Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

Of the dependent buildings of these great churches I have had to speak over and over again. The ground-plans which I have given will show how complete they usually are. Their arrangement varies very much. The cloister, for instance, is on the north-east at Tarragona; the north at Sigüenza, Toledo, and Leon; the west at Lérida and Olite; the south at Santiago, Palencia, Tudela, and Veruela; and the south-east at Burgos. The Chapter-houses by no means always stand on the east of the cloister, though they usually retain the old triple entrance, and the remaining buildings seem to vary very much in the positions assigned to them.

The roofing of Spanish churches has been incidentally noticed in various places throughout this volume. It was almost always of stone. So far as the interior roofing is concerned, the changes that are seen are of course very much the same as those which marked the vaults of most other parts of Europe at the same period. At first the cylindrical Roman vault, then the same vault supported by quadrant vaults over the aisles, then simple quadripartite vaults, and finally vaults supported on very elaborate systems of lierne ribs. But there are some minor peculiarities in these vaults which deserve record. The waggon vaults generally have transverse ribs on their under side, and occur usually in buildings in which all the apsidal terminations are roofed with semi-domes—and they are sometimes (as in Lugo Cathedral, and Sta. Maria, la Coruña) pointed. The early quadripartite vaulting is generally remarkable for the large size of the vaulting-ribs, and for the very bold transverse arches which divide the bays. Ridge-ribs are hardly ever introduced, and the ridge is generally very little out of the level. The vaults of Leon Cathedral are filled in with tufa in order to diminish the weight, but I have not noticed any similar contrivance elsewhere. Down to the end of the fourteenth century the vaulting seldom if ever had any but diagonal, transverse, and wall-ribs; and even in many of the works of the succeeding century the same judicious simplicity is seen. But usually at this time it became the fashion to introduce a most complicated system of lierne ribs, covering the whole surface of the vault, dividing it up into an endless number of small and irregularly shaped compartments, and very much damaging its effect. My ground-plans of Segovia and (new) Salamanca Cathedrals show how extremely elaborate these later vaults very frequently were. There is another form of vault which is not unfrequently met with: this occurs where a square vaulting bay is groined with an octagonal vault. In these examples a pendentive is formed at each angle of the square, and thus the octagonal base is formed for the vault. Examples of this are to be seen in the Chapels of San Ildefonso and Santiago at Toledo Cathedral, in three of the late Chapels at Burgos Cathedral, and in the Chapter-house of Pamplona Cathedral. The fashion for this vault arose probably from the custom which had obtained of building central lanterns, which were frequently finished with octagonal stages, and consequently vaulted with octagonal vaults. So far as to the internal roofing. The evidence I have found of the old external roofing in some cases is even more interesting. It is clear that many of the early churches were intended from the first to be built entirely of stone in the roof as well as in the walls. Avila, Toledo, and Lérida Cathedrals, and the Collegiata at Manresa, still retain some of their old stone covering; and though it is true that in none of these cases has the attempt to construct an absolutely imperishable building been perfectly successful, it appears to me that the workmen and architects who attempted to carry such plans into execution deserve all our admiration. I have described these roofs in the course of my notes upon the churches in which they occur, and here I need only refer to my descriptions and illustrations.

In sculpture Spain is not so rich as France, but on the whole probably more so than England. The best complete Gothic work that I have seen is at Leon; but it offers no variety whatever from the best of the same age in France. I have given the various iconographical schemes, so far as I could manage to do so, in describing the several works, and here I will only repeat that, to my mind, the triple western doors at Santiago[422]—completed in A.D. 1188—are among the finest works of their age, and deserving of the greatest care and tenderness on the part of their guardians. Most of us are conscious how much good sculpture adds to the interest of good architecture. Usually, however, we spread our modern sculpture too lavishly in all directions if we have the money to spend. But even in this there may be too much of a good thing; the mind and eye become satiated, and sicken; and not half the real pleasure is felt in seeing some modern works that would be if the work had been somewhat less lavishly applied, somewhat more thoughtfully, or as at Santiago, in one spot, leaving the whole of the rest of the church in its stern, rude simplicity.

