Assuming as I do that the external wall of the apse is as old as the end of the eleventh century, I think it nevertheless quite impossible that the chapels within it, in their present state, should be of the same early date. In general plan it is true that they are similar to those round the chevet of the abbey at Veruela,[173] the eastern chapels in the transepts being apsidal in both cases, and similarly planned in connection with those of the apse. The church of Veruela was completed by about the middle of the twelfth century, and is beyond all question earlier in style than the interior of Avila. The great beauty of the latter arises from the narrow, recessed aisle round the apse, the groining of which is carried on lofty and slender shafts, whilst the columns round the apse itself consist of a bold single column with three detached shafts on the side next the aisle. The groining throughout is extremely good, and, in the chapels, is carried on clustered shafts. A careful examination of the groining of the choir shows clearly how much the design of the church was altered during its progress, though it is certainly not an illustration of the advantage of such a course. The lines of the groining on the plan explain that it is planned with hardly any reference to the structure below: some of the groining shafts not being over the piers, and everything having been sacrificed by the architect of the triforium and clerestory in order to make all their bays equal in width both in the apse and in the side walls. East of the Crossing there is a narrow quadripartite bay of vaulting, then a sexpartite bay, and then those of the apse, and each of the three bays of the choir is thus made about equal to those of the apse, though the arches below are quite unequal. Externally all of them are supported by regularly arranged flying-buttresses, some of which must, I think, be supported on the cross-arches of the aisle in front of the chapels. The triforium is round-arched, of two horseshoe-headed lights divided by a shafted monial; and the clerestory is of round-headed broadish windows, with jamb-shafts and richly-chevroned arches. The flying-buttresses are all double, the lower arch abutting against the triforium, and the upper against the wall above the clerestory windows; and all appear to me to have been added after the original erection of the clerestory. The parapet here, as well as in the aisles, is battlemented, the battlements being finished with pyramidal copings of the common Moorish type. I should have observed that the passage round the town walls is connected with that round the aisle walls, and that the two levels of battlements in the latter are connected by occasional flights of stone steps.

The transepts have the same triforium in their eastern walls as the choir; and here, too, the same kind of construction was ventured on, the groining shafts not being over the clustered column which divides the arches of the aisles round the chevet. When this was done the intention was evidently to erect one bay of sexpartite vaulting next the Crossing, and then a quadripartite bay beyond it. At present both bays are similar—quadripartite—and the clerestory is filled with large traceried windows.

The remainder of the church was so much altered in the fourteenth century, that its whole character is now of that period. The north transept façade has in its lower stage two windows of two lights, the traceries of which are precisely similar to those of our own early geometrical style, and there is a very fine rose window above them. This rose is of sixteen divisions, each containing two plain pierced circular openings, but the dividing lines between them being marked, give the whole tracery that effect of radiation from the centre which is so important a feature in the designs of many wheel-windows. All the windows in this façade are richly moulded, and there are well-developed buttresses at its angles, but, unhappily, the gable has been entirely destroyed, and the present termination of the wall is a straight line of brickwork below the eaves of the hipped roof. The question of the original pitch of the roof—always so interesting—is therefore left uncertain and undecided. The clerestory throughout is filled with enormous six-light traceried windows, with transomes, and the double flying buttresses between them are very large, and are finished at the top with a line of traceries below their copings, and with crocketed pinnacles in front. There are two towers at the ends of the aisles, which do not open into them, but only into the nave. The south-west tower has never been completed, but the north-west steeple is a very fine work of the same age as the clerestory of the nave. It has bold buttresses, and a belfry stage lighted by two windows on each side, with tall crocketed pediments above them, and below the battlemented parapet a line of rich sunk tracery. The angles—internal as well as external—are carved with a ball enrichment, which at a distance produces the same effect as our English ball-flower ornament; and, like it, gives an air of richness to the whole work. The buttresses finish above the parapet with crocketed pinnacles, and the parapet with a pointed coping, which somewhat recalls the outline of the Moorish battlement. The whole effect of the steeple, transept, and nave is certainly very noble, and they are marked by an entire absence of any of those foreign peculiarities which usually strike an English eye. The whole might, in fact, be English work of the fourteenth century. The north door of the nave is of grand dimensions, having six statues in niches in each jamb, and others against the buttresses on either side. The tympanum is sculptured with our Lord in an aureole in the centre, the Betrayal and the Last Supper below, angels censing on either side, and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin above. The orders of the archivolt are filled with figures, some representing the resurrection of the dead, and others figures of kings and saints worshipping the central figure of our Lord. The door-opening has the peculiarity of having an elliptical or three-centred arch. This feature I noticed also in doors evidently of about the same age at Burgos and at Leon, and it is just one of those evidences which go surely to prove that the several works are all designed by the same architect. The resemblance of the mouldings in the jamb of this doorway to those in the western end of Leon Cathedral is very close, and all these doors have an order of very similar foliage between the several sculptured or storied orders of the archivolt. I do not think the work here is quite as good as that at Leon, though the filling in of the tympanum with a well-marked vesica in the centre, and four rows of subjects divided by well-defined horizontal lines, is uncommonly good. A sort of shallow porch has been formed by some later groining, which occupies the space between the buttresses on either side of the doorway, and this is finished in front with a rich open traceried parapet and pinnacles.

