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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
The eleven diligent volumes of Don Antonio López Ferreiro's Historia de la Santa Apostolica Metropolitana Iglesia de Santiago de Compostela contain a mass of documents related to the history of the cathedral of Santiago, but, in spite of this wealth of material, the date when the building was begun has never been clearly established. The Historia Compostelana (i, 78) states: ‘Est autem B. Jacobi specialis et praeclara nova Ecclesia incoepta Era I.C.XVI. V Idus Jul.’ (an. 1078), thus giving the date as A.D. 1078. However, in the Codex Calixtinus, a twelfth-century piece of pilgrimage propaganda, containing among other things a description of the cathedral, no less than four different dates are given for the event: ‘Ecclesia autem fuit incepta in Era MCXVI. Ab anno vero quo incepta fuit usque ad letum Adefonsi fortissimi et famosi regis Aragonensis habentur anni LIX, et ad necem Henrici regis Anglorum LXII, et ad mortem Ludovici pinguissimi regis Francorum LXIII, et ab anno quo primus lapis in fundamento eius ponitur usque ad illum quo ultimus mittitur XLIIII anni habentur.’
page 336 note 1 (Santiago de Compostela, 1898–1909.) For the architectural history of the cathedral with reconstruction drawings see Conant, Kenneth John, The Early Architectural History of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926)Google Scholar. For a guide to the cathedral see Villa-Amil, José y Castro, , La Catedral de Santiago (Madrid, 1909)Google Scholar. For an account of the most recent discoveries and for reproductions of the sculptures, see Gómez-Moreno, Manuel, El Arte románico español (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1934), 112–33Google Scholar, láminas cxliii–clxxxvii. My forthcoming Spanish Romanesque Architecture of the Eleventh Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press) will treat of the cathedral in relation to other Spanish architecture of the period.
page 336 note 2 Flórez, Enrique, España Sagrada (Madrid, 1765), xx, 137–8Google Scholar. Flórez, in another part of his work (xix, 204), concluded that the church was begun in 1082 on the basis of a statement in the Historia Compostelana (iii, 1) under the year 1128 that the cathedral was substantially completed 46 years after it was begun. The passage in question (España Sagrada, xx, 473) simply states that, although the church was practically finished 46 years after it was begun, the subsidiary buildings were still lacking, in consequence of which scandalized pilgrims ‘in circuitione totius ecclesiae vagabuntur explorantes ubi claustra et officinae haberentur’. The date 1128 appears only in Flórez's editorial marginalia, and I see nothing in the text to imply that the cathedral was begun 46 years before 1128.
page 336 note 3 A compilation, exalting the glories of St. James, in five books, the last of which is a twelfth-century Baedeker for the pilgrim to his shrine. The Pilgrim's Guide was first published by Fita, Fidel and Vinson, Julien, Le Codex de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle (Liber de miraculis S. Jacobi) Livre IV (Paris, 1882)Google Scholar. The description of the cathedral has been reprinted by López Ferreiro, op. cit. iii, Appendix, 8–24, and Mortet, Victor, Recueil des textes relatifs à l'histoire de l'architecture et à la condition des architectes en France au moyen âge (Paris: A. Picard, 1911–29), i, 397–407Google Scholar, and translated into English by K. J. Conant, op. cit. 49–58. The first complete text of the Codex Calixtinus will be published in the summer of 1935 by the Seminario de Estudos Galegos of Santiago de Compostela.
page 337 note 1 Fol. 182 verso. Whitehill, W. M., ed., O Pelerinaxe a Compostela: Codex Calixtinus (Santiago de Compostela: Seminario de Estudos Galegos, 1935), i, 386Google Scholar.
page 337 note 2 Op. cit. 21–2.
page 337 note 3 López Ferreiro, op. cit. iii, Appendix, 3–7. Cf. ibid., iii, 20–4.
page 338 note 1 The relics of St. James were preserved in the ruins of a late Roman tomb, which was itself considered as a relic, so there was never any possibility of moving the shrine. Cf. K. J. Conant, op. cit. 7, fig. 1.
page 338 note 2 Don Diego Peláez was given his bishopric in 1070 by Sancho II, who was killed before Zamora, and probably, like most of Sancho's partisans (including the Cid), never became entirely reconciled to his brother Alfonso VI, who must have been involved in the murder. Don Diego conceived the logical idea of delivering Galicia into the hands of William the Conqueror, but William's death in 1087 spoiled the plan. Alfonso got wind of it and clapped Don Diego into prison, allowing him liberty only to appear before the council of Husillos in 1088, where he publicly declared himself unworthy of his episcopal office and gave up his ring and pastoral staff. In spite of the protests of the Pope, he continued in prison until 1094, after which he lived as an exile in Aragon. He died not later than 1122. Don Diego Peláez's political difficulties, due largely to his being a follower of the weaker of two contending monarchs, should not be allowed to obscure his administrative gifts nor diminish the credit due to him as the founder of the cathedral of Santiago. Cf. Flórez, España Sagrada, xix, 201–7; xx, 16, 254–5, 373; and Pidal, Ramón Menéndez, La España del Cid (Madrid: Editorial Plutarco, 1929), i, 197–221, 371–3Google Scholar.
