Cathedrals of Spain

by John A. Gade

The carving of the double tier of walnut choir stalls is at once restrained and rich. Beautiful Gothic tracery surmounts in both tiers the figures that fill the panels above the seats. Below are characters from the Old Testament,—Daniel, Jeremiah, Abel, David busily playing his harp, Joshua "Dux Isri," Moses with splendid big horns and tablets, Tobias with his little fish slit up the belly. Above stand firmly full-length figures of the Apostles and saints. With the exception of some of the work near the entrance,{113} which is practically Renaissance in feeling, all this carving is late Gothic from the last part of the fifteenth century and executed by the masters Fadrique, John of Malines, and Rodrigo Aleman. Two of the stalls, more elevated and pronounced than the rest, are for the hereditary canons of the Cathedral, the King of Leon and the Marquis of Astorga. Excellent as they are, these stalls are not nearly so rich in design nor beautiful in execution as the Italian Renaissance choir stalls, in the Convent of San Marcos directly outside the city walls, carved some decades later by the Magister Guillielmo Dosel.

The crossing is splendidly broad, the transepts appearing, as one glances north and south, as much the main arms of the cross as do the nave and choir. The southern arm is quite new, having been completely rebuilt by D. Juan Madrazo and D. Demetrio Amador de los Rios. The glazing of its window and the arabesques cannot be compared to those of the original fabric in the northern arm. The four piers of the crossing, though slender and graceful, carry full, logical complements of shafts for the support of the various vaulting ribs, intersecting at their apexes.

The retablo above the high altar is in its simplicity as refreshing as the light and sunniness of the church. In place of the customary gaudy carving, it merely consists of a series of painted fifteenth-century tablets set in Gothic frames. Simple rejas close the western bays and a florid Gothic trasaltar, the eastern termination. Directly back of the altar lies a noble and dignified figure, the founder of the church, King Ordoño II. At his feet is a little dog, looking for all{114} the world like a sucking pig in a butcher's window. And above him is an ancient and most curious Byzantine relief of the Crucifixion. The lions and castles of his kingdom surround the old king. The greater portion of the carving must belong to the oldest in the church.

In looking at the vaulting and considering the difficulty of planning the "girola" or ambulatory, one realizes that such construction could only be the outcome of many years of study, experiment and inspiration. Perfection means long previous schooling and experience. The apsidal chapels that radiate from it have glass differing in excellence. Here and there frescoes of the thirteenth century line these earliest walls. It is surprising in how many different places old sepulchres are to be found, all more or less similar in their general design and belonging to the period of transition from the Byzantine to the Gothic, yet each denoting the building period of the place where it stands. Some of the subjects of the carving are most curious: a hog playing the bagpipes, the devil in the garb of a father confessor, tempting a penitent; or again, a woman suckling an ass. Saint Froila lies on one side of the altar. Not only his sanctity but even his authenticity were disputed by various disbelievers in the city, prior to his being brought to this final resting-place. The matter was decided by placing the body in question on an ass's back, whereupon the sagacious animal took his holy burden to the spot where it deserved burial.

In the Capilla de Nuestra Señora del Dado, or "of the die," stands a Virgin with the face of the Christ child ever bleeding, it is said, since the time when an{115} unlucky gambler in a fit of despair threw his dice against the Babe.

Directly opposite Ordoño's tomb lies the Countess Sancha, who, in a burst of religious enthusiasm, decided to leave her considerable worldly goods to the Church instead of to her nephew. This was more than he could stand, and he murdered her. Below her figure he is represented, receiving his just reward in being torn to pieces by wild horses.

To the north, a florid Gothic portal leads on a higher level to the Chapel of Santiago. This has been, and is still being, restored. Its three vaults are differently arched, the ribs not being carried down against the side walls to the floor, but met by broad corbels supported by curious figures. The stonework is cold and gray in comparison to the church proper.

Separating the northern entrance from the cloisters is a row of chapels, leading one into the other and crowded with tombs and sculpture. There are few more complete cloisters in Spain. Large and elaborate, they are a curious mixture of the old Gothic and the Renaissance restorations of the sixteenth century. Ancient Gothic tombs, their archivolts crowded with angels, pierce the interior walls, while the vaults themselves are most elaborately groined, the arches and vaulting being later filled with Renaissance bosses and rosettes. In the sunny courtyard are piled up the Renaissance turrets and sculptures that once usurped on the façades the places of the older Gothic ornamentation. The northern portal itself is practically hidden by the chapels and cloisters. It is fine Gothic work. A Virgin and Child form a mullion in its centre, while very worldly-looking women parade{116} in its archivolts. Everywhere are the arms of the United Kingdoms. A great portion of the ancient tapestry blue and Veronese red coloring is still preserved, throwing out the old Gothic figures in their true tints.

This aerial tabernacle, so rich and yet so simple, lies in the heart of a city so fabulously old that the Cathedral itself belongs rather to its later days. The old houses and streets have a dryness and close smell like that in the ancient sepulchres of parched countries. Monuments and walls and turrets of Rome crumble around the houses and vaults of Byzantium. The naïve frescoes and carvings of the eighth and ninth centuries seem to look down with childlike wonder and amazement on the pedestrians now crowding the patterned pavements, or pressing against the shady sides of the time-worn arches.

The worshipers who tread the narrow lanes leading to and from the altar have changed, but little else. The square, mediæval castles with their angular towers still command the approach of the main thoroughfares. The crabbed old watchman with lantern and stick under his cape treads his doddering gait across the courtyards through the night hours, crying after the peal of the bell above, "Las doce han dado y sereno," "Las trece han dado y aleviendo," "Las quince han dado y nublano," just as in the middle ages, so that the good peasant may know time and weather and merely turn in his bed, if neither crops nor creatures need care.