Part 11 (1/2)
”Anno: ab: Incarnatione: Dai: M. C. Lx.x.xVIIIvo: Era I CCXXh. VI.: Die K-L. Aprilis: supra liniharia: Princ.i.p.alium: portalium.”
”Ecclesiae: Beati: Jacobi: sunt collocata: Per: Magistrum: Matheum: qui: a: fundamentis: ipsorum: portalium: gessit: magisterium.”[152]
In addition to these evidences, there are two others in the church itself; one, to which I shall refer again, a date which I take to be A.D. 1078, on the jamb of the south transept doorway; and the other, an inscription which, with some modifications, is repeated several times round the margins of circles let into the aisle walls, in the centre of which are the dedication crosses. The date on one of these over the west side of the transept, as well as I could read it, appeared to me to be A.D. 1154;[153] but as the inscriptions vary somewhat round the different crosses, it is possible that the dates may vary also with the time of completion of the various parts of the building; and I regret therefore that I did not make accurate copies of all of them. The dedication crosses are all floriated at the ends, and have in the spandrels between the arms of the cross--above, the sun and moon, and below, the letters A and O. Three of these remain on each side of the nave, two in each transept, and two in the choir aisle, twelve in all. I saw none on the exterior; but so little of the old external walls can now be seen that this is not to be wondered at.
It is now time to describe the building itself, the age of its various parts having been pretty accurately defined by the doc.u.mentary evidence which I have quoted.
This cathedral is of singular interest, not only on account of its unusual completeness, and the general unity of style which marks it, but still more because it is both in plan and design a very curiously exact repet.i.tion of the church of S. Sernin at Toulouse.[154] But S. Sernin is earlier in date by several years, having been commenced by S. Raymond in A.D. 1060, and consecrated by Pope Urban II. in A.D. 1096; and the cathedral at Santiago can only be regarded, therefore, as to a great extent a copy of S. Sernin, the materials being, however, different, since granite was used in its construction in place of the brick and stone with which its prototype was constructed.
The dimensions of the two churches do not differ very much; Santiago has one bay less in its nave, but one bay more in each transept; it has only one aisle, whilst S. Sernin has two on each side of the nave; and its two towers are placed north and south of the west front, instead of to the west of it, as they are at S. Sernin. The arrangement of the chevet and of the chapels on the east of the transepts was the same in both churches. Here they still exist in the chevet, but in the transepts traces of them are only to be found after careful examination. Three of them, indeed are quite destroyed, though slight traces still exist of the arches which opened into them from the aisles, but the fourth has been preserved by a piece of vandalism for which one must be grateful.
It has been converted into a pa.s.sage-way to a small church which once stood detached to the north-east of the cathedral, and the access to which was by a western doorway. The erection of a modern chapel blocked up the access to this doorway, and an opening was then made through the northern chapel of the north transept, which has thus been saved from the fate which has befallen the others. The position and size of these chapels are indicated in the ground-plan.
The proportions of the several parts of the plans of the two churches are also nearly identical; and owing in part to the arrangement of the groining piers of the transepts, in which the aisles are returned round the north and south ends, the transept fronts in both churches have the very unusual arrangement of two doorways side by side--a central single doorway being impossible. The triforium galleries surround the whole church, being carried across the west end and the ends of the transepts, so that a procession might easily ascend from the west end, by the tower staircases--which are unusually broad and s.p.a.cious--and make the entire circuit of the church. Finally, the sections of both these great churches are as nearly as possible the same; their naves being covered with barrel-vaults, their aisles with quadripart.i.te vaults, and the triforia over the aisles with quadrant vaults, ab.u.t.ting against and sustaining as with a continuous flying b.u.t.tress the great waggon-vaults of their naves.[155]
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 17
SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL p. 147.
