Palencia

“ The cathedral of Palencia is well worth the pause, even though the visit may be limited to a night in the Continental Inn and a hasty daybreak visit to the church; the small cities of central Spain are of so individual a character that each stamps itself separately and indelibly on the memory. ”

“ The little cathedral town of Paléncia lies a little off the direct road; but it is most conveniently situated as a half-way house to Búrgos. The cathedral is a singularly fine one, though rather ramshackle externally; and, like a true Spanish cathedral, it is crammed with works of art. The streets are all quaintly colonnaded; but we were somewhat taken aback when we were shown the entrance to the Fonda, a miserable rat-hole in a blank and dirty wall. We had expected something better of Paléncia:—yet nothing quite so good as the delicious shady patio which we found at the end of the passage ”

“ The main highways are good; the other roads often bad. The Canal de Castilla, begun in 1753, and completed in 1832, connects Alar del Rey with Valladolid. Wheat and other cereals, vegetables, hemp and flax are extensively grown, except in the mountainous districts. Flour and wine are made in large quantities, and there are manufactures of linen and woollen stuffs, oil, porcelain, leather, paper and rugs. Palencia rugs are in great demand throughout Spain. The only town with more than 5000 inhabitants is Palencia (q.v.) ”

“ This fair, though principally intended for the sale of horses, is frequented by merchants from many parts of Spain, who attend with goods of various kinds, and amongst them I remarked many of the Catalans whom I had previously seen at Medina and Valladolid.
There is nothing remarkable in Leon, which is an old gloomy town, with the exception of its cathedral, in many respects a counterpart of the church of Palencia, exhibiting the same light and elegant architecture, but, unlike its beautiful sister, unadorned with splendid paintings. ”

“ Like the cathedral of Palencia, it lacks a western front; the apse is semicircular, strengthened by heavy leaning buttresses; the upper, towerless rim of this same body is decorated with an ogival festoon set off by means of the primitive pinnacles of the top of the buttresses. The northern (Renaissance or plateresque) front is, though beautiful and severe in itself, a calamity when compared with the Romanesque edifice, as is also the new and horrid clock-tower. ”

“ Diego Fernandez de Palencia, or Palentino, as he is usually called, from the place of his birth came over to Peru, and served as a private in the royal army raised to quell the insurrections that broke out after Gasca's return to Castile Amidst his military occupations, he found leisure to collect materials for a history of the period, to which he was further urged by the viceroy, Mendoza, Marques de Canete, who bestowed on him, as he tells us, the post of Chronicler of Peru. ”

“ DETAIL OF CHOIR-STALLS
(Convent of San Marcos, León)
Burgundy is said to have been the birthplace of Felipe de Borgoña, but of his early history we [71] have no tidings. In documents which bear his signature he styles himself “imaginario, resident at Burgos.” Three such documents exist. On August 1st, 1505, he agrees, for 130,000 maravedis, to make “such images as may be necessary” for the altar of the high chapel of Palencia cathedral, “he with his own hand to carve the hands and faces, out of good smooth walnut, without painting.” This document is dated from Palencia. ”

“ They sing their faith, we whisper ours, but the words have the same meaning, and the same thought is in the mind ... Draw a bias line enclosing the Basque provinces,—Navarre, Castile, Aragon, Catalonia, and you have there old religious Spain as she appears in history, with a vivid and practical faith, an irreproachable clergy, a piety of the heart reflected in the manners."—RENÉ BAZIN.
WE left Valladolid toward evening, in order to stop over a night in Palencia, before going north to Asturias. ”

“ Arfe's workmanship of the custodia of Avila cathedral, which he began in 1564 and terminated in 1571, won for him an early and extended fame. He also made the custodia of Burgos (brutally melted during the Spanish War of Independence) , and those of Valladolid (finished in 1590) , Lugo, Osma, and the Hermandad del Santísimo at Madrid. The custodia of Palencia is also thought by some to be his handiwork.
But Arfe's crowning labour was the Greco-Roman custodia of Seville cathedral (Plate xvii.) . ”

“ They are as unlike each other as the fates of the princes they record. The Chronicle of Castillo is written with great plainness of manner, and, except in a few moral reflections, chiefly at the beginning and the end, seems to aim at nothing but the simplest and even the driest narrative; [286] while [p. 188] the Chronicle of Palencia, who had been educated in Italy under the Greeks recently arrived there from the ruins of the Eastern Empire, is in a false and cumbrous style ”

“ The cathedrals of Toledo and Palencia are particularly rich in sets of magnificently embroidered vestments. “Each set,” says Riaño, “generally includes a chasuble, dalmatic, cope, altar frontal, covers for the gospel stands, and other smaller pieces. The embroideries on the orphreys, which are formed of figures of saints, are as perfect as the miniatures on illuminated MSS.”
[37] The device of Ferdinand the Catholic was a yoke; the sheaf of arrows, that of Isabella. ”

“ The old man haled off the horse, muttering that it would be a bad bargain for his Grace, to which Manvers replied that we should see. Then he went into the Providencia for his coffee and eggs.
CHAPTER III DIVERSIONS OF TRAVEL
If Sahagun puts you out of conceit with Castile, you are not likely to be put in again by Palencia; for a second-rate town in this kingdom is like a piece of the plain enclosed by a wall, and only emphasises the desolation at the expense of the freedom ”

“ Yet when we look carefully about us, we find that time has been kind to those early sanctuaries which were the cause of the town’s existence, and which have merited for it the title of ‘the holy.’ Approaching more as a pilgrim than a critic, in no sceptical frame of mind, you will find few places in Spain more deeply interesting. And though it is neither the oldest nor the most interesting architecturally of the local monuments, your steps will turn at once to the Cámara Santa, attached to the cathedral—the Palladium of Spain. ”

