Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain

by Annette M. B. Meakin

Betanzos and the Phœnicians—Earliest inhabitants—The Fiesta de Caneiros—Municipal archives—Market day—The “abominable tribute”—Tiobre—May Day—San Martin de Tiobre—Santa Eulalia de Espenuca—The Church of Santiago—Its slanting architecture—A tower of the Middle Ages—Santa Maria de Azogue—San Francisco—The tomb of Fernán Peréz de Andrade—The Church at Cambre—A forerunner of Toledo Cathedral—Was it planned by Mateo?—Petrus Petri—The drive to Puentedeume and Ferrol—Borrow on Ferrol—The great Arsenal of Spain—Modern enterprise at Ferrol—A trait in the Spanish character

BETANZOS is one of the oldest towns in Spain; some writers think it was founded by the Phœnician traders who came to the north-western coast in search of tin and other metals. Betanzos was one of the seven provinces into which ancient Galicia was divided, and throughout the Middle Ages it had a considerable degree of importance. The Ria, on the bank of which the town of Betanzos stands, is now shallow and unimportant, but there is every reason to believe that in the days of the ancients its waters were navigable up to the town walls, and covered with shipping. Betanzos is now in the province of Coruña and only one hour distant by train from the town of that name. As we had not been able to visit it during our sojourn at Coruña, we made it our next halting-place after Lugo: the journey (by express train) occupied just two hours. The province of Lugo contained, during the Middle Ages, more monasteries than any other part of Galicia, but to-day there is only one ruined monastery left, and that is at Sarria, the first town at which our train stopped after leaving Lugo.

The earliest inhabitants of Betanzos were probably a mixed community of Greeks and Celts: the Romans called the town either Brigantium Flavium, after Vespasian (or Titus), who founded the Roman city about 72 A.D., or Flavia Lambris. The present town stands on what is now only a small creek, nearly a mile distant from the sea, and only small boats can reach it. On three sides there are sloping hills mostly covered with woods and pasture land, so that the situation of the place is decidedly picturesque. Many residents of Madrid and other inland towns have villas here for the summer months; and as it is only a few miles from Coruña, it is better known to Spaniards than most parts of Galicia. The river Mandeo flows through the town and discharges itself into the creek or ria. On August 18, every year the inhabitants celebrate their Fiesta de Caneiros. This is a kind of Battle of Flowers which takes place upon the ria. The water is covered with boats gaily decorated with flowers. The tide carries the holiday-makers out towards the sea, and with it they return in the evening after much feasting and merry-making. The festival is a unique one even to Spaniards, and friends who have taken part in it speak with rapture of the brilliance and beauty of the scene. Myriads of garland-covered boats are borne upon the water, and happy faces peep from under the festoons of flowers and foliage.

At Betanzos the best hotel is nothing but a country inn. From its windows we looked out upon the open space known as Plazo del Campo, on the opposite side of which stands a handsome eighteenth-century building which served at one time as the principal municipal archives of Galicia; part of it is now a municipal school for boys. Over the principal entrance, which is reached by a double flight of stone steps, are the ancient arms of Galicia (a chalice containing the Host). Omnibuses to Ferrol and Puentedeume start in front of this building, and there is always plenty of movement, but on market days the scene is particularly varied and interesting, and on the first and sixteenth of every month a fair is held here. During the fair one corner of the Plaza becomes a cattle market, another is filled with horses, and another with pigs. The crowd is so great that one can only make one’s way through with difficulty.

Betanzos is full of interest for archæologists. To begin with, it is closely associated with the legend of the Hundred Maidens to which I have elsewhere alluded. Molina says in this connection, “Of all that I am writing in this little book, there is no subject more worthy of attention than the story of the abominable tribute that King Mauregato levied upon the Christians,” and he then proceeds to tell how a few noble-spirited Gallegan youths rushed upon the Moors at a spot called Pecte Burdelo, and freed Spain for ever from their disgraceful demands. A street in Betanzos bears to this day the name “Street of the Hundred Maidens” (Calle de las Cien Doncellas).

