The humble church erected by Alfonso the Chaste was by no means suitable to the dignity of the deliverer of Spain, nor sufficient for the ever-increasing number of pilgrims. In the year 868 Alfonso III., together with Sisenand, then Bishop of Compostella, undertook to replace it by a cathedral. “We, Alfonso,” it is written in the Act of Erection, “have resolved, together with the bishop aforesaid, to build the house of the Lord and to restore the temple and tomb of the apostle which aforetime had been raised to his august memory by the Lord Alfonso, and which was only a small construction of stone and clay. Urged by the inspiration of God, we are come with our subjects, our family, into this holy place. Traversing Spain through the battalions of the Moors, we have brought from the city of Ebeca blocks of marble which we have selected, and which our forefathers had carried thither by sea, and with which they built superb habitations, which the enemy has destroyed.” All the materials for the new building were thus gathered together, the slabs and columns of marble being of great beauty, but we have little information as to its architectural style or merit. The arts were at that time in a state of temporary decay. The edifices of the Roman period had for the most part perished in the invasions of the Goths, the Suevi, and the Alani. These nations, after having embraced the faith, were speedily civilized, and under its inspiration had raised numerous religious buildings which were not without a certain grandeur, when the Moorish conