produced from images available at The Internet Archive)

                          THE SPANISH SERIES

                             LEON, BURGOS

                                  AND

                               SALAMANCA

                          THE SPANISH SERIES

                     _EDITED BY ALBERT F. CALVERT_

                        GOYA
                        TOLEDO
                        MADRID
                        SEVILLE
                        MURILLO
                        CORDOVA
                        EL GRECO
                        VELAZQUEZ
                        THE PRADO
                        THE ESCORIAL
                        ROYAL PALACES OF SPAIN
                        GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA
                        SPANISH ARMS AND ARMOUR
                        LEON, BURGOS, AND SALAMANCA
                        CATALONIA, VALENCIA, & MURCIA
                        VALLADOLID, OVIEDO, SEGOVIA
                        ZAMORA, AVILA, AND ZARAGOZA

                             LEON, BURGOS
                             AND SALAMANCA

                     A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE
                    ACCOUNT. BY ALBERT F. CALVERT,
                        WITH 462 ILLUSTRATIONS

                  LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
                  NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMVIII

        Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty

                                 _To_

                        _THE MARQUIS OF VIANA_

                      _The History of whose House

                       Is indissolubly connected

                     With the Grandest Traditions

                               of Spain

                       This Volume is Dedicated

                       With a Sincere Expression

                        Of the Author’s Esteem_

PREFACE

In the plan of this book, as in the other volumes of the Series, the
text has been made subordinate to and explanatory of the illustrations,
which, I venture to hope, will be found to form a complete and useful
panorama of the monumental glories of these grand old cities. I have not
proposed to write a guide-book for the tourist, but rather to supply him
with a souvenir, and to provide a manual for those interested in
architecture and archæology. I have avoided technology as much as
possible, as my appeal is not to the professional student, but to the
amateur (in the true sense) of the arts. In order to supplement my own
knowledge and revise the impressions derived from personal observation
in the three towns, I have availed myself freely of the works of others
who have laboured in the same field, and have been at much pains to
consult all the writings I could find upon the subject. The lengthy list
of authorities I have consulted need not be recited here, as they are
duly acknowledged in the text.

As in the case of all the cities dealt with in this Series, I have
prepared a brief historical sketch of Leon, Burgos, and Salamanca.
Their early history is largely of a speculative and debatable character,
and much of it has been learnedly discounted by modern writers. Let me
explain at once, that while recounting incidents which may be suspected
of merely traditional origin, I neither accept nor reject the criticism
of these recent historians, and if I do not quote their conclusions, it
is because they are often too conflicting to be embodied in so slight a
work. I would also add, that a quotation is not to be taken as a blind
acceptance of the accuracy of the dicta or as a recognition of the
writer as an absolute authority.

In conclusion, I may explain that I have dealt more briefly with the
architecture of these Gothic cities than with the Moorish monuments of
Seville, Cordova, and Granada, my reason being that the general reader
is more familiar with Gothic and Renaissance styles than with the rarer
work of the Arabs.

To Mr. E. B. d’Auvergne I offer my grateful acknowledgment of the
assistance he has rendered me in the compilation of the text, and my
thanks are also due to Señor J. Lacoste and Messrs. Hauser y Menet for
their permission to reproduce many of the photographs which appear in
this volume.

                                                               A. F. C.

CONTENTS

CHAP.              PAGE

  I. LEON             1

 II. BURGOS          33

III. SALAMANCA       96

ILLUSTRATIONS

LEON

SUBJECT                                                            PLATE

General View of Leon,                                                  1

View from the Cemetery,                                                2

Cathedral: View from the North,                                        3

Cathedral: General View,                                               4

Leon Cathedral,                                                        5

Cathedral: Door of the Cross-Aisle (restored),                         6

Leon Cathedral,                                                        7

Lateral Façade of the Cathedral,                                       8

Longitudinal Section of the Cathedral,                                 9

Cathedral: Stained Glass Window of the Thirteenth Century,            10

Cathedral: Stained Glass Window of the Fourteenth Century,            11

Plan of the Cathedral,                                                12

Cathedral: Central Gate of the Principal Porch,                       13

Cathedral: Right Gate of the Principal Porch,                         14

Cathedral: Detail of the Lower Part of the Principal Portico,         15

Cathedral: Arch of the Central Portico,                               16

Cathedral: Arch of the Right Door,                                    17

Cathedral: Left Gate of Principal Porch,                              18

Cathedral: Gate of the Coro,                                          19

Cathedral: Door of the Chapel of St. Andrew,                          20

Cathedral: Painted Walls,                                             21

Cathedral: Statue of Our Lady La Blanca in the Principal Porch,       22

Cathedral: A Sepulchre,                                               23

Cathedral: Sepulchre of Don Ordoño II.,                               24

Cathedral: Sepulchre of Martin, First Bishop of Leon,                 25

Cathedral: Detail of the Door of the Chapel of St. Andrew,            26

Cathedral: The Cloisters. Our Lady Del Foro and the Offerings
of the Kings,                                                         27

Cathedral: Spandril of Central Gate. The Last Judgment,               28

Cathedral: Spandril of Central Gate. The Last Judgment,               29

Cathedral: Detail of the Right Gate,                                  30

Cathedral: Detail of the Gate of the Chapel of St. Andrés,            31

Cathedral: Various Statues from the Cross Aisle,                      32

Cathedral: Detail of the Right-hand Portico,                          33

Cathedral: The Back of the Choir,                                     34

Cathedral: The Choir Stalls,                                          35

Cathedral: The Choir Stalls,                                          36

Cathedral: Detail of the Choir,                                       37

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. The Guardian Angel of Paradise,
and the Archangel St. Michael,                                        38

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. Noah, Adam and Eve,                          39

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. The Archangel Gabriel and Abraham,           40

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. Isaac and Jacob,                             41

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. Esau,                                        42

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. Samson,                                      43

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. St. Mathias and St. Mark,                    44

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. St. Luke and St. Bartholomew,                45

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. St. Andrew and St. Peter,                    46

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. Santiago Alfeo and St. Philip,               47

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. St. John the Evangelist and Santiago,        48

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. Saint Mary Magdalene and Santo
Domingo,                                                              49

Cathedral: In the Choir. St. Nicodemus and Valour,                    50

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. St. Martha and St. Lucy,                     51

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. St. Francis and St. Catherine,               52

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. St. Froylan and St. Nicholas,                53

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. San Vitorino and San Martin,                 54

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. Santa Cristina and Santa Elena,              55

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. San Gregorio and San Geronimo,               56

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. San Silvestre and San Lupercio,              57

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. San Lorenzo and San Vicente,                 58

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. San Celedonio and San Esteban,               59

Cathedral: Choir Stalls. A Saint,                                     60

Cathedral: Detail of the Choir Stalls,                                61

Cathedral: Detail of the Choir Stalls,                                62

Cathedral: Statue of the Virgin,                                      63

Cathedral: Detail of the Cloisters,                                   64

Cathedral: Bas-reliefs in the Cloisters,                              65

Façade of the Collegiate Church of San Isidoro,                       66

Gate of Pardon: Collegiate Church of San Isidoro,                     67

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro,                                     68

Principal Gate of the Collegiate Church of San Isidoro,               69

Panteon of the Kings in the Collegiate Church of San Isidoro,         70

Spandril of Gate of Pardon: Collegiate Church of San Isidoro,         71

Fresco of the Panteon of the Kings in the Collegiate Church of
San Isidoro. End of Eleventh Century,                                 72

Sections and Details of the Panteon of San Isidoro,                   73

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro: Painting on the Wall of the
Panteon of the Kings,                                                 74

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro: Paintings on the Walls of
the Panteon of the Kings,                                             75

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro: Chalice and Paten of Doña
Urraca, and Cross,                                                    76

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro: Ivory Cross of King Fernando
I. and Sancha his Wife,                                               77

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro: Relics, containing St. Martin’s
Hand, St. John Baptist’s Jaw, one of St. Isidoro’s Fingers,
and some of the Virgin’s Hair,                                        78

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro: Chalice and Crucifix in
Filigree Gold,                                                        79

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro: Ivory Coffer,                       80

Collegiate Church of San Isidoro: Gothic Crucifix in Gold,            81

San Miguel de Escalada: General View of the Convent,                  82

San Miguel de Escalada: Exterior of the Temple and Portico,           83

San Miguel de Escalada: Interior of the Church,                       84

San Miguel de Escalada: Interior of the Church,                       85

San Miguel de Escalada: Southern Façade, Plan, and Details
(Town Hall, Gradefes)                                                 86

San Miguel de Escalada: Longitudinal and Transverse Sections
and Details. (Town Hall, Gradefes),                                   87

Details of San Miguel de Escalada. (Town Hall, Gradefes),             88

San Miguel de Escalada: A Capital in the Church,                      89

Our Lady Del Mercado,                                                 90

Our Lady Del Mercado: Barred Window in the Principal
Façade,                                                               91

Church of San Pedro de Los Huertos,                                   92

General View of the Convent of San Marcos,                            93

Principal Façade of the Convent of San Marcos,                        94

Detail of the Façade of the Convent of San Marcos,                    95

Entrance to the Convent of San Marcos,                                96

Detail of the Façade of the Convent of San Marcos,                    97

Detail of the Façade of the Convent of San Marcos,                    98

Detail of the Façade of the Convent of San Marcos,                    99

Detail of the Façade of the Convent of San Marcos,                   100

Detail of the Façade of the Convent of San Marcos,                   101

Sacristy in the Convent of San Marcos,                               102

Stalls in the Convent of San Marcos,                                 103

Church of San Marcos: Detail of the Choir,                           104

Church of San Marcos: Detail of the Choir Stalls,                    105

Church of San Marcos: Detail of the Stalls,                          106

Church of San Marcos: Detail of the Choir Stalls,                    107

Church of San Marcos: Detail of the Choir,                           108

Provincial Museum of San Marcos: Tray, Crucifix, and Vase,           109

Provincial Museum of San Marcos: Cross of Santiago de
Peñalva,                                                             110

Provincial Museum of San Marcos: Christ in the Byzantine
Style, and the Virgin in the Gothic Style,                           111

Provincial Museum of San Marcos: San Francisco,                      112

Don Ordoño II. presenting his Palace to the Virgin,                  113

Standard of Alfonso VII., Emperor, now belonging to the
Illustrious Families of Leon,                                        114

Tower of the Ponces,                                                 115

Las Casas Consistoriales,                                            116

House of the Guzmanes,                                               117

Bastions of the Ancient Walls,                                       118

Calle de Santa Ana,                                                  119

Corner of the House of the Guzmanes,                                 120

View of the Railway Station,                                         121

General View of Astorga,                                             122

Mountaineers of the Province,                                        123

Ivory Casket of the Ninth Century, from San Isidoro at
Leon, now in the National Archæological Museum,                      124

Two Statues in the Archæological Museum,                             125

BURGOS

View of Burgos,                                                      126

General View of Burgos,                                              127

La Plaza Mayor,                                                      128

General View from the Castle,                                        129

Mansion of the Cid,                                                  130

El Paseo del Espolon,                                                131

View from the Provincial Museum,                                     132

A View of Burgos,                                                    133

The Cathedral,                                                       134

Façade of the Cathedral,                                             135

Cathedral: Puerta de la Pellegeria,                                  136

Cathedral: View from the Cloisters,                                  137

Cathedral: Upper Part of the Tower,                                  138

Cathedral: The Constable’s Chapel,                                   139

Cathedral: Principal Front,                                          140

Cathedral: From the Cloisters Garden,                                141

Towers of the Cathedral,                                             142

Cathedral: One of the Spires,                                        143

Cathedral: Bosses--Detail, Spire Windows--Angle and
Crocket of Spire,                                                    144

Cathedral: Interior of Spire--Doorway to Spire,                      145

Court of the Cathedral,                                              146

General Plan of the Cathedral,                                       147

Burgos Cathedral,                                                    148

Cathedral: View of the Principal Nave and High Altar,                149

Burgos Cathedral,                                                    150

Cathedral: View of the Nave from the Gate of the Pellegeria,         151

Cathedral: Back Part of the High Altar,                              152

Cathedral: Choir Stalls,                                             153

Interior of the Cathedral,                                           154

Details in the Cathedral,                                            155

Details in the Cathedral,                                            156

Details in the Cathedral,                                            157

Details in the Cathedral,                                            158

Details in the Cathedral,                                            159

Details in the Cathedral,                                            160

Cathedral: Exterior of the Constable’s Chapel,                       161

Cathedral: Interior View of the Constable’s Chapel,                  162

Cathedral: The Constable’s Chapel,                                   163

Cathedral: Details of the Constable’s Chapel,                        164

Cathedral: Details of the Constable’s Chapel,                        165

Cathedral: The Constable’s Chapel from the Altar,                    166

Cathedral: Entrance to the Constable’s Chapel,                       167

Cathedral: Details of the Constable’s Chapel,                        168

Cathedral: Altar-piece on the Epistle Side of the Constable’s
Chapel,                                                              169

Cathedral: Windows of Sacristy, the Constable’s Chapel,              170

Cathedral: Doorway and Window in the Constable’s Chapel,             171

Cathedral: Santa Ana, in the Altar-piece of the Constable’s
Chapel,                                                              172

