The chapter-house is a fine specimen of thirteenth-century architecture. The archives adjoining contain some documents and codices of the greatest value. Here is preserved the _Libro Gotico_ of the twelfth century, a beautifully illuminated manuscript, throwing light on the costumes and customs of that day.
The other churches founded by Alfonso the Chaste and his predecessors in the town itself have either been demolished or so often restored, rebuilt, and renovated, that they cannot be considered worth a visit. The earliest foundation of all, San Vicente, was modernised in 1592, and is interesting as containing the bones of the Abbot Feijoo, a man greatly esteemed by his contemporaries for his learning and sanctity (died 1764).
The Gothic church of San Francisco, now attached to a hospital, was founded by Fray Pedro, a companion of the great Francis of Assisi himself. This is the burying-place of the great family of Quirós, which claimed, in a not very reverent distich, to rank in point of dignity and antiquity next to the Divinity (‘Después de Dios, la casa de Quirós’). In the chancel lies Gonzalo Bernaldo de Quirós the Older, the youthful friend of Enrique of Trastamara, who died, wearing the religious habit, in 1575. Within a sepulchre upheld by lions which bear escutcheons crossed by the bar sinister, are the ashes of another Gonzalo Bernaldo, a distinguished illegitimate scion of the house. He is shown clad in armour, and at his feet a dog--symbolical, possibly, of the fidelity and tenacity with which he watched over the interests of his family during the minority of its chiefs. Close by is the vault of the house of Valdecarzana; a modern inscription informs us that during the interment of one of that family, a live cow must be present in the church--why or wherefore not being stated.
The church of Santa Maria de la Vega, outside the town, was the chapel of a Benedictine nunnery founded by Gontroda, mistress of Alfonso VII., who took the veil here in 1154. She was joined in her retirement, it is believed, by her daughter Urraca, sometime Queen of Navarre, and afterwards of Asturias. A century later another interesting penitent sought an asylum here: Doña Sancha Alvarez, mistress of the greatest noble in Spain, Rodrigo Alvarez de Asturias. The two ladies’ tombs lie close together. The sarcophagus of Gontroda is adorned with Romanesque reliefs of birds, and of hounds chasing deer, in curiously crude and conventional attitudes; Sancha’s tomb shows Gothic influence, and is sculptured in low relief. The epitaphs extol the virtues and amiability of the departed ladies.