The Cathedral as a Parish Church
Looking for a parishioners’ place in the Medieval Iberian Cathedrals
Résumé
All the cathedrals had the obligation to dedicate part of its clergy to the care of souls, that is, to function as a parish. Within each cathedral chapter, a canon from the high clergy coordinated the chaplains who were in charge of officiating at an altar or chapel destined to be the cathedral parish. But what to do with some faithful who wanted to see the same offices and liturgical acts that the canons saw from their privileged seats in the choir stalls? This article deals with the undefined space dedicated to the laity in the medieval cathedrals of the Iberian Peninsula.
Entrées d’index
Keywords : cathedral, architectural space, canons, parishioners, laity
Texte intégral
1The cathedral was not a building dedicated to the liturgy of the faithful but to that of the canons, whose ceremonies the laity attended as spectators. The community of canons was, however, obliged to devote part of their time to the cura animarum, that is, to the faithful. The Cathedral clergy maintained, therefore, a double life, as did other non-cathedral canonries and monastic communities, such as the Premonstratensians. While celebrations at the main altar and in the choirstalls were reserved for the chapter clergy, parishioners were led on their vital path through the sacramentary at the surrounding altars and chapels, at which were celebrated the administration of the Eucharist, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, confessions and, of course, the whole world around the afterlife, conferring extreme anointing and burials. The cathedral chapter also managed sacramental dispensations on a larger scale, deciding, for instance, whether parishioners could be attended to at other religious institutions in the cathedral city, and by different communities of friars.
2Medieval registers are full of requests, permits and judgments on monasteries’ rights to baptise, confess, preach and, above all, bury devotees in their buildings and its surroundings. In Navarra, on July 23, 1170, King Sancho the Wise was forced to rule on a house that a woman named Maria de Leet had built in Cofín, near the village of Milagro. It was built on a cemetery in which noble people and farmers were buried, alleging that this surprising lay cemetery damaged the rights of the sancta Pampilonensi ecclesie (GOÑI GAZTAMBIDE, 1997, 290-291). At the Council of Seville in 1303, Ferdinand IV of Castile confirmed a privilege of Alfonso X, in which it was determined that those who died in the city would not be buried in any place other than the cathedral. The same privilege required that the bells of the cathedral, should alert the faithful before the beginning of liturgical feasts, should be rung for longer periods and should, in all instances, dominate the acoustic landscape of the city (GONZÁLEZ, 1951, II, 369). In Segovia, between 1254 and 1255, it was the bishop who arbitrated between the parish clergy of the city, the Archdeaconry of Cuéllar and the cathedral precentor and the Premonstratensian monastery of Santa María de los Huertos on the administration of burials, processions and baptisms. The bishop ruled that the monastic community could not baptise, confess and impose penance, to give the Eucharist or extreme unction, to preach to the people, to celebrate funeral vigils outside their church or to bury inside their temple - being able to do it only in the cloister or cemetery of the monastery. In other words, they were not entitled to any of the powers that fell de iure over the "cathedral church and the other parish churches”, this final clause demonstrating how the cathedral was considered analogous to a parish church (VILLAR GARCÍA, 1991, 260, 232-264).
3In 1221, the cathedral chapter of Zaragoza and the clergy of the most important parish church of the city, Santa María la Mayor (known today as Santa María del Pilar), agreed to a peace following one of the toughest episodes of their long-tumultuous relationship. In that date, the cathedral had forced the neighbouring church to renounce their parochial rights, including the right of burials This was only one of a series of disputes that were to follow (CANELLAS, 1989-1990, 555-558). Twenty years later, the parochial rights of marriage, burial and baptism, as well as the order of priority in the processions that ended at the cathedral, were challenged again in a document to arrange the correct parish organization from the city. With regards to the liturgical aspect of the processions, the primacy of the cathedral as the episcopal see remained beyond question. On the remaining issues, Santa María and the other parishes in the city obtained their respective licenses that, although they meant a loss of income, freed the cathedral from an excessive quantity of parishioners and concentrated pastoral acts during certain times of the liturgical year (CANELLAS, 1989-1990, II, 674-677). In 1254, Pope Innocent IV wrote to Bishop Arnaldo de Peralta (†1271) to warn him about the problems posed by the deficient management of parish responsibility on both the cathedral and the city parishes. These problems ranged, according to the letter, from bad confessions to worse preachers, complications in the administration of the sacraments and setbacks in burial rites (CANELLAS, 1989-1990, III, 770-771). The case of Zaragoza’s chapter exemplifies the range and severity of challenges raised by the cathedral’s role as a parish and as rector of parishes.
