Drawing of the Descent of the Angel by Juan Antonio Fernández. 1787

The confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament of the capital of La Ribera, had as its main purpose, in the words of Juan Antonio Fernandez, "to procure the greater worship of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, in which it is perennially used". Before and now the image of the Immaculate Conception, venerated in the chapel of the Holy Spirit, has secularly starred in the acts of the morning of Easter morning, to go to meeting of the Blessed Sacrament, carried under canopy, and remove the veil covering his face an angel that leave of the heights, led through a rope. 

The parchment with the primitive statutes of the confraternity is dated in the first half of the 14th century. The aforementioned Juan Antonio Fernández tried to date the document more precisely, showing that some of the confreres lived in 1317, 1322 and 1354. 

It should not be surprising that the meeting , which is the protagonist of the celebration, does not take place between two images, as one might think. Only one image goes to the quotation, that of the Virgin, since the Risen Christ does not need to be effigied in any simulacrum, since he is present in the Sacred Form that walks triumphantly in the virile of the monstrance. Precisely, the Eucharistic mystery meant that images of the Risen Christ were not as abundant as one might suppose in post-Tridentine Catholic iconography.

The celebration of the descent of the angel was celebrated in the place Vieja, in front of the Town Hall, until 1851, year in which the City Council explained to the Brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament that, because the facade of the Town Hall was in ruins and because the place was small for the large number of foreigners and people from the city who came to the religious act, it would be convenient to move it to the place Nueva, as it was indeed done.

The place Nueva de Tudela in the Bajada del Ángel (Descent of the Angel)

The 1772 description

A brief account of this function in plenary session of the Executive Council eighteenth century, gives us the report on brotherhoods of 1772, preserved in the National Historical file , where we read: "On Holy Saturday afternoon, leaves from the Collegiate an image of the Immaculate Conception in procession with the luminary that carry the brothers and concur to the conference room Capitular of the city. And on Easter Sunday, at dawn, they leave the collegiate church, the Chapter, the city, the brothers in procession with the Blessed Sacrament and upon arriving at a certain place, the image of Mary Most Holy is taken out of the house of the city in procession, covered the face with a veil and when approaching the Blessed Sacrament removes the veil a child dressed as an angel who descends by a maroma and follows the procession to the collegiate, in whose function the brotherhood burns a tree of fires and rockets and follows the function, with whose mass sung at the high altar by the Cabildo, with sermon".

The angel descends the rope

The drawing and text by Juan Antonio Fernández of 1787

Juan Antonio Fernández, archivist and erudite historian of the 18th century, affirms that the brotherhood did not have "in the old days" a chapel, altar or its own image for its processions, adding that in 1678 a lawsuit was litigated over the possession of the image, after which the brotherhood decided to commission one of its own, which cost 711 reales. The year of execution of the image was 1682. plenary session of the Executive Council In the 18th century, when the chapel of the Holy Spirit was built in the then collegiate church, the image of the Immaculate Conception was placed in the side altarpiece on the Epistle side. The confraternity contributed to its construction with some censuses that it had in its favor. The author of the altarpiece was the sculptor Diego Gutiérrez for which he charged 30 pesos, which were paid by the procurators of the parish in June 1744.

Juan Antonio Fernandez himself is the author of a drawing, preserved in one of the books of the Brotherhood, in which he naively tried to convey how that ceremony was very dear in his time and felt as something identifying the capital of the Ribera. 

The drawing shows the procession passing in front of the chapel of Santa Ana and the cathedral tower, on its way to the City Hall, from whose balconies the angel has descended by a rope to remove the veil from the Virgin. The procession is opened by the processional cross carried by a deacon, the music chapel with singers and instrumentalists, the chapter with choral habits, a child dressed as an angel with the flag of the Brotherhood, the procession of the Virgin carried by clergymen in robes and mucetas and, finally, a turiferario, the canopy with the Blessed Sacrament and the Regiment with golilla costume.

