III Segovia
Avila’s twin sister, Segovia, retains its old Celtiberian name; it retains, also, the undeniable proofs of Roman domination in its far-famed aqueduct and in its amphitheatre.
According to the popular tradition, San Hierateo, the disciple of St. Paul, was the first bishop in the first century, but probably the see was not erected until about 527, when it is first mentioned in a Tolesian document; the name of the first bishop (historical) is Peter, who was present at the third Council in Toledo (589).
The local saint is one San Fruto, who, upon the approach of the Saracen hosts, gathered together a handful of fugitives and retired to the mountains; his brother Valentine and his sister Engracia (of Aragonese fame?) died martyrs to their belief. San Fruto, on the other hand, lived the life of a hermit in the mountains and wrought many miracles, such as splitting open a rock with his jack-knife, etc. The most miraculous of his deeds was the proof he gave to the Moors of the genuineness of the Catholic religion: on a tray of oats he placed the host and offered it to a mule, which, instead of munching oats and host, fell on its knees, and perhaps even crossed itself!
Disputed by Arabs and Christians, like all Castilian towns, Segovia lagged along until it fell definitely into the hands of the latter. A Christian colony seems, nevertheless, to have lived in the town during the Arab dominion, because the documents of the time speak of a Bishop Ilderedo in 940.
The exact year of the repopulation of Segovia is not known, but doubtless it was a decade or so prior to either that of Salamanca or Avila.
Neither was the warlike spirit of the inhabitants inferior to that of their brethren in the last named cities. It was due to their bravery that Madrid fell into the hands of the Christians toward 1110, for, arriving late at the besieging camp, the king, who was present, told them that if they wished to pass the night comfortably, there was but one place, namely, the city itself. Without a moment’s hesitation the daring warriors dashed at the walls of Madrid, and, scaling them, took a tower, where they passed the night at their ease, and to their monarch’s great astonishment.
In 1115, the first bishop de modernis, Don Pedro, was consecrated, and the cathedral was begun at about the same time. Several of the successive prelates were battling warriors rather than spiritual shepherds, and fought with energy and success against the infidel in Andalusia. One, Don Gutierre Girón, even found his death in the terrible defeat of the Christian arms at Alarcon.
The event which brought the greatest fame to Segovia was the erection of its celebrated Alcázar, or castle, the finest specimen of military architecture in Spain. Every city had its citadel, it is true, but none were so strong and invulnerable as that of Segovia, and in the stormy days of Castilian history the monarchs found a safe retreat from the attacks of unscrupulous noblemen behind its walls.
Until 1530 the old cathedral stood at the back of the Alcázar, but in a revolution of the Comuneros against Charles-Quint, the infuriated mob, anxious to seize the castle, tore down the temple and used its stones, beams, stalls, and railings as a means to scale the high walls of the fortress. Their efforts were in vain, for an army came to the relief of the castle from Valladolid; a general pardon was, nevertheless, granted to the population by the monarch, who was too far off to care much what his Spanish subjects did. After the storm was over, the hot-headed citizens found themselves with a bishop and a chapter, but without a church or means wherewith to erect a new one.
The struggles between city and fortress were numerous, and were the cause, in a great measure, of the town’s decadence. Upon one occasion, Isabel the Catholic infringed upon the citizens’ rights by making a gift of some of the feudal villages to a court favourite. The day after the news of this infringement reached the city, by a common accord the citizens “dressed in black, did not amuse themselves, nor put on clean linen; neither did they sweep the house steps, nor light the lamps at night; neither did they buy nor sell, and what is more, they boxed their children’s ears so that they should for ever remember the day.” So great were the public signs of grief that it has been said that “never did a republic wear deeper mourning for the loss of its liberties.”
The end of the matter was that the queen in her famous testament revoked her gift and returned the villages to the city.
The old cathedral was torn down in November, 1520, and it was not until June, 1525, that the bishop, who had made a patriotic appeal to all Spaniards in behalf of the church funds, laid the first stone of the new edifice. Thirty years later the building was consecrated.