4The economic benefits of the management of the sacraments were not, however, trivial. Inevitably, cathedrals would be called to regulate the spiritual economies of their cities, including the foundation (or not) of new monasteries that would naturally draw devotees away from parish churches. In Gerona, for instance, the cathedral chapter strictly prohibited clandestine weddings since the celebration of these ceremonies made them loose an important quantity of money. The arrival of the different orders of friars during the thirteenth century raised numerous problems related to such income. Most bishops and chapters did not welcome the Franciscan, Dominican, Augustinian or Trinitarian brothers to preach, confess, give burial, or to construct architectural spaces specially designed for lay devotees. Despite initial distrust and due to Rome’s ruling that these friars be present in episcopal cities — even if that presence was at times relegated outside city walls — friars began to play decisive roles, even within cathedrals themselves. Their training in the art of oratory led to the presentation of their sermons in cathedrals and, during the holiday season, Dominican or Franciscan preachers were invited to preach at the pulpit in order to ensure the attendance of laity. The Franciscans of Lleida were commissioned to preach theology and read at dawn offices in the cathedral — that is, at the request of the city council and the cathedral chapter of Gerona (VILLANUEVA, 1851, 42-44). It was also in Gerona, in 1473, that the Franciscan, Pere Carreres, was contracted as a teacher of theology employed to read the Bible from the cathedral pulpit and to give sermons daily and on Sundays according to the liturgical year (FITA, 1873, I, 46). However, problems and conflicts did not disappear completely. Cathedral chapters, Franciscans and Dominicans quarrelled over which days they could preach, including Palm Sunday when sermons should have been confined to the cathedral. This led to some confrontation, as when Dominican friars who were not permitted to preach in their own churches preached on the cathedral steps instead. The slight dominance of the Franciscans over the chapter of Gerona cathedral even led to an episode of retaliation. In 1474, Reverend Joan Fort, theology teacher and canon of the collegiate church of Saint John of Perpignan, visited the city. The cathedral chapter did not hesitate to contract him to give his sermons and Bible lessons from the cathedral pulpit (FITA, 1873, II, 4). This invitation was in response (maybe a revenge) to the temporary absence of a well-known Franciscan lecturer of the time, named Fra Broqueta, who had leaved Girona to Lleida to intervene in debates on the dogma of the Immaculate that had arisen there and in which were involved the General Study and the chapter of that See (FITA, 1873, II, 10).
5And, within the structure of the cathedral chapter, who were responsible for taking responsibility for the laity? That is a difficult issue. The bishop had the responsibility of appointing pastors, an act that he often delegated to the archdeacons of each territory of the See, as it is documented in Lamego or Coimbra (SARAIVA, 2002, 187-195 / MORUJÃO, 2010, 277-278). On the contrary, it is not easy to find out who the parish responsibilities of the cathedral fell on. The question is thatt the chapter did not seem to be very interested in the matter, beyond the remarkable income that the parish and, of course, the sacraments reversed in the cathedral. In fact, it is logical that in most studies on cathedral chapters we do not find documentary evidences about those responsible for the cult outside the main altar and the great funerary foundations. Parochial worship used to be a minor clergy responsibility, that is, the low prebendaries who, receiving only an economic portion of the chapter funds, organized themselves into corporations and brotherhoods. They competed most parish acts in the cathedral. For example, in León, the chaplain of the cathedral parish of San Juan de Regla was not a complete member of the chapter, but one of the minor clergy. chaplains (VILLACORTA RODRÍGUEZ, 1974, 170-171).