Cathedral: St. Margaret with the Monster at her Feet, in
the Altar-piece of the Constable’s Chapel,                           173

Cathedral: Details of the Principal Chapel,                          174

Cathedral: Details of the Exterior of the Principal Chapel,          175

Cathedral: Exterior of the Principal Chapel,                         176

Cathedral: Chapel of St. Anne,                                       177

Cathedral: Details of the Altar-piece in the Chapel of
St. Anne,                                                            178

Cathedral: Chapel of Santa Tecla,                                    179

Cathedral: Staircase leading to Puerta Alta de la Coroneria,         180

Cathedral: View of the Cloisters,                                    181

Cathedral: Gate of the Old Sacristy in the Cloisters,                182

Cathedral: The Cloister Gate,                                  183

Cathedral: Puerta Del Sarmental,                                     184

Cathedral: Gate of Pardon,                                           185

Cathedral: A Doorway,                                                186

Cathedral: A Doorway,                                                187

Cathedral: Porch of the Pellegeria,                                  188

Cathedral: Puerta Alta de la Coroneria,                              189

Cathedral: Puerta Alta de la Coroneria,                              190

Cathedral: The Famous Coffer of the Cid,                             191

Cathedral: Central Dome in the Cross-aisle,                          192

Cathedral: Processional Door in the Cloisters,                       193

Cathedral: Entrance to the Cloisters,                                194

Cathedral: Detail of the Door leading to the Gothic
Cloisters,                                                           195

Cloisters of the Cathedral,                                          196

The Lower Cloisters. Eleventh Century,                               197

Cathedral: The Cloisters,                                            198

Cathedral: The Cloisters,                                            199

Cathedral: The Cloisters,                                            200

Cathedral: Detail of the Cloisters,                                  201

Cathedral: Bas-relief in the Lower Cloisters. Eleventh
Century,                                                             202

Cathedral: Bas-reliefs in the Lower Cloisters. Eleventh
Century,                                                             203

Cathedral: Soffits of Cloister Arches and Ornaments from
Doors,                                                               204

San Fernando and Doña Beatriz of Swabia in the Cathedral
Cloisters,                                                           205

Cathedral: Longitudinal Section of the Cloisters. Eleventh
Century,                                                             206

Cathedral: Details of the Sepulchre of Don Fernando Diez
de Fuente-Pelayo,                                                    207

Niches with Tombs in the Cathedral Cloisters,                        208

Cathedral: Puerta Del Sarmental,                                     209

Cathedral: Sepulchre of Don Fernando Diez de Fuente-Pelayo,
Abbot of St. Martin,                                                 210

Details of Screens in the Cathedral,                                 211

Cathedral: El Cristo de Los Huevos,                                  212

Cathedral: Sepulchre of Archbishop Luis de Acuña,                    213

Cathedral: Sepulchre of the Founder of the Cathedral,                214

Cathedral: Our Lady la Mayor, Statue of Silver,                      215

Cathedral: Processional Crucifix in Silver Gilt, the Work of
Juan de Arfe in 1592,                                                216

Cathedral: Gold Enamelled Vase with Cover and Antique
Medallions, two Silver Gilt Goblets, and Jug,                        217

Cathedral: Double-handled Vessel with Cover, the Work of
Dom. Urquiza de Madrid, in 1771,                                     218

Cathedral: Statues of Saints and Ecclesiastics,                      219

Cathedral: Details of Balconies,                                     220

Cathedral: Remains of Altar--Relievo from Portal. Eleventh
Century,                                                             221

Cathedral: Compartment of Apsis,                                     222

Cathedral: Part of the Open Gallery or Triforium,                    223

Cathedral: Details of the Choir Stalls,                              224

Altar-piece of the Church of San Nicolás,                            225

La Cartuja: General View of the Church,                              226

La Cartuja: Gate of the Church,                                      227

La Cartuja: Sepulchre of the Infante Don Alonso,                     228

La Cartuja: Interior View of the Church,                             229

La Cartuja : Sepulchre of the Infante Don Alonso,                    230

La Cartuja: Sepulchre of the Sovereigns John II. and Isabel
of Portugal,                                                         231

La Cartuja: Sepulchre of the Sovereigns John II. and Isabel
of Portugal,                                                         232

La Cartuja: Statue of San Bruno,                                     233

La Cartuja: Details of the Sepulchre of the Sovereigns
John II. and Isabel of Portugal,                                     234

La Cartuja: Details of the Sepulchre of the Sovereigns
John II. and Isabel of Portugal,                                     235

La Cartuja: Details of the Sepulchre of the Sovereigns
John II. and Isabel of Portugal,                                     236

La Cartuja de Miraflores: Details of the Choir Stalls, and
Stall of the Officiating Priest,                                     237

La Cartuja de Miraflores: Stalls of the Lay Brothers,                238

La Cartuja de Miraflores: A Side Door,                               239

La Cartuja de Miraflores: Detail of the Choir,                       240

La Cartuja de Miraflores: Choir Stalls,                              241

La Cartuja de Miraflores: Detail of the Choir Stalls,                242

La Cartuja de Miraflores: The Prior’s Stall,                         243

La Cartuja: Detail of the Sepulchre of Don Juan II. and his wife,    244

La Cartuja: Sepulchre of the Infante Don Alonso, brother of
Isabel I.,                                                           245

La Cartuja: Tomb of the Infante,                                     246

La Cartuja: Compartment of King’s Tomb,                              247

La Cartuja: Portions of Cornice, King’s Tomb,                        248

La Cartuja: Ornament from the Infante’s Tomb,                        249

La Cartuja: King’s Effigy--Infante’s Robe--Infante’s Prie-Dieu
Cloth,                                                               250

La Cartuja: Panelled Wall--Alabaster Crown and Tassels,              251

La Cartuja de Miraflores: A Sixteenth-Century Chimneypiece,          252

Cathedral and La Cartuja: Effigies from Tombs,                       253

La Cartuja: Ceiling Ornaments--Cathedral: Details from
the Constable’s Monument,                                            254

Convent of Las Huelgas: View of the Temple,                          255

Convent of Las Huelgas: Façade of the Monastery,                     256

Convent of Las Huelgas: Patio de San Fernando,                       257

Convent of Las Huelgas: Entrance to the Church,                      258

Convent of Las Huelgas,                                              259

Church of Las Huelgas,                                               260

A Sepulchre in the Convent of Las Huelgas,                           261

Details of the Exterior of Santa Maria La Real commonly
called de Las Huelgas,                                               262

Cloisters and Sepulchre in the Convent of Las Huelgas,               263

A Sepulchre in the Convent of Las Huelgas,                           264

A Sepulchre in the Convent of Las Huelgas,                           265

Sepulchres in the Choir of Santa Maria La Real de Las
Huelgas,                                                             266

Convent of Las Huelgas: View of the Choir,                           267

Convent of Las Huelgas: The Cloisters,                               268

Convent of Las Huelgas: Cloisters of San Fernando,                   269

Convent of la Huelgas: Entrance to the Nave of St. John,             270

Convent of la Huelgas: Door in the Chapel of San Salvador,           271

Convent of la Huelgas: The Cloisters,                                272

Convent of la Huelgas: Flag taken by Alfonso VIII. at the
Battle of Las Navas,                                                 273

Gate of the King’s Hospital,                                         274

Façade of the Church of the Hospital of the King,                    275

Interior View of the Courtyard of the Hospital of the King,          276

Cloisters in the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos,                277

Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silas (Silos),                         278

Caskets and Chalice in the Monastery of Santo Domingo de
Silos,                                                               279

Reliquary, Details, and Paten in the Monastery of Santo
Domingo de Silos,                                                    280

Detail of an Altar: Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos,             281

The Arch of Fernan Gonzalez,                                         282

Gate of the Hospital of St. John,                                    283

Monastery of San Juan de Ortega: Sepulchre of the Founder,           284

Gate of the House of the ‘Cordon,’                                   285

House of the ‘Cordon,’                                               286

Church of San Gil: Chapel of the Nativity,                           287

Altar-piece of the Buena Mañana in San Gil,                          288

Church of San Gil: Altar-piece of the Chapel of the Kings,           289

Gate of the Church of San Lesmes,                                    290

Altar-piece in San Lesmes,                                           291

Porch of the Church of San Estéban,                                  292

Entrance to the Parish Church of San Nicolás,                        293

Altar-piece in San Nicolás de Bari,                                  294

Archway of Santa Maria, Sixteenth Century,                           295

Gate of Santa Maria,                                                 296

The Arco de Santa Maria,                                             297

Provincial Museum: Arabesques of the Arco de Santa Maria,            298

Exterior View and Detail of the Arch of Santa Maria,                 299

Provincial Museum: Sepulchre of Don Juan de Padilla in
Fresdelval, Fifteenth Century,                                       300

Provincial Museum: Sepulchre of Don Juan de Padilla,                 301

Interior View of the Provincial Museum,                              302

Provincial Museum: Front of an Altar in Enamelled Bronze,
Eleventh Century,                                                    303

Provincial Museum: Visigothic Sepulchre of Sixth Century,
found at Briviesca,                                                  304

Coffin of Briviesca: Preserved in the Provincial Museum,             305

Provincial Museum: Roman Statue found in the Ruins of
Salonica,                                                            306

Transverse Section and Details of the Church of San Juan (Baños),    307

Church of Gamonal,                                                   308

Interior of the Church of Gamonal,                                   309

Portal of the Church of the Villa de Sasamón,                        310

Tower of the Church of the Villa de Santa Maria Del Campo,           311

Chapel of Our Lady of the Valley in the Rodilla Monastery,
General View of the Exterior,                                        312

Chapel of Our Lady of the Valley in the Rodilla Monastery,
Porch--Interior,                                                     313

Monastery of Fresdelval: Portal,                                     314

Monastery of Fresdelval: Hospice,                                    315

Monastery of Fresdelval: Cloisters,                                  316

Monastery of Fresdelval: Window in the Ruined Temple,                317

Monastery of Fresdelval: Window in the Ruined Temple,                318

Olmillos Castle,                                                     319

A Courtyard,                                                         320

Lerma: The Duke of Lerma’s Palace and the College,                   321

Lerma: The College,                                                  322

Lerma: Interior of the Collegiate Church,                            323

Lerma: Sepulchre of the Cardinal Duke of Lerma,                      324

Lerma: Details of the Sepulchre of the Cardinal Duke of
Lerma,                                                               325

Lerma: The Magdalene. (Copy of a Picture by Leonardo
Da Vinci),                                                           326

Lerma: Our Lady of the Silla. (Copy of a Picture by Raphael),        327

Bridge of Horadada,                                                  328

SALAMANCA

Cathedral, from the East,                                            329

General View from the School,                                        330

General View of Salamanca,                                           331

General View of Salamanca,                                           332

A Portion of Salamanca,                                              333

Roman Bridge over the Tormes,                                        334

Bridge of Bejar,                                                     335

View of the Ancient Wall,                                            336

Principal Nave of the Old Cathedral,                                 337

Nave of Cross-aisle of the Old Cathedral,                            338

Sepulchres in the Old Cathedral,                                     339

Longitudinal Section of the Old Cathedral,                           340

Sepulchres in the Old Cathedral,                                     341

Sepulchres in the Cross-aisle, Old Cathedral,                        342

Sepulchre in the Cloisters of the Old Cathedral,                     343

Sepulchre in the Cloisters of the Old Cathedral,                     344

Sepulchre in the Cloisters of the Old Cathedral,                     345

Capitals of the Sepulchres in the Cloisters of the Old Cathedral,    346

Capitals of the Sepulchres in the Cloisters of the Old Cathedral,    347

Capitals of the Sepulchres in the Cloisters of the Old Cathedral,    348

Capitals and Effigies in the Old Cathedral,                          349

Capitals in the Old Cathedral,                                       350

The Old Cathedral,                                                   351

Details of the Outside and Plan of the Cupola of the Old
Cathedral,                                                           352

The Cathedral,                                                       353

View of the Cathedral from the ‘Seminario,’                          354

Cathedral: East Façade,                                              355

Tower of the Cathedral,                                              356

Cathedral: The Tower del Gallo,                                      357

Principal Façade of the Cathedral,                                   358

Principal Nave in the Cathedral,                                     359

Cathedral: View of the Cross-aisle,                                  360

Cathedral: Entrance to the Chapel of the Bishop of Seville,
Don Diego de Anaya,                                                  361

Cathedral: View of the Sacristy,                                     362

Cathedral: Chapel in the Cloisters,                                  363

Chapel of St. Barbara in the Cathedral Cloisters,                    364

Cathedral: Dome of the Tower of the ‘Gallo,’                         365

Cathedral: General View of the Puerta del Nacimiento,                366

Cathedral: Gate of the Nativity,                                     367

Cathedral: Gate of St. Clement,                                      368

Cathedral: Gate of the ‘Ramos,’                                      369

Cathedral: Gate of the Patio Chico,                                  370

Cathedral: Right-hand Gate; or, Gate of the Bishop,                  371

Cathedral: The Beheading of St. John Baptist. (By Jac.
Geronimo Espinosa),                                                  372