The oldest parish in the modern town is Bravio, and its churches date from the second half of the twelfth century.[287] The oldest parish of the ancient town is Tiobre. We walked up the hill to see the little church of Tiobre, which stands on an eminence to the north-east of the town. It was the second of May, the day on which Spanish children hold their festival which corresponds with our election of a May Queen. At one spot in the road we found a party of children supporting an arch gaily decorated with coloured ribbons. A small child of three was being made to pass beneath the arch with closed eyes, while the children sang a verse about the sleep of Winter; then, as they sang of the coming of Spring and of the waking up of the flowers and birds, the child was made to open its eyes and pass beneath the arch once more. I took a snapshot of the merry group, and then we proceeded up the hill past the modern church of Nuestia Señora del Caneiro, to which many pilgrimages are still made. From the cemetery we had a very fine view of the town below, though we could not see the whole of it. I noticed that the town lay so snugly amongst its many hills that from whatever eminence you might look down upon it some of its streets were always hidden from view. Beyond the church we had to walk single file between fields of wheat and rye till we came to the little church of San Martin de Tiobre. It is a very small granite edifice with a handsome Romanesque entrance and a lateral door in the same style, while over the triumphal arch it has a rose window, which has unfortunately been closed up, so that the interior is darker than it should be. There are four columns with beautifully sculptured capitals, two on either side of the chief entrance. The roof of the nave is of wood, but the vaulting of the apse is stone. A few months previous to my visit an inscription was discovered on the wall, below the rose window and a little to the left, but it had not yet been deciphered. The fronton which supports the bell is, of course, eighteenth-century work. It is a pity that the granite blocks of which the church is built have been all lined out with white paint.

There is no finer view obtainable of Betanzos than that from the little platform surrounding the Tiobre church. This eminence is in reality a very large tumulus, which is supposed to date from the days of the Celts and is called El castro de Tiobre, from the two Celtic words—Dis, God; and obre, town. According to the Historia Compostelana there was a church here called San Martin de Tiobre in the ninth century. The architecture of the existing edifice is Romanico-Byzantine, the prevalent style all over Galicia during the Middle Ages. Dr. Oviedo says that this church must have been built after 1224, the date at which Alfonso IX. moved the population from old Betanzos to the new town.

On a steep hill to the south of Betanzos known as Santa Eulalia de Espenuca there are some very ancient caverns, or natural grottos, supposed to have sheltered a troglodite tribe in prehistoric times. The name Espenuca is derived from the Latin spelunca, a cave. On the western slope of this hill there are also some granite tombs, monoliths shaped to hold the body, such as were common in the eighth and ninth centuries, but more correct in their design, and therefore possibly belonging to a still earlier date. Dr. Oviedo believes there existed here a Christian church and parish as early as the fifth, and documents prove that there was one here in the ninth, century.

From Tiobre we had noted the two elegant spires that were added some six years ago to the church of Santiago, and thither we now repaired. In the tympanum of the arch over the chief entrance to this church there is a piece of sculptured relief representing St. James on horseback; he waves a sword with his right hand and holds a flag with his left. Before him kneels a young woman with her hands upraised in supplication—evidently one of the hundred maidens about to be sent as tribute to the Moors just before the famous battle of Clavijo.

The tympanum is surrounded by a triple archivolt resting on a jamb with three corresponding shafts. Dr. Oviedo was greatly struck by the representation in one of the archivolts of the Last Supper. He calls it “a book in stone,” unique in Galicia and possibly also in Spain, as showing a special phase in the sculptural art of the Middle Ages. The sculpture on the capitals is the most eccentric that I have ever met with in Galicia: on one there is a lion with the head of a man, and on another a monk is embracing a lion. On entering the church I was surprised to find that the whole building leaned a little to one side, after the manner of Santa Maria de Sar.[288] When the new towers were added, about six years ago, the nave was cleared to its real depth and the bones of the many dead who had been buried there were removed. There are three naves. The stained glass in the graceful lancet windows of the Gothic apses is modern, and came from the factory at Leon. The roofing is of wood and supported by six Gothic arches. The scultptured decoration of the chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul is interesting.