The Cathedrals of Northern Spain Part 8

Since the last Arab and Norseman raid, matters seemed to have gone better with fair Tuy, for, excepting the continual strife between Portuguese and Galician n.o.blemen, who were for ever gaining and losing the city on the Mino, neither infidels nor pirates visited its wharves.

It was then that the foundations of the present cathedral were laid, but not without disputes between the prelates (one of whom was taken prisoner, and had to give a handsome ransom to be released) and the n.o.blemen who called themselves seigneurs of the city. Between the claims and struggles of these two factions, those who suffered most were the citizens themselves, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Between the bishops who pretended to possess the whole city, and the n.o.blemen who endeavoured to leave the prelates without a groat, the ignored inhabitants of the poorer quarters of the town pa.s.sed a miserable life.

Since the middle ages, or better still, since the time when the Mino became definitely the frontier line between Spain and Portugal, the city of Tuy has been heard of but little. Few art students visit it to-day, and yet it is one of the most picturesquely situated cities in Galicia, or even in Spain. Its cathedral, as well as the Pre-Roman, Roman, Gothic, and middle age remains,--most of them covered over with heaps of dust and earth,--are well worth a visit, being highly interesting both to artists and to archaeological students.

In short, Tuy on her hill beside the Mino, glaring across an iron bridge at Portugal, is a city rich in traditions and legends of faded hopes and past glories. Unluckily for her, cities of less historical fame are better known and more admired.

As has already been mentioned, the cathedral crowns the hill, upon the slopes of which the city descends to the river; moreover, the edifice occupies the summit only,--a _castro_, as explained in a previous chapter. Therefore, for proofs are lacking both ways, it is probable that the present building was erected on the same spot where the many basilicas which we know existed and were destroyed in one or another of the many sieges, stood in bygone days.

The present cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary, like that in Orense, was most likely begun in the first half of the twelfth century; successive earthquakes suffered by the city, especially that felt in Lisbon in 1755, obliged the edifice to be repaired more than once, which accounts for many of the base additions which spoil the ensemble.

From the general disposition of the building, which is similar in many details to the cathedral at Lugo, it has been thought probable that Maestro Raimundo (father?) was the builder of the church; definite proofs are, however, lacking.

The ground-plan is rectangular, with a square apse; the interior is Roman cruciform, consisting of a nave and two aisles; the transept, like that of Santiago, is also composed of a nave and two aisles; the four arms of the cross are all of them very short, and almost all are of the same length. Were it not for the height of the nave, crowned by a Romanesque triforium of blinded arches, the interior would be decidedly ugly. However, the height attained gives a n.o.ble aspect to the whole, and what is more, renders the ensemble curious rather than beautiful.

The large and ungainly choir spoils the general view of the nave, whereas the continuation of the aisles, broad and light to the very apse, where, facing each aisle, there is a handsome rose window which throws a flood of coloured light into the building, cannot be too highly praised.

The walls are devoid of all decoration, and if it were not for the chapels, some of which in default of pure workmans.h.i.+p are richly ornamented, this see of Tuy would have to pa.s.s as a very poor one indeed.

The roof of the building has been added lately, doubtless after one of the many earthquakes. It is of a simple execution, neither good nor bad, composed of a series of slightly rounded arches with p.r.o.nounced ribs.

It is outside, however, that the tourist will pa.s.s the greater part of his time. Unluckily, the houses which closely surround the building forbid a general view from being obtained of any but the western front, yet this is perhaps a blessing, for none of the other sides are worthy of special notice.

As mentioned, the appearance of the church is that of a fortress rather than of a temple, or better still, is that of a feudal castle. The crenelated square tower on the western front is heavy, and no higher than the peaked and simple crowning of the handsome Romanesque window above the narthex; the general impression is that of resistance rather than of faith, and the lack of all decoration has caused the temple to be called sombre.

The handsome narthex, the summit of which is crenelated like the tower, is the simplest and n.o.blest to be found in Galicia, and is really beautiful in its original severity. Though dating from a time when florid ogival had taken possession of Spain, the artist who erected it (it is posterior to the rest of the building--early fifteenth century) had the good taste to complete it simply, without decoration, so as to render it h.o.m.ogeneous with the rest of the building. It is also possible that there were no funds at hand for him to erect it otherwise!

[Ill.u.s.tration: TUY CATHEDRAL]

The doors stand immediately behind this narthex. The portal is carved or decorated in an elaborate late Romanesque style, one of the most richly ornamented porticos belonging to this school in Spain, and a handsome page in the history of Galician art in the twelfth century. The low reliefs above the door and in the tympanum of the richly carved arcade, are _felt_ and are admirably executed.

The northern entrance to the building is another fine example of twelfth-century Spanish, or Galician Romanesque. Though simpler in execution than the western front, it nevertheless is by some critics considered purer in style (earlier?) than the first mentioned.

The tower which stands to the left of the northern entrance is one of the few in the Romanesque style to be seen in northern Spain; it is severe in its structure and pierced by a series of round-headed windows.

The cloister dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is another of Galicia's monuments well worth a visit, which proves the local mixture of Romanesque and ogival, and is, perhaps, the last example on record, as toward the fifteenth century Renaissance elements had completely captured all art monuments.

Such is the cathedral of Tuy, a unique example of Galician Romanesque in certain details, an edifice that really ought to be better known than it is.

