Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

It is now time to describe the building itself, the age of its various parts having been pretty accurately defined by the documentary evidence which I have quoted.

This cathedral is of singular interest, not only on account of its unusual completeness, and the general unity of style which marks it, but still more because it is both in plan and design a very curiously exact repetition of the church of S. Sernin at Toulouse.[154] But S. Sernin is earlier in date by several years, having been commenced by S. Raymond in A.D. 1060, and consecrated by Pope Urban II. in A.D. 1096; and the cathedral at Santiago can only be regarded, therefore, as to a great extent a copy of S. Sernin, the materials being, however, different, since granite was used in its construction in place of the brick and stone with which its prototype was constructed.

The dimensions of the two churches do not differ very much; Santiago has one bay less in its nave, but one bay more in each transept; it has only one aisle, whilst S. Sernin has two on each side of the nave; and its two towers are placed north and south of the west front, instead of to the west of it, as they are at S. Sernin. The arrangement of the chevet and of the chapels on the east of the transepts was the same in both churches. Here they still exist in the chevet, but in the transepts traces of them are only to be found after careful examination. Three of them, indeed are quite destroyed, though slight traces still exist of the arches which opened into them from the aisles, but the fourth has been preserved by a piece of vandalism for which one must be grateful. It has been converted into a passage-way to a small church which once stood detached to the north-east of the cathedral, and the access to which was by a western doorway. The erection of a modern chapel blocked up the access to this doorway, and an opening was then made through the northern chapel of the north transept, which has thus been saved from the fate which has befallen the others. The position and size of these chapels are indicated in the ground-plan.

The proportions of the several parts of the plans of the two churches are also nearly identical; and owing in part to the arrangement of the groining piers of the transepts, in which the aisles are returned round the north and south ends, the transept fronts in both churches have the very unusual arrangement of two doorways side by side—a central single doorway being impossible. The triforium galleries surround the whole church, being carried across the west end and the ends of the transepts, so that a procession might easily ascend from the west end, by the tower staircases—which are unusually broad and spacious—and make the entire circuit of the church. Finally, the sections of both these great churches are as nearly as possible the same; their naves being covered with barrel-vaults, their aisles with quadripartite vaults, and the triforia over the aisles with quadrant vaults, abutting against and sustaining as with a continuous flying buttress the great waggon-vaults of their naves.[155]

The exterior of the cathedral at Santiago—to a more detailed description of which I must now devote myself—is almost completely obscured and overlaid by modern additions. The two old western steeples shown on the plan are old only about as high as the side walls of the church, and have been raised to a very considerable height, and finished externally with a lavish display of pilasters, balustrades, vases, and what not, till they finish in a sort of pepper-box fashion with small cupolas. Between them is a lofty niche over the west front, which contains a statue of the tutelar.[156] Fortunately the whole of the façade between the steeples was built on in front of, and without destroying, Master Matthew’s great work, the western porch. The ground falls considerably to the west, and a rather picturesque quadruple flight of steps, arranged in a complicated fashion, leads up from the Plaza to the doors. There are two great and two lesser flights of steps, so that a procession going up might be divided into four lines; a doorway in the centre of the western wall below these steps leads into a chapel constructed below the western porch. This is now called the Chapel of St. Joseph, but seems to have been known of old as Santiago la Vajo. The arrangement of its plan is very peculiar.[157] There are two large central piers east and west of a sort of transept; to the west of this are two old arches, and then the modern passage leading to the doorway at the foot of the steps. To the east of the transept is an apse consisting of an aisle formed round the great central pier, with small recesses for altars round it. The aisle is covered with a round-arched waggon-vault; it has five recesses for altars; the easternmost seems to have a square east end, the next to it on either side have apses, and the others are very shallow recesses hardly large enough for altars. There can be no doubt whatever, I think, that this is the work on which Master Matthew was first employed; it is exactly under the porch and doorway, on which, as we know by the inscription on the lintel of the door, he wrought; and as he was first at work here in A.D. 1168, and finished the doors in A.D. 1188, we may safely put down this chapel as having been begun and finished circa A.D. 1168-1175. In this the bases are some of them square, some circular in plan; the sculpture of the capitals is elaborate and similar in character to most of the later work in the cathedral. The favourite device of pairs of animals regarding each other is frequently repeated; and there are moulded and spiral shafts in the jambs of the western arches. My view of the interior of this interesting little chapel will best explain its general character and peculiarities, and it will be felt, I think, that it is certainly not earlier than the date I have assigned, and therefore, like the great western door, of later date than the church in connection with which it was built. Behind the eastern altar there is an arcade of three arches forming a kind of reredos, but I am not at all sure whether they are in their old places, and I am inclined to think it more likely that there is an eastern apse behind them. There is nothing to prove whether there were any western doors to this chapel, and as all the light must originally have come through the western arches, it would seem to be most probable that there were none. The chapel is now kept locked, and is but seldom used for service.[158]

To return to the west front. This is the centre only of a vast architectural façade; to the right of the church being the chapter-house and other rooms on the west side of the cloister, and to the left another long line of dependent buildings. The Plaza is bounded by public buildings on its other three sides;[159] and beyond, to the west, the ground falling very rapidly affords a fine view across the valley to the picturesque mountain-like ranges which bound the landscape. This is the Plaza Mayor or “del Hospital.”

Going northward from the west entrance, and turning presently to the east, a low groined gateway is reached, which leads into another Plaza fronting the north transept. This gateway is a work of the twelfth century, but of the simplest kind. The Plaza de San Martin, to the north of the cathedral, is picturesquely irregular; its north side is occupied by a vast convent of St. Martin, and the ground slopes down steeply from it to the cathedral. Here is the gayest and busiest market-place of the town, and the best spot for studying the noisy cries and the bright dresses of the Gallegan peasantry. They are to be seen on a Sunday, especially, in all their finery,—bright, picturesque, and happy looking, for those who can afford to dress smartly are happy, and those who cannot don’t seem to come—selling and buying every possible kind of ware, save, perhaps, the large stock of scallop-shells, which, though they are kept for sale with due regard to the genius loci, seemed to me never to attract any one to become a purchaser, and to adopt the badge of St. James!

The whole of the northern front of the transept and church is modernized. But to the east of it lies the little church used as the Parroquia, and which will be better described when I go to the interior, as externally it has no old feature save a simple little window in its north wall.