III Leon
The civil power enjoyed by Oviedo previous to the eleventh century moved southwards in the wake of Asturias’s conquering army. For about a century it stopped on its way to Toledo in a fortress-town situated in a wind-swept plain, at the juncture of two important rivers.
Leon was the name of this fortress, one of the strategical points, not only of the early Romans, but of the Arabs who conquered the country, and later of the nascent Christian kingdom of Asturias. In the tenth century, or, better still, toward the beginning of the eleventh, and after the final retreat of the Moors and their terrible general Almanzor, Leon became the recognized capital of Asturias.
When the Christian wave first spread over the Iberian peninsula in the time of the Romans, the fortress Legio Septima, established by Trajanus’s soldiers, had already grown in importance, and was considered one of the promising North Spanish towns.
The inhabitants were among the most fearless adherents of the new faith, and it is said that the first persecution of the martyrs took place in Leon; consequently, it is not to be wondered at that, as soon as Christianity was established in Iberia, a see should be erected on the blood-soaked soil of the Roman fortress. (First known bishop, Basilides, 252 A. D.)
Marcelo seems to have been the most stoically brave of the many Leonese martyrs. A soldier or subaltern in the Roman legion, he was daring enough to throw his sword at the feet of his commander, who stood in front of the regiment, saying:
“I obey the eternal King and scorn your silent gods of stone and wood. If to obey Cæsar is to revere him as an idol, I refuse to obey him.”
Stoic, with a grain of sad grandeur about them, were his last words when Agricolanus condemned him to death.
“May God bless you, Agricolano.”
And his head was severed from his body.
The next religious war to be waged in and around Leon took place between Christians and the invading Visigoths, who professed a doctrine called Arrianism. Persecutions were, of course, ripe again, and the story is told of how the prior of San Vicente, after having been beheaded, appeared in a dream to his cloister brethren trembling behind their monastic walls, and advised them to flee, as otherwise they would all be killed,—an advice the timid monks thought was an explicit order to be immediately obeyed.
The conversion of Recaredo to Christianity—for political reasons only!—stopped all further persecution; during the following centuries Leon’s inhabitants strove to keep away the Arab hordes who swept northwards; now the Christians were overcome and Allah was worshipped in the basilica; now the Asturian kings captured the town from Moorish hands, and the holy cross crowned the altar. Finally the dreaded infidel Almanzor burnt the city to the ground, and retreated to Cordoba. Ordoño I., following in his wake, rebuilt the walls and the basilica, and from thenceforward Leon was never again to see an Arab army within its gates.
Prosperity then smiled on the city soon to become the capital of the kingdom of Asturias. The cathedral church was built on the spot where Ordoño had erected a palace; the first stone was laid in 1199.
The traditions, legends, and historical events which took place in the kingdom’s capital until late in the thirteenth century belong to Spanish history, or what is known as such. Ordoño II. was mysteriously put to death, by the Counts of Castile, some say; Alfonso IV.—a monk rather than a king—renounced his right to the throne, and retired to a convent to pray for his soul. After awhile he tired of mumbling prayers and, coming out from his retreat, endeavoured to wrest the sceptre from the hands of his brother Ramiro. But alas, had he never left the cloister cell! He was taken prisoner by his humane brother, had his eyes burnt out for the pains he had taken, and died a few years later.
Not long after, Alfonso VII. was crowned Emperor of Spain in the church of San Isidoro, an event which marks the climax of Leon’s fame and wealth. Gradually the kings moved southwards in pursuit of the retreating Moors, and with them went their court and their patronage, until finally the political centre of Castile and Leon was established in Burgos, and the fate that had befallen Oviedo and Lugo visited also the one-time powerful fortress of the Roman Legio Septima.
To-day? A dormant city on a baking plain and an immense cathedral pointing back to centuries of desperate wars between Christians and Moors; a collegiate church, far older still, which served as cathedral when Alfonso VII. was crowned Emperor of Spain.
Pulchra Leonina is the epithet applied to the beautiful cathedral of Leon, dedicated to the Ascension of Our Lady and to Nuestra Señora de la Blanca.
The first stone was laid in 1199, presumably on the spot where Ordoño I. had erected his palace; the construction of the edifice did not really take place, however, until toward 1250, so that it can be considered as belonging to the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
“Two hundred years only did the temple enjoy a quiet life. In the sixteenth century, restorations and additions were begun; in 1631 the simple vault of the croisée fell in and was replaced by an absurd dome; in 1694 Manuel Conde destroyed and rebuilt the southern front according to the style then in vogue, and in 1743 a great number of the arches of the aisles fell in. Different parts of the building were continually tumbling down, having become too weak to support the heavier materials used in the construction of additions and renovations.”
