THE monument which dominates Toledo, and which is not only the most prominent feature in a town whose every feature is so marked and significant, so unlike all the travelled eye is most familiar with, but is the centre of its changes and vicissitudes, of its triumphs and humiliations, is the Cathedral. Writing of the high terrace on which it stands, M. Maurice Barrès says: “c’était toujours le même sublime qui jamais ne rassasie les âmes, car en même temps qu’elles s’en remplissent il les dilate à l’infini.” Who is to seize and express with any adequacy or even coherence the first swift and stupefying impression of this superb edifice? There are many things in this world more beautiful—no one for instance would dream of speaking of it in the same breath as the Parthenon—but nothing more sumptuous; nothing in all the treasures of Spain to match its magnificence. It is simpler and more majestic than that of Burgos, and before heeding the instinct of examination, or noting its mass of detail, the first imperious command is to yield in charmed surrender to its spirit. We are silenced and held by the general effect long before we come to admire the exquisite sculpture of Berruguete and of Philip of Burgundy, and the splendours of chapels and treasury. And should time be short for detailed inspection, it is this general effect of immense naves, of a forest of columns and of jewelled windows that we carry away, feeling too small amidst such greatness of form and incomparable loveliness of lights for the mere expression of admiration. At sunset, should you have the fortune to be alone among its pillars and stained-glass windows, you will find nothing on earth to compare with the mysterious eloquence of its silence; you will feel it a place not for prayer but for a salutary conception of man’s insignificance.
Castillian genius has nowhere imprinted a haughtier effigy of its invincible pride and fanaticism, insusceptible to the humiliations of decay and defeat, impervious to the encroachments of progress and enlightenment. It is the vast monumental note of Spanish character and Spanish history. It tells the eternal tale of ecclesiastical domination and triumph, and is the fitting home of portraits of warlike cardinals and armoured bishops, of princes of the Church who wore the purple and ruled with the sword. It is a superb and majestic harmony of marvellous stone-work and painted glass.
The foundation of this most gorgeous temple is attributed to Saint Eugenius, the first bishop of Toledo, and on the conversion of Recaredo from Arianism, was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, April 12th, 587. When the Moors took Toledo, the Cathedral was converted into a mosque, which it remained for nearly three centuries. Then when Alfonso VI. won back the town from the Moors, one of the conditions we know in the treaty for surrender was that the Cathedral should continue as a mosque, and remain in the hands of the conquered, upon which stipulation, solemnly ratified, the Moors gave up the Alcázar, the city gates and bridges. Alfonso intended that this condition should be fulfilled, but the queen and the French archbishop, sorely troubled by the monstrous continuance of heretical service in the consecrated temple of St Eugenius, decided to cast out the Saracen, which injustice furnishes us with a pretty evidence of Moorish magnanimity. Alfonso’s was an exceedingly grim interpretation of the chivalrous sentiment, “I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more.” However, the Moors gallantly tore up the treaty and resigned all right to the Cathedral. The least they might have expected from their enemies is a full and fine recognition of their generosity, first in pleading for those who had insulted them, and then in foregoing their own advantage in order to procure the pardon of their insulters. But no. The Moors, in this matter, are regarded as having simply done their duty. One would hesitate to credit their conquerors with a like behaviour in similar circumstances. The Alfaqui’s statue in the Capilla Major is regarded as adequate thanks, and perhaps it is.
In the thirteenth century, Ferdinand III. and the Archbishop Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada, decided to rebuild the Cathedral and efface all remembrance of Saracen occupation. Pedro Perez was chosen for the immense work, which he continued for forty-nine years, beginning in 1227. The names of his successors have not reached us. It took two and a half centuries to conclude, and as the building went on, naturally gathered into its entire expression more than one mood of Spanish history and art. One needs only to contrast the rudeness of the Puerta de la Feria, built in the thirteenth century, with the finish and grace of the Puerta de los Leones, one of the most beautiful specimens of Gothic architecture, the work of the fifteenth century. Egas, Fernandez and Juan Aleman wrought it, and in 1776 Salvatierra restored part of it. The temple stands upon eighty-eight pillars, each one composed of sixteen light columns, and seventy-two vaults above the five wide naves, forming a cross over the centre nave which is higher than the rest. The side aisles rise gradually to
