Villa-Amil’s article was published in 1889. His book, from which I have translated the above incident, was not published until May 1907, but the story appears to have been handed down from generation to generation among the townspeople of Santiago; it was related to me by a Santiago shopkeeper in February 1907. “Once,” he said solemnly, “in ages past, the rope by which the censer was swinging broke, and the censer flew out of the window over the gate of the Platerias, right over to the fountain.” “And killed a lady,” put in his son, who was listening. “No; it did not hurt any one,” said the shopkeeper, shaking his head. “It was before my time and before my father’s time but it can’t happen again, for ever since that day the master carpenter of the Cathedral is always present to watch. He is one of those who pull the rope, and it is he who stops the censer at the conclusion of the ceremony.”
It was on February 2, 1907, that I had the good fortune to assist at the celebration of Candlemas, one of the four principal festivals of the year, at Santiago Cathedral; and on that occasion the “king of censers,” as Victor Hugo called it in his poem, swung before my admiring eyes. The service began at 9.30. The Archbishop with his red cap (for he is now a Cardinal) and ermine cape, presided. Standing in the transept close to the choir in the midst of a large congregation, all standing or kneeling, I saw two men come forward bearing “the largest incense-burner in the world” suspended by its chains to a horizontal pole. They placed it on the pavement, exactly under the central cupola, from the triangle of which hung the two ends of a rope worked by a pulley. The chains of the great silver censer were now attached to one end of the rope, while seven strong men clutched the other end, and, pulling it, caused the cauldron to rise in the air above our heads till it was about ten feet from the ground. Then it began to swing gently. Every eye was fixed on it, and there was for a moment the perfect silence of universal expectation, but only for a moment, for then the silver tones of a couple of clarions (chirimias) fell upon our ears.[91] At length the great censer, as if taking courage at the sound of the music, swung boldly out across the transept. It swung higher and higher, and the clear voice of the silver-voiced clarions sounded more and more triumphant. At last it swung so high that I thought it must turn a somersault, and pour its glowing charcoal upon our upturned faces. We saw its perforated top filled with tongue-like flames fanned by the wind. And, in the midst of it all, the sight of those hundreds of eager, upturned faces. What a study! When Borrow visited Galicia he heard of “the mighty censers, which are at times swung so high by machinery as to smite the vaulted roof of the Cathedral,” but he did not have the privilege of assisting at one of those extraordinary ceremonies. “It is one of the things to see,” said a professor of the University to whom I mentioned it. “It is one of the sights of Santiago.” I do not know for how long the censer swung above our heads, covering at each gigantic swing the whole length of the transept,—perhaps ten minutes, perhaps fifteen,—but at last it began to swing more gently and to rise less high, and then it gradually subsided till it ceased swinging altogether. While the five men were detaching it from its rope the congregation began to press into the central nave, where a large ring had been formed by the priests. Here the ecclesiastical musicians had taken their stand, and here they gave us a (violins and ’cellos) repertoire of church music, to which the congregation listened with rapture. The two clarionets or chirimias are only heard while the censer swings. It is their sacred privilege to accompany its flight, and give by their clear tones the final touch to one of the most dramatic scenes ever witnessed in a Christian church. It reminded me of the moment when I saw the aged Pope Leo X. carried to his throne in St. Peter’s at Rome (on the occasion of his Jubilee), while clarion music imitated the singing of angels in the great cupola of Michael Angelo.
Señor Villa-Amil has discovered that Sergius I. (687-701) provided a censer, according to the biography of this pope quoted by Anastasius the librarian: “Thymiamaterium aureum columnis, ... quod suspendit arte eandum imaginum S. Petri, in quo incensum et odor suavitatis festis diebus missarum solemnia celebrantur omnipotenti Deo opulentius mittitur.” Villa-Amil believes, with Ferreiro, that of this class of suspended censers that of Santiago was probably one of the first. For many years the swinging censer of Santiago was thought to be the only example of the kind, but Señor Benito Alonso has published the following paragraph, which he recently discovered among the Proceedings of the Corporation of Orense, by Inocencio Portabales: “On December 21, 1503, the Corporation of Orense appointed Juan Diaz, a citizen of the town, to the office of administrating and swinging the censer (botafumeiro), which was provided with ropes and enormous cords. It was swung in the transept of the Cathedral suspended from the roof of the lantern on Christmas Day, at Easter, Pentecost, Ascension, Corpus, St. John the Baptist’s Day, St. Peter’s Day, etc.”[92] It is clear, then, that in the Cathedral of Orense, as well as in that of Santiago, there was a swinging censer in use during the Middle Ages.
