concealed in the evolution of the building. Byzantine
influences follow,--most obvious in the magnificent dome crowning the
crossing. The School of Aquitaine of course made itself felt through
Bishop Jeronimo as well as several of his successors. Great portions are
Gothic, slightly visible in some of the later exterior work, but
throughout in the last interior portions of the great arches and vaults.

After carefully considering all these influences and going to their
roots, we may conclude that the old Cathedral of Salamanca is both in
plan and structure a Romanesque church of the Burgundian School built on
Spanish soil by French monks from Cluny, who in their new surroundings
were strongly affected by Byzantine and Oriental influences and possibly
by the original Spanish or Moorish development of the dome. At a later
date, under Aquitaine bishops, certain forms of vaulting characteristic
of their region were adopted as well as devices to bring about the
transition between the circular dome and the square base.

Strange to say it is a Romanesque church erected at the time when what
are regarded as the finest Gothic cathedrals were being built in France.
The Spaniard clung more tenaciously to the older style, which in many
ways adapted itself better to his climate and requirements, while it
easily flowed into native streams of inspiration to form with them a
mighty whole. The church is neither French nor Spanish nor Arab nor
Italian in its various composition, but distinctly Romanesque in
spirit.

[Illustration: Photo by Author

THRESHING OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF SALAMANCA]

The plan is in general that of the old basilica: a nave with side aisles
of five bays, a crossing prolonged one bay to the south beyond the side
aisle, while to the east the nave and side aisles all terminate in a
semicircular apsidal chapel. A portion of the southern wall of the huge
new Cathedral replaces the northern one of the old church by encroaching
on its side aisle. A flight of eighteen broad stone steps occupies the
northern bay of the old Cathedral's crossing and leads from its
considerably lower pavement up to the level of the new one. To the south
lie the great cloisters. It was a plan which for its time was
undoubtedly as magnificent in scale as it seemed diminutive and
insignificant in the sixteenth century when the new Cathedral was built.

The massiveness on which the old Romanesque builders depended to obtain
their elevations an