Part 5

The interior is harmonious and pleasing. The nave is about twice the height of the aisles, with which it communicates through pointed arches. The piers are lightly fluted and encircled by simple fillets of foliage. Above the arches runs a gallery with a graceful balustrade, and pointed openings divided by mullions and containing good traceries. The clerestory windows are tall and of six lights, the mullions being bent so as to form tracery. On the south side they are filled with good stained glass; the northern windows are filled up. The transepts are spacious and lighted by wheel windows. There is no lantern over the crossing.

The chancel occupies a pentagonal apse at the east end of the nave, lit with five stained-glass windows. The retablo, dating from 1440, but since restored, is indifferent. The subjects of the reliefs are taken from the life of Christ. Near the High Altar are the tombs of various bishops, and a fine kneeling effigy of Bishop del Villar, who is buried at Segovia. The pulpits are of gilt iron. In the Renaissance chapels behind the chancel is the tomb of Bishop Gutierre.

In the transept is a rudely sculptured figure of Christ, believed to date from the twelfth century. The shells sculptured on the capital of the pillar, against which it stands, refer to the pilgrims who frequented this famous shrine.

The choir stalls are richly carved with caprices and scenes, ‘ill according,’ remarks a Spanish writer, ‘with the sanctity of the place.’ But the backs of the lower seats bear representations of Biblical characters, which, like the canopies above, are exquisitely carved. The organs are Churrigueresque, and the gorgeous Gothic trascoro is in hardly better taste. The chapels date mostly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and contain nothing of interest, except the alleged body of St. Eulalia of Merida.

Communicating with the north transept is the Capilla del Rey Casto. This chapel, founded by Alfonso the Chaste, was entirely rebuilt in the eighteenth century by a bishop named Melaz in the worst baroque style. This was the pantheon of the early kings of Asturias, and some tombs, probably containing their remains, are certainly here; but the inscriptions are merely the result of guess-work. Only one sarcophagus can be identified, and that, it appears from the inscription, is the resting-place of one Ithacus. Who this personage was, and what he had done to merit sepulture in the royal vault, are riddles to which history supplies no answer.

The cloister, begun in the fourteenth and finished in the fifteenth century, is in good Gothic style. The pointed arches looking on the court are divided by four or five slender shafts, which support elegant tracery. Among the statues that of Alfonso XI. Is the best preserved. The capitals and corbels are curiously and richly carved with such subjects as King Favila hunting the bear, the duel of Froila, and what Mr. O’Shea very rightly calls ‘a series of comical pictorial reviews of the times.’ There are many tombs in the cloister, belonging to various epochs, mostly earlier than the fourteenth century. They are of all styles, but Don J. M. Quadrado points out that the epitaphs are almost uniform in style. The famous Bishop Pelayo’s tomb (died 1153) is here.

The chapter-house is a fine specimen of thirteenth-century architecture. The archives adjoining contain some documents and codices of the greatest value. Here is preserved the _Libro Gotico_ of the twelfth century, a beautifully illuminated manuscript, throwing light on the costumes and customs of that day.

The other churches founded by Alfonso the Chaste and his predecessors in the town itself have either been demolished or so often restored, rebuilt, and renovated, that they cannot be considered worth a visit. The earliest foundation of all, San Vicente, was modernised in 1592, and is interesting as containing the bones of the Abbot Feijoo, a man greatly esteemed by his contemporaries for his learning and sanctity (died 1764).

The Gothic church of San Francisco, now attached to a hospital, was founded by Fray Pedro, a companion of the great Francis of Assisi himself. This is the burying-place of the great family of Quirós, which claimed, in a not very reverent distich, to rank in point of dignity and antiquity next to the Divinity (‘Después de Dios, la casa de Quirós’). In the chancel lies Gonzalo Bernaldo de Quirós the Older, the youthful friend of Enrique of Trastamara, who died, wearing the religious habit, in 1575. Within a sepulchre upheld by lions which bear escutcheons crossed by the bar sinister, are the ashes of another Gonzalo Bernaldo, a distinguished illegitimate scion of the house. He is shown clad in armour, and at his feet a dog--symbolical, possibly, of the fidelity and tenacity with which he watched over the interests of his family during the minority of its chiefs. Close by is the vault of the house of Valdecarzana; a modern inscription informs us that during the interment of one of that family, a live cow must be present in the church--why or wherefore not being stated.