But to return to the pilgrims: the roads of Christendom were so crowded with them that Dante exclaims—
“Mira mira ecco il Barone
Per cui laggiu si visita Galizia.”
“At the marriage of our Edward I., in 1254, with Leonora, sister of Alfonso el Sabio, a special bodyguard for English pilgrims was demanded; but they came in such numbers that the French took alarm, and when Enrique II. was enabled by the aid of France to dethrone Don Pedro, he was compelled to prevent any English whatever from entering Spain without the French king’s permission. The capture of Santiago by John of Gaunt increased the difficulties.... Rymer mentions 916 licences granted to English in 1428, and 2460 in 1434. In the Middle Ages the duty of a pilgrimage to Compostela was absolutely necessary in many cases to take up an inheritance.”[93] A guide-book for the use of English pilgrims was published in the fourteenth century, entitled The Way from the Lond of Engelond unto Sent Jamez in Galiz.[94]
Lopez Ferreiro tells us in his great work on Santiago Cathedral that the English had both a hospital and a church for the use of their pilgrims near Cebrero in the province of Lugo. Pope Alexander III. mentions it in his Bull conferring upon them all the privileges of Santiago. English pilgrims used to come by sea for a long time, but when they became masters of Aquitaine most of them came by land. Henry II. sent ambassadors to Ferdinand II. with a message that for some time he had been intending to visit the Cathedral of Santiago, and asking him to provide a safe escort for his ambassadors. Pilgrims from England were kindly received at the Gallegan monasteries, which they passed on their way from the coast, especially at Sobrado,[95] of which the picturesque ruins are still standing.
CHAPTER VII
THE ARCHITECTURE OF GALICIA
The beginnings of archæology—Caumont—The power of the Church in the Middle Ages—Montalembert—A despot who never dies—The age of cathedral-building—The architecture of Galicia—Mudejar architecture—Byzantine art—The horseshoe arch—Tombstones with Roman inscriptions—The ruins of Segobriga—The Mosque of Cordova—The Puente de Pinos—San Juan de Baños—Santa Comba de Bande—The circular arch—French students of Spanish architecture—Moorish architects—St. Isidore and the Visigoth kings—Two streams of influence—Moorish relief work—Transformers, not originators—The immense power of the monasteries—Traces of the Moors in Galicia—The rise of Gothic architecture—Viollet-le-Duc—The origin of cathedrals—Gothic art in Galicia—The Byzantine cupola—Michael Angelo—A transition—Origin of the term “plateresque”—Origin of the term “churrigueresque”—The façade of Santiago Cathedral
ARCHÆOLOGY is a comparatively modern branch of study; it can hardly be said to have existed as such before the third decade of the nineteenth century, when Caumont,[96] the first real archæologist, began to awaken the interest of his countrymen in the architecture of past ages and in the science and customs of antiquity. Since Caumont there have been many workers in the field, not only in France but in every civilised country, and splendid have been the results of their earnest and conscientious labours. Among the most brilliant of these may be reckoned the strong, clear light which has dissipated the darkness that so effectually hid from our eyes the degree of civilisation attained in the Middle Ages. It is only during the last thirty years that we have become aware that the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries were not a stagnant period in the world’s progress. Buckle would not have written as he did about the Middle Ages had he come into the world a couple of decades later; or, putting it in another way, had he lived a few years longer and not been suddenly cut off in his early manhood, he would certainly have modified his caustic strictures upon the times which so nearly preceded our own.