6In Lisbon and since the fourteenth century, Mario Farelo has documented the “capelães da cura na dita igreja catedral”, to which he attributes a very possible parochial responsibility to the head of the cathedral cura animarum (FARELO, 2005: 782). In Evora, the minor clergy was also responsible for the funeral functions (burials, funerals, suffrages) and the worship in the cathedral chapels (VILAR, 1999, 182-190). Already, in Ávila the older chaplain was responsible for managing the cult around the altars, but also served as “rector and church priest” (LÓPEZ-ARÉVALO, 1966, 117-118). In any case, this abandonment of the parish functions of the cathedral in the minor clergy is nothing more than a clear exponent of the little interest that the chapter had on these issues. On the contrary, the canons were interestied in underlining the primacy of the cathedral over the rest of the city and the diocese churches. From a liturgical perspective, it was materialized in the predominance of cathedral bell rings over the remaining churches of the city and in the case particular of the preaching. Cathedral chapter were very especially concerned about that, contracting the most appropriate preachers, those who were able to accommodate a greater number of lay people above the parish demarcations of the city.
A place for the parishioners
7Each cathedral chapter chose how to manage their parochial duties, dividing their celebrations between those dedicated to the parishioners and those dedicated to chapter exclusively. In the case of the cathedral chapter itself, the architectural medium was the limited space between the presbytery and the choir stalls, where the liturgical offices took place or where the processions started or arrived. On the contrary, for the laity there was no concrete space. The baptismal chapel used to become the parish chapel, far from the high chapel, while visualizing the main altar was not easy when a rood screen closed it. But things did not were as simple as placing a baptismal font in the vicinity of one of the doors of the cathedral, symbolising the catechumen’s passage from one life to another. In fact, some cathedrals faced even more complicated questions of parochial topography. For example, in the cathedral of Pamplona the parish chapel was installed in the vicinity of the cathedral building, being later included among the advocations of the new cathedral that was begun in the fourteenth century. This search for a place away from the cathedral could have its origin in the early medieval groups of churches, in which there has been identified an exclusive canonical church of the cathedral chapter, in front of another neighbour parish church, dependent on the episcopal authority (CARRERO 2009).
8Leaving aside the location of parish chapels outside the main church building, from the twelfth century onwards the usual thing was to find a concrete chapel, or an altar dedicated to parish purposes within the cathedral. The installation of such chapels within the temple itself could occur in any place across the building’s topography. In other words, any altar, whether accompanied by a baptismal font or not, could be reserved for the lay faithful. Neither was there a standard chapel or altar type designated for parish devotees. In Vic, there were two altars dedicated for morning prayers, one for the clergy of the cathedral and one for the laity (SUREDA I JUBANY, 2014). The cathedral of Orense still preserves the monumental baptismal -and funerary- chapel of Saint John on the north side of its nave. The rood screen of the cathedral of Oviedo had its own parish altar, as did many others Iberian cathedrals. Even in the nineteenth century, the Spanish draughtsman, Francisco Javier Parcerisa, drew a scene of the mass of twelve in which parishioners attending the office are represented in front of the screen belonging to a cathedral whose transept had great liturgical significance (Fig. 1. In the cathedral of León, the chaplain of San Juan de Regla was bestowed with special responsibilities. The titular chapel, located on the ground floor of the north tower, was the cathedral’s parish chapel and housed its baptismal font. Since 1287, this chaplain was charged with blessing the holy water on Sundays and leading processions while sprinkling the graves and tombs of the church and cloister, the choirstalls and the baptism stack on Sunday and on anniversary celebrations for the deceased. He also acted as an acolyte of the canon responsible for distributing ash on Ash Wednesdays and for celebrating the hours of prime, tierce and sext inside the parish chapel (VILLACORTA RODRÍGUEZ, 1974, 170-171).
