Leon, Burgos and Salamanca: a historical and descriptive account

by Albert Frederick Calvert

In a chapel leading from the cloisters is attached to the wall one of the celebrated trunks filled with sand which the Cid palmed off as security for a loan upon an unusually simple-minded son of Israel. It is antique and solid enough to date from those days at all events. Close by is the recumbent effigy and tomb of Juan Cuchiller, the faithful servant of Enrique III. In adjacent chapels may be seen the splendid tombs of Canon Santander, a sixteenth-century work, with an exquisite relief of the Virgin and Child; of Canon Aguilar, who died in 1482; and the monuments of other canons, chaplains, and knights.

Adjoining the cloisters is the Chapter House, or Sala Capitular, with a fine artesonado ceiling, and a cornice of blue and white majolica, around which run verses from the Proverbs. The room contains a Crucifixion signed Greco, and a St. John the Divine doubtfully attributed to Murillo. There remains to be seen the old sacristy, a spacious room over forty feet square, and with corbels quaintly carved with scenes from a lion hunt. The treasury of Burgos is not as rich as that of Toledo or Seville; but it contains some magnificent and seemingly ancient vestments, beautifully carved presses, and a long series of portraits of the occupants of the episcopal see. Below the cloister a lower story was built; but the arches are now blocked up and it is neglected, though abounding in interesting tombs and monuments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The south-west side of this grand cathedral is shut in by the archbishop’s palace.

Las Huelgas

The other great ecclesiastical building of Burgos belongs nearly to the same period as the cathedral. The Cistercian convent of Santa Maria la Real de las Huelgas was founded in 1180 by Alfonso VIII. and his Queen Eleanor, daughter of our Henry II.—to propitiate the Heavenly Powers after the rout of Alarcos, it is asserted by some. The architect appears to have been a countryman of his royal mistress—an Angevin—and his work was certainly copied in those churches which were built by Spaniards.

This historic pile stands about a mile from the city, on the road to Valladolid. The name is derived from the verb holgar (to rest), the site having been formerly occupied by pleasure in grounds. Many of the most striking events in Castilian history were enacted here. Here Edward I. was knighted by Alfonso el Sabio; here, in after years, the Black Prince lodged, fresh from his much-to-be-regretted victory at Navarrete. Many royal personages were wedded here, and not a few were buried here besides. Great was the dignity of the abbess, who exercised ‘the high, the low, and the middle justice,’ or, in other words, could hang offenders on her own gallows; whose authority extended over half a hundred towns and villages, and who was exempt from all episcopal jurisdiction or control. Though shorn of her proudest prerogatives and much of her wealth, the abbess of Las Huelgas is still one of the greatest ladies of Spain. The rule, too, of St. Bernard is observed with primitive strictness, and the high-born nuns refuse to permit even the most sober of archæologists to examine their cloisters.

A thirteenth-century postern leads into the compás or square formed by the convent, a graceful fourteenth-century tower, and the ancient palace of the Castilian monarchs, now a school. The church, built by St. Ferdinand in 1279, is of the usual cruciform plan. It is stern, simple, very pure Gothic, despite the restorations and alterations effected in successive ages. The nave is inaccessible to strangers, and is reserved exclusively to the nuns, who may be seen, through the screen, assisting at the offices in their grandly carved stalls. We loiter in the transept, and notice the lofty lantern over the crossing, and the revolving pulpit from which St. Vincent Ferrer is said to have preached, though the date of its construction (1560) may be discerned carved upon it. The chancel, with its green tapestries woven with gold—the gift of Philip the Handsome—is flanked on either side by two chapels, but our interest centres in the nave, of which we can only obtain a glimpse through the grille. The tombs facing us are those of the founders, Alfonso VIII. and Eleanor Plantagenet. The conqueror of Las Navas is shown on a relief, enthroned, handing the charter of the abbey to the first abbess. To the right of these tombs lies Queen Berenguela, mother of St. Ferdinand; and farther back in the aisles are the sarcophagi of thirty-six members of the royal house of Spain, among them the ‘Emperor’ Alfonso VII., Sancho I., Enrique I., and Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. Anne of Austria, daughter of the great Don John, was the last princess entombed within these venerable precincts. Unapproachable by visitors is the chapel of Santiago, wherein is preserved an effigy of St. James, which by means of some hidden mechanism could place the crown on the royal brow and confer the accolade of knighthood.

