VI Tuy
The last Spanish city on the Miño, the Rhine of Galicia, as beautiful as its German rival, and as rich in architectural remains, both military and ecclesiastical, is Tuy, the Castellum Tude of the Romans, lying half-way on the main road from Braga (Portugal) to Lugo and Astorga in Spain.
The approach to the city by rail from Orense is simply superb. The valley of the Miño is broad and luxuriant, with ruins of castles to the right and to the left, ahead and behind; in the distance, time-old Tuy, the city of a hundred misfortunes, is seated on an isolated hill, the summit of which is crowned by a fortress-cathedral of the twelfth century.
Tuy sits on her hill, and gazes across the river at Valença do Minho, the rival fortress opposite, and the first town in Portugal. A handsome bridge unites the enemies—friends to-day. Nevertheless, the cannons’ mouths of the glaring strongholds are for ever pointed toward each other, as though wishing to recall those days of the middle ages when Tuy was the goal of Portuguese ambitions and the last Spanish town in Galicia.
Before the Romans conquered Iberia, Tuy, which is evidently a Celtic name, was a most important town. This is easily explained by its position, a sort of inland Gibraltar, backed by the Sierra to the rear, and crowning the river which brought ships from the ocean to its wharves. The city’s future was brilliant.
Matters changed soon, however. The Romans drew away much of its power to cities further inland, as was their wont. The castle remained standing, as did the walls, which reached on the northern shores of the river down to Guardia, situated in the delta about thirty miles away. Remains of the cyclopean walls which crown the mountain chain on the Spanish side of the Miño are still to be seen to-day, yet they give but a feeble idea of the city’s former strength.
After the Romans had been defeated by the invasion of savage tribes from the north, Tuy became the capital of the Suevos, a tribe opposed to the Visigoths, who settled in the rest of Spain, and for centuries waged a cruel war against the kings whose subjects had settled principally in Galicia and in the north of Portugal.
The power of the Suevos, who were seated firmly in Tuy, was at last completely broken, and the capital, its inhabitants fighting energetically to the end, was at length conquered. It was the last stronghold to fall into the hands of the conquerors. A century later Witiza, the sovereign of the Visigoths, made Tuy his capital for some length of time, and the district round about is full of the traditions of the doings of this monarch. Most of these legends denigrate his character, and make him appear cruel, wilful, and false. One of them, concerning Duke Favila and Doña Luz, is perhaps the most popular. According to it, Witiza fell in love with the former’s wife, Doña Luz, and, to remove the husband, he heartlessly had his eyes put out, on the charge of being ambitious, and of having conspired against the throne. The fate that awaited Doña Luz, who defended her honour, was no better, according to this legend.
After the return of Witiza to Toledo, the city slowly lost its importance, and since then she has never recovered her ancient fame.
Like the remaining seaports of Galicia,—or such cities as were situated near the ocean,—Tuy was sacked and pillaged by Arabs and vikings alike. The times were extremely warlike, and Galicia, from her position, and on account of the independent spirit of the noblemen, was called upon to suffer more than any other region, and Tuy, near the ocean, and a frontier town to boot, underwent greater hardships than any other Galician city. Of an admirable natural position, it would have been able to resist the attacks of Gudroed and Olaf, of the Portuguese noblemen and of Arab armies, had it been but decently fortified. The lack of such fortifications, however, and the neglect and indifference with which it was, as a rule, regarded by the kings of Asturias, easily account for its having fallen into the hands of enemies, of having been razed more than once to the ground, of having been the seat of ambitious and conspiring noblemen who were only bent on thrashing their neighbours, Christians and infidels alike.
In the sixth century Tuy had already been raised to the dignity of a city, but until after the eleventh century the prelates of the church, tyrants when the times were propitious, but cowardly when danger was at hand, were continually removing their see to the neighbouring villages and mountains to the rear. They left their church with surprising alacrity and ease to the mercy of warriors and enemies, to such an extent, in fact, that neither are documents at hand to tell us what happened exactly in the darker ages of mediæval history, nor are the existing monuments in themselves sufficient to convince us of the vicissitudes which befell the city, its see, and the latter’s flocks.
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 noblemen, who were for ever gaining and losing the city on the Miño, 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 noblemen 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 noblemen who endeavoured to leave the prelates without a groat, the ignored inhabitants of the poorer quarters of the town passed a miserable life.
Since the middle ages, or better still, since the time when the Miño 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 archæological students.
In short, Tuy on her hill beside the Miño, 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 noble 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 workmanship are richly ornamented, this see of Tuy would have to pass 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 pronounced ribs.
It is outside, however, that the tourist will pass 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 noblest 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 homogeneous with the rest of the building. It is also possible that there were no funds at hand for him to erect it otherwise!
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.