Part 7

Fernando I., King of Leon and Castile, in response to the importunities of his children, on his deathbed divided his dominions between them. To his eldest daughter, Urraca, he gave Zamora, to her sister, Toro. The disposition of his estates made, the dying king invoked the vengeance of Heaven on whomsoever should disturb it; and all present, except his eldest son Sancho, responded, Amen. It was not long before this prince (now King of Leon and Castile) showed his dissatisfaction with what Ford, with a touching faith in the sanctity of primogeniture, calls this unjust division. Toro was soon surrendered by Doña Elvira, and, very shortly after, the stout-hearted Urraca beheld from these walls the hosts of Castile beleaguering her little principality. With Sancho’s army was the Cid. With him, the chroniclers assure us, the Infanta was in love. If so, these tender sentiments were not allowed to interfere with the vigour of the attack and defence, which were both conducted with ferocious determination. The siege had lasted seven months when a personage called Bellido Dolfos, the son, delightfully enough, of Dolfos Bellido, sought an audience of the king. He had fled from Zamora, he said, to escape the vengeance of Urraca’s minister, Arias Gonzalo; and he would show the king the secret postern in the walls by which he had escaped, and by means of which the town could be taken. This audience appears to have taken place very close to the walls, for we are told that the citizens cried out to Sancho, adjuring him to have nothing to do with Dolfos, who had committed four acts of treason already. These well-meant hints, naturally enough, confirmed Sancho’s confidence in the stranger. On the morning of the 7th October 1072 the two went forth to reconnoitre the walls. Dolfos took advantage of the king in an unguarded moment, and stabbed him in the back. He then promptly ran towards the postern. The Cid, seeing him run, suspected something amiss, and mounting Babieca gave chase; but alas! he had forgotten his spurs, and the assassin made good his escape. Sancho was carried back to the camp, and before he expired attributed his destruction to his father’s curse. The siege was prosecuted with greater vigour than ever by his captains. Don Diego Ordoñez denounced the citizens, without exception of persons, as felon knaves. Arias Gonzalo and his four sons took it upon themselves to vindicate the honour of the town in five successive duels with the Castilian. Three of the Zamoran champions were slain by Ordoñez, but he was jerked out of his saddle by his dead adversary’s wounded horse, and the combat was declared by the judges to be at an end. The venerable Arias Gonzalo thus preserved one of his sons, and Castile her champion. The accession of Alfonso VI. to his murdered brother’s throne restored peace to the distracted kingdom, and left the Infanta in enjoyment of her little state.

Zamora is still encircled with massive walls, strengthened with numerous round towers. The name of Urraca’s Palace is given to a house, old enough to all seeming, close to one of the gates opening near the northern end of the Paseo de Valorio; this gateway is flanked by two bastions, and above it may be seen the bust of Princess Urraca, with the inscription much defaced--

‘Afuera, afuera Rodrigo El soberbio castellano! Acordórsete debiera De aquel buen tiempo pasado,’ etc.

These verses from the _Romancero_ are supposed to have been addressed by the Princess to the Cid, and allude, presumably, to the love-passages between them. The postern through which Dolfos escaped may be seen in the wall farther towards the west. The site of the Cid’s house is also pointed out. The tiny hermitage of Santiago in the Vega marks the spot of the assassination, and a battered cross on a pillar some distance outside the town commemorates Sancho’s exclamation that he would never be king till he was lord of Zamora.

The castle from which perhaps Urraca and Arias Gonzalo looked across at Sancho’s camp is at the western extremity of the town. During the civil wars that disturbed the reign of Alfonso el Sabio, it was held for the king by Doña Teresa Gomez, wife of Garci Perez Chirino. Her youngest child was captured by the rebels, and to save his life she surrendered the fortress. At the time of the disputed succession following the demise of Enrique IV., the castle was held by the Portuguese in the interests of Juana ‘la Beltraneja,’ who held her court here for a brief season. The garrison resisted many determined assaults, and capitulated on honourable terms only after the battle of Toro, February 1476. In after years, and especially during the Peninsular War, the stronghold was adapted to the requirements of modern warfare, and has lost, in consequence, much of its mediæval character.

