Toribio in 447 was, however, the bishop who wrought the greatest harm to Priscilianism. He seems to have been the divine instrument called upon to prove by marvellous happenings the true religion: he converted the King of the Suevos in Orense by miraculously curing his son; when surrounded by flames he emerged unharmed; when he left his diocese, and until his return, the crops were all lost; upon his return the church-bells rang without human help, etc., etc. All of which doings proved the authenticity of the true religion beyond a doubt, and that Toribio was a saint; the Pope canonized him. During the Arab invasion, Astorga, being a frontier town, suffered more than most cities farther north; it was continually being taken and lost, built up and torn down by the Christians and Moors. Terrible Almanzor conquered it in his raid in the tenth century, and utterly destroyed it. It was rebuilt by Veremundo or Bermudo III., but never regained its lost importance, which reverted to Leon. When the Christian armies had conquered the peninsula as far south as Toledo, Astorga was no longer a frontier town, and rapidly fell asleep, and has slept ever since. It remained a see, however, but only one of secondary importance. It would be difficult to state how many cathedral churches the city possessed previous to the eleventh century. In 1069 the first on record was built; in 1120 another; a third in the thirteenth century, and finally the fourth and present building in 1471. It was the evident intention of the architect to imitate the _Pulchra Leonina_, but other tastes and other styles had swept across the peninsula and the result of the unknown master's plans resembles rather a heavy, awkward caricature than anything else, and a bastard mixture of Gothic, plateresque, and grotesque styles. The northern front is by far the best of the two, boasting of a rather good relief in the tympanum of the ogival arch; some of the painted windows are also of good workmanship, though the greater part are modern glass, and unluckily unstained. Its peculiarities can be signalized; the windows of the southern aisle are situated above the lateral chapels, while those of the northern are lower and situated in the chapels. The height and width of the aisles are also remarkable--a circumstance that does not lend either beauty or effect to the building. There is no ambulatory behind the high altar, which stands in the lady-chapel; the apse is rounded. This peculiarity reminds one dimly of what the primitive plan of the Oviedo cathedral must have resembled. By far the most meritorious piece of work in the cathedral is the sixteenth-century _retablo_ of the high altar, which alone is worth a visit to Astorga. It is one of Becerra's masterpieces in the late plateresque style, as well as being one of the master's last known works (1569).