The domestic architecture of Spain in the middle ages is, as might be expected, very much less important than the religious architecture. Probably the wealth of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was even more damaging to the former than it was to the latter. At any rate, no country—Italy excepted—contains a greater number of showy Renaissance palaces in all its principal towns than Spain does; and there can be little doubt that they took the place of Gothic houses to a very considerable extent. Either I was very unlucky, or, if I saw what is to be seen, I must pronounce Spain to be unusually barren of old examples of domestic buildings. Of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries I have hardly seen a single example, save the house which I have described at Lérida; whilst of the two following centuries, the best examples seem to be confined very much to the Mediterranean sea-board. In this part of Spain are the simple houses lighted by ajimez windows, which I have described and illustrated; they extend all along the coast from Perpiñan to Valencia, and are usually so much alike as to produce the impression that they are all made from the same design. Later than this, the public buildings at Barcelona and Valencia, the palace of the Dukes del Infantado at Guadalajara, the museum and other convents at Valladolid, the house of the Constable Velasco at Burgos, and the great hospital at Santiago, are no doubt magnificent examples of their class. In these the buildings are generally arranged round courtyards, which are surrounded by passages opening to the court, and lighted either with open arches or with traceried windows. Rich and noble as some of these buildings are, there is little that is interesting or picturesque in them, and they seldom attain the degree of importance of which one would suppose such an architectural scheme skilfully treated would admit. Their date is rarely earlier than circa A.D. 1450, and the detail of their mouldings and sculpture is consequently of the latest kind of Gothic. There is, however, a rude barbaric splendour in some of the courts or patios at Valladolid, where this kind of building is seen to perhaps greater advantage than anywhere else.

The castles of Spain deserve, apparently, much more attention, and are in every way more important, than the other domestic buildings. Those at Olite, Segovia, and Medina del Campo have been already described; and there is, no doubt, a vast number of buildings of somewhat similar character to be seen, especially in those parts of the country which formed for a time the frontier land between the Moorish and Christian kingdoms. Generally, they are remarkable for the unbroken surface of their lofty walls, crowned with picturesque and complicated projecting turrets at the angles. The scale on which they are built is magnificent, and their walls still stand almost untouched by the ages of neglect from which they have suffered. In the same way the walls which encircle the Spanish cities are often still so perfect throughout their circuit that it is almost possible to persuade oneself that they have been untouched for three hundred years. Avila, Lugo, Segovia, Toledo, Pamplona, Astorga, Gerona, Tarragona, and many other towns are girt round with so close an array of tower and wall as to make them still look fit for defence. The age of these walls varies much; but most are probably of early foundation, owing their first erection to the days when the Moors still from time to time rode raiding across the land. They are always of extraordinary solidity, and consist usually of plain walls with circular projecting towers at short intervals.

The materials used by Spanish architects and builders seem to have been granite, stone, and brick. Granite was used in some of the very earliest constructions; but after the introduction of Christian art into the country, nothing but stone was used for two or three centuries, when granite was again made use of. We see the same thing in England; and no doubt the admirable masons who played so important a part in the development of Christian architecture must have detested the hard, coarse, and unyielding material, when they compared it with the more easily-wrought free-stones which lent themselves so kindly to their work. The Spanish masons were always, I think, skilful; and in the fifteenth century, when Gothic art was glowing forth in all the glory of decay, pre-eminently so. I know no mere execution of details more admirable in every way than that which we see, for instance, in the work of Diego de Siloe. It reaches the very utmost limit of skilful handiwork. It is not very artistic, but it is so clever that we cannot but admire it; and I doubt much whether the best of our own works of the same age can at all be put in comparison with it. It is generally marked by the extraordinary love of heraldic achievements which is so characteristic of the Spaniards. There are some of the façades of the later churches which are adorned with absolutely nothing but coats of arms and their supporters; and I know no work which is less interesting in spite of its extraordinary elaborateness. The decorations of parts of our Houses of Parliament give some idea of this sort of work, though they are by no means so painfully elaborate.

The masons seem to have worked together in large bodies, and the walls are marked in all directions with the signs which, then as now, distinguished the work of each mason from that of his neighbour, but I have been unable (save in one or two cases) to detect the mark of the same mason in more than one work; and from this it would seem to be probable that the masons were stationary rather than nomadic in their habits, a deduction which is fortified by the difference of general character which may, I think, be detected between the groups of marks in different buildings. Occasionally the number of men employed on one building seems to have been unusually large, and it is clear therefore that there were great numbers of masons in the country. In the small church of Sta. Maria, Benavente, there are the marks of at least thirty-one masons on the eastern wall; as many as thirty-five were at work on the lower part of the steeple at Lérida; whilst in one portion of Santiago Cathedral there appears to have been as many as sixty. These numbers would be large at the present day; and are very considerable even if compared with such a building as Westminster Abbey, where, in A.D. 1253, when the works were in full progress, the number of stone-cutters varied from thirty-five to seventy-eight.