Cathedral: The Virgin holding the Dead Body of her Divine
Son.    (Pietá in wood, by Salvador Carmona),                        373

Cathedral: Wooden Crucifix with which the troops of the
Cid were harangued. The Smaller Crucifix the Cid carried
beneath his Armour,                                                  374

Cathedral: Chair and Table in the Chapter Hall,                      375

General View of the Church of Santo Domingo,                         376

Detail of the Façade of Santo Domingo,                               377

Façade of the Church of Santo Domingo,                               378

Detail of the Façade of Santo Domingo,                               379

Cloisters of Santo Domingo,                                          380

Interior of the Church of Santo Domingo,                             381

Arches in the Choir of the Church of Santo Domingo,                  382

Interior View of the Sacristy of Santo Domingo,                      383

Door of the Conference Hall of Santo Domingo,                        384

General view of the Cloisters of Santo Domingo,                      385

Cloisters of Santo Domingo,                                          386

Fresco in the Church of Santo Domingo, by Palomino,                  387

Door of the church of St. Martin,                                    388

Gate of the Church of St. Martin,                                    389

Door of the Church of San Justo,                                     390

Church of the Augustines: The Conception of the Virgin, by
Ribera,                                                              391

Gate of the Church of San Benito,                                    392

Parish Church of the Holy Spirit,                                    393

Portal of the Parish Church of the Holy Spirit,                      394

Church of the Third Order of St. Francis,                            395

View of the Seminary from the Irlandeses,                            396

View of the Seminary,                                                397

Chapter Hall in the Seminary,                                        398

The Seminary: Abraham offering Melchisedech Bread and Wine,          399

The Seminary: The Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon, by
Rubens,                                                              400

The Seminary: Christ scourged. Statue in wood by Salvador
Carmona,                                                             401

General View of the University,                                      402

Façade of the University,                                            403

Upper Part of the Façade of the University,                          404

Lower Part of the Façade of the University,                          405

University: Medallion representing the Catholic Sovereigns
over the Principal Entrance,                                         406

Façade of the University,                                            407

Library in the University,                                           408

University: Altar of the Chapel,                                     409

Gallery in the University,                                           410

Portico of the University,                                           411

Details of the Porch of the University,                              412

Details of the Porch of the University,                              413

Door of the Library of the University,                               414

Court of the College of the Irlandeses,                              415

Façade of the College of the Irlandeses,                             416

Porch of the College of the Irlandeses,                              417

Portico of the Chapel of the College of the Irlandeses,              418

Court of the College of the Irlandeses,                              419

Details of the Court of the Archbishop’s College, now of the
Irlandeses,                                                          420

Gate of the Santa Maria de las Dueñas,                               421

Provincial Museum: Model in wood for an Altar for the
Cathedral, by Manuel Rodriguez,                                      422

Provincial Museum: Arm-chair of Fr. Antonio de Sotomayor,            423

Provincial Museum: St. Michael overcoming Satan. Silver
Statue.    The work of John de Arfe,                                 424

Cloisters in the Ruins of the School of the Vega,                    425

Capitals in the College of the Vega,                                 426

Statue of Our Lady of the Vega,                                      427

The House of Salinas,                                                428

Courtyard of the House of Salinas (Upper Part),                      429

Detail of the Courtyard of the House of Salinas,                     430

General View of the College of Calatrava,                            431

Staircase in the College of Calatrava,                               432

Tower of the ‘Clavero,’                                              433

General View of the School,                                          434

Façade of the School,                                                435

Interior Gate of the School,                                         436

Entrance to the School,                                              437

Porch of the Archivos of the School,                                 438

Courtyard of the School,                                             439

Back of the School,                                                  440

Courtyard of the School,                                             441

Principal Façade of the House of the Shells,                         442

Grated Window of the House of the Shells,                            443

Triple Grated Window of the House of the Shells,                     444

Balcony and Triple Grated Window of the House of the Shells,         445

Doorway in the House of the Shells,                                  446

Courtyard in the House of the Shells,                                447

House of Monterey,                                                   448

Tower of the House of Monterey,                                      449

House of Monterey,                                                   450

La Plaza Mayor,                                                      451

The Town Hall,                                                       452

Patio de la Gobernación,                                             453

Ancient College, now the House of the Provincial Deputation,         454

River Gate through which Hannibal entered,                           455

House of Doña Maria the Brave,                                       456

Avenue of the Campo of San Francisco,                                457

Statue of Fr. Luis de Leon,                                          458

The Pacification of the Factions of Salamanca. A Relief by
Don Aniceto Marinas,                                                 459

Market, Province of Salamanca: ‘A Bad Bargain,’ by J.
Aranjo,                                                              460

Peasants’ Dance, by D. Fierros,                                      461

Charro, or Peasant of the Province,                                  462

LEON, BURGOS, AND SALAMANCA Leon, Burgos, and Salamanca

LEON

There is something cold and forlorn about the little city of Leon, that
one-time capital of Spain; something chill and wintry, not explained
even by the snowy peaks of Asturias bounding the horizon on the north.
It is the chill of age. Other cities there are, even in Spain, older
than Leon, but with them time has dealt more gently. It was but natural
that this town should wither and grow old. Very much out of the world it
lies, in as remote a situation as could be found in southern Europe. It
has long outlived its destiny--and that was an honourable one. The blood
of no new race has ever been infused into its veins. Founded by S.
Sulpicius Galba in 70 A.D. as the headquarters of the Seventh Legion
(Legio Septima), when it grew into a town, doubtless its first
inhabitants were the unconquerable Celts of the Cantabrian Mountains.
When the wild Suevi took refuge in this north-western corner of the
peninsula, _Legio_, as it was then called, was nominally subject to
them. Leovigild added it to the dominions of the Visigoths in 540, but
despite this change of masters it probably remained Celtic to the core.
The Moorish yoke endured here but twenty-five years. So near to the
great mountain barriers, where the new Spain was born, which contained
the nucleus of the new monarchy and nation, it was naturally among the
first prizes of the kings of Pelayo’s line. Issuing from those passes
which had proved a death-trap to the Moorish hordes, the Christians of
Asturias wrested this city from the invader in the year 742, and with a
very brief interval it was henceforward to know none but a Spanish yoke.
We do not hear of much effort on the part of the Saracens to recover or
to hold it. We can fancy that the spirit and resolution of those
children of the South were numbed in these wintry plains, within sight
of the everlasting snows, almost within reach of the tempests of the
northern seas. But it was a place that suited well the temper of the
champions of Christendom in Spain. It was grim, it was stern, it was
rude and simple. Behind was the glorious cradle of the nation, the
citadel of Spanish freedom; before were the plains whereon to do battle
with the Moor, the streams that flowing south pointed the way for the
Spanish knight. Leon was the first stage of a journey which was to end
only at the Pillars of Hercules. Every town in the peninsula marks a
forward step of the Christian, a backward step of the Moslem. Leon was
outpost first, capital after. It seems to have been attacked and perhaps
destroyed by the enemy during the ninth century, for we read that Ordoño
I. rebuilt it. Under Alfonso III. the frontier of the nascent kingdom
was carried forward to the Douro. At Leon men slept more peacefully.
Alfonso, upon his abdication in 912, pursuing the policy afterwards so
harmful to Spain, divided his dominions among his children. Leon was
allotted to Garcia; and two years later, on the death of that prince and
the accession of his brother Ordoño II., it became the capital of the
united realms of Galicia and Leon, to which in 923 with the crowning of
a third brother, Froila II., was added the ancestral province of
Asturias.

In the Middle Ages, where the Court was the scaffold was not far away.
And the new capital was soon to see something of the darker side of
regal authority. Ordoño II. attributed his defeat at Val de Junqueras
to the defection or mutiny of the Counts of Castile, the wardens of the
eastern marches. Summoning four of them into his presence at his palace
at Tejares, he placed them under arrest, and sent them in chains to
Leon, where after a painful captivity they were put to death. This was
not the last tragedy to cast a shadow over the little capital.
Meanwhile, under Ramiro II., the name of the town began to be applied to
the whole kingdom. It was the scene of the imprisonment of the aspiring
Fernan González, Count of Castile; and by him and a Navarrese army it
was besieged during the reign of Ordoño III. Under the terrible Al
Mansûr, the Moslem tide swept up to the very peaks of Asturias. Leon was
submerged, the city taken and burned, and Fernando II. was glad to find
an asylum in the mountain fastnesses of his ancestors.

This was but a temporary check to the Christian fortunes. In 1002 the
announcement was made from every pulpit in free Spain, ‘Al Mansûr is
dead and buried in Hell.’ Emerging once more from their retreat, the
Leonese recovered their capital, which was henceforward to remain
uninterruptedly in Christian hands.

Alfonso V., the Restorer of Leon, mindful of the precedents set by
Visigothic kings, held an ecclesiastical council at his capital in the
year 1020. There was a great concourse of prelates and nobles from all
parts of Christian Spain. The conference took place in the cathedral
church of St. Mary, founded by Ordoño II., and King Alfonso and Queen
Elvira presided in person. Of the fifty-eight ordinances and
resolutions, thirty-one embodied the municipal constitution of the town
of Leon--the first town in Spain to receive a charter. Indeed, it was
probably the first town in mediæval Europe to obtain the privilege of
self-government.

The history of the city thenceforward becomes merged in the history of
the kingdom and in that of Spain generally. But here and there in the
annals of the time certain events stand out as specially associated with
it. In the year 1029 the young Count Garcia of Castile came hither to
espouse Sancha, the sister of King Fernando III. His movements were
watched by the three sons of the Count of Vela, whom his father had put
to death. Their manner towards the young Count implied rather friendship
than enmity. But one morning, as he entered the church of San Isidoro,
they fell upon him and slew him. The assassins were burned to death; but
their deed served to intensify the bitter rivalry of Castile and Leon.

There were other ecclesiastical councils held here in 1106, 1114, 1134,
1228, and 1288. And in 1137 the church which had been defiled with the
young Garcia’s blood was the scene of the impressive coronation of
Alfonso VII. as Emperor of all Spain--a title which no Spanish king
could justly bear, till Charles came from Flanders in 1517 to rule over
a Spain for ever united.

For a hundred years longer the little city by the northern hills posed
from time to time as an imperial capital, but with the union of the
crowns under San Fernando the headship of the kingdom passed to Burgos
and Toledo. For a century more the court of the Spanish kings was in the
ever-moving camps, on the ever-shifting battlefield. The claims of Leon
to rank as capital were forgotten. The echoes of warfare far away on the
banks of the Jucar and Guadalquivir hardly reached her walls. She fell
asleep. She had harboured the founders of national independence; she had
borne the brunt and stress of battle, had been in the van in the fierce
strife between Christian and Moslem. Everything that happened to Leon
happened a very long time ago; and it might all have seemed a dream if
the genius of the architect had not bequeathed to our own day great
memorials of the glory made by kings and prelates.

Leon, as we know, does not derive its name from ‘the lions introduced by
the Carthaginians,’ as some old chroniclers believed, but from the
legion quartered here in the first century of the Christian era. The old
name of the place was Urbs Legionis. Remembering the peculiar
pronunciation of the Spanish G, the modification of the Latin word into
its present form is easily explained.

The legion which preserved the _pax Romana_ in this remote corner of the
empire may have varied in strength from six to seven thousand men of all
arms. The camp was rectangular, and measured 380 by 570 metres. It was
confined by the wall, of which the northern, eastern, and part of the
western sides remain,--or rather the bases, for the masonry of the upper
part reveals the handiwork of various subsequent ages. Walking round the
city, you notice the stout round bastions outcropping between the houses
which frequently obscure the trace of the wall. Of the four Roman gates,
faced with marble slabs and inscribed with the names of the commanders
of the legion, two remain--the eastern, or Bishop’s gateway, behind the
cathedral, and the low semicircular arch in the Plazuela del Conde de
Luna.

Embedded in or against these walls many profoundly interesting relics of
the Roman domination have been discovered. These are now to be seen in
the Provincial Museum. There is the white marble altar dedicated to
Diana by the legate Tullius Maximus, as the inscription on one side
records. The three other faces bear respectively these inscriptions:--

(1) ‘Aequora conclusit campi, Divisque dicavit,
     Et templum statuit tibi, Delia virgo triformis,
     Tullius è Lybia, rector legionis Hiberae,
     Ut quiret volucris capreas, ut figere cervos,
     Saetigeros ut apros, ut equorum silvico lentum
     Progeniem, ut cursu certare, ut disice ferri,
     Et pedes arma gerens, et equo jaculator Hibero.’

(2)         ‘Cervôm altifrontum cornua
             Dicat Dianae Tullius,
             Quos vicit in parami aequore
             Vectus feroci sonipede.’

(3) ‘Dentes aprorum quos cecidit Maximus
     Dicat Dianae, pulchrum virtutis decus.’

This Tullius Maximus seems to have loved the chase, and elsewhere we
find him dedicating a bear’s skin to his favourite goddess. The people
of the Urbs Legionis were probably mighty hunters. On a sepulchral
monument the son-in-law, daughter, and grandson of the founder are
represented as a boar, a hind, and a fawn. The Provincial Museum also
contains an altar consecrated to the genius of the legion.

