d the beginning of the thirteenth century, the strong fortress on
the Alagon was definitely torn from the hands of its independent
sovereign by Alfonso VIII., after the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. A
bishop was immediately reinstated in the see, and after five centuries
of Mussulman domination, Coria saw the standard of Castile waving from
its citadel.

As happened with so many other provincial towns in Spain, the
centralization of power to the north of Toledo shoved Coria into the
background; to-day it is a cathedral village forgotten or completely
ignored by the rest of Spain. Really, it might perhaps have been better
for the Arabs to have preserved it, for under their rule it flourished.

It is picturesque, this village on the banks of the Alagon: a heap or
bundle of red bricks surrounded by grim stone walls, over-topped by a
cathedral tower and citadel,--the whole picture emerging from a prairie
and thrown against a background formed by the mountains to the north and
the bright blue sky in the distance.

Arab influence is only too evident in the buildings and houses, in the
Alcazar, and in the streets; unluckily, these remembrances of a happy
past depress the dreamy visitor obliged to recognize the infinite
sadness which accompanied the expulsion of the Moors by intolerant
tyrants from the land they had inhabited, formed, and moulded to their
taste. Nowhere is this so evident as in Coria, a forgotten bit of
mediaeval Moor-land. The poet's exclamation is full of bitterness and
resignation when he exclaims:

"Is it possible that this heap of ruins should have been in other times
the splendid court of Zeth and Mondhir!"

* * * * *

As an architectural building, the cathedral of Coria is a parish church,
which, removed to any other town, would be devoid of any and all beauty.
In other words, the impressions it produces are entirely dependent upon
its local surroundings; eliminate these, and the temple is worthless
from an artistic or poetical point of view.

It was begun in 1120, most likely by Arab workmen; it was finished
toward the beginning of the sixteenth century. Honestly speaking, it is
a puzzle what the artisans did in all those long years; doubtless they
slept at their task, or else decades passed away without work of any
kind being done, or again, perhaps only one mason was employed at a
time.

The interior is that of a simple Gothic church of one aisle, 150 feet
lon