Toledo, Archdiocese of

TOLEDO, ARCHDIOCESE of - Archdiocese and capital city of the province of the same name in Spain.

It has an area of 26,802 sq km with a population of 765,220 inhabitants, almost all Catholics, distributed in 364 parishes, served by 323 diocesan priests and 80 regulars; 18 male religious communities and 106 female (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 425). It is the primatial see of Spain and has as suffragans the dioceses of Coria, Cuenca, Madrid, Plasencia and Sigüenza. Its patrons are Sts. Eugenius and Ildephonsus.

T. is the Toletum, a Roman municipium, mentioned by Titus Livy. Occupied first by the Alans, then by the Goths, the latter made it the center of a new empire united with Gallia Narbonensis, and Leovigild I in 579 was the first of a dynasty that remained there until 709, when, after violent struggles, the infante Don Rodrigo ascended the throne; but after two years the Arabs, led by Taric, occupied the city, which for three centuries was under the dependence of the caliphate of Cordoba. In 1012 the governor of T. rose up against the Umayyads, proclaiming himself king, but Alfonso I in 1085 reconquered the city; in vain besieged by the Muslims in 1197 and in 1205; in 1212 the Saracen invasion was definitively repelled. In 1470 T. was visited by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who founded there the votive convent of "S. Juan de los Reyes." At the beginning of the reign of Charles V, T. was the center of the agitation of the "comuneros" who defended the privileges of the commune, led by Juan de Padilla; the city having been besieged, his widow Maria Pacheco was at the head of the resistance; but Charles V made it the capital. Philip II abandoned it for Madrid; nevertheless the city retained the title of "imperial y coronada" city. T. underwent a heroic siege from July 21 to Sept. 27, 1936.

The origin of the diocese is traced back to the 1st century, and St. Eugenius would be its first bishop, but documents are lacking for the first three centuries and the first reliable notice is found only in the famous Council of Elvira (ca. 300; v. ELVIRA), where Bishop Melantius subscribed. It was not suppressed under the Arabs, who preserved the splendor of the city; indeed, thanks to that domination, the obstinate Adoptionist heretic Elipandus was able to defy the thunderbolts of Pope Adrian I and Charlemagne. Nevertheless it had greater splendor after the conquest of the city made in 1085 by King Alfonso VI. Famous are the Councils of Toledo, of which the first is from 400, the second was celebrated in 531, and the third, the most famous of all, in 589 with the assistance of the Visigothic king Reccared, brother of the martyr St. Hermenegild and son of the cruel Arian Leovigild; in that Council the Catholic religion was recognized, and the religious unity of the Kingdom affirmed. The glory of this Church are Sts. Ildephonsus, Julian, Eulogius (bishop-elect) and Eugenius; it was also illustrated by the cardinals Egidio Albornoz (restorer of the Papal State in the 14th century), Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros (the great governor and patron, at the beginning of the 16th century), Gaspare di Borgia (Spanish ambassador to Rome), and by many others, since from the 16th century the archbishop of Toledo was almost always a member of the Sacred College. Well known are the prelates, not cardinals, Roderic Ximenez de Rada and Bartolome Carranza, who died in Rome in 1576, after a sensational trial.

The Cathedral was founded in the 6th century under the Gothic king Reccared. Transformed into a mosque by the Arabs, its reconstruction was begun in 1227 by King Ferdinand and completed in 1493. The first architect was a Petrus Petri called Pedro Pérez; it is in French Gothic style with later modifications. It is entered through five monumental doors and three secondary ones. The main facade, begun in 1418, completed at the beginning of the 16th century, has three portals: the one called "del Perdono," in the center, offers a great ogival arch, adorned with figures of angels, prophets and saints; in the tympanum is the Virgin giving the chasuble to St. Ildephonsus; above is the Last Supper. The two side pillars are adorned with statues. On the left is the pillar called "del Infierno" or "de la Torre," on the right the one called "de Escribanos" or "del Iuicio." To the left of the facade rises the tower, 90 m high, erected between 1380-1440 by Rodrigo Alfonso and Alvaro Gomez. On the southern side are the "puerta Liana," of Ionic order, erected in 1800, and the "puerta de los leones," with six columns surmounted by lions with heraldic shields, the work of A. de Egas of Brussels, decorated by Juan Aléman, restored in the 18th century; the bronze doors are from 1545. On the eastern side, large red epigraphs with the names of the doctors in theology (16th and 17th centuries) are affixed to the walls. On the northern side are found the "Puerta de Presentación" of 1585 with a bas-relief of the Presentation in the temple, from 1565; the "Puerta de S. Catalina" of the end of the 16th century with the scene of the burial of St. Catherine; the "Puerta de la Feria," also called "del Reloj" (of the clock) or "del Niño perduto," of the beginning of the 14th century, decorated with figures of angels and prophets. The interior measures 113 x 57 m, 30 m high, divided by clusters of 16 columns into five naves, on which 22 chapels open; it is illuminated by no fewer than 750 windows with scenes of the New Testament and figures of saints painted between 1480-1560 by J. Dolfin, I. d'Utrecht and A. di Olanda.

