Zamora is still encircled with massive walls, strengthened with numerous round towers. The name of Urraca’s Palace is given to a house, old enough to all seeming, close to one of the gates opening near the northern end of the Paseo de Valorio; this gateway is flanked by two bastions, and above it may be seen the bust of Princess Urraca, with the inscription much defaced--
‘Afuera, afuera Rodrigo El soberbio castellano! Acordórsete debiera De aquel buen tiempo pasado,’ etc.
These verses from the _Romancero_ are supposed to have been addressed by the Princess to the Cid, and allude, presumably, to the love-passages between them. The postern through which Dolfos escaped may be seen in the wall farther towards the west. The site of the Cid’s house is also pointed out. The tiny hermitage of Santiago in the Vega marks the spot of the assassination, and a battered cross on a pillar some distance outside the town commemorates Sancho’s exclamation that he would never be king till he was lord of Zamora.
The castle from which perhaps Urraca and Arias Gonzalo looked across at Sancho’s camp is at the western extremity of the town. During the civil wars that disturbed the reign of Alfonso el Sabio, it was held for the king by Doña Teresa Gomez, wife of Garci Perez Chirino. Her youngest child was captured by the rebels, and to save his life she surrendered the fortress. At the time of the disputed succession following the demise of Enrique IV., the castle was held by the Portuguese in the interests of Juana ‘la Beltraneja,’ who held her court here for a brief season. The garrison resisted many determined assaults, and capitulated on honourable terms only after the battle of Toro, February 1476. In after years, and especially during the Peninsular War, the stronghold was adapted to the requirements of modern warfare, and has lost, in consequence, much of its mediæval character.
Hard by is the cathedral, far away from the centre of the town. When the See was restored by Alfonso VI., Gerónimo, the Cid’s confessor, was appointed to it; but he was soon translated to Salamanca (or else Zamora was carved out of that See), and was succeeded by another Frenchman, Bernard, a namesake and countryman of Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo. These foreigners introduced the Romanesque style, of which Zamora must, in its primitive state, have been a noble example. The building was completed in 1174. To that period belongs the grand square tower at the west end of the north aisle--the most conspicuous landmark of the vicinity--with its three upper stories pierced on each side with one, two, and three windows respectively. The tower was designed for defence as well as ornament. Over the crossing rises a dome of beautiful construction, very Oriental in character, with turrets surmounted by smaller cupolas and pierced with rounded windows at its angles. Seen from within, this dome is of the ‘half-orange’ type, the ribbing of the vault giving it very much the appearance of the sections of the fruit. In the sharp fringe of ornament at the angles, Street saw the very earliest kind of suggestion of a crocket, and was of opinion that ‘we have in England no monument of the middle ages which is one whit more precious.’