reat cathedral church of the archbishop and bishop, the
eleven dignitaries, forty canons, twenty prebendaries, twenty minor
canons, twenty veinteneros, twenty chaplains and the host of a choir,
but the beloved home of the poor, miserable, starving sons and daughters
of Santa Maria de la Sede.

Although architecturally the injurious effect of placing choir and high
altar in the middle of the church cannot be overstated, from the point
of view of ritual, of closely uniting the officiating body with the
worshipers, it is undoubtedly a far happier arrangement than where the
prayers and psalms proceed from the extreme apsidal termination. In the
former case the religious guidance seems to emanate from the very soul
of the edifice, and to reach all humble worshipers in the remotest nooks
and corners.

The Spanish nature craves the sensuous and theatrical in religious
rites, and not far-away but intimately, as part and parcel of it. In the
time of the great ecclesiastical power of the bishopric of Seville
20,000 pounds of wax were burned every year, 500 masses were daily
celebrated at the 80 altars, and the wine consumed in the yearly
sacrament amounted to 18,750 litres. Seville's children wished to be
close to the glare and flicker of the wax candles and torches and to
hear distinctly the unintelligible Latin service. Seek the shade of the
cathedral when the July sun is burning outside, or during one of the
nights of Holy Week, when the great Miserere of Eslava is sung, and you
will find it the most thronged spot in all Seville. In the words of
Havelock Ellis: "Profoundly impressive,--around the choir an impassive
mass, in the rest of the church characteristic Spanish groups crouched
at the bases of the great clustered shafts, and chatted and used their
fans familiarly, as if in their own homes, while dogs ran about
unmolested. The vast church lent itself superbly to the music and the
scene. It was a scene stranger than the designs of Martin, as bizarre as
something out of Poe or Baudelaire. In the dim light the huge piers
seemed larger and higher than ever, while the faint altar lights dimly
lit up the iron screen of the Capilla Mayor, as in Rembrandt's
conception of the Temple of Jerusalem. In the scene of enchantment one
felt that Santa Maria of Seville had delivered up the last secret of her
mystery and romance."

If you enter the church from the west through the main portal, or the
Puerta Mayor, the whole length of th