The use of bricks was not, so far as I have seen, very great. They were used either in combination with stone, plaster, or tiles, or by themselves. Examples of their use in combination with stone may be seen at Toledo. Here, in all the Moorish or Moresque examples, the walls are built of rubble stone, with occasional bonding-courses of brick, and brick quoins. This kind of construction, which has been sometimes adopted of late years in England, is obviously good and convenient, but wanted, to some minds, the authority of ancient precedent; and here at Toledo we are able to show it from a very early period. In the very early Puerta de Visagra (circa A.D. 1108-1136) single bonding-courses of brick are used at a very short distance apart, whilst in the later works, such as the steeples of San Roman and La Magdalena, the bands are farther apart, and consist frequently of two or three courses of brick, whilst the stringcourses and corbel-tables are formed of projecting bricks, which are seldom, if ever, moulded. This, indeed, may almost be said to be the special peculiarity of Spanish brickwork; for in every other part of Europe, so far as I have seen, where bricks are much used, they were always more or less moulded. These examples are useful, however, as showing how very much richness of effect can be obtained by the use of the simple rough material in the simplest way. At Zaragoza, at Tarazona, at Calatayud, and elsewhere, the buildings and their steeples are covered with panels and arcades, formed by setting forward some of the bricks a few inches in advance of the face of the wall. In some cases, as in the Cimborio of Tarazona Cathedral, and the east wall of Zaragoza, the spaces so left are filled in with extremely rich work in coloured tiles, the effect of which is far less garish and strange than might have been expected.

The most curious feature that I have noticed about Spanish brickwork is, that it always, or almost always, appears to have been the work of Moorish workmen, and not of the Christian workmen by whom the great churches throughout the country were erected. The Moors continued to live and work in many towns long after the Christians had recovered them; and wherever they did so, they seem to have retained, to a great extent, all their old architectural and constructive traditions. We see this most distinctly in the markedly different character of the old Spanish brickwork both from the other Spanish architectural developments of the day, and also from any brickwork of the same period that is seen in other parts of Europe. If after leaving Zaragoza the traveller were to cross the Pyrenees, and then make his way to Toulouse, he would find himself again in the midst of brick buildings, erected at various times from the twelfth to the sixteenth century; but he would find them utterly different in style from the brick buildings of the Zaragozan district, and thoroughly in harmony with the stone buildings which were being erected at the same time in the same neighbourhood. And this brings us in face of one of the most curious evidences of the extremely exotic character of most Spanish art. Spain was the only country in Europe, probably, in which at the same time, during the whole period from A.D. 1200 to A.D. 1500, various schools of architecture existed much as they do in England at the present day. There were the genuine Spanish Gothic churches (derived, of course, from Roman and Romanesque), the northern Gothic buildings executed by architects imported from France, and in later days from Germany, and the Moresque buildings executed by Moorish architects for their Christian masters. Of these schools I have already discussed two in this chapter, and I must now say a few words about the third.

I do not propose to speak here of Moorish art, properly and strictly so called, but only of that variety of it which we see made use of by the Christians, and which throughout this volume I have called “Moresque.” Of these, the most remarkable that I have seen are in that most interesting city of Toledo, which, so far as I can learn, seems to surpass Seville in work of this kind, almost as much as it does in its treasures of Christian art. Here it is plain that, though Christians ruled the city, Moors inhabited it. The very planning of the town, with its long, narrow, winding lanes; the arrangement of the houses, with their closed outer walls, their patios or courts, and their large and magnificent halls, speak strongly and decidedly in favour of the Moorish origin of the whole. And when we come to look into the matter in detail, this presumption is most fully supported; for everywhere the design of the internal finishing and decorations of the houses and rooms is thoroughly Moorish, executed with the remarkable skill in plaster for which the Moors were noted, and with curious exhibitions here and there of a knowledge, on the part of the men who did them, of the Gothic details which were most in vogue at the time.