Figure 1 - Oviedo Cathedral. Francisco Javier Parcerisa, Mass in the Cathedral roodscreen in the late 19th century

9Zaragoza cathedral epitomises the dedication of a concrete chapel to the laity inside the cathedral space, generally far from the high altar. In the last third of the fourteenth century, Archbishop Lope Fernández de Luna († 1382) built a chapel dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, which extended the north side of the east end of the cathedral (Fig. 2). It projected from the main cathedral parameters as a rectangular block, was covered with cross-vaults and accompanied by a funeral crypt. The chapel is well known for its external wall, which is covered by the most characteristic features of a Mudejar decorative screen. Interspersed among the ornamental brick details, are the founder's weapons represented in tilework from Seville. The Archbishop’s tomb occupies an arcosolium which would have been clearly visible from a now-missing entryway in the walls of the cathedral transept. What interests us is that, in addition to its funerary use, the chapel was intended as the cathedral parish chapel. Hence its still-popular denomination as the “parroquieta" of the cathedral (LACARRA, 1998 / GUTIÉRREZ and OLMO, 2015).
Figure 2 - Zaragoza Cathedral. East Wall of the Parroquieta chapel

10Don Lope’s contribution to Zaragoza cathedral does not differ greatly from that carried out by Archbishop Sancho de Rojas († 1422) in Toledo cathedral. The archbishop built his funeral chapel and dedicated it to Saint Peter. Running parallel to the east gallery of the cloister, the chapel’s entrance linked it to the cathedral. The new chapel’s design was the culmination of practices already enacted at Palencia cathedral, where the archbishop had founded a chapel in a space originally designed to house part of the presbytery. In Toledo, the chapel is accessed through a large frame on which Rojas is represented under Saint Peter who presides, in turn, over an assembly of mitred dignitaries of the cathedral, arranged evenly around the arch of the portal. Inside, the tomb is currently laid out as a modern arcosolium, though we know that its original location was at the centre of the nave, close to the high altar, until it was rebuilt in the eighteenth century (HERRÁEZ ORTEGA, 2014). In addition to its funerary use, it was also originally intended as a new cathedral parish church. According to the historian, Sixto Parro, the cathedral parish chapel had previously been the chapel of San Eugenio, located on the cathedral ambulatory. Though the prelate had endowed the chaplain corps and the titular pastor, the faithful still preferred to attend celebrations at the high altar rather than those in the brand-new parish chapel. In fact, the parishioners always preferred those places where the canons’ private liturgy took place. Even the altar within the choirstalls — at which the chapter holds private morning masses — cannot escape the attention of lay devotees, who to this day enter this space to attend said celebrations (PARRO, 1857, I, p. 197).1
11The situation at the cathedral of Burgos was even more complex. To the north of its naves, there was an isolated parish church that since the Middle Ages was known as the church of Santiago de la Fuente. Its structure was integrated into the fabric of the baroque chapel of Santa Tecla in the eighteenth century. Before this integration, the church had never been part of the cathedral, neither architecturally nor institutionally. In fact, after its demolition and suppression, its archives — and with it, its ecclesiastical memory — were relocated to the parish church of Santa Águeda many meters away, and not to the cathedral. The relationship between Santiago de la Fuente and the cathedral was limited to its bordering, at times irritating, location. Institutionally, however, it was a powerful aristocratic bastion, hosting some of the most powerful brotherhoods in medieval Burgos. The cathedral housed, as early as 1334, its own chapel allotted for parochial, which was located in the southern ambulatory and also dedicated to Saint James. It was the subject of special supervision by the cathedral chapter before they entrusted it to the alderman Antonio Melgosa as a private foundation in 1520. He waited four years to expand the chapel by connecting it to the nearby chapel of Saint John the Baptist, opening it to the cloister and keeping its parish functions. This resulted in the simultaneous existence of two chapels with the same dedications with the same parochial functions, within a few square meters from one another (MARTÍNEZ Y SANZ, 1866).
