
pillars and walled high across the front,
with a bench below on which one may
sit to study the portal. The north and
south side of the porch are left open for
entrance. The round-headed doorway,
with two attached shafts in the jambs,
has brackets at the head of the door posts,
carved with a pine cone on the curving
inner face. The tympanum is sculptured
AND MONO GRAPHS
429
The Tree
and the
serpent
430
Apotropaic
face
S.James
and
Pilgrims
WAY OF S.JAMES
to simulate a rising lintel, like those at S.
Mary of the Sar and S. Faith of Conques,
filled with a design of interlaces and rosettes
that centre on a human face brutally
simplified, like the gingerbread man's, a
mere disc with two round holes for eyes
and two straight lines for nose and mouth.
I had seen a pair of these faces only
two days before on the confines of Leon,
freshly carved on the granite jambs of a
new house. Later, I saw one on a corn-
crib. Parera publishes, from the east, in
S. Pau, the same face over a castle win-
dow at Castello de Onis. x Above in the
lunette, a sunk circle between two ros-
ettes holds a human figure with wings
instead of arms. The capitals are: the
outer left-hand, a pair of cocks; the outer
right-hand, S. James and two pilgrims very
crudely wrought; the inner left hand, a
pair of lions; the inner right hand, a pair
of cats. The lions are the familiar Ro-
manesque beasts, the cats are deliberate^
distinguished from them in proportion and
feature. This work is all granite, and
though not unspotted by yellow lichen,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
431
very sharp, sheltered by the porch from
weather. There can be no question of
modern tampering, for since the end, at
latest, of the fifteenth century, the applica-
tion of humdur to religion has been dis-
couraged in Spain. My friend A. R.
Giles reports winged cats on the capitals
Cats
in one of the early Pisan churches of
Sardinia. The work of the church belongs
to the twelfth century, and, strong and
skillful, betrays an uncommon personality.
I conceive that there, in mid-pilgrimage,
one carver had strange imaginations,
probably blasphemous, and a thrill of
Satanic rapture.
If necessary, it is easy to analyze :
i. (a) The crook-pattern is derived
Analysis
from decorations that appear at Aulnay,
Saintes, and Bordeaux (all places on
the pilgrim's road) and reappears at
Mellid and Santiago; (b) it stands for
the dragon stylized and syncopated, and
the unclean grotesque of the Benedictine
Romanesque.
2. (a) The pine cone appears at V6ze-
lay, Leon, Puerto Marin, and Santiago;
AND MONO GRAPHS
I
432
WAY OF S.JAMES
of sources
(b) it stands for fertility and in late
Roman art for immortality: at Puerto
Marin, however, the next station on the
Way, a border of pine cones, copied af-
ter nature, is apparently decorative in
intention.
3. (a) Elefas appears at Aulnay and
Montierneuf; (b) (i) the elephants stand
for longanimity, (2) "they be good of
wit and learn well," with reason very
near to man's, (3) they are amorous, and
much as the unicorn may be taken by a
dene vergin, so the elephant is beguiled
among the Ethiopians. See Bartholo-
meus Anglicus.
4. (a) The griffins drinking from a
chalice, appear at Montierneuf, and on a
capital in the Pantheon of S. Isidore
at Leon. Griffins and I think wyverns,
are guardians of hidden treasure (e. g. in
Herodotus) and from that the symbolism
passes, I believe, by analogy with the
dragon, to secret knowledge. The ser-
pent that eats up a serpent and there-
after becomes a dragon, belongs, I know,
in magic and the deeper initiations. In
late Roman art, the griffin carries up the
soul in apotheosis; it is servant of the sun.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
433
5. The moon-face has some sort
of protective or good-luck potency,
and sig-
and, as said, occurs elsewhere in this
nificance
region.
6. The winged figure is Icarus un-
fallen who shares here the wisdom of
his father Daedalus, and is able to
surpass the limits set to the activities
of man.
7. The cock is also the sun's servant,
the bird of the future life, the herald of
rebirth.
8 . The lion of the tribe of Judah is too
familiar to need more than reference.
Though the witch's cat set over against
him, partly in mockery, partly for asso-
ciation with familiar spirits, is too late,
chronologically, in its associations, yet
the two traits recognized as characteris-
tic in the cat by those who have known
her best, are precisely those needed in
this place: her metaphysical brooding,
and her tameless will. To this may be
added another instance of the cat used as
the black double of the lion, as the goat is
the black double of the lamb: Campo-
manes 2 quotes among the charges brought
against the Templars, "'that they had
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
434
WAY OF S.JAMES
adored with divine adoration a Cat, idol
or other simulacrum" on the altar.
Gallegan folk-lore recognizes the cat;
and Pliny identifies her with Isis or
the moon.3
9. The serpent who was more subtile
than any beast of the field, here partakes
of the sacraments of Knowledge and
Immortality.
Not having enjoyed a Freudian up-
bringing, I conclude from all this that while
some of these motives have a secondary
Possibili-
ties of
carnal significance, it positively is second-
psycho-
ary, and the intention of the whole is
analysis
probably a sort of inverted mysticism, like
that which built the Tower of Babel to
elevate men up to heaven by the builder's
skill, which prompted Lucifer, brightest
of the sons of the morning, to the robbery
that would make him to be equal with God,
which determines the will and exalts the
intellect until "Nequaquam morte morie-
mini . . . aperientur oculi vestri, et eritis
sicut dii, scientes bonum et malum," yea,
until "Ait, Ecce Adam quasi unus ex nobis
factusest."
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
435
The churchyard wall was set about with
crosses as at Triacastela, and as I pond-
ered these symbolisms while photographing
from the top of a wall of loose stones, the
hugest one turned under me, and after
dropping me into the meadow fell on top.
Luckily, it broke nothing. I rolled it off
my feet and ankles after a bit, sat up,
and feeling shaken, wished for something
to drink. Where there is nothing, you do
without very well.
After it got out of the sunken, stone-
walled lanes, the road ran for a while
diagonally across a high-lying, moorish
region, dotted with figures of men and
creatures on the way to the cattle market
at Sarria. First came a setter dog, scout-
ing, then a couple of mild cows driven
gently by neighbours in conversation,
then a party on horseback, the women
sitting sideways easily, with dangling feet,
but never getting out of a fast walk. Men
and women, the better off of them, were in
Sunday black — "You go to funerals in
white and to weddings in black!" scolded
an Abbot of Cluny, once — rusted by the
AND MONOGRAPHS
Moor
436
Market-
folk
WAY OF S.JAMES
sun and the dust to a lacquer hue; these
wore broad felt hats, and those the hideous
kerchief, untidy and unbecoming, made in
German factories of sham silk, that with
washing, or fading, or soiling, was usually
some shade of drab. When we were in
underbrush again a man on a beautiful
brown stallion came down on us swiftly
out of the distance. As he swung up at
the amble that is faster than a trot and
steadier than a canter, in answer to a
shouted question about the right road to
Puerto Marin, he shouted back: "Yes,
but you'll never get there — " the rest was
lost as his swinging shoulders passed
behind a turn in the hedgerow. "At that
pace," did he end, or "by that path?"
I know not: either would have done.
Shortly thereafter I buckled on spurs and
pushed ahead alone, at that same gallant
gait, till in a thriving village the way
forked.
At the first cross-roads a huge ancestral
oak swayed there alone. The grey stone
houses stood well apart, and on the high
land the dunghills were less insistent. At
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
437
what was the centre to a very straggling
circumference, and triangular like a New
England common, a clump of ancient
trees, that doubtless screened the evening
tertulia, sheltered a halt till Antonio
came up and a handsome woman gave him
drink and directions. There were two
roads, she said, one shorter, the other
plainer. She had the regular features,
strongly-marked, of the region, and a less
frowsy head: water-jar and all, she escorted
us to another turning and set us right upon
the road, but at that point I marked a
Romanesque apse and trotted back to
view it. So her kindness was for naught;
except, indeed, that it hangs still in memory
to balance the unkindness of her who kept
the church keys.
S. Andres de Sarria lies a long way off
any of the roads we should have taken, but
it was roundly worth the detour. The dar-
ling little stone church turns its back to the
village, with a square apse and roof sloping
down to shelter the sacristy: a rich little
Romanesque window in the crest of the
east end, and a roof on corbels of animal
AND MONOGRAPHS
S. Andr6s
de Sarria
438
Horse-shoe
arch
WAY OF S.JAMES
or leaf forms, rather Burgundian, with a
pointed, Gothic door at the west, a flat
lintel crowning that at the north, which,
inside, showed traces of a capital. The
arch which opened from nave to apse
beyond question was outrepasst. It was
not that the arch came down far back on
the abacus of the two columns there, but
that it came around, in a curve, past the
semicircle, before it came down at all.
Other instances, throughout Galicia, make
this case not so rare as it then seemed.
Of the columns on which the arch comes
down one capital is wrought with birds
and one with leaves: and the nave has a
gabled timber roof.
The woman, with a baby on her arm,
had strolled out to stare before fairly
Antonio had caught the bridle and I had
descended, at the churchyard gate. She
came inside to put a string of questions
which I answered absently and briefly,
being busy indeed with the note book, but a
complete dossier fit to rejoice the nearest
police court would not have allayed her
mistrust passing rapidly into active hostil-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
ity. When the camera came into action,
she did not mean that I should take the
west door, nor yet the apse and gable.
All the while she questioned. "Ask for
the keys, Antonio," I interjected, and she
swore the only keys were at the Cura's
house, and he lived in another village.
Such things are sometimes true, as I was
to learn later, but I disbelieved her then,
and rightly, as it proved. "Nonsense,"
quoth I, writing hard, "there must be keys
up here in case of fire or sudden death.
In faith," quoth I, still writing, "this is
no Christian village if the church can't be
opened. No matter whence I come,"
quoth I, " it seems I am arrived where there
is too little religion and too much curiosity."
While I was waspish, Antonio was honeyed,
and anon she fetched the keys, only to
blaze up in strong wrath every time the
camera went into action. ' ' The church was
robbed last year," quoth she, "probably
by a strange woman": and indeed she and
her kind were wont to give to the name of
a strange woman, all its Scriptural signi-
ficance. Between repartee and cajolery,
AND MONOGRAPHS
439
Dialogue
440
WAY OF S.JAMES
Tundall's
Vision
however, she was kept outside the door un-
til the work was done, though it was rather
like taking a time-exposure in the same
meadow with Tundall's wild cow. Then
the usual money was tendered. It was not
accepted, it could not be taken back, in
the end it was left on the altar, and we
rode away, aware that an evil eye was
following.
Of these pictures I saved not one.
Never let yourself be cursed at setting
out, at any rate in Spain, where curses
take effect. Not five minutes beyond S.
