V Ciudad Rodrigo
In the times of the Romans, the country to the west of Salamanca seems to have been thickly populated. Calabria, situated between the Agueda and Coa Rivers, was an episcopal see; in its vicinity Augustábriga and Miróbriga were two other important towns.
Of these three Roman fortresses, and perhaps native towns, before the invasion, not as much as a stone or a legend remains to relate the tale of their existence and death.
Toward 1150, Fernando II. of Castile, obeying the military requirements of the Reconquest, and at the same time wishing to erect a fortress-town, which, together with Zamora to the north, Salamanca to the west, and Coria to the south, could resist the invasion of Spain by Portuguese armies, founded Ciudad Rodrigo, and twenty years later raised the church to an episcopal see, a practical means of attracting God-fearing settlers. Consequently, the twelfth-century town, inheriting the ecclesiastical dignity of Calabria, if the latter ever possessed it, besides being situated in the same region as the three Roman cities previously mentioned, can claim to have been born a city.
One of the early bishops (the first was a certain Domingo) was the famous Pedro Diaz, about whom a legend has been handed down to us. This legend has also been graphically illustrated by an artist of the sixteenth century; his painting is to be seen to the right of the northern transept door in the cathedral.
Pedro Diaz seems to have been a worldly priest, “fond of the sins of the flesh and of good eating,” who fell ill in the third year of his reign. His secretary, a pious servant of the Lord, dreamt he saw his master’s soul devoured by demons, and persuaded him to confess his sins. It was too late, for a few days later he died; his death was, however, kept a secret by his menials, who wished to have plenty of time to make a generous division of his fortune. When all had been settled to their liking, the funeral procession moved through the streets of the city, and, to the surprise of all, the dead bishop, resurrected by St. Francis of Assisi, at the time in Ciudad Rodrigo, opened the coffin and stood upon the hearse. He accused his servants of their greed, and at the same time made certain revelations concerning the life hereafter. His experiences must have been rather pessimistic, to judge by the bishop’s later deeds, for, having been granted a respite of twenty days upon this earth, he “fasted and made penitence,” doubtless eager to escape a second time the tortures of the other world.
Other traditions concerning the lives and doings of the noblemen who disputed the feudal right or señorio over the town, are as numerous as in Plasencia, with which city Ciudad Rodrigo has certain historical affinities. The story of the Virgen Coronada, who, though poor, did not hesitate in killing a powerful and wealthy libertine nobleman whom she was serving; the no less stirring account of Doña Maria Adan’s vow that she would give her fair daughter’s hand to whomsoever venged her wrongs on the five sons of her husband’s murderer, are among the most tragic and thrilling. There are many other traditions beside, which constitute the past’s legacy to the solitary city near the Portuguese frontier.
It was in the nineteenth century that Ciudad Rodrigo earned fame as a brave city. The Spanish war for independence had broken out against the French, who overran the country, and passed from Bayonne in the Gascogne to Lisbon in Portugal. Ciudad Rodrigo lay on the shortest route for the French army, and had to suffer two sieges, one in 1810 and the second in 1812. In the latter, Wellington was the commander of the English forces who had come to help the Spanish chase the French out of the peninsula; the siege of the town and the battle which ensued were long and terrible, but at last the allied English and Spanish won, with the loss of two English generals. The Iron Duke was rewarded by Spanish Cortes, with the title of Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo, together with the honours of grandee of Spain, which are still retained by Wellington’s descendants.
The cathedral church of Ciudad Rodrigo is a twelfth-century building, in which the Romanesque style, similar to those of Zamora and Toro, fights with the nascent ogival style. Notwithstanding these remarks, however, the building does not pertain to the Transition period, but rather to the second or last period of Spanish Romanesque. This is easily seen by the basilica form of the church, the three-lobed apse, the lack of an ambulatory walk, and the apparently similar height of nave and aisles.
The square tower, surmounted by a cupola, at the foot of the church, as well as the entire western front, dates from the eighteenth century; it is cold, anti-artistic, utterly unable to appeal to the poetic instincts of the spectator.
Behind the western front, and leading directly into the body of the church, is a delightful Romanesque narthex which doubtlessly served as the western façade prior to the eighteenth-century additions. It is separated from the principal nave by a door divided into two by a solid pediment, upon which is encrusted a statue of the Virgin with Child in her arms. The semicircular arches which surmount the door are finely executed, and the columns which support them are decorated with handsome twelfth-century statuettes. There is a great similarity between this portal and the principal one (del Obispo) in Toro: it almost seems as though the same hand had chiselled both, or at least traced the plan of their decoration.
Of the two doors which lead, one on the south and the other on the north, into the transept, the former is perhaps the more perfect specimen of the primitive style. Both are richly decorated; unluckily, in both portals, the rounded arches have been crowned in more recent times by an ogival arch, which certainly mars the pureness of the style, though not the harmony of the ensemble.
To the left of these doors, a niche has been carved into the wall to contain a full-length statue of the Virgin; this is an unusual arrangement in Spanish churches.
The exterior of the apse retains its primitive cachet; the central chapel, where the high altar is placed, was, however, rebuilt in the sixteenth century by Tavera, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, who had at one time occupied the see of Ciudad Rodrigo. It is a peculiar mixture of Gothic and Romanesque, of pointed windows and heavy buttresses; the flat roof is decorated by means of a low stone railing or balustrade composed of elegantly carved pinnacles.
To conclude: excepting the western front and the central lobe of the apse, the tower and the ogival arch surmounting the northern and southern portals, the cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo is one of the most perfectly preserved Romanesque buildings to the south of Zamora and Toro. It is less grim and warlike than the two last-named edifices, and yet it is also a fair example of severe and gloomy (though not less artistic!) Castilian Romanesque. Its croisée is not surmounted by the heavy cupola as in Salamanca and elsewhere, and it is perhaps just this suppression or omission which gives the whole building a far less Oriental appearance than the others mentioned heretofore.
In the inside, the choir occupies its usual place. Its stalls, it is believed, were carved by Alemán, the same who probably wrought those superb seats at Plasencia. It is doubtful if the same master carved both, however, but were it so, the stalls at Ciudad Rodrigo would have to be classified as older, executed before those we shall examine in a future chapter.
The nave and two aisles, pierced by ogival windows in the clerestory and round-headed windows in the aisles, constitute the church; the croisée is covered by means of a simple ogival vaulting; the arches separating the nave from the aisles are Romanesque, as is the vaulting of the former. It was originally the intention of the chapter to beautify the solemn appearance of the interior by means of a triforium or running gallery. Unluckily, perhaps because of lack of funds, the triforium was never begun excepting that here and there are seen remnants of the primitive tracing.
With the lady-chapel profusely and lavishly ornamented, and quite out of place in this solemn building, there are five chapels, one at the foot of each aisle and two in the apse, to the right and left of the lady-chapel. They all lack art interest, however, as does the actual retablo, which replaces the one destroyed by the French; remnants of the latter are to be seen patched up on the cloister walls.
This cloister to the north of the church is a historical monument, for each of the four sides of the square edifice is an architectural page differing from its companions. Studying first the western, then the southern, and lastly the two remaining sides, the student can obtain an idea of how Romanesque principles struggled with Gothic before dying completely out, and how the latter, having reached its apogee, deteriorated into the most lamentable superdecoration before fading away into the naked, straight-lined features of the Renaissance so little compatible with Christian ideals.