The cathedral was closed to the public by the government in 1850 and handed over to a body of architects, who were to restore it in accordance with the thirteenth-century design; in 1901 the interior of the building had been definitely finished, and was opened once more to the religious cult.
The general plan of the building is Roman cruciform, with a semicircular apse composed of five chapels and an ambulatory behind the high altar.
As peculiarities, the following may be mentioned: the two towers of the western front do not head the aisles, but flank them; the transept is exceptionally wide (in Spanish cathedrals the distance between the high altar and the choir must be regarded as the transept, properly speaking) and is composed of a broad nave and two aisles to the east and one to the west; the width also of the church at the transept is greater by two aisles than that of the body itself,—a modification which produces a double Roman cross and lends exceptional beauty to the ensemble, as it permits of an unobstructed view from the western porch to the very apse.
Attention must also be drawn to the row of two chapels and a vestibule which separate the church from the cloister (one of the most celebrated in Spain as a Gothic structure, though mixed with Renaissance motives and spoilt by fresco paintings). Thanks to this arrangement, the cathedral possesses a northern portal similar to the southern one. As regards the exterior of the building, it is a pity that the two towers which flank the aisles are heavy in comparison to the general construction of the church; had light and slender towers like those of Burgos or that of Oviedo been placed here, how grand would have been the effect! Besides, they are not similar, but date from different periods, which is another circumstance to be regretted.
The second bodies of the western and southern façades also clash on account of the Renaissance elements, with their simple horizontal lines opposed to the vertical tendency of pure Gothic. But then, they also were erected at a later date.
Excepting these remarks, however, nothing is more airily beautiful and elegant than the superb expression of the razonadas locuras (logical nonsense) of the ogival style in all its phases, both early and late, or even decadent. For examples of each period are to be found here, corresponding to the century in which they were erected.
The ensemble is an astonishing profusion of high and narrow windows, of which there are three rows: the clerestory, the triforium, and the aisles. Each window is divided into two by a column so fragile that it resembles a spider’s thread. These windows peep forth from a forest of flying buttresses, and nowhere does the mixture of pinnacles and painted panes attain a more perfect eloquence than in the eastern extremity of the polygonal apse.
The western and southern façades—the northern being replaced by the cloister—are alike in their general design, and are composed of three portals surmounted by a decidedly pointed arch which, in the case of the central portals, adorns a richly sculptured tympanum. The artistic merit of the statuary in the niches of both central portals is devoid of exceptional praise, that of the southern façade being perhaps of a better taste. As regards the stone pillar which divides the central door into two wings, that on the south represents Our Lady of the Blanca, and that on the west San Froilan, one of the early martyr bishops of Leon.
Excepting the Renaissance impurities already referred to, each portal is surmounted by a row of five lancet windows, which give birth, as it were, to one immense window of delicate design.
Penetrating into the interior of the building, preferably by the lateral doors of the western front, the tourist is overcome by a feeling of awe and amazement at the bold construction of aisles and nave, as slender as is the frost pattern on a spotless pane. The full value of the windows, which are gorgeous from the outside, is only obtained from the interior of the temple; those of the clerestory reach from the sharp ogival vaulting to the height of the triforium, which in its turn is backed by another row of painted windows; in the aisles, another series of panes rose in the sixteenth century from the very ground (!), though in recent times the bases have unluckily been blinded to about the height of a man.
The pillars and columns are of the simplest and most sober construction, so simple that they do not draw the spectator’s attention, but leave him to be impressed by the great height of nave and aisles as compared with their insignificant width, and above all by the profuse perforation of the walls by hundreds upon hundreds of windows.
Unluckily, the original pattern of the painted glass does not exist but in an insignificant quantity: the northern window, the windows of the high altar, and those of the Chapel of St. James are about the only ones dating from the fifteenth century that are left standing to-day; they are easily recognizable by the rich, mellow tints unattained in modern stained glass.
As accessories, foremost to be mentioned are the choir stalls, which are of an elegant and severe workmanship totally different from the florid carving of those in Toledo. The high altar, on the other hand, is devoid of interest excepting for the fine ogival sepulchre of King Ordoño II; the remaining chapels, some of which contain art objects of value, need not claim the tourist’s special attention.
By way of conclusion: the cathedral of Leon, restored to-day after years of ruin and neglect, stands forth as one of the master examples of Gothic workmanship, unrivalled in fairy-like beauty and, from an architectural point of view, the very best example of French ogival to be met with in Spain.
Moreover, those who wrought it, felt the real principles of all Gothic architecture. Many are the cathedrals in Spain pertaining to this great school, but not one of them can compare with that of Leon in the way the essential principle was felt and expressed. They are all beautiful in their complex and hybrid style, but none of them can claim to be Gothic in the way they are built. For wealth, power, and luxury in details is generally the lesson Spanish cathedrals teach, but they do not give their lancets and shafts, their vertical lines and pointed arches, the chance to impress the visitor or true believer with those sentiments so peculiar to the great ogival style.
