Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada: A Pilgrimage Cathedral in Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page20 sections
History
The Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada stands in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Spain. Dedicated to the Savior and Saint Mary, it developed from a Romanesque church founded under Alfonso VI, the king of León and Castile, in 1098 and became a pilgrimage church on the French Way to Santiago de Compostela.
From Romanesque church to cathedral
Alfonso VI donated the land for the first church, which Bishop Pedro Nazar consecrated in 1106. Around 1158, the church became a collegiate church, an institution served by a college of clergy rather than by a bishop. In the same year, construction of the present building began under Master Garçion, incorporating much of the earlier structure. The original project was later simplified, and work continued through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The church was conceived for pilgrims travelling toward Santiago de Compostela. Its ambulatory, a passage running behind the high altar, allowed movement around the sanctuary without crossing the central liturgical space. This arrangement helped make the church an important stopping place on the pilgrimage route. In 1232, it became a cathedral and the seat of the Bishop of Calahorra-La Calzada.
Medieval and early-modern development
The cathedral changed through successive medieval and early-modern building campaigns, restorations, collapses, and alterations introduced under different bishops. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the nave structures, defenses, and west portico were added. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries brought apse chapels, the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, and two chapels on the south side. The baptistery was added in the seventeenth century, while the south portal was constructed in the eighteenth.
Part of the transept was raised or extended during the sixteenth century to accommodate the tomb of Saint Dominic of the Causeway. Saint Dominic was a medieval Spanish saint traditionally associated with aiding pilgrims on the road to Santiago. His presence shaped both the devotional life of the cathedral and the traditions surrounding the church.
The cathedral’s towers and changing status
The building has had three towers. Fire destroyed the original Romanesque tower in 1450. A later Gothic tower was dismantled after it became dangerous, and the present detached Baroque tower was built in 1762. Its separation from the church is explained by a local tradition that attributes the arrangement to unstable sandy ground.
The cathedral was declared a Historic-Artistic Monument and an Asset of Cultural Interest on 3 June 1931. It forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage property comprising the French Way and the Northern Routes of Santiago de Compostela, inscribed in 1993 under criteria ii, iv, and vi. Since 1959, it has held the status of co-cathedral, sharing the cathedral title within the diocese with Logroño, while Calahorra remains the diocesan cathedral. The building is administered by the Diocese of Calahorra and La Calzada-Logroño.
Tradition, restoration, and interpretation
A papal bull issued by Clement VI in 1350 records the presence of a cock and hen in the church. Clement VI was an Avignon pope who reigned from 1342 to 1352, and a papal bull is a formal document issued by a pope. The bull granted indulgences to people who assisted the cathedral’s worship, attended services, or looked at the birds. The tradition recalls the miracle of a roasted hen singing again and Saint Dominic’s aid to pilgrims.
Modern restoration has altered how several parts of the cathedral are understood. Between 1984 and 1987, the claustral chapels inserted during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were almost entirely removed. Restoration in the 1990s dismantled the retable and revealed Romanesque reliefs and parts of the medieval ambulatory that had previously been concealed. After debate about whether to cover or expose the discovery, the restored retable was moved to the north arm of the transept, leaving the Romanesque chancel visible. The Mudéjar ceiling of the chapter house, an Iberian artistic tradition combining Christian forms with Islamic-influenced decoration, was uncovered in 1992. Following floor renovation in 2009, an interactive screen and audiovisual projection system were installed beside the retable to explain its details and construction history.
Remains
The cathedral has a Latin-cross plan with three broad naves, a pronounced transept, attached chapels, a major chapel, and an ambulatory surrounded by radial chapels and a central apsidiole. The northern side opens onto the cloister. Romanesque work is strongest in the apse and chancel, the nave is predominantly Gothic, and the detached bell tower is Baroque. Stone, brick, alabaster, and wood appear throughout the surviving fabric.
Romanesque chancel and eastern end
Apse and ambulatory
The central Romanesque apse is the only completed apse from an original plan for three apses separated by sections of the ambulatory. Two exterior buttresses align with the other supports dividing the outer ambulatory wall, giving the apse a massive appearance. The eastern end contains the high altar and ambulatory, while the central nave and two side aisles join behind the high altar to create the passage used by pilgrims.
Chancel sculpture
The Romanesque chancel brings its chapel, apse, and gallery into a unified view associated with the pilgrimage route. Four decorated pillars include two with entirely vegetal ornament, one showing the Trinity surrounded by the four Tetramorphs, and one depicting King David. The Tetramorphs are the human or angel, lion, ox, and eagle associated in Christian art with the four Evangelists.
