t. They seem indeed venerable. Some of the old palaces
present a curious all-over design executed in Moorish manner and with
Moorish feeling. It is carved into the sidewalk, showing in relief a
geometrical, circular pattern, each circle filled with a quantity of
small Gothic lancets, surely difficult both to design and to execute.
Some of the old parish churches stand with their deep splays,
round-headed arches and windows and broad, recessed portals almost as
perfectly preserved as a thousand years ago. The Romanesque style died
late and hard. Even in the thirteenth century, the city could boast
thirty such parish churches. To-day they seem fairly prayer-worn. Beyond
their towers stretch the plains in every direction, seamed by stone
walls and dotted with gray rocks. Olive and poplar groves cluster round
the small hillocks, rising here and there like camels' backs.

[Illustration: KEY OF PLAN OF SEGOVIA CATHEDRAL

A. Capilla Mayor.
B. Choir.
C. Crossing.
D. Sacristy.
E. Cloisters.
F. Tower.]

As long as the welfare and development of the city depended on strong
natural fortifications, Segovia remained intact. To the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries belongs her glory. Her power passed with the middle
ages and their chivalry, and in the sixteenth century she was a dead
city.

Villages, convents and churches lie scattered over the plain, the houses
crowded together for protection against the blazing, scorching, pitiless
sun. Standing by itself is the ancient and severe church, where many a
knight-templar kept his last vigil before turning his back on the plains
of Castile, and apart sleeps the monastery where Torquemada was once
prior. They all crumble golden brown against the horizon.

Many a bloody fray or revolution upset the city during the middle ages.
The minority of Alfonso XI witnessed one of the worst. The revolt which
broke out in so many of the Spanish cities against the Emperor Charles
V, proved most fatal to the Cathedral of Segovia.

The first Romanesque Cathedral had been built in honor of St. Mary,
under the walls of the Alcazar, during the first half of the twelfth
century. It was consecrated in 1228 by the papal legate, Juan, Bishop of
Sabina. Some two hundred and fifty years later, a new and magnificent
Gothic cloister was added to it by Bishop Juan Arias Davila, and
likewise a new episcopal palace more fitting times of greater luxury and
magnificence. This palace, desp