Leon Cathedral
An excerpt from GE Street's work on the Spanish cathedrals
Spaniards are rightly proud of this noble church, and the proverbs which assert its preeminence seem to be numerous. ... There used to be a controversy as to the age of this cathedral, which must, however, one would think, long since have been settled. It was asserted that it was the very church built at the end of the ninth century during the reign of Ordoño II; and t only proof of this was the inscription upon the fine fourteenth-century monument of the king which still stands in the aisle of the chevet behind the high altar. Fortunately, however, in addition to the indubitable evidence of the building itself, there is sufficient documentary evidence to give with tolerable exactness the dates of the commencement and completion of the existing church, and I did not see, and believe there is not, a relic of the church which preceded it still remaining.
Don Manrique, bishop of Leon from 1181 to 1205, is said to have been the first founder of the present cathedral. The contemporary chronicler Don Lucas de Tuy speaks most positively on this point, and as he wrote his history in the convent of San Isidoro close by, it is difficult to dispute his testimony. How much he completed nowhere appears, though, judging by the style of the church, I should say it could have been but very little. Later than this, in 1258, during the episcopate of Don Marin Fernandez, a junta of all the bishops of the kingdom of Leon was held at Madrid, at which the state of the fabric of the cathedral was discussed, and forty days of indulgence offered to those who made offerings towards the further promotion of the works. Sixteen years later a council was held in Leon, and again the state of the fabric of the church was discussed and indulgence offered to those who gave alms for it. Finally, in 1303, the bishop Don Gonzalez gave back to the use of the Chapter a property which had been devoted to the work of the church, 'because the work is now done, thanks be to God'.
I have elsewhere in this volume had occasion to show how much the Spaniards borrowed from the French in their architecture. Certain entire buildings, such as Burgos, Toledo, and Santiago, are distinctly derived from French churches, and in all cases are somewhat later in date than the French examples with which they most nearly correspond. If we apply this test to Leon it will be impossible to admit that any part of the existing church was built much before 1250. the church from beginning to end is thoroughly French; French in its detail, in its plan, and in its general design. And inasmuch as there is no long and regular sequence of Spanish buildings leading up step by step to the developed style which it exhibits, it is quite out of the question to give it credit for an earlier existence than the corresponding French churches...
The churches which are nearest in style to Leon are, I think, the cathedrals at Amiens and Rheims, and perhaps the later part of Saint Denis. Of these, Amiens was in building from 1220 to 1269, and Rheims from 1211 to 1241. But both are slightly earlier in their character than Leon. In all three the chapels of the apse are planned in the same way; that is to say, they are polygonal and not circular in their outlines, and the sections of the columns, the plans of the bases and capitals, and the detail of the arches and groining ribs are as nearly as may be the same; and in all these points the resemblance between them and Leon Cathedral is remarkable.
In plan the cathedral consists of a nave and aisles of six bays, transepts, a choir of three bays, and chevet of five sides, with a surrounding aisle and pentagonal chapels beyond. There are two western towers, a large cloister on the north side... the chevet projects beyond the line of the old city wall, one of the towers of which is still left on the east side of the cloister.
The columns throughout are cylindrical, with attached shafts on the cardinal sides, the groining-shafts towards the nave and choir being, however, triple instead of single. In the apse, the small shafts are not placed regularly round the main shaft, but their position is altered to suit the angles at which the arches are built. The same alteration of plan occurs at Amiens, a work which was in progress about 1240, and to which... the plan of this cathedral bears considerable resemblance.
The feature which most struck me in this cathedral was the wonderful lightness which characterises its construction in every part. The columns of the nave are of moderate size, and the arches which they carry very thin, whilst the large and lofty clerestory, and the triforium below it, were both pierced to such an extent as to leave a pier to receive the groining smaller than I think I ever saw elsewhere in so large a church. There are double flying buttresses, one above the other, and the architect trusted, no doubt, that the weight of the groining would be carried down through them to such an extent as to make it safe to venture on as much as he did. Moreover, he was careful to economise the weight where possible: and with this view he filled in the whole of his vaults with a very light tufa, obtained from the mountains north of Leon. In short, when this cathedral was planned, its architect must either have resolved that is should exceed all others in the slender airiness of its construction, or he must have been extremely incautious if not reckless. It is not a little curious that in France, at the same time, the same attempt was being made, and with the like result. The architect of Beau8vais, unable to surpass the majestic combination of stable loftiness with beauty of form, which characterised the rather earlier work at Amiens, tried instead to excel him alive in height, and in lightness of construction. No one can pretend that he was an incompetent man, yet his work was so imprudently daring, that it was impossible to avoid a catastrophe; and we now have it rebuilt, to some extent in the same design after its fall, but with so many additional points of support as very much to spoil its symmetry and beauty. Here, then, we have an exactly parallel case; for at Leon, no sooner was the church completed than it became necessary to build up the outer lights, both of the clerestory and triforium, to save the work from the same misfortune...
This cathedral is a mere lantern, it has scarcely a yard of plain unpierced wall anywhere, and the main thought of its architect was evidently how he might increase to the utmost extent the size of the windows ,and the spaces for the glorious glass with which he contrived to fill the church. No greater fault could have been committed in such a climate. This lavish indulgence in windows would have been excessive even in England, and must have always been all but insupportable in Spain. It was the design of French and not Spanish artists, for in their own undoubted works these last always wisely reduced their windows to the smallest possible dimensions.
