Tudela Cathedral: A Romanesque Cathedral in Navarra, Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Navarre, Spanish, Umayyad
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page19 sections
History
Tudela Cathedral, also called the Cathedral of Santa María la Mayor, is a Roman Catholic church in Tudela, Spain, built principally during the late Romanesque and early Gothic periods. It began as the Collegiate Church of Santa María beside Tudela’s former Great Mosque and became a cathedral in the eighteenth century, when Tudela separated from the Diocese of Tarazona. Pope Pius VI granted the elevation at the request of Charles III. The building’s long development brought together Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Churrigueresque phases, the latter a highly elaborate form of late Spanish Baroque decoration.
Before the Cathedral
The cathedral stands near the site of the Great Mosque of Tudela, which occupied the area, or part of it, between the ninth and eleventh centuries. The mosque is associated with Musa II, lord of Tudela and leader of the Banu Qasi, a powerful Muslim ruling family in the Ebro region. It was renovated in the tenth century under the Tujibids, a later Muslim dynasty connected with Tudela’s political history.
The mosque’s orientation differed from that of the later cathedral, and it was demolished before the Christian church was built. Some foundations and sculpted elements were reused in the cathedral. A church dedicated to Santa María la Blanca also stood nearby. It may have been Mozarabic, reflecting the Christian communities and artistic traditions that developed under Muslim rule in medieval Iberia. Some interpretations place remains of this earlier church beneath or close to the present cloister.
Medieval Construction
Construction of the cathedral began around 1168 during the reign of Sancho VI the Wise, one of the successive rulers of Navarre whose reigns frame the principal medieval building phases. The chapter acquired houses and shops beside the Great Mosque to prepare the site. Work continued under Sancho VII the Strong and was completed during the reign of Theobald I the Troubadour, probably between the late twelfth century and much of the thirteenth century. The building is conventionally dated to 1168–1270.
The church was sufficiently advanced for use by 1188, when a dedication or consecration took place. The chevet, the eastern end of a church containing the apse and chapels, and the transept belong to the first construction phase. The perimeter walls followed toward the end of the twelfth century. The transept doors were built in 1186, while the west Door of the Last Judgement was completed around 1200. A Romanesque cloister was constructed between approximately 1180 and 1206, with houses donated for the project in 1186.
A late Romanesque bell tower was completed in 1228. The choir was added in the sixteenth century, and the main altarpiece was consecrated on 11 June 1494 by Bishop Guillermo, acting as vicar of the Bishop of Tarazona in Tudela. The church therefore retained its collegiate function for centuries while accumulating new furnishings and architectural additions.
Damage and Later Additions
The medieval bell tower collapsed on 21 June 1676, damaging nearby naves and possibly affecting the west rose window and the adjoining tower. A replacement, known as the New Tower, was built between 1682 and 1697. Its lead-covered wooden spire was destroyed by a major fire in 1747. The spire was then replaced by a simple flattened roof.
The Baroque Chapel of Saint Anne was enlarged and built between 1712 and 1724 after the New Tower had been completed. The Holy Spirit Chapel followed in 1738 as a small parish church that connected earlier chapels. These interventions helped give the cathedral its mixture of medieval structure and later devotional spaces.
In the eighteenth century, Tudela became separate from the Diocese of Tarazona and the collegiate church received cathedral status. The elevation formalized the building’s role as the cathedral church dedicated to Santa María la Mayor. Behind the chevet, the sacristy was remodeled in a Neoclassical style in 1792, while the chapter house had been built in the mid-seventeenth century.
Protection and Restoration
The cathedral was declared a national monument in 1884 on the proposal of the Royal Academy of History, and state funding was obtained for restoration. It was also declared a Spanish Asset of Cultural Interest under designation RI-51-0000044. The Commission of Historical and Artistic Monuments of Navarre assumed custody in 1885 and appointed Rafael Gaztelu Murga, Juan Iturralde y Suit, and Fernández as members.
Major restoration took place in the early twenty-first century, and the cathedral reopened on 16 July 2006. The Holy Spirit Chapel was restored, while renovation of its sacristy exposed a previously concealed wall belonging to the former Great Mosque. Work on the Romanesque White Virgin also revealed the statue’s original color.
Remains
Plan and Medieval Structure
Tudela Cathedral stands in the historic center between Plaza Vieja and the streets Roso, Portal, and Horno Higuera. Built in ashlar masonry, it covers approximately 3,380 square meters excluding the cloister and measures about 65 by 52 meters. Its design follows Cistercian architectural models related to Sigüenza Cathedral, with details associated with Santa María de la Oliva Abbey and Valbuena Monastery. Cistercian architecture is a medieval monastic tradition known for clear planning, restrained decoration, and ribbed vaults. Reused sculpted material from the mosque includes modillions, projecting blocks used as supports or decoration.
