The strange company arrived on the third day at a Portuguese frontier town, where they were told that two foreigners had arrived the night before. By the description of the two Spaniards, Doña Maria felt sure they were her sons' murderers, and consequently she and her escort approached the house where the fugitives were passing the night. Placing the escort beneath the window,[{258}] she stealthily entered the house and stole to the brothers' room; then she slew them whilst they were sleeping, and, rushing to the window, threw it open, and, spearing the heads of her enemies on her lance, she showed them to her retinue, with the words:
"I'm venged! Back to Salamanca."
Silently, at the head of her troops, and bearing the two heads on her lance, Doña Maria returned to Salamanca. Entering the cathedral, she threw them on the newly raised slabs which covered her sons' remains.
Ever after she was known as Doña Maria la brava, and is as celebrated to-day as she was in the fifteenth century, during the abominable reign of Henry IV. And so great was the feud which divided the city into two camps, that it lasted many years, and many were the victims of the gigantic vendetta.
The city's greatest fame lay in its university, founded toward 1215, by Alfonso IX. of Leon, who was jealous of his cousin Alfonso VIII. of Castile, the founder of the luckless university of Palencia.
The fate of the last named university has been duly mentioned elsewhere; that of Salamanca was far different. In 1255 the[{259}] Pope called it one of the four lamps of the world; strangers—students from all corners of Europe—flocked to the city to study. Perhaps its greatest merit was the study of Arabic and Arabian letters, and it has been said that the study of the Orient penetrated into Europe through Salamanca alone.
What a glorious life must have been the university city's during the apogee of her fame! Students from all European lands, dressed in the picturesque costume worn by those who attended the university, wended their way through the streets, singing and playing the guitar or the mandolin; they mingled with dusky noblemen, richly dressed in satins and silks, and wearing the rapier hanging by their sides; they flirted with the beautiful daughters of Spain, and gravely saluted the bishop when he was carried along in his chair, or rode a quiet palfrey. At one time the court was established in the university city, lending a still more brilliant lustre to the every-day life of the inhabitants, and to the sombre streets lined with palaces, churches, colleges, convents, and monasteries.
Gone! To-day the city lies beneath an immense weight of ruins of all kinds, that[{260}] chain her down to the past which was her glory, and impede her from looking ahead into her future with ambitions and hopes.
The cathedrals Salamanca can boast of to-day are two, an old one and a comparatively new one; the latter was built beside the former, a praiseworthy and exceptional proceeding, for, instead of pulling down the old to make room for the new, as happens throughout the world, the cathedral chapter convocated an assembly of architects, and was intelligent enough—another wonder!—to accept the verdict that the old building, a Romanesque-Byzantine edifice of exceptional value, should not be demolished. The new temple was therefore erected beside the former, and, obeying the art impulses of the centuries which witnessed its construction, is an ogival church spoilt—or bettered—by Renaissance, plateresque, and grotesque decorative elements.
The Old Cathedral.—The exact date of the erection of the old see is not known; toward 1152 it was already in construction, and 150 years later, in 1299, it was not concluded. Consequently, and more than in the case of Zamora and Toro, the upper[{261}] part of the building shows decided ogival tendencies; yet in spite of these evident signs of transition, the ensemble, the spirit of the building, is, beyond a doubt, Romanesque-Byzantine, and not Gothic.