Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain. Annette M. B. Meakin

a portale septentrionali usque a portali meridiano pleno carbonibus incensis cum ture feriendo in utraque parte sumitatis ecclesie, estante antistite in pontificale cum tota procesine ut supra.” With regard to the form of the incense-burner here mentioned, Villa-Amil says that it was fashioned like a turret, because in a Bull of Nicholas V., which was dispatched from Rome on September 27, 1447, there is promulgated a sentence of excommunication against the person who should steal from the Cathedral of Santiago “quoddam jocale argenteum in modum bastitie artificis ingenio fabricatum, valoris mille ducatorum vel circa.”

      In yet another passage in an old volume in the Library of Seville Cathedral, Señor Villa-Amil has found the following: “In the year 1499 the Infanta Catalina was about to be married to the Prince of Wales, the son and heir of the king of England, and she, the daughter of King Fernando and Queen Isabella, before she embarked at Coruña (it was the Jubilee year), attended Mass in the Cathedral at Santiago, which was so full that it seemed as if it would be impossible, without the greatest difficulty, to get another person into the transept. A censer swung above the people as large as a great cauldron, suspended by very thick iron chains. It was filled with live charcoal, upon which had been heaped incense and other perfumes. And it swung so far as to reach almost from one door of the transept to the other. Suddenly, while it was swinging, the chains upon which it was swinging broke with a sound like the report of a gun, and, without dropping a single ash, the censer swung out of the door of the Cathedral, where it was smashed to atoms, and dispersed all its red-hot coals without any one being hurt.”[90]

      Villa-Amil’s article was published in 1889. His book, from which I have translated the above incident, was not published until May 1907, but the story appears to have been handed down from generation to generation among the townspeople of Santiago; it was related to me by a Santiago shopkeeper in February 1907. “Once,” he said solemnly, “in ages past, the rope by which the censer was swinging broke, and the censer flew out of the window over the gate of the Platerias, right over to the fountain.” “And killed a lady,” put in his son, who was listening. “No; it did not hurt any one,” said the shopkeeper, shaking his head. “It was before my time and before my father’s time but it can’t happen again, for ever since that day the master carpenter of the Cathedral is always present to watch. He is one of those who pull the rope, and it is he who stops the censer at the conclusion of the ceremony.”

      It was on February 2, 1907, that I had the good fortune to assist at the celebration of Candlemas, one of the four principal festivals of the year, at Santiago Cathedral; and on that occasion the “king of censers,” as Victor Hugo called it in his poem, swung before my admiring eyes. The service began at 9.30. The Archbishop with his red cap (for he is now a Cardinal) and ermine cape, presided. Standing in the transept close to the choir in the midst of a large congregation, all standing or kneeling, I saw two men come forward bearing “the largest incense-burner in the world” suspended by its chains to a horizontal pole. They placed it on the pavement, exactly under the central cupola, from the triangle of which hung the two ends of a rope worked by a pulley. The chains of the great silver censer were now attached to one end of the rope, while seven strong men clutched the other end, and, pulling it, caused the cauldron to rise in the air above our heads till it was about ten feet from the ground. Then it began to swing gently. Every eye was fixed on it, and there was for a moment the perfect silence of universal expectation, but only for a moment, for then the silver tones of a couple of clarions (chirimias) fell upon our ears.[91] At length the great censer, as if taking courage at the sound of the music, swung boldly out across the transept. It swung higher and higher, and the clear voice of the silver-voiced clarions sounded more and more triumphant. At last it swung so high that I thought it must turn a somersault, and pour its glowing charcoal upon our upturned faces. We saw its perforated top filled with tongue-like flames fanned by the wind. And, in the midst of it all, the sight of those hundreds of eager, upturned faces. What a study! When Borrow visited Galicia he heard of “the mighty censers, which are at times swung so high by machinery as to smite the vaulted roof of the Cathedral,” but he did not have the privilege of assisting at one of those extraordinary ceremonies. “It is one of the things to see,” said a professor of the University to whom I mentioned it. “It is one of the sights of Santiago.” I do not know for how long the censer swung above our heads, covering at each gigantic swing the whole length of the transept,—perhaps ten minutes, perhaps fifteen,—but at last it began to swing more gently and to rise less high, and then it gradually subsided till it ceased swinging altogether. While the five men were detaching it from its rope the congregation began to press into the central nave, where a large ring had been formed by the priests. Here the ecclesiastical musicians had taken their stand, and here they gave us a (violins and ’cellos) repertoire of church music, to which the congregation listened with rapture. The two clarionets or chirimias are only heard while the censer swings. It is their sacred privilege to accompany its flight, and give by their clear tones the final touch to one of the most dramatic scenes ever witnessed in a Christian church. It reminded me of the moment when I saw the aged Pope Leo X. carried to his throne in St. Peter’s at Rome (on the occasion of his Jubilee), while clarion music imitated the singing of angels in the great cupola of Michael Angelo.

      Señor Villa-Amil has discovered that Sergius I. (687-701) provided a censer, according to the biography of this pope quoted by Anastasius the librarian: “Thymiamaterium aureum columnis, ... quod suspendit arte eandum imaginum S. Petri, in quo incensum et odor suavitatis festis diebus missarum solemnia celebrantur omnipotenti Deo opulentius mittitur.” Villa-Amil believes, with Ferreiro, that of this class of suspended censers that of Santiago was probably one of the first. For many years the swinging censer of Santiago was thought to be the only example of the kind, but Señor Benito Alonso has published the following paragraph, which he recently discovered among the Proceedings of the Corporation of Orense, by Inocencio Portabales: “On December 21, 1503, the Corporation of Orense appointed Juan Diaz, a citizen of the town, to the office of administrating and swinging the censer (botafumeiro), which was provided with ropes and enormous cords. It was swung in the transept of the Cathedral suspended from the roof of the lantern on Christmas Day, at Easter, Pentecost, Ascension, Corpus, St. John the Baptist’s Day, St. Peter’s Day, etc.”[92] It is clear, then, that in the Cathedral of Orense, as well as in that of Santiago, there was a swinging censer in use during the Middle Ages.

      But to return to the pilgrims: the roads of Christendom were so crowded with them that Dante exclaims—