IV Astorga
The Asturica Augusta of the Romans was the capital of the northern provinces of Asturias and the central point of four military roads which led to Braga, Aquitania, Saragosse, and Tarragon.
During the Visigothic domination, and especially under the reign of Witiza, Astorga as well as Leon, Toledo, and Tuy were the only four cities allowed to retain their walls.
According to some accounts, Astorga was the seat of the earliest bishopric in the peninsula, having been consecrated in the first century by Santiago or his immediate followers; historically, however, the first known bishop was Dominiciano, who lived about 347 A. D.
In the fourth and fifth centuries several heresies or false doctrines were ripe in Spain. Of one of these, Libelatism, Astorga was the centre; the other, Priscilianism, originally Galician, found many adherents in the fortress-town, more so than elsewhere, excepting only Tuy, Orense, and Palencia.
Libelatism.—Its great defender was Basilides, Bishop of Astorga. Strictly speaking, this faith was no heresy, but a sham or fraud which spread out beyond the Pyrenees to France. It consisted in denying the new faith; those who proclaimed it, or, in other words, the Christians, who were severely persecuted in those days, pretended to worship the Latin gods so as to save their skins. With this object in view, and to be able to prove their sincerity, they were obliged to obtain a certificate, libelum (libel?), from the Roman governor, stating their belief in Jupiter, Venus, etc. Doubtless they had to pay a tax for this certificate, and thus the Roman state showed its practical wisdom: it was paid by cowards for being tyrannical. But then, not all Christians are born martyrs.
Priscilianism.—Of quite a different character was the other heresy previously mentioned. It was a doctrine opposed to the Christian religion, proud of many adherents, and at one time threatening danger to the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Considering that it is but little known to-day (for after a lingering life of about three or four centuries in Galicia it was quite ignored by philosophers and Christians alike), it may be of some use to transcribe the salient points of this doctrine, in case some one be inclined to baptize him or herself as prophet of the new religion. It was preached by one Prisciliano in the fourth century, and was a mixture of Celtic mythology and Christian faith.
“Prisciliano did not believe in the mystery of the Holy Trinity; he believed that the world had been created by the devil (perhaps he was not wrong!) and that the devil held it beneath his sway; further, that the soul is part of the Divine Essence and the body dependent upon the stars; that this life is a punishment, as only sinful souls descend on earth to be incarnated in organic bodies. He denied the resurrection of the flesh and the authenticity of the Old Testament. He defended the transmigration of souls, the invocation of the dead, and other ideas, doubtless taken from native Galician mythology. To conclude, he celebrated the Holy Communion with grape and milk instead of with wine, and admitted that all true believers (his true believers, I suppose, for we are all of us true believers of some sort) could celebrate religious ceremonies without being ordained curates.”
Sinfosio, Bishop of Astorga in 400, was converted to the new religion. But, upon intimation that he might be deprived of his see, he hurriedly turned Christian again, putting thus a full stop to the spread of heresy, by his brave and unselfish act.
Toribio in 447 was, however, the bishop who wrought the greatest harm to Priscilianism. He seems to have been the divine instrument called upon to prove by marvellous happenings the true religion: he converted the King of the Suevos in Orense by miraculously curing his son; when surrounded by flames he emerged unharmed; when he left his diocese, and until his return, the crops were all lost; upon his return the church-bells rang without human help, etc., etc. All of which doings proved the authenticity of the true religion beyond a doubt, and that Toribio was a saint; the Pope canonized him.
During the Arab invasion, Astorga, being a frontier town, suffered more than most cities farther north; it was continually being taken and lost, built up and torn down by the Christians and Moors.
Terrible Almanzor conquered it in his raid in the tenth century, and utterly destroyed it. It was rebuilt by Veremundo or Bermudo III., but never regained its lost importance, which reverted to Leon.
When the Christian armies had conquered the peninsula as far south as Toledo, Astorga was no longer a frontier town, and rapidly fell asleep, and has slept ever since. It remained a see, however, but only one of secondary importance.
It would be difficult to state how many cathedral churches the city possessed previous to the eleventh century. In 1069 the first on record was built; in 1120 another; a third in the thirteenth century, and finally the fourth and present building in 1471.
It was the evident intention of the architect to imitate the Pulchra Leonina, but other tastes and other styles had swept across the peninsula and the result of the unknown master’s plans resembles rather a heavy, awkward caricature than anything else, and a bastard mixture of Gothic, plateresque, and grotesque styles.
The northern front is by far the best of the two, boasting of a rather good relief in the tympanum of the ogival arch; some of the painted windows are also of good workmanship, though the greater part are modern glass, and unluckily unstained.
Its peculiarities can be signalized; the windows of the southern aisle are situated above the lateral chapels, while those of the northern are lower and situated in the chapels. The height and width of the aisles are also remarkable—a circumstance that does not lend either beauty or effect to the building. There is no ambulatory behind the high altar, which stands in the lady-chapel; the apse is rounded. This peculiarity reminds one dimly of what the primitive plan of the Oviedo cathedral must have resembled.
By far the most meritorious piece of work in the cathedral is the sixteenth-century retablo of the high altar, which alone is worth a visit to Astorga. It is one of Becerra’s masterpieces in the late plateresque style, as well as being one of the master’s last known works (1569).
It is composed of five vertical and three horizontal bodies; the niches in the lower are flanked by Doric, those of the second by Corinthian, and those of the upper by composite columns and capitals. The polychrome statues which fill the niches are life-size and among the best in Spain; together they are intended to give a graphic description of the life of the Virgin and of her Son.
In some of the decorative details, however, this retablo shows evident signs of plateresque decadence, and the birth of the florid grotesque style, which is but the natural reaction against the severity of early sixteenth-century art.