Burgos Cathedral: A Gothic Metropolitan Cathedral in Spain
Site at a Glance
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- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page33 sections
History
Burgos Cathedral is a Gothic cathedral in Burgos, Spain, built by the Christian kingdom of Castile and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Its present building was founded on 20 July 1221 during the thirteenth-century Gothic period, when Burgos was the symbolic capital of the kingdom and an important episcopal and commercial center.
From the Diocese of Oca to a Cathedral at Burgos
Burgos became an episcopal seat in 1075 under Alfonso VI, with the approval of Pope Gregory VII. The new diocese continued the tradition of the former Diocese of Oca, whose bishop is recorded in 589. Alfonso VI promoted a cathedral dedicated to Mary on land occupied by a royal palace inherited from his father, Ferdinand I, together with a small church of Santa Maria that was then under construction.
The first cathedral was probably Romanesque and had been completed by 1096. It soon became too small for Burgos. Before 1200, the city had a cathedral chapter of more than thirty members, as well as important political, religious, and commercial functions. The Romanesque church was demolished, apart from some sculptural remains, and the site was enlarged with adjoining houses donated by Bishop Marino.
Foundation and Gothic Construction
Ferdinand III of Castile and Bishop Mauricio of Burgos laid the foundation stone of the present cathedral on 20 July 1221. The project was associated with Ferdinand III’s marriage to Beatrice of Swabia and expressed the changing position of Castile within Europe. Construction began at the eastern end, with the apse and presbytery, on the slope below the castle.
The first master builder is unknown and was probably French. The canon Johan de Champagne, recorded in 1227, has also been proposed for the role. Bishop Mauricio’s journeys through France and Germany helped bring French and German Gothic ideas to Burgos. The apse and much of the transept and nave were nearly complete when Mauricio died in 1238. Worship had already begun in 1230, when the chapter took possession of the new choir, and the cathedral was consecrated in 1260.
The first known master builder was Master Enrique, active at Burgos from 1261. He was also responsible for the cathedral at León and died in 1277. Johan Pérez followed him, and later building was undertaken by Aparicio Pérez, Pedro Sánchez de Molina, and Martín Fernández. During the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the side chapels and the new cloister were completed. The plans and decoration were then modified, including the enlargement of the radiating chapels around 1270 to 1280 and further work on the transept and western façade.
Late Gothic Expansion and the Crossing Collapse
The cathedral acquired much of its distinctive late-medieval appearance during the fifteenth century. Major works included the openwork spires of the towers, the crossing lantern, the Condestable Chapel, and the decoration of several side chapels. The Cologne family played a central role. Juan de Colonia introduced the spires and the first late-Gothic crossing lantern, while his son Simón de Colonia designed the Condestable Chapel.
Flemish, Rhenish, Burgundian, and local artists contributed to a building that combined French and German Flamboyant Gothic with Spanish decorative traditions. Flamboyant Gothic was a late medieval style distinguished by intricate, flame-like tracery and elaborate surface ornament.
Juan de Colonia’s first crossing lantern, raised during the 1460s or 1470s, collapsed during the night of 3 to 4 March 1539 after its northern piers failed. Its excessive weight probably contributed to the disaster. Several vaults were destroyed, but no one died. Juan de Vallejo rebuilt the lantern between 1539 and 1568, using a design associated with Juan de Langres and strengthening the crossing piers.
Later Chapels, Devotion, and Conservation
Eighteenth-century additions included the Chapel of Santa Tecla, the Chapel of the Relics, and the main sacristy. The Gothic portals of the western façade were also substantially altered, especially after deterioration of their stonework. The Chapel of the Holy Christ of Burgos was established after a highly venerated crucifix was transferred from the Royal Monastery of San Agustín following the confiscation of 1835.
Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, known as El Cid, and his wife Doña Jimena were transferred from the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña to the cathedral in 1835. El Cid was an eleventh-century Castilian military leader whose reputation was expanded by medieval epic tradition. In 1921, the couple’s remains were placed beneath a marble slab in the crossing, where they remain.
Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century interventions included work on the Holy Christ chapel and the new cloister by Vicente Lampérez. Between 1899 and 1911, Lampérez removed a later third level from the cloister, reopened original windows, restored much of the lower cloister, replaced or reconstructed tracery, and installed ornamental glazing. Early twentieth-century work also removed several buildings attached to the cathedral, including houses and the archbishop’s palace.
On 12 August 1994, a statue of Saint Lawrence fell from the northern tower, revealing the urgent need for renewed conservation. Extensive protective and restoration work followed during the 1990s. The roof was later replaced with a lightweight steel framework, and a glass surface was installed beneath the suspended star-rib structure of the crossing lantern to illuminate it. These interventions strongly improved preservation while making relatively few changes to the historic architectural substance.
Religious and Cultural Status
Burgos Cathedral is the metropolitan cathedral and a basilica of the Archdiocese of Burgos. It was declared a national monument in 1885, received the title of minor basilica in 1921, and was inscribed independently on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1984. A minor basilica is a papal title for a church of particular religious or historical importance, while the cathedral remains the seat of the bishop.
The building continues to serve religious functions. Regular worship takes place in the Chapel of Santa Tecla, and the Chapel of the Holy Christ of Burgos remains continuously available for prayer. During Holy Week, the Golden Staircase is used to install the monstrance for the Blessed Sacrament.
Remains
Plan, Materials, and Structural Form
Burgos Cathedral is built mainly of limestone from quarries near Hontoria de la Cantera. Its exterior covers approximately 1.03 hectares, measures about 124 metres in length and 99 metres in width, and rises to 88 metres at the towers. The crossing lantern reaches approximately 59 metres externally and 43 metres internally.
Excluding later chapels and attached rooms, the church follows a Latin-cross plan measuring about 84 by 59 metres. It has a central nave, two aisles, a single-aisled north-south transept, a deep main chapel, a pentagonal eastern end, and an ambulatory, or passage around the east end. The longitudinal axis contains nine bays, while the transept contains six. The central nave is approximately 11 metres wide and 25 metres high, and the transept reaches the same height.
Gothic architecture uses pointed arches, rib vaults, large windows, and external systems that transfer roof forces outward. At Burgos, double flying buttresses carry the forces of the central nave toward the side aisles. The elevations use octagonal piers with cylindrical cores and attached shafts, while the piers supporting the crossing arches are exceptionally thick and cylindrical. The roof system consists mainly of rib vaults with ridge ribs. Some bays include tiercerons and curved ribs, the ambulatory vaults have five or six ribs, and the central nave has strongly rectangular bays.
West Façade and Towers
Western Portals and Rose Window
The west façade was inspired by the cathedrals of Paris and Reims. It has three principal levels and two nearly identical square towers. The original lower level contained three pointed, splayed arches. The central arch was the Royal Portal, also called the Portal of Forgiveness, while the side entrances were dedicated to the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception. Juan de Pobes rebuilt the lateral portals in 1663. The central entrance was reconstructed in Neoclassical form in 1790 with a lintel and triangular pediment, and reliefs of the Conception and Coronation were placed in the lateral tympana.
The second level contains a thirteenth-century rose window influenced by Cistercian design. Its six-pointed star tracery has also been interpreted as a Seal of Solomon. Above it, an open gallery has two large mullioned windows with three quatrefoils in their tracery. Eight statues beneath the arches represent the first eight kings of Castile, from Ferdinand I to Ferdinand III. A balustrade carries the inscription Pulchra es et decora and supports a statue of the Virgin and Child. Juan de Colonia made this upper central section in the mid-fifteenth century.
Openwork Tower Spires
Each western tower has three levels, pinnacles, corner statues, and pointed openings. Juan de Colonia added the octagonal, pyramidal openwork spires in the mid-fifteenth century. The parapets bear the arms of Bishops Alonso de Cartagena and Luis de Acuña, together with those of the Castilian-Leonese monarchy. They also carry the inscriptions Pax vobis and Ecce Agnus Dei. One parapet includes Christ displaying the wounds of the Passion, while the other shows Saint John the Baptist.