Hard by is the cathedral, far away from the centre of the town. When the See was restored by Alfonso VI., Gerónimo, the Cid’s confessor, was appointed to it; but he was soon translated to Salamanca (or else Zamora was carved out of that See), and was succeeded by another Frenchman, Bernard, a namesake and countryman of Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo. These foreigners introduced the Romanesque style, of which Zamora must, in its primitive state, have been a noble example. The building was completed in 1174. To that period belongs the grand square tower at the west end of the north aisle--the most conspicuous landmark of the vicinity--with its three upper stories pierced on each side with one, two, and three windows respectively. The tower was designed for defence as well as ornament. Over the crossing rises a dome of beautiful construction, very Oriental in character, with turrets surmounted by smaller cupolas and pierced with rounded windows at its angles. Seen from within, this dome is of the ‘half-orange’ type, the ribbing of the vault giving it very much the appearance of the sections of the fruit. In the sharp fringe of ornament at the angles, Street saw the very earliest kind of suggestion of a crocket, and was of opinion that ‘we have in England no monument of the middle ages which is one whit more precious.’

The cathedral has no west front, and its exterior is, it must be confessed, a veritable patchwork of different styles. The Puerta del Obispo, facing the Episcopal Palace, in the south transept probably dates from the twelfth century. The main entrance is through a four-ordered arch with three shafts in each jamb. The capitals are roughly moulded and have abaci. Over the lateral doorways (now closed up) are rudely-carved reliefs, with dragons and floral devices introduced into the decoration. The two odd-looking rosette-like ornaments above seem to be models of the interior of the dome. Above the three doors runs a gallery of five recessed arches, and over this again a blocked-up window.

The northern entrance, surmounted by a modern clock-tower, is, incongruously enough, in the classical style, with a rounded arch. The interior of this interesting little cathedral is impressive. We are at once struck with the width of the piers (seven feet across) as compared with that of the nave, which is only twenty-three feet. The arches here are in the Pointed style. The aisles are lower than the nave, and supported by broad massive buttresses. There being no western portal, that end of the church is occupied by chapels, which give a very singular effect to the building.

The High Altar and chancel are in the Gothic style, and owe their construction to the absentee bishop Diego Meléndez Valdés, who ruled the See between 1496 and 1506. His arms, five fleurs-de-lys, may be seen on the railings. The retablo, with its jasper columns and gilded capitals, is modern. The subject is the Transfiguration. In the precinct of the High Altar is buried Count Ponce de Cabrera, one of the Emperor Alfonso’s most distinguished lieutenants. The Altar is in the late Gothic style, and must have been erected three centuries after the Count’s death. There are good wrought-iron pulpits on each side of the chancel.

The choir was also the work of Bishop Valdés. It occupies the bays west of the crossing as usual in Spanish churches, but the bad effect of that position is here greatly relieved by the piercing of the western screen or _trascoro_ with two elliptical doorways, between which is a painting representing Christ surrounded by the Blessed. The fittings of the choir are very interesting, and of the same age as the screens. The backs of the lower range of stalls are carved with low reliefs of thirty-eight personages of the Old Dispensation, from Abel to Nebuchadnezzar, Caiaphas, and the Centurion. In their hands are scrolls containing texts, very cleverly chosen, of which a list is given in Neal’s _Ecclesiologist_, and reprinted in Street’s _Gothic Architecture in Spain_. The execution is rude, but expressive and painstaking. The upper stalls are adorned with full-length reliefs of saints, confessors, and martyrs of the New Dispensation, which are more delicately designed and finished. Above runs a canopy, sculptured with animal forms. The enormous metal lectern and the Bishop’s Throne, with its tapering spire, are fine examples of Gothic work.

