ound on which the city has
been compactly and narrowly constructed for safest defense. It must look
to-day almost exactly as it did to the approaching armies of the Middle
Ages, except that the men-at-arms are gone. The defenses are so high
that what is inside is practically hidden from view and all that can be
seen of the city so rich in saints and stones[7] are the loftiest spires
of her churches.

To the Romans, Avela, to the Moors, Abila, the ancient city, powerfully
garrisoned, lay in the territory of the Vaccaei and belonged to the
province of Hispania Citerior. During three later centuries, from time
to time she became Abila, and one of the strongest outposts of Mussulman
defense against the raids of Christian bands from the north. Under both
Goths and Saracens, Avila belonged to the province of Merida. At a very
early date she boasted an episcopal seat, mentioned in church councils
convoked during the seventh century, but, during temporary ascendencies
of the Crescent, she vanishes from ecclesiastical history. For a while
Alfonso I held the city against the Moors, but not until the reign of
Alfonso VI did she permanently become "Avila del rey," and the
quarterings of her arms, "a king appearing at the window of a tower,"
were left unchallenged on her walls.

[Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF AVILA CATHEDRAL

A. Capilla Mayor.
B. Crossing.
C. Cloisters.
D. Towers.
E. Main Entrance.
F. Northern Portal.]

By the eleventh century the cities of Old Castile were ruined and
depopulated by the ravages of war. Even the walls of Avila were
well-nigh demolished, when Count Raymond laid them out anew and with the
blessing of Bishop Pedro Sanchez they rose again in the few years
between 1090 and the turning of the century. The material lay ready to
hand in the huge granite boulders sown broadcast on the bleak hills
around Avila, and from these the walls were rebuilt, fourteen feet thick
with towers forty feet high. The old Spanish writer Cean Bermudez
describes this epoch of Avila's history.

"When," he says, "Don Alfonso VI won Toledo, he had in continuous wars
depopulated Segovia, Avila and Salamanca of their Moorish inhabitants.
He gave his son-in-law, the Count Don Raymond of the house of Burgundy,
married to the Princess Dona Urraca, the charge to repeople them. Avila
had been so utterly destroyed that the soil was covered with stones and
the materials of its ruined houses. To rebuild and re