Other Romanesque capitals show the Apotheosis of Christ, the Resurrection, Christ on the waters, the Annunciation, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Ascension. Some are badly deteriorated, while others carry realistic human and animal heads or scenes involving pilgrims. The restoration of the retable exposed further Romanesque reliefs and elements of the medieval ambulatory.
Portals and bell tower
South portal
The South, or Saint Dominic’s, Portal was built between 1761 and 1765. Its design includes a large semicircular arch, circular oculi, and niches containing statues of the diocese’s patrons, Saint Dominic, Saint Celedonius, and Saint Emeterius.
West portal
The west portal is a late-thirteenth-century work that combines Romanesque and Gothic features. Seven plain archivolts frame the doorway, while a later niche above it contains a badly deteriorated sculptural group of Christ giving the keys to Saint Peter.
Detached Baroque tower
The detached Baroque tower was designed by Martín de Beratúa under the patronage of Bishop Andrés Porras y Temes in 1762. Its square base measures 9 metres on each side, and the tower rises 70 metres. It is one of the few detached cathedral towers in Spain and is the highest tower in La Rioja. Eight bells and a clock occupy the tower. Two small turrets operate the clock, with the smaller marking the quarter-hours and the larger marking the hours.
The local tradition about the tower’s separation also holds that its foundations were secured with a hard compact mixture of lime and crushed deer and cattle horns. This explanation belongs to the building’s local memory rather than to the tower’s visible architectural form.
Retable, choir, and chapels
Renaissance retable
Damián Forment’s Renaissance main retable measures approximately 9 metres wide and 13 metres high. Forment was a major Renaissance sculptor active in Spain. Andrés de Melgar executed its polychromy. The retable includes tritons, satyrs, nereids, and centaurs, together with a central image of the Savior, an upper image of the Assumption of the Virgin, scenes from the life and Passion of Christ, and twenty statues, including Saint Dominic of the Causeway.
The lower plinth contains the retable’s only stated traces of alabaster. Its relocation to the north arm of the transept required the destruction or removal of several obstructions, including an internal stone balcony that had formed part of the Gothic circulation system through the upper levels. A new stained-glass window was made above the retable in its new position. The access to Saint Dominic’s crypt and the poultry house lies beside the transept near the south portal.
Choir
The choir originally stood in an elevated position, a layout more typical of monasteries, before being moved to the floor of the central nave. The present Plateresque choir occupies the centre of the cathedral and separates the clergy from the rest of the church. Plateresque is a richly ornamented Spanish Renaissance style.
Made of walnut, the choir has two tiers of seats. The 33 upper seats carry reliefs of saints and prophets, while the 26 lower seats depict saints and virgins. Five stairways connect the choir with the two side aisles. Bishop Juan de Castellanos commissioned the work. Andrés de Nájera executed it in 1527, including the episcopal chair, and Guillén de Holanda made the choir stalls.
Saint Dominic’s tomb and poultry house
The Chapel of Saint Dominic contains the saint’s tomb west of the poultry house. The late-twelfth-century Romanesque effigy shows him lying in his vestments, his head resting on cushions and six small angels accompanying him. Traces of the original polychromy survive. Scenes of his miracles surround the tomb. Bishop Diego López de Zúñiga sponsored these Gothic scenes, made around 1440. An alabaster canopy designed by Vigarny and made by Juan de Rasines in 1513 rises above the tomb, with reliefs depicting the saint’s life.
The poultry house was built around 1460 as a Gothic structure of polychrome stone. It stands in the southern arm of the transept, on the Epistle side, opposite Saint Dominic’s tomb, and houses a white cock and a white hen. Volunteers from the local Brotherhood of Saint Dominic replace the birds monthly.
Cloister and chapter house
Cloister
The cloister is built of stone and brick and covered by rib vaults, with eight vaults in each gallery. Chapels inserted into its walls and openings during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries nearly enclosed the courtyard. The cloister now houses the cathedral exhibition.
Chapter house
The chapter house opens from the eastern cloister gallery. It was built under Bishop Juan del Pino and remodelled under Bishop Pedro González de Mendoza in the second half of the fifteenth century. Its Mudéjar wooden ceiling is decorated with vegetal motifs and the patron’s arms. Plaster vaultlets and a suspended ceiling concealed it until its discovery in 1992.
The cathedral’s interior and exterior also preserve 34 types of mason’s marks, while the recorded total number of individual marks varies in the descriptions. Together with the surviving Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque fabric, these details reflect the building’s long sequence of construction and alteration.
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