12Areas without specific function, such as the refectory of the cathedral of Tarragona — just after the chapter secularisation —, welcomed the installation of parochial chapels also not in use elsewhere. Similarly, in later centuries, the outer buildings of the western gallery of the cloisters of Jaca and Sigüenza were transformed into parochial chapels. This practice continues to this day, as when the chapter room of the cathedral of Barcelona was transformed into a parish chapel dedicated to the bishop-saint, Oleguer, or in Burgos where the western side of the old cloister was opened to parishioners, drawn there by the sacred image of Christ previously housed at the convent of Saint Augustin. The question of parochial responsibility persisted even into the nineteenth century, when the bishop of Huesca Honorio María de Onaindía promoted the construction of a parish church in the cathedral cemetery that was located at the centre of the cathedral’s cloister. The reasons given for this building project was that the chapter had lost its prerogatives over parish matters and, wanting to recover them, the bishop could not see any better solution than to build a church dedicated exclusively to parochial worship, inserted into the very fabric of the cathedral complex (VILLACAMPA SANVICENTE, 2007, 163-167).
Invading the nave, trying to watch the high altar
13But lay devotees did not often settle for just a chapel or altar. Celebrations in the presbytery and choir were too attractive not to attend and it was ideal to get a good position from which to observe what happened on the high altar during the daily offices and, especially, during feast days. As a consequence, the transept became the space for the laity across all Iberian cathedrals. The laity’s willingness to interfere in the liturgical affairs of the chapter was always a problem and changes to the location of the choirstalls must have been considered largely in response the parishioners’ incessant snooping during offices reserved for the canons of the cathedral. Beyond the parish altar or chapel, the presence of lay people in the cathedral church raised numerous problems. When the choir was located in the apse, visual and auditory access to the high altar extended to the inner face of the roodscreen. Once readers and singers had arranged themselves within the seats of the choir, contact was established through sight and word both with those outside the choirstalls and with those within. Naturally, verses were carried by song from the choir to the parishioners across the area of the high altar and through the roodscreen tribune. A liturgical play was staged against the outer face of the choir screen whose central door was the principal passage through which the cathedral chapter departed or returned during processions. It was through this door that one could glimpse what was happening in the choir, where lights and censers moved in a complex manner between the officiant and his ministers and around the far-off altar (CARRERO SANTAMARÍA, 2019, 39-68)
14To see the main altar clearly, it was necessary to place oneself in a more advantageous place in the presbytery at either of the side doors of the choir, when an ambulatory was present. This was the reason why many cathedral chapters chose to close the ambulatory through doors and grilles that regulated the passage of the faithful. Alternatively, it was stipulated in Coimbra that only men could access this space, while women had to remain in front of the choir screen. But the situation could not be sustained for much longer. Since the twelfth century different voices of the Church supported the need to open the church to the laity and favor the display of the main altar by the laity (KENNEDY, 1944/KENNEDY 1946). The best solution for such a problem was to free the main altar from closing and the most difficult was the choir stalls with its roodscreen. So, between the late fourteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, the Iberian Peninsula suffered a period of change that impacted its liturgical spaces and resulted in the displacement of choirstalls from the presbytery to the nave. In these cathedrals, the transept functioned as a principal gathering place for parishioners. When the choir was located in the presbytery, the roodscreen functioned as an architectural barrier that kept the laity out of the choirstalls. When the choirstalls were in the nave, on the other hand, the high altar could be seen freely. The layout of Toledo cathedral provides an early and especially clear example of these differences. In the Primada, the presbytery of the new Gothic cathedral was raised as a space dedicated exclusively to the celebration of high mass, while the choirstalls of the canons were moved to the nave, consequently drawing attention the transept as the ideal place for direct visual access to the presbytery. This layout was revolutionary in both liturgical and architectural terms and must have been conceived deliberately. Far beyond cultural forces or topographic conditions, the building project of the great cathedral of Toledo was a brilliant and intentional response to the visual demands of the cult of the Eucharist. A short presbytery was designed presumably so that the canons’ choirstalls could be installed in the nave, while the large transept welcomed parishioners who, separated by gender, could contemplate the offices, attend sermons delivered from pulpits located at the supporting pillars of the transept and watch feasts day celebrations and liturgical dramas performed on platforms mounted on either sides of the transept. Evidence of the mounting of such platforms for different liturgical seasons can be found in descriptions of the staging of performances of the Song of Sybil at Toledo and in records of liturgical dramas in Valencia, Lérida and Zaragoza (CARRERO SANTAMARÍA, 2019, 108-118).
