Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain

by Annette M. B. Meakin

We were now conducted to the neighbouring convent of Santa Clara, and our guide requested the nuns to show the remarkable collection of relics which they were known to possess. But these ladies, who interviewed us from behind a double grating of iron bars, refused point-blank to allow the eyes of the uninitiated to rest even for a moment on their sacred treasures. “Here is a little book,” said the Lady Superior, “in which you will find a list of our relics,” and she handed it to me through the thick bars that separated her and her companions from the outside world. I brought the book away with me, and read in it later that the convent in question had been founded by Señora Doña Catalina de Sandoval y Roja, of whom the convent possessed a full-length portrait. She was the wife of Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, seventh Count of Lemos.[280] This pious dame exerted her every effort to endow her convent with a fine collection of relics. She was by birth a Neapolitan princess, and Pope Paul V. granted her a Bull allowing all the “archbishops, bishops and abbots of the Kingdom of Naples to give to her new convent any relics they might have in their churches.” On receipt of the Bull, Doña Catalina’s husband had lost no time in sending letters to all the church dignitaries of Naples to notify them that they might now send what relics they liked to Monforte. Four trusty Capuchin monks bore the letters to Italy, and returned laden with relics, which they handed over to Doña Catalina, with the letters in which the archbishops and bishops replied to Count Pedro. Some of these divines excused themselves, saying that their relics were so small that they were not worth sending, but others sent a great many from their rich collections. All the relics that were thus accumulated were deposited, with the letters that accompanied them, in the convent of Santa Clara, in August 1703.

Looking through the list of relics given in the book, I noted that there were among them,—several pieces of the true Cross, in golden cases; a nail from the Cross in a crystal case; a thorn from the Crown of Thorns; a little piece of the sheet in which the body of Christ was wrapped; a little piece of the Virgin’s veil; a bone from the body of St. Paul; a fragment of the column to which Christ was bound; a bit of cloth stained with the blood of John the Baptist; a drop of milk from the Virgin’s breast; a tooth of St. Catherine, and a drop of milk (that was drawn from her breast by the knife of her executioner); a bone from the body of Pope Gregory; the heads of six of the eleven thousand virgins (English maidens) who fled from Cornwall with St. Ursula. There was a long list of other heads, or rather skulls, of saints, and this was followed by a long list of bodies, some complete, some incomplete; then came a still longer list of bones, arm bones, shin bones, and every other kind of bone. I could not help feeling, as I turned over page after page, that the nuns of Santa Clara were wise after all in refusing to expose their museum of human remains to the curiosity of passing strangers.

The modern part of Monforte, on the plain beneath the citadel, with its wide streets lined with black poplars and its clay-built houses, is much more like a Castillian than a Gallegan town; in fact, to my eyes, so long accustomed to narrow streets and the granite houses of Galicia, Monforte presented a strange and novel contrast. Monforte is built out round its citadel like a spider’s web. I do not know any town except Carlsruhe to which I can compare it.

The province of Lugo, the fourth and last division of Galicia with which we have to deal, lies to the north of Orense, and is itself bounded on the north by the Bay of Biscay, with a coast-line of sixty Spanish miles. The province of Lugo is very mountainous, but in its centre there are fertile plains and valleys watered by innumerable rivers and streams; the most important of which is our old acquaintance the river Miño, which has its source in a spring near the town of Lugo. The Ulla and the Eo also have their rise in this province, the latter being the natural boundary between Lugo and Oviedo.

Lugo, the chief town of the province of Lugo, was our next stopping place after Monforte. The railway station is on the plain, but Lugo stands upon a hill, and is still surrounded by an ancient wall which dates from the days of the Romans. This wall, with its many bastions and semicircular towers built of massive granite, must have been a fine sight during the Middle Ages, for it is still one of the finest ruins of its kind in the whole of the Peninsula. Molina wrote in the sixteenth century that the walls of Lugo were one of the marvels of Spain, and so wide that two carriages could drive abreast round their entire circuit, and crowned by so many towers that there was one at every eighth step. He adds that when Lugo was at the height of her splendour each of these towers contained living-rooms, and was inhabited by a watchman whose duty it was to guard the town. “Even now,” he continues, “each tower has still many windows, and pieces of the old window-panes are often picked up near them; the glass was very thick and white.” Molina also speaks of some ancient Roman baths which were mentioned by Pliny, and which he considers to be the oldest baths in Spain—more than a thousand years old. “How strange,” he remarks, “that though the springs are only forty steps distant from the river Miño, their water is quite hot; such a difference of temperature within such a small space is marvellous.”

