There has been some dispute as to the original plan of the archbishop’s palace, and an architect of my acquaintance is devoting a good deal of study to the subject. With him I went upstairs to look through the windows of the notary’s office at the now sealed up old windows of one of the original lateral façades. These windows are in the Romanesque style, very like those in the transept of Winchester Cathedral, which are also eleventh-century work, only that the latter have two windows under each arch. The arches here are double, the inner arch resting on slender shafts. It is a simple and at the same time a noble style of window. We then went down into the basement to look at the long vaulted room below the capilla--probably an old Sala Capitular--and numerous bits of stone ornament, archwayed passages, all dating from the eleventh century. It was down here that Gelmirez established his mint, by the special permission of Alfonso VI. (1107)[172] in order that money might be forthcoming to meet the expense of completing the cathedral.
Ferdinand and Isabella--Levying a tribute--Foundation of the hospital--Molina’s description--The principal entrance--Iconographic decoration--Gargoyles--A mural painting--The railing--The four patios--The north-west cloister--The chapel--A graceful font--The sculptured altars--Lace-like canopies--The statues--The Flemish Gothic style--The sacristy--Historical chasubles--The belfry--A palace for royal visitors--Decadence of the hospital--The revenues--A twentieth-century staff--Twenty-six wards--The kitchen--Milk and eggs--The Sisters--The medical school--King Alfonso XIII. shows his appreciation--Röntgen rays--The best in Spain.
During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, pilgrims still flocked in hundreds of thousands to the tomb of St. James in Galicia; and the king and queen, knowing how poor was the accommodation provided for pilgrims at Santiago, commanded that a commodious inn should be constructed close to the cathedral, where pious pilgrims might find shelter and the sick be nursed. It was just after their conquest of Granada that Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492, decreed that an annual sum of money should be devoted as a thankoffering, one-third for commemoration services to be held at Santiago Cathedral, one-third for the building expenses of the cathedral, and one-third for the relief of the poor, who would be cared for in the hospital they had commanded to be built. The sum of money in question was to be raised by levying a tribute of a bushel of grain on every pair of oxen, horses, mules, or asses used in agriculture by the Moors or Christians.[173] The foundation of the hospital may be said to date from that year, so pregnant with consequences, in which Columbus discovered the New World, and in which Spain not only became for the first time in her history a single and united kingdom, but laid the foundations of her widespread empire to which historians have given the name of Greater Spain. It was not, however, till 1499 that Ferdinand and Isabella authorised the Dean of Santiago, Don Diego de Muros, to start the building of the hospital.[174]