Where the cathedral now stands were the Roman baths, which are said to
have been converted into a castle or palace by the kings of Asturias.
The building was utterly destroyed by Al Mansûr, and on its site arose
the basilica of Ordoño II. The royal residence then seems to have been
situated near where the monastery of San Salvador del Palaz del Rey was
built by Ramiro II. (930-950). Another palace occupied the square in
front of the church of San Isidoro. Rebuilt by Berenguela, the mother of
San Fernando, it was pulled down in the time of Isabel the Catholic. It
was no doubt from this building that Count Garcia passed to his death in
the opposite church.

SAN ISIDORO,

after the Roman walls the most ancient building in Leon, occupies the
site of a chapel and nunnery consecrated in 966 and rebuilt by Alfonso
V. Fernando I., who reigned over Leon and Castile from 1033 to 1065,
obtained from the Amir of Seville the body of the doctor, San Isidoro.
To receive this venerated relic a new church was built, and solemnly
dedicated on December 21, 1063. Two years later the bones of the martyr
San Vicente were transported hither from Avila. In the next century the
church was greatly enlarged and richly endowed by Alfonso VII., who
attributed his victory at Baeza to the miraculous intervention of the
Doctor of Seville. To provide for the service of the church, the regular
canons were transferred here from Carvajal, and exchanged quarters with
the nuns who had continued to occupy the old tenth-century convent.

The church is in the Romanesque style, the oldest portion being the
chapel of Santa Catalina, which Street thinks was the original fabric of
Fernando I. The chapel was intended as a mausoleum for the royal family
of Leon, but twelve tombs only remain out of thirty. The only
inscriptions are on the resting-places of Alfonso V. and Sancha, the
sister of Alfonso VII. Here were buried Alfonso IV., Ramiro II., Ordoño
III. and his queen, Sancho I., Ramiro III. and his queen Urraca,
Fernando I. and Queen Sancha, Sancho the Great of Navarre, and the
murdered Count Garcia. Here, before the Pantheon was despoiled by the
French in 1808, might have been seen the marble and porphyry sepulchre
of the brave princess Urraca of Zamora, and the urns of the Moorish and
French wives of Alfonso VII. Now, the inscriptions having been wantonly
defaced, it is impossible to identify the few remaining sarcophagi.

The arches of this gloomy Pantheon are decorated with curious frescoes,
probably of the twelfth century. The crude drawing and tints rather add
to the impressive effect of these solemn paintings. Among the subjects
are the ‘Massacre of the Innocents,’ the ‘Last Supper’ (painted, as
Street points out, without the least regard to the angles formed by the
groining, and as if the vault were a flat surface), scenes from the
Passion, and the Visions of the Apocalypse--terrible conceptions. One of
the designs represents the Supreme Judge with two swords issuing from
His mouth; another shows a hand, inscribed _Dextra Dei_. The
compositions are surrounded by foliage, rich and conventional. On the
altar is an interesting ivory cross, the gift of Fernando I. and Sancha,
whose names are engraved upon the reverse. While the figure of Christ is
rude in the extreme, the foliage and figures of the four evangelists at
the back are exquisitely chiselled.

Leaving this place consecrated to wrath and tears, we re-enter the
church. The plan is roughly cruciform, an apsidal chapel projecting to
the east of each arm of the transept, on either side of the Capilla
Mayor. We are now in that part of the fabric which was built by order of
Alfonso VII., evidently on the model of St. Sernin at Toulouse. The name
of the architect is given on an inscription in the flooring as Petrus de
Deo--Peter of God. The most interesting features in the church are the
very ancient mural paintings in the Byzantine style, with the same
profusion of foliage and richly moulded capitals to be noticed in the
Pantheon. The dentated and horse-shoe arches reveal traces of Moorish
influence, showing that even in the far north of Spain architects could
not have closed their eyes and ears altogether to the doings of the
detested infidels.

Among the treasures of the church might fairly be included the font,
with its Byzantine reliefs, while objects of special veneration are the
relics of San Isidoro contained in an ancient silver urn, supported by
four lions, and the hand of San Martino, holding a pen, and encased in a
rich reliquary. Here also you may see a chalice of agate, the donation
of the Infanta Urraca, and (in the Sacristy) the standard embroidered
by order of Alfonso VII. with the image of San Isidoro as he appeared at
Baeza, and last displayed at the taking of Antequera in the fifteenth
century. Many other priceless treasures and relics were lost when the
church was plundered by the French; while in 1811 the building was
struck by lightning, and--as if that were not enough--white-washed
throughout!

The exterior is interesting. A doorway admits to the middle of the nave
on the south side. The arch is semicircular and triple, the tympanum and
spandrils being filled with sculpture, representing the Offering of
Isaac, the Lamb of God, figures of Saints, and the signs of the Zodiac.
‘The whole detail of this sculpture,’ says Street, ‘is very unlike that
of most of the early work I have seen in Spain; the figures are round
and flabby, and very free from any of the usual conventionality. All
this made me feel much inclined to think that the execution of this work
was at an early date, and soon after the first consecration of the
church.’ The appearance of the whole front was not improved by the
Renaissance work above this gateway--the elaborate cornice, the imperial
shield of Charles V., and the colossal equestrian statue of San
Isidoro. The Romanesque portal of the southern transept, now closed, is
adorned with a relief representing the Descent from the Cross, the
statues of Saints Peter and Paul, and other sculptures. Detached from
the church is a square tower or steeple built between two bastions in
the adjoining city wall. Generally speaking, the eastern façade is
strictly Gothic, much of it having been added to the Romanesque
framework in the sixteenth century.

The adjoining cloister is mainly of the same period and style. The
decorations are in the plateresque style, and the staircase, leading to
the council chamber of the Provincial Deputation, is a daring and
admirable example of Renaissance work. The library contains the
beautiful Bible written in 960 by the priest Sancho, ‘whose
illuminations and vignettes’ (says a native writer) ‘with their sinister
figures with black faces, curious dresses, and gloomy fancies, display
the artistic tendencies of that age of turmoil.’

In the Plaza del Conde de Luna is the mean little church of San Salvador
del Palaz del Rey, built by Ramiro II. as a convent for his daughter
Elvira--she who ruled as regent during the minority of her brother,
Ramiro III. Nothing of the original structure remains; but the site is
that of one of the oldest royal residences in Leon, and of the first
burying-place of her kings, before their ashes were transported to San
Isidoro.

THE CATHEDRAL

of Leon marks the second period of the city’s history and of the
architecture of northern Spain. San Isidoro stands for the infant
monarchy, with its Byzantine traditions handed down from the Visigothic
kings; the cathedral, for the strong, ever-expanding realm of Leon and
Castile, in close touch and sympathy with the great Catholic world of
the west. San Isidoro is Romanesque; the cathedral is not only Gothic,
but purely French, closely resembling Amiens and Rheims. It is a
magnificent exotic. It symbolised the reunion of Spain with Western
Christendom, after its long night of isolation, the infusion into its
art and its people of the European spirit.

This beautiful cathedral--_pulchra Leonina_--occupies the site of the
basilica of Ordoño II. (of which no trace remains). Planned about the
first years of the reign of San Fernando, it was not completed in 1258,
when an episcopal congress was held at Madrid to discuss the progress of
the works and to grant an indulgence of forty days to the faithful who
should assist with alms. In 1303 the Bishop Gonzalez proclaimed that
the work was done, ‘thanks be to God.’

The beauty of this wonderful church consists largely in its lightness.
Its supports are so slender, its walls so freely pierced with windows at
every stage, its details everywhere so delicate, that the term ‘frozen
music’ applied to architecture seems here indeed no mere hyperbole. ‘A
mere lantern,’ Street calls the church, and blames the architect for his
extreme daring and for his excessive use of windows. Though the vaults
had been filled in with very light stone or concrete, the fabric was
ever trembling on its fragile foundations. In 1631 the vault above the
crossing collapsed, and was replaced by a dome. A hundred years later
many of the arches of the aisles succumbed. Meanwhile Renaissance and
Churrigueresque additions were made; but the whole was restored between
the years 1850 and 1901, and now the cathedral exists in almost pristine
symmetry and airiness.

The eastern end, or chevet, projects beyond the city wall, which forms
the eastern boundary of the adjacent cloister. The transept, if that
term may be applied to the whole space between the Capilla Mayor and
Coro, is of unusual breadth, and may be said to include a nave, two
aisles to the east and one to the west. North and south it projects but
slightly beyond the nave. The west front is flanked by two steeples,
which stand on each side of, and do not terminate, the aisles. They are
heavier than the rest of the structure, and of different heights and
ages. Ugly, too, is the empty space left between their side walls and
those of the clerestory over the main entrance. The northern steeple is
the older, lower, and simpler; it is surmounted by a spire with a vane.
The other tower is more ornate, and contains the belfry. Its traceries
are in a debased Gothic style.

The façade between these steeples is very beautiful. It is surmounted by
a pediment with ‘acroteria’ or pedestals to receive statues. Beneath
this is a very large wheel-window above a row of windows corresponding
to the triforium. The three magnificently sculptured doorways extend
from steeple to steeple. The arches are pointed and triple. Byzantine
influence is visible in the statuary and foliage. The figures, forty in
number, are rather more than life-size, and represent saints and
apostles, martyrs and confessors, kings and queens. On the north-west
doorway is seen the half-defaced figure of Justice, bearing a sword
inscribed with the words ‘Justitia est unicuique dare quod suum est.’
Beneath this portal cases of appeal were tried in the thirteenth
century. A small column between this and the central doorway is engraved
with the words _locus appellationis_ and the arms of Leon and Castile.
The tympanum of the arch is adorned with reliefs, illustrating the
earlier episodes in the life of Jesus. The doors themselves show scenes
from the Passion and Risen Life.

The central shaft of the middle door is disfigured with a dressed-up
image of the Virgin enclosed in glass. The sculpture of the tympanum is
spirited and elaborate. In a composition depicting the Last Judgment
devils are seen stirring their fires and plunging the reprobate into
seething cauldrons. On the side of the blessed a young man extracts
cheering music from what is perhaps a harmonium. The attitudes of the
just express the liveliest satisfaction, whereas a crowned personage,
striding boldly into Paradise, is met and warned off by a celestial
Janitor. The naïve and fantastically horrible are curiously blended in
this skilful work. The southern doorway is the least interesting of the
three; the subjects of the reliefs are the death and coronation of the
Virgin.

The entrance to the south transept has been entirely rebuilt, but the
original reliefs and statuary of the three doors have been preserved
and re-erected. Some old Byzantine capitals may be distinguished among
the Gothic work. The south-west door is relieved with a diaper of
fleurs-de-lys and castles, and lions and castles. The sculpture of the
tympanum is equal to that of the west front, and shows the Saviour and
the Evangelists, the twelve Apostles, and the Death of the Blessed
Virgin. The colossal statue on the central shaft is that of San Froilan,
an early bishop of Leon. Above is a row of four windows of two lights,
and an enormous rose-window.

The glory of the cathedral is its stained glass, which fills the
innumerable windows. Most of this is comparatively modern, and, though
good in tone, is inferior to the fifteenth-century glass still existing
in the windows of the Capilla Mayor, the Capilla de Santiago, and the
north transept. The three rows of windows reach high up to the vaultings
of the roof, those of the chapels being of two lights, those of the
clerestory of four. It is strange that with such exquisite examples of
colouring before them, the restorers of the church should have had the
bad taste to bedaub the arches of the aisles with ochre, and to
whitewash the pillars and vaults, marking the stonework with red lines.
We could well have spared, moreover, the elaborate plateresque work in
the choir, which, though good in itself, is dissonant from the general
character of the building; and the Churrigueresque retablo of the
Capilla Mayor, representing the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The
sanctuary and choir, which in so many churches are the most interesting
feature, are of quite secondary importance at Leon. The Capilla Mayor,
however, contains the remains of San Froilan in two silver reliquaries
of the Renaissance style, and the relics of two other bishops (Alvitas
and Pelagius) in plain marble urns. The choir stalls date from the
fifteenth century, and are well carved. The best work is seen in the
panels behind the stalls, the subjects being the generation of Christ,
the Visitation, the Revolt of Satan, and the Descent into Hell.

But after the general ensemble and the stained glass, nothing in the
cathedral merits as much attention as the tombs and monuments. Of these
the noblest is the cenotaph of Ordoño II. at the rear of the High Altar,
erected five centuries after his death as a tribute of gratitude by the
citizens of Leon. Though in the florid Gothic style of the fifteenth
century, many of the figures and inscriptions appear to have been copied
from an earlier tomb. The recumbent effigy of the king is large and
dignified; his face is sharp and smooth-shaven; he wears his crown and
the royal robes, and carries the orb and sceptre. At his feet lies a
dog, the emblem of fidelity, beneath which is an inscription in Latin
setting forth his deeds and virtues, and erroneously attributing to him
the erection of the present temple. The monumental arch above encloses
sculpture painted in brilliant colours on a gilt ground, which appears
to be of an earlier elate than the rest of the monument. The arches of
the wall of the Capilla Mayor have been bricked up, and those on each
side of this monument are adorned with two very ancient distemper
paintings of the Ecce Homo and Entombment. They exhibit some interesting
peculiarities of dress and detail, and though the central figure is
badly done, the spectators are lifelike and vigorously represented.