Andres we were engaged in the labyrinth
of stone walls that held us all that golden
noon until it seemed that we wandered
over half the kingdom of Galicia. First we
saw from far a ruined tower that guarded,
it seemed, the long bank, chestnut-wooded,
of a river, but after a steep descent no
town, no stream, appeared. A group of
brown wood-cutters, at length dislodged
amid the bracken, sent us up to the top
again. The tower was recovered and a
fresh start taken. We came upon a village
from the rear: Antonio struck across the
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
cottage enclosures and wandered among
the houses strung along a parallel road
looking for the inhabitants, to find, as he
admitted later, only small children left
at home to look after each other, who
could tell nothing. It was threshing-time,
and everyone afield. There were parallel
roads and cross-roads that turned at
sudden angles, and descents that had to be
climbed again, all walled with loose stone,
breast high, so that you could not look
where you were going. The world was like
gilt metal: above, the air was incandescent;
about, all tawny stone; a brazen earth,
and fields blazing with the harvest. Stand-
ing up in the stirrups at last, I saw a group
of threshers, and we rode around and
about and among the yellow burning lanes
until we came upon them, six men with
flickering flails and a pair of women to
rake and toss. I questioned if no boy could
be found to show the way: what I did not
know then was that for the asking a man
would have come, would have marched an
hour in the windless noon, to earn a single
peseta, and been thereupon more content
AND MONOGRAPHS
441
Threshing-
time
442
WAY OF S. JAMES
That
brazen
bowl they
call the
sky ...
than I. Only slowly one learns that when
a country is really poor, such a pitiful little
money is worth more than the time and
the strength of a man.
They gave, however, intelligible and
intelligent directions, by which we found
a white house of somebody's steward.
Then in his steep and dirty village the
thread was lost again, and again we wan-
dered over an earth of hammered brass
under a sky of baked enamel, leaving
ancient churches on hill-tops just too far
off to venture on turning aside for them.
At last we came out on another hill-top,
crested by a church neither ancient nor
interesting; but guarded by a spinning
woman, very beautiful, grave and ruddy.
From the brow she pointed out a brown
line for the Mino, fringed with shivering
green, and the pale road that ran down
behind a cluster of high-lying farms.
Following her words, we dropped, between
harvest fields, over rolling stones, for a
mile or so, to a brook and a bridge, where a
child watched with an earthen jug; and
at the back of a hill climbed high banks,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
443
dense-shaded and murmurous with flies;
and wound about where we could see
nothing till we were descending again and
the earthen banks had changed to walls of
stone. There, where a gate opened, we
could look across the green short stubbly
grass that dropped like a precipice to the
river's edge, and in the green plain of the
further shore, and under the golden sun,
lay a great church, four-square as the
New Jerusalem, by the side of the stream
of living water. The brown town huddled
softly about it as a sleeping flock, and
the broken pieces of the tawny bridge,
above the greenish amber river, were
veiled with ivy. But as you looked at the
church you might have recognized it
beside the Dordogne or the Adour, so
nobly high and square it reared, fortified
in troublous times with battlements and
towers, and so plainly lay, around the deep
shadow of the high windows, the sharp
shadow of the high arcade.
The way down to the river-brink was
cut two feet deep into the living rock, and
built, for footing, upon shelves of descend-
AND MON OGR APHS
Civitas Dei
444
WAY OF S.JAMES
The hollow
and
ing stone, and enclosed, above the rock
with walls of well-built stone. At last
we emerged in a suburb by S. Peter's
church, dedicated in u824 and not un-
venerable, in its strictly Spanish Ro-
manesque. I had climbed stiffly down
and was looking like any other woman
before the guardia civil drifted amiably
around the corner to look us over, and to
keep us in countenance while the donkey
was inducted into a flat-bottomed ferry,
with ourselves and the luggage, and the
brown mare sent off with a boy they
warranted for trustworthy, to cross by a
ford further up. Pretty creature, I was to
see her not again, but to regret her often:
gentle and swift, she was not fit for the
hard ways by which we had come. She
was a lady's horse, and I wish her a life
as soft and sweet as her temper, as un-
changing as her obedient courage.
Puerto Marin lies away from any high
road, out of the world and unknown, but
loved of God and the holy angels. The pop-
ulation came about me like bees and sprang
up even as the fire among thorns, they more
HISPANIC NOTES
Courtesy of Boston Museum
A Pilgrim in Jet
THE WAY
than half filled the church as I worked
there with the landlord's discreet young
daughter to take care of me, but they
neither crowded nor mocked. Later, ex-
pressing amazement, I found it was a
matter of course : the town took just pride
in its treatment of strangers.
I had arrived inopportunely when the
entire establishment of the house, including
guests, was about to depart into the fields
and sup there, and with entire courtesy
I was urged to come: in vain I begged the
others to go and leave me, the party was
spoiled. A young uncle from Madrid and
a friend of his concerned with Singer Sew-
ing Machines, drifted about in the river
with accordion and mandolin instead, while
Celia and I conversed ceremoniously on the
high balcony above, and later I consumed
alone incredible portions of the huge pasties
of eel and chicken prepared for the picnic.
One owes the oddest "tips" to the kind-
ness of friendly women. When, on start-
ing out that afternoon to visit the church,
I pinned on a hat and began to draw on
gloves, the mistress of the house checked
HISPANIC NOTES
447
Relation of
host and
guest
448
WAY OF S.JAMES
Celia
me, and explained the gloves would be
conspicuous. The wise sweet maiden
daughter was spared to keep me company
from the shop; for here, as already noticed
elsewhere, the dealer in provisions feeds
the traveller as well as the town. The
house was prosperous, I take it, with
bedrooms up two flights, looking on the
street, and a comedor looking over the
river: and the family were important in
the town, and Celia was quite able to
stand between me and the world, when
they came crowding close like soft sheep,
and as harmless.
In the throng were faces already grown
familiar, the landlord's and his young
brother's who came from Madrid, and the
high-cheeked, square visage of another
Antonio, with whom I had opened negotia-
tions respecting the remainder of the jour-
ney. It was plain that my creatures were
exhausted, all of them, and my witless
Antonio dangerous in his ignorance even
of the general directions in this country:
which way, for instance, through all the
morning, Puerto Marin ought to lie.
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
449
Already I had paid him off and made him
happy. Poor lad, when I had proposed the
separation during the noontide hours, I
had seen him take it with the piteous
silence of animals and the helpless human
kind, and thereafter heard from moment to
moment a gulp or a sniff. There was no
help, and he saw it, and as we parted he
was content. I gave him money for a
night's good lodging, but later there came
through cattle-men who knew the roads
and the short cuts, and he had already
started back with them, wisely enough,
while I was considering the possibility of
taking him further on the way, to Palaz
del Rey, if the second Antonio would not
come to reason. For we were in negotia-
tions from three o'clock in the afternoon,
when I arrived, to eleven at night when,
having been asleep already, I awoke and
sat up in bed and conferred further with
my landlord while the family sat around,
and sent him running with messages, and
by his good offices at last closed a bargain
not much more than halfway between what
I had offered and what Antonio had asked.
The
helpless
AND MONOGRAPHS
450
WAY OF S.JAMES
Alterna-
tives
Antonio was very well-to-do — "muy
rico" was the word — and could afford
buenas caballerias and kept such for his own
use exclusively, and there was not another
creature in Puerto Marin except grey don-
keys. There were only two of these.
They had gone to Lugo but would be home
some time that night. They, and la Gloria
who owned them, offered one alternative
to Antonio's outrageous exaction. Another
was to set out with the postman at four
in the morning when he walked two leagues
across the hills to a village where I might
wait till the Chantada coach passed at
four that afternoon and so get to Palaz
del Rey, where I might perhaps find ani-
mals. Or I might, again, go somewhere
in the early darkness before a summer dawn
and get the coach to Lugo. I did not
want to go to Lugo. Good souls, they
knew I was bound for Santiago and since
the straight line for going was too dear,
they offered me all the other roundabout
ways.
They were all good souls, even to the
Senor Cura whom at that time I had never
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
451
met but whose saddle was borrowed for
me at some hour between midnight and
[our in the morning: that I know, for I
rode on it. The best of all was the land-
Lord's daughter, Celia Vazquez y Vazquez,
seventeen years old, who admitted that
her head ached and that she had been up
since six, as she talked in the candle-light by
the bedside. She could not go to bed till
the shop was closed and the books written
up. For she kept the books, wrote the
letters, signed the cheques. "They know
my writing," she said, "in Corunna and in
Paris, but of course they don't know it is
I who am Miguel Vazquez. If I wanted,
which God forbid, to rob my father," she
said, and crossed brow and breast as she
spoke, "it would be easy enough." She
was a pretty child, and sober when not
actually smiling. She had asked me shyly
as we walked home from the ancient
bridge chapel, if perhaps I would take her
with the little camera, for she had never
had a photograph, but I tried in vain for
what should be a portrait— a neat head,
with brown hair softly waved and folded
AND MONOGRAPHS
The
landlord's
daughter
If a star
were . .
452
confined
into a
tomb .
S. Marina
WAY OF S.JAMES
about the wide brow, and a level look.
Innocent in her very trustworthiness,
helpless by her very discretion, I wish
her a good marriage and that right soon!
She reads the poetry of Rosalia de Castro.
She corresponds with various Gallegan
women writers; and hers is the stuff strong
races are made of.
Puerto Marin lies in a hollow land, as
though you could only get there by getting
lost. No highway leads thither, no wheels
can go thereby.5 The noble church is
named in no scholar's book: the loyal
town but seldom in history. It is said to
have belonged to the Templars;6 the
annual fair occurs at Candlemas. The
archives all have perished.
In 922 the church of S. Marina of Puerto
Marin was given by Bishop Recared of
Lugo to the Count Gutierre Melendez, and
Bishop Gundesind of Santiago witnessed
the donation.7 The name of the church
explains the name of the town, but what
the Virgin Martyr has to do down there
is hard to say. Her name is found all over
Galicia, and associated very often with
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
453
water-springs; in the single kingdom there
are no less than three dedications to S.
Marina de Aguas Santas. If it is, as seems
not impossible, only the Syrian Marina,
which means Lord, it affords a parallel to
all the early dedications to Soter, the
Saviour; but as time passed and cults
changed, the meaning will have been for-
gotten and the ending in a seems to call
for a female saint. Spanish hagiographers
are sorely put to it to find a biography, a
birth-place or even a lineage, for S. Marina:
some will fetch her from Antioch ; some will
make her a sister of S. Liberata, when a
dozen children were born at one birth;
and some will identify her with Margarita,
the pearl of the Sea.
Florez records a convent built here early
in the tenth century by the Count Gutierrez
and the Countess Ilduara, parents of S.
Rosendo, called S. Maria de Ribalogio,
which was subject to that of Celanova.
This is probably the same S. Marina
cited above from the books of the abbey,
which being written by a simple letter M.
will have been misread by Florez. 8 Vere-
So, at
Gerona,
SS. Mar-
inus and
Patronus
AND MONOGRAPHS
454
Peter the
Pilgrim
WAY OF S.JAMES
mund II gave the whole town to San-
tiago in 993, and a long and highly di-
verting document recites the excuses that
he found, or Bishop Martin Mosoncio
for him, for taking it away from intract-
able and rebellious nobles of his, topping
off with a thumping excommunication
and "in inferno damnatus." About 1120,
according to the Book of S. James,9 Peter
the Pilgrim was already at work on the
roads, and on rebuilding with the help
of God and good souls the bridge which
Queen Urraca had broken down in war-
time. He built also a hospice which he
called Domus Dei. In 1126 Alfonso VII
confirmed to him, in the month of Oc-
tober, Dona Urraca's gift to him of the
Church of S. Mary for his own maintenance
during the work and afterwards for the
up-keep of bridge and hospital. l ° In 1 281 ,
a certain Miguel Fernandez was Notario
Ptiblico del Rey in Pallares and Puerto
Marin.11 On the 2oth of May, 1379, a
cedula of King Henry was signed there. x 2
In 1470, on November 20, the Catholic
Kings signed in Sarria a privilege con-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
firming the exclusive jurisdiction over the
encomiendas of Incio and Puerto Marin
of the Order of the Knights of S. John.1
The anonymous traveller printed by
Pieter van der Aa14 coming up from
Orense reckoned the distance to be about
ten miles from there (these be Dutch
miles!), and the town in no wise remark-
able, on the Great Way that men take who
from the kingdom of Leon are travelling
to S. James. Laborde, in 1808, counts
Puerto Marin among the principal cities
of Galicia.
