[18] Cod. M., No. 9.
[19] Noticias de los Arquitectos y Arquitectura de España, vol. i., 206-7.
[20] Florez, Esp. Sag. xxvi. 393, says: “A MS. which I have says that Bishop Luis Acuña y Osorio (1457-95) reformed the fabric of the transept in the middle of the church with eight turrets, which became a ruin in the middle of the following century.”
[21] A view of the west front in A.D. 1771 shows the three western doors in their old state; they had statues on the door-jambs, and on the piers between them.—Esp. Sag. xxvi. p. 404.
[22] Cean Bermudez, Arq. de Esp., i. 105, 106.
[23] It was well that I used the word “delighted” when I wrote this page, for this passage no longer delights me as it did. I visited Burgos again last (1863), and found the Cathedral undergoing a sort of restoration; masons cleaning up everything inside, and by way of a beginning outside they had widened the passage to the south door, so as to make it square with and of the same width as the doorway; to do this a slice had been cut off the bishop’s palace, at some inconvenience to the bishop, no doubt, the result of doing it being simply that much of the beauty and picturesqueness of the old approach to the church is utterly lost for ever. Of one thing, such an unsuccessful alteration satisfies me—little indeed as I require to be satisfied on the point,—and this is, that in dealing with old buildings it is absolutely impossible to be too conservative in everything that one does. Often what seems—as doubtless this thing did to the people of Burgos—the most plain improvement is just, as this is, a disastrous change for the worse. And when we find old work, the reason for or meaning of which we do not quite perceive, we cannot be wrong in letting well alone. It is to be hoped that Spain is not now going to undergo what England suffered from James Wyatt and others, and what she is still in many places suffering at the hands of those who follow in their steps!
[24] In A.D. 1257 the king gave a piece of land opposite his palace (now the Episcopal Palace) to the Dean of Burgos. Was not this for the erection of the cloisters?
[25] One of the buttresses of the north transept is seen in the western alley of the cloister. On the face of it still remains one of the original dedication crosses—a cross pattée enclosed in a circle.
[26] On the east side these recessed arches have a very rich foliage in their soffeits.
[27] The coffer of the Cid is that which he filled with sand, and then pledged for a loan from some Jews, who supposed it to be full of valuables; afterwards he honestly repaid the borrowed money, and hence, perhaps, the coffer is preserved, the first part of the transaction being unquestionably not very worthy of record.