INTERIOR OF LOWER CHURCH]
The exterior of the cathedral at Santiago--to a more detailed description of which I must now devote myself--is almost completely obscured and overlaid by modern additions. The two old western steeples shown on the plan are old only about as high as the side walls of the church, and have been raised to a very considerable height, and finished externally with a lavish display of pilasters, bal.u.s.trades, vases, and what not, till they finish in a sort of pepper-box fas.h.i.+on with small cupolas. Between them is a lofty niche over the west front, which contains a statue of the tutelar.[156] Fortunately the whole of the facade between the steeples was built on in front of, and without destroying, Master Matthew's great work, the western porch. The ground falls considerably to the west, and a rather picturesque quadruple flight of steps, arranged in a complicated fas.h.i.+on, leads up from the Plaza to the doors. There are two great and two lesser flights of steps, so that a procession going up might be divided into four lines; a doorway in the centre of the western wall below these steps leads into a chapel constructed below the western porch. This is now called the Chapel of St. Joseph, but seems to have been known of old as Santiago la Vajo. The arrangement of its plan is very peculiar.[157] There are two large central piers east and west of a sort of transept; to the west of this are two old arches, and then the modern pa.s.sage leading to the doorway at the foot of the steps. To the east of the transept is an apse consisting of an aisle formed round the great central pier, with small recesses for altars round it. The aisle is covered with a round-arched waggon-vault; it has five recesses for altars; the easternmost _seems_ to have a square east end, the next to it on either side have apses, and the others are very shallow recesses hardly large enough for altars.
There can be no doubt whatever, I think, that this is the work on which Master Matthew was first employed; it is exactly under the porch and doorway, on which, as we know by the inscription on the lintel of the door, he wrought; and as he was first at work here in A.D. 1168, and finished the doors in A.D. 1188, we may safely put down this chapel as having been begun and finished circa A.D. 1168-1175. In this the bases are some of them square, some circular in plan; the sculpture of the capitals is elaborate and similar in character to most of the later work in the cathedral. The favourite device of pairs of animals regarding each other is frequently repeated; and there are moulded and spiral shafts in the jambs of the western arches. My view of the interior of this interesting little chapel will best explain its general character and peculiarities, and it will be felt, I think, that it is certainly not earlier than the date I have a.s.signed, and therefore, like the great western door, of later date than the church in connection with which it was built. Behind the eastern altar there is an arcade of three arches forming a kind of reredos, but I am not at all sure whether they are in their old places, and I am inclined to think it more likely that there is an eastern apse behind them. There is nothing to prove whether there were any western doors to this chapel, and as all the light must originally have come through the western arches, it would seem to be most probable that there were none. The chapel is now kept locked, and is but seldom used for service.[158]
To return to the west front. This is the centre only of a vast architectural facade; to the right of the church being the chapter-house and other rooms on the west side of the cloister, and to the left another long line of dependent buildings. The Plaza is bounded by public buildings on its other three sides;[159] and beyond, to the west, the ground falling very rapidly affords a fine view across the valley to the picturesque mountain-like ranges which bound the landscape. This is the Plaza Mayor or ”del Hospital.”
Going northward from the west entrance, and turning presently to the east, a low groined gateway is reached, which leads into another Plaza fronting the north transept. This gateway is a work of the twelfth century, but of the simplest kind. The Plaza de San Martin, to the north of the cathedral, is picturesquely irregular; its north side is occupied by a vast convent of St. Martin, and the ground slopes down steeply from it to the cathedral. Here is the gayest and busiest market-place of the town, and the best spot for studying the noisy cries and the bright dresses of the Gallegan peasantry. They are to be seen on a Sunday, especially, in all their finery,--bright, picturesque, and happy looking, for those who can afford to dress smartly are happy, and those who cannot don't seem to come--selling and buying every possible kind of ware, save, perhaps, the large stock of scallop-sh.e.l.ls, which, though they are kept for sale with due regard to the genius loci, seemed to me never to attract any one to become a purchaser, and to adopt the badge of St. James!
The whole of the northern front of the transept and church is modernized. But to the east of it lies the little church used as the Parroquia, and which will be better described when I go to the interior, as externally it has no old feature save a simple little window in its north wall.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Exterior of Chevet.]
