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From Gallaecia to the Euro-Region
Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Santiago de Compostela)
After the revolt was quashed, new
concessions were given to the
cathedral with the alliance between
the queen and the bishop, whose
estate was extended until it became the
biggest one of Galicia. Shortly after,
he also started to receive the “Vote of
Santiago”, a tribute based on a third
part of the harvested fruit that had to
be paid to the bishop and the canonry
of the cathedral, in return for the help
that, supposedly, the apostle gave to
the Christians in the Clavijo battle. This
rent, to which all the social classes were
subject (in opposition to other tributes),
was always very contested. In spite of
that, it was paid until 1812 and the
territory subject to it became wider and
wider, something which meant a great
income for the cathedral arks.
With this help for the cathedral
financing, around 1160 the occidental
façade was started, already with
maestro Mateo at the front of it. The
building of this façade was not easy,
due to the incline of the land itself:
the current square of the Obradoiro
did not exist, and until the 18th
century, when the new façade and
stairs were built, the cathedral lacked
the access from this side, being the
northern and southern gates the only
ones that allowed the entrance.
Mateo decided to support this portico
with an artificial structure, a crypt,
precisely to save this uneven part of the
land and to be able to continue with
the construction.
Did you know?
“Diego Xelmírez even ordered to steal the relics of São Frutuoso in the
diocese of Braga, in order to discredit it as the head of the church in
the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. He got Santiago to be raised to
archbishopric in 1120, becoming precisely Xelmírez its first archbishop.
In this way, he got rid of the dependence on Braga, although he could
not avoid that this one was also raised to the level or archbishopric, as it
corresponded by its historic rights. In fact, it was the seat in Braga, and not
in Compostela, the one on which Lugo, Ourense and Tui depended from
this moment on, for almost three centuries, until the Schism of Occident.
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