The noble church of S. Nicholas was
built, probably in the thirteenth century,
straight from west to east, under one man.
The townsfolk have a legend that he died
before it was finished. The style is transi-
tional, with round arches yielding to
pointed here and there in advancing east
ward, and over the western rose; and at the
eastern end of the glorious nave a single
Day of cross-vault replaces the pointed
Barrel, and has capitals and the com-
mencement of ribs in the next bay. All
the windows on the north side are blocked
455
Church of
S. Nicholas
AND MONOGRAPHS
456
French
parallels
WAY OF S. JAMES
up and the lights of the great western
rose except the central. That signifies
that the architect was not used to the
climate, and the structural forms betray
that he was French. The nave walls, outside
and in, are strengthened with great arches
as in Auvergne; under the head of these
the window mouldings rise, and against
the mass of them the vaulting shafts are
set. As at Digne in France, and in the nave
of Lugo, the four bays of barrel- vault are
carried on transverse ribs, that come
down each on a single column, and the
intermediate ribs rest on a plain cornice.
A rose occupies the wall space above the
sanctuary: this consists of one bay of
barrel-vault and then an apse, quite hidden
by the retable, which outside is seen to
have three windows, rather low down,
three-quarter columns for buttresses, and
corbels under the roof, to resemble, in
short, the old central apse of S. Isidro
of Leon.
In the tympanum of the south door stands
the bishop S. Nicholas with outstretched
arms between two acolytes, who hold his pas-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
toral staff and book. The mouldings of the
round arch are very rich and include the
dog-tooth, something like the beak mould-
ings that I have seen in Asturias and in
England, and a sort of beading that I do
not recall elsewhere. On the capitals are:
a man and woman outermost: then richly
curling leafage: my notes mention also
human-headed birds. On the facade a
great arch, enclosing all, leaves wide shal-
low pilasters at the corners that are really
towers and carry a fine winding stone
stair. The immense and glorious rose has
at the heart six cusps and six rings, then
twelve pentagons, then twelve great rounds.
The mouldings which enframe it are, first
the dog-tooth, and second a decoration
used also on the door below, incessantly
at Orense, and generally in Galicia, a huge
torus overlaid by cut-out scallops of half a
ircle or more.
The hood-mould here is decorated with
pine cones carved directly after nature, with
infinite pleasure in the tridimensional
diaper that the overlapping scales afford.
Inside of the order described above, lies
AND MONOGRAPHS
457
South
Portal
West front
458
WAY OF S.JAMES
Santia-
guese
elements
another also found at Compostella, large
flowers of four petals curled at the corner
with a knob in the centre. This adorns
the banqueting hall (if it was such) under
the Archbishop's palace, and the little
church below the cathedral, called S. James
Undercroft. Innermost, are ranged the
four and twenty elders, as at Compostella,
then at Carboeiro and Noya, etc. On the
flat plain tympanum is set an almond-
shaped Glory neatly edged with clouds
which carries the seated figure of Christ
blessing, with a book : this comes from the
north porch at Lugo but is not copied di-
rectly, for the knees are drawn close together
and the feet rest on a lion. On the jamb
brackets are a king and queen: the capitals
and abacus are all Gallegan leaf -forms:
the cornice which divides the space above
the door, is carved not with beasts, but
purely decorative motives, infinitely elabo-
rated: each of the tiny arches bordered
with a pattern, and the under face, and
the space between, adorned as well.
There would be great satisfaction in
giving the names of Alfonso and Urraca to
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
the figures on the lintel and crediting the
whole to Peter the Pilgrim: but unluckily
the one thing we know about Puerto
Marin, is the history of Peter. He was
such another as Pelle the Conqueror: he
built a bridge and a hospital, and worked
on the road: moreover, he came a hundred
years too soon.
To Santiago we must refer a great deal
of the decoration: the Elders, the flower-
motive, a leaf -capital that I have called
the Gallegan cabbage, a border of leafage
with edges curled in spirals used at the
cloister of the Sar and elsewhere. Master
Matthew was directing the Compostellan
school from 1188 till after 1217: these
forms belong to him. Between S. Nicholas
and Santiago the likenesses are decorative :
or at any rate salient to the eye; the differ-
ences are structural. Though Santiago
has the same great lateral arches to carry
the weight of the walls, they are not, as
here, the whole reliance; and the windows
of the aisles are just aisle windows, as at
Aulnay, for instance, whereas in Puerto
Marin they are nearer clerestory height.
459
Master
Matthew
AND MONOGRAPHS
460
WAY OF S.JAMES
Com-
postella
Lugo
Charente
Alpes
Maritimes
Auvergne
and
Velay
This appeared also at Barbadelo. The
unlovely figures over the southern door
represent local genius. Though they go
back to the first style of Compostela, and
to the Puerto, de las Platerias, they are
archaic by imperfection; whereas the
Christ at the west is unique and astonish-
ing: although one may remember Lugo, yet
he bursts upon one like Melchizedek, with-
out parentage or posterity. French di-
rectly, are some early Gothic forms of
capital among the vaulting shafts, the
austere abacus, there, and connecting
cornice, and perhaps the rose-window;
though Orense and Santiago both have a
western rose. There are, moreover, a few
churches in France, of one nave, with
pointed barrel-vault, in the south-west
and in the south-east. The manner of
building with great arches along the sides
passed from Auvergne and Velay to the
south-west, it might have been picked up
anywhere in the pilgrimage.
The churches of Galicia are all later than
they look, but after the coming of the
Friars, the style was changed: Gothic
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
461
dominates in the fourteenth century, and
though the decorative elements persist,
the structural are modified. This which is
furthermore uncommonly sappy and vital
belongs, I believe, in the thirteenth.
Whinny Moor.
Nous fumes grandement
joyeux
De voir fleurir le Cicador,
El egrener la lavande,
Et tant de Romarin qui
branche
D'ou sortoit si grande
odeur,
Nous chantdmes tons en-
semble
Pour en louer le Crfateur.
— Chanson des Pelerins.
The evening and the morning were the
fourth day.
One long street runs roughly parallel to
the dimpling river, from below the bridge
Bridge
chapel, which shelters a Madonna, to
chapel
above the parvis of the church ; and of the
two shops upon it, Miguel Vazquez kept
that which sold provisions, and Antonio's
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
462
Antonio
WAY OF S.JAMES
handsome wife and four daughters that
which sold, in good American, dry-goods
and notions. Antonio is an ambulante, in
short, a peddler, who buys goods at Corunna
or Santiago or Lugo and sells them at
ferias and fiestas. It is hardly worth
while going out in the winter, for by the
time your booth is up and your goods dis-
played it is getting on towards dark, but
in the long summer weather he goes far,
and his two mules carry all: Castano, wise
and strong, with endurance for an English
saddle and me: and under a huge pack-
saddle, two pairs of alforjas, and Antonio's
substantial strength, the dainty brown
Petis. Like a dog Castano obeyed his
master's words, which was well, for he
would not obey a stranger 'and resented
woman, whereby, being preoccupied
with his apparent prejudices and opinions,
as I came to mount, I forgot that I was not
only booted but spurred, and springing
up at a pause in his fidgeting, hung on with
my heels. Castano thought less than ever,
thereafter, of a woman's riding him.
From Puerto Marin the pilgrims went
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
to Palaz del Rey, where I slept the noon
and rose to eat and slept again; and at that
point the ancient track crosses the modern
highroad, but all the morning the way
lay across a high moor, of gravelly roads
between miles of gorse and a few scattered
trees. The chill blue promise of dawn
flecked with gilded constellations, that
had hung above the town, faded, as we
climbed a long lane, into grey twilight, and
that yielded in turn, at the top of the
ascent, to the thick white mist which pro-
mises a burning day. In this we moved
for hours, carrying with us a few yards of
red earth and green wet furze, coming up-
on a grove and a stone-walled village set
thereby, encountering more rarely a man
going forth to his work and his labour until
the evening, and losing everything straight-
way in the thick enfolding whiteness.
They were all Antonio's friends and he had
a joke for everyone: between whiles the
mules ambled easily and fast; he counted,
by what landmarks I could not guess,
the passing leagues with surprised content,
or sang, not the raucous and monotonous
AND MONOGRAPHS
463
When thou
comest to
Whinny
Moor
464
WAY OF S.JAMES
Mist-
rainbow
coplas with their interminable cynicism,
but long sentimental romances; their dy-
ing fall was sweet on the drenched green,
in the pearly light. Lulled by the swift
easy motion and the ancient melody into
an animal lethargy of mere warm move-
ment and cool breathing, eyes soothed
and ears pleased, I was roused by a
call from him to see, brooding mightily
above the vanishing moor, a vast mist-
rainbow, pale as a rainbow of the moon
but truly coloured, and shapen in the huge
half-arch. Nearly an hour, as it seems, it
hung there its blanched radiance as of a
moonstone's heart, and I counted twice
and thrice the shimmering bands, and I
could have gone at any time to where
the foot rested on a glittering bush. Then
slowly, as the sun rose and the mist rose,
it melted and was no more, and the air
was blue overhead.
We paused to view a grassy line of ancient
earthworks and the even circle of a Roman
camp. We watered the mules in a green
and standing pond on a steep slope,
crossed the spine of it, and came up on a
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WA Y
465
richer incline dropping to farms and
hedgerows and another stream. Antonio
pointed out the greatest mountains of
Galicia, strong Faro and long Faromello,
blue, shapely, and far, and taught where to
look for Farelo: and told of Pico Sagro, to
be known later as pure in contour as the
Mount of Fuji, and like it the seat of
immemorial devotion.
Twenty minutes we moved entangled
among farms, to a final short cut through
someone's barnyard and then to Antonio's
deep content we emerged upon the glar-
ing highway, yellow as brass, hard as a
floor, bordered with young trees that cast
no shade whenever the sun was high,
dotted with single figures and twos and
threes: a man riding under a large red
umbrella, two women returning from
market, a pair of porters driving their
pack animals. With all Antonio was well-
acquaint.