There are many tombs in the cathedral belonging to the transitional
period from Byzantine to Gothic, mostly of bishops of the thirteenth
century. The best preserved is in the Capilla del Nacimiento, and
enshrines the remains of Bishop Rodrigo, who died in 1232. The tympanum
of the arch is occupied by a representation of the Crucifixion, below
this being shown a funeral procession, with the mourners tearing their
hair in a grotesque excess of grief. The benevolence of the good
prelate is immortalised by a figure distributing food to the poor, the
halt, and the blind. The tomb of Bishop Martin (1254-1289), in the south
transept, is adorned with the favourite scene from the life of St.
Martin of Tours--the division of the cloak. The monuments to the bishops
Manrique de Lara, Erasmus, and Martin (second of the name) are all in
much the same style, but differing stages of preservation. In the
Capilla del Salvador, behind the High Altar, may be seen the graceful
effigy of the Countess Sancha (eleventh century), executed in the
fourteenth century by Maestre Juan Lope, as an inscription on the robe
informs us. The relief on the front of the tomb, showing a youth dragged
along by a fiery horse, probably refers to the punishment in this world
or the next of the wicked nephew, by whom the countess was assassinated.
Another tomb in the same chapel bears the figure of a venerable man with
flowing beard and ample robes.

At the north-eastern shoulder of the church, between it and the tower in
the city wall already mentioned, is the fine rectangular chapel of
Santiago, built in the time of the Catholic sovereigns--on the site, it
would seem, of a twelfth-century chapel. The pillars are borne on the
shoulders of various figures, among them being Samson, the Queen of
Sheba, Laocoon, and a monk with a book on which is the derisive motto
_legere et non intelligere_. The details of the architecture are
capricious and graceful. The chapel is lighted by colossal windows,
filled with gorgeous stained glass--blue and gold, purple and
emerald--the reflected colour producing a magical effect.

The spacious cloister, which conceals the northern façade of the
cathedral, was built in the early fourteenth century, but it has been
rebuilt, restored, and altered into what Street calls ‘a very poor and
weak kind of Renaissance.’ The ornamentation is profuse and not in bad
taste. The inner walls have not been much altered, and the pillars
supporting them are sculptured in the Gothic style. The bays are painted
with an extremely valuable and interesting series of frescoes, so well
drawn that they were more likely the work of some fifteenth-century
Italian artist than productions of native talent. The subjects are all
from the history of Christ and Mary, the Crucifixion curiously enough
being omitted. When Street saw these paintings forty years ago, he spoke
of the colours as pure and good, but they have now been almost entirely
obliterated by the damp. The cloister contains several sepulchral
monuments, some mere slabs, but one--that of the Canon Juan de Grajal
(1447)--elaborately and artistically sculptured. Some colossal idiot has
cut off the heads of the angels shown in this fine piece of work. Near
the beautiful Gothic entrance to the cloister is an image of our Lady of
Regla, to which at one time the people used to proceed in procession to
return thanks for the mythical victory of Clavijo, a choir of damsels
representing the equally mythical tribute of one hundred virgins said to
have been paid by Mauregato to the Moors.

In the archives of the cloister are preserved a fine collection of
codices and documents, throwing light on the history not only of Spain
but of the Catholic Church. Specially valuable is a Gothic Bible written
_sub umbraculo Santae Marie et Sancti Martini in monasterio vocabulo Alb
... in DCCCCLVIII._ [920 A.D.], by John the Deacon, who transcribed on
the intermediate pages the life of San Froilan.

We cross the spacious plaza in front of the cathedral, with its fine
marble fountain, presided over by Neptune and his Tritons, and go into
the town in search of ancient buildings. Of thirteenth-century
architecture there are no more examples; but the southern wall was built
by Alfonso XI. about 1324, to take in a quarter which had hitherto been
a suburb. The old Roman wall began at the stern, square Torre de los
Ponces. The gates in Alfonso’s wall have all been restored and
modernised, except that of Santo Domingo, which, with its low arch and
pointed vaulting, preserves the true mediæval air. The Moneda gate
carries a statue of Carlos III., erected in 1759, the year of his
accession. Enrique II. (Trastamara) built a palace at Leon on the model,
it is said, of the Alcazar at Seville. What was left of this structure
has been converted into a prison.

The Renaissance, which left everywhere in Spain so deep an impress, did
not leave untouched this Gothic capital. Beside such triumphs of the
Romanesque and pointed styles as San Isidoro and the PULCHRA LEONINA
rises the church of San Marcos, an interesting specimen of the newer
school. Founded as a chapel of the new order of Santiago in 1170, the
church witnessed the election of the first prior, and received in 1184
the ashes of the first grand master, Pedro Fernandez de Fuente Encalada.
Fernando the Catholic ordered the church to be rebuilt in 1514, but the
work progressed very slowly and was not actually finished till 1715. The
most important part of the fabric and the plans, however, we owe to Juan
de Badajoz, who was working here about 1550. With the adjoining convent,
first a hospice for pilgrims to Compostela, now the Provincial Museum,
the building presents a very imposing appearance. The church occupies
the eastern side of the block, the portal being contained within a very
deep and lofty semicircular arch. On either side, in deep plateresque
niches, are fine but damaged reliefs by Crozec. The ‘acroterium’ (to
employ an expression used by Spanish writers), surmounting the arch,
appears to be unfinished, as also are the towers or large buttresses
flanking the portal.

The church is large and cruciform, with some good glass, windows with
plateresque traceries, and fine arabesques. The most notable accessories
are the choir stalls, the upper row exhibiting admirably carved busts of
New Testament worthies; the lower row, of the saints of the Old
Dispensation. Grotesque and capricious masks, centaurs, griffins, and so
forth, are introduced in great profusion into the decoration; they were
the work, for the most part, of one Doncel in 1542, and were mutilated
by a pupil of Churriguera in the early part of the eighteenth century.

The work of Juan de Badajoz is to be seen in the Sacristy, a spacious
nave of three vaults, richly designed and gilded. Under the windows are
medallions with busts in relief, very well done. The retablo in the
plateresque style shows the Eternal Father with His angels, and the
Vision of Santiago. The inscriptions on the frieze are from the Book of
Leviticus.

Much good work is to be seen in the cloisters, begun in the Armada year
or thereabouts, but interest here chiefly centres in the Prior’s
apartments where the illustrious Quevedo was imprisoned by order of the
Count-Duke Olivares, from December 1639 to June 1643,--the penalty for
an all too true and biting lampoon.

Quevedo thus describes his prison in one of the letters to his friend
Adán de la Parra:--

     ‘Although at first I was imprisoned in a tower of this sacred
     house, as roomy as it was light and warm for this season of the
     year, a short time after by superior order (I will not say by
     superior disorder) I was taken to another much more uncomfortable
     one, where I am now. It is an underground room, as damp as a
     spring, so dark that in it it is always night, and so cold that it
     is always like January. It is undoubtedly more like a tomb than a
     prison.... The latitude of this tomb, in which I am enclosed, is
     barely twenty-four feet and the width nineteen. The roof and walls
     are in many places fallen owing to the damp, and everything is so
     black that it seems more like a hiding-place of fugitive thieves
     than the prison of a man of honour. In order to enter it two
     equally strong doors have to be passed; one is on the floor of the
     convent and the other on the floor of my prison, after twenty-seven
     steps designed like a precipice.... This is the life to which I am
     doomed by him who, because I would not be his favourite, is now my
     enemy.’

The grand façade of the old convent, extending to the river bank, is
divided into two stories, the lower characterised by semicircular
windows between pilasters in the plateresque style, and separated by
niches; the upper by rectangular windows with balconies, disposed
between columns, and likewise separated by niches in pairs. The frieze
beneath the lower row of windows is adorned by a series of medallions,
displaying the heads of mythological and historical worthies, Gentiles
and Christians, ancients and moderns, most oddly assorted. With Priam
and Hector, Hannibal and Cæsar, we find Charlemagne and the Cid, Charles
V. and Philip II., with Lucretia, Judith and Isabel the Catholic. The
busts to the left of the doorway are those of the grand masters of the
Order of Santiago. The doorway itself is a very unhappy combination of
the plateresque and baroque styles, but the statue of Fame surmounting
it is not devoid of grace and dignity. The balconies and windows facing
the river date from the eighteenth century.

A good deal of building went on in Leon during the sixteenth century. In
the Plaza de San Marcelo (before Alfonso XI.’s time, outside the walls)
stands the mansion of the illustrious Guzman family, of which Guzman el
Bueno, of Tarifa fame, was an illegitimate and the most distinguished
member. It was built in the year 1560 by Juan Juiñones y Guzman, Bishop
of Calahorra. Its architecture is severe and imposing. Over the main
entrance, adjoining a square tower at the corner of the building, are
two medallions on which is engraved the motto, ‘Ornanda est dignitas
domo--non domo dignitas tota quærenda’--a device which one wishes all
the architects of the age had borne in mind. The interior _patio_ is
adorned with handsome plateresque reliefs. Next to the Casa Guzman is
the residence of the marquesses of Villasinta, in rather similar style.
Beneath the sixteenth-century façade of the mansion of the great Luna
family was discovered a fine Gothic arch, with another pointed arch
supported by columns with Byzantine capitals. This work cannot be later
than the thirteenth century. In the _patio_ is a magnificent arch
designed with arabesques.

Looking on the Plaza de San Marcelo is one of Leon’s two town halls,
finished by Juan de Rivera in 1584. The lower story is of the Doric
order, the upper Ionic. In the council-chamber, hung with damask and
velvet, may be read the verses proclaiming the excellences of the
city:--

    ‘En argen Leon contemplo
     Fuerte, purpureo, triunfal.
     De veinte santos ejemplo,
     Donde está el unico templo
     Real y sacerdotal.

     Tuvo veinte y cuatro reyes
     Antes que Castilla leyes;
     Hizo el fuero sin querellas;
     Libertó las cien doncellas
     De las infernales greyes.’

The other town hall (Casas Consistoriales) in the Plaza Mayor was built
to accommodate the municipal authorities on the occasion of festivities
and public functions in the square. It is an elegant building, built in
1677, and is surmounted by a pediment and acroteria, and by weather
vanes on its flanking towers.

The modern church of San Marcelo, which gives its name to the square,
was founded by Ramiro I. in the ninth century, and was liberally endowed
in after years by Alfonso VI. Marcelus is a reputed local martyr, a
Roman legionary who refused to adore the divinity of Cæsar, and was
beheaded, having blessed his executioners. By another account the
martyrdom took place at Tangier, whence, at all events, the saint’s
relics were brought here in 1493. The tympanum of a thirteenth-century
doorway in the wall at the back of the church is all that remains of the
original fabric. A deserted esplanade beyond the walls, to the
south-west of the city, marks the site of the once famous shrine of San
Claudio, erected first in Constantine’s day on the place of martyrdom of
Claudius, Lupercius, and Victoricus. Al Mansûr is said to have been
struck with sudden panic when about to attack this church. Successive
fanes of great magnificence rose over the spot, the last being destroyed
by fire in the sixteenth century.

Santa Maria del Mercado still exhibits much ancient work. Its arching
and capitals are Byzantine in style. The suburban church of San Pedro de
los Huertos was, it is said, the cathedral, before the time of Ordoño
II. In the tenth century we hear of it as a monastery for both sexes.
Another extremely old foundation is San Salvador del Nido, founded as a
monastery by Queen Urraca. A local guide states that Carlo Alberto, the
ex-King of Sardinia, received the last sacraments and expired in this
church on April 8, 1849. I confess I have not troubled to verify this,
but have hitherto laboured under the impression that the unlucky
predecessor of Victor Emmanuel breathed his last at Oporto.

Having noticed this link with the history of our own times, we take
leave of Leon, and hasten across the plains to the city which succeeded
it as capital of the growing monarchy of Leon and Castile.

II

BURGOS

THE CAPITAL OF CASTILE

Burgos, the red and white city in the broad valley of the Arlanzon, is
more mediæval than many an older town. For she was no inheritance from
Celts or Romans, but was born in the Dark Ages, waxed prosperous within
them, and declined with the Renaissance and the dawn of the modern era.
There is nothing that is classical, little that is modern, about this
old capital of Castile. All her memories are of Gothic, mediæval,
romantic Spain. To her belong knights and barons, shield and helm and
lance, tournaments and jousts, soaring Gothic spires, and the quiet of
the cloister--all the pageant and panorama of mediævalism.

Burgos was born amid the clash of arms. This dry, desert-like province
of Castile, which is now the very heart of, and whose name is almost
synonymous with Spain, was a thousand years ago a very debatable ground
between Moor and Christian. Leon, to the west, looked fiercely east and
south towards the dusky garrisons of Medina Sarakusta (Zaragoza), and
Tolaitola (Toledo). In itself the country seemed hardly worth settling
in or fighting for. It was the frontier, the ‘marches,’ as we should
have called it in olden England. And in the Dark Ages danger ever ran
like a hedge along the border of two lands. The valley of the Arlanzon,
a veritable oasis in this desert, was early peopled with shepherds and
tillers of the soil. To protect these against the forays of the Beni
Kasim from Zaragoza, early in the ninth century a fort or advanced post
was established here by the kings of Asturias and Leon. Its defence was
entrusted by Ordoño I. to a count (850-866), despite whose efforts the
post was destroyed by the Moors under Abd-ur-Rahman in the year 865.

