If the foreigner enter Spain by Irun, the first cathedral town on his way south is Vitoria.
Gazteiz seems to have been its Basque name prior to 1181, when it was enlarged by Don Sancho of Navarra and was given a fuero or privilege, together with its new name, chosen to commemorate a victory obtained by the king over his rival, Alfonso of Castile.
Fortune did not smile for any length of time on Don Sancho, for seventeen years later Alfonso VIII. incorporated the city in his kingdom of Castile, and it was lost for ever to Navarra.
As regards the celebrated fueros given by the last named monarch to the inhabitants of the city, a curious custom was in vogue in the city until a few years ago, when the Basque Provinces finally lost the privileges they had fought for during centuries.[{193}]
When Alfonso VIII. granted these privileges, he told the citizens they were to conserve them "as long as the waters of the Zadorria flowed into the Ebro."
The Zadorria is the river upon which Vitoria is situated; about two miles up the river there is a historical village, Arriago, and a no less historical bridge. Hither, then, every year on St. John's Day, the inhabitants of Vitoria came in procession, headed by the municipal authorities, the bishop and clergy, the clerk of the town hall, and the sheriff. The latter on his steed waded into the waters of the Zadorria, and threw a letter into the stream; it flowed with the current toward the Ebro River. An act was then drawn up by the clerk, signed by the mayor and the sheriff, testifying that the "waters of the Zadorria flowed into the Ebro."
To-day the waters still flow into the Ebro, but the procession does not take place, and the city's fueros are no more.
In the reign of Isabel the Catholic, the Church of St. Mary was raised to a Colegiata, and it is only quite recently, according to the latest treaty between Spain and Rome, that an episcopal see has been established in the city of Vitoria.[{194}]
Documents that have been discovered state that in 1281—a hundred years after the city had been newly baptized—the principal temple was a church and castle combined; in the fourteenth century this was completely torn down to make room for the new building, a modest ogival church of little or no merit.
The tower is of a later date than the body of the cathedral, as is easily seen by the triangular pediments which crown the square windows: it is composed of three bodies, as is generally the case in Spain, the first of which is square in its cross-section, possessing four turrets which crown the angles; the second body is octagonal and the third is in the form of a pyramid terminating in a spire.