n their place
the Cross and the Virgin Mary. When the news of this outrage reached the
ears of the King, he returned in wrath to Toledo, swearing he would burn
both wife and prelate who had dared to break the oath he had so solemnly
sworn. The Moslems, sagely fearing later vengeance would be wreaked upon
them should they permit matters to take their course, besought the
returning sovereign to restrain his wrath while they released him from
his oath,--"Whereat he had great joy, and, riding on into the city, the
matter ended peacefully."

The appearance of this fanatic Cluny monk is of the greatest importance
as heralding a new influence in the development and history of Spanish
ecclesiastical architecture. His coming marks the introduction of a
foreign style of building and a revolution in the previous national
methods, known as "obra de los Godos," or work of the Goths. Further,
with the gradual arrival of French ecclesiastics from Cluny and Citeaux,
came also a greater interference from Rome in the management of the
Spanish Church, and a radical limitation of the former power of the
Peninsula's arrogant prelates. Owing to the new influence, the Italian
mass-book was soon presented in place of the ancient Gothic ritual and
breviary. The foreign churchmen likewise aided in uniting sovereign,
clergy, and nobility in common cause against the Saracen infidels now so
firmly ensconced in the Peninsula. Spanish art had previously felt only
national influences; now, through the door opened by the monks, it
received potent foreign elements.

Spain had been far too much occupied with internal strife and political
dissension to have had breathing spell or opportunity for the
development of the fine arts and the building of churches. The passion
for building which the French monks brought with them awoke entirely
dormant qualities in the Spaniard, which in the early Romanesque, but
especially in the Gothic edifices, produced beautiful, but essentially
exotic fruits. First in the days of the Renaissance the architecture
showed features which might be termed original and national. With the
Cluniacs came not only French artisans but Flemish, German, and Italian,
all taking a hand in, and lending their influences to the great works of
the new art.

Nothing remains of the old Moorish-Christian house of worship. It was
torn down by order of Saint Ferdinand (he had laid the foundation stone
of Burgos as early as 1221), who laid the cor