The "capilla mayor" was enlarged by Card. Ximenez ca. 1498; it has a wooden retablo in flamboyant Gothic style designed by the Borgognone; at the sides of the altar are the tombs of the Kings (Sanchez II, Alfonso VI, Alfonso VIII) and of Card. P. Gonzalez de Mendoza (d. 1495); on the right one descends to the underground chapel called that of the Holy Sepulchre. In the choir the wooden stalls were carved by R. Aleman in 1495; the 54 bas-reliefs represent episodes of the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada: on the archbishop's stall is the alabaster group of the Transfiguration; each stall is separated by columns of red marble; above runs a frieze with marble medallions representing the genealogy of the Lord; in the middle of the choir, in the two great bronze pulpits, episodes of the Old Testament are carved (work of N. di Vergara, 1570). On the altar rises the marble statue of the "Virgen de la Blanca," a French sculpture of the 12th century. In the sacristy one admires the portal of Card. Borxa y Velasco (d. 1645) by Velasquez. On the central altar of the Trascoro is the statue "de la Virgen de la Estrella" of the 14th century. In the right nave is the Mozarabic chapel built in 1504 by Card. Ximenez, the work of E. de Egas; it was restored in 1922; every day the Mozarabic rite is celebrated there, a rite which by a special convention was continued, during the period of the Arab invasion, in six churches of the city. On the altar the mosaic with the Blessed Virgin and Child was executed in Rome in 1794; there is furthermore a fresco representing the capture of Oran in 1509, executed by Gregorio di Borgogna in 1514. In the chapel of St. Eugenius the statue of the holy bishop is by D. Copin; there is also the tomb of Bishop F. di Castiglia, d. 1521. In the transept, the interior of the "puerta de los Leones," of ogival architecture, contains 35 carved wooden panels: on the door the Tree of Jesse in high relief, and a medallion with the coronation of the Virgin, the work of Gregorio di Borgogna.

In the ambulatory is the chapel of St. Lucia in 13th-century Gothic style, then the chapel "de Reyes vejos" or of the Holy Spirit, erected in 1290; then one passes to the chapter hall with a coffered ceiling carved and painted in 1508, on the walls frescoes by Gregorio di Borgogna and portraits of the archbishops of T. from St. Eugenius to Card. Moreno.

In the apse are the octagonal chapel of St. Ildephonsus, transformed by Cardinal De Albornoz, who is buried there (d. 1364 at Viterbo), and the tomb of Archbishop J. Martinez de Contreras (d. 1431). The chapel of Santiago is hexagonal, decorated in the Flamboyant Gothic style; it was erected in the mid-15th century by the constable Don Alvaro De Luna, who was buried there; there is also the tomb of Archbishop J. De Cerezuela (d. 1448). The chapel "de Reyes nuevos," erected between 1531 and 1534, contains the sepulchral monuments of Henry II and Henry III and statues of John I and II. The sacristy was frescoed by Luca Giordano and by El Greco; in the room known as the vestiary are canvases by Rubens and El Greco; there is preserved a precious series of sacred vestments that belonged to Cardinals Mendoza, Cisneros, Fonseca and Albornoz, and also the so-called Bible of St. Louis, an illuminated French manuscript of the 13th century in three volumes; some leaves of the Apocalypse are now in New York in the Pierpont Morgan collection. To the right of the ambulatory is the tomb of Cardinal De Portocarrero (d. 1709). Then come the chapels known as "de los Doctores" or of St. Marina, and the chapel "de la Virgen del Sacrario" with the venerated image of the Madonna. In the left transept one admires the chapels of St. Peter, erected by Archbishop Sancho De Rochas (d. 1422), who is buried there; the chapel "de la Pila Bautismal"; the chapel "de la Virgen de la Antigua," so called from an ancient icon of the Madonna; the chapel "de la Descensión," erected in 1533 on the spot where the Madonna appeared to St. Ildephonsus.

