The whole of the floor of the eastern part of the church has been lowered, in some places as much as three feet, in order to obtain a level procession path all round the aisles.

On the south side of the nave are the cloisters, which are large, with lofty arched openings, but they have been despoiled of their traceries. Their style is poor third-pointed, and in their present state they are thoroughly uninteresting.[69] To the west of them is the Chapter-house, a large groined room, opening, not, as is usual, from the cloister, but from an outer lobby. The sacristy, on the south side of the choir, contains a few objects of interest, the best being a fine gilt monstrance, covered with crockets and pinnacles, but not earlier than circa A.D. 1500.[70]

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The sacristan thought much more of a great plated temple, six or eight feet in height, raised on a stage, and travelling on wheels worked by a couple of men concealed within the platform and its hangings, which is used for processions throughout the town on Corpus Christi day.

I saw only two Gothic churches out of many which I looked into in Palencia—those of San Miguel and San Francesco.

San Miguel is both the earliest and best church in the city, and deserves most careful study. I give an illustration of its ground-plan on [Plate III.] The portion east of the crossing appeared to me of the end of the twelfth century, and the rest of the church a few years later. The plan is one of a not uncommon type, and suggestive either of Italian or German influence in the mind of its designer. The regular planning of the whole work, the bold dimensions of the groining shafts, and the good character of the mouldings and windows, corbel-tables and buttresses, all deserve special notice. The apse is groined in four compartments, so that a rib and buttress occur in its centre,[71] and the ribs here are square and plain in section, whilst those throughout the nave are well moulded. The bosses at the intersection of the groining ribs in the nave are sculptured: that on the east bay having St. Michael and the Dragon, whilst the next bay but one has an Agnus Dei. There is a peculiarity in the finish of the buttresses of the apse, which I noticed also at San Juan and San Pablo at Burgos. In all of them the face of the buttress is carried up to the eaves-cornice, which is returned round them, instead of being carried on to their centre, as is usual: so that at San Miguel, in place of the apse at the cornice-line having four sides only, it has four long and three shorter sides, the latter above the buttresses. All the work in the chancel appears to be of earlier date than that in the nave, and its western arch is segmental, and of poor character.

The windows here are plain, round-arched lancets, but those in the clerestory of the nave are two-light windows, with a plain circle in the head, and richly moulded. The most striking architectural feature on the outside is the western steeple, which well deserves illustration, being full of peculiarity and vigour. The belfry-windows are singularly varied, for they are of three lights on the west, of two very wide lights on the south, and of two narrow lights on the east side. The tracery in all consists of uncusped circles, packed together in the same fashion as in the clerestory of Burgos Cathedral. The west window is of two lights, with simple piercings in the tympanum, and between it and the west doorway are a number of corbels all across the west front, which seem to prove that there was a pent-house roof across the whole of it. This must have largely added to the picturesqueness of the building, whilst at the same time it must, in such a climate, have been a most wise expedient for sheltering the doorway from the heat. The west doorway is a really fine work, but terribly mutilated. It has six series of subjects, in as many lines of archivolt moulding, the innermost order containing angels only: the second, figures with books or instruments of music: the third, angels again: the fourth, the Resurrection (with the Last Judgment, occupying the centre of this and the next order): the fifth and sixth, subjects from the life of our Lord, beginning with the Annunciation on the left. The outside moulding consists of a bold bowtell, with another arranged in continuous cusping in front of it, as in some of our own transitional work. The lower stage of the tower has a groined gallery, in which are the stalls, lectern, and organ.

It is much to be lamented that the finish of the steeple is not original, for we should then have had a complete example of a fine parish church, which must have been building from circa A.D. 1190 to circa A.D. 1250; but an early building unaltered on the exterior is a treat for which one generally sighs in vain in Spain.