No Alfonso or Ferdinand will ever be King of Spain, but King of the Spains, Rey de las Españas. Mi paisano, the term which stands for the closest bond of fellowship, is used by an Aragonese of an Aragonese, by a Catalan of a Catalan, never by an Aragonese of an Andalusian, or a Catalan of a Castilian. The independent Basque provinces, (where the monarch is merely a lord) the free mountain towns of Navarre, stiff-necked Aragon, these never will merge themselves in Old Castile. Nor can Catalonia, self-centered, humming with manufactures and seething with anarchy, understand pleasure-loving Andalusia, that basks under fragrant orange trees as it smiles its ceaseless mañana. Valencia and Murcia, where crop follows crop in prodigal fruitfulness are the antithesis of desolate Estremadura, and of that immortal desert of Don Quixote the denuded steppes of New Castile, to their north. And the mountain provinces of Galicia and the Asturias, of idyllic hill and dale, yet with seaports fast awakening to commercial life, look with little sympathy on the sluggish province of León that borders them.
Industrial advancement is on its gradual way in Spain, but there is not a hint of its movement in this oldest of the separate kingdoms. Zamora, Astorga, León, Salamanca, the romantic cities of the earlier days of chivalry, lie asleep; the whistle of the railways has failed to rouse them. You must lay aside all theories of modern comfort here, and make the tour in the spirit of a pilgrim lover of the antique and picturesque. What else could be expected in a province where the peasantry still embroider their coarse linen sheets with castles and heraldic lions, in a land where even the blazonry of a city rings with a psalm, Ego autem ad Deum clamavi. The centuries of forays have bequeathed a hardy endurance to the people, but they are the cause at the same time of the scanty population of the plains, the tragic evil of central Spain.
We got to the city of León the day of a horse fair. Fresh from wide-awake Oviedo, it was like stepping back into an older world; here was old Spain much as it was in the time of Guzmán[13] the Good, the defender of Tarifa in 1294, whose casa solar faced the plaza where the fair was held. The peasants who bargained in groups, wore toga-draped capes and wide-brimmed felt hats edged with an inch of velvet; every horse in Spain must have been gathered there, and an equal number of kind-eyed woolly little donkeys, essential factors of a Spanish scene. "The Castilian donkey has a philosophic, deliberate air," wrote Théophile Gautier on his sympathetic tour in the Peninsula seventy years ago, "he understands very well they can't do without him; he is one of the family, he has read 'Don Quixote,' and he flatters himself he descends in direct line from the famous ass of Sancho Panza."
A step beyond the horse fair brought us to massive Roman walls with frequent semi-circular towers; León's name comes from Augustus' 7th Legion who fortified it against the highlanders of the north. Built into the walls is the remarkable church of San Isidoro encrusted with later work, but with the strong Romanesque lines still prominent. The pilgrims who flocked from Europe to Santiago Compostella in the Middle Ages were partly the means of bringing this style into Spain; thus San Isidoro is of Burgundian origin, just as Santiago Cathedral resembles Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, and the Catalan churches show Lombard features. Though the Spaniard adapted the style to his own character, adding the original feature of outside cloisters for the laity, its importation nipped in the bud a just beginning national architecture, whose loss cannot but be regretted. San Isidoro has a privilege seldom given, the Blessed Sacrament being exposed every day of the year, and always before its lighted altar one sees veiled figures kneeling. It served as the pantheon for the kings who followed Ordoño II—twelfth in descent from Pelayo—who removed his capital from Oviedo here, and the ancient burial chamber still has ceilings painted in the stiff Byzantine manner with obscure color, hard lines, and lack of perspective, probably the oldest paintings in Spain. The "Romancero" tells how Jimena, the gallant, golden-haired wife of the Cid, came here after the birth of her child to attend Mass. She wore the velvet robes given her by the king on the day of her marriage, a richly jeweled hair-net, gift of the Infanta Urraca, her rival; around her neck painted medals of San Lázaro and San Pedro, santos de su devoción, and so beautiful was she that the sun stood still in his course to see her better. At the church door the king met her and escorted her in honor, for was not her husband away fighting the infidel for his monarch? There is so true a ring to the old ballads that Jimena lives a real personage.