15On the contrary, there were cathedral chapter that did not accept this lay imposition so easily, refusing to vacate the main chapel to enhance its visibility. On the Peninsula, the chapters of León, Burgos and Cuenca adopted a protectionist policy regarding the privacy of the choirstalls did not waiver when faced with the parishioner’s invasion of the presbytery. The three cathedral chapters stood firm when their city councils campaigned to have the choirstalls in their cathedrals moved from the presbytery to the nave in order to allow parishioners greater access to the apse. Although finally the weight of the popular will forced them to move their choirstalls to the nave, releasing the transept as a via space and re-filling the canons in the background during the offices, that even after the Council of Trent could not be satisfactorily resolved (TEIJEIRA PABLOS, 2015 / CARRERO 2019, 93-94).
16And yet, brand new pulpits were installed in the neighbouring section of the nave as well, which helped to more concretely define the position of the laity inside the cathedral. Unlike in the cathedrals where the choirstalls were located in the presbytery, the situation of the choir in the nave led to locate the pulpit in the crossing, precisely between the main chapel and the stalls. In this way, the laity had in the transept the ideal space to visualize altar and pulpit, from where it was explained, the faithful were exhorted and punished. From these spaces, sermons were delivered and devotion in the sacred word invigorated. The pulpit itself was increasingly enriched with sculptured iconographic programmes. Above it, a canopy enhanced its acoustics. It even acquired reliquary connotations when a saintly person preached from its platform and the area under its stairs became another of the prestigious burial places in the cathedral (CARRERO, 2017). These testimonies accord perfectly with an engraving that the printer Arnao Guillen de Brocar published in Toledo in 1519: the Apiary of Enrique de Amusco. Among the illustrations of the second volume, there appears an image of preaching on Marian themes set within the transept of the cathedral of Toledo (ESTEVE ROLDÁN, 2015) (Fig. 3). The audience in front of the pulpit is separated by genders while, atop the cathedral choirstalls, more laity have gathered to hear the sermon.
Figure 3 - Toledo Cathedral. Preaching in the Cathedral’s transept. Apiario by Enrique de Amusco (Toledo, 1519)

Parishioner’s place during the strong days of the Liturgical year
17During major feast days, the cathedral was an all-encompassing point of reference, as was the case at Christmas, Candle Mass, Palm Sunday, the Holy Triduum of Holy Week and, most triumphantly, in the celebration of Corpus Christi. All the surrounding parishes, monasteries and convents were subject to the celebrations taking place at the cathedral. In the case of Corpus Christi, these neighbouring communities had to go to the cathedral carrying their pennants, crosses and banners, so as to be part of the great parade that, following a precise order, involved the processional custodia that, carried by the bishop and the chapter, made its radiant tour of the city surrounded by music and liturgical drama.
18All through these feast days, the transept and nave did not provide enough space for some lay devotees who wanted to witness the acts being performed at altars. The visit of a king, the arrival of relics or the exhibition of a holy body required a much larger stage than could be found in cathedrals on a daily basis. The most common solution to this problem was to utilize elevated spaces such as tribunes, triforiums and even roofs if, that is, windows could be opened into the cathedral interior. The description of Compostela Cathedral in the Codex Calixtinus describes, for instance, that whoever went up to the gallery in an unhappy state, would come down happier. Access to these elevated areas was not constant and, with the exception of chapels on upper floors that eventually fell out of use, the grandstand and the triforium were essentially structural elements integral to the vertical development of the building and with their own unique architectural functions. Though there are numerous examples of the opening of the tribune and the triforium under exceptional circumstances, there is also plenty of documentary evidences of a wide range of uses for these spaces. Such uses include as a place of refuge for choir children after committing some mischief, a place where an army could encamp or a place to teach. Engravings of royal ceremonies often show people in the tribunes, triforiums and decks, eager to see what was happening in the cathedral. Late engravings and documentary evidences show substantial use of the tribune, and even of the upper part of the rood screen, which were invaded by the parishioners desperate to see the performance of this acts (CARRERO SANTAMARÍA, 2019, 324-334).
