In  the  towns  flourished  and  flowered
every  lovely  sort  of  parish  church,  slender,
lofty,  and  exquisite.  The  style  is  at  last
completely  Spanish.  The  earliest  examples
of  it,  e.  g.,  S.  Miguel  and  S.  Pedro  in
Estella,  have,  the  one,  a  pure  and  north-
ern sort  of  apse  under  pointed  arches,  the
other  apsidioles  that  recall  Aquitaine;  the
loveliest,  the  three  Maries  of  Najera,


Town
styles


AND    MONOGRAPHS


414


WAY     OF    S.JAMES


The  con-
clusion of
the  whole
matter


Logrono,  and  Vitoria,  pass  by  sensible
stages  into  something  rare  and  royal.  In
Puente  la  Reyna,  Burgos,  Fromista,  Car-
rion, Roncesvalles,  these  blossom  like  a
hawthorn-bush,  lift  up  their  heads  like
palm  trees  by  the  waterside.  Leon  has  its
homely  type  of  parish  church,  Galicia  its
granite  chapels.  Puerto  Marin  stands
alone,  French  building  of  another  sort.
In  the  twelfth  century  the  great  abbeys,
in  the  thirteenth  the  cathedrals,  imported
their  builders.  The  monastic  and  collegi-
ate foundations  imitated  so  far  as  they
could  afford,  but  the  Spanish  leaven  works
more  here,  and  here  a  very  noble  Roman-
esque style,  in  a  very  real  sense  Spanish,  is
dominant.  The  burgher  churches,  mostly
much  later  in  date,  are  strictly  Spanish
and  almost  Renaissance:  but  they  are
made  out  of  all  that  had  gone  before.  The
whole  entrance  of  Cistercian,  and  the
Friars'  Gothic  of  Galicia,  though  they
contributed  to  fifteenth-century  art,  are
apart  from  the  present  question,  as  the
monuments  are  apart  from  the  camino
frames.