"Oviedo la sacra, Toledo la rica, Sevilla la grande, Salamanca la fuerte, León la bella" runs an old verse on Spanish Cathedrals. And the Cathedral of León merits its name. It is harmoniously beautiful, pure French-Gothic, graceful and elegant, classic if the word is permissible for the unrestrained individualism of Gothic art. Built in one age without intermission, in 1303 the Bishop announced that no further contributions were needed, and the centuries since have left the church untouched. Here no cold Herrera portal usurps some lovely pointed work and Churrigueresque extravagancies are not prominent: the late restorations have followed the first plans.
Always excepting the Pórtico de la Gloria in Santiago, the west doorways of León Cathedrals stand for the best in Spanish sculpture. The statue of the Virgen Blanca in the center is famous. Around her the saints and apostles are grouped in appealing attitudes;—out of proportion though they may be as to hands and feet, their sincerity covers all flaws: here, a homely face with care-worn wrinkles of goodness; there, one beaming in satisfaction to be standing in such a chosen band. The lunette over the central door is delightful. On one side, in Heaven, a clerk plays the organ, while a boy blows the bellows, and groups stand chatting near, for a Spaniard's idea of bliss, in those days also, took the form of ease and desultory talk. Hell, on the opposite side, not to be outdone, has two urchins blowing bellows as well, not to make music but to quicken a fiery caldron into which devils are thrusting the sinners. The enjoyment of the old sculptor in his Heaven and Hell was too keen to be confined in the lunette and he has spread himself over the curving of the arches; in spite of time and retouching these three doorways show exquisite detail chiseling.
"About their shoulders sparrows had built nests
And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch to perch,
Now on a miter poising, now a crown,
Irreverently happy."
Within León Cathedral all is quiet and solemn, a true beauty of holiness. There is no clutter of side chapels in the nave but a sheer sweep of windows filled with the jeweled glass of Flemish masters.[14] These windows come as a surprise in a land where churches are guarded from the sun, and often the open triforium and clearstory, as at Avila, are walled up later to darken the interior. The chancel and choir are worth detail study. The coro seats have panels carved with single figures,—saints with their emblems, warriors with raised visors, placid-faced nuns, thoughtful bishops, gallant pages with their crossed feet gracefully poised,—all of a noble type, with high brow and aquiline nose. Spain has comparatively nothing to show in the way of frescoes, she had no early Masaccio, no Giotto, no Filippo Lippi, to paint the costumes and features of his generation, but wood carvings are her substitute; in them, and in her unrivaled tombs can be read the contemporary history of warrior, bishop, and page. The retablo of the High Altar is of the same simple elegance as the rest of the church. The usual towering one of carved scenes would have been singularly out of place, it is appropriate for the big dark interior of Seville Cathedral, but here are grace and restraint instead of grandeur and mystery, and most suitable are the ancient paintings of varying sizes, gathered from scattered churches and framed together. Radiating round the chancel are chapels that give to the exterior view of the apse a truly French-Gothic air, flying buttresses supporting the cap of the capilla mayor.
Romanesque, Gothic, and Plateresque are each well represented in León City. In the last style is the noticeable convent of San Marcos that stands isolated outside the town beside the swift blue-green river. The Knights of Santiago built a resting-place on their pilgrimage route back in the 12th century, but the present building is of Isabella's day, and the architect has given free rein to his silversmith's arabesques and medallions, and scattered pilgrim shells all over the façade of the church. We tried to get into the Museum, now in the convent, as it contains some good wood carvings, but an aged beggar at the door explained "Mañana," the easy "to-morrow," as prevalent in León as in Andalusia,—then rising to the occasion as only an Italian or Spanish beggar can, he swept open his toga-draped cape, smiling as he pointed to the entrance door: "To-morrow, after your morning chocolate, it will be open for you."