Rallying from these disasters, the new king Alfonso III. (866-910) took
steps to defend the frontier, and appointed Diego Porcellos count or
warden of the marches. This personage--the first whose name is
particularly associated with Burgos--found the settlement on the
Arlanzon reduced to six groups of houses. He threw together three or
four hamlets, including, it is said, the churches of Santa Coloma, Santa
Gadea, and San Juan Evangelista, and surrounded the whole with a wall.
The dissensions among the Moors themselves favoured the development of
the nascent town, and also permitted its governors, like those of the
other frontier forts, to turn their attention to domestic politics. Don
Gonzalo Fernández, who reigned as count from about 884 to 915, was a
party to various conspiracies and intrigues against his sovereign, the
net result of which appeared to be to confirm him in his petty
sovereignty. Patriotism was an unknown virtue in those days, and the
counts of Castile were bent rather upon consolidating their own
authority than combining against the Infidel. They are said in fact to
have flatly refused to accompany the king on one of his campaigns.
Revenge for such treason could in the tenth century take but one form.
Ordoño II. summoned four of the rebellious vassals--Abu-l-Mundhir
(evidently a Moor), Nuño Fernández, another Diego Porcellos, and
Fernando Ansúrez--into his presence, and sent them in chains to Leon,
where, after a painful captivity, they were put to death. Spanish
writers, who express no particular horror at the atrocities of the
Inquisition in after years, appear somewhat unaccountably shocked at
such rough and ready justice.

As a stroke of policy this deed of violence was a bad one. The
Castilians, as it is now time to call the inhabitants of the marches,
conceived a lasting aversion to the government of Leon, and the desire
for independence grew stronger. An interregnum seems to have taken place
at Burgos after the execution of Nuño Fernández and his colleagues. We
hear at this time of two famous but nebulous personages, Nuño Nuñez
Rasura and Lain Calvo, who were elected as judges to rule over the
little commonwealth. Their reign as actual rulers was brief, for about
the year 930 we find all authority in Castile in the strong hands of the
greatest Spaniard of that age--Fernan González, the king-maker.

The fame of the good _Conde Castellano_, as González is lovingly called
by the annalists, is overshadowed in the song and story of Spain only by
that of the Cid himself. His heroic exploits against Moor and Christian
are magnified and set forth in popular ballads and legends, dating
mostly, it is true, from the thirteenth century. The real Fernan
González is a difficult person to understand and appraise, when we have
cleared away as much as possible the clouds of tradition and romance
which obscure his features. Like the Cid, we find him repeatedly
revolting against his sovereign, and striving very much harder for the
independence of Castile than for the interests of the whole kingdom. But
unlike the greater Spanish hero, he never seems to have been in the pay
of the Moslems, or to have in concert with them turned his sword against
his fellow Christians. Judged by the standard of that day, Fernan
González was a great man. He was a good lord to his immediate vassals, a
valiant and determined enemy of the Moor, a patriot in a very parochial
sense, and a strong man.

Ramiro the king, jealous of Fernan González’s power and influence,
dispossessed him of his countship, and released him from prison only
when he had sworn fidelity and obedience anew. His daughter Urraca was
given in marriage to the king’s son, Ordoño, by whom, however, she was
afterwards repudiated. Till the death of Ramiro the count was not
suffered to return to Burgos, which was meanwhile governed by the
Infante Don Sancho. Meanwhile the Moors ravaged the country, destroying
the monastery of Cardeña without the walls of Burgos, and greatly
profiting by the internal disorders of Leon.

On the abdication of Ramiro in 950, González was reinstated in his
fiefs, and henceforward played the part of king-maker in northern
Spain, changing sides more than once, establishing every day more firmly
his own authority, and warring unceasingly against the Moor. His policy
often met with severe rebuffs, and he sustained not a few disastrous
reverses; but his death in 970 was felt as a deadly blow to Christian
Spain and to the Castilians in particular, whose national aspirations
undoubtedly coincided with his own ambitions.

He had succeeded so far as to establish a dynasty; and his son Garcia
Fernández became the next count of Castile as of right. The defects of
the hereditary system became at once apparent, for while inheriting his
father’s rank, Garcia inherited little of his ability. Unluckily for
him, he was the contemporary of the terrible Al Mansûr, the greatest and
most formidable of the Moorish race. Castile was ravaged from the Sierra
Guadarrama to the sea. Don Sancho, supported by the Moors, revolted
against his father, who died from wounds received in battle on the banks
of the Douro, in May 995. The unfilial Sancho was at once acknowledged
sovereign Count of Castile, but was compelled to pay an annual tribute
to the Khalifa of Cordoba. But we find Al Mansûr waging war against him
seven years later. It was the great Mohammedan’s last campaign, and
Sancho profited by the dismay into which their leader’s mortal sickness
plunged the Moslems to expel them from his dominions.

Two or three years later we find the envoys of rival Moorish monarchs
soliciting the aid of the count of Castile; and in 1009 Sancho paid off
old scores by taking and sacking the proud city of the Khalifas. Never
had so much richness been seen in barren Castile, when her armies
returned laden with booty. ‘He of the good laws,’ as Sancho was styled
by his subjects, died in 1021, and was buried in the church of the
monastery of San Salvador de Oña, which he had founded.

The sisters of his youthful son and successor, Garcia II., were married
to the kings of Leon and Navarre; and Garcia went to Leon to seek the
hand of King Bermudo’s daughter, and to demand recognition of his title
as king of Castile. The poniards of the three sons of the Count de Vela
left him a bleeding corpse at the door of the church of San Isidoro, on
the 13th May 1029, and put an end to the male line of the house of
Fernan González. His destined bride became the wife of Fernando, son of
the king of Navarre, who was proclaimed count of Castile, though he
enjoyed nothing more than the semblance of sovereignty till his father’s
death in 1035. Bermudo of Leon died two years later, and Fernando thus
became king of united Leon and Castile--the former in right of his wife,
the latter in right of his mother.

The newly crowned king was immediately assailed by his elder brother,
Garcia of Navarre, who invaded Castile with an army largely composed of
Mussulmans, and threatened Burgos. After some days passed in fruitless
negotiations between the fraternal enemies, the Navarrese king was
defeated and slain. Eleven years later--in 1065--Fernando I. followed
his brother to the grave. Deeming his dominions too vast to be
administered by one man he divided them, allotting Castile to his
first-born son Sancho, from which it may be inferred that he considered
that province the fairest of his possessions. Not contented with the
lion’s share of the spoils, the king of Castile wrested the kingdom of
Leon from his brother Alfonso, whom he imprisoned in the castle of
Burgos. Sancho next endeavoured to deprive his sister Urraca of her
little principality of Zamora. Before the walls of that town he fell a
victim to the sword of Bellido Dolfos, and to the kingdoms which he had
by dint of violence and treachery reunited, succeeded Alfonso, but
lately a guest of the kindly Moorish Amir of Toledo.

So far the history of Burgos and of Castile generally has been an
involved and tedious record of dynastic arrangements, civil strife, and
desultory warfare with the Moor. The dullness of the panorama is now
relieved by the picturesque and crudely romantic personality of the
Cid--‘he that in a good hour was born’--Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar.

‘Rodrigo is Burgos, Rodrigo is Castile, Rodrigo is Spain,’ says Don
Rodrigo Amador de los Rios. ‘His prowess, his glory, his trials, his
renown, are the renown, the trials, the glory, and the prowess of the
fatherland. His form, which touches the confines of the supernatural,
and stands forth vigorous and powerful in the interesting picture of the
Middle Ages, is the spontaneous creation of a people--is the people
itself--whose marvellous instinct has given it from its own being, heat
and life. His honour is the honour of Castile and Spain; there is
nothing in his personality which does not represent and symbolise with
transcendental expression the national character; he is the splendid
synthesis in which a nation is resumed, the idol of the ages, the
pattern of all perfection, the permanent example of all the virtues, the
true mirror of the Middle Ages, with all that they had of noble and
generous, rude and loyal, warrior and devotee, tradition and history,
legend and fact, petty and great; the manifestation, in short, of the
essential and permanent in the Spanish nationality, which does not vary,
and is transmitted unimpaired from generation to generation, through the
centuries; the spirit which informs and sustains the peoples, in all the
epochs of history.’

I quote _in extenso_ an eminent Spaniard’s appreciation of the national
hero. But accepting even the Cid of the ballads and legends, it does not
seem that a high compliment is paid to Spain by recognising in him her
absolute personification and embodiment. The traditions of less cultured
races have conceived purer heroes. But in Burgos, almost his native
place, we must not approach the memory of the doughty Campeador in any
cold or captious mood. You may visit (though you will derive neither
pleasure nor profit from the journey) the miserable hamlet of Vivar,
five or six miles from Burgos, where he first saw the light somewhere
about the year 1040. For ancestors, tradition credits him with the
famous judges, Lain Calvo and Nuño Rasura, two worthies whose existence
is at least problematical. But that Rodrigo (or Ruy) Diaz was a good
Burgolese, there can be no question. Here he passed his youth at the
court of Fernando I., rising to the high rank of Alferez or
standard-bearer in the service of King Sancho. He was among the
champions selected by his sovereign to decide the fate of the two
kingdoms in a personal conflict with a similar number of Leonese
knights. But whatever luck may have attended Rodrigo individually on
this occasion, the Castilians got the worst of the encounter; whereupon
Sancho refused to stand by his bargain, and by more military and less
chivalrous methods secured his brother’s realms.

When Alfonso ascended the throne of Castile, it was the Cid who exacted
from him, at the gate of the church of Santa Gadea, the humiliating oath
that he had had no share in his brother’s murder--an indignity which
Alfonso did not quietly forget. He dissimulated his resentment, however,
and gave his sister Jimena in marriage to the valiant Campeador. Soon
after the threatened quarrel broke out, and the haughty vassal abandoned
all his estates in Castile, and entered the service of the Moorish Amir
of Zaragoza. The chronicles tell how on his visiting Burgos the knight
found, by order of the king, every door shut against him. Only a little
girl nine years of age ventured to address him. From their windows the
citizens beheld him and wept, crying, ‘How good a vassal, if he had only
a good lord!’ Very sadly the Cid passed the night with his followers
without the walls. He visited his wife and daughters at the monastery of
Cardeña, and turned his face from Castile. He was at shifts for money--a
precedent Don Quixote appears to have forgotten--and bethought him of an
ingenious expedient. Filling an enormous coffer with stones and sand, he
offered it, as being laden with gold and treasure, as security to a Jew,
on the understanding that it should not be opened till the money was
repaid. The confiding usurer readily advanced six hundred marks of gold
and silver, and the coffer remains to this day to attest the simplicity
of the Jewish character and the eminently commercial aptitudes of the
Castilian national hero.

With Rodrigo’s wonderful exploits in other parts of Spain we are not
here concerned. When he died at Valencia at a ripe age, he was brought
back to his native place, seated upright on his famous steed Babieca,
and laid to rest beside his wife at Cardeña. There he was suffered to
remain till the year 1842, when his ashes were transported to the town
hall of Burgos. A brave soldier, but one of the sorriest of the nation’s
heroes!

During the lifetime of this worthy and the reign of Alfonso VI., Toledo
was captured from the Moors, and Burgos ranked henceforward only as a
secondary capital of Spain. It may be remarked that till Philip II.
published his decree that ‘_Madrid solo es corte_,’ the kingdom could
not be said in the modern sense of the word ever to have had a capital.
Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville had all equal claims to be
considered the seat of government. As the Moorish frontier was pushed
farther and farther south, Burgos lost in military importance. But its
dignity was enhanced in an ecclesiastical sense, for it was raised in
1073 to an archiepiscopal see. Then followed the stormy days of Queen
Urraca, when the city came in for its fair share of turmoil and
bloodshed. Order was temporarily restored under the ‘Emperor’ Alfonso
VII. An important ecclesiastical council was held here in 1136. Alfonso,
at his death in 1157, most unwisely divided his estates, bestowing
Castile upon the eldest, Fernando. The events of 1070 were repeated.
Leon and Castile waged war against each other, and when the infant,
Alfonso VIII., succeeded his father on the Castilian throne in 1158, the
Laras and Castros, rivals for the regency, turned their swords against
each other. Burgos was once more the capital of an independent kingdom,
and witnessed in 1170 the marriage of the young king to Eleanor,
daughter of Henry II. of England--the first of the many happy alliances
between the royal houses of the two countries.

Alfonso’s reign was prosperous and glorious. He was a tolerant monarch,
and showed favour to the Moslems. There seems in his time to have been
an important mosque at Burgos. To propitiate Heaven, after the terrible
defeat of the Christians at Alarcos, Eleanor persuaded her husband to
build the monastery of Las Huelgas, to which act of piety no doubt was
attributed the ‘crowning mercy’ of las Navas de Tolosa in 1212.