In the text written by the same Juan Antonio Fernandez, in 1787, we read: "On Holy Saturday afternoon, after the sung Compline, the canon or vicar racionero go with four chaplains and the musicians of instruments to the parish chapel of the same Church, where the confraternities of the Blessed Sacrament are foreseen. There the four chaplains take the image of the Immaculate Conception and preceded by a boy dressed as an angel carrying a small banner with the insignia of the Blessed Sacrament, who are followed by the brothers with lighted axes, music and the vicar expressed, come in procession to the Town Hall, in whose conference room leave that is vacated for this purpose, placed the Holy Image, where it remains until the morning of the next Sunday, in which the Chapter of the cathedral, the City and the brotherhood go out in procession with the Blessed Sacrament, at six o'clock in the morning, with general ringing of bells, both from the cathedral tower, as well as from the city and other places where the procession passes, which leaves through the door called of the peons, or Nuestra Señora del Portal, and turning along Almudí street, it goes to the place. When it arrives at the latter, the procession stops and the image of Our Lady, covered with a black veil, is placed in front of the house of the City, and then, drawing some curtains from one of the balconies of the aforementioned house, the one who plays the angel appears hanging from a balloon or cloud that, by means of some ropes and winches, leave from the balcony with a lighted axe in his hand, to where Our Lady is and, making his reverence, when he arrives near , he runs and removes it and takes it away from her, when she arrives close she runs and removes the black veil that covers her face (significant of the sadness that she suffered in the Passion of her Most Holy Son Our Redeemer) and with demonstrations of great joy she returns to the same balcony with the referred artifice from where leave at the point and taking with her the said veil and pendoncillo, she joins the procession and it moves from the place, and following by the Rúa, street of the Merced and the Lakes, she returns to the cathedral, entering by the same door by where she left. Immediately the Mass of the Blessed Sacrament is sung, followed by the sermon preached by the Ordinary of Lent, which ends the function. All the time that this one lasts and the preceding day, since the bells are tolled to Glory, the public is amused with a wooden volatín that gives turns in another of the balconies of the City. Before the fireworks were prohibited, the brotherhood paid for a fire tree that, with the rockets that were burned during the function, amounted to two hundred reales. There were also bonfires, lanterns and luminaries all night long and the big chandelier of the Church was lit".

Detail of the processional step of the Virgin and the angel descending to remove the veil.

The version of a canon from Tudela in 1788

In the Instructions of the doctoral don Joaquín de Conejares, for the sake of the essay of a regulation for the chapter of Tudela, the function is described, with which we have three practically simultaneous accounts of the same: that of the report of brotherhoods, the drawing of Juan Antonio Fernandez, already seen and that of the doctoral tudelano that reads: "On the first day of Easter at six o'clock in the morning celebrates the Cabildo solemn procession carrying in it the Lord Sacramentado. This procession goes along Almudí Street to the place, which in arriving they take out of the Town Hall of the city Our Lady covered with a veil. The brothers or confreres of the Blessed Sacrament addressing his Blessed Son. When Our Lady is close to the Lord, they make a boy dressed as an angel come down with ropes, who with an axe in his hand and with the due reverences removes the veil and is returned to where he left precipitously out of the rope. The angel descends to the place and taking in his hands the banner of the Blessed Sacrament, the procession continues with the Lord and his Mother through the streets of La Cárcel, Rúa, Merced and Lagos, until it enters through the door of the Virgin of Portal. After arriving the Lord is reservation and placed Our Lady on the side of the Gospel is then sung a solemn mass with sermon preached by the ordinary, announcing in it the mystery of the Resurrection. All this function is attended by the city in body lighting the Lord with candles.
 

In the cloister of the Pamplona Cathedral

Faced with all this ceremonial noise and explosion of joy of the lands of the Ribera, we can only compare the function of the meeting of the cathedral of Pamplona. To begin with, it was and is celebrated inside the cloisters of the temple, outside the noisy and crowded environment of the people of Tudela, as described by its prior Don Fermín de Lubián in the first half of the 18th century: "Matins is entered at four o'clock and average... once Matins is over, the Chapter goes to the main chapel, where the preste comes out with the deacons and then the Blessed Sacrament has been exposed. A carol is sung and the Chapter takes the canopy and leaves with Our Master from the main chapel to begin the procession and at that time Our Lady comes from the cloister and, placed between the two pulpits, makes three genuflections or bows to her Most Holy Son and then follows the procession that is made through the cloister towards the Lords Kings and where the Barbazana sings a carol. The procession returns to the back of the choir, where another carol is sung, and when it goes forward, those who carry the sacred image of Our Lady come forward and, removing it from the litter, place it in its niche in the tabernacle and the procession continues, going back to the main chapel and the Chapter, by means of the pulpits, to the choir. Then the Blessed Sacrament is reservation ...".

We do not know to what extent this Pamplona ceremony had attendance of faithful, given the untimeliness of the liturgical hour. Matins, as is well known, is the first canonical hour to be prayed before dawn. The Romanesque image of the patron saint of the church, then venerated as Santa María del Sagrario, was the special protagonist of the procession and to her and to the Sacrament were dedicated chants in language vernacular in the two stations of the procession, in front of the Barbazana chapel of the cloister and in the old back room of the church, next to the main door of the cathedral. As in other documents, when it refers to the Blessed Sacrament, it does so with the grade of "Our Master". The chroniclers of the Chapter repeat this expression with so much meaning in the ordinary life of the Ancien Régime, in the same way that the blessing with the Monstrance to the people, inside and outside the temple, is described as "santiguar al pueblo" and the stations by the altars are called "mansions". The three bows of the Virgin before her Risen Son, present in the Sacred Form, took on a special meaning in the cathedral, within the ceremony, which had music that, like the soundtrack of a movie, marked the moments with different instruments, melodies and voices.

Procession of the meeting in Pamplona Cathedral