to marry
Bermudo's sister Sancha. But his grandson, the recognized heir to the
throne of Navarra, Fernando by name, inherited his grandfather's title
and estates, even his murdered uncle's promised bride, the sister of
Bermudo. At the latter's death some years later, without an heir, he
inherited--or conquered--Leon and Asturias, and for the first time in
history, all the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula were united
beneath one sceptre.

Castile was now the most powerful state in the peninsula, and its
capital, Burgos, the most important city north of Toledo.

Two hundred years later the centralization of power in Burgos was an
accomplished fact, as well as the death in all but name of the ancient
kingdom of Leon, Asturias, and Galicia. Castile was Spain, and Burgos
its splendid capital (1230, in the reign of San Fernando).

The above events are closely connected with the ecclesiastical history,
which depends entirely upon the civil importance of the city.

A few years after Fernando I. had inaugurated the title of King of
Castile, he raised the parish church of Burgos to a bishopric (1075) by
removing to his new capital the see that from time immemorial had
existed in Oca. He also laid the first stone of the cathedral church in
the same spot where Fernan Gonzalez had erected a summer palace,
previous to the Arab raid under Almanzor. Ten years later the same king
had the bishopric raised to an archiepiscopal see.

San Fernando, being unable to do more than had already been done by his
forefather Fernando I., had the ruined church pulled down, and in its
place he erected the cathedral still standing to-day. This was in 1221.

So rapidly was the main edifice constructed, that as early as 1230 the
first holy mass was celebrated in the altar-chapel. The erection of the
remaining parts took longer, however, for the building was not completed
until about three hundred years later.

Burgos did not remain the sole capital of Northern Spain for any great
length of time. Before the close of the thirteenth century, Valladolid
had destroyed the former's monopoly, and from then on, and during the
next three hundred years, these two and Toledo were obliged to take
turns in the honour of being considered capital, an honour that depended
entirely upon the caprices of the rulers of the land, until it was
definitely conferred upon Madrid in the seventeenth century.

As regards legends and traditions of feudal romance and trag