Two polygonal turrets flank the west façade. Their lobed arches, pinnacles, and statues end near the bases of the main spires. Internal spiral staircases lead from them to the triforium and vaults. The triforium is an upper passage or arcaded gallery below the main upper windows.
Transept Portals
Sarmental Portal
The Sarmental Portal occupies the southern transept and was built approximately between 1230 and 1240. A steep staircase leads to it. In the tympanum, Christ as Pantocrator displays the Book of the Law and is surrounded by the four Evangelists in human and symbolic forms. A seated group of apostles appears below, while the archivolts contain the twenty-four Elders of the Apocalypse with medieval instruments, angels, and an allegory of the Arts.
The tympanum is attributed to the French Master of the Beau Dieu of Amiens, while the Apostolate is associated with the Master of the Sarmental. Local sculptors probably carried out the work under French direction. A modern statue of a bishop occupies the central mullion beneath a canopy surmounted by the Lamb. Tradition identifies the bishop as Mauricio, although Asterio and Saint Indalecio have also been proposed. Moses, Aaron, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and two unidentified figures occupy the lateral jambs.
The upper façade, completed late in the thirteenth century, contains a rose window and an open gallery of three arches with openwork triple quatrefoils. Its sculptures have been interpreted as the Divine Liturgy, with Christ administering the Eucharist among twelve angels carrying candles and censers.
Coronería Portal
The Coronería, or Apostles’ Portal, occupies the north transept several metres above the church floor. Local artists associated with Master Enrique built it between 1250 and 1257. It formerly connected the cathedral with the city and with the route used by pilgrims on the Way of Saint James, the network of Christian roads leading to the shrine of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela. The surrounding masonry was remodeled in 1786, when a Baroque semicircular arch replaced the Gothic mullion.
Nearly life-size statues form a complete Apostolate, with six figures on each side above blind pointed and trilobed arcades. Its three archivolts contain seraphim, angels carrying incense, and scenes of the Resurrection of the Dead. The tympanum represents the Last Judgment. Saint Michael weighs souls, demons and the damned appear on one side, and the blessed enter Paradise on the other. Above, a Deesis shows Christ as universal judge flanked by the Virgin and Saint John, while angels carry the instruments of the Passion. A Deesis presents Christ as judge or ruler with the Virgin and Saint John interceding for humanity.
The upper façade has a triple-arched window, an open gallery with twelve crowned figures associated with Castilian royalty, incense-bearing angels, openwork spires, and a final balustrade of small arches. Its naturalistic treatment combines Gothic forms with survivals from Romanesque religious imagery. The portal was closed after its route became a busy shortcut for residents carrying goods and livestock between the upper and lower parts of Burgos. It is now permanently closed, and the Golden Staircase no longer functions as a public thoroughfare.
Pellejería Portal
The Pellejería, also called the Canalejo Portal, opens in the eastern wall of the north transept near the Coronería and the Golden Staircase. Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca commissioned it in 1516 as an alternative entrance. Francisco de Colonia designed the portal as a two-level Gothic retable composition with an upper pediment and Plateresque decoration. Plateresque combines late Gothic and Renaissance architecture with ornament resembling finely worked silver.
A semicircular arch contains apostles beneath canopies, together with reliefs of the martyrdoms of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. The upper pediment shows the enthroned Virgin and Child with musician angels and the kneeling patron bishop. Saint Peter, Saint Paul, other saints, and Fonseca’s arms complete the composition. Bartolomé de la Haya made the associated sculpture and heraldry before 1523.
Crossing Lantern and Main Nave
Rebuilt Crossing Lantern
Juan de Vallejo rebuilt the crossing lantern, or cimborrio, between 1539 and 1568. A crossing lantern is a tower or domed structure raised above the meeting point of the nave and transept. The octagonal, two-level structure combines late Gothic and Plateresque Renaissance forms. Four attached towers with spires strengthen the central drum, whose eight sides contain paired mullioned windows.
