the Spaniards,
led by three kings and their warlike prelates, to defeat a Moslem army
of half a million and gain the glorious victory of Las Navas de Tolosa
on the sixteenth of August, 1212.

With Rome's firm grasp on the Spanish Peninsula came temples no less
beautiful than those the great Mother Church was planting in every
portion of her dominion north of the Pyrenees,--Leon, Burgos, Toledo and
Valencia rose in proud challenge to Amiens, Rheims, Beauvais and
Chartres.

Leon may be called French,--yes, unquestionably so, but that is no
detraction or denial of her native "gentileza." She may be the very
embodiment of French planning, her general dimensions like those of
Bourges; her portals certainly recall those of Chartres, and the
planning of her apsidal chapels, her bases, arches, and groining ribs,
remind one of Amiens and Rheims; but nevertheless this exotic flower
blooms as gloriously in a Spanish desert as those that sprang up amid
the vineyards or in the Garden of France.

[Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF LEON CATHEDRAL

A. Capilla Mayor.
B. Choir.
C. Crossing.
D. Tombs.
E. Trascoro.
F. Towers.
G. Cloisters.]

Leon is almost as old as the history of Spain. In the first century
after Christ, the seventh Roman legion, on the order of Augustus,
pitched their tents where the city now stands, built their customary
rectangular enclosure with its strong walls and towers, happily seconded
by the nature of the surrounding country. From here the wild hordes of
the Asturias could be kept in check. The city was narrowly built in the
fork of two rivers, on ground allowing neither easy approach nor
expansion, so that the growth has, even up to the twentieth century,
been within the ancient walls, and the streets and squares are in
consequence narrow and cramped. On many of the blocks of those old walls
may still be seen carved in the clear Roman lettering, "Legio septima
gemina, pia, felix." The name of Leon is merely a corruption first used
by the Goths of the Roman "Legio." Roman dominion survived the empire
for many years, being first swept away when the Gothic hordes in the
middle of the sixth century descended from the north under the
conqueror, Loevgild. Its Christian bishopric was possibly the first in
Spain, founded in the darkness of the third century, since which time
the little city can boast an unbroken succession of Leonese bishops,
although a number, during the turbulent de