19Descriptions of the visit of Felipe II to Burgos cathedral are explicit about the security measures put into place for the visit’s various activities. A chronicle written by the cathedral master of ceremonies even describes how the length of the office and the choice of liturgy and music were considered with great care, the cathedral chapter being cautioned against the king’s difficult moods: "The Office was done with great solemnity, being careful to have good and short music”. The most senior members of the chapter mounted their mules and waited for the monarch in front of the cathedral’s western doors. Then, they accompanied the king in procession, crossing the church through the choirstalls to the high altar. There, the king and an infant who accompanied him had a reserved place behind brocaded curtains, while the local government was seated in their pews. The high altar was isolated by benches, though not many people had been able to enter the cathedral. The king's men had been ordered to prevent the admittance of parishioners: "An army troop came to guard the gates and saved the church from being overrun by numerous people." Despite security measures, there was one place from which the king could still be seen — that was, of course, the triforium: "In the corridors over the high altar there were many people, ladies and wives to see the feast.” As in other occasions in the liturgical calendar, the triforium was by default the true grandstand. In Burgos, this costume led to the installation of beams inside the triforium, against which to recline or accommodate oneself during the long offices (Libro de recuerdos tocantes a los Maestros, Archivo de la Catedral de Burgosf. 21r.)2
20During the ceremony of the Colometa at Lleida cathedral, when a dove of wood and paper pulp was lowered from the cross tower on the Feast of Pentecost, members of the lower clergy would scatter small pieces of burning paper from the elevated zones of the building, turning the cathedral chapter seated the choirstalls and the laity in the transept into accessory apostles and witnesses to this miraculous event (BERLABÉ and FITÉ, 1994 / MASSIP, 1997, 35-60). A similar costume is recorded at many other cathedrals during the throwing of Hallelujahs or wafers from cross-towers and triforiums during the Easter and Christmas.3 At Santo Domingo de la Calzada, payments to brass workers for the performance of special sound effects during such ceremonies points to the former existence of a cross-tower similar to those of Compostela or Orense, but which was lost during a disaster that sank a part of the presbytery and the transept in beginning of the sixteenth century (CARRERO SANTAMARÍA, 2019, 331).
21It was not only the tribune, triforium and cross-tower that could accommodate the lay faithful. The upper area of the roodscreen also served to allow parishioners to see what was happening inside the choir itself and in the transept and high altar. A register recording the visit of the Catholic Monarchs to the cathedral of Toledo in 1481 describes how a child climbed up the tribune of the organs — over the lateral choir screen — to have better view of the dances that were being performed between the choirstalls and the presbytery. Even in the nineteenth century, the historian, Sixto Parro, related how parishioners’ access to the choirstalls had to be prohibited during the celebration of the offices because of the "profanities" taking place there.
Outside the cathedral
22The parochial function of cathedral’s elevated zones was not limited to seeing the offices and liturgical acts taking place below. They also served as viewing places for shows performed outside the church. In fact, on special occasions the preaching and catechesis from the pulpit happened to be held outside the cathedral, from where the laity from the whole city could attend to listen outdoors to some preacher of special importance or during an extraordinary feast. In some European cathedrals exterior pulpits are still preserved (Prato Spoleto or Vienna), while in others like London we know of its radical importance and prolonged existence until the great fire of the city in 1666. This use of public space for catechetical purposes, locating the parishioners in open spaces was not exclusive to the cathedrals. In fact, both the orders of friars and some parishes also made intensive use of the exterior of their churches by means of portable pulpits or sculpted in stone, like the one still preserved today on the south facade of the church of San Pablo de Úbeda (CARRERO, 2017).
