III Mondoñedo
A village grown to be a city, and yet a village. A city without history or tradition, and a cathedral that has been spoilt by the hand of time, and above all by the hands of luckless artists called upon to rebuild deteriorated parts.
To the north of Lugo, at a respectable distance from the railway which runs from the latter to Corunna, and reached either by means of a stage or on horseback, Mondoñedo passes a sleeping existence in a picturesque vale surrounded by the greenest of hills. Rarely bothered by the tourist who prefers the train to the stage, it procures for the art lover many moments of delight—that is, if he will but take the trouble to visit the cathedral, the two towers of which loom up in the vale, and though rather too stumpy to be able to lend elegance to the ensemble, add a poetic charm to the valley and to the village itself.
How on earth did it ever occur to any one to raise the church at Mondoñedo to a bishopric? Surely the sees in Galicia were badly shuffled; and yet, where can a quieter spot be found in this wide world of ours for the contemplation of a cathedral—and a Romanesque one, to boot!
It is to the Norman vikings that is due the establishment of a see in this lonely valley. Until the sixth century it had been situated in Mindunietum of the Romans, when it was removed to Ribadeo, remaining there until late in the twelfth century. Both these towns were seaports, and both suffered from the cruel incursions and piratical expeditions of the vikings, and so after the total pillage of the church in Ribadeo, the see was removed inland out of harm’s way, to a village known by the name of Villamayor or Mondoñedo. There it has remained till the present day, ignored by the tourist who “has no time,” and who follows the beaten track established by Messrs. Cook and Company, in London.
As will have been seen, Mondoñedo is a city without history, and without a past; doubtless it will for ever remain a village without a future. Its doings, its raison d’être, are summed up in the cathedral that stands in its centre, just as in Santiago, though from different motives.
It is, perhaps, the most picturesque spot in Galicia, a gently sloping landscape buried in a violet haze, reminding one of Swiss valleys in the quiet Jura. Besides, the streets are silent and often deserted, the village inn or fonda is neither excellent nor very bad, and as for the villagers, they are happy, simple, and hospitable dawdlers along the paths of this life.
According to a popular belief, the life of one man, a bishop named Don Martin (1219-48), is wrapped up in Mondoñedo’s cathedral, so much so, in fact, that both their lives are one and the same. He began building his see; he saw it finished and consecrated it—construxit, consumavit et consacravit; then he died, but the church and his name lived on.
Modern art critics disagree with the above belief; the older or primitive part of the church dates from the twelfth and not from the thirteenth century. Originally, as can easily be seen upon examining the older part of the building, it was a pure Romanesque basilica, the nave and the two aisles running up to the transept, where they were cut off, and immediately to the east of the latter came the apse with three chapels, the lady-chapel being slightly larger than the lateral ones.
In the primitive construction of the building—and excepting all later-date additions, of which there are more than enough—early Gothic and Romanesque elements are so closely intermingled that one is perforce obliged to consider the monument as belonging to the period of Transition, as being, perhaps, a unique example of this period to be met with in Galicia or even in Spain. Of course, as in the case of the other Galician cathedrals, the original character of the interior, which if it had remained unaltered would be both majestic and imposing, has been greatly deformed by the addition of posterior reforms. The form of the apse has been completely changed by the introduction of an ambulatory or circular apsidal aisle dating at least from the fifteenth century, as shown by the presence of the late Gothic and Renaissance elements.
The general plan is rectangular, 120 feet long by seventy-one wide, and seen from the outside is solid rather than elegant, a fortress rather than a temple. The height of the nave, crowned by a Gothic vaulting, is about forty-five feet; a triforium (ogival) runs around the top. The lateral aisles are slightly more than half as high and covered by a Romanesque vaulting reposing on capitals and shafts of the finest twelfth century execution.
The original basilica form of the church has, unluckily, been altered by the additional length given to the arms of the transept, and, as mentioned already, by the ambulatory walk characteristic of Spanish cathedrals; the workmanship of the latter, though lamentably out of tune in this old cathedral, is, taken by itself, better than many similar additions in other churches.
The western façade, which is the only one worthy of contemplation, is as good an example of Romanesque, spoilt by the addition at a recent date of grotesque and bizarre figures and monsters, as can be seen anywhere.
The buttresses are more developed than in either Lugo or Santiago, and though these bodies, from a decorative point of view, were evidently intended to give a certain seal of elegance to the ensemble, the stunted towers and the few windows in the body of the church only help to heighten its fortress-like aspect.
In a previous paragraph it has been stated that this cathedral is perhaps a unique example of the period of Transition (Romanesque and early Gothic). It is an opinion shared by many art critics, but personally the author of these lines is inclined to consider it as an example of the Galician conservative spirit, and of the fight that was made in cathedral chapters against the introduction of early Gothic. For the temple at Santiago was Romanesque; therefore, according to the narrow reasoning peculiar to Galicia, that style was the best and consequently good enough for any other church. As a result, we have in this region of Spain a series of cathedrals which are practically Romanesque, but into the structure of which ogival elements have filtered. Further, as there is no existing example of a finished Gothic church in Galicia, it is rather difficult to speak of a period of Transition, by which is meant the period of passing from one style to another. In Galicia, there was no passing: the conservative spirit of the country, the poetry of the Celtic inhabitants, and above all of their artists, found greater pleasure in Romanesque than in Gothic, and consequently the cathedrals are Romanesque, with slight Gothic additions, when these could combine or submit in arrangement to the heavier Romanesque principles of architecture.
Later, in other centuries, the spirit of architecture had completely died out in Spain, and the additions made in these days are so many lamentable signs of decadence. Not so the ogival introduction in Romanesque churches, which in many cases improved the Romanesque appearance.