The chapels are not of special interest. That on the middle of the western wall is dedicated to San Ildefonso, but is more generally known as the Capilla del Cardenal, after its founder, Don Juan de Mella, who died in 1467. This prelate’s brother, Alonso de Mella, was the founder of a sect which seems to have resembled the Anabaptists of Westphalia; he was expelled from Castile, and took refuge at Granada, where he was put to death by the Moors. The retablo, by Gallegos, is in six divisions, the subjects being: San Ildefonso receiving at Toledo the chasuble from the hands of the Blessed Virgin, the Discovery of the Relics of St. Leocadia, the Veneration of the Relics, and (above) the Crucifixion, the Baptism of Christ, and the death of John the Baptist. This chapel contains the tombs of the Romero family. In the adjoining sacristy are some interesting battle-scenes from Old Testament history.

The chapel of San Juan Evangelista was built with funds bequeathed by Canon Juan de Grado (1507), whose fine alabaster tomb is surmounted by his recumbent effigy, accompanied by a priest and an angel. Above the canopy is an exquisitely chiselled composition representing the Crucifixion, with expressive statues of the Apostles Peter and Paul; within is a curious but admirable genealogy of the Blessed Virgin, at the base of which is the recumbent figure of an old man, wearing a crown, and representing possibly one of the early patriarchs. The Capilla de San Miguel is of less interest. It contains the sixteenth-century tombs of the canons de Balbas. Of the side-chapels, the most notable is that of San Bernardo, rebuilt in the sixteenth century.

In the sacristy is preserved a remarkable silver monstrance, six feet high, attributed by Ford to Enrique de Arfe. The stand is of later construction, and dates from 1598. On the upper part the local saint, Atilanus, may be seen, seated with the Saviour and the Virgin.

The original cloisters were burnt in 1591, and rebuilt in the present Doric style in 1621 by Juan de Mora.

Under the town walls, close to the cathedral, is the little Romanesque church of San Isidoro, noticeable for its extremely narrow windows, some mere slits in the masonry.

We pass down the long lane-like street which leads into the town, and which in the sixteenth century was the scene of desperate conflicts between the Mazariegos and Monsalves, the Montagues and Capulets of Zamora. The first church passed is that of San Pedro, rebuilt by Bishop Meléndez Valdés, and containing the revered ashes of St. Ildefonso, which were discovered here under miraculous circumstances in the year 1260. The relics of St. Atilanus are also preserved here. Nothing remains of the primitive Romanesque structure, except a little apse on the Epistle side, and a closed-up doorway in the left wall. The originally-distinct nave and aisles were thrown into one at the restoration, and form overhead one immense span. The sacristy contains some interesting objects--sacred vessels and altarpieces of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Presently we reach the second most interesting church in the town, La Magdalena, a small Romanesque work, said on rather doubtful authority to have been built by the Templars about 1312. The southern doorway is very large in comparison with the edifice. It is deeply recessed between massive buttresses, and formed by a rounded arch with shafts curiously moulded and twisted. Street speaks of this as a very grand example of the latest and most ornate Romanesque work. The carving on the arches is very rich. Above is a large rose window, resembling those in our own Temple church. The interior of the church is architecturally but not æsthetically more interesting than the exterior. The nave has a flat wooden ceiling. The apse is groined, and the chancel has a waggon-vault. The stone pulpit against the north wall is a notable piece of work, but attention at once becomes riveted on the large canopied tombs at the entrance to the chancel. Both are square-topped, with round arches and capitals very purely and vigorously carved. They are generally asserted to date from the thirteenth century, but an inscription over one describes it as the sepulchre of one Acuña and his wife, who died in the fifteenth century. ‘The effect of this monument,’ says Street, ‘filling in as it does the angle at the end of the nave, is extremely good; its rather large detail and general proportions giving it the effect of being an integral part of the fabric rather than, as monuments usually are, a subsequent addition.’