Leon Cathedral is, indeed, in almost every respect worthy to be ranked amongst the noblest churches in Europe. Its detail is rich and beautiful throughout, its plan very excellent, the sculpture with which it is adorned quite equal in quantity and character to that of any church of the age, and the stained glass with which its windows are everywhere filled, perhaps some of the most brilliant in Europe.
The triforium throughout the church was originally glazed. In order to obtain this the aisles were covered with gabled roofs, whose ridges were parallel with the nave; and in order to allow of this being done a stone gutter was formed below the sills of the clerestory windows, and below this again corbels were built into the wall to carry the aisle roofs. Cross gutters also of stone were carried through the roof in each bay from the clerestory gutter to the outer wall of the aisles. I cannot say that the effect of this arrangement is good. The eye seems to require some grave space of wall between the main arches and the glazing of the clerestory; and it is difficult to say on what ground the triforium is to treated as a separate architectural division of the fabric, when it is in truth nothing more than a prolongation of the clerestory.
The windows throughout have good traceries. They are all of pure geometrical character; those in the chapels of the choir being of two lights, with large cusped circles in the head, and those in the clerestory of four lights, subdivided into two divisions, similar to the chapel windows, with another cusped circle above. The heads of the lights throughout the windows are uncusped, the cusping being confined to the traceries. The clerestory windows originally had six lights, but the outer lights were rather clumsy additions to the original scheme for four-light windows, and have since been walled up, to give the necessary strength to the groining piers.
The grand feature of the west front is the beautiful porch which extends all across, forming three grand archways, corresponding with the nave and aisles, with smaller and extremely pointed arches between them. These arches are all supported on clustered shafts, standing between four and five feet from the main wall, in which the doorways are set. Statues are set on corbels round the detached shafts, and again in the jambs of all the doorways, and the tympana and archivolts of the latter are everywhere crowded with sculpture. An open parapet is carried all across the front above the porch, and above this the west end is pierced with a row of four windows corresponding with the triforium, and again, above, by a very large and simple wheel-window. The finish of the west front is completely modernised, with a seventeenth-century gable between two pinnacles.
The sculpture of the west doors well deserves description. It is charming work, of precisely the same character as the best French work of the latter half of the thirteenth century,and there is a profusion of it.
The central west door has in the tympanum our Lord seated, with angels, and St John and the Blessed Virgin worshipping on either side. Below is the Last Judgment, the side of the Blessed being as pretty and interesting as anything I have seen. A youth sits at a small organ playing sweet songs to those who go to Paradise; and a king, going jauntily, and as if of right, towards St Peter, is met by a grave person, who evidently tells him that he must depart to the other and sadder side. The three orders of the arch are filled with the resurrection of the dead, angels taking some, and devils others, as they rise from their graves – the whole mixed very indiscriminately. On the central shaft is a statue of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord, now with wretched taste dressed up and enclosed in a glass case, to the great damage of the whole doorway.
The north-west doorway has its tympanum divided in three horizontal lines. The lower compartment has the Salutation, the Nativity, an Angel, and the Shepherds; the middle the Magi adoring our Lord in the Blessed Virgin's arms, and the Flight into Egypt; and the upper, the Massacre of the Innocents. The arch of this door is elliptic, and the space between it and the tympanum is filled with figures of angels with crowns and censers, playing an organ and other instruments, and singing from books.
The south-west doorway has the tympanum divided as the last, and in the lower compartment the death of the Blessed Virgin; next to this our Lord and the Blessed Virgin seated; and above, angels putting a crown on her head. The archivolt here is adorned with one order of sitting figures of saints and two of angels.
In the church itself are several fine monuments. The most elaborate is that of Ordoño II, the original founder of the old cathedral, which occupies the eastern bay of the apse, with its back to the high altar. This is sometimes spoken of as if it were a contemporary work. It is, however, obviously a work of the fourteenth century, and recalls to mind some of the finest monuments in our own churches. The effigy of the king, laid on a sloping stone, so that it looks out from the monumental arch, is singularly noble, very simple, of great size and uncommon dignity.
The choir occupies the two eastern bays of the nave, and its woodwork is fine, though of late fifteenth-century date. There are large figures in bas-relief, carved in the panels behind the stalls. There is a western door from the nave into the Coro; and in part on this account, and in part from its considerable scale, the nave has less than usual of the air of uselessness which the Spanish arrangement of the Coro produces.
I have already incidentally mentioned that the windows are full of fine stained glass. It is all of the richest possible colour, and most of it about the same date as the church. Modern critics would, no doubt, object to some of the drawing for its rudeness and want of accuracy. Yet to me this work seemed to be a most enigmatic proof – if any were needed – that we who talk so much about drawing are altogether wrong in our sense of the office which stained glass has to fulfil in our buildings. We talk glibly about good drawing, and forget altogether the much greater importance of good colour. At Leon the drawing is forgotten altogether, and I defy anyone to be otherwise than charmed with the glories of the effect created solely by the colour. At present in England our glass is all but invariably bad – nay, contemptible – in colour...