The chapel of the Tower, also called "de S. Juan" or "de los Canónigos," beneath the tower, contains the Treasury of the Cathedral. On the north side of the building, through the "del Mollete" door, one enters the cloister, begun in 1399, with two stories: opening onto it are the summer chapter house of the 15th century, the chapel of St. Blas with the tomb of Archbishop Tenorio (d. 1399), to whom the cloister is due; in the vault are frescoes by Arnaldo of Cremona; one also gains access to the Chapter Library, rich in manuscripts and illuminated choir books. A covered gallery leads to the archiepiscopal Palace (18th century), occupied on the lower floor by the Provincial Library. This Cathedral enjoys many pontifical privileges, and its canonical dignitaries have the faculty of using the mitre. A chief chaplain and several other chaplains and beneficed clergy have the service of the Mozarabic rite, restored with royal generosity by Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros at the beginning of the 16th century in the said chapel, after he had commissioned several learned investigators of ancient codices to recompose the liturgy, of which Toledo had been the center and defense until, under Gregory VII, it had to yield its place to the Roman rite.

In Toledo there is the major Seminary, formerly the pontifical University of St. Ildephonsus, founded in 1848 by Cardinal Inquanza, and the minor one, of St. Thomas of Villanova, formerly the University of St. Catherine, a building enlarged in 1917 by Cardinal Guisasola and in 1926 by Cardinal Reig.

Among the churches, mention is made of those of St. Andrew, of

" S. Juan de la Penitencia " with its adjoining convent founded in 1514 by Cardinal Cisneros; it is of mixed architecture with a dome of cedar wood and pendentives covered with stalactites: there is the tomb of Bishop F. Ruiz (d. 1528); the Mozarabic church of St. Luke, which was recently restored; the church of " S. Juan de los Reyes," joined to a convent erected in 1746 by the Catholic Monarchs, after the victory of Toro, on a design by the Fleming J. Guas; the interior has a single nave. The cloister is a fine example of Flamboyant Gothic; recently remains of frescoes have been discovered on the walls; on the friezes and above the capitals an inscription in praise of the Catholic Monarchs; St. Mary " la Blanca " is the oldest synagogue of Toledo (ca. 1180), transformed into a church in 1405; St. Vincent Ferrer preached there; it has recently been restored. Our Lady of the Transit is another synagogue transformed in 1492 into a church and then called " S. Maria de los Pobres "; it has a single nave and still contains inscriptions in Hebrew characters in praise of the God of Israel. Mention is also made of: the Church " del Salvador," where the doctors of the University used to assemble in the chapel of St. Catalina; the church of " S. Tomé," of the 14th century, with an interior restored in the 18th century, which contains the famous canvas by El Greco with the burial of Gonzalo Ruiz, count of Orgaz, and the apparition of Sts. Stephen and Augustine. The church of " S. Domingo el antiguo " also contains 5 canvases by El Greco.

The church of the " Santo Cristo de la Luz " is the ancient mosque Bib el-Mardom of the 10th century, transformed into a church with the addition of a transept and an apse. The church of " Santiago del Arrabal " in the Toledan style of the 13th century was transformed in the 18th century. The church of the " Cristo de la Vega " and the basilica of St. Leocadia are modern. The church of " S. Vincente," erected in 1595, is now used as a parish museum and contains sacred vestments from the 15th to the 18th century; Brussels tapestries of the 17th century; a Mozarabic missal of Cardinal Cisneros; sculptures from the 13th century onward; tombstones of the 14th century and later; majolicas; goldsmith work; and canvases by various authors, not a few of them by El Greco, and among these the Assumption.