VII

BAYONA AND VIGO

The prettiest bay in Galicia is that of Vigo, which reaches inland to Redondela--a village seated, as it were, on a Swiss lake, with two immense viaducts pa.s.sing over its head where the train speeds to Tuy and Santiago. There is no lovelier spot in all Spain.

The city of Vigo, with its suffragan church on the hillside, is a modern town dedicated to commerce; its wharves are important, and the water in the bay is deep enough to permit the largest vessels afloat to enter and anchor. The art student will not linger here, however, but will go by boat to Bayona outside the bay and to the south near the Portuguese frontier.

Here, until quite recently, stood for an unknown length of time the suffragan church which has now been removed to Vigo. But Bayona, once upon a time the most important seaport in Galicia, is a ruin to-day, a delightful ruin, and one of the prettiest in its ensemble, thanks to the beautiful and weird surroundings.

Its history extends from the times of the Phnicians, Greeks, and Romans,--even earlier, as remains of lake-dwellers have been found. This statement is not an exaggeration, though it may appear to be one, for the bay is as quiet as a lake.

After the defeat of the Armada, Bayona was left a prey to Drake and his worthy companions. They dealt the city a death-blow from which it has never recovered, and Vigo, the new, the commercial, has usurped its importance, as it did its church, which once upon a time, as is generally believed, was a bishopric.

The present ruinous edifice of Bayona is peculiarly Galician and shows the same characteristics as the remaining cathedrals we have spoken about so far. It was ordained in 1482 by the Bishop of Tuy. The windows of the nave (clerestory) are decidedly pointed or ogival; those of the aisles are pure Romanesque. The peculiar feature is the use of animal designs in the decorative elements of the capitals,--a unique example in Galicia, where only floral or leaf motives were used in the best period of Romanesque. The design to be noticed here on one of the capitals is a bird devouring a toad, and it is so crudely and rustically carved that one is almost inclined to believe that a native of the country conceived and executed it.

_PART III_

_The North_

I

OVIEDO

"Oviedo was born of a religious inspiration; its first building was a temple (monastery?), and monks were its first inhabitants."

In the valley adjoining Cangas, in the eighth century, the most important village in Asturias, a religious sect erected a monastery.

Froila or Froela, one of the early n.o.blemen (now called a king, though he was no king in those days) who fought against the Moors, erected in the same century a church in the vicinity of Cangas (in Oviedo?), dedicating it to the Saviour; he also built a palace near the same spot.

His son, Alfonso the Chaste, born in this palace, was brought up in a convent near Lugo in Galicia. Upon becoming king he hesitated whether to establish his court in Lugo, or in the new village which had been his birthplace, namely Oviedo. At length, remembering perhaps his father's love for the country near Cangas, he established it in the latter place in the ninth century, and formed the kingdom of Asturias as opposed to that of Galicia; the capital of the new kingdom was Oviedo.

"The king gave the city to the Saviour and to the venerable church built by his father, and which, like a sun surrounded by its planets, he placed within a circle of other temples.

"He convocated an ecclesiastical council with a view to establish a primate see in Oviedo; he maintained an a.s.sembly of prelates who lent l.u.s.tre to the church, and he gave each a particular residence; the spiritual splendour of Oviedo eclipsed even the brilliancy of the throne."

This was in 812, and the first bishop consecrated was one Adulfo.

The subsequent reign of Alfonso was signalized by the discovery in Galicia of the corpse of St. James the Apostle. The sovereign, it appears, showed great interest in the discovery, established a church on the sacred spot, and generously donated the nascent town. Not without reason did posterity celebrate his many Christian virtues by calling him the Chaste, _el Casto_.

Two hundred years only did Oviedo play an important part in the history of Spain as capital of the Christian Kingdom. In 1020 its civil dignities were removed by Alfonso V. to Leon in the south. From then on the city remained important only as the alleged cradle of the new dynasty, and its church--that of the Salvador--was used as the pantheon of the kings.

In the twelfth century the basilica was in a ruinous state, and almost completely destroyed. The fate of the Romanesque edifice which was then built was as short as the city's glory had been ephemeral, for in 1380 it was destroyed by flames, and in its place the first stone of the present building was laid by one Bishop Gutierre. One hundred and seventy years later the then reigning prelate placed his coat of arms on the spire, and the Gothic monument which is to-day admired by all who visit it was completed.

The history of the city--an ecclesiastical and civil metropolis--is devoid of interest since the tenth century. It was as though the streets were too crowded with the legends of the fict.i.tious kingdom of Asturias, to be enabled to shake off the depression which little by little spread over the whole town.

Apart from its cathedral, Oviedo and the surrounding country possesses many of the earliest religious monuments in Spain, dating from the eighth century. These, on account of their primary Romanesque and basilica style, form a chapter apart in the history of ecclesiastical architecture, and ought to be thoroughly studied. This is not the place, however, to speak about them, in spite of their extreme age and the great interest they awaken.

Nothing could be more graceful than the famous tower of the cathedral of Oviedo, which is a superb Gothic _fleche_ of well-proportioned elements, and literally covered over and encrusted with tiny pinnacles. Slender and tapering, it rises to a height of about 280 feet. It is composed of five distinct bodies, of which the penultimate betrays certain Renaissance influences in the triangular cornices of the windows, etc.; this pa.s.ses, however, entirely unperceived from a certain distance. The angles formed by the sides of the tower are flanked by a pair of slender shafts in high relief, which tend to give it an even more majestic impression than would be the case without them.