Four huge cylindrical piers support the interior, while four squinches transfer the structure to the octagonal upper levels. Sculptures, reliefs, heraldry, and other ornament associated with Juan Picard and Pedro Andrés cover the interior. Its openwork star vault forms an eight-pointed star. The star-shaped rib pattern admits overhead light while reducing the weight of the structure.
Main Retable and Choir
The main nave has three bays and a pentagonal eastern end. Its Renaissance-Romanist main retable was begun in 1562 by Rodrigo de la Haya and completed after his death in 1577 by his brother Martín. Juan de Ancheta contributed sculpture. The architecture and sculpture were completed in 1580, after which Gregorio Martínez and Diego de Urbina applied the gilding and multiple colors. The retable is presided over by the mid-fifteenth-century Flemish-Gothic image of Santa María la Mayor.
The presbytery contains Gothic tombs, including that of Infante Juan of Castile of Tarifa, son of Alfonso X. The choir occupies the central nave immediately west of the crossing. Its monumental U-shaped walnut stalls were largely carved from 1505 onward in the Plateresque style by Felipe Bigarny, with later sections added during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The ensemble includes religious reliefs, a grille by Juan Bautista Celma, two organs, and a Gothic wooden effigy of Bishop Mauricio covered with copper, Limoges enamels, and gemstones.
The choir’s early seventeenth-century Baroque-classicist trascoro, or screen behind the choir, contains alabaster sculpture and paintings of saints associated with Juan Ricci. Carved seats were added during different phases. High in the main nave, the eighteenth-century Papamoscas automaton moves an arm, strikes a bell, and opens its mouth on the hour. The adjacent Martinillo announces the quarter-hours. The associated clock mechanism measures approximately 312 centimetres long, 80 centimetres wide, and 193 centimetres high.
Ambulatory and Major Chapels
Ambulatory Reliefs and Tombs
The ambulatory contains the tomb of the archdeacon Pedro Fernández de Villegas by Simón de Colonia. Behind the high altar are limestone reliefs by Felipe Bigarny, including the Road to Calvary of 1498 and the Crucifixion and Descent, Entombment, and Resurrection of Christ of 1500 to 1503. The latter works have been badly damaged by the deterioration of the stone in humid conditions. Simón de Colonia is associated with their architectural frame. Baroque reliefs of the Agony in the Garden and the Ascension, made by Pedro Alonso de los Ríos between 1681 and 1683, complete the group.
Condestable Chapel
The Condestable Chapel occupies the central ambulatory chapel and replaced an earlier chapel dedicated to Saint Peter. Pedro Fernández de Velasco, Constable of Castile, and Mencía de Mendoza y Figueroa commissioned it as a family pantheon. It is formally dedicated to the Purification of the Virgin. Simón de Colonia began construction in 1482, and Francisco de Colonia added the adjoining sacristy in 1517.
The chapel is a large late-Gothic and early Renaissance space adapted to an irregular site. Its openwork octagonal star vault admits overhead light, and the chapel is approximately 15 metres in diameter. Diego de Siloé and Felipe Bigarny made the main retable between 1523 and 1526, with polychromy by León Picardo. It presents the Purification of the Virgin as a staged sculptural scene.
Other works include a Santa Ana retable begun by Gil de Siloé and completed by his son Diego, a Renaissance retable of Saint Peter by Bigarny and Diego de Siloé, and Gothic tombs of Bishops Pedro Rodríguez de Quexada and Domingo de Arroyuelo. The marble effigies of the founders have been attributed variously to Bigarny, Alonso Berruguete, and Juan de Lugano. A Magdalene by Giovan Pietro Rizzoli, known as Giampietrino, a crucifix by Mateo Cerezo, and an entrance grille by Cristóbal de Andino are also preserved there.
