The Gothic work: the Theobalds

Very often visitors to the cathedral of Tudela are surprised by the luminosity of the interior, generated by the amplitude of the windows of the central nave whose pairs of lancets under oculi were already designed and executed in the Gothic period. In fact, in the 13th century, the architectural project was led by an architect with training very different from the one who had designed the late Romanesque building. The new master, however, decided to introduce the novelties adapting them without stridency to what had been previously built. Anyone who looks closely at the capitals of the different pillars of the church will easily identify the change of repertoire and anyone who compares the windows that illuminate the different naves will have no doubt about the desire to perforate the walls of the central nave to a much greater extent than what had been tried and tested in the building up to that time. Although we do not know the exact date when the renovation of the artisans took place, the new repertoire of vegetal and historiated forms is already present both in the Judgment Door and in the high capitals of the transept. These spaces are dominated by a very different type of foliage, with large, individualized leaves, sometimes with tops turned back on themselves (the so-called crochets), typical of a new way of doing things from the other side of the Pyrenees, which was then being imposed in the great Gothic factories. We also see a new subject of characters, with elongated faces, voluminous locks of hair, and dresses with folds in a v-neck, or individualized human heads in the corners, with bearded or beardless faces that lead us to think of the desire to reproduce the specific features of characters whose report wanted to make them last. But we can only hint at this pro-portrait intention, which is impossible to verify.

In addition, the capitals corresponding to the two western pillars of the church were decorated with truly novel motifs that allow us to know exactly when they were designed. Around 1230, the western pillars and pilasters were unfinished. Their capitals were made shortly after 1234. They are the oldest evidence of the new heraldic emblem of the kings of Navarre created by Teobaldo I (1234-1253). As Faustino Menéndez-Pidal was able to see in several programs of study essential to know the birth of the coat of arms of the kingdom, this monarch, nephew and heir of Sancho VII the Strong, instead of continuing to use the eagle, preferred sign of his uncle, created a new emblem that showed his condition of king of Navarre united to the previous one of Count of Champagne. The troubadour king ordered his new coat of arms split in two. On the main side, the right side (to the left of the observer), the field is completely red (plain gules, in the language of the coat of arms). On the other half we see the arms of the county of Champagne: on a blue field, a band between two cotypes (narrower bands), all three white (silver). The shield has reinforcement bars that start from the center drawing a cross and a cross, to meet other perimetral ones. This subject of reinforcement was called bloca and it was habitual in the paveses of the people of greater category. It used to have a central ornament, which in the capitals of Tudela takes the form of a quatrefoil with a button. The capitals are completed with vine leaves, characters and hybrids in lively compositions.

The arches located over these pillars, the walls of the central nave, with the large windows already described, and the vaults of the central and lateral aisles, all of them of simple ribbed vaulting, were built in the Gothic period. A documentary reference letter from 1261 mentions the then "Master of the works of Santa Maria", Domingo Perez. It is impossible to know since when he was in charge of the Building. Later, still medieval interventions are documented in different parts of the church, as well as post-medieval additions that make the Tudela cathedral a singular work, worthy of visit and attention.

The stone material employee in the construction and other factors have been obstacles to the conservation of the medieval building. The collapse of the tower in 1676, a well-known episode, is but one more in the long list of deterioration that has affected the building as a whole or specific elements. Conservation work has been ongoing over the centuries, especially in the 20th and early 21st centuries, and must continue if future generations are to be able to enjoy such a unique monumental complex.