page 338 note 3 This bargain also gave the bishop during the period of construction the alms offered at the altars of San Salvador and San Juan Apóstol, as well as half of those offered in coin at the altar of Santiago, which pertained to the monastery by old agreements. These funds were insufficient for the work, which Professor Conant has estimated could not cost to-day less than £800,000, so Don Diego placed in the church a special chest—as so many bishops have done since—clearly marked ARCA OPERIS BEATI IACOBI, begged donations wherever possible, and got from the king the right to coin money and the exemption from taxes for any one who worked on the church. The pilgrims were pressed into service to carry stone from Triacastella to Castaniolla, where it was burned into lime and brought by cart into Santiago. Fortunately there were good granite quarries in the vicinity. Cf. López Ferreiro, op. cit. iii, 24–8. For a discussion of the architects and their nationality, see K. J. Conant, op. cit. 18–19. The name of another architect, one Stephanus ‘magister operis beati Iacobi’, who worked after 1101 at Pamplona, has recently come to light: cf. Lacarra, J. M., ‘La Catedral románica de Pamplona’, Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia, vii (1931), 73–86Google Scholar.
page 339 note 1 The Historia Compostelana even gives the exact day of the month, 11 July.
page 339 note 2 Thus called because of the silversmiths' shops in the square facing the portal. Similarly, the north transept portal is known as the Puerta de la Azabacheria, because of the shops in which jet (azabache) souvenirs were sold to pilgrims.
page 339 note 3 Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain (London: J. M. Dent, 1914), i, 203Google Scholar.
page 339 note 4 Catálogo Monumental de España: Provincia de León (1906–8) (Madrid: Ministerio de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes, 1925), 376Google Scholar. Evidence in support of this conclusion has been eagerly awaited by every one interested in the chronology of Santiago: however, in Sr. Gómez-Moreno's latest book, El arte románico español, 115–16, he merely repeats the assertion without bringing forward any epigraphical analogies whatsoever in its defence.
page 339 note 5 ‘Leonesque Romanesque and Southern France’, Art Bulletin, viii (1925–6), 248–50Google Scholar.
page 339 note 6 Hübner, Aemilius, Inscriptiones Hispaniae Christianae (Berlin, 1871), 76Google Scholar.
page 339 note 7 In review of Deschamp's, PaulÉtude sur la paléographie des inscriptions lapidaires, in Art Bulletin, xii (1930), 106Google Scholar, note 42. Don Jesús Carro García has presented evidence in favour of reading the date as 1074 or 1079: ‘A data da inscripción da porta das Praterías’, Arquivos do Seminario de Estudos Galegos, iv (1932), 221–35.Google Scholar I cannot agree with Sr. Carro's conclusions, but his article is of interest, for he publishes reproductions of two old drawings of the inscription, which prove that there has been no significant re-cutting or alteration, at least during the past two centuries.
page 340 note 1 ‘Notes sur la date des sculptures de Compostelle et de Léon’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, VIe période, i (1929), 343–4Google Scholar.
page 340 note 2 Mr. Schapiro cites a ligature of X and V in an inscription of 951 at San Martín de Salas (Oviedo), preceded by LXX, and hence undoubtedly a symbol of 15: cf. Hübner, Aemilius, Inscriptionum Hispaniae Christianarum Supplementum (Berlin, 1900)Google Scholar, no. 495. Romero, Padre C. García, ‘De re epigráfica’, Boletín de la Real Academia Gallega, xiv (1923–4), 187Google Scholar, reproduces an identical ligature, to which he gives the value of 15, in an inscription of 881 at Pastoriza, near La Coruña.
page 341 note 1 On capitals at the entrance to the ambulatory chapel of San Salvador angels bearing scrolls present Alfonso VI and Don Diego Peláez to an admiring audience as the persons responsible for the building. The inscriptions are: (north capital) REGNANTE PRINCIPE ADEFONSO CONSTRVCTVM OPVS and (south Capital) TEMPORE PRESVLIS DIDACI INCEPTVM HOC OPVS FVIT. Reproductions in Gómez-Moreno, El Arte románico español, lámina clviii, and casts in the Trocadéro.
page 341 note 2 The central ambulatory chapel.
page 341 note 3 ‘Arqueología gallega: Inscripciones inéditas de la Catedral de Santiago’, Boletín de la Real Academia Gallega, xv (1926), 314–20Google Scholar.
page 341 note 4 El Arte románico español, 113.
page 341 note 5 Indicated by italics.
page 342 note 1 Flórez, España Sagrada, xx, 52–3. López Ferreiro, op. cit. iii, 228, gives the consecration date as 1102, but without any apparent reason.
page 342 note 2 According to the Chronicon Burgense (España Sagrada, xxiii, 309), the winter of 1077–8 was very severe from November to Quadragesima, so little progress could have been made before the spring of 1078. This probably accounts for the delay in proceeding to the corner-stone ceremony.