The plan contains three naves divided into four bays, with the central nave wider than the two side naves. The transept has five bays, including a square central bay, and the chevet contains five chapels around a deep semicircular apse. Pointed arcades rest on large compound piers. Paired columns appear on the fronts of the transept piers, while the nave supports use engaged columns and moulded angles.
Ribbed cross vaults cover the nave and transept. Their ribs meet at decorated keystones, including grape motifs, and pointed arches with rounded mouldings divide the vaults. The central apse has a cross vault. The central chapels use quarter-sphere and ribbed vaults, while the outer chapels have cross vaults adapted to square plans. Paired pointed windows with circular openings above them line the upper nave walls, and the numerous windows illuminate the central nave and transept.
Principal Doorways and West Façade
Door of the Last Judgement
The west Door of the Last Judgement is the cathedral’s main entrance and the last of its three principal doorways to have been opened. It has a large splayed arch surrounded by eight archivolts, moulded bands following the curve of an arch. Eight columns stand on each side, producing sixteen supports. The archivolts contain 115 wedge-shaped voussoirs and eight keystones.
Its carvings present the separation of the blessed and the damned after divine judgement. Heaven occupies the viewer’s left and Hell the right. The scenes include avarice, lust, homosexuality, lying, gluttony, and gambling. A group once identified as money changers is interpreted by some as gamblers because the object held by the figures has been identified as a medieval game board. That reading remains debated.
The central axis contains scenes associated with the Apocalypse and the Last Judgement, while the capitals of the sixteen columns depict episodes from Genesis. The tympanum is currently undecorated, and its original subject is unknown, although the surrounding programme has led to the proposal that it may once have shown Christ as Judge. Hell occupies approximately half of the portal’s surface, an unusually extensive treatment regarded as exceptional in Western Christian art.
North and South Doorways
The north Door of Santa María faces Plaza Vieja. It once opened toward the medieval cemetery beside the cathedral. Its slightly pointed arch is framed by three decorated archivolts, and its capitals contain narrative scenes. The south Door of the Virgin, also called the Portal Door, is the oldest of the three entrances. It has a semicircular Romanesque arch, three archivolts with geometric decoration, and narrative capitals.
A porch with two large pointed arches shelters the southern doorway and gave the entrance its association with Portal Street. The adjacent stretch of street was traditionally called Cuesta de Lagos because stone silos there held offerings of grain, oil, wine, and other tithes.
Rose Window and Towers
Above the west doorway, a large rose window contains stone ribs and alabaster panels that admit subdued light. A late Romanesque stone tower stands on the right side of the façade. Its lower body is square, its upper body octagonal, and pointed-arch windows open on four sides. An octagonal spire roof completes the tower. A matching tower on the left has been proposed, but its existence is unconfirmed.
The New Tower is a Renaissance bell tower rising 50 meters. Its first two sections are square and its upper section is octagonal. Stone forms the lower section, while brick forms the two upper sections. The former wooden spire, covered with lead, was approximately 29 meters high and was replaced after the 1747 fire by the present simple flattened roof.
Chevet and Chapels
Eastern Chapels
The five chevet chapels consist of a semicircular and a square chapel on each side of the central apse. The central apse contains the high altar. On the Epistle side are the chapels of Saint John the Evangelist and Our Lady of Hope; on the Gospel side are those of Saint Joachim and Saint Martin.
The semicircular Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist contains the Romanesque statue of the White Virgin, a bas-relief tomb belonging to Richard Alexandris, and the Gothic tomb of Sancho Sánchez de Oteiza. Oteiza commissioned his tomb during his lifetime but was not buried there. After becoming a cardinal-bishop, he moved to Pamplona, where another tomb was made for him in Pamplona Cathedral.
The White Virgin is a free-standing Romanesque statue from the twelfth century, more than 1.90 meters high. Made in two parts, it contains an internal cavity where bone remains and a red Mozarabic cloth were found. The statue once stood in a niche behind the high altarpiece before being moved to the Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist. Its twenty-first-century restoration revealed its original color.
The square Chapel of Our Lady of Hope is enclosed by a Flamboyant Gothic grille, a screen in a late Gothic style characterized by elaborate flame-like tracery. It contains a fifteenth-century Gothic altarpiece and the Gothic tomb of the Chancellor of the Kingdom of Navarre. The semicircular Chapel of Saint Joachim contains the fifteenth-century altarpiece of Saint Catherine, while the square Chapel of Saint Martin is enclosed by a sixteenth-century Plateresque grille, an ornate Spanish late-Gothic and early-Renaissance screen.