The remarkable Moorish fabric, generally believed to have been a trophy of the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, is hung in the nun’s choir, but a replica may be seen hanging in the chancel. A detailed description of this interesting relic is contained in Riaño’s Spanish Arts. Amador de los Rios rejects the tradition that this was the Almohade standard, and thinks it was the curtain or flap of the Amir’s tent, taken in the battle. Riaño goes farther, and opines that it was an offering made, not by Alfonso VIII., but by the eleventh monarch of that name. Adopting this theory, it remains probable that the fabric was one of the spoils of war, for the character of the texts from the Koran woven upon it are a sufficient proof that it could not have been worked by Moorish weavers under Christian direction.

Not far from Las Huelgas is the Hospital del Key, built by Alfonso VIII. as a hospice for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. There is little about this building now to suggest a twelfth-century origin. Rebuilt in the sixteenth century and restored by Carlos III., it has been styled one of the finest specimens of the plateresque in Castile. The Puerta de Romeros exhibits a bewildering wealth of ornament, against which stands out, as the most interesting features, the vigorous figure of the apostle, and the crowned busts of Alfonso and Eleanor. The court is bordered on two sides by cloisters, the symmetry of which is marred by the excess of arches. The cornice, with its heraldic achievement and busts, is, on the whole, in good taste. One side of the court is formed by the façade of the church, restored in the plateresque style by Carlos III. in 1771. The original structure may be recognised in some dilapidated and deserted chambers with Mudejar ceilings, adjacent to the Magdalena arcade. There are some graceful Mudejar capitals and Arabic inscriptions of the thirteenth century likewise to be seen in the stables of the Hospice.

Far more interesting and substantially more ancient, though of a later foundation, is the Cartuja de Miraflores in an arid spot some two and a half miles from the city. Here once stood the hunting palace of Enrique III.—placed like so many abodes of Spanish royalty in a naturally uninviting site, and converted by that king’s son and successor, Juan II., into a Carthusian monastery in 1442. In consequence of a fire, all had to be rebuilt, a few years later, under the direction of Juan de Colonia. The edifice was not actually completed till the time of Isabel the Catholic. The monastery is now inhabited by only a few monks, each having his own house or cell, according to the rule of St. Bruno. Grass grows in the courtyard, and everything wears an aspect of desolation and neglect. The church recalls San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo. It rises high above the adjacent buildings, simple in plan and rather spoilt by plateresque additions. The interior, consisting of a single nave and apse, is divided by rejas or grilles into three parts, reserved respectively to the laity, the lay brothers, and the clergy. The two last have their own choirs. The stalls of the lay brothers are beautifully carved in walnut, and display the figures of the apostles. They were carved in 1558 by Simon de Bueras for the sum of 810 ducats. The priests’ stalls, also in walnut, show the fine workmanship of Martin Sanchez (1489), a Spaniard whose style was very Flemish. The quadrangular altar, designed by Gil de Siloe, was adorned with gold brought from America in the second expedition of Columbus. The altar-piece, by the same artist and Diego de la Cruz, is a triumph of design and colouring. It is impossible to describe in detail the almost innumerable subjects and sculptures which make up this marvellous work. To be easily distinguished among the religious compositions are the figures of Juan II. and his Queen Isabel, kneeling on faldstools and attended by their guardian angels. Above the tabernacle a superb cluster of angels encircles a crucifix, over which is seen the symbolical figure of the pelican. Very fine, also, is the seat occupied by the celebrating priest during the sermon. It is the work of Martin Sanchez, and is an exquisite specimen of Gothic carving, described by one authority as ‘one of the most beautiful and sumptuous pieces of ecclesiastical furniture of its kind and period in Spain or elsewhere.’