Spain, thanks to her unique position, was the point where all these contradictory waves met in a final endeavour to crush their opponents. In Spain, Byzantine pillars fought against Lombard shafts, and Gothic pinnacles rose haughtily beside the horseshoe arch and the _arc brisé_. In Spain Christianity grappled with the Islam faith and sent it bleeding back to the wilds of Africa; in Spain the polygon, circle, and square struggled for supremacy and lost their personality in the complex blending of the one with the other, and minarets, cupolas, and spires combined in bizarre fantasy and richness of decoration to serve the ambitions of mighty prelates, fanatic kings, and death-fearing noblemen. * * * * * Such is, rhetorically speaking, the history of architecture of Spain. Cathedrals had a _cachet_ of their own, either national (in certain characteristics) or else local. But the elements of which they were composed were foreign. That is, excepting in the case of Spanish-Moorish art. Moorish art! In the second volume (Southern Spain), the author of these lines will dedicate several paragraphs to the art of the Moors in Spain. Suffice to assert in the present chapter the following statements. (1) Moorish art in Spain is peculiar to the Arabs who inhabited the peninsula during seven hundred years. Consequently this art, born on Iberian soil, cannot be regarded as foreign. (2) Much of what is called Moorish art owes its existence to the Christians, to the Muzarabs and Jews who inhabited cities which were dependent upon or belonged to the Moors. In the same way, much of the Oriental taste of the Spanish Christians was inherited from the Moors and received in Spain the generic name of _Mudejar_. (3) The art of the Moors, though largely used in Spain, especially in the south, rarely entered into cathedral structures, though often noticeable in churches, cloisters, and in decorative motives. (4) The Moors learnt more art motives in Spain than they introduced into the country. These and many other points of interest will have to be neglected in the present chapter. For the cathedrals of the north are (as regards the ideal which brought about their erection) radically opposed to Moorish art. Prehistoric Roman and Visigothic (?) art are equally unimportant in this study, as neither the one nor the other constructed any Christian temple standing to-day. That is to say, cathedral; for Visigothic or early Latin and Byzantine Romanesque churches do exist in Asturias, and a notable specimen in Venta de Baños. They are peculiarly strange edifices, and it is to be regretted that they are not cathedrals, for their study would be most interesting, not only as regards Iberian art, but above all as regards the history of art in the middle ages. So far, they have been completely neglected, and, unfortunately, are but little known abroad. * * * * *