Palaz del Rey is a white, kind, homely
place tipped sideways along the hill's
flank where it is strung upon the road;
swept, baked, and clean. Down the hill lie
Pico Sagro
Camino real
Palaz del
Rey
AND MON OGR A PHS
466
WAY OF S. JA MES
White wine
and red
pasture and meadow land; up the hill the
church of S. Tirso in its scrupulous orienta-
tion turns the apse toward the church-
yard gate and commands from the western
doorstep a rich view of the neighbouring
valley. That same doorway was of gra-
cious early pointed work, well moulded,
with capitals of the French type curling
over to the delicate knobs of leaves not yet
uncurled. A stone cross on the hilltop,
alongside of the stone cuartel of the guardia
civil, that might have been a hospice once;
these and the church door were all the
pilgrims could have seen, excepting, indeed,
the distant peaks of Faro and Faromello
and their company. The low little church,
inside, has square windows and a gabled
timber roof carried on good arches: an old
font with the ball ornament; and for other
interests, a naked Christ at the Column,
S. Roque and S. Anthony Abbot, two
waxen heads, and two wax animals, votive,
probably.
The hostess was a kind of cousin of
Antonio's. She offered a choice of red
wine or white, at lunch, and when I chose
HISPANIC NOTEvS
THE WAY
white she gave counsel: "You're quite
welcome to the white, here it is," she
said, "but if you are going to ride in the
sun it will be bad for your head," so I
drank the red. She was right, of course,
for though white wine is the lighter in
France it is the deadlier in Spain, and hers
was muy rico.
Before setting out again in the after-
noon, I explained once more to Antonio
that we were not going to Mellid by the
highway, but via Pambre and Leboreiro.
He had to enquire the road and his tem-
per was tried. The hour was two in the
noon and the heat was strong. Shortly
we met an old man just climbing up
from a bye-path who, being addressed,
turned back to conduct us for an hour or
more. For a silver piece he doubled the
service I had thought to pay and marched
ahead under the burning sky among
devious paths, through an ancient village
noble with old palaces forgotten but not
degraded. Once at a turning the eye
crossed a meadow fragrant with tall grass
to a great house set four-square to the
467
AND MONOGRAPHS
468
WAY OF S.JAMES
Pambre
Leboreiro
heavens, the massy archstones of its wide
round doorway showing plain through the
dizzy heat, the last of a venerable orchard
leaning close about it still.
Pambre is a strong castle, on a steep and
wooded hillside, and Antonio swore that
from it there was no going for the four-
footed except back to the highway. When
we were two miles or so on the way back,
he admitted incidentally that there was a
fairish mountain road along the stream
and through the pass which the castle
guards. "But the highway is surer, " said
Antonio.
The web of our life is a mingled yarn:
our old man had been as friendly as he
was valiant, while he guided; but at
Leboreiro the populace, which swarmed
instantaneously, was more curious than
kind, and no keys were to be had. The
priest lived in another village, the sacristan
was working in the fields, and Antonio
the second was indifferent to my interests,-
that is the final truth. In the little rust-
brown hamlet all dung-hills and dead furze,
the streets mere slabs of living rock, they
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
did not mean that a strange woman should
see their church. The little church, out-
side, was solidly built and barbarously
adorned with carved corbels under the roof
of the apse and a carved cross on the gable
of the nave: over the western door under a
steep pointed arch of dog-tooth moulding,
an Epiphany of misshapen idols that would
disgrace a Polynesian. They represented
the Virgin and Child between two censing
angels, the Sedes Majestatis: on the bracket
of the jambs a pair of figures, and monsters
on the two capitals in the corners. Of
the tiny north door the lintel and tympan-
um were all one shapen block, carved with
a cross pattee.
" IRetrdiemel" cried insolent youths
whom one could put aside with a gesture,
but it was hard when a father brought a
sickly baby to ask for a picture of it.
Slowly and carefully one explains; to those,
"I don't go photographing in fairs"; to
him, "This machine won't take people"
and one wishes heartily that it were pos-
sible to snap and develop and print the
little poor pitiful thing. As we rode away
AND MONOGRAPHS
469
A populace
470
WAY OF S.JAMES
Mellid
El A postal
a girl with long fair braids was getting
water from a spring, and patiently twice
and thrice refilled the traveller's cup.
When I slipped a copper into the sunburnt
hand that returned the cup after Antonio
had drunk, she would fain by way of earn-
ing it have run across the fields to find the
Cura in his village where he lived. But
Mellid was white on its hill in the westering
light and we rode on.
There we were at a point served by
automobiles, and in an inn no town need
disown. On the street yawned caverns
where were stored and sold flour, grain,
and the like; likewise a small shop of other
comestibles in boxes and tins; likewise a
wide entrance like that to a stable, partly
occupied by a counter charged with things
to drink, and partly by the substantial
men of the town, taking the air and ex-
changing the news. One caballero arose,
and lifting his cap with a great grace, asked
if I had not been at el A postal, and if
he had not seen me photographing types
around the cathedral. Here then my busi-
ness was understood, my good repute
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
471
assured. He and his busy sister, being
the proprietors, lent me a tiny and charm-
ing niece for guide about the town, and I
dismissed Antonio, gaunt with fatigue, to
refresh his mules and himself.
Most of these villages, strung along the
Way literally, as minnows are strung on a
willow switch, have no streets but the
main road, only foul alley-ways on either
side, climbing up or winding down. But
Mellid is built like a miniature city, with
streets and square and convents, many
churches, and outlying chapels. When I
asked the way to the oldest church, the
worried Aunt held a brief conference and
then directed my pretty child: "S. Peter's
first, then S. Anthony, S. Francis, and the
Carmen. " I forgot the rest, for I knew the
belated style, of S. Francis, the degenerate
of the Carmen, would not be to my mind,
though the square before it, and the fountain
filled with wands on which to rest the
water-butts as they filled, were picturesque.
The town figures much in the early his-
tory of kings of the Asturias, lying as it does
on the highways from Lugo to Santiago
History
AND MONOGRAPHS
472
A Mexican
Bishop
WAY OF S.JAMES
and from Betanzos te Lalin and Orense.
Like Leboreiro the place belongs, ecclesi-
astically, to the diocese of Mondofiedo,
and you may follow one road all the way
thither. It had, early, a hospice for pil-
grims, which was later turned into infantry
barracks.
An archbishop of Mexico whose mother
came from Mellid, D. Mateo Segade,
founded there in 1671, in the convent
of Franciscan tertiaries two chairs of
philosophy, one of theology, and, in a. house
alongside, a chapel dedicated to S. An-
thony, endowed for twelve chaplains, of
whom two were to teach grammar and
one reading and writing: a good work.
The foundation of it is a quaint piece of
Gallegan, which may be copied out for
such as enjoy the more familiar aspects of
language in disguise. It is a donation by
one Fernan Lopez of Mellid — he called it
Mellide — in 1374, when Gallegan did not
sound so dull and rough as now:
e mma muller Aldara Gonzalez, a
Frey Alfonso ministre da Orden terceira
da Penitencia aquelas nosas casas con
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
473
sua cortina que estan a porta da vila de
Millide cabe da calzada contra a fonte
que chamas de Feas, en que fazan Iglesia
e edificio en similitud de Mosteiro, en
que se cumplan os divinais oficios e se
faza servicio a Deus e para morada do
dito Frey Alfonso e dos ditos frayres en
que sirvan a Deus. l
This is the soft-vowelled speech ot the
Loores de S. Maria. The town enjoys a
romeria on the day of the Carmen, as I
learn from the gazetteer Madoz, but a
better fiesta is that of S. Roque, when go
forth two gigantones and a papamosca.
S. Peter's, however, is the elder church.
The only portal, on the north side facing a
San Pedro
fine old house, bears a little the same rela-
tion to Santiago as that of Cirauqui to
Estella; the decoration though rich and
curious has no figure-sculptures. The
round-headed door, without tympanum, is
enclosed by successive mouldings of hollow
and round, a sort of zigzag stretched al-
most into a straight line, a four-petalled
flower something like the nail-head, a row
of the characteristic scallops, and, for
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
474
WAY OF S.JAMES
A shaped
stone coffin
hood-mould, the curious curled leaf that
was on the abacus at Puerto Marin and
that may be related to a form I noted at
El Crucifijo of Puente la Reyna. The
capitals are of a Compostellan kind, a
cabbage-leaf emulous of the acanthus.
The whole portal projects a little from the
wall and has one gargoyle propping chin
and elbows. Now the gargoyle is not an
Iberian beast. Just east of the door runs
the western wall of a chapel with carved
corbels and a stone coffin built up into
a doorway, below a consecration cross.
Inside, the church is small, timber-roofed:
over the pointed and moulded sanctuary
arch are remains of a window with shafts
in the jamb : and two bays of pointed barrel-
vault precede the apse, noble outside, but
crude in its carving within. On the north
side, the chapel of S. Louis, already men-
tioned, is roofless: it contains two pointed
tomb recesses, of a knight and a lady, with
tiny round-headed windows in the tym-
panum above and another over the altar.
A stone coffin, here, is shaped for head
and shoulders like that at Padron which
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
received the body of the Apostle. A
similar chapel on the south side has only
one tomb, a knight's, above which three
small figures support a sort of corbel;
another tomb recess, in the south wall of
the church, now occupied by an altar,
shows the Eternal, blessing, above.
The hamlet of S. Mary's which lies two
kilometres out of town, has a good cross.
The church has been cruelly restored.
These crosses grow more frequent now
along the way, and hence into Santiago;
they mark, I suppose, every halt of pil-
grims: by a church that I passed next day,
called I think after S. Roque, was a superb
one.
The church is rather richly adorned. A
good apse shows sculptured corbels, a round-
leaded window with early Gothic capitals
and shafts, a string-course at the level of
the sill, and attached columns on very
ligh plinths with moulded bases. The
west door, built all of granite and fresh
rom the restorer, is notwithstanding curi-
ous: a plain lintel, two round moulded
arches and then one filled with a form that
475
S. Maria
AND MONOGRAPHS
476
WAY OF S.JAMES
Crook
might be an exaggerated crochet-hook or
the head of a shepherd's crook. I think
it is derived from the very similar shape
which appears at Aulnay, S. Croix de
Bordeaux, and Maillezais2 — to name only
three places in France — where it is formed
by the tails of monsters that sit up in
rows. The recurrent curves of this famil-
iar form, when stylized to the last degree,
yield just about this pattern that I saw
at Mellid and in a few other places in
Galicia.
There are three shafts in the door jambs,
around the inmost is wound a ribbon; the
capitals are mostly leaves, but the central
one on the north carries two very handsome
birds with their heads turned back and
a man doing something odd. The south
door has a pair of lions and the other capi-
tals restored as leaves: plain tympanum,
and mouldings more like S. Peter's: in one
order, the scallop overlies a billet moulding.
There were tomb recesses in the church
wall, now blocked.
These tympana were probably painted,
for the apse, inside, is still adorned with
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
477
>aintings that Sr. Lamperez says3 are of
the thirteenth century; he says further,
that their ordinance proceeds directly
rom that of Latin and Byzantine mosaics.
Their presence explains the unusual depth
of the sanctuary. The Eternal, conceived
as the Van Eycks represented Him,
crowned and enthroned, with the Dove
on His breast and Christ Crucified on His
oiees, reigns amid the Tetramorph, and
'our angels trumpet to Judgment in the
barrel-vault. Below, the twelve Apostles
stand under an arcade: and the whole is
bordered with bands of painted ornament,
and a row of angel heads. Sr. Villa-amil
refers to this church under the advoca-
tion of S. Spirito, and he is likely to be
correct; he says the frescoes were dis-
covered by Sr. D. Eduardo Alvarez Car-
ballido. 4 The painting is too ruinous to
afford conjectures as to source and style:
it looks more French than anything else.