Nowhere else can a church be found which is a more thorough expression of a city’s fervour and enthusiasm. It was as though the sacrilegious act of the enraged mob reacted on the penitent minds of the calmed citizens, for rich and poor alike gave their alms to the cathedral chapter. Jewels were sold, donations came from abroad, feudal lords gave whole villages to the church, and the poor men, the workmen, and the peasants gave their pennies. Daily processions arrived at Santa Clara, then used as cathedral church, from all parts of the diocese. To-day they were composed of tradesmen, of Zünfte, who gave their offerings of a few pounds; to-morrow a village would bring in a cartload of stone, of mortar, of wood, etc. On holidays and Sundays the repentant citizens, instead of amusing themselves at the dance or bull-fight, carted materials for their new cathedral’s erection, and all this they did of their own free will.
The act of consecrating the finished building constituted a grand holiday. The long aqueduct was illuminated from top to bottom, as was also the cathedral tower, and every house in the city. During a week the holiday-making lasted with open-air amusements for the poor and banquets for the rich.
The date of the construction of the new building was contemporaneous with that of Salamanca, and the architect was, to a certain extent, the same. It is not strange, therefore, that both should resemble each other in their general disposition. What is more, the construction in both churches was begun at the foot (west), and not in the east, as is generally the case. The oldest part of the building is consequently the western front, classic in its outline, but showing among its ogival details both the symmetry and triangular pediment of Renaissance art. The tower, higher than that of Sevilla, and broader than that of Toledo, is simple in its structure; it is Byzantine, and does not lack a certain cachet of elegance; the first body is surmounted by a dome, upon which rises the second,—smaller, and also crowned by a cupola. The tower was twice struck by lightning and partly ruined in 1620; it was rebuilt in 1825, and a lightning conductor replaced the cross of the spire.
Though consecrated, as has been said, in 1558, the new temple was by no means finished: the transept and the eastern end were still to be built. The latter was finished prior to 1580, and in 1615 the Renaissance dome which surmounts the croisée was erected by an artist-architect, who evidently was incapable of giving it a true Gothic appearance.
The apse, with its three harmonizing étages corresponding to the chapels, aisles, and nave, and flanked by leaning buttresses ornamented with delicate pinnacles, is Gothic in its details; the ensemble is, nevertheless, Renaissance, thanks to a perfect symmetry painfully pronounced by naked horizontal lines—so contradictory to the spirit of true ogival. Less regularity and a greater profusion of buttresses, and above all of flying buttresses, would have been more agreeable, but the times had changed and new tastes had entered the country.
Neither does the broad transept, its façade,—either southern or northern,—and the cupola join, as it were, the eastern and the western half of the building; on the contrary, it distinctly separates them, not to the building’s advantage.
The interior is gay rather than solemn: the general disposition of the parts is as customary in a Gothic church of the Transition (Renaissance). The nave and transept are of the same width; the lateral chapels, running along the exterior walls of the aisles, are symmetrical, as in Salamanca; the ambulatory separates the high altar from the apse and its seven chapels.
The pavement of the church is of black and white marble slabs, like that of Toledo, for instance; as for the stained windows, they are numerous, and those in the older part of the building of good (Flemish?) workmanship and of a rich colour, which heightens the happy expression of the whole building.
The cloister is the oldest part of the building, having pertained to the previous cathedral. After the latter’s destruction, and the successful erection of the new temple, the cloister was transported stone by stone from its old emplacement to where it now stands. It is a handsome and richly decorated Gothic building, containing many tombs, among them those of the architects of the cathedral and of Maria del Salto. This Mary was a certain Jewess, who, condemned to death, and thrown over the Peña Grajera, invoked the aid of the Virgin, and was saved.
Another tomb is that of Prince Don Pedro, son of Enrique II., who fell out of a window of the Alcázar. His nurse, according to the tradition, threw herself out of the window after her charge, and together they were picked up, one locked in the arms of the other.