Catalonia & the Balearic Islands: an historical and desciptive account

by Albert Frederick Calvert

From Vich it is about forty-five miles to Barcelona.

LERIDA

Lerida is another of those Catalan cities that remind one of the saying about new wine in old bottles. Seen from afar it is clearly one of those old human hives that have existed on the same spot ever since man felt the need of a permanent abode—you have the hill-site, the walls, the towers, the flowing river, the mediæval aspect. You observe with delight a humpbacked bridge, such as (with a total disregard for beasts of burden) our pious ancestors loved to build. And over all rises the cathedral—or, as we shall soon learn, what was the cathedral. But on a closer inspection we find that time has by no means left Lerida untouched. Already she has overflowed into the opposite side of the stream, and there is a big new suburb with wide white streets, spaciously planned squares, and avenues along which the trees are beginning to grow. And as you cross the humpbacked bridge, you observe that the centre arch is quite new, and as you enter the old town, you are astonished by the stir and the modernity of it all. It is just like Smyrna or Damascus. Every one has been too busy to build the town over again. Its poor old rickety houses, in which men designed to lead only the sedatest of lives, have been hastily requisitioned for the service of modern industry and commerce. The low rooms are packed with merchandise, the frail houses seem like to burst. The underground cellars come in very handily. Lerida is very much alive. Some day she will have to pull her house down and build a new one altogether.

Probably no one would have come to Lerida—no strangers of the uncommercial variety, that is—if Street had not told us about the old cathedral, since turned into a barracks. Nor without his detailed and professional description would the average traveller be able to make much of the building. The purposes to which it has been put have obscured the outlines of the features of the original fabric. But you cannot overlook it for it stands high on the hill like a citadel, which, indeed, it has now become.

Lerida—which the Catalans, by the way, call Lleyda—was known to the Romans as Ilerda, and when they turned Christian, they built a church on this site. This, it is supposed, became a mosque during the brief Moorish period, to be reconsecrated on the reappearance of the Christians. The first stone of the actual building was laid on July 22, 1203, in the presence of King Pedro II., and the consecration took place on October 31, 1278.

(People often wonder why we do not build cathedrals nowadays equal to the old. One of the reasons may be that we are in too great a hurry. In the Middle Ages no man expected to see the completion of the work he began. They were animated by a strong communal sense, different from the individualism of to-day.)

The excellent bishop and chapter of Lerida in the year 1707 thought the cathedral too old for their requirements, and having already commissioned a military architect to build them a new church in the city below, thither they removed. By a fair exchange the military took possession of the cathedral. They willingly display it to you, and the non-commissioned officer who shows you round seems less in a hurry to get the visit over than your clerical cicerone usually is.

The lay traveller in attempting to understand this church has always to refer himself to the explanation of Street or else to that of Piferrer, which is certainly not so intelligible. In plan, then, the church is cruciform with three eastern apses and square transept arms. Another apse projects eastward from the south transept, which is flanked on the other side by a semicircular chapel, pointing south. Over the crossing rises an octagonal lantern, roofed like the whole church with stone, and pierced in each face with double windows with varied tracery. At its north-west angle is a slender octagonal staircase turret, rising from the south-west angle of the north transept. There is a similar but stouter tower, detached from the lantern, rising over the south transept. These towers give the whole pile a romantic and beautiful appearance.

The principal portal, called in the Catalan dialect the Puerta dels Fillols, opens into the middle of the south aisle. “This [says our authority] is an example of singularly rich transitional work, with an archivolt enriched with chevrons, mouldings, dog-tooth, intersecting arches, and elaborate foliage. There is the usual horizontal cornice over the arch, and above this is a fourteenth-century statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Our Lord. The horizontal cornice is carried on moulded corbels, between which and the wall are carvings of wyverns and other animals; whilst the soffit of the cornice in each compartment is carved with delicate tracery panels, in some of which I thought I detected some trace of Moorish influence. The cornice has a delicate trailing branch of foliage; and the labels and two or three orders of the arch, in which sculpture of foliage is introduced, are remarkable for the singular delicacy and refinement of the lines of the foliage, and for the exceeding skill with which they have been wrought. There is none of that reckless dash which marks our carvers nowadays, but in its place a patient elaboration of lovely forms, which cannot too much be praised. The mouldings here are all decidedly characteristic by a later—probably fifteenth-century—vaulted porch, which occupies the space between two added chapels. The effect is very good and picturesque.”

The transept doors are also very fine, especially the southern one. The cornice is beautifully sculptured and the wheel window above reveals in its details the influence of the Italian Romanesque. These entrances make us regret the effacement of the west porch, which is concealed by the vast square cloister covering that side of the church. This remarkable building, now occupied by troops, is the grandest, Street declared, he had ever seen. In its present desecrated state, it must be confessed it needs a highly trained eye to appreciate its beauty. The arcades are walled up, and there is some ground for supposing that when in ecclesiastical occupation the galleries were used as dormitory and refectory. The details vary greatly. The bays vary in width, the sculpture is of all sorts of design, and of all periods. Adjoining this vast cloister on the north side is a long barrel-vaulted hall, lighted only at one end. On the west side the cloister is entered through an enormous western doorway with a pointed arch. South of this and almost detached from the cloister stands that beautiful octagonal steeple which served Pedro Balaguer as a model for the Micalet Tower at Valencia. It is 170 feet high and divided into five stages, “the whole construction being of the most dignified and solid description.”