Here the sanctuary arch is round: one
capital shows an adaptation of Gallegan
to French Gothic forms; the other, Daniel
with the lions. We have, then, at that
'aintings
AND MONOGRAPHS
478
WAY OF S.JAMES
Signs of
French
passing
Three
sisters
halting place of pilgrims, a thirteenth
century church which could afford rather
sumptuous adornments: two capitals (the
birds, and Daniel) recall the south-west of
France, and thence came probably the
ornament of the western door, and the
painting in the apse.
My little girl was dutiful but unhappy,
as the crowd of children thickened around,
and before we were back at the inn some
boys were throwing stones. A younger
sister joined us, and later a third. Rang-
ing in age from six to eleven, large-eyed
and silky -haired, the three simply walked
in beauty like the night: they were more
lovely than Niobids. They served a
dinner in the great cool clean room their
aunt resigned to me, and I gave them
all that remained of some specially good
chocolate bought in Villafranca from a
pair of Andalusian sisters who know how
chocolate should be prepared, and I told
them tales of lucky little dogs that are
used to come upstairs in the morning and
get on the bed for breakfast: and yet more
tales of what they called the perras senori-
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
tas, of which they were avid, until at last
not they but I felt called to go to bed. In
the vast dim chamber with a glow-worm
lamp softly radiant before a plaster Virgin,
in blanched linen smooth and lavendered,
I could hardly sleep for pleasure: and at
three precisely Antonio knocked me up,
and dragged me out again under the glow-
worm stars.
The Curious Pilgrim, who had taken the
time to look at S. Peter's and remarked
that it was small but held old tombs, got
up by moonlight, and set off before dawn
with a great crowd. He saw nothing else,
I take it, but the lessening road, till at the
hilltop called after S. Marcos, whence the
city is first seen, he sang a poem of his own
and then all went on, their rosaries in
hand, straight to the cathedral.
Manier moved slower:5 he had slept at
Puerto Marin on the twenty-ninth of
October, the thirtieth at a village west of
Arzua, and the thirty-first at las Dos
Casas, still so called. On All Souls' Day,
then, they climbed the long ascent. He
was nearly a league ahead of his party when,
479
S. Marcos
AND MONOGRAPHS
480
WAY OF S. JAMES
coming over the crest at S. Marcos, he
saw three bell-towers plain against the
. . . y nabos
sky: and threw up his hat and shouted.
en otoflo . . .
That made him King, but the monstrous
turnip with which they should have cele-
brated, which Herman and his fellow
had carried well fifty leagues, had been
eaten by a scouting hog two nights before.
So they too went on to the town.
Mountjoy!
"La nuit monte trop
vite et ton espoir est
vain." — Her£dia.
I was bent on finishing my tale of Sta-
Boente
tions : Antonio was bent on making Mellid
again that night. We rode fast under the
wheeling constellations. Before sunrise we
were inspecting S. James of Boente. There
begins the story of an exploit of Bernald
Yanez de Moscoso in the matter of a kid-
napping and a hard ride — one of the finest
rides in history as Vasco de Aponte tells it. x
The church is completely rebuilt and
rather quaint, with two bays of timber
I
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
barrel-vault, constructed in shallow coffers,
and one of timber sloping each way: these
three carried on three transverse round
arches, and then over the sanctuary a
wooden dome with pendentives, remarkably
like the inside of an umbrella. A single
broken capital of the thirteenth century
is built in, over the east window, outside:
it is the sole remains of where the pilgrims
worshipped.
Antonio, I think I have not said, was
well enough looking: tight-knit, with
square cheek-bone and square jaw-bone,
and the sound sense of a free man. When,
lined up in the chamber at Puerto Marin,
the landlord and his second, one on each
side, had recommended him as worthy
of my entire confidence, and Antonio
had given assurance thereupon: "Madam,
you may travel with me as safely as with
your husband," I had replied hastily, "I
had rather you said, With my father."
Whatever his imagined capacity, I had
travelled with him well, and was content,
though he had lied whenever he con-
veniently could, first in the matter of the
AND MONOGRAPHS
481
Castellano
por el
temple
viril y pele-
grino . . .
482
WAY OF S.JAMES
A fair
conscience
Castaflola
road to Pambre, and later in that of the
time necessary to reach Arzua. But his
motives I understood and did not resent
they were quite human. The price he
asked for that journey, was gauged to my
imagined incapacity and not to the trip as
we made it: and curiously, the thing
rankled. When I came next to Puerto
Marin, he gave up attending a feria to
convey me safe to Lugo, at any price I
liked or for nothing, as making honourable
amends. The episode struck me as rather
gallant.
At Castanola there was a Mass, and men
hearing it before their day's work, but there
was no church of architectural pretensions;
not a stone, not a memory of one. So to
Arzua we came in mid-morning, on a day
of cattle fair, whence I was to take the
motor-diligence that stopped for luncheon
there.
Manier calls this Ville Brule, with some
confused notion of the meaning of the
Spanish verb order. In the earlier itiner-
aries it is called Villanova, then Olegoso.
At the end of the twelfth century a priest,
HISPANIC NOTES
A Pilgrim in Santiago
THE WAY
485
D. Stephen, founded a hospice and a
church, which he gave to the chapter of
Santiago in 1209. In 1230 he renewed the
donation and added more. 2 The churches
were rebuilt at an unhappy time; Santiago
has, however, an old tower. Arzua is not
a city done in little, like Mellid, but it has
a dozen streets and lanes perhaps, and two
or three open spaces, besides the enclosure
where the cattle were herded. At the top
of the hill, Gallegans swarmed; in weather-
beaten black for the most part, with only
white stockings, white shirt sleeves, and
an occasional white head-kerchief, to
catch the eye. The faces too were weather-
beaten, relieved only by occasional pleasant
comeliness in the girls, and a dryer Cas-
tilian type, now and then, in the elder men.
Tetzel calls them, "a people who suffer
well both hunger and labours."
The men of Galicia are strong and
laborious; they are said to supply porters
to most of Spain. The women, left at
home, do men's work, in the field, on the
farm, in the village. They are capable, as
we say in New England, but their priests
Arziia
A woman is
a worthy
wight . .
HISPANIC NOTES
486
WAY OF S.JAMES
she serveth
a man . . .
and yet
she hath
but care
and woe. . .
and their husbands have them strictly in
subjection: they are said to keep up the
grossest superstitions and their husbands
are said to beat them. In consequence,
they unite the strength of a man to the
irresponsibility of a child. At Compostella,
in the church, they would go through a
crowd like rowdy small boys, by sheer
strength of shoving with muscular elbows
and trampling with heavy shoes. A little
different racially from other Spanish women,
they have not their sentiment, and have
nothing to take its place. I speak here of
the working women, fishwives and farm-
ers, not of the poetesses with whom Celia
Vazquez corresponded. What they, will
become under a system of personal re-
sponsibility and liberty, it is easy to hope
but not safe to predict. I found them,
taken individually, kind invariably, sen-
sible, and indifferent.
Taken collectively even in their own little
place at Arzua, the men had the helpless-
ness of the weak and the poor before the
brutality of comparative wealth. In the
single shop where they had come to trade,
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
487
or to buy supplies — there was no place else
they could have gone instead — I saw the
establishment brutally refuse to give change
to the peasants, saying, "Buy twenty
centimes more! " when there was nothing to
buy, or simply swallowing up the coin. The
same thing had happened at Astorga while
the train paused: if third-class people, in
the hurry, wanted cakes or coffee, they
got no change. But to me the coppers
were duly counted out.
Outraged and sick at heart, I wandered
up with the boys, to admire the pretty
creatures that I had seen coming in all the
morning: but I found that the cattle mart,
situated there on a hilltop, had not one
fountain, not one watering-trough, inside
the wall. The pretty fawn-coloured calves
are curled up like dogs in exhaustion;
there is no water for all this market, and
very little food; shade and trodden earth,
no more. All the young things have come
many miles, and are completely spent:
even the little pigs are piteous. Their
hard-driven mother has little milk or none,
they nose, and give it up, and go to sleep
AND MONOGRAPHS
Who
suffer
well .
Cattle
mart
488
Sunt
lacrymae
rerum
WAY OF S.JAMES
like sardines, head to tail. A cow with
milk dropping to the ground, wretchedly
licks her calf, who has the half -sleeve of a
purple shirt tied over his nose. It is not
that the Gallegans are peculiarly cruel,
they are simply unimaginative: and then,
they are helpless too, hardworked and
dulled. It was a time for Moses to fetch
water out of the arid soil, not for men and
women, tired from tramping, to carry it in
pails.
Yet there is a difference which makes
more poignant the pain of animals than
ours, more insistent their mercies. They
can suffer, but they cannot look before and
after. It is one thing for us to bear pain in
pride or in hope, quite another to bid the
unconscious or semiconscious to suffer
without a future, with only the present
moment of pain. This applies to men and
animals alike, but even the lowest hu-
man type knows foresight and recollection,
and recognizes expiation and hopes for
fulfilment.
The creatures have such virtues : patience,
submission, good temper under ill-use that
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
no mere machine would stand, affection
in the face of circumstances. Such ways,
when human beings practise them, we call
moral excellence. If someone does not
feel that they are virtues in the creatures,
let him associate with creatures which want
them: let him ride an ill-tempered mule,
or train a dog that has too much ego in her
cosmos. The virtues which we take as
inevitable accidents of existence, among
the four-footed, we seek with pain and
grief for ourselves. Vaguely we recognize
this, and a man insists that he must respect
his dog, but we do not follow the principle
to its conclusion. We may grant them
even rights, "since to be but sentient is to
possess rights," but do we squarely face
our obligation? If our life and well-being
involves of necessity the cruel suffering of
beasts, it is a question whether we are,
some of us, worth it: if not of necessity,
then we are bitterly to blame. Whether
we are worth it, is a real question. There
is no question of the charge laid upon us,
if that price of pain was paid.
To say that without us they would be
AND MONOGRAPHS
489
Human
responsi-
bility
490
TheBishop
of London
Watering
troughs
WAY OF S. JA MES
worse off, is to beg the question. Could
they be better off with us? Life being so
bad, can we help them through it?
Since this was written, the Bishop of
London has come out to forbid prayer for
animals. If Christ did not die for the
animals, so much the worse for that Christ.
This is the Bishop of London who com-
bined with the Emperor of Germany, in
1914, to make God ridiculous, with their
old barbarous traditions of the tribal fetish.
There in Arztia I had no wish to
photograph men and women on their
knees before hideous wooden crosses on
the churchyard wall. A religion that
cannot find water for cattle seemed not
a negative good but a positive evil. Is
there need to add that to present watering-
troughs without crosses would seem admir-
able as conduct but something othei than
religion? Is there need to add that the
Bishop of London in his pronouncement
with its implications had forgotten the
canon of his own Scripture where it declares
that the whole creation which groans
and travails together, is awaiting together
HISPANIC NOTES
THE WAY
the one, the glorious manifestation? Still
it awaits.
