circular apse in which are the chief altar, and an altar to the Virgin and to St. James on either side.

The form of the little church is that of a Latin cross; but the three stout piers, A, B, and C, taking up so much room that, being planted in a line with one another in the centre, they prevent the church from having any central nave; they give it instead a couple of twin naves, and make it look like two churches. Street remarked with regard to this church that its arrangement was very peculiar. The fact of the matter is, that Mateo had to build strong and lasting foundations for his portico to rest on; and the crypt church had to be adapted to them as best it might. From the clustered pier (C) springs the arches which form a vaulting to the aisle which encircles it, tores spring out over the aisle like branches from a weeping ash. The inner side of the arches are decorated with sculpture from the hand of Mateo, as also are the capitals of the shafts which adorn the clustered piers. The capitals round the central pier (B) are marvellously beautiful, and those round the outer walls of the edifice are every one of them worthy of careful inspection. It is so dark that without good artificial light the work cannot be satisfactorily examined, and even with a good light a couple of hours are required to see all properly.

The vaulting of the inner sides of the arches has large rosettes to join the tores together, but the most remarkable of all the rosettes are those which line the inner side of the arches over the twin naves. Never have I seen such a variety of stone flowers in so small a space. The accompanying photograph taken by limelight will give my readers only a slight idea of these wonderful rows of flowers plucked from the stalks, but the pen here is helpless. We have nothing like this in England; our ball-flower, our four-leaved flower, our trefoil are hideous in comparison. The photograph, though it only shows a part of one wall, shows twelve flowers, every one different, every one perfected with scrupulous care.

Now let us turn to the capitals; the variety of foliage they represent is simply endless. They are remarkable for the energy, the vigour of their design. Here on a side capital is a man up in a vine, cutting down the grapes with a crescent-shaped sickle: there are the real vine-leaves of Galicia, and the sickle in the man’s hand is the very one still used by the Gallegan peasants. On another side of the same capital are two persons with large bunches of grapes at their feet. On another is a man grasping a wild beast by the throat; the man’s head, which has gone, should form a corner of the capital. But perhaps the most interesting capital of all is that with the two maidens gracefully dancing with raised arms an old Spanish dance. Some have thought this represented the daughter of Herodias, and that subject has been depicted on a capital; there is one in the Toulouse Museum,[171] but others believe it to be a scene taken from the life of the day. That very kind of dancing still takes place on the village greens of Galicia.

In a niche over the chief altar is a very old stone image, supposed to have belonged to the original church built over the body of St. James. The two slender marble shafts to the left and right of the niche have capitals with Byzantine sculpture; their style is simple and elegant, and quite distinct from any of the other work. On either side of these plain shafts are a couple of shafts covered with carving in spiral bands; ugly modern capitals replace their original ones, but the pedestals are intact and worthy of note. Some think these four shafts are among the earliest sculptures in Galicia, and date from the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century. The frontal of the altar is covered with a geometrical design, a kind of diaper pattern; some of its original red and gold colouring is still preserved. The design consists of a red braid with dots (pearls and a gold border arranged geometrically on a white background), and joined by stone rosettes with gold centres. It has been suggested that this altar is a sculptured sarcophagus adapted, but it is rather too deep for a sarcophagus.

The so-called Palace of Gelmirez was not built till the end of the twelfth century, or perhaps the beginning of the thirteenth, but the style of its architecture is the same as that of Mateo’s school. It is built on to the cathedral to the right of the western façade. We entered it, by special permit, by way of the modern archiepiscopal library, and descended to the capilla de Gelmirez. The banded imposts on which the arches and early Gothic vaulting of this chapel rest are ornamented with remarkable sculpture, quite different from any we have noticed in the cathedral. Musicians with various quaint instruments are represented as singing the praises of the Most High: angels, birds, and rosettes adorn the groined vaults. In the adjoining refectory, separated from the chapel by a huge pier, the sculptures represent scenes from the everyday life of Santiago in the twelfth century. Here a Gallegan lady is seated at dinner with a young girl on either side of her: a servant stands close by with a dish of eatables in her hand. We see people carrying all manner of viands, bread, fruits, etc. As Sanchez has remarked, this must be the refectory, it could be nothing else with so many eatables about. All the faces wear a look of placid contentment, which centuries have not been able to obliterate. The musical instruments we see in the capilla are supposed to be representations of the ones that were used by the minstrels of the twelfth century. They are quite different from those of the four-and-twenty elders in the Pórtico de Gloria.

There has been some dispute as to the original plan of the archbishop’s palace, and an architect of my acquaintance is devoting a good deal of study to the subject. With him I went upstairs to look through the windows of the notary’s office at the now sealed up old windows of one of the original lateral façades. These windows are in the Romanesque style, very like those in the transept of Winchester Cathedral, which are also eleventh-century work, only that the latter have two windows under each arch. The arches here are double, the inner arch resting on slender shafts. It is a simple and at the same time a noble style of window. We then went down into the basement to look at the long vaulted room below the capilla—probably an old Sala Capitular—and numerous bits of stone ornament, archwayed passages, all dating from the eleventh century. It was down here that Gelmirez established his mint, by the special permission of Alfonso vi. (1107)[172] in order that money might be forthcoming to meet the expense of completing the cathedral.

CHAPTER XI
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL

Ferdinand and Isabella—Levying a tribute—Foundation of the hospital—Molina’s description—The principal entrance—Iconographic decoration—Gargoyles—A mural painting—The railing—The four patios—The north-west cloister—The chapel—A graceful font—The sculptured altars—Lace-like canopies—The statues—The Flemish Gothic style—The sacristy—Historical chasubles—The belfry—A palace for royal visitors—Decadence of the hospital—The revenues—A twentieth-century staff—Twenty-six wards—The kitchen—Milk and eggs—The Sisters—The medical school—King Alfonso XIII. shows his appreciation—Röntgen rays—The best in Spain.

DURING the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, pilgrims still flocked in hundreds of thousands to the tomb of St. James in Galicia; and the king and queen, knowing how poor was the accommodation provided for pilgrims at Santiago, commanded that a commodious inn should be constructed close to the cathedral, where pious pilgrims might find shelter and the sick be nursed. It was just after their conquest of Granada that Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492, decreed that an annual sum of money should be devoted as a thankoffering, one-third for commemoration services to be held at Santiago Cathedral, one-third for the building expenses of the cathedral, and one-third for the relief of the poor, who would be cared for in the hospital they had commanded to be built. The sum of money in question was to be raised by levying a tribute of a bushel of grain on every pair of oxen, horses, mules, or asses used in agriculture by the Moors or Christians.[173] The foundation of the hospital may be said to date from that year, so pregnant with consequences, in which Columbus discovered the New World, and in which Spain not only became for the first time in her history a single and united kingdom, but laid the foundations of her widespread empire to which historians have given the name of Greater Spain. It was not, however, till 1499 that Ferdinand and Isabella authorised the Dean of Santiago, Don Diego de Muros, to start the building of the hospital.[174]