The church of Santa Maria de la Vega, outside the town, was the chapel of a Benedictine nunnery founded by Gontroda, mistress of Alfonso VII., who took the veil here in 1154. She was joined in her retirement, it is believed, by her daughter Urraca, sometime Queen of Navarre, and afterwards of Asturias. A century later another interesting penitent sought an asylum here: Doña Sancha Alvarez, mistress of the greatest noble in Spain, Rodrigo Alvarez de Asturias. The two ladies’ tombs lie close together. The sarcophagus of Gontroda is adorned with Romanesque reliefs of birds, and of hounds chasing deer, in curiously crude and conventional attitudes; Sancha’s tomb shows Gothic influence, and is sculptured in low relief. The epitaphs extol the virtues and amiability of the departed ladies.

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The two most interesting monuments in the district are the ancient churches of Santa Maria de Naranco and San Miguel de Lino, both outside the walls. The former was rebuilt by Ramiro I., and is, therefore, well over a thousand years old. Attached to it were a palace and baths, every trace of which has long since disappeared. The architecture presents curious local peculiarities. The church is situated on a slope, and is composed of a single nave resting on a crypt or substructure. The only entrance is by a porch on the north side, which is on the level of the nave and approached by steps. The whole exterior is severe and simple, strong buttresses running up the walls to the sloping roof. In the west front three stages may be distinguished: the lowest is formed by the substructure entered in the middle by a round arch; above this the nave terminates in a portico of three round arches, which spring from four palm-like pillars with Corinthian capitals; in the middle of the third stage is a window of three lights, also round arched. The interior has remained practically unchanged since Ramiro’s day. The chancel and choir occupy opposite ends of the nave, and are raised by one and three steps respectively above the level of the flooring. Both are shut off by three round arches, the middle one being higher than the others; and an arcade of closed arches runs along the side-walls of the nave. These arches are rudely constructed, and rest upon, rather than spring from, octagonal capitals, quaintly carved with figures of priests and lions. The columns are composed each of four engaged shafts, of the same pattern as those of the western portico. The ribs of the waggon-vaulted ceiling spring from corbels, beneath which are reliefs representing the two orders of society in Asturias in the ninth century--knights engaged in combat, and toilers carrying loads. Under these again are circular medallions, filled with conventional foliage, and having in the centre reliefs of lions and birds. The church was probably intended to be open at both ends, as it is now, that the congregation assembled on the hillside might be able to assist in divine worship. It is one of the most valuable architectural monuments of Spain.

The little basilica of San Miguel de Lino was built near Santa Maria by King Ramiro about the year 850. The name was originally _de ligno_, _i.e._ of the wood, and was derived quite possibly from a fragment of the True Cross preserved here. Here we have a cruciform church in miniature, with transepts, lantern, and apsidal chapels, of a height which seems out of proportion to their other reduced dimensions. The apsidal chapels formed a semicircle at the foundation, but have been squared off since. The roofs are tiled and pitched. The buttresses resemble those of the Naranco church. The walls are pierced, here and there, with windows of three lights, with round arches, columns spirally fluted, and columns cut into leaves; above these is an elaborate geometrical tracery, suggestive of Moorish influence. The jambs of the round-arched western porch are rudely carved with curious groups. One of these is irresistibly grotesque. A man is shown balancing himself with his hands on the top of a pole and his legs in the air, exactly like the familiar monkey on a stick of our childhood; with head downwards, he grins into the jaws of a lion, which stands on its hind legs agape with surprise or indignation. Behind the gymnast another man appears to be indulging in some sort of dumb-bell exercise. This amazing composition is averred by some authorities to represent the martyrdom of a saint! The floral designs which border it are skilfully, even delicately, executed.