Baroque and Sixteenth-Century Chapels
The Chapel of Saint Anne is the largest chapel in the cathedral and follows a Baroque design. Its irregular plan is octagonal, as is the dome, which rises on a drum with eight windows. The eighteenth-century altarpiece contains the image of Saint Anne Triplex, identified as the city’s patronal image.
The Chapel of the Holy Spirit was built in 1738 and is approximately 25 meters long. Its highly ornamented Baroque stucco uses varied colors. The nave bay has a groin vault, a vault formed by intersecting curved surfaces, and the chapel bay has a slightly oval dome. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century altarpieces and images of Saint Anne, Saint Fermin, and Saint Francis Xavier occupy the interior.
The Chapels of the Christ of the Bed and Saint Peter date from the sixteenth century, and a small door connects them. The octagonal Chapel of Saint Anthony occupies the space of the New Tower and contains a seventeenth-century Mannerist altarpiece. The Baptistery is a small chapel with a sixteenth-century baptismal font. The square Chapel of the Sorrowful Virgin contains an early Baroque altarpiece from the seventeenth century and the Christ of the Bed.
Choir and High Altar
The choir is entered through a Plateresque grille. It contains 37 lower stalls and 49 upper stalls in the Flamboyant Gothic style, together with an eighteenth-century organ. Chapels from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries line its outer walls. They are dedicated to Saint Joseph, the Purification of Our Lady, Our Lady of the Forsaken, Saint Thomas of Villanova, and Saint John the Evangelist.
The main altarpiece is a late-fifteenth-century Hispano-Flemish Gothic work, dated between 1487 and 1494 and chiefly associated with Pedro Díaz de Oviedo and Diego del Águila. Hispano-Flemish Gothic combines Iberian Gothic traditions with artistic influences from the Low Countries. The altarpiece has a broad base with a predella, the lower section of an altarpiece, and a sub-predella immediately beneath it. Three registers of five bays rise above, enriched with open Gothic tracery, canopies, pinnacles, and a slender central fleche, a spire-like feature, topped by a small Crucifixion image.
The sub-predella contains painted panels showing the heads of the Apostles in circular medallions, accompanied by two expressive weeping angels. Some heads in the outer bays were added during Basc’s restoration of 1855. Doors at either side of the base show Saint Peter and Saint Paul against landscape backgrounds.
The painted scenes narrate episodes from the Passion, including Pilate washing his hands, the Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Man of Sorrows supported by angels dressed as deacons, the Magdalene on the Road to Calvary, the Flagellation, and the Denial of Saint Peter. The upper registers depict episodes from the Life of the Virgin, while eight prophets appear beside the canopy. Above the figure of Saint Paul hang chains traditionally associated with the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Tradition holds that Sancho VII gave them to the Collegiate Church after taking them from the tent of Miramamolin, the Christian name or title used for the Almohad ruler Muhammad al-Nasir.
Cloister and Mudéjar Chapel
Romanesque Cloister
The Romanesque cloister lies south of the cathedral. Its rectangular plan has longer east and west sides, with semicircular arcades of nine arches on each short side and twelve on each long side. Paired columns support 42 historiated capitals, carved capitals with narrative scenes. Their imagery includes biblical and religious episodes as well as fantastical, vegetal, and animal forms.
The capitals follow a thematic arrangement around the four wings. The north wing presents scenes from the birth of Jesus through the washing of the Apostles’ feet. The east wing continues the story of Jesus through the Ascension. The south wing includes the Assumption of the Virgin and the martyrdoms of saints. The west wing includes intertwined birds and plants, musicians, Saint Martin cutting his cloak, birds of prey devouring rabbits, the parable of Dives and Lazarus, and the Annunciation. Several capitals relate to the Jacobean pilgrimage tradition associated with the shrine of Saint James the Apostle at Santiago de Compostela, including one dedicated to Saint James.
Chapel of the Escuela del Cristo
The eastern side of the cloister gives access to the Mudéjar Chapel of the Escuela del Cristo. Mudéjar describes the continuation of Islamic artistic and building traditions in Christian-ruled Iberia. The chapel was probably built in the thirteenth century, while its wooden structural decoration belongs to the fifteenth century. Its form and decoration recall medieval synagogues, leading to the proposal that the Great Synagogue of Tudela may have stood on this site.
Builders’ Marks
More than 120 different stonemason’s marks have been identified across the cathedral. Many remain enclosed within the walls, and the total could have been approximately three times greater if the vaults had also been examined. These marks provide a visible trace of the craftsmen involved in constructing the medieval building.
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