Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

There is a good simple gateway of the thirteenth century leading into the western court of the convent, but otherwise I could see nothing old, though I daresay the fortunate architect who first is able to examine the whole of the buildings will find much to reward his curiosity.[32] For there is not only a very fine early cloister, but also, if Madoz is to be trusted, a chapter-house, the vaulting of which is supported on four lofty columns, and which is probably, therefore, a square chamber with nine vaulting bays.

A long list of royal personages buried here is given by Florez.[33] In the choir are the founders, Alfonso VIII. and Alienor; in the nave of Sta. Catalina, Alfonso VII., the founder’s grandfather, his father, his son Don Henrique I., and twenty more of his kin; and in the other parts of the church a similarly noble company.

The king seems to have founded a hospital for men at the same time as, and in connexion with, the convent; but I saw nothing of this, and I do not know whether it still exists.

Here took place many solemnities: Alfonso VII., nephew of the founder, was the first who was made a knight in it (A.D. 1219, Nov. 27); and in A.D. 1254 Don Alfonso el Sabio knighted Edward I. of England before the altar; whilst in later days it seems that in A.D. 1330, in A.D. 1341, and again in A.D. 1366, the kings were here crowned;[34] and in 1367 Edward the Black Prince lodged here after the battle of Navarrete, and went hence to the church of Sta. Maria to swear to a treaty with the King Don Pedro before the principal altar.[35]

The convent seems to have been quite independent of the Bishop,[36] save that each abbess after her election went to ask him to bless the house, when he always answered by protesting that his consent to do so was in no wise to be construed in any sense derogatory to his power, or as binding on his successors. I observe that the abbesses here were elected for life until A.D. 1593, but that from that time they have held office for three years only; though in a few instances they have been re-elected for a second such term.

It was a relief, after the picturesque magnificence of the later Burgalese architects, to turn to such a simple severe church as this at Las Huelgas. But I must not detain my readers any longer within its pleasant walls; and we will imagine ourselves to be there in A.D. 1454, in the midst of a group of the greatest of the nobles and clergy of Castile: we should have found the Bishop Alfonso de Cartagena there, and with him Juan de Colonia, his German architect, and Maestro Gil de Siloe, the sculptor, and Martin Sanchez, the wood-carver, all of them invited and ready to take part in a great work just about to be completed. Juan II. had just died at Valladolid, and forthwith his body was taken towards the Carthusian convent of Miraflores, by Burgos, where of old stood a palace, which in A.D. 1441 he had converted into a convent, and in A.D. 1454, just before his death, had begun to rebuild. The Bishop met his body at Palenzuela—one day’s journey from Burgos—and brought it in procession to the “Real Casa de Las Huelgas,” where he rested the night; and thence he went onward, the coffin borne by ladies and gentlemen, to San Pablo in the city, where the Dominican Fathers sung the funeral office, and the next day—the feast of St. John the Baptist—to Miraflores, where the Bishop himself said the office and preached. Then the body was deposited with much pomp in the sacristy until the church should be finished.[37]

Let us follow them thither. The walk is dreary enough on this hot September day, and terribly deep in dust; but yet, as it rises up the slope of the hills on the side of the river opposite to the cathedral and city, good views are obtained of both. It is but a couple of miles to the convent, which stands desolately by itself, and never was there a spot which, in its present state, could less properly be called Miraflores, where not even a blade of grass is to be seen. The church stands up high above all the other buildings, but its exterior is not attractive; its outline is somewhat like, though very inferior to that of Eton College chapel, and its detail is all rather poor. The windows, placed very high from the floor, are filled with flamboyant tracery, the buttresses are plain, and the pinnacles and parapet quite Renaissance in their character, and are, no doubt, additions to the original fabric. The west gable is fringed with cusping—a very unhappy scheme for a coping-line against the sky! A court at the west end opens into the chapel by its west door, which is close to the main entrance to the convent; but we were taken round by several courts and quadrangles, one of them a cloister of vast size, surrounded by the houses of the monks. These are of fair size, each having two or three rooms below, and two above. Their entrance doorways are square-headed, quaintly cut up into a point in the centre of the lintel, and by the side of each door is a small hatch for the reception of food. Another smaller cloister, close to the south door of the church, has fair pointed windows, with their sills filled with red tiles, and edged with green tiles. Besides these remains, the only old work I saw was a good flat ceiling, panelled between the joists, and richly painted in cinquecento fashion. A good effect was produced here by the prevalence of white and red alternately in the patterns painted on the joists.

The chapel is entered from the convent by a door on the south side, in the third bay from the west. It consists of five bays and a polygonal apse, and is about 135 feet long, 32 wide, and 63 feet in height. The western bay is the people’s nave, and is divided from the next by a metal screen. The second bay forms the Coro, and has stalls at the sides, and two altars on the east, one on each side of the doorway in the screen which separates the Coro from the eastern portion of the chapel. This last is fitted with five stalls on each side against the western screen, and with twenty on either side, all of them extremely rich in their detail: there is a continuous canopy over the whole, and very intricate traceries at the back of each stall.[38]