Cathedrals of Spain

by John A. Gade

Many a bloody fray or revolution upset the city during the middle ages. The minority of Alfonso XI witnessed one of the worst. The revolt which broke out in so many of the Spanish cities against the Emperor Charles V, proved most fatal to the Cathedral of Segovia.

The first Romanesque Cathedral had been built in honor of St. Mary, under the walls of the Alcazar, during the first half of the twelfth century. It was consecrated in 1228 by the papal legate, Juan, Bishop of Sabina. Some two hundred and fifty years later, a new and magnificent Gothic cloister was added to it by Bishop Juan Arias Davila, and likewise a new episcopal palace more fitting times of greater luxury and magnificence. This palace, despite the coming translation of the Cathedral itself, remained the abode of the bishops for the three following centuries.{172} In the new cloisters a banquet of reconciliation was celebrated in 1474 by Henry IV and the Catholic Kings. It was held on the very spot whence Isabella had started in state on a journey proving so eventful in the history not only of Castile but of the entire Peninsula and countries beyond. Three years after the furious struggle which took place around the entrance of the Alcazar, Charles V issued the following proclamation:—

"The King: To the Aldermen, Justices, Councillors, Knights, Men-at-arms, Officials, and good Burghers of the city of Segovia. The reverend Father in Christ, Bishop of the church of this city, has told me how he and the Chapter of his church believe that it would be well to move the Cathedral church to the plaza of the city on the site of Santa Clara, and that the parish of San Miguel of the plaza should be incorporated in the Cathedral church; and this, because when the said Cathedral church is placed in a situation where the divine services may be more advantageously held, our Saviour will be better served and the people will receive much benefit and the city become much ennobled; it appears to me good that this plan should be carried out, desiring the good and ennoblement and welfare of the said city because of the loyalty and services I have always found in it, therefore I command and request that you unite with the said Bishop or his representative and the Chapter of said church and all talk freely together about this and see what will be best for the good of the said city, and at the same time consider the assistance that the said city could itself render, and after discussion, forward me the results of your{173} combined judgment, in order that I better may see and decide what will be for the best service of Our Lord, Ourselves, and the welfare of the city. Dated in Madrid, the 2d day of October, in the year 1510.—I, the King."

While the discussion of the feasibility and expense of commencing an entirely new cathedral upon a new site nearer the heart of the city was at its height, the revolt of the Comunidades broke out, in 1520, and swept away in its burning and pillaging course the Romanesque edifice. This stood at the entrance to the fortress, where the fight naturally raged hottest. Only a very few of the most sacred images, relics and bones were carried to safety within the walls of the Alcazar before the old pile had been practically destroyed. Segovia was without a Cathedral church.

In the centre of the city, on the very crest of the hill, lay the only clearing within the walls. Here at one end of the plaza was the site of the convent mentioned by Emperor Charles, which had long sheltered the nuns of Santa Clara. They had abandoned it for other quarters, and the adjacent convent of San Miguel had become unpopular and was dwindling into insignificance. Both could thus in this most free and commanding location give way to a new and larger cathedral, distant from what would always prove the rallying point of civic strife. Following the mighty wave of revolt which had swept the city, came a great receding wave of religious enthusiasm to atone in holy fervor for the impious act recently committed. Citizen and noble alike proposed to build an edifice which would be much more to the glory of Saint Mary than the shrine which they had{174} so recently pulled down. Lords gave whole villages; women, their jewels; and the citizens, the sweat of their brows. We find in the archives of the Cathedral the following entry by the Canon Juan Ridriguez[]:

"On June 8th, 1522, ... by the consent and resolution of the Lord Bishop D. Diego de Rovera and of the Dean and Chapter of the said church, it was agreed to commence the new work of the said church to the glory of God and in honor of the Virgin Mary and the glorious San Frutos and all saints, taking for master of the said work Juan Gil de Hontañon, and for his clerk of the works Garcia de Cubillas. Thursday, the 8th of June, 1552, the Bishop ordered a general procession with the Dean and Chapter, clergy and all the religious orders."

The corner stone was laid and the masonry started at the western end under the most renowned architect of the age. Juan Gil had already worked on the old Segovian Cathedral, but had achieved his great fame on the new Cathedral of Salamanca, started ten years previously, whose walls were rising with astounding rapidity. His clerk was almost equally skilled, always working in perfect harmony with his master and carrying out his designs without jealousy during the "maestro's" many illnesses and journeys to and from Salamanca. Garcia lived to work on the church until 1562, and the old archives still hold many drawings from his skillful hand.

The two late Gothic Cathedrals are so similar in many points that they are immediately recognizable as the conception of the same brain. Segovia is, however, infinitely superior, not only in the magnificent development of the eastern end with its semicircular{175} apse, ambulatory, and radiating apsidal chapels, as compared with the square termination of Salamanca, but, throughout, in the restrained quality of its detail and the refinement of its ornamentation. How far the abrupt and uninteresting apsidal termination of Salamanca was Juan Gil's fault, it is difficult to say, for we find records of its having been imposed upon him by the Chapter as well as of his having drawn a circular apse. Fortunately, the Segovian churchmen had the common sense to leave their architect alone in most artistic matters and allow him to make the head of the church either "octagonal, hexagonal, or of square form." Where Salamanca has been coarsened by the new style, Segovia seems inspired by its fidelity to the old.

The similarity of the two churches is visible throughout. The general interior arrangements are much alike. The stone of the two interiors is of nearly the same color, and the formation and details of the great piers are strikingly similar. There is the same thin, reed-like descent of shafts from upper ribs, the same, almost inconspicuous, small leaves for caps, and, in both, the bases terminate at different heights above the huge common drum, which is some three feet high. Externally, there are analogous buttresses, crestings, pinnacles and parapets, and a concealment of roof structure, but there is none of the vanity of Salamanca in the sister church of Segovia. The last great Gothic church of Spain, though deficient in many ways, was not lacking in unity nor sincerity. The flame went out in a magnificent blaze.

Such faithfulness and love as possessed Juan Gil for his old Gothic masters seems well-nigh incredible.{176} He designed, and during his activity there of nine years, raised the greater portions of Segovia in an age when Gothic building was practically extinct, when Brunelleschi was building Santa Maria del Fiore, and the classic revival was in full march. Segovia and Spaniards were as tardy in forswearing their Gothic allegiance as they had been their Romanesque. Not until the beginning of the sixteenth century does the reborn classicism victoriously cross the Pyrenees, and then only in minor domestic buildings. The last manifestations of Gothic church-building in Spain were neither weak nor decadent, but virile, impressive and logical. Segovia Cathedral may be said to be the last great monument in Spain, not only of Gothic, but of ecclesiastical art. Thereafter came the deluge of decadence or petrification. What must not the power of the Church, as well as the religious enthusiasm of the populace, have been during this extraordinary sixteenth century! It is almost incredible that this tiny city, in a weak little kingdom, and so few miles from Salamanca, had the spirit for an undertaking of the size of this Cathedral church, so soon after Salamanca had entered on her architectural enterprise. Either of the two seems beyond the united power of the kingdom.