During the struggle for the regency, which ensued on the death of
Alfonso, Burgos sided with the boy-king’s suitor Berenguela, who soon
after became queen in her own right. Without hesitation this high-minded
princess abdicated in favour of her son Fernando, the issue of her
marriage with Alfonso of Leon, which had been dissolved by the Pope. The
new king was attacked by his own father and by the arch-rebel of Spain,
Alvar Fanez, but he triumphed over his enemies, and in 1230 succeeded to
his unnatural father’s dominions, thus uniting finally and for ever the
kingdoms of Leon and Castile.

‘From the time of St. Ferdinand,’ remarks a recent historian of Spain
(Mr. Ulick Burke), ‘Moors in Castile became as scarce as foxes in
Middlesex.’ An era of prosperity seemed about to dawn for Burgos--_caput
Castellae camera regia_, as she proudly styled herself. There were great
doings within her walls when the son of the king of England (afterwards
Edward I.) came here in October 1254 to espouse Leonor, sister of King
Alfonso the Learned. The English prince was made a knight by his
prospective brother-in-law in the church of Santa Maria, where the
marriage later on took place. In 1269 Edward came again to Burgos to
assist at the nuptials of the Infante Fernando and the Princess Blanche
of France. Among the guests were also the king of Aragon, the sultan of
Granada, the Infantes of Aragon and Castile, ‘and other great
_ricoshombres_ and knights of the kingdom of Castile and Leon, and
counts and dukes of France, and other hidalgos of that country; and the
Marquis of Montferrat, who was wedded to Doña Beatriz, daughter of King
Alfonso.’

The learned king did much to organise and to purify the administration,
and as a natural consequence a sedition was fomented by his brother Don
Felipe and the chiefs of the Lara, Haro, and Castro families. The rebels
appeared in force before Burgos, and the king invited the leader to the
Cortes then in session (1271). This invitation was refused, but a
meeting was arranged at the Hospital del Rey outside the walls. Alfonso
was in a most conciliatory mood, and as the rebels wanted only a
colourable pretext to continue their campaign of rapine and lawlessness,
the more he granted the more they wanted. Finally the ringleaders
retired in utter disgust to Granada.

Burgos was the scene of one of Alfonso’s worst deeds. Suspecting his
brother Don Fadrique of intriguing with his grandchildren, the
disinherited Infantes de la Cerda, he ordered him to be confined in the
castle, where the unfortunate prince was put to death by his ferocious
nephew, the Infante Sancho. After the marriage of the Infantes Don Pedro
and Don Juan with Margaret of Narbonne and Joanna of Montferrat, at
Burgos in 1281, Sancho himself revolted against his father and caused
himself to be proclaimed king. He obtained possession of the city, and,
strangely enough, reinterred with great ceremony in the monastery of La
Trinidad the very uncle he had killed.

Señor Amador de los Rios attributes the rivalry of the two cities of
Valladolid and Burgos to the preference shown the former city by the
wife of Sancho IV., Doña Maria Molina. For all that, it was the old
capital of Castile where Sancho caused his son Fernando to be publicly
declared heir to the throne.

Burgos was now a large and populous town. It owed much of its prosperity
to its considerable Jewish colony, of which Don Todros Abulafia was
Nasi, and Abu-l-Hasan Aben el Harits, physician to the king, one of the
elders. The Israelites contributed over one hundred thousand maravedis
to the revenue in the city alone. With the important part played by the
Jews in the internal policy of Spain I have dealt at greater length in
my work on Toledo in the present series.

During the regency of Doña Maria Molina, Valladolid was the usual seat
of the court. But Burgos continued to be the scene of great functions of
state. The marriage of the Duke of Brittany and the sister of Fernando
IV. was celebrated here in January 1311; and several Cortes and councils
met here. From Fernando the city obtained many privileges and
favours--the town and revenues of Villafranca de Montes de Oca being
granted to the municipality.

We pass over the civil wars and intrigues which distracted the reign of
Alfonso XI., and find Burgos ruled by one born within its walls--Pedro
the Cruel. Seville is more intimately associated with this picturesque
and sinister personality, but here it was that he caused the governor,
Garcilaso de la Vega, to be beaten to death in his presence, and watched
the bulls in the arena without trampling on and tossing the mangled body
of the victim. De la Vega’s remains were then placed in a casket, which
was hung from the castle walls that all might fear the king’s justice.
In 1355, after a busy butchering expedition, Pedro decorated a room in
the castle with the heads he had collected, the slaughtered grandees,
Lope de Bandaña, Gonzalo de Melendez, and Jofre Tenorio, contributing in
this way to the adornment of the chamber and the delight of their lord.
It was at the old capital of Castile that he was residing when Enrique
de Trastamara with Bertrand du Guesclin and the White Company crossed
the border. Pedro fled, and his brother was crowned at Las Huelgas. When
the tide had temporarily set in Pedro’s favour, it was in the cathedral
of Burgos that he and the Black Prince swore to the terms of their
alliance. But in the following year (1368) Enrique’s star was once more
in the ascendant, and a king, innately almost as vicious as our Henry
VIII., had gone to join his hosts of victims on the other side of the
tomb.

Burgos, under the Trastamara dynasty, resumed for a time the rank of
capital of Spain. Like his father, Don Juan I. was crowned here, at Las
Huelgas, in 1379, amid great festivities and rejoicings. His son,
afterwards Enrique III., was born here, probably in the great castle,
founded by Diego Porcellos, which perhaps gave its name to the whole
kingdom. Few traces exist to-day of the original building, which was the
habitual residence of the sovereign. Enrique III., however, ‘decreed a
stately palace dome’ at Miraflores, on the left bank of the Arlanzon,
at some distance from the city, but he died before its completion. A
strange monarch was this Enrique. Tired of living in poverty while his
nobles wallowed in luxury, he invited them to a banquet at the castle.
On their arrival they found no well-spread table, but the executioner
with his axe and block. It was only by liberal disbursements and
advances that they escaped this functionary’s professional attentions.
Thus did the needy monarch of Castile, who it is said had to pawn his
coat to get a dinner, replenish his exchequer.

During the reign of Juan II. the castle of Burgos was held by Don Pedro
de Estuñiga, the implacable foe of the great Constable, Alvaro de Luna.
The king on one occasion actually found the gates of his own castle
closed against him by this arrogant vassal, who at last compassed de
Luna’s downfall and death at Valladolid. In atonement for this brutal
sacrifice of his favourite, Juan converted the palace built by his
father into a Carthusian monastery--to the disgust, we are told, of the
local ecclesiastical authorities.

During the reign of Enrique IV. the castle of Burgos was a focus of
rebellion and conspiracy. On the king’s death the castle was held by
the Estuñigas for the Princess Juana, called by her enemies la
Beltraneja, while the town espoused the cause of Isabel and her
Aragonese husband. The bishop, who had retired to the castle of Rabe,
joined forces with the Estuñigas, and the townsfolk, thus placed between
two fires, implored the assistance of the court at Valladolid. Meanwhile
the Portuguese allies of Juana were implored to succour the castle.
Fernando of Aragon appeared at Burgos in June 1475 and invested the
Estuñigas’ stronghold. An attack on the church of Santa Maria la Blanca
was beaten off with loss, but the garrison, losing heart, ultimately
surrendered to the besiegers. The king of Portugal, instead of hurrying
on with all speed to Burgos, went into winter quarters at Zamora, while
Fernando prosecuted the siege with his accustomed vigour. The garrison
held out bravely, and seem to have at last capitulated, more out of
disgust at the inaction of their ally than from any inability to defend
themselves further. The commandant treated with Isabel in person, and
surrendered on obtaining a free and unconditional pardon for himself and
all his followers.

The union of Spain, consequent on the marriage of Isabel of Castile
with Fernando of Aragon, tended to diminish the importance of Burgos.
Nor was its prosperity augmented by the expulsion of the Jews--after
they had been decimated by repeated massacres--the act of two sovereigns
whose wisdom, greatness, and virtue English writers, as well as Spanish,
never tire of extolling.

The Burgolese joined the Comunidad in 1520, allying themselves with
Toledo and Segovia, Zamora, Toro, Madrid, Avila, Guadalajara, Cuenca,
Alcala, and Soria. The citizens seized the castle and murdered an
unpopular official, Garcia Jofre, afterwards sacking the episcopal
palace. They surrounded the palace of the Constable of Castile, Don
Iñigo Fernandez de Velasco, and were deterred from burning it to the
ground only by the intercession of the clergy, who exposed the Sacrament
over the doorway. The Constable fled to Briviesca, but some months after
returned in triumph to the now pacified city. Sixteen years later we
find the townsfolk welcoming Charles V. with enthusiasm, and erecting in
his honour the graceful arch of Santa Maria. Burgos had accepted the new
monarchy and the new era. The product of another age, she found herself
unfitted to play a distinguished part in this. Not without dignity she
passes into the background, and history knows her no more.

THE CATHEDRAL

Built at the instance of an English bishop and, like all the cathedrals
of northern Spain, on a French model, the church of Santa Maria la Mayor
is conspicuously more Spanish than that of either Leon or Toledo. This
more national character may be due to later additions and
alterations--alterations and additions which have neither obscured nor
impaired that wonderful unity and harmony of design apparent in this,
the ideal Gothic church.

The cathedral occupies the site of a church built in 1075, where a
summer palace of Fernan González had till then stood. The first stone
was laid on July 20, 1221, by Bishop Maurice, an Englishman who had come
over to Castile in the train of Henry II.’s daughter Eleanor. The
saintly King Fernando took a lively interest in the great work, which
progressed so rapidly that the cathedral appears to have been ready for
the reception of the faithful in November 1230. The nationality of the
bishop and his share in the building of the fabric are, however, matters
of dispute between historical writers.

The cathedral is built on very uneven ground, a circumstance which
rather enhances than detracts from its picturesqueness. O’Shea calls
attention to a remarkable trait in the exterior, rarely possessed by
buildings otherwise of equal merit: ‘We mean that the forms should be
bold projections or reproductions in relief of the internal parts, as in
embossing. Thus, in this cathedral, the eye embraces the inward
distribution at one glance from the shape of the parts outside.’ From a
distance the most conspicuous parts of the edifice are the steeples
surmounting the west front and the lantern over the crossing. The
delicacy and nobility of the spires, pinnacles, and open-work adorning
the glorious fabric tempt one to rhapsody. But so much beauty can be
adequately portrayed only by the brush, not by the pen.

The lowest stage of the western or main front is pierced by the three
doors corresponding to the nave and aisles within. Formerly rich in
sculpture, this part of the façade was rebuilt in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, in accordance with the pseudo-classical ideas of the
time, and robbed of nearly all its statuary. The ‘restorers’ spared the
statues of Alfonso VI., San Fernando, and the Bishops Maurice and
Astorio at the side of the Puerta Real (Central Door), and the
sculptures of the Coronation and Immaculate Conception of the Virgin
over the lateral entrances. This lowest stage of the west front in its
extreme plainness and severity presents an incomplete appearance when
contrasted with the much more elaborate and ancient work above. Over the
middle door, within a noble and gracefully moulded ogival arch, is a
large, finely traceried rose-window, lighting the nave. Above this again
are two windows, each of four lights, and their upper parts filled with
beautiful tracery. Before each light stands the statue of a youth
crowned. Over this highest stage of the middle division of the west
front is the inscription _Pulchra est et decora_ carved in stone, and
forming a balustrade, which is adorned by statues of the Redeemer, the
Madonna, and the Baptist.

Over the side doors rise the towers, surmounted with steeples, built for
Bishop Alfonso de Cartagena (1435-1456) by the artist, probably a
German, called Juan de Colonia, or John of Cologne. These steeples rise
to a height of three hundred feet, and, except at the lowest story, are
detached from the rest of the edifice. They are adorned with tall
pointed windows, the space for two of these on the second stage of the
north tower being covered, however, by the seventeenth-century clock.
The pinnacles themselves are wonderful examples of delicate fretted
stone-work. Street saw little beauty, however, in Juan de Colonia’s
work, adding that the bells in the spires were the most misshapen he had
ever seen.

The entrance to the north transept was known in the time of Alfonso X.
as the Gate of the Twelve Apostles. It stands on a higher level than the
floor of the church and is hence called Puerta Alta, or more often the
Puerta de la Coroneria. The lower portion certainly, the whole probably,
belongs to the thirteenth century. There is a great profusion of
sculpture. On either side of the door are seen the figures of the twelve
Apostles. The portal is enclosed within an ogival arch, on the archivolt
of which are shown, successively, seraphim, cherubim, and the souls of
the just rising from their graves. The upper part of the tympanum is
adorned with the figures of Christ seated and attended by the Virgin and
St. John. Below this is a composition of doubtful interpretation, the
figures on one side seeming to illustrate the judgment of the wicked,
those on the other side the establishment of the Dominicans and
Franciscans in Castile. Higher up, the façade is pierced with two high
pointed windows, and above these again by windows of several lights,
with statues in niches.

