masonry it ornaments. It
has none of the whimsical irrelevancy to surroundings characterizing so
much of the work to follow, nor its hasty execution. It is not
meaningless carving added indefinitely and senselessly repeated, but
every bit of it embellishes the position it occupies. Above the portal
the stonework is broken and crowned by an exquisite, early rose window
and the later, disproportionately high parapet of angels and
free-standing quatrefoiled arches and ramps.

The northern doorway, almost as rich in names as in sculpture, is as
fine as the southern, so far below it on the hillside. It is called the
Doorway of the Apostles from the twelve still splendidly preserved
statues, six of which flank it on each side. It is also named the Door
of the Coroneria, but to the Burgalese it is known simply as the Puerta
Alta, or the "high door." The door proper with its frame is a later
makeshift for the original, thirteenth-century one. On a base-course in
the form of an arcade with almost all its columns likewise gone, stand
in monumental size the Twelve Apostles. The drapery is handled
differently on each figure, but with equal excellence; the faces, so
full of expression and character, stand out against great halos and
represent the apostles of all ages. Similar in treatment to the southern
door, the archivolts here are filled with a series of fine statues.
There are angels in the two inner arches and in the outer, and the naked
figures of the just are rising from their sepulchres in the most
astonishing attitudes. The tympanum is also practically a counterpart of
the southern one, only here in its centre the predominating figure of
the Saviour is set between the Virgin and Saint John.

As the Puerta Alta is so high above the church pavement, and ingress
would in daily use have proved difficult, the great door of the
Pellejeria was cut in the northeastern arm of the transept at the end of
the furriers' street, and down a series of moss-grown, cobblestone
planes the Burgalese could gain entrance to their church from this side.
The great framework of architecture which encases it is so astonishingly
different from the work above and around it that one can scarcely
believe it possible that they belong to one and the same building. It is
a tremendous piece of Plateresque carving, as exquisite as it is out of
place, erected through the munificence of the Archbishop Don Juan
Rodriguez de Fonseca in 1514 by the architect Fra