The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

NOTHING purely Spanish comes in sight till we get to Burgos. This old city is half-way from the frontier to Madrid, and is just so slow, sleepy, and sluggish a town as one should see to get a correct impression of Spain at the start. About a thousand years ago, Diego Porcelos, a knight of Castile, had a beautiful daughter, Sulla Bella, who was loved and won by a German, and they founded this city, calling it from a German Burg, a fortified place, Burgos. For many long years it was independent, governed by a council. Afterwards, Gonzales was made the governor, as Count of Castile, who and his heirs reigned until, under Ferdinand I., in 1067, by a happy marriage, the crowns of Leon and Castile were fused into one.

BRIDGE, GATEWAY, AND CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS.

The legendary hero of Spain, whose exploits are only less than those of Hercules, was born in Burgos, and what is more and better, his bones are here in the Town Hall; and if any doubt is entertained of the fact that he actually lived and died and was a wonderful man, between the dates of his birth and death, such doubts ought to be dispelled by a sight which I had of an old brass-bound, mouldering chest, sacredly preserved in one of the inner and holy chambers of the cathedral, and called the coffer of the Cid. Once on a time the Cid had occasion to borrow a large sum of money of two Jewish bankers in Burgos, and he left with them as security this trunk, with, as he said, all his jewels and gold in it. He did not pay the money when it was due, and the chest being opened by the lenders was found full only of sand! It was thought in those days a merit to cheat a Jew, and the Romanists show their estimate of the trick to this day by keeping the swindling coffer among their precious relics. But it is hardly probable that a Jew ever lived who would lend money without first seeing the security, and the story therefore lacks probability. However this may be, we are now in the city of the Cid, and though a Christian knight, he had read the words of the Prophet of the Moor,—“There are three sorts of lies which will not be taken into account at the last judgment: 1st, One told to reconcile two persons at variance. 2d, That which a husband tells when he promises any thing to his wife; and 3d, A chieftain’s word in time of war.” Such is the morality of Mahomet, and there is not a little of the same Jesuitism under other names.

The Cid.

The city has 25,000 inhabitants, and one of the most splendid cathedrals of Europe; but not a hotel that is decent. We went to the best, and its entrance was strong with the smell of the stables. The first flight of steps inside was littered with dust and straw, and it looked as if we were to be led to a manger, which word is, indeed, the same with the French salle à manger, a dining-room. Yet this proved to be as fair a hotel as Spain at present offers to its friends from abroad. They are all inferior to second-rate hotels in France or Switzerland, and many that profess to be first-class are execrable. The charges are higher than in better houses in countries where living is dearer, so that the business of entertaining strangers in Spain is an organized imposition. The roads are now free from robbers who formerly infested them and made travelling dangerous. The robbers have evidently left the highway and gone to keeping the hotels. They still rob travellers, with less risk and trouble than in the olden time.

An Englishman by the name of Maurice, being high in the favor of Ferdinand, the saint and hero, laid the foundation, A. D. 1221, of the Burgos cathedral, which fairly challenges comparison with any or all of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in the world. Having been built in successive periods, and these at long distances from each other, there is a want of harmony in the parts, but this is observed only by the professional eye, while to others, and especially on one who enters this first of the great edifices of Spain, its interior bursts with a blaze of grandeur covered with beauty, that fairly dazzles while it awes and delights him. And after having visited and leisurely studied half a dozen others, including those of Toledo and Seville, I regard the cathedral of Burgos as exhibiting a degree of perfection in detail, an elaborate execution to adorn and embellish a sanctuary, not equalled by any of its rivals in Spain.

And it is to Spain that we must come to see what the art and consecrated wealth of princes and priests can do to build temples in honor of God. Italy has nothing like them. St. Peter’s is the largest Christian church in the world, and perhaps more labor and money have been expended upon it. But as a Christian church it is a failure, without and within. Not so with any of these magnificent monuments of human power and devotion. The towers of this, at Burgos, with their graceful, open-worked pinnacles, spring up as if seeking the sky. The gates are grand, and surrounded and crowned with bas reliefs. Around the towers are seventy statues, of prophets and apostles, and over the transept are twenty-four life-size statues of female saints, each covered with a canopy, as guardian angels on this house of prayer. Moses and Aaron, in stone, stand by one of the doors, with Peter and Paul, and in the vestibule is the Saviour, and around him the four evangelists are writing the holy gospels, while at least fifty statues, apostles, angels with candlesticks, seraphs, and cherubs, add to the ornament of this one gate.

It is quite impracticable to convey by words, and it is a fact that drawings or photographs of interiors fail to convey an idea of the view which one meets on entering a vast cathedral. The impression is on a devout mind, whether of the same faith with that professed by the ministers at these altars or not, the impression is one of solemnity and sublimity. When the enlightened stranger comes near to study the wretched additions which superstition has made to the simplicity of Christian worship as established by its founder, his taste and principles may be shocked and revolted by what he sees and hears in gorgeous and glorious cathedrals. But these are abuses that have crept in: fungi on the trunks of grand old forest trees, under whose branches it is a delight to sit and think of him who dwells in a nobler temple not made with hands. Three hundred feet long, and two hundred feet and more wide within, and chapels yet beyond, each one large enough for a church, and two hundred feet to the roof, which is supported by vast pillars of stone, and each one of them wrought elaborately with garlands, and fruits, and images of angels, and historic scenes and incidents in Scripture,—such is the first grand view that lies before us, as we enter the gates of this cathedral in Burgos. It is in the form of the Latin cross, and at the intersection, the crucero, as it is called in Spanish, the effect of the vaulted dome, and of the whole minute and elegant workmanship, is so exquisite that the Emperor Charles V. is reported to have said it should be placed under glass, and Philip II. pronounced it the work rather of angels than men. I could discern nothing worthy of such exaggerated eulogy, while admiring the harmonious proportions and the graceful combinations that enhance the effect of elaborate sculpture and ingenious decorations.