sely connected
with the civil life of its city that one cannot be thoroughly studied
without some familiarity with the other. Spanish cathedrals differ in
this respect from their great English and French sisters. In England,
cathedrals were built and owned by the clergy, they belonged to the
priests, they were surrounded and hedged in from the outside world by
their extensive lawns and cloisters, refectories, chapter houses,
bishops' palaces, and numerous monastic buildings. They were shut off
from the rest of the world by high walls. In France, the cathedrals were
the centre of civic life; their organs were the heart-throbs of the
people; their bells were notes of warning. The very houses of the
artisans climbed up to their sides and nestled for protection between
the buttresses of the great Mother Church. Notre Dame d'Amiens, for
instance, was the church of a commune, what Walter Pater calls a
"people's church." They belonged to the people more than to the clergy.
They were a civil rather than an ecclesiastical growth, essentially the
layman's glory.

[Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF TOLEDO CATHEDRAL

A. Chapel of Saint Blase.
B. Chapel of the Parish of Saint Peter.
C. Octagon.
D. Chapel of the Virgin of the Sanctuary.
E. Large Sacristy.
F. Court of the Hall of Accounts.
G. Chapel of the New Kings.
H. Chapel of the Master of Santiago, D. Alvaro de Luna.
I. Chapel of Saint Ildefonso.
K. Chapter House.
L. Chapel of the Old Kings or of the Holy Cross.
M. Capilla Mayor.
N. Chapel of the Tower or of the Dean.
O. Mozarabic Chapel.
P. Choir.
Q. Portal of the Lions.
R. Portal of the Olive, or Gate of La Llana.
S. Portal of the Choir.
T. Portal of the Little Bread.
V. Portal of the Visitation.
W. Portal of the Tower or Gate of Hell.
X. Portal of the Scriveners or of Judgment.]

In Spain, the church belonged to both. Municipal and ecclesiastical
history were one and the same, going hand in hand in bloody strife or
peaceful union,--the city was the body, the cathedral its animating
soul. The cathedrals were meant, not for prayer alone, but to live
in,--they were for festivals, meetings, thanksgivings, for surging,
excited crowds. The church was an _imperium in imperio_. It was the
rallying place in all great undertakings or excitements. Here the Cortes
often met, the great church conclaves assembled, the mystical Autos or
sacred pl