The chancel is on a lower level than the nave, which is reached on each side by a flight of steps, in a chapel projecting from the transept. The lantern has one of the earliest attempts at a domed roof, now unfortunately concealed by a later flat ceiling. The columns and arches are Byzantine in style, and the capitals carved with rosettes in medallions and strapwork. The nave is waggon vaulted and lower than the transept.

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The modern buildings of Oviedo present few features of interest. The old walls have almost entirely disappeared, and few of the palaces or noblemen’s houses date further back than the seventeenth century. The University, founded in 1608 by the executors of Archbishop de Valdés, is a dignified building in the classical style--such as one might see in any fair-sized town in southern Europe. The Ayuntamiento, uninteresting in itself, contains a charter granted by the sixth and confirmed by the seventh Alfonso. Those who have had the opportunity of studying it say that it illustrates the transition from Latin to Spanish--just as the history of Oviedo illustrates the development of the Goth into the Spaniard.

III

SEGOVIA

The ancient and beautiful city of Segovia occupies one of those sites which men would have chosen for the building of towns as soon as towns ever came to be built. We may therefore be sure that the roots of the city’s life lie very far back in the past--an assurance confirmed by the name, which bespeaks an Iberian origin. Mediæval writers mentioned this as among the towns built by the fabulous King Hispan, whose name, with those of his relatives, Iberia and Pyrrhus, is always introduced to explain a mystery or to adorn a tale. To the Romans the place was known as Segobriga; and that it was a flourishing and important colony the great aqueduct, the most famous of its monuments, remains to this day to attest. We may assume the town under the Roman yoke was happy, for it had no history--at least, nothing of it has reached us. There were bishops on these barren heights in early times, for they are referred to by name as attending councils at Toledo in the sixth and seventh centuries. At the time of the Mohammedan conquest, a hermit called Fruto rallied the Christians in the fastnesses of the mountains and kept alive in them the Christian faith and traditions. This holy person was the brother of the martyrs Valentin and Engracia, whom the Moors put to death. This the hardened infidels did, the chroniclers assure us, in spite of miracles which might have converted Mohammed himself; for the Segovian saints cleft mountains asunder with the stroke of a knife, and produced fountains from the solid rock with the touch of a wand; while a mare, to whom the Eucharist had been offered as food, dropped on her knees in adoration. It is clear that in after years the Christians of Segovia enjoyed the liberty of worship that the Muslims of Spain everywhere conceded to their subjects; for we hear of a bishop, Ildered, governing his flock here in the year 940. In the following century it was included within the dominions of the Amir of Toledo, and on the downfall of that monarchy was annexed to the growing kingdom of Castile.

Like Salamanca and Avila, Segovia was repeopled at the instance of Count Raymond of Burgundy, chiefly by Gallegos from the north-west. It received its first charter from Alfonso VI. in 1108. Thereafter its citizens were always to be found in the fighting line. Tradition avers that Madrid was recovered from the Moors by the Segovians; and their chiefs on that glorious occasion were Dia Sanz and Fernán Garcia, whose descendants for many years after divided the government of the city between them. But the chronicles register a very black stain on the city’s fame: the assassination by the townsfolk of Alvar Fañez, the illustrious brother-in-arms of Alfonso VI., at Easter, 1114. Four years later, the Segovians took the side of Alfonso VII. against his mother, Queen Urraca, and were rewarded by the reconstitution of their town into a bishopric.

The history of Segovia differs little from that of other Castilian towns. Its citizens shared the glories and the hardships of the ceaseless campaigns against the Moors, and did not hold aloof from the equally numerous civil wars that distracted the kingdom. In 1295 they refused submission to the young king, Fernando IV., and his mother, Maria de Molina. The brave queen forced her way into the town, and found the gates shut behind her. Undismayed, she harangued the stubborn townsmen. ‘Open your gates,’ she cried, ‘and I will go with my son to more grateful and obedient towns; where vassals are less easily deceived by intriguers, and where mother and son are not separated!’ The people were moved by her reproaches, and, admitting the king, escorted both in triumph to the Alcazar.