23The cathedral square was the site of many celebrations. Processions departed from and arrived there, kings were received in this space and there were even at times a stage mounted here for running bulls or parading. In Palencia, Segovia or Valencia, the cathedral building itself provided a seating area for watching what was happening around it. The gallery that, like a screen, concealed the east end of Valencia cathedral from the sixteenth century onwards, was also invaded by lay people attempting to view events in the neighbouring square. The now-lost second floor of the cloister of Palencia cathedral had balconies from which people could attend dramas staged in the square in front of the southern transept of the cathedral, as it is recorded during the 16th century (FERNÁNDEZ DE MADRID, 1932-1942, I, 51 and II, 150 / FERNÁNDEZ DE PULGAR, 1679-1680, II, f. 6v / MARTÍNEZ, 1988, 115-116). In Segovia, during the seventeenth century, the dean and chapter, the bishopric and the city councillors were locked in discussions over the need to regulate the loitering of people outside the cathedral, hoping to see what was happening in the main square of the city. The local government had already set up a platform for this purpose as early as 1589 and proposed to raise an additional "corridor of the bulls", a kind of balcony that, attached to the cathedral eastern end, would have allowed for the viewing of bullfighting from a privileged and now tidier place (RUIZ HERNANDO, 2003, 84-85).
Some conclusions
24There are many uncertainties that remain around the parish function of a cathedral. Obviously, very few baptism books have been kept and practically null marriage records of a time when marriage was almost an uncertainty. We do not have long records in the manner of the usual parish registers, but their functions were also performed as baptisms, preaching and, above all, the funeral universe show us.
25Wider studies about cathedral chapter statutes would undoubtedly give us much more information on the subject. In an era like ours, in which the study of institutional structures seems to have fallen into disuse, it looks as if we must return to the old documents where the cathedral's charges are carefully described to tell us who is who. Thus we would know how basic the chaplains of the cathedral were in the parish function of the cathedral.
26Anyway, we urge that, in many occasions, the written document is not the only information for the recognition of act or function in history. The study of material culture and, in particular, of the history of art that must be used as the correct and essential disciplines of analysis. Thus, the cemeteries, the position of the baptismal chapels or location of the choir-stalls, altars and pulpits speak of complex topographies in which the parishioners ranged between keeping a small space, a chapel in the cathedral sometimes not too big or ostentatious or, on the contrary, literally invading the cathedral interior, wanting to attend not only the special celebrations, but also the daily and more private liturgy of the chapter.
27All and none, that could be the reality about the space destined for the parishioners in the cathedrals. From a chapel to any possible place that their own will allowed. What seems clear is that from an initial secluded and secondary position, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the parishioners ended up invading the celebrations in the cathedral and its architectural space. Not surprisingly, each cathedral presents its own and particular problems that (as in Toledo, Zaragoza or León) were able to contemplate the existence of an effective parish chapel but built for a parishioner who preferred to conquer the transept, choir and presbytery to contemplate the offices of the main altar. For that same reason, in 1561, the statutes of the Viseu Cathedral determined that the sacrament of confession should not be done carelessly, at the entrance of the choir of canons (ALVES 2016). They had to find a better place anywhere around the nave and the aisles of the cathedral ...
Bibliographie
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Notes de bas de page
1 The altar has been preserved and is one of the most interesting liturgical furnishings in the cathedral.
2 Other aspects around the Royal visit to the Cathedral in MATESANZ, 2000.
3 The “Hallelujah” in modern Spanish tradition was a piece of paper with a prayer relative -for example- to the Resurrection of Jesus. The custom of pulling wafers from tribunes and triforiums was common during the most important festivities of the liturgical year.
Auteur
-
Eduardo Carrero Santamaría
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Eduardo.Carrero@uab.cat
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