CATHEDRAL OF LEON
From the southwest
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Look where the flood of western glory falls Through the great sunflower disk of blazing panes In ruby, saffron, azure, emerald stains. Holmes. |
IN the year 1008 the ancient church of Leon witnessed a ceremony memorable for more reasons than one. It was conducted throughout according to Gothic customs, King, Queen, nobility and ecclesiastics all being present, and it was the first council held in Spain since the Arab conquest whose acts have come down to us. The object was twofold: to hold a joyous festival in celebration of the rebuilding of the city walls, which had been broken down some years before by a Moslem army, and to draw up a charter for a free people, governing themselves, for Spain has the proud distinction of granting municipal charters one or two hundred years before the other countries of Europe. For three centuries of Gothic rule, the kings of Leon, Castile and other provinces had successfully resisted every attempt at encroachment from the Holy See and, in session with the clergy, elected their own bishops, until in 1085 Alfonso VI of Castile takes the fatal step of sending Bernard d'Azeu to receive the pallium and investiture as Bishop of Toledo from the hands of Gregory VII. From this time forth, kings are crowned,{92} queens repudiated, and even the hallowed Gothic or Mozarabic ritual is set aside for that of Rome by order of popes.
In 1135 Santa Maria of Leon is the scene of a gorgeous pageant. An Alfonso, becoming master of half Spain and quarter of France, thinks he might be called Emperor as well as some others, and within the Cathedral walls he receives the new title in the presence of countless ecclesiastics and "all his vassals, great and small." The monarch's robe was of marvelous work, and a crown of pure gold set with precious stones was placed on his head, while the King of Navarre held his right hand and the Bishop of Leon his left. Feastings and donations followed, but, what was of vastly more importance, the new Emperor confirmed the charters granted to various cities by his grandfather.
Again a great ceremony fills the old church. Ferdinand, later known as the Saint, is baptized there in 1199. A year or two later, Innocent III declares void the marriage of his father and mother, who were cousins, and an interdict shrouds the land in darkness. Several years pass during which the Pope turns a deaf ear to the entreaties of a devoted husband, the King of Leon, to their children's claim, the intercession of Spanish prelates, and the prayers of two nations who had good cause to rejoice in the union of Leon and Castile. Then a victim of the yoke, which Spain had voluntarily put on while Frederic of Germany and even Saint Louis of France were defending their rights against the aggressions of the Holy See, the good Queen Berenzuela, sadly took her way back to her father's home, to the King of Castile.{93}
His prerogative once established, Innocent III looked well after his obedient subjects. When Spain was threatened by the most formidable of all Moorish invasions, he published to all Christendom a bull of crusade against the Saracens, and sent across the Pyrenees the forces which had been gathering in France for war in Palestine. Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo, preached the holy war and led his troops, in which he was joined by the bishops of Bordeaux, Nantes, and Narbonne at the head of their militia. Germany and Italy sent their quota of knights and soldiers of fortune, and this concourse of Christian warriors, speaking innumerable tongues, poured through mountain defiles and ever southward till they met in lofty Toledo and camped on the banks of the Tagus. Marches, skirmishes, and long-drawn-out sieges prelude the great day. The hot Spanish summer sets in, the foreigners, growing languid in the arid stretches of La Mancha, and disappointed at the slender booty meted out to them, desert the native army, march northwards and again cross the Pyrenees to return to their homes. It was thus left to the Spaniards, led by three kings and their warlike prelates, to defeat a Moslem army of half a million and gain the glorious victory of Las Navas de Tolosa on the sixteenth of August, 1212.
With Rome's firm grasp on the Spanish Peninsula came temples no less beautiful than those the great Mother Church was planting in every portion of her dominion north of the Pyrenees,—Leon, Burgos, Toledo and Valencia rose in proud challenge to Amiens, Rheims, Beauvais and Chartres.
Leon may be called French,—yes, unquestionably{94} so, but that is no detraction or denial of her native "gentileza." She may be the very embodiment of French planning, her general dimensions like those of Bourges; her portals certainly recall those of Chartres, and the planning of her apsidal chapels, her bases, arches, and groining ribs, remind one of Amiens and Rheims; but nevertheless this exotic flower blooms as gloriously in a Spanish desert as those that sprang up amid the vineyards or in the Garden of France.