The minority of Alfonso XI. (1320) was attended by sanguinary disorders in the streets of Segovia. Every church and house became a fortress, and the rival factions stormed and laid siege to each other’s strongholds within the narrow compass of the city walls. In 1368 the nobility held the Alcazar for Enrique of Trastamara, whilst the commons held the town for Pedro the Cruel; but the Gracious King, after the death of his half-brother at Montiel, visited Segovia and won all hearts. A hundred years later the town was distinguished by its loyalty to the wretched Enrique IV., who here betrayed his own daughter, Juana, by a reconciliation with his sister, Isabel. Not content with this, he appeared in the streets, leading by the bridle the palfrey of the woman who denied his own child’s legitimacy.

The townsfolk, at the beginning of the reign of Charles V., threw in their lot with the Comuneros; but the Alcazar throughout the rising was held by the royal forces. The King-Emperor and his successor, like their predecessors, frequently sojourned in the old palace-fortress. Later on, it was often used as a state prison. The famous Ripperdá, the Dutch adventurer, passed a portion of his captivity here; and the Marquis of Ayamonte was confined here prior to his execution in 1648. The establishment of the court permanently at Madrid, and the building of La Granja by Philip V. in 1721, diminished the importance of Segovia as a royal residence. In few countries have the larger provincial towns loomed more conspicuously in the past than in Spain, and in few are they nowadays more decayed and bloodless. Segovia remains, as Antonio Gallenga described it, ‘an unmatched picture of the Middle Ages. You read its history on the old city walls with their eighty-three towers; in the domes and belfries of its churches; in the bare and blank ruins of its deserted monasteries; in the battlemented towers of its noble mansions.’

The town stands high and bravely on the mountains, its flanks washed by two clear streams, Eresma and Clamores. The towers and domes rise sharply against the clear sky, high above the surrounding hills; an island of the air Segovia seems as you catch sight of her from the dusty plains of Old Castile. Even as clouds in their fantastic formations take the semblance of far-away cities, so at certain hours from afar off you might take this to be just such a cloud-town. And when you draw nearer you find the valleys are cool and green, and that the tall trees flourish here and do not wither as in the plains round Burgos and Valladolid.

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Coming from La Granja, the first you see of Segovia’s wonders is fittingly by far the oldest. The aqueduct dates, it is believed, from Trajan’s reign, and is the most considerable of the Roman remains of Spain. In the Middle Ages, like most other classical works, it was attributed to diabolical agency, and is still often called El Puente del Diablo. Beginning at the Fuente Fria in the Sierra Guadarrama, ten miles away, with many zigzags it passes over hill and dale, and at last spans the deep valley before the city, and is carried across the streets to the Alcazar. It is built of granite with black veins, hewn in great blocks, which are pieced together without mortar or clamps. Every block is visible on one side or another. For the distance of nine hundred yards the aqueduct is carried on one hundred and nineteen arches, varying in height from twenty-three to ninety-four feet. For a third of this length the arches are in two tiers. The work is devoid of ornamentation, except for the remains of a cornice. All is not Roman work. The aqueduct was partially demolished in the eleventh century during a siege by the Moors, and when Queen Isabel the Catholic determined to restore it, thirty-six arches between the convents of La Concepcion and San Francisco had fallen in. The restoration of these was intrusted, on the recommendation of the Prior of El Parral, to a young monk of that house, named Fray Juan Escovedo, who performed his difficult task with remarkable skill. Indeed, it is not easy to distinguish the Spaniard’s work from the Roman’s. Escovedo died in 1489. The only reward he received for his labours was the timber of the scaffoldings.