Ingress to the north transept is now obtained by a side entrance called
the Puerta de la Pellejeria, a plateresque structure facing east, dating
from the year 1516. Somewhat of the Gothic spirit may be detected in
this sumptuous but not over-decorated portal. The detail is excellent,
and the execution vigorous. With the figures of the Virgin, the
Apostles, Saints, and Bishops are associated genii, _amorini_, and
heraldic achievements in the true Renaissance style. Above the doorway
is a group representing the martyrdom of the two Saints John; and over
this a prelate, probably Rodriguez de Fonseca, is kneeling at the feet
of the Madonna. The composition is flanked by the fine statues of Saints
Peter and Paul; and on the sides of this façade are placed in niches the
statues of St. John the Baptist and St. James, and St. John the Divine
and St. Andrew.

The Puerta del Sarmental gives access to the south transept. It has the
finest of the cathedral fronts. It is approached by a broad flight of
steps, flanked by the walls of the episcopal palace and cloisters, and
by some interesting fourteenth-century tombs of bishops. The
architecture of the portal is on the same plan as that of the Puerta
Alta. In the tympanum Christ is shown with the Evangelists and the
beasts symbolical of them; below are the seated figures of the twelve
Apostles. The three orders of the archivolt are adorned with angels and
with crowned figures playing various instruments. Above all this is a
magnificent rose-window filled with beautiful glass of the fourteenth
century. The third stage of the front shows three Gothic windows,
elaborately traceried, and each divided into four lights by mullions,
supported by large figures of angels. ‘The angles of the transepts,’
says Street, ‘are flanked by crocketed pinnacles, the crockets here, as
elsewhere throughout the early work, being simple in form and design,
but as perfect in effect as it is possible for crockets to be.’

The eastern front of the cathedral is formed by the Capilla del
Condestable and its adjoining chapels. The exterior of the famous
octagonal chapel mentioned is very fine. On the uppermost stage on one
of the sides two lions, standing upright, are seen supporting laurel
crowns--one containing the cross, the other the monogram of Christ. On a
lower stage the escutcheon of the Velascos and Mendozas is displayed
between two knights armed _cap-à-pie_. The stages are flanked by
effigies under canopies. The angles of the façade are surmounted by
elegant spires and pinnacles.

The plan of the cathedral--a Latin cross, with nave, aisles, and
transept--has been obscured by the chapels built on the north, south,
and east sides, as may be seen by a glance at the plan included among
the illustrations. The nave is of six bays, and fifty-eight metres long.
Though the view is spoilt, as in all Spanish churches, by the choir, it
remains picturesque, pure, and devotional in the highest degree. The dim
religious light of our northern churches, it is true, is lacking, for
the interior is white throughout, and the stained glass, which in
earlier times would have mellowed the strong sunlight, was unhappily
shattered during the war of Independence. The aisles are lower than the
nave, from which they are separated by twenty columns, each with eight
engaged shafts. The triforium is somewhat in the nature of an
architectural curiosity, and certainly has been altered since the
thirteenth century; it consists of wide bays of five or six lights each,
with trefoil and quatrefoil traceries above, enclosed within a
semicircular arch or ‘label,’ which is decorated with sculptured heads.
Street declares that he has seen nothing like this elsewhere, and
supposes it to be the work of a native artist. Above the triforium is
the original clerestory--‘Simple, but good and vigorous in style.’

The High Altar, or Altar Mayor, occupying the centre of the apse, is
approached by a flight of steps of white, red, and black marble. It is
railed off from the ambulatory by _rejas_ or bronze screens fixed on
pedestals of jasper between the pillars of the nave; the backs of these
latter are adorned with life-size statues. Behind the altar rises the
Renaissance retablo, an elaborate and gorgeous work of walnut wood,
heavily gilded and each of its stages in a different order of
architecture. The symmetrical division of these altar-pieces into
compartments, each filled with its own statue, does not strike the
layman as artistic or pleasing. Indeed, there is something faintly
suggestive of pigeon-holes about it. Street, quoting Ponz, states that
the sculptures were the work of Rodrigo and Martin de la Aya (1577), who
were paid forty thousand ducats; and that for the painting and gilding
Juan de Urbino of Madrid and Martinez of Valladolid received, in 1573,
eleven thousand ducats. At the back of the sanctuary, between the
arches, may be seen the spirited reliefs of the celebrated Juan Vigarni
or ‘Borgoña,’ executed in 1540, and representing the Agony in the
Garden, Christ bearing the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and
the Ascension. The first and last are stated by Ford to have been
executed by one Alonso de los Rios in 1679. To the Renaissance period
also belong the handsome silver lamp and candlesticks. To an earlier age
belong the tombs on the north side of the sanctuary--two concealed by
the retablo; they contain the remains of Don Juan, the rebellious son of
Alfonso X., Don Sancho, brother of Enrique II. of Trastamara, and his
wife, Doña Beatriz. Over the altar is the copy of the banner borne
before Alfonso VIII. at the Navas de Tolosa, made by the De la Aya
brothers and others about 1570.

Over the crossing or intersection of nave and transept rises the
gorgeous lantern or octagonal dome, which Philip II. said seemed like
the work of angels rather than of men. It replaced the earlier dome
which collapsed in March 1537, and was completed in December 1567.
Felipe Vigarni (de Borgoña) and Juan de Vallejo are mentioned as the
architects. The Gothic and Renaissance styles are curiously but not
inharmoniously blended in this beautiful lantern, which rises to a
height of one hundred and seventy-three feet, and is profusely adorned
with sculpture.

Crossing the wide transept we reach the choir, which occupies three bays
of the nave. Under the eastern lectern lies the effigy--of wood cased in
bronze--of the English Bishop Maurice, a fine work believed to date from
1260. The stalls, one hundred and three in number, were executed between
1497 and 1512 by Felipe Vigarni, and bestowed on the cathedral by Bishop
Pascual de Fuensanta. They are of walnut wood, and in two tiers--all
most richly carved in fine Renaissance style, the pillars between being
moulded in similar fashion. The lower seats are, on the whole, the finer
work, and are inlaid in boxwood. The subjects of the reliefs are taken
from the acts of the saints and life of the Virgin. Scenes from Genesis
form the subject of the reliefs on the fronts of the upper stalls, the
backs illustrating the New Testament. The trascoro, or screen at the
west end of the choir, cost ten thousand ducats. The _reja_ displays the
arms of Cardinal Zapata, whose gift it was; the pillars which support it
rise from pedestals of jasper, and on brackets are placed two white
marble statues of Saints Peter and Paul. These statues, columns,
reliefs, etc., were executed at the expense of Archbishop Manso de
Zuñiga, in the first half of the seventeenth century, by Fray Juan de
Rici of the Order of St. Benedict.

The grand chapel of the Constable (Capilla del Condestable), behind the
high altar at the east end of the church, was built about 1487 by Don
Pedro Fernandez de Velasco, Conde de Haro, and Lord High Constable of
Castile, the property of whose descendant, the Duque de Frias, it
remains to-day. The architect was Juan de Colonia (John of Cologne) or,
as some will have it, his son Simon. Street sees much that is German in
the style of the chapel, but also features which may be fairly
attributed to the Spaniards who worked under the architect’s orders, or
to his own efforts to consult native tastes. While the chapel may be
described as florid Gothic, the splendid entrance arch, with its
marvellous lacelike tracery, tapering pinnacles, and railing, the
masterpiece of Andino, belongs to the Renaissance. The chapel is lighted
by fourteen stained-glass windows, displaying the arms of the Velascos,
which are repeated on four large stone escutcheons on the walls. The
retablo of the high altar, believed to be by Juan de Borgoña, has, in
its lower stage, a spirited sculpture of the Purification. Before the
altar are the noble tombs of the Constable and his wife, Doña Mencia de
Mendoza, Condesa de Haro. The effigies are of Carrara marble, the tombs
of jasper. The Constable is shown in complete armour, the details of
which are admirably rendered and merit close study. At the feet of the
Countess is crouched a dog, the emblem of fidelity. This great seigneur
of old Spain and his consort are interred in the vault beneath their
monuments. Close to the monument is a huge oblong slab of polished
jasper from the quarries of Atapuerca, weighing thirty-three tons, and
intended presumably to cover a tomb. The chapel contains many other
objects of interest. The side altars display some good sculpture, the
one in the Gothic, the other in the Renaissance style. There is a fine
Flemish triptych, and a good statue of St. Jerome by Becerra. In the
sacristy is shown the little portable ivory altar which the Constable
carried about with him, and a ‘Magdalene,’ attributed by some to Da
Vinci, by others to Luini. The plate, of the same age as the chapel,
includes a chalice of silver-gilt, enamelled in red and white and richly
jewelled; a pax in ivory and enamel, a thurible shaped like a ship; a
splendid silver-gilt cross; an oval alabaster relief of the Madonna;
and other treasures, some of which are not readily shown.

The two chapels next to that of the Constable on the north side of the
apse are earlier than the others and are of good middle-pointed style.
The chapel of San Gregorio seems to be the only one belonging to the
thirteenth-century church. It contains the tomb of Bishop Fontecha. The
adjoining chapel of San Nicolás was built in 1268 by Bishop Villahoz,
whose tomb and effigy are placed upright against the wall. Close by is
one of the finest sepulchres in the cathedral--that of the Archdeacon
Fernando Villegas, an early translator of Dante. Opposite the door of
the Nacimiento chapel is a notable picture of San Juan de Ortega by
Cuadra.

At the northern end of the transept is the grand staircase of
thirty-eight steps, leading to the Puerta Alta. It is one of the finest
examples of the art of Diego de Siloe, who was at his best when handling
such intricate and profuse decoration as this. The splendid iron
balustrade was the work of Cristobal Andino.

Opening on to the north aisle are the large chapels of Santa Ana and
Santa Tecla. The former was founded in 1474 by Bishop Luis Osorio
Acuña, whose tomb is here. A much finer altar and monument in the Gothic
style is that of the Archdeacon Fernando Diez de Fuente Pelayo, who died
in the memorable year 1492; it is in white marble and adorned with
sculpture with New Testament subjects, a good deal damaged. There are a
few good pictures in this chapel, one attributed to Andrea del Sarto,
and a sculptured genealogy of the Virgin. Of the chapel of Santa Tecla,
perhaps not much else need be said than that it is in the
Churrigueresque style and was founded in 1734. Its best feature is its
‘half-orange’ dome. O’Shea says that there formerly existed on the side
of the baptistry a small chapel dedicated to Santiago, wherein Alfonso
XI. instituted the order of knighthood of La Vanda or the Badge, of
which the kings of Castile were members.

Opening on to the southern aisle, opposite the Capilla de Santa Tecla,
is the cruciform chapel of the Santisimo Cristo de la Agonia, containing
a very ancient, curious, and (it is alleged) miraculous image of Christ.
It is supposed to have been carved by the fearful Nicodemus, and to have
been afterwards found floating in a boat on the sea. It is a grotesque
and yet a weird and impressive object, dressed up after the ridiculous
custom in Spain.

The chapel of the Presentation was founded in 1519 by the Canon Gonzalo
de Lerma, whose noble tomb in the centre of the chapel was executed
during his lifetime by Vigarni. Another fine tomb is here--that of Canon
Jacubo de Bilbao. This chapel possesses a beautiful Virgin and Child
painted on a panel, probably by Sebastiano del Piombo, and sculptures by
Berruguete. The railing is another example of Andino’s craftsmanship.

In the chapel of San Juan de Sahagun are preserved the relics of the
saint, who was a canon of Burgos. Here are also numerous other relics,
chiefly fragments of the bodies of sainted personages, among them two
local martyrs, Centola and Helena. The image of the Virgin of Oca is
fabled to have testified by a nod to the promise of marriage made by a
faithless Don Juan to a damsel--a silly story also told of the Cristo de
la Vega at Toledo. Simon, the last Bishop of Oca, is buried in this
chapel, and also the Blessed Lesmes, who is invoked by sufferers from
nephritic disorders. More interesting than any of these things is the
Cristo de la Agonia, a painting signed by El Greco.

In the chapel of the Visitation is the handsome tomb of the founder, the
Bishop de Cartagena; and in the seventeenth-century chapel of San
Enrique repose the remains of the bishops of Oca, and those of the
founder, Bishop Peralta--contained in a beautiful tomb of alabaster,
beneath a superb kneeling effigy in bronze. Of alabaster is also the
beautiful flooring of the chapel; and of bronze, the fine eagle lectern.

We now reach the sacristy, a great part of which is in the bad style of
the eighteenth century. There is some good carving, which, indeed, is
not rare in Spain; but the pictures ascribed to Murillo and other
masters are all very doubtful. A jasper table is among the most
interesting objects. We complete the circuit of the church by a visit to
the large chapel of Santiago, designed in the sixteenth century by Juan
de Vallejo. It is considered to be the parish church of Burgos. The
Apostle of Spain is shown on horseback on the high altar, and again on
the beautiful _reja_. Here lies the Abbot of San Quirce, one of the
Velasco family, beneath a tomb worthy of his illustrious ancestry. Not
far off is the sarcophagus of the Astudillos, one of whom was the
founder of the chapel of the Three Kings at Cologne. There are other
interesting tombs in this chapel, among the oldest being that of Bishop