II
OVIEDO
The province of Asturias is, for all men of Spanish blood, holy ground. Its fastnesses sheltered the last little remnant of the nation which refused to bow before the foreign yoke, its mountains proved an impregnable bulwark against the invader. At Covadonga, Spain, beaten to her knees, with broken sword and buckler, struck back wildly, despairingly. Her adversary recoiled; in that instant she recovered her breath, and, rising to her feet, pressed him steadily, stealthily, irresistibly backwards. Asturias was not the cradle, but the asylum of the Spanish nation. Here, to use familiar expressions, she found salvation in the last ditch; she was saved at the eleventh hour.
How dreadful was the peril of the nation we may understand when we read that the coast of Asturias itself was overrun by the Moors, and that a Muslim governor ruled at Gijon. Only a few glens in the wild Cantabrian mountains can boast a soil never profaned by the tread of the infidel. Oviedo can claim no such distinction. The ground on which she stands was, beyond all doubt, within the Moorish dominions. And she was not, as it is a very common error to suppose, the first capital of the reborn monarchy. It was at Cangas de Onis that Pelayo held his primitive court, and to Pravia, nearer the ocean, that Silo transferred the seat of government. Not till the reign of Alfonso the Chaste (791-842) did Oviedo become the capital of the infant monarchy.
The town was younger even than the kingdom. It sprang up round a monastery founded by King Froila I. on the spot where in 760 the Abbot Fromistano had dedicated a humble church to St. Vincent. Before the monastery was built, the first stones were laid of the famous basilicas of the Salvador and of Saints Julian and Basilissa. Alfonso was born here, and partly out of affection for his native place, partly perhaps from an aversion to the capital of his enemy, Mauregato, he established his court here, beside the churches he loved. He girded the town with walls, and raised the bishop to the rank of primate of his dominions. Sovereign of two of the smaller provinces of Spain, he is said to have been emulous of the splendour of his contemporary Charlemagne. He endeavoured to restore the state of the old Gothic court. He revived the laws, the customs, and the ritual of his ancestors, and imported precious woods and marbles from afar for the embellishment of his little capital. His successors imitated not only the ceremonial and luxury of the Byzantine Emperors, but also their intriguing and methods of punishment. Putting out the eyes was as popular a means of ridding oneself of an opponent at Oviedo as at Constantinople. Alfonso el Magno avenged himself in this way on his four brothers, Veremundo, Nuño, Odoario, and Froila, whom he detected conspiring against him. Veremundo, notwithstanding, escaped to Astorga, where the inhabitants espoused his cause and defended him against his brother. Another conspiracy proved more successful, and Alfonso was driven from the throne by his own son. One day the dethroned sovereign presented himself before his successor and craved a boon. It was to lead the Asturian hosts once more against the infidels. The request was granted, and victory, as it had always done, attended the old king’s banners. And he had no sooner laid aside his arms, than, crowned with laurels in place of a diadem, he passed away at Zamora, December 20, 910.
The dominions of Alfonso were dismembered at his abdication, and Oviedo for the brief space of twenty years remained the capital of the kingdom of Asturias alone. Ramiro II. reunited the monarchy, and at the same time transferred the capital to Leon. Oviedo became again the temporary seat of government, when Al Mansûr’s ever-victorious host swept over Spain, submerging all the Christian conquests, and breaking only against the impenetrable barrier of the Asturias. Leon was not restored to its rank till the reign of Alfonso V. (999-1027). This second period of residence of the kings at Oviedo was marked by the miraculous intervention of Heaven on behalf of an innocent man—if the chroniclers may be credited. Ataulfo, Bishop of Santiago, was accused of enormous crimes, and, having been summoned to the court, was condemned on insufficient evidence by Veremundo II. to be exposed to the fury of a wild bull. The prelate, strong in the knowledge of his innocence, celebrated Mass, and presented himself in the arena clad in his pontifical vestments. The furious animal entered, and lo! at once prostrated himself before the devoted man, offering his head and horns to be caressed. Nay, more, he threatened the spectators with his fury. Amid the plaudits of all, the holy bishop withdrew, and retired to a church in the valley of the Pravia, where he died in the odour of sanctity. Oviedo was known as the city of the bishops, as it was the residence of a great many prelates whose Sees were in partibus infidelium—that is to say, had passed under the control of the Moors.
The history of the city, and indeed of the province, from the tenth century onwards, is of scant interest. Asturias was erected by Alfonso VII. in 1153 for a brief space into an independent kingdom in favour of the Infanta Urraca, his natural daughter by a lady of the province; but on her death it was reunited to the monarchy of Castile and Leon. Oviedo was too remote from the scene of the long campaign against the Muslims and from the later seats of government to take any prominent part in the nation’s affairs. But it did not escape the assaults of the French in the Peninsular War. The town was remorselessly sacked by General Bonnet, in spite of a resistance not unworthy of the posterity of Pelayo’s unconquerable warriors.
A quiet, clean city, swept unceasingly by wind and rain, Oviedo at first sight recalls but faintly its glorious past. Yet when we look carefully about us, we find that time has been kind to those early sanctuaries which were the cause of the town’s existence, and which have merited for it the title of ‘the holy.’ Approaching more as a pilgrim than a critic, in no sceptical frame of mind, you will find few places in Spain more deeply interesting. And though it is neither the oldest nor the most interesting architecturally of the local monuments, your steps will turn at once to the Cámara Santa, attached to the cathedral—the Palladium of Spain.
In the seventh century (so runs the legend) when the hosts of Khosru threatened the Holy Land, an ark or coffer, worked by the disciples of the Apostles and full of relics of ineffable sanctity, was conveyed by pious hands to Egypt. Thence it was transported to Cartagena, thence to Toledo; and when that city in its turn was menaced by the ever-advancing Saracen, it was taken by King Pelayo to the cave of Monsagro, ten miles from Oviedo. When the chaste king and his architect, Tioda, re-erected the basilica of San Salvador, founded by Froila, in the year 802, a chapel dedicated to San Miguel, and now called the Cámara Santa, was built expressly to receive this venerated reliquary.
This sanctuary is now approached from the south side of the cathedral by a flight of twenty-two steps, built in the sixteenth century. We reach first the chapel, or ante-cámara, restored if not entirely constructed in the reign of Alfonso VI. (1072-1109), and representing the highest pitch of development reached at that time by Romanesque art in Spain. The roof is groined, and supported on each side by six columns built into the wall. Each column consists of two pilasters, rising from high pedestal bases, and supporting the statues of two Apostles. These figures are expressive, though rude, and the draperies are graceful and natural. At their feet are fantastic animals. The capitals of the columns are richly and beautifully carved with foliage, and with compositions representing scenes from the life of the Saviour and combats between men and lions. The capitals of the small pillars at the corners of the pedestals are also curious and delicately carved. Over the door are three heads in relief, of Christ, the Virgin, and St. John, early Romanesque work once painted and then disfigured by whitewash. The pavement of hard argamasa, or tessellated work, resembles, as Ford remarks, Norman-Byzantine works in Sicily. Beneath is a crypt, or lower chapel, dedicated to St. Leocadia.
At the far end of the Ante-cámara is the Relicario, the sanctuary actually constructed by Alfonso the Chaste. It measures about 19½ by 17 feet, and consists of a single low vault with traces of paintings, and lighted by a little window in the arch spanning the entrance.