Some of the arches have been for centuries embedded in the city walls. The work, though severe and imposing, is not perhaps equal to the Pont de Gard, or even to certain other Roman remains in Spain. Yet nothing could be more curious, or, in a sense, more picturesque, than the views of the quaint old houses framed by its arches, or grander than these as seen from San Juan, or towering above the Plaza Mayor. Their height is, of course, magnified by the hovels clustering at their bases, in comparison with which the aqueduct appears rather the work of Cyclopes than of men. And through these arches, as through a gate of triumph, we pass into the mediæval city.

Yet this is not the only monument of classical antiquity in Segovia. The rude figure of Hercules about to slay the Erymanthine Boar was discovered in the interior of the tower of Santo Domingo el Real, which became the property of the Dominican nuns in 1513. The demigod, to whom the foundation of so many Spanish cities has been ascribed, was no doubt worshipped here.

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This ancient town of warlike people is surrounded by high walls, reared by the settlers of Count Raymond in the eleventh century, though the Alcazar, the ‘Casa de Segovia’ (adjoining the fine old Puerta de San Juan), and the ‘Tower of Hercules’ just mentioned, all forming part of the enceinte, may have been in the first instance of Roman origin. The wall is strengthened by bastions and towers of various shapes--square, round, and polygonal--some with brick archings and ornamental courses of brick and plaster. The wall and towers preserve their battlements. The ‘allure,’ or rampart walk, is in parts so narrow as hardly to permit of safe walking. Among the most picturesque gates is that of San Andrés. It lies between two towers, one square, the other larger and polygonal, and crowning the very edge of the declivity; from one to the other runs a gallery, supported by a semicircular arch. This gate was restored by Ferdinand and Isabel, and at one time afforded ingress to the Jewry of Segovia. The masonry of the adjoining wall resembles that of the aqueduct close by, and may possibly be a fragment of the Roman fortifications.

Segovia, we are often reminded, looks like a ship in full sail towards the west; and the Alcazar is at the prow. Whether or not it occupies the site of a Saracen or Roman work, there can be no doubt that the present structure was founded by the conqueror of Toledo, Alfonso VI., at the end of the eleventh century, and was remodelled and enlarged by Juan II. in the fifteenth. Much of it is now entirely modern, the interior of the fabric having been completely restored after the fire of 1862. For all that, this citadel of Segovia remains a fine typical castle of Castile, the castle-land. The massive Torre de Juan Segundo forms the east part of the building. Its four sides are furnished with the bartizans characteristic of Spanish castles, which spring out of the wall at about half its height, and rise considerably above the battlements. Between them runs a machicolation carried on corbels. The windows in this magnificent tower are sheltered by quaint stone canopies; and the whole façade is covered with plaster, on which Gothic tracery has been stamped with a mould as at the Alhambra. The interior is vaulted, and has three floors.

Around the inner court were disposed the royal apartments, which indeed still exist, though the fire and consequent restoration have shorn them of most of their beauties. Don J. M. Quadrado, who saw them before the catastrophe, declares they were of magical splendour. A curious story is associated with the Sala del Cordon. In 1258 the learned king, Alfonso X., discoursing at the Alcazar as was his wont with a party of sages, remarked, like Lafontaine’s Garo, that if the Creator had consulted him he would have turned out a better world; others have it that he declared his belief that the earth revolved round the sun, and not the sun round the earth. Whatever he said, he was rebuked for his profanity by Brother Antonio, a Franciscan. But the king hardened his heart. That very night, as he lay in bed, a thunderbolt came crashing through the ceiling, and sent him quaking and beseeching absolution to the feet of the friar. In memory of this event he decorated the walls of this apartment with the cord or girdle of St. Francis, which perhaps as a member of the lay ‘Third Order’ he was entitled to wear.

Passing through the handsome Sala del Trono, we reach the Sala de los Reyes, adorned before the conflagration with an ancient and valuable series of effigies of the early kings of Leon and Castile. From one of the windows Pedro, a son of Enrique II., fell out of the arms of his nurse, and was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. The woman, rather than face the king’s anger, threw herself after her charge and met the same fate.