PART I
Introductory Studies
The Cathedrals
of Northern Spain
I
GENERAL REMARKS
History and architecture go hand in hand; the former is not complete if it does not mention the latter, and the latter is incomprehensible if the former is entirely ignored.
The following chapters are therefore historical and architectural; they are based on evolutionary principles and seek to demonstrate the motives of certain artistic phenomena.
Many of the ideas superficially mentioned in the following essays will be severely discussed, for they are original; others are based on two excellent modern historical works, namely, "The History of the Spanish[{14}] People," by Major Martin Hume, and "Historia de España," by Señor Rafael Altamira. These two works can be regarded as the dernier mot concerning the evolution of Spanish history.
Unluckily, however, the author has been unable to consult any work on architecture which might have given him a concise idea of the story of its gradual evolution and development, and of the different art-waves which flowed across the peninsula during the stormy period of the middle ages, which, properly speaking, begins with the Arab invasion of the eighth century and ends with the fall of Granada, in the fifteenth.