“ Although it has points in common with Segovia, Cuenca, and all these ancient cities of Castile, Avila, the home of the saint-like Teresa, Spain’s lady patroness, with its granite approach and its massive granite walls, its memories, its fortified cathedral, and its severe menacing air, is as well worthy a visit as any city in Spain. ”

“ It can be seen clearly that the beginning of this old civilization was much older than the earliest great cities, and, also, that these were much more ancient than the time when any of the later built or reconstructed cities whose relics still exist, were left to decay. If we suppose Palenque to have been deserted some six hundred years previous to the Spanish Conquest, this date will carry us back only to the last days of its history as an inhabited city. ”

“ Toledo and Cordova.
CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DE LA BLANCA, TOLEDO.
SPAIN is a country that has never laid aside the sword, or cast off her armour. Her martial spirit is lulled to rest, but its memory is kept alive in the frowning battlements, the gaunt fortresses that crown each peopled eminence, and guard the approaches of its ancient, war-scarred cities. Imperial Toledo, “the crown of Spain, the light of the world, free from the time of the mighty Goths,” as Padilla describes it, is a rock built upon a rock 1,820 feet above the sea. ”

“ These were all buried around the body of the king, whose tomb was of rock, and a huge mound of earth erected over them by the labor of thousands of slaves taken in battle. Yet their chief king, in the day of their great power, she called Palenque, placing his capital to north and east of this place, a land journey of thirty days. Here was built a great city of wood and stone, surrounded by an immense wall of earth, to which all the smaller kings journeyed in state once each year to make account of their kingdoms, and offer up slaves on the altar of the great temple in sacrifice to the Sun. ”

“ SOME of the oldest and most truly national cities of Spain are situated in the two Castiles—silent cities peopled by silent men, in the midst of a mountainous, silent country. It is no light thing to bear the stamp of Castile. The men, reserved, well bred, loyal, and proud, carry their Castilian origin in their faces, their habits, and their cast of mind; and the cities are Castilian in their strength and their uncompromising severity. One sees it in the Toledo of New Castile, and finds it in the Burgos of the older province. ”

“ Tarifa, Seville, and the rest of the important cities of Andalusia, fell before the treasure-hunting Berbers; and with the surrender of Valencia, on the death of the Cid, the re-conquest of Mohammedan Spain was practically completed. Order was temporarily restored, lives and property were once more respected, and a new era of peace and prosperity appeared to have begun. But the degenerating influence of wealth and luxurious ease, which in the course of generations had sapped the manhood of Spain’s successive conquerors, played swift havoc with the untutored Berbers. ”

“ Like Teotihuacan, Izamal, and Cozumel, Palenque was a holy place, an important religious centre, a city which was resortedPg 246 to as a place of pilgrimage, teeming with shrines and temples, a vast and much-sought burial-place. In this and in no other way can be explained the silence surrounding this great city, which was probably peopled by a floating population dispersed at the first alarm of the Conquest.
This important city is apparently without civic architecture; no public buildings are found, there seems to have been nothing but temples and tombs. ”

“ HORMESINDA.
At the period of the Moors’ most complete dominion over Spain, Pelayo, the noble scion of her ancient kings, stood almost alone in the defence of his country. Undismayed by the misfortunes of his race and people, or by the oppressive rigours of the conquerors, he never tired of rousing his brethren to a sense of their shameful condition, and stirring them up to the desire of again restoring their religion and the throne of their native rulers. ”

“ The ruined city of Palenque had temples, palaces, baths, and aqueducts. It was twenty miles long, and must have had an enormous population. It is said that there is not a record left. Cortes and his gang took care of what the Toltecs and Aztecs left."
"It is a wonderful country." Nestor said, "but it needs stability in population. Just now, however, we need rest. It is evident that the outlaws are headed for the plain below, and we must catch up with them when they camp for the night."
"I wonder what Fremont will think?" observed Jimmie. ”

“ The casual visitor cannot hope to detect the specks of modernity in this vast temple of the antique. Its ancient grandeur is comparatively impervious to the pretty wiles of modern improvement. One’s eyes wander from the newly-built emporiums to the immensity of its enduring monuments, and one’s mind flings back instinctively into the past, out of which they arose to defy the hand of Time himself. And so the majority of book-makers, who take Spain for their subject, overlook the present condition of the country; the instant life that rushes before their eyes escapes their notice. ”

“ Indeed, when one makes one’s first acquaintance with it, it is difficult to believe that it is the boastedly first city of Spain. Yet the boast is not unjustified in so far, at least, as the concerns of every-day life, polity and progress are concerned. When once the visitor is within the circle of her brighter ways, he will look in vain for any of the smudginess whose kingdom and on-coming have been heralded by smudge; he will speedily recognise the fact that here is rolling by him a greater volume of trade than in all the other great centres of Spanish commercial life put together. ”

“ Padilla bent his thoughts to the last to stand high in the applause of men, and the address to the citizens of Toledo, which he caused to be circulated at his [Pg 110] death, noble and fine-spirited as it was, betrayed not merely a satisfaction with being, but a thirst to be considered the martyr in their cause he was.
So soon as it was known that the king intended to leave Spain, and that the calling of the Cortes together would only increase their taxes, the principal cities sent either petitions or protests against what they deemed so mischievous a measure. ”

“ By referring to a map of Spain you will find the Asturias in the far north, all of four hundred miles from the scene of the disastrous battle; and here it was, in the mountain valleys, surrounded by frowning peaks and gloomy gorges, that Pelayo the Cave King, first ruler of the Goths after their defeat, established his little kingdom. Living at first in caves, then in rude habitations of earth and stone, the hardy mountaineers gradually gathered in hamlets and villages, and in a few years were strong enough to resist the forces that finally penetrated to their abode. ”