prelates
bore the title of "_hecho un rey y un papa_"--king and pope. The greater
part of these princes, it is true, lived at court rather than in their
episcopal see, which is, perhaps, one of the reasons why Palencia failed
to emulate with Burgos and Valladolid, though at one time it was the
residence of some of the kings of Castile.

Moreover, being only second in importance to the two last named cities,
Palencia was continually the seat of dissident noblemen and thwarted
heirs to the throne; because these latter, being unable to conquer the
capital, or Valladolid, invariably sought to establish themselves in
Palencia, sometimes successfully, at others being obliged to retreat
from the city walls. The story of the town is consequently one of the
most adventurous and varied to be read in Spanish history, and it is due
to the side it took in the rebellion against Charles-Quint, in the time
of the Comuneros, that it was finally obliged to cede its place
definitely to Valladolid, and lost its importance as one of the three
cities of Castilla la Vieja.

It remains to be mentioned that Palencia was the seat of the first
Spanish university (Christian, not Moorish), previous to either that of
Salamanca or Alcala. In 1208 this educational institution was founded by
Alfonso VIII.; professors were procured from Italy and France, and a
building was erected beside the cathedral and under its protecting wing.
It did not survive the monarch's death, however, for the reign of the
latter's son left but little spare time for science and letters, and in
1248 it was closed, though twenty years later Pope Urbano IV. futilely
endeavoured to reestablish it. According to a popular tradition, it owed
its definite death to the inhabitants of the town, who, bent upon
venging an outrage committed by one of the students upon a daughter of
the city, fell upon them one night at a given signal and killed them to
the last man.

In the fourteenth century, the cathedral, which had suffered enormously
from sieges and from the hands of enemies, was entirely pulled down and
a new one built on the same spot (June, 1321). The subterranean chapel,
which had been the cause of the city's resurrection, was still the
central attraction and relic of the cathedral, and, according to another
legend, no less marvellous than that of Toribio, its genuineness has
been placed definitely (?) without the pale of skeptic doubts. It
appears that one Pedro, Bishop of Os