It was during the prelacy of Don Sancho III., Bishop of Avila from A.D. 1292 to 1353, that most of the later works of the cathedral were executed, and his arms are sculptured upon the vault of the Crossing. The character of all the work would agree perfectly with this date, which is given by Gil Gonzalez Dávila[174] in his account of the church.

A staircase in the south-west tower leads up into the roof of the aisles, which now partly blocks up the too large clerestory; and passing through this, and then over the roofs of the sacristies, we reach the exterior of the chevet and the fortified eastern wall. Over the sacristies is some original stone roofing, of an extremely good, and, so far as I know, almost unique kind, with which it, seems very probable that the whole of the roofs were originally covered. But it is now, as well as all the others, protected by an additional timber roof covered with tiles, and is not visible from the exterior. This roofing is all laid to a very flat pitch with stones, which are alternately hollowed on the surface for gutters, and placed about eight and a half inches apart, and other square stones, which rest on the edges of the first, so as to cover their joints. The stones are of course all of the same length—two feet seven inches—and set over each other so as to form a drip. The cornice at the eaves of this roof is very well managed, and looks as if it were of the thirteenth century. Its construction reminded me much of the stone guttering so frequently seen in the early Irish buildings, and which, being so much less perishable than lead, has often preserved them, where the common English construction would long ere this have involved the whole building in ruin.

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The cloister on the south side of the nave is much decayed and mutilated. It was built probably in the early part of the fourteenth century, and has good traceried windows, generally of four lights, but blocked up, and with all their cusping destroyed. On its east side is a fine fifteenth century chapel, with an altar at the south end, and a passage through its other end, screened off by an iron Reja, leading to the priests’ rooms, and so round to the sacristies. The windows of this chapel are covered with a rude ball ornament, constantly seen in works of the fifteenth century.

I must not forget to notice the furniture of the interior of the cathedral, some of which is very fine. The Retablo of the high altar is very grand, having five sides, which follow the outline of the apse, and it is of three stages in height. The lowest stage has the four evangelists and the four doctors painted on its side panels, and SS. Peter and Paul in the centre; the next has the Transfiguration in the centre, and the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Presentation in the Temple at the sides; and the upper stage the Crucifixion in the centre, and the Agony, the Scourging, the Resurrection, and the Descent into Hell at the sides. These paintings were executed in A.D. 1508 by Santos Cruz, Pedro Berruguete, and Juan de Borgoña: and some of them are not only valuable in the history of art, but of great merit. The St. Matthew attended by an angel, who holds his ink for him, is designed with great grace; and the Adoration of the Magi, and some of the other subjects, are admirably designed and painted. The drawing is rather sharp and angular, and has more the character of German than of Italian art. The woodwork in which the paintings are framed is richly carved and gilt, but in a jumble of styles; the canopies over the pictures being Gothic, and the columns which support them thoroughly Renaissance in style.[175]