Another canopied tomb against the north wall undoubtedly dates from the earlier period. The capitals of the three twisted shafts are carved with the forms of wyverns fighting. The tomb is closed by a stone on which is a large cross. The occupant--believed by some to have been a Templar--is shown on his deathbed, while above him his soul--represented by a winged head--is borne away by angels. This interesting work may be attributed to a native sculptor acquainted with the art of France and Italy.

Santa Maria la Horta (or de la Huerta), near the river, was modelled, like the Magdalena, on the cathedral. Apart from its architectural peculiarities--the western tower, narrow windows, waggon-vaulting of the chancel, etc.--it is of interest on account of the retablos and paintings in its chapels. Here, as at the very similar church of San Leonardo, the roofing of the nave is not flat but arched, which goes to support Don J. M. Quadrado’s belief (opposed to Street’s) that the flat roof of La Magdalena is an innovation.

The church of San Juan in the Plaza Mayor is in the Flamboyant style. Its most curious feature is a Christ Crucified near the west door, surrounded by human skulls built up in the form of a cross. Hard by is the early Gothic church of San Vicente, with a noble square tower in three stages, and a fine west front.

In a town like Zamora only two kinds of buildings were esteemed--churches and fortresses. Time has spared few important civil monuments. The only ancient house of note is that styled the Casa de los Momos, of which I give an illustration. The heavy stones forming the arch suggest a Castilian architect. The building dates from the sixteenth century, as the enormous coat-of-arms over the entrance might have prepared us to expect. The Ayuntamiento, or Town Hall, in itself devoid of interest, contains some good paintings by Ramon Pedro y Pedret, illustrating the history of the city. It will be seen that Zamora, like almost every other Spanish town, is entitled ‘most noble and loyal’ (_muy noble y leal_). It is a sombre, fascinating place, where the past is more easily recoverable by the fancy than in many cities more richly endowed with ancient monuments.

V

AVILA

Like Stratford-on-Avon, like Assisi, this sombre city in the mountains of Castile is the shrine of a single pre-eminent personality. To the Spaniard Avila is essentially the city of the great saint--of Santa Teresa, the greatest, perhaps, of Spain’s many great women. And the fame of the saint and, therefore, of the city, has spread far beyond the limits of the country in which she was born, and indeed outside of the church to which her every faculty was devoted. To those (and they are in the large majority) who approach Avila as pilgrims, it may seem idle to tell anything of its story unconnected with her. At Assisi you wish to hear only of Francis, and who cares aught for the Stratford of an earlier day than Shakespeare’s?

But Teresa was the product of Avila, and to the making of her character all the experience and emotion of her ancestors had contributed. Those who would rightly understand her must know something of the breed from which she sprang.

The city is one of the forty-three said to have been founded by Hercules. It is mentioned, indeed, by Ptolemy, but we know nothing of its history previous to the reconquest of this part of Castile by Alfonso VI. Avila, like Salamanca and Segovia, arose from the ashes of the Moorish empire, and was repeopled and probably rebuilt by the Count Raymond of Burgundy. To him we owe those venerable walls, stern yet beautiful in their ruddy granite, that girdle the city round. But these served, at a very early date, to keep out other than the infidels. The annalists tell us that the knights of Avila, returning one day from a foray, found that the Moors had ravaged the neighbouring country and carried off a multitude of prisoners and much booty. Without hesitation the enraged gentlemen gave chase, and though the enemy were in vastly superior numbers, they overtook and routed them at Barbacedo, recovering most of the spoil and a good deal of additional treasure. But, on their return to Avila, the ungrateful commons closed the gates against them, and refused admittance to the deliverers of their own wives and children unless they were given a large share of the booty. The indignant knights refused to surrender the guerdon of their swords, and entrenched themselves in the suburbs. Peace was restored only on the intervention of Count Raymond, who expelled the churlish townsmen and intrusted the government of the city to the knights. During the whole of the twelfth century the bitterest animosity continued to prevail between the descendants of these antagonists.