Visitación and Santa Ana Chapels
Juan de Colonia built the Visitación Chapel between 1440 and 1442 for Bishop Alonso de Cartagena. It has two bays, a star vault, a Gothic grille attributed to Master Bujil, and the bishop’s Gothic tomb, probably made by Juan de Colonia with an alabaster effigy probably carved by Gil de Siloé. The chapel also contains burials of Juan Maldonado, Juan de Colonia, and María Fernández, family tombs, and a Baroque-classicist retable installed in 1653.
The Chapel of Santa Ana, also called the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, was built by Juan and Simón de Colonia between 1477 and 1488. Its star vaults and Gothic grille by Luis de Paredes accompany the Tree of Jesse retable by Gil de Siloé, including the meeting of Joachim and Anne. The chapel contains the alabaster Renaissance tomb of Bishop Luis de Acuña by Diego de Siloé, the Gothic-Flamboyant tomb of Fernando Díaz de Fuentepelayo attributed to Gil de Siloé, and a Renaissance-Plateresque Santa Ana retable.
Earlier and Renaissance Chapels
The Chapel of Saint Nicholas, founded in the first third of the thirteenth century by the cantor Pedro Díaz de Villahoz, is the cathedral’s oldest chapel. It has a simple octopartite rib vault and two elongated pointed windows. Its small thirteenth-century painted wooden retable was transferred from Santa María de Mave in the twentieth century. The lower section probably dates from 1235 to 1260 and includes a mandorla formerly containing a Pantocrator, part of a symbolic representation of the Evangelists, and an incomplete Apostolate. The upper section probably dates from 1280 to 1300 and presents Nativity scenes and other episodes.
The Nativity Chapel was created between 1580 and 1585 by Martín de la Haya and Domingo de Bérriz on the site of two thirteenth-century chapels. Ana de Espinosa founded it as a funerary chapel. It has a Renaissance oval vault, a sculpted stone arch, a Romanist wooden retable, and Renaissance choir stalls by Martín de la Haya. A triptych attributed in 2022 to Jan Sanders van Hemessen shows Christ carrying the Cross, Saint James, and the donor Pedro González de Espinosa, later altered to resemble Saint Peter.
The Chapel of the Annunciation, also called the Chapel of Saint Anthony Abbot, is a hexagonal thirteenth-century chapel associated with Bishop García Gudiel between 1276 and 1280. Its six-rib vault served burials of chapter members and bishops. A Mannerist retable commissioned from Juan de Lizarazu and Lázaro de Azcoitia in 1541 occupies the chapel, whose restoration was completed in 2012.
The Chapel of Saint Gregory, formerly the Chapel of Saint John, is a flattened-pentagonal chapel at the northern end of the ambulatory. It retains much of its early Gothic structure and contains a Baroque retable, a painting of the Martyrdom of Saint Peter attributed to Mateo Cerezo, and fourteenth-century Gothic tombs of Bishops Gonzalo de Hinojosa and Lope de Fontecha.
Baroque and Rococo Spaces
Main Sacristy and Saint Henry Chapel
The main sacristy is an almost circular Baroque-Rococo room built between 1762 and 1765 to designs by Fray Antonio de San José Pontones. Fray José de San Juan de la Cruz created its elliptical six-part dome, lantern, and dense plaster decoration devoted to the Coronation of the Virgin. The polychromy dates from 1870. Late-eighteenth-century furnishings include drawers, retables, sculptures, paintings, and small works by Luca Giordano.
The Chapel of Saint Henry, also called the Ecce Homo Chapel, was formed in 1674 by joining the former chapels of Saint Thomas of Canterbury and the Magdalene and Saint Andrew. Juan de la Sierra Bocerraiz and Bernabé de Hazas remodeled it for Archbishop Enrique Peralta y Cárdenas. The chapel has hemispherical and octagonal domes, Baroque retables, a Flemish Ecce Homo made in Antwerp around 1500, the archbishop’s bronze praying effigy, other ecclesiastical tombs, two memorial slabs of bishops of Oca, and an eighteenth-century positive organ.