Cardinal P. Gonzalez de Mendoza had the hospital of S. Cruz erected between 1514 and 1544 by E. De Egas, damaged in 1936; it is one of the most remarkable Renaissance constructions in Spain, with a rich portal where the founder is represented in adoration of the Holy Cross, between St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Helena; above it the Visitation. The interior is used as a provincial museum. The hospital of St. John the Baptist, or " de Afuera," was founded by Cardinal J. De Tavera; it is the work of Bustamante (1541-99); the interior today contains the museum established by the duchess de Lerina, who has reconstructed there a 16th-century noble residence: furniture, period tapestries and canvases by Ribera, Luca Giordano, Tintoretto, Zurbaran, El Greco, Sanchez Coello, etc. In the church, the tomb of Cardinal J. De Tavera (d. 1545).

Mention must then be made of the Alcazar, a fortress erected by Alfonso VI over a Roman camp of the 3rd century; Alfonso X gave it its quadrilateral form with 4 corner towers; Charles V had it rebuilt by A. De Covarrubias, who erected there the north facade, while the south one is the work of J. De Herrera under Philip II. Burned in 1710, restored under Charles III by V. Rodriguez (1744-74), until 1776 it housed the " Real Casa de Caridad." It was burned again in 1810, restored between 1867 and 1882; it burned once more in 1887; rebuilt, it was the seat of the infantry academy which from 21 July to 28 September 1936 sustained a heroic siege there.

On the Tagus there still exists the Alcantara bridge, built by the Romans; restored in 997 by the Arabs, rebuilt in 1258 by Alfonso the Wise and again at the beginning of the 15th century; it is preceded by a Baroque portico erected in 1721; at the western end stands a tower finished in 1484 with the coat of arms of the Catholic Monarchs. The ancient Roman circus outside the city is today transformed into a garden.

Near Toledo are the hermitage " de la Virgen de la Cabeza " and that " de la Virgen del Valle," where, before the Arab conquest, stood the monastery of Sts. Peter and Felix. But the most famous monastery of Toledo is that of Sts. Servandus and Germanus on the Tagus, erected ca. 1090 by King Alfonso (F. Fita, El monasterio toledano de S. Servando en la segunda mitad del siglo XI, in Bulletin de l'Accademia histórica, 49 [1906], pp. 280-331; R. De Los Rios, El castillo y monasterio de S. Servando en Toledo, in Rivista dos archivos, bibliothecas y museos, 15 [1911], pp. 167-88).

At the extreme western edge of the diocese, which forms part of Extremadura, there is the marvelous monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe, founded in the 14th century, the largest monastery of the Hieronymite monks before the construction of the gigantic Escorial, which they held until 1836, and to whom the Franciscan Friars Minor succeeded. The church and the complex of buildings around it belong to the 14th century and the following one. The great Arabesque cloister, unique in the world in this style, with its most graceful little temple, is of astonishing effect: begun in 1380, it was finished in 1406; the other cloister is a century later. To the many works of art in the church must be added the very remarkable wealth of illuminated choir books (unsurpassed by other churches, not even cathedrals), the vestments of the 15th-16th century and the paintings of Zurbarán.

COUNCILS OF TOLEDO

The most important organ of disciplinary and dogmatic activity, and at the same time the most typical constitutional feature of the Spanish Church in the Visigothic era, were the Councils of T.: eighteen Synods, spread across the history of the Visigothic Church in the period from 400 to 701, which represent the principal source for knowledge of the ecclesiastical life of Spain in that era and of the relations between Church and State.

They are an institution unique of its kind, a distinct type of mixed assembly, fundamentally a legislative and episcopal body, but at times also a court of the kingdom and a supreme tribunal in manifold affairs of a purely civil order. They have been compared to the assemblies of the Campus Martius among the Franks or to the warlike assemblies of Pavia among the Lombards, but they surpass both the one and the other by their ecclesiastical character; to the Witenagemot of the Anglo-Saxons, but in favor of the Spanish assemblies stands a greater episcopal preponderance; to the Synods of Merovingian Gaul, with regard to the concord of the ecclesiastical and civil powers, but among the Visigoths this is tighter and more harmoniously fused than in other countries.

The memory of Constantine, expressly mentioned by the Biclarensis in the presence of Reccared at the III Council of T., is an indication of the fact that in the Visigothic king the imperial attribution seemed to be perpetuated. From another aspect, the law of Justinian in his pragmatic sanction of 554, introduced into the Byzantine region of the Levant and later into Visigothic law, invested the bishops with a control over justice and with a superior jurisdiction in broad civil sectors. The bishops, fathers of the Council by their own right, intervened in every kind of affair, while the Gothic magnates, elected by the free determination of the king, decided only in civil causes. This wholly particular physiognomy of the Councils of T. makes of them a distinctly indigenous institution.