Heroines are common in Spanish history. When the town was unexpectedly besieged by the Almoravides in the absence of nearly the whole male population, the women garrisoned the walls wearing the men’s helmets, and compelled the enemy to withdraw. The leader of these Amazons was Jimena Blásquez, wife of the governor, Fernán Lopez. Her female descendants were privileged, in remembrance of this event, to speak and to vote at the council board in the same way as men.

Jimena’s kinsman, Nalvillos, was as unfortunate in love as he was fortunate in war. One day he saw Ayesha Galiana, the beautiful daughter of the late Moorish king of Toledo. Desperately enamoured, he forgot his own betrothal to Galinda Arias, and that the fair infidel had been promised to her countryman, Jenina Yahya. With the favour of the king he overcame all these obstacles, and made Ayesha his wife. But she could forget neither her old faith nor her old love. Nalvillos’ deeds of prowess failed to win her heart; and one day he returned to Avila from a victorious expedition to find that the bird had flown. She had returned to her first love, Yahya, who had raised the standard of revolt at Talavera. The furious Castilian stormed the town, slew the Moor, and penetrated to his faithless wife’s bower, only to find her expiring from a self-inflicted wound. Nalvillos lived many years after, and fought and won many battles. He rose to great distinction in the service of his sovereign, but we never hear of his marrying again.

It was in this town, that styles itself _del rey_, _de los leales_, _de los caballeros_, that the boy king Alfonso VIII. was placed by the Regent, Don Manrique de Lara, to protect him from his uncle, Fernando of Leon. But the class rancour of Avila was not unknown to Fernando, who stirred up the people of the suburbs against the _serranos_, or aristocratic townsfolk, promising them a share in his new town of Ciudad Rodrigo. The knights were victorious, and do not seem to have conducted themselves with great generosity towards the vanquished.

The inveterate hostility of the commons did not tend, as it might be expected to have done, to unite the threatened ranks of the patricians. These prosecuted bitter feuds among themselves, different families striving desperately for the mastery. One faction, on being expelled from the town, took refuge in a neighbouring castle, where they were surprised and cut to pieces by the Moors.

The place was regarded, notwithstanding, as the safest asylum for the boy-kings who so often appear in the pages of Castilian history. During his minority, Alfonso XI. remained in the custody of the bishop till the pretenders to the regency had adjusted their claims to his lordship’s satisfaction. In the Civil War of 1367 Avila was on the right side--that of Enrique II.--and suffered severely in consequence at the hands of the Black Prince’s marauding hordes. Here at the Puerta del Alcazar took place, at the instance of Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, the mock deposition and degradation of Enrique IV., represented by an effigy, and the proclamation of his eleven-year-old son as king. Yet in 1474 the fickle city displayed every sign of grief and remorse on the unfortunate monarch’s death.

In the disputed succession that ensued Avila sided with Queen Isabel. Possibly as an expression of royal gratitude, the convent of Santo Tomás was chosen for the first seat of the Tribunal of the Inquisition; and in 1491 three Jews, professing the faith of their fathers to the last, were roasted to death in the Mercado Grande.

Avila was the seat of the Supreme Junta of the Comunidad from July to September 1520. The rebellious temper of her citizens found expression in Philip II.’s reign in some anonymous placards, posted in the streets, reflecting on the king’s policy. The royal vengeance was indiscriminate and drastic. The Vicar of Santo Tomás was stripped of his sacerdotal functions, Don Enrique Davila was imprisoned for life in the castle of Turegano, and Don Diego Bracamonte perished on the scaffold. This king’s successor inflicted the _coup de grâce_ on the luckless town by expelling its large and industrious Morisco population. Avila never recovered her prosperity. She remains an example of the wholly destructive policy of the Spanish Hapsburgs. Not only was the country ruined by the expulsion of the Jews and Moriscos, but these exiles were not able to transplant their industry to some other clime. With their expulsion so much productive and industrial power was absolutely lost to the world. The wealth acquired by the Inquisition at the expense of its victims, or rather what was left of it, ultimately found its way into the State coffers on the establishment of the new order of things a century ago.