Saint John of Sahagún and the Chapel of the Relics
The Chapel of Saint John of Sahagún was formerly known as the Chapel of Saint Catherine or the Chapel of the Rojas family. It was renamed in 1765. Simple and compound rib vaults bear the founders’ arms. Its Rococo retable was made in 1765 by Fernando González de Lara to designs by José Cortés, and its statue of the saint was made by Juan Pascual de Mena in 1770. A narrow spiral staircase leads from the chapel to the triforium.
The Chapel of the Relics was built between 1761 and 1763 in the Rococo style by Fernando González de Lara to designs by Fray José de San Juan de la Cruz. Its plasterwork represents saints, virtues, and allegories. Three reliquary-retables contain the cathedral’s relics in busts, boxes, and other reliquaries. Two Gothic images, the Virgin of Oca and the Virgin of the Miracle, were later transferred to the cloister museum.
Funerary Chapels and the Holy Christ
Presentation and Consolation Chapel
The Chapel of the Presentation and Consolation, also called the Chapel of Saint Joseph or the Lerma Polanco Chapel, was built between 1519 and 1524 as a funerary chapel for Gonzalo Díaz de Lerma Polanco and his relatives. Juan de Matienzo designed its central late-Gothic plan and openwork star vault. Its contents include the founder’s tomb by Felipe Bigarny, other Gothic-Renaissance tombs, a Neoclassical retable, Sebastiano del Piombo’s Holy Family, and a Renaissance grille by Cristóbal de Andino.
Holy Christ of Burgos Chapel
The Chapel of the Holy Christ of Burgos occupies part of the former cloister and retains Gothic arcades. Its entrance has a late-thirteenth-century Gothic portal with a seated Virgin and Child in the tympanum. The fourteenth-century crucifix is articulated and has human hair and a beard. Its wooden body is covered with cowhide to imitate human skin.
The chapel also contains a Neogothic retable by Vicente Lampérez, older and nineteenth-century tombs, and a fourteenth-century stone Virgin and Child. The Christ of Burgos inspired a long-standing devotional cult that spread through Spain and Spanish America, with chapels dedicated to it in Bruges and Antwerp. Traditions that Nicodemus made the image or that sailors found it in a chest aboard an abandoned ship are legendary. The sculpture is probably of Flemish or northern German origin.
Cloister and Chapter Buildings
New Cloister
The two-level new cloister is a slightly irregular rectangle built to overcome the steep difference between the cathedral floor and the street. Its galleries have six arches on the eastern and western sides and seven on the northern and southern sides. The upper cloister, attributed to Master Enrique, has simple quadripartite rib vaults, pointed windows with triple mullions and three quatrefoils, and extensive vegetal and figural sculpture.
The lower cloister was built roughly a decade before the upper level and served for centuries as a cemetery. Its restoration between 1899 and 1911 lowered the floors, replaced or reconstructed tracery, and closed many arcades with multicolored glass. A thirteenth-century stair turret stands at the southwest corner, with a smaller turret at the southeast corner.
Cloister sculpture includes the Annunciation, the Epiphany, biblical figures, apostles, saints, bishops, kings, and people associated with the cathedral’s construction. Figures identified or tentatively identified include Saint Paul, Saint Peter, Bartholomew, Saint Catherine, Saint James, Abraham, Ferdinand III, Beatrice of Swabia, and possibly Alfonso X. A bishop, a king, and another cleric at the southeast corner probably represent the laying of the Gothic cathedral’s foundation.
The upper cloister contains numerous twelfth- to sixteenth-century tombs, mainly Gothic and Renaissance. They include those of Doña Godo, Bishop Mateo Rynal, Canon Juan López del Hospital, Canon Diego de Santander, and Canon Gaspar de Illescas. Diego de Siloé made Diego de Santander’s tomb, while Gaspar de Illescas’s tomb is attributed to Juan de Lizarazu.
Chapter and Treasury Chapels
The Chapel of Saint Jerome, also called the Mena Chapel, was built in 1545 by Juan de Vallejo for Canon Francisco de Mena. Its square plan has a star-rib vault, the founder’s Renaissance tomb, a polychrome relief of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and a Mannerist retable attributed to Diego Guillén.