Their literary and social activity was extremely splendid and fruitful. In them the Mozarabic liturgy was formulated and sanctioned, most rich and varied in its content, of an Oriental richness and splendor in its language, of an intimate and delicate theology in its piety, of a precious and at times mannered composition, on certain occasions magniloquent and elevated, always noble, sincere and fervent. Begun at the end of the 5th century by Peter of Lérida, it develops throughout the Visigothic era with the cooperation of all its great writers, from St. Leander to St. Julian, whose traces are visible in its formulas. The Liber Ordinum, the Liber Comicus and the Liber Sacramentorum are the principal monuments of this literary treasure. Various salient episodes of ecclesiastical and civil history find their origin in the activity of these Councils: the condemnation of Priscillianism in the I (400): various provisions concerning celibacy and clerical seminaries in the II (527 or 531). The III, with the intervention of St. Leander, proclaims the abjuration of Arianism on the part of Reccared and the Gothic people. The IV (633) under the presidency of St. Isidore, unifies the liturgy and prescribes against various abuses. The synods V (636), VI (638), VII (646), and VIII (653) contain provisions and penalties against the crimes of lese-patria and lese-majesty. The XII (681) confirms the new king Erwig. The XIV (684) condemns Monothelitism. The XV and XVI, under the presidency of St. Julian, define various dogmatic formulas of this great theologian.

The Councils of T. are thus a kind of indication of the close union between the Church and the Visigothic monarchy, consecrated from the conversion of Reccared onward. In them political questions are frequently confronted. The distinction between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans gradually disappears: Christianity merges with the population; the laws follow in their unity a single disciplinary code. Only the Jews are refractory to the fusion and persist in remaining irreducible as an element that would soon ally itself with the invading enemy.

SYMBOLS OF TOLEDO

Noteworthy are the symbols of the faith, elaborated by the bishops of the Visigothic Church in the councils of T.; above all those contained in Councils I (ca. 400), IV (a. 633), VI (a. 638), XI (a. 675) and XVI (a. 693).

Theological criticism takes pleasure in weighing the precision and clarity of its statements; it highlights the immense patristic erudition and the exceptional theological sureness, it admires the skill and mastery of thought which, while not going beyond the limits of a traditional compilation, fuses with harmonious synthetic homogeneity the purified heritage of the past.

Except in some particular case, the occasion for drafting those s. was offered simply by the singular devotion of the Spanish Church to the traditional faith which, in that century immediately following the conversion of the Visigothic people to Catholicism, inaugurated its most solemn acts with the profession of faith, as the portico of its conciliar decisions.

After Symbol I, following Arianism and Priscillianism with the anathemas, completed in 447 by the bishop Pastor, Symbols IV, VI, XI and XVI follow one another according to an organic chain with unmistakable characteristics, preserving the same familiar aspect in the Spanish symbolic tradition. The IV, surrounded by the glorious memory of St. Isidore of Seville, president of that council, fixes with definitive lines the Spanish theological basis on the Trinity and Christology. The VI follows with the same orientation, adding to it the profession of faith in the Catholic Church, Body of Christ, which with its head must reign perpetually in the future kingdom. The XI gathers the currents of the IV and the VI and increases its content with various patristic citations on the relations of the three Divine Persons, on the Augustinian psychological theology of the Trinitarian processions, and other aspects, in order to draft a formula of faith; a brief theological treatise on those mysteries, rich in precision of concepts and symbolic formulas. The XVI, finally, expands the content of the XI with new clarifications concerning the psychological explanation of the Trinity, of the two wills in Christ, of the perpetual virginity of Mary, etc., always within the grand style of Symbol-treatise, initiated by Symbol XI, whose formulas it largely repeats.

The patristic sources represented in them are, in order of importance: St. Augustine, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Isidore of Seville, St. Ambrose, Gregory of Elvira, the Quicumque, etc.

Against Künstle and others, who attributed some of these s. to earlier periods, today, from the study of their sources and from the history of their circumstances, it has been possible to prove that they are the work of the Councils whose name they bear, drafted by the Fathers of the Visigothic Church who have remained anonymous. The use that Theology has made of the precise theological formula, in the principal dogmas, proves that they are held to be an important manifestation of the traditional ecclesiastical magisterium. - See plate XXIII.