Villages, convents and churches lie scattered over the plain, the houses crowded together for protection against the blazing, scorching, pitiless sun. Standing by itself is the ancient and severe church, where many a knight-templar kept his last vigil before turning his back on the plains of Castile, and apart sleeps the monastery where Torquemada was once prior. They all crumble golden brown against the horizon. Many a bloody fray or revolution upset the city during the middle ages. The minority of Alfonso XI witnessed one of the worst. The revolt which broke out in so many of the Spanish cities against the Emperor Charles V, proved most fatal to the Cathedral of Segovia. The first Romanesque Cathedral had been built in honor of St. Mary, under the walls of the Alcazar, during the first half of the twelfth century. It was consecrated in 1228 by the papal legate, Juan, Bishop of Sabina. Some two hundred and fifty years later, a new and magnificent Gothic cloister was added to it by Bishop Juan Arias Davila, and likewise a new episcopal palace more fitting times of greater luxury and magnificence. This palace, despite the coming translation of the Cathedral itself, remained the abode of the bishops for the three following centuries. In the new cloisters a banquet of reconciliation was celebrated in 1474 by Henry IV and the Catholic Kings. It was held on the very spot whence Isabella had started in state on a journey proving so eventful in the history not only of Castile but of the entire Peninsula and countries beyond. Three years after the furious struggle which took place around the entrance of the Alcazar, Charles V issued the following proclamation:--