The cathedral of Leon is, in Spain, the unique exception to this rule. Save only those constructive errors or dissonances previously referred to, and which tend to counteract the soaring characteristic, it could be considered as being pure in style. Nevertheless, it is not only the truest Gothic cathedral on the peninsula, but one of the finest in the world.
At the same time, it is no less true that it is not so Spanish as either the Gothic of Burgos or of Toledo.
In 1063 the King of Leon, Fernando I., signed a treaty with the Arab governor of Sevilla, obliging the latter to hand over to the Catholic monarch, in exchange for some other privileges, the corpse of San Isidoro. It was conveyed to Leon, where a church was built to contain the remains of the saint; the same building was to serve as a royal pantheon.
About a century later Alfonso VII. was battling against the pagans in Andalusia when, in the field of Baeza, the “warlike apparition of San Isidoro appeared in the heavens and encouraged the Christian soldiers.”
Thanks to this divine aid, the Moors were beaten, and Alfonso VII., returning to Leon, enriched the saint’s shrine, enlarged it, and raised it to a suffragan church, destined later to serve as the temporary see while the building of the real cathedral was going on.
In 1135 Alfonso VII. was crowned Emperor of the West Roman Empire with extraordinary pomp and splendour in the Church of San Isidoro. The apogee of Leon’s importance and power coincides with this memorable event.
The emperor’s sister, Sancha, a pious infanta, bequeathed her vast fortune as well as her palace to San Isidoro, her favourite saint; the church in Leon became, consequently, one of the richest in Spain, a privilege it was, however, unable to retain for any length of time.
In 1029, shortly after the erection of the primitive building, its front was sullied, according to the tradition, by the blood of one Count Garcia of Castile. The following is the story:
The King of Asturias at the time was Bermudo II., married to Urraca, the daughter of Count Sancho of Castile. Political motives had produced this union, for the Condes de Castile had grown to be the most important and powerful feudal lords of the kingdom.
To assure the count’s assistance and friendship, the king went even further: he promised his sister Sancha to the count’s son Garcia, who lost no time in visiting Leon so as to become acquainted with his future spouse.
Three sons of the defeated Count of Vela, a Basque nobleman whom the Counts of Castile had put to death, were in the city at the time. Pretending to be very friendly with the young fiancé, they conspired against his life, and, knowing that he paid matinal visits to San Isidoro, they hid in the portal one day, and slew the youth as he entered.
The promised bride arrived in haste and fell weeping on the body of the murdered man; she wept bitterly and prayed to be allowed to be buried with her sweetheart. Her prayer was, of course, not granted: so she swore she would never marry. She was not long in breaking this oath, however, for a few months later she wedded a prince of the house of Navarra.
The present state of the building of San Isidoro is ruinous, thanks to a stroke of lightning in 1811, and to the harsh treatment bestowed upon the building by Napoleon’s soldiers during the War for Independence (1808).
Seen from the outside, the edifice is as uninteresting as possible; the lower part is constructed in the early Latin Romanesque style; the upper, of a posterior construction, shows a decided tendency to early Gothic.
The apse was originally three-lobed, composed of three identical chapels corresponding to the nave and aisles; in the sixteenth century the central lobe was prolonged and squared off; the same century saw the erection of the statue of San Isidoro in the southern front, which spoiled the otherwise excellently simple Romanesque portal.
In the interior of the ruin—for such it is to-day—the only peculiarity to be noted is the use of the horseshoe arches in the arcades which separate the aisles from the nave, as well as the Arab dentated arches of the transept. It is the first case on record where, in a Christian temple of the importance of San Isidoro, Arab or pagan architectural elements were made use of in the decoration; that is to say, after the invasion, for previous examples were known, having most likely penetrated into the country by means of Byzantine workmen in the fifth and sixth centuries. (In San Juan de Baños.)
Instead of being lined with chapels the aisles are covered with mural paintings. These frescoes are of great archæological value on account of their great age and the evident Byzantine influence which characterizes them; artistically they are unimportant.
The chief attraction of the building is the pantheon, a low, square chapel of six arches, supported in the centre by two gigantic pillars which are crowned by huge cylindrical capitals. Nothing more depressing or gloomy can be seen in the peninsula excepting the pantheon in the Escorial; it is doubtful which of the two is more melancholy. The pure Oriental origin (almost Indian!) of this pantheon is unmistakable and highly interesting.
The fresco paintings which cover the ceiling and the massive ribs of the vaulting are equally morbid, representing hell-scenes from the Apocalypse, the massacre of the babes, etc.
Only one or two of the Romanesque marble tombs which lined the walls are remaining to-day; the others were used by the French soldiers as drinking-troughs for their cavalry horses!