With these matters at heart I went back
to the upper chamber where luncheon had
commenced, and some priests, and the
travellers by the motor-omnibus, and the
richer sort from the fair, were all to feed,
and there I highly enjoyed the repartee
exchanged between all these and the hand-
maiden. It was a continuous perform-
ance, and all were experts, and it had plenty
of flavour.
Though I went in to Santiago that day
by motor, being very weary, yet Lhave
from time to time walked in the last tew
miles by all the roads, from Padron, from
Corunna and this way, from the east. As
you top the last ascent you see blue hills
upon the new horizon, and against them,
blue but plain, the three towers. There
were nine in Aymery's day and the church
littered afar with lead and copper roofing.
So the last few miles run down hill, easy for
dusty feet; so, past scrub and furze through
pasture land that is slowly coming under
the plough and past the little church of
491
The
Comedy
Part
AND MONOGRAPHS
492
WAY OF S.JAMES
the Sar, by the Porta Francigena, under the
shadow of S. Domingo, the road comes
into town, and the streets open of them-
selves, turn and wind, till you come out
beside one of the transept doors, and stand
— at the top of steps if it is the northern, at
the bottom if it is the southern, — to marvel
that you should at last be there.
The shadowy majesty of the great
The
church hushes the heart : the dim splendour
Bourne
about the altar glows visible, for the doors
stand wide : the feet that have come so far,
hesitate on the granite pavement.
Fiat amen, alleluja; dicamus solemnitur;
E ultreja, e sus eja, decantemus jugitur!
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
493
NOTES: BOOK TWO
CHAPTER IX
Espana sagrada — Gil Gonzalez Davila,
Teatro edesidstico de Espana — Amador de
los Rios, Burgos — Martinez y Sans, Historia
del templo catedral de Burgos — Street, Gothic
Architecture in Spain — Lamperez, Historia de
la arquitectura — Monumentos arquitectonicos
de Espana. — Justi, Miscettanean aus Drei
J ahrhunderten — Agapito y Revilla's mono-
graph must be mentioned, though it is out of
print and I have not seen it.
•
1 Cock, Jornada de Tarazona, p. 46.
3 Roderick of Toledo, Chronicle, cap. cc.
Documentos ineditos, vol. CV, p. 460.
3 Op. cit., p. 45.
Las Huelgas:
1 Fabie, Viajes de extranjeros, p. 61.
a Cap. c: in Rossell, Coronicas de los reyes de
Castilla, I, 235.
3 All this is in the monograph, unfinished
and unsigned, of Monumentos arquitectonicos.
4 Michel, Histoire de I' Art, II, i, 107.
s Historia de la arquitectura, II, 591.
I
AND MONOGRAPHS
494
WAY OF S. JAMES
6 Memorials of King Henry VII, Rer. Brit.
Scrip., Rolls Series, 1858.
The Cathedral:
I Viaje de Espana, XII, 19.
a Teatro eclesidstico, III, p. 65.
3 Roderick of Toledo, Chronicle, chap.
CCXXVI.
4 Martinez y Sans, Historia del templo
catedral de Burgos, p. 12.
sld.ib.,pp. 12, 77,265.
6 Llaguno, Noticias de los arquitectos, I, 44.
7 Op. cit. ,248.
8Fabie", op. cit., p. 55. The remaining
history of the Cimborio will be found p. 44.
9 There is an engraving of the west front
and parvis in the latter eighteenth century in
Ponz, Viaje de Espana, XII, 24.
10 Hernando Pulgar, in the writer's copy of
Claros varones, 1775, on p. 92 says something
different, but it is possible that the author,
whence the praise was first extracted, used
another version.
II Burgos, p. 537.
a Martinez y Sans, op. cit., p. 288.
13 A. de los Rios, op. cit., p. 590.
1 4 Martinez y Sans, op. cit., p. 90. Con-
tract, p. 267.
'sFabie", op. cit. p. 55.
1(>Op. cit., p. 1 08.
J7 Martinez y Sans, op. cit., p. 187.
J 8 Cf. Florez, Espana sagrada, XXVI, 393.
x» Martinez y Sans, op. cit., 289, 290.
20 Martinez y Sans, op. cit., p. 248.
31 Op. cit., pp. 202-205.
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
495
"Burgos, pp. 771-776.
3* Martinez y Sans, op. cit., p. 74.
3i» C/. Martinez y Sans, op. cit., pp. ,229-232.
3s Martinez y Sans, o£. cit., p. 126.
26 Martinez y Sans, op. cit., pp. 182-189.
2? F«y> «fe Espana, XII, 24, 25.
28 Martinez y Sans, op. cit., p. 282.
Strangers and Pilgrims:
1 Men£ndez y Pelayo, Tratado de los
romances viejos, I, 72.
3 Fable", op. cit., p. 330, 333.
3 Amador de los Rios, op. cit., 326, note.
4 A. M. Huntington's translation, Poem of
the Cid, 11. 2-5.
5 Cock, Jornada de Tarazona, p. 47.
6 4 Lady's Travels into Spain, pp. 150-152.
7 Fabie, op. cit., pp. 58, 59.
8 Pelerinage d' un Paysan Picard, pp. 56-
59-
9 Fable", op. cit., p. xxxvi.
CHAPTER X
Quadrado, Valladolid, Palencia y Zamora
— La Fuente, Historia eclesidstica — Sandoval,
Primera parte de las fundaciones and Historia
de los reyes — Yepes, Coronica general de la
orden de S. Benito — Menendez y Pelayo, An-
tologia de poetas liricos.
1 Historia de la arquitectwa, II, 288.
3 Espana sagrada, XXVI, 357.
3 S. Maria de Almazan was the name of a
shrine, a pilgrimage place near the abbey of
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
496
WAY OF S.JAMES
Palazuelos and there seems here some con-
fusion of the Virgins. Cf. Chronicle of the
Archbishop D. Roderick, cxliii, in Documentos
ineditos, CV, 387.
* Cantigas de S. Maria, nn. 242, 266, 249,
252.
5 Murguia, Galicia, p. 206.
6JLampe"rez, op. cit., I, 470. Cf. also his
"Excursi6n a varies pueblos" in Boletin de la
Sociedad Espanola, 1903, XI, 145 and Notas
sobre algunos monumentos, IV, loc. cit., pp.
172-179.
7 Joaquin de Ciria in Boletin de la Sociedad
Espanola, 1904, XII, 220.
8Menendez Pidal, Primera Coronica gen-
eral de Espana, p. 475.
» Quadrado makes himself responsible for
this, Valladolid, Palencia y Zamora, p. 505;
but the ultimate authority is Yepes, Coronica
general de la or den de S. Benito, VI, pp. 85-86.
10 Op cit., I, 469.
11 Op. cit., p. 504.
" Op. cit., p. 498.
'3 Yepes, op. cit., VI, 85-6.
l*0p. cit., pp. 204, 205.
l*Pelerinage d'un Paysan Picard, p. 62.
1 6 Jornada de Tarazona, p. 39.
*i Primavera y flor de romances, ed. Menen-
dez Pelayo, I, 30.
Villalcazar de Sirga:
x Disertaciones historicas del orden y ca-
valleria de los Templarios, p. 233.
a Viaje de Espana, XI, 192.
3 Op. et. loc. cit.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
497
4 The tombs were published by Amador de
los Rios in Museo Espanol de Antigiiedades, I,
and the effigy alone by Carderera, Iconografia
espanola, Plate XII, p. xii, and II, ii.
sPonz, op. cit., XI, 193.
6 Cantigas, I, 47, No. 31: in Appendix XI,
Miracle i.
^Villani says: "On July 3, 1292, great
and manifest miracles began to be shown forth
in the city of Florence by a figure of Holy
Mary which was painted on a pilaster of the
loggia of S. Michele in Orto, where the grain
was sold; the sick were healed, the deformed
made straight and the possessed visibly de-
livered in great numbers." Quoted in Gard-
ner, The Story of Florence, p. 187.
8 Cantigas de S. Maria, I, 389.
Carrion de los Condes:
1 Cited by Dozy, Recherches, 1, 102.
a Sandoval, Historia de los reyes de Castilla
y Leon, II, p. 202.
3 Yepes, Coronica general de la orden de S.
Benito, VI, 78-9.
4 Yepes, op. cit., VI, 73.
s Espana sagrada, XVII, p. 292.
6 Quoted by Quadrado, Asturias y Leon,
P- 138.
i Espana sagrada, XXIII, 309, 319, 372.
8 V. Menendez y Pelayo, Antologia, iii, Pro-
logo, pp. cxxiv-cxxxvi, superseding Amador
de los Rios and Ticknor. The complete col-
lection is published in Ribadeneyra, Poetas
castellanos anterior es al siglo XV, pp. 331-
372.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
498
WAY OF S.JAMES
9 Though the Spanish instances now under
consideration are later, these may explain as
a backwash the curious cusped arches around
the door of 5. Croix at La Charite~-sur- Loire.
Figured in Baum, pp. 170-177.
10 For instance Sr. Serrano- Fatigati. in Por-
tudas artisticas de monumentos espanoles, pp.
33-35-
11 Congres Archeologique de France. 1910,
Guide Archeotogique, p. 46. I published
Street's drawing in George Edmund Street,
facing p. 249, but labelled wrong. This is a
north porch in the second bay at Candes which
lies just outside Saumur. Le"vy has a good
photograph.
Benevivere:
1 Ponz, Viaje de Espana, XI, p. 202.
3 Published by John M. Burnham, in Ro-
manic Review, II, 280-303.
^ Op. cit. XI, 204.
4 Says Cean, in his Adiciones to Llaguno,
I, 70: ""In the Year 1382 commenced the re-
building of the church of the convent of the
canons of S. Augustine in Benevivere of the
Campos. It has three aisles; the architecture
simple and well-proportioned."
sEzek. i, 10, 20: Rev. iv, 6-8.
6 Bede, Comment, in Cant. Cantic.
iHonorius on the same, in Migne, vol.
CLXXII, col. 462.
8 Male, L'Art Religieux du XHIme Siede,
p. 205. Cf. Ormulum, Preface, 11. 5-26; Cur-
sor Mundi, 11. 21263-21288. E. E. T. S.
Original Series.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
499
» Parera, Espana artistica y monumental, I,
18.
10 Caxton's Life of Charles the Crete, E. E.
T. S. vol. 37, p. 210.
CHAPTER XI
Espana sagrada, XXXIV, XXXV— Sando-
val, Primera parte de las fundaciones — Yepes,
Coronica general de la orden de S. Benito —
Escalona, Historia del real monasterio de
Sahagun — Quadrado, Asturias y Leon — Lam-
pe*rez, Historia de la arquitectura.
1 Sandoval, Primera parte de las funda-
ciones, III, 63.
3 Espana sagrada, XXXIV, 332.
3 Id. ibid., 334.
« Published by both Sandoval and Yepes.
' Escalona, Historia del real monasterio de
Sahagun, p. 34.
6 Id. ibid., p. 46.
* The story, I believe, is Sandoval's: but it
may also be read in Espana sagrada, XXXIV,
240-245.
8 Cf. Archbishop Roderick's Chronicle, cc,
xcii, xcciii in Documentos ineditos, CV, 316-
3I7-
9 Espana sagrada, XXXIV, 334. Luke of
Tuy, in Hispaniae Illustratae, IV, 96.
