Santiago del Arrabal (Toledo)

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The church of Santiago del Arrabal in the former Spanish capital Toledo is one of the lesser-known sights of the city. It is dedicated to the Apostle James the Elder and is located in the Arrabal district (literally 'suburb') to the north of the center, not far from the Puerta de Bisagra . The Mudéjar-style church is part of the old town of Toledo, which in its entirety has been recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO .

Iglesia de Santiago del Arrabal , Toledo

Building history

Medieval chronicles mention that King Alfonso VI. León after taking Toledo in 1085 a standing already at this place mosque in a Santiago , the spiritual leader of the Reconquista was umweihen, dedicated Christian church. The order to demolish and rebuild this church was given by the Portuguese King Sancho II , who was in exile in Toledo in 1247 , but who died on January 4th of the following year. The work of the predominantly Moorish craftsmen stalled until the second half of the 13th century when Santiagoorden took on the building, which was completed around 1265, because the oldest tombstone inside the church comes from this year.

architecture

Stone material

Due to the stone material used ( bricks and quarry stones ) as well as the apse and facade decoration, it can be assumed that Moorish craftsmen ( mudéjares ) built the church or at least played a decisive role in its construction, because the Gothic pointed arches inside and the - for Spanish churches of the time Time - the enormous internal height of the structure of around 14 meters was unknown in Al-Andalus and shows clear Central European influences.

Exterior construction

Choir area

Transept, apses and tower

The three apses adjoining a transept are made of bricks and show a continuous and largely identical decor consisting of staggered, mostly windowless, pointed arch arcades. On closer inspection, however, there are minor differences - the two lower levels of the central apse are tied together by three slim, high windows and some arches of the north apse are designed as jagged or multi-pass arches . The floor plan of the apses continues on the transept. As older photos show, the middle apse was raised by an externally completely unadorned storey in the 16th century due to the installation of a larger altarpiece , which was removed again in the 20th century.

tower

The lower part of the tower is ascribed to the 11th or 12th century and thus comes from a previous building - it is closed on all sides and is only broken up by small round windows in the basement and twin windows ( ajimez ) in the middle; the arches of the latter are framed by a rectangular frame ( alfiz ). The upper floor, on the other hand, is opened through significantly wider and higher twin windows.

West facade

West facade

On the west facade, which consists predominantly of quarry stone but is framed and stabilized by brick corner edging, neither dominant horizontal nor vertical structures ( cornices , friezes , columns , pilaster strips, etc.) can be recognized. The middle part is optically highlighted by decorative elements. Like the side window frames, it consists exclusively of bricks and shows fields with potentially endlessly overlapping blind arches . The portal consists of an inner horseshoe arch and a framing multi-pass blind arch, which in turn is framed by a rectangular frame ( alfiz ). The gable is stepped and is repeated in a similar form over the transept.

Interior

The three-aisled interior of the church is characterized by slender, high pointed arcades and open wooden roof trusses ; on some of the bars of the latter there are still remnants of inscriptions with Arabic characters. The outer walls consist of rubble stones, which are interrupted at regular intervals by brick layers that serve for stabilization; the pillars are made entirely of bricks. There are usually no capitals in Mudejar architecture - instead, there are strut plates at the top of the pillars in the transition to the arches of the arcades. The interior of the church was plastered for centuries and was only restored to its original (?) Stone-sighted condition in the 20th century.

Furnishing

The furnishings include a Romanesque baptismal font , a pulpit from the 14th century covered with various abstract curvilinear decorative elements , the altar retable from the 16th century and several grave slabs.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Santiago del Arrabal (Toledo)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Toledo - Entry in the World Heritage List (English)

Coordinates: 39 ° 51 '43.2 "  N , 4 ° 1' 31.4"  W.