A narrow pa.s.sage from the Plaza de San Martin leads to the upper side of a third Plaza opposite the east end; and here, though the cathedral has been enclosed within square modern walls, there is fortunately just enough left of the exterior of the eastern chapel and part of the apse enclosed in a small court to explain its whole original design. The entrance to this court is garnished with a number of statues, evidently, I think, taken from a doorway, and perhaps from the destroyed north doorway.[160] From this fragment of the chevet, it seems that the eastern chapel was surrounded with a deeply recessed arcading, within which were broad, round-arched windows with moulded archivolts carried on shafts with sculptured capitals. The smaller chapels have three-quarter shafts running up to the cornices placed between the windows, and the corbel-tables at the eaves are simple and bold. The bay between the chapels has a window occupying the whole s.p.a.ce in width, and above it is a small circular window, a feature which occurs in almost exactly the same position in S. Sernin, Toulouse.[161] A string-course is carried round the aisle wall above the roofs of the chapels, and the wall is continued up to the same level as the walls of the aisles of the church, and has alternately windows and arcading in its outer elevation.
This is perhaps the only serious difference between the design of this church and that of S. Sernin. There the triforia are not carried round the chevet, and consequently the aisle walls are not so lofty, and the clerestory of the apse is shown in the usual way.
Continuing the circuit of the cathedral, we now reach the Plaza de los Plateros, in front of the south transept. This is bounded on the west side by the outer walls of the cloisters, and a broad flight of steps all across the Plaza leads up to the transept. This has been to some extent damaged by the erection of a lofty clock-tower projecting at its south-east angle, in which are the clock and the bells. The rest of the old facade is fortunately preserved. It has two doorways in the centre division, and two grand and deeply recessed windows above them. The ends of the aisles seem to have been similarly treated above. The finish of the transept wall is modern, but there still remain two canopies in it, under one of which is a figure of the Blessed Virgin, no doubt part of a sculpture of the Annunciation.
The detail of the work in this front is of great interest, inasmuch as it is clearly by another and an earlier workman than that of the western part of the church. There are three shafts in each jamb of the doors, whereof the outer are of marble, the rest of stone. These marble shafts are carved with extreme delicacy with a series of figures in niches, the niches having round arches, which rest upon carved and twisted columns separating the figures. The work is so characteristic as to deserve ill.u.s.tration. It is executed almost everywhere with that admirable delicacy so conspicuous in early Romanesque sculpture. The other shafts are twisted and carved in very bold fas.h.i.+on.
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 18.
SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL p. 150.
SHAFTS IN SOUTH DOORWAY]
The jamb of this door retains an inscription deeply cut in large letters, which appears to give the same date--Era 1116, 5 Ides of July--that I have already quoted from the 'Historia Compostellana.' But as the reading of this inscription is open to doubt, I think it well to engrave it. This Era would make the date of these doors agree with the commencement of the works. Figures on either side support the ends of the lintels of the doors, but the tympana and the wall above for some feet are covered with pieces of sculpture, evidently taken down and refixed where they are now seen. They are arranged, in short, like the casts at the Crystal Palace, as if the wall were part of a museum. One of the stones in the tympanum of the eastern door has the Crowning with Thorns and the Scourging; and on other stones above are portions of a Descent into Hades, in which a.s.ses with wings are shown kneeling to our Lord. a.s.ses and other beasts are carved elsewhere, and altogether the whole work has a rude barbaric splendour characteristic of its age.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Inscription on South Door.]
The windows above deserve special notice. Their shafts and archivolts are very richly twisted and carved, and the cusping of the inner arch is of a rare kind. It consists of five complete foils, so that the points of the lowest cusp rest on the capital, and, to a certain extent, the effect of a horseshoe arch is produced. This might be hastily a.s.sumed to be a feature borrowed from the Moors; but the curious fact is that this very rare form of cusping is seen in many, if not most, of the churches of the Auvergnat type, to which reference has already been made, and it must be regarded here, therefore, as another proof of the foreign origin of most of the work at Santiago, rather than of any Moorish influence. I have omitted to say that in addition to the other steeples there is a modern dome over the crossing. The lower part of the lantern is old, and the four piers which support it are somewhat larger than the rest.
The exterior of the cloister is rather Renaissance than Gothic in its character, and has some picturesque small towers at the angles.