IX Soria
The Duero River, upon leaving its source at the foot of the Pico de Urbión (near Vinuesa), flows eastward for about fifty miles, then southward for another fifty miles, when it turns abruptly westward on its lengthy journey across the Iberian peninsula.
The circular region, limited on three sides by the river’s course, is the historical field of Soria—part of the province of the same name, Numantia, Rome’s great enemy and almost the cause of her ruin, lay somewhere in this part of the country, though where is not exactly known, as the great Scipio took care to destroy it so thoroughly that not even a stone remains to-day to indicate where the heroic fortress stood.
In the present day, two cities and two cathedrals are seated on the banks of the Duero within this circle; the one is Soria, the other Osma. The latter was a Roman town, an early episcopal see, and later an Arab fortress; the former was founded by one of the Alfonsos toward the end of the eleventh century, as a frontier fortress against Aragon to the east, the Moors to the south, and Navarra to the north.
The town grew apace, thanks to the remarkable fueros granted to the citizens, who lived as in a republic of their own making—an almost unique case of self-government to be recorded in the middle ages.
The principal parish church was raised to a suffragan of Osma in the twelfth century. Since then, there has been a continual spirit of rivalry between the two cities, for the former, more important as a town and as the capital of a province, could not bend its head to the ecclesiastical authority of a village like Osma. Throughout the middle ages the jealousy between the two was food for incessant strife. Pope Clement IV., at Alfonso VIII.’s instigation, raised the Collegiate at Soria to an episcopal see independent of Osma, but the hard-headed chapter of the last named city refused to acknowledge the Pope’s order, and no bishop was elected or appointed.
This bitter hatred between the two rivals was the origin of many an amusing incident. Upon one occasion the Bishop of Osma, visiting his suffragan church in Soria, had the house in which he was stopping for the night burnt about his ears. He moved off to another house, and on the second night this was also mysteriously set on fire. His lordship did not await the third night, afraid of what might happen, but bolted back to his episcopal palace at Osma.
In 1520 the chapter of the Collegiate in Soria sent a petition to the country’s sovereign asking him to order the erection of a new church in place of the old twelfth-century building, and in another part of the town. The request was not granted, however, so what did the wily chapter do? It ordered an architect to construct a chapel in the very centre of the church, and when it was completed, admired the work with great enthusiasm, excepting only the pillar in front of it which obstructed the uninterrupted view. This pillar was the real support of the church, and though the chapter was told as much (as though it did not know it!) the architect was ordered to pull it down. After hesitating to do so, the latter acceded: the pillar was pulled down, and with it the whole church tumbled down as well! But the chapter’s game was discovered, and it was obliged to rebuild the cathedral on the same spot and with the same materials.
Consequently, the church at Soria is a sixteenth-century building of little or no merit, excepting the western front, which is the only part of the old building that did not fall down, and is a fine specimen of Castilian Romanesque, as well as the cloister, one of the handsomest, besides being one of the few twelfth-century cloisters in Spain, with a double row of slender columns supporting the round-headed arches. This modification of the conventional type lends an aspect of peculiar lightness to the otherwise heavy Romanesque.
As regards the settlement of the strife between Soria and Osma, the see is to-day a double one, like that of Madrid and Alcalá. Upon the death of the present bishop, however, it will be transported definitely to Soria, and consequently the inhabitants of the last named city will at last be able to give thanks for the great mercies Allah or the True God has bestowed upon them.
Osma.—From an historical and architectural point of view, Osma, the rival city on the Duero River, is much more important than Soria.
According to the tradition, St. James preached the Holy Gospel, and after him St. Peter (or St. Paul?), who left his disciple St. Astorgio behind as bishop (91 A. D.). Twenty-two bishops succeeded him, the twenty-third on the list being John I., really the first of whose existence we have any positive proof, for he signed the third council in Toledo in the sixth century. In the eighth century, the Saracens drove the shepherd of the Christian flock northward to Asturias, and it was not until 1100 that the first bishop de modernis was appointed by Archbishop Bernardo of Toledo. The latter’s choice fell on Peter, a virtuous French monastic monk, who was canonized by the Pope after his death, and figures in the calendar as St. Peter of Osma.
When the first bishop took possession of his see, he started to build his cathedral. Instead of choosing Osma itself as the seat, however, he selected the site of a convent on the opposite banks of the Duero (to the north), where the Virgin had appeared to a shepherd. Houses soon grew up around the temple and, to distinguish it from Osma, the new city was called Burgo de Osma, a name it still retains.
In 1232, not a hundred years after the erection of the cathedral, it was totally destroyed, excepting one or two chapels still to be seen in the cloister, by Juan Dominguez, who was bishop at the time, and who wished to possess a see more important in appearance than that left to him by his predecessor, St. Peter.
The building as it stands to-day is small, but highly interesting. The original plan was that of a Romanesque basilica with a three-lobed apse, but in 1781 the ambulatory walk behind the altar joined the two lateral aisles.
Two of the best pieces of sculptural work in the cathedral are the retablo of the high altar, and the relief imbedded in the wall of the trascoro—both of them carved in wood by Juan de Juni, one of the best Castilian sculptors of the sixteenth century. The plastic beauty of the figures and their lifelike postures harmonize well with the simple Renaissance columns ornamented here and there with finely wrought flowers and garlands.
The chapel where St. Peter of Osma’s body lies is an original rather than a beautiful annex of the church. For, given the small dimensions of the cathedral, it was difficult to find sufficient room for the chapels, sacristy, vestuary, etc. In the case of the above chapel, therefore, it was necessary to build it above the vestuary; it is reached by a flight of stairs, beneath which two three-lobed arches lead to the sombre room below. The result is highly original.
The same remarks as regard lack of space can be made when speaking about the principal entrance. Previously the portal had been situated in the western front; the erection of the tower on one side, and of a chapel on the other, had rendered this entrance insignificant and half blinded by the prominent tower. So a new one had to be erected, considered by many art critics to be a beautiful addition to the cathedral properly speaking, but which strikes the author as excessively ugly, especially the upper half, with its balcony, and a hollow arch above it, in the shadows of which the rose window loses both its artistic and its useful object. So, being round, it is placed within a semicircular sort of avant-porche or recess, the strong contours of which deform the immense circle of the window.
To conclude: in the cathedral of Osma, bad architecture is only too evident. The tower is perhaps the most elegant part, and yet the second body, which was to give it a gradually sloping elegance, was omitted, and the third placed directly upon the first. This is no improvement.
Perhaps the real reason for these architectural mishaps is not so much the fault of the architects and artists as that of the chapter, and of the flock which could not help satisfactorily toward the erection of a worthy cathedral. Luckily, however, there are other cathedrals in Spain, where, in spite of reduced funds, a decent and homogeneous building was erected.
The cloister, bare on the inner side, is nevertheless a modest Gothic structure with acceptable lobulated ogival windows.