“Ballads are too old to lie,” said Sancho Panza, and I love to think the same of legends. The mere fact that they have passed current for centuries should be a bar to further investigation of title; and a spot which has been held sacred by fifty generations of pilgrims does not need to be hall-marked by Dr Dryasdust. Nevertheless when a blind man is bent upon going into a dark room to look for a black cat, it is but charity to inform him that it isn’t there, and the pedantically-minded may be glad to receive the assurance that the whole proof of Santiago’s identity is entirely visionary.
It is related by a monkish chronicler of the English Abbey of St Alban, how one night in the fourteenth century it was revealed in a dream to one of the brethren that the relics of Saint Amphibalus were awaiting the quest of the faithful beneath a certain barrow on the Watling Street. Which barrow being reverently opened, there were discovered (sure enough) the bones of Amphibalus, and of sundry of his disciples, and the axe where-with he was martyred, and various other articles of great interest and sanctity. Whereby it came to pass that some grim old neolithic chieftain, buried æons before amid his weapons and his wives, was{84} piously installed as a tutelary in the Abbey Sanctuary. And much dumfoundered he must have been at it all, if hen was present in spirit at the ceremony. “Oh, Bottom! how thou art translated!”
It was evidently something very similar that happened in the ninth century at Santiago de Compostela. But the Spanish chroniclers have been lacking in the Englishman’s regard for circumstantial detail; so whether it was an untamed Cantabrian or a Roman Centurion who was annexed as hero eponymus for the basilica of Iria Flavia it is now impossible to guess. Be that as it may, the bones were certainly lost not long after they were beatified, and the authorities had to account for their disappearance by protesting that Archbishop Gelmirez had built them, for safety’s sake, into the foundations of his great cathedral. This delightfully incontrovertible statement was the sole satisfaction provided for the medieval pilgrims. But we are now no longer permitted to build our faith upon such a stolid foundation. The relics were rediscovered little more than a generation ago.
This, however, is, of course, rank heresy. If any had ever doubted the genuineness of the original{85} relics, their cavilling was speedily silenced by the direct interposition of Santiago himself. Sword in hand, upon his white horse, he rallied the Christian host at the crisis of the battle of Clavijo, mowing down the astonished Moslems ten thousand to a swathe. That day made his fortune for ever: but it was by no means his only exploit. Through many generations of warfare there was hardly a battle contested without his appearance in the ranks.
The warrior Saint, however, was not allowed to score all the tricks in the rubber; and one fancies that the hated infidel must have fairly wiped out the adverse balance on the day when Al Manzor, the great Vizier of Córdova, led his ever-victorious army across the Vierzo passes, and carried off the very bells from the steeple to adorn the Ceca[12] of Mahound. None had ventured to bar his progress, for the very name of “The Conqueror” spelt despair to the Christians of that day. The walls were unguarded, the city deserted,—man, woman, and child had escaped to the mountains lest they should be consumed. But as the Vizier spurred his charger through the cathedral portal, behold,{86} before the tomb of the Apostle there knelt a solitary monk. “What dost thou here?” the Moor demanded. The monk raised his eyes to the terrible soldier whose face none else had dared to look upon. “I am praying,” he answered. And for the sake of that one brave simple-minded man, the conqueror bade spare the shrine. Christian monarchs were not always equally scrupulous; for Gelmirez himself had to use his cathedral as a fortress; and Pedro the Cruel murdered Archbishop Suero on the very steps of the sanctuary—his motive being solely robbery, as usual with that royal ruffian.
The interior of the cathedral is disappointing. It is a large and imposing Romanesque building; but the furniture is tawdry and uninteresting when judged by a Spanish standard; and the colossal image of Santiago over the High Altar, though genuinely ancient, has rather a heathenish air.[13] Externally the structure is completely cased in late Spanish Renaissance or “Churrigueresque” work. This is not a beautiful type,—overloaded, bizarre,{87} and extravagant: but everything that can be said in its favour may be said of the cathedral of Santiago; and it must be a source of no little surprise to a purist that so poor a style can produce such a splendid result. The west front is indeed Churriguera’s masterpiece; and a noble conception it is, had it but been erected elsewhere! But it is almost a blot at Compostela, for it hides the great Romanesque Portal “de la Gloria,” which (as Ruskin might say) is the only really perfect thing of its kind in the world.
