at work, while the pilgrims and faithful were soliciting alms
and subscriptions through Italy, France, and the Christian portions of
the Spanish Peninsula.

Of the earliest church very little remains, possibly only the outer
walls of the great bastion that encloses the eastern termination of the
present edifice. This is much larger than the other towers of defense,
and, judging from the excellent character of its masonry, which is
totally different from the coarse rubble of the remaining city walls and
towers, it must have been built into them at a later date, as well as
with much greater care and skill. Many hypotheses have been suggested,
as to why the apse of the original church was thus built as a portion of
the walls of defense. All seem doubtful. It was possibly that the
altar might come directly above the resting-place of some venerated
saint, or perhaps to economize time and construction by placing the apse
in a most vulnerable point of attack where lofty and impregnable masonry
was requisite.

[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid

CATHEDRAL OF AVILA

Exterior of the apse turret]

The church grew towards the west and the main entrance,--the transepts
themselves, and all work west of them, with the advent of the new style.
We thus obtain in Avila, owing to the very early commencement of its
apse, a curious and vitally interesting conglomeration of the Romanesque
and Gothic. Practically, however, all important portions of the
structure were completed in the more vigorous periods of the Gothic
style with the resulting felicitous effect.

The building of the apse or the chevet westward must, to judge from its
style, have advanced very slowly during the first hundred years, for its
general character is rather that of the end of the twelfth and beginning
of the thirteenth centuries (the reign of Alfonso VIII) than of the pure
Romanesque work which was still executed in Castile at the beginning of
the twelfth century. A great portion of the early Gothic work is, apart
from its artistic merit, historically interesting, as showing the first
tentative, and often groping, steps of the masters who wished to employ
the new forms of the north, but followed slowly and with a hesitation
that betrayed their inexperience. Arches were spanned and windows
broken, later to be braced and blocked up in time to avert a
catastrophe. The transepts belong to the earliest part of the fourteenth
century. We have their definite