10 La Fuente, Historia edesidstica, III, 305,
Espana sagrada, XXXV, 120.
» Op. cit., pp. 298, sqq.
**Op. cit., Ill, pp. 56-57.
*»Op.cit., Ill, 306.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
WAY OF S.JAMES
' 4 Id. ibid., IV, 147.
JsLa Fuente, op. cit., Ill, 305. He sub-
stituted for instance, French nuns for Span-
ish at S. Juan de las Abadesas. This last
bit of history explains the architecture of
the great Catalan nun's church, where three
lesser apses opened, two of them obliquely,
from the huge main apse with an ambulatory,
as at Monsempron (Lot-et-Garonne) and in
Legate Richard 'sown country at S. Quinin of
Vaison (Vaucluse).
16 Op. cit., Ill, 61.
«» Espana sagrada, XXXV, 179-180.
** Espana sagrada, XXXIV, 335.
^Escalona, op. cit., 230, sjqq.
20 Diaz Jimenez, Imigracion mozdrabe en el
Reino de Leon, in Boletin de la Real Academia
de Historia, 1892, vol. XX, p. 123, sqq.
21 Journal of the Archaeological Association
of America, 1916, xx.
33 Historia de la arquitectura, I, 691-693.
33 In the Boletin de la Institution Libre de
Ensenanza, VIII, IX, 1885-1887, La antigua
iglesia del monasterio de Sahagun and Algunos
rasgos de la iglesia grande del monasterio de
Sahagun.
24 Lampe*rez, Historia de la arquitectura, I,
693.
25 Lefevre-Pontalis, in Congres Archeologique
de France, 1913, p. 302.
a6 In addition to the pages of admirable
historical summary which Sr. Lamperez gives
to Sahagun, in his Historia de la arquitectura,
688-93, an(i to ^e town churches, 708-710,
two more publications of his should be
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
501
named though I have not been able to see
them, Las iglesias espanolas de ladnllo
(Barcelona, 1904), and the Memorias de
secretaries of his lectures in the Ateneo of
Madrid between 1902 and 1905.
'7 Op. cit., Ill, 55.
Sepultados :
1 Pel&inage d'un Pay son Picard, p. 1 18.
3 The First Book of the Introduction to Know-
ledge, E. E. T. S., extra series, vol. 10, p. 200.
* Galicia, p. 232.
< Schnuder, Des Bohmische Herrn, Leo von
Rosmital, Ritter-, Hcf-, und Pilger-Reise, p.
116.
* Ozanam, Pelerinagt au pays du Cid, p.
93.
6 Ren£ Maizeroy, in Le Gaulois, 29 Septem-
bre, 1908. Reprinted by the Hispanic Society
of America in Five Essays on the Art of Ignacio
Zuloaga, p. 71.
S. Pedro de las Duenas:
1 Escalona, Historta del real monasterio de
Sahagiin, pp. 46, 80.
2 Histona de la arquitectura, I, 463;
Boletin de la Soctedad Espanola de Excursions,
(1904), XII, p. i.
The Pilgrim turns aside to S. Miguel de
Escalada:
1 Pelerinage d'un Paysan, Picard, p. 63.
1 Cantigas del Rey Sabio, ccclv, I, 494.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
502
WAY OF S.JAMES
CHAPTER XII
Espana sagrada, XXXIV, XXXV— Quad-
rado, Asturias y Leon — Museo espanol de anti-
guedades, I, II, VII,— Men<§ndez Pidal, Prim-
era coronica general — Luke of Tuy, Chronicon,
in Hispaniae Illustratae, IV — Fita, Legio VII
Gemina — Demetrio de los Rios, La catedral
de Leon, Monografia — Chronicle of Archbishop
Roderick — Jimenez Diaz, Opuscula — Lam-
pe"rez, Historia de la arquitectura — Street,
Gothic Architecture in Spain.
1 Tacitus, Historia, iii, 4, ii, 2, iii, 5.
a Dozy, Recherches, I, 180. For Roman
Leon the authority is Fr. Fita, in Museo
espanol de antiguedades, I, 449 sqq., in an
earlier work on Leonese inscriptions, and
in later articles published in the Boletin
de la Academia Real de Historia, XIX, 528;
XLII, 392 ; LII, 375 ; LIT, 435- The article on
the Mosaic of Hylas and the Nymphs is by
Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado, op. cit.,
XXXVI, 423.
3 L. Giner Aribau, Folk-lore de Proaza, pp.
228-229.
4 Chronicon, pp. 2, 34.
s Published by Fita in Museo espanol de
antiguedades, XI, with a magnificent plate. Cf.
G6mez Moreno, in Cultura Espanola, 1906,
Excursion a troves del arco de herradura.
6 Leicester B. Holland, The Origin of the
Horseshoe Arch in Northern Spain, in American
Journal of Archaeology (1918), XXII, 397.
7 Gayet, L'Art Copte, pp. 78, 89.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
503
8 Kipling, The Mother-Lodge, in The Seven
Seas, pp. 178, 179.
» Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
P- 155.
10 Asturias y Leon, p. 484.
11 Manier, Pelerinage d'un Paysan Picard
p. 65. Tetzel, the Knight's Secretary in the
vernacular, Fabie, Viaje por Espana, p. 166
Purchas, VII, 530.
12 Viaje de Espana por unanonimo, 1441-8
edited by E. G. R.
1 * Espana sagrada, XXXV, 137.
S. Isidore:
1 Quadrado, Asturias y Leon, p. 492. These
epitaphs, now perished, Quadrado compiled
from Morales and others; I extract from him.
a Op. et loc. cit.
* By Rada y Delgado, op. cit., vol. VII, pp.
449, sqq.
* Velazquez Bosco, El dragon y la serpiente
en el capital romdnico.
s Cumont, Textes et Monuments Figures
relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra, II, 403.
6 In Michel, Histoire de I' Art, II, ii, 250.
7 Street, Gothic Architecture in Spain, I, 159.
8 Quadrado, op. cit., p. 403.
9 Id. ibid., p. 494.
10 Id. ibid., pp. 281-282.
11 Espana sagrada, XXXV, 356.
12 An thy me -Saint Paul, Note sur S. Sernin
de Toulouse, in Bulletin du Comitie de Travaux
Historiques, 1899.
1 3 Delehaye, Les Legendes Hagiographiques,
p. 62.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
504
WAY OF S.JAMES
l*0p. etloc.cit, II, ii, 415.
*sOp. cit, 1,158-159.
16 Michel, I, ii, 564.
'fQuadrado, op. cit., p. 497.
18 Id. ibid., 494.
*» Id. ibid., 497.
ao Luke of Tuy in Hispaniae Illustratae,
IV, p. 97.
" Quadrado, op. cit, 492.
13 Menendez Pidal, Primer a coronica general
de Espana, p. 470.
Doctor Egregius :
1 Espana sagrada, IX, 216-224.
1 Espana sagrada, XVII, 264, 265.
* Espana sagrada, XVII, 316, 317.
* Espana sagrada, XXXV, 93.
* Espana sagrada, XIV, 471.
6 Espana sagrada, XXXV, 72: Risco dis-
agrees with Florez here.
i Espana sagrada, XXXV, 88: The Trans-
latio will be found in IX, 406-412.
8 Espana sagrada, XXXV, 98.
9 R. Menendez Pidal, Primera coronica
general, p. 422.
10 Murguia, Galicia, p. 774.
11 Espana sagrada, IX, 309-315. Cf. also
p. 1 08. It will not perhaps be out of place
to say that Isidore, Pelayo, and Justa are
all historical, in my judgement: Isidore is
uncontested, Pelayo is well attested, and
there seems no reason to doubt of Justa, on
whose legend depends the evidence for the
cult of the Syrian goddess in Spain.
Ia Hispaniae Illustratae, IV, 57.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
505
'J Espana sagrada, XXXV, 205.
*4 The source for this is Luke of Tuyf op.
cit. p. 103, and he for obvious reasons is
discreet, but yet still comprehensible, and
the reader will remember how angry was
King Alfonso's grandfather when the Cid
would not let him have Dona Elvira, his
sister, as he saw her shining like a star, on las
Almenas de Toro.
1 s Chronicle in Documentos ineditos, C V, 434.
16 Op.cit.,p. 104.
1 7 Ed. Menendez Pidal, p 660.
18 Chronicle, in Documentos ineditos, CV,
447-
19 Hispaniae Illustratae, IV, 106: Nogales
Delicado y Rendon, Historia de Ciudad
Rodngo, p. 44.
20 Hispaniae Illustratae, IV, p. 93.
21 Id. ibid., p. 114.
" Id. ibid., p. in.
23R. Menendez Pidal, Primer a coronica
general, p. 694, 698.
3 4 Luke of Tuy, Hispaniae Illustratae,
115-116.
2s Espana sagrada, XXXV, 68.
26 Id. ibid., p. 201, 202, and Morales, Viaje,
p. 50.
27 Id. ibid., p. 201, 236, 314.
28 Espana sagrada, IX, 394-401.
2» Virgil, Georgics, iv, 11. 149-153; Diodorus,
v, 70, 5-25. If, however, as seems probable,
especially in the south, S. James is the suc-
cessor of the native Bull-God and S. Isidore
is here substituted for S. James, then this
looks like a survival of the traditional genera-
AND MONOGRAPHS
506
WAY OF S.JAMES
tion of bees from a dead bull, for which cf.
A. B. Cook, Zeus, p. 514.
J° Espana sagrada, IX, 402-405. The Acts
of the Translation, pp. 406-412, which follow
this, in turn, in F16rez and in the Gothic
MS. from which he copied are, notwithstand-
ing, in another handwriting, id. ibid, p. 230.
3f Analecta Hymnica, XVI, pp. 16, 18.
3» Id. ibid., 186. F. Fita, Estudios his-
toricos, V, 197, 251.
3*Heiss, Monnaies Antiques de I'Espagne,
plates xiv-xxvi.
34 Espana sagrada, XXXV, 93, 95.
Leon the Fair:
1 There is a plate in Demetrio de los Rios,
Monograjia, I, 151.
aRosell y Torres, in Museo espanol de
antiguedades, II.
3 Espana sagrada, XXXV, no sqq. The
name of " will" signifies a document, an act of
volition, not necessarily d'outre-tombe. The
sense may be traced in the formula ''last will
and testament."
< Hispamae Illustratae, IV, no.
s Espana sagrada, XXXV, 218.
6 Llaguno, Noticias de los arquitectos, I,
38.
i Historia del templo catedral de Burgos, p.
182.
» Espana sagrada, XXXV, 268.
' Id. ibid., 269.
10 Id. ibid., 270.
1 * Llaguno, Noticias de los arquitectos, I,
102.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
12 Viaje de Espana, XI, 223.
*J Pedro Rodriguez de Lara, Libro del Pas so
Honroso, p. 14.
^Quadrado, Astunas y Leon, p. 449; De-
metrio de los Rios, Monografia, II, 191 ; Pelayo
Quintero, Sillas de coro, pp. 54-56.
*s Quadrado, op. cit., p. 441, note.
16 Llaguno, op. cit., I, 212.
*?0p. cit., pp. 437-438.
18 Gothic Architecture in Spain, I, 140.
1 » Cited by Demetrio de los Rios, Mono-
grafia, I, 206.
2 ° Espana sagrada, XXXV. Hie jacet famu-
lus Dei Arnaldus episcopus hujus ecclesiae,
qui obiit era MCCLXXIII, in die octavo
Octobis anno MCCXXXV. Cf. Quadrado,
Asturias y Leon, p. 424. Queen Teresa, the
spouse of Ferdinand IT, and Bishop John, had
a plan for making S. Isidro the Cathedral: so
says Juan de Robles in the Book of the Mir-
acles of S. Isidore which professes to be a
translation of the Tudense and is a sort of
chronicle of the abbey; cap. xliij, p. 75.
This must be taken for what it is worth.
21 Chronicle, cap. ccxxxiv, in Documentos
ineditos, vol. CCV, p. 508.
22 This is more probably a book well-
known to the Middle Age, The Protevangel of
James.
2 3 Op. cit., p. 34.
2< Espana sagrada, XXXVI.
2s Published by Osma, Catdlogo de aza-
baches compostelanos, p. 51.
26 Two admirable plates have been pub-
lished in the Monografia, I., 124, 125.
AND MONOGRAPHS
508
WAY OF S . JAMES
3 7 Luke of Tuy, Hispaniae Illustratae, IV,
112.
28 Roderick of Toledo's Chronicle, continua-
tion by D. Gonzalo de la Hinojosa, cap.
ccxxxvi, xxxvi, Documentos ineditos, C VI, 6-9.
Cf. Alvaro Nunez de Castro, Vida de S.
Fernando III, 1787. Quoted by Men£ndez
Pelayo, Tratado de los romances viejos, I. 23.
3» Roderick of Toledo, Chronicle, continua-
tion, p. 5.
CHAPTER XIII
Espana sagrada, XXXIV-XXXVI, XVI,—
Primer a cor onica general — Quadrado, Asturias
y Leon — Street, Gothic Architecture in Spain.
1 Espana sagrada, XXXIV, 477.
3 Mentioned here on page 221 and quoted
by Rada y Delgado in Museo espanol de
antiguedades, VII, 451.
a Espana sagrada, XXXV, 211.
4 V. Appendix.
s Bonnault d'Houet, Pelerinage d'un Pay-
san Picard, pp. 167, 182.
6 Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and A n-
cient Greek Religion, pp. 45, 544.
i Biblioteca del Folklore, VIII, 141.
8 Pelerinage d'un Paysan Picard, p. 67.
9 Menendez Pidal, Primera coronica general,
P- 370-
10 Pelerinage d'un Paysan Picard, p. 68.
Astorga:
1 Anseis de Cartage, 11. 4376-4380.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
509
2 Historia Naturalis, in, 28.
3 Menendez Pidal, Primera coronica general,
P- 376-
4 Traggia in Diccionario geogrdfico-historico,
§11, 104.
s Quadrado, Asturias y Leon, p. 492.
6 Id. ibid., p. 605-606.
T Id, ibid., p. 612; Pelayo Quintero, Stilus
decora, 56-57.
8 Martinez y Sans, Historia del templo
catedral de Burgos, pp. 78, 187.
9 Primera pane de las fundaciones,lll, 6$.
10 Espana sagrada, XVI, 223.
1 » These have been published more than
once, Florez offering a picture of lily-flowers
and moons, as though the Spouse from Le-
banon were invoked: they are all I think in
Hubner's Corpus Inscrip. Lat.
13 Quadrado, op. cit., p. 616.
The Port of Rabanal:
1 Espana sagrada, XVI, 59.
2 Id. ibid., p. 222.
3 Id. ibid., XVI, 205-206.
4 Florez mentions this tradition only to
confute it, Espana sagrada, XVI, 103.
s Op. cit., p. 59.
6 I am sorry to say I cannot trace this note
of mine to its source.
7 Dozy, Recherches, II, 87. Cf. Sandoval,
Cinco reyes, fol. 94.
» Op. cit., ii, 88, 89.
» Espana sagrada, XVI, 60.
.
" Anseis de Cartage, 11. 4773~4779-
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
5io
WAY OF S.JAMES
CHAPTER XIV
Pedro Rodriguez de Lara: Libra del Passo
Honroso defendido por el Excelente Cavallero
Suero de Quinones. Copilado de un libra an-
tiguo de mano por F. Juan de Pineda Religioso
de la Orden de S. Francifco, 1588.
1 Pelerinage d'un Paysan Picard, p. 117.
3 That I take to be the noble apartment
adjoining the north transept, once the chapter-
room, which has lately been recovered and
restored.
3 F. R. Viajes de extranjeros, p. 46.
CHAPTER XV
Espana sagrada — Quadrado, Asturias y
Leon — Lamperez, Historia de la arquitectura —
Gomez Moreno, Opuscula — Caceres Prat, El
Vierzo.
1 Quadrado, Asturias y Leon, pp. 654-665.
3 Id. ibid., 601, 625-628, 652.
3 Espana sagrada, XVI, 32, 34, 37, 323.
* Cahier et Martin, Nouveaux Melanges,
IV, 315; Espana sagrada, XVI, 34-36, 324-
349-
s Espana sagrada, XVI, 37-42 ; Quadrado,
op. cit., 629; Lamperez, Historia de la arquitec-
tura, I, 227.
6 Lamperez, op. cit., I, 231, G6mez Moreno,
in Boletin de la Sociedad Castellana, May,
1908.
7 Quadrado, op. cit., 635.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
5u
Cacabelos:
1 Quadrado, Asturias y Leon, p. 635.
a Caceres Prat, El Vierzo, p. 83.
3 Espana sagrada, XX, 69.
*L6pez Ferreiro, Historic, de la S. A. M.
Iglesia, IV, p. 66 and Appendix vii, pp. 19-
21.
s Erichsen and Ross, Lucca, p. 34.
6Husenbeth, Emblems of Saints, p. 154.
7 Fita et Vinson, Le Codex deS. Jacques, p. i o.
8 Espana sagrada, XVI, 191.
vPelerinage d'un Paysan Picard, p. 69.
VUlafranca:
*Pelerinage d'un Paysan Picard, p. 68.
3 Quadrado, Asturias y Leon, pp. 631, 638-
641.
sUlysse, Robert, Etat des Monasteres Es-
pagnoles del* Ordre de Cluny, in Boletin de la
Real Academia de Historia, 1892, XX, p.
•» Historia del Abad D. Juan de Montemayor,
Valladolid, 1562: reprinted by Mene"ndez
Pidaljp. 34.
s Caceres Prat, El Vierzo, p. 50.
6 Quadrado, Op. cit., p. 641.
7 Figured in Baum, Romanesque Architecture
in France, pp. 42, 45.
8Cahier et Martin, Monographic de la
Cathedral de Bourges. Hucher, Caiques des
Vitraux de la Cathedral du Mans, passim.
9 Op. et loc. cit.
10 Viaggio Occidental a S. Giacomo de
Galizia.
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
512
WAY OF S. JAMES
CHAPTER XVI
Espana sagrada — Quadrado, Asturias y
Leon — Murguia, Galicia — Villa-amil, Iglesias
gallegas — Angel del Castillo, For las monta-
nas de Galicia in Boletin de la Real Academia
Gallega — Lopez Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A.
M. Iglesia de Santiago and Galicia en el ultimo
tercio del siglo XV — Fita et Vinson, Le
Codex de S. Jacques le Majeur.
The River Road:
1 Espana sagrada, XXXVI, Appendix xxvii,
xxxiv, 225, XL, 131.
3 Espana sagrada, XXXV, 108.
3 Quadrado, Asturias y Leon, p. 624.
* Fita et Vinson, Le Codex de S. Jacques, p. 6.
s Lopez Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A. M.
Iglesia, IV, 307.
6 A. del Castillo, For las montanas de Gali-
cia, in Idea Moderna, 15 April, 1914.
? Lopez Ferreiro, op. cit., IV, Appendix Hi,
p. 126.
8 Loc. cit.
9 For las montanas de Galicia in Boletin de la
Real Academia Gallega, November, 1913.
10 Coronica general de la Orden de S, Benito,
IV, 65.
11 Op. cit., IV, 306; Espana sagrada, XVIII,
277.
iaOn p. 165: somewhat condensed here.
Yepes, op. cit., IV, 64.
'3 Lopez Ferreiro, op. cit., IV, 307.
1 < Loc. cit.
*s L6pez Ferreiro, op. cit., Ill, 248.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
NOTES
513
16 Espana sagrada, XVII, 98-99.
In Galicia:
1 Espana sagrada, XL, 131, XXXIV, 225.
3 Lopez Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A. M.
Iglesia, II, Appendices xlii, xlvi.
3 Id. ibid., p. 549, Appendix xlviii.
4 Annales Cister -censes, I, 305-306.
s Espana sagrada, XL, pp. 202 sqq., Memo-
rias del insigne monasterio de S. Julian y de S.
Basilisa.
6 Juan Mene"ndez Pidal, Coleccion de los
viejos romances, No. Ixii, pp. 219-220.
7 Llaguno, Noticiasdelosarquitectos, I, p. 51.
8 Espana sagrada, XLI, 5; id. ibid., p. 28.
9 S. Salvador de Sarria, in Boletin de la Real
Academia Gallega, v, 37 (September 20,
1910), pp. 14-16.
10 Qttadrado, Asturias y Leon, p. 407.
11 Espana sagrada, XL, 172.
12 Monografia geogrdfico-historica de Galicia,
p. 769.
l3Loc. cit.
The Unknown Church:
lMateriales y documentos de arte espanol,
II, 86.
2 Campomanes, Disertaciones historicas del
or den y cavalleria de los templar 'ios, p. 81.
3 Pliny, Natural History, 1, xvi, 29.
•
4 Espana sagrada, XLI, 43.
s I should add that since the page was
written they have been building a road to
Lugo, straight as a string for five leagues or
more, over hill and dale. The last time we
AND MONOGRAPHS
I
5-4
WAY OF S.JAMES
went there, dropping off the Chantada
coach at the highway, and walking down the
seven miles to see our friends, we found that
it was nearly completed.
6 Campomanes, op. cit., p. 250.
* L6pez Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A. M.
Iglesia, II, 278, from the Cantulary of Ce-
lanova, vol. Ill, fol. 198, verso.
8 Espana sagrada, XVII, 24.
» Fita et Vinson, Le Codex de S. Jacques,
p. 8.
10 Lopez Ferreiro, op. cit., IV, 75, 306.
11 Espana sagrada, XLI, 80.
12 Id. ibid., 123.
13 Campomanes, op. cit., p. 250.
14 Van Beschryving Spanjen en Portugal,
1,50.
Whinny Moor:
1 Alvarez Carballido, in Galicia diplomdtica,
III, 68.
a Figured in Baum, Romanesque Archi-
tecture in France, p. 87.
3 Historia de la arquitectura, I, 423. He re-
fers to Galicia historica, 1900-1902, pp. 800
sqq.
« Villa-amil, Iglesias gallegas, p. 124.
s Pelerinage d'un Paysan Picard, pp. 70-72.
Mountjoy:
1 Lopez Ferreiro, Galicia en el ultimo tercio
del siglo XV, i, 13.
a Lopez Ferreiro, Historia de la S. A. M.
Iglesia, V, 103.
I
HISPANIC NOTES
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