Like Monforte, Lugo is built upon a hill rising in the midst of a plain. The ancient Romans made this town the centre of their administration of Galicia; they kept two cohorts of the Seventh Legion stationed here, and it was an important point of defence against the attacks of unsubdued native tribes. Within the walls there are to-day twenty-nine streets and several fine squares, but the town spreads far beyond the walls, and there are quite as many inhabitants dwelling outside. In the days of the Romans, Lugo was known as Augusta Lucus. Tradition tells us that the Romans found a Celtic town there, and although we have as yet no actual proof of this, we know for a certainty that the ancient Celts had a god called Lugus or Lug (gen. Loga). Jubainville thinks that the name of Louth in Ireland is derived from Lugus. This deity was supposed to be a god with a human form; the same authority cites five continental towns thought to have derived their names from the same source, but he does not seem to have noticed that of Lugo in Galicia.[281]

Such was the importance of Lugo under the Romans in the time of Pliny, that more than a hundred and sixty-six free persons are said to have come to Lugo to act as judges in public causes. When the Sueves made themselves masters of Galicia in the fourth and fifth centuries, they made Lugo the centre of their government, and their kings held their Court there. During the days of the Goths the town lost its former greatness, and was reduced till its only importance was that which it gained from being the seat of a Catholic bishopric. During the Arab invasion even the churches of Lugo suffered destruction, the inhabitants were scattered, and her bishop was taken prisoner; but in 740 King Alfonso I. came to Lugo and began restorations. After the death of this king, Bishop Odoario continued the work that had been begun.

During the sixth century Lugo was for some time the seat of a Metropolitan. At a Church Council held at Braga in 572, Nitigisco, the bishop, signed himself Metropolitan of Lugo. Several important Church Councils were also held at Lugo. In the days of her Metropolitan importance, Lugo had no less than fourteen churches under her sway, and these comprised a very large territory. Her power and influence were great; she watched over the public peace, she helped the cities when they were attacked by outside foes, and encouraged them to strengthen their bulwarks; her powers over the interests of the citizen were almost regal for more than a century, though the people were never unanimous in their approval of so much power being vested in the Church, and the nobles were continually struggling to throw off the yoke of the Mitre.[282]

When and how Lugo lost the dignity of being a Metropolitan See is not known, but it was some time between 1095 and 1113, during the Pontificate of Calixtus II. Another honour which was conceded to this town in the remote past, and which she still retains, was the remarkable privilege of exposing continually the Sacrament of the Eucharist upon the chief altar of her Cathedral. The exact origin of this privilege has been sought in vain, but those who have looked into the matter most carefully are of the opinion that it probably dates from the Council of Lugo held in 569, and that it was established as a protest against the heresy of Priscillian, which threatened at that time to dominate Galicia. Acuña, in his Historiæ Eclesiastica de los Arzobispos de Braga, has the following passage: “Por que na mesma Cidade em algum destes dous Concileos se decretou é estableceu à verdadeira prescença de Chisto Noso Deus neste Divinissimo è Altisimo Sacramento à quem os hereges d’aquelle tempo tanto contradiziao.”[283] An early reference to the exposition of the Sacrament at Lugo occurs in a document bearing the date 1130, which states that the Divine Mysteries were celebrated nocturnæ diurnis temporibus in the Cathedral at Lugo. And in 1621 the Bishop of Lugo wrote to Pope Gregory XV. that they had had “on the chief altar of the Cathedral the most holy Sacrament ever since the time of the condemnation of the heretics.”

From other ancient documents it is known that the Host was exposed in a crystal box, and in such a manner that it could be seen by every one who entered the cathedral. Large sums of money were contributed from time to time by the kings and princes of Galicia in connection with this privilege. A Count of Lemos gave, in 1672, a donation of seventy pounds weight of gold. In March 1669 a decree was passed that the Kingdom of Galicia should contribute 1500 ducats annually, and in later years the State assigned an annual payment of 15,000 pesetas towards the expenses of this privilege to Lugo. There still exists in the archives of Lugo a document bearing the date 1734, in which the King of Spain conceded an annual payment of 400 pesetas from the Kingdom of New Spain towards the veneration of the Holy Sacrament of the Cathedral of Lugo. The most recent event in this connection occurred in 1897, when on 18th June the Pope granted to the Lugo clergy the privilege of celebrating the Holy Sacrament every Thursday throughout the year, except the Thursdays which should fall upon Feast Days.