The Chapel of Corpus Christi was built around 1373. Its Gothic pointed-arch portal has a Deesis relief, kneeling donors, and the arms of Juan Estébanez Castellanos and his wife. Two octopartite rib-vaulted bays contain tombs of the Castellanos, Castañeda, and Astudillo families. The chapel also houses the medieval Cofre del Cid, two sixteenth-century choirbooks, paintings, and later sculpture. Tradition identifies the chest with the one El Cid used to deceive Jewish moneylenders, but it also served to store chapter documents, and its connection with the epic El Cantar de Mío Cid is not established as historical fact.
Martín de la Haya built the former chapter library, now the chapter room, in 1596. Its Mudéjar-influenced artesonado ceiling, a wooden ceiling with decorative geometric work, carries painted biblical texts. The room contains cathedral models and paintings by or attributed to Diego de la Cruz, the Master of the Embroidered Foliage, Goswijn van der Weyden, Jan de Beer, and the Master of the Magdalene Legend.
Bishop Gonzalo de Hinojosa built the Chapel of Saint Catherine in 1316, and it served as the chapter room until 1586. It has a pointed portal, a polychrome Descent from the Cross, an eight-pointed star vault, later Baroque flooring and furnishings, and portraits of Burgos bishops and archbishops. The collection includes the Gothic Virgin of Oca and selected archival manuscripts.
The combined Chapel of Saint John the Baptist and Chapel of Saint James incorporates a fifteenth-century chapel with a four-pointed star vault and a fourteenth-century apsidal chapel. Juan de Vallejo enlarged and remodeled the complex in the first half of the sixteenth century with elaborate star-rib vaults. It now houses the cathedral treasury and principal museum. The Saint James chapel contains the Renaissance tomb of Juan Ortega de Velasco, a sixteenth-century retable with Saint James as Matamoros, the tomb of Bishop Juan de Villacreces, and Diego de Siloé’s Christ Bound to the Column. Its collections include fifteenth- and sixteenth-century tapestries, ivory and goldsmiths’ crosses, chalices, reliquaries, liturgical furnishings, a portable ivory altar, paintings by Mateo Cerezo, and a twentieth-century Neogothic monstrance.
Archive, Organs, and Bells
The cathedral archive preserves documents dating from the tenth to the nineteenth centuries. Among them are the 978 foundation document of the Abbey and Infantado of Covarrubias, the 1068 privilege restoring the Diocese of Oca, El Cid’s 1074 marriage charter, the 1075 privilege transferring the Oca see to Burgos, the 1088 Council of Husillos document defining diocesan boundaries, the 1095 papal bull of Urban II confirming the transfer, and a 1221 privilege concerning Bishop Mauricio’s journey to Germany.
The manuscripts and books include the Bible of Cardeña, dated approximately 910 to 914, the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon, the Collectiones of Abbot Smaragdus, the Moralis Tractatus of Guillaume de Perault, a late-thirteenth- or early-fourteenth-century illuminated Bible with marginal notes attributed to Pablo de Santa María, the 1494 Rule of Our Lady of the Creation, more than a dozen incunabula, the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, and 253 editions of Don Quixote.
Burgos Cathedral has historically possessed several important organs. The Epistle-side organ was built in 1636 by Juan de Argüete, installed in rebuilt form in 1706 by Juan de Echevarría, and altered again in the nineteenth century. The Gospel-side organ, built in 1806 by Juan Manuel de Betolasa, retains a Neoclassical case, mechanical action, two manuals, a pedal, and 47 stops. The Condestable Chapel organ was made in 1615 by Gaspar de Soto, with a case by Diego de Siloé. The positive organ in the Chapel of Saint Henry has an eighteenth-century case and probably eighteenth-century pipework.
The bells include the Hour Bell, probably made around 1350, and fifteen bells distributed through the two towers. A small bell on the choir roof retains its original wooden yoke, while numerous small eighteenth-century bronze bells remain in the chapels. Iron matracas, instruments used in place of bells, are reserved for the Easter Triduum.
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