The city itself, crowning a hill beside the rushing Ierte, is a small Toledo; its streets are narrow and winding; its church towers are numerous, and the red brick houses warmly reflect the brilliancy of the southern atmosphere. The same death, however, the same inactivity and lack of movement, which characterize Toledo and other cities, hover in the alleys and in the public squares, in the fertile _vegas_ and silent _patios_ of Plasencia. The history of the feuds between the great Castilian families who lived here is tragically interesting: Hernan Perez killed by Diego Alvarez, the son of one of the former's victims; the family of Monroye pitched against the Zuñigas and other noblemen,--these and many other traditions are among the most stirring of the events that happened in Spain in the middle ages. Even the bishops called upon to occupy the see seem to have been slaves to the warlike spirit that hovered, as it were, in the very atmosphere of the town. The first prelate, Don Domingo, won the battle of Navas de Tolosa for his protector, Alfonso VIII. When the Christian army was wavering, he rushed to the front (with his naked sword, the cross having been left at home), at the head of his soldiers, and drove the already triumphant Moors back until they broke their ranks and fled. The same bishop carried the Christian sword to the very heart of the Moorish dominions, to Granada, and conquered neighbouring Loja. The next prelate, Don Adán, was one of the leaders of the army that conquered Cordoba in 1236, and, entering the celebrated _mezquita_, sanctified its use as a Christian church. The history of the cathedral church is no less interesting. The primitive see was temporarily placed in a church on a hill near the fortress; this building was pulled down in the fifteenth century, and replaced by a Jesuit college. Toward the beginning of the fourteenth century a cathedral church was inaugurated. Its life was short, however, for in 1498 it was partially pulled down to make way for a newer and larger edifice, which is to-day the unfinished Renaissance cathedral visited by the tourist. Parts of the old cathedral are, however, still standing. Between the tower of the new temple and the episcopal palace, but unluckily weighted down by modern superstructures, stands the old façade, almost intact. The grossness of the structural work, the timid use of the ogival arch, the primitive rose window, and the general heaviness of the structure, show it to belong to the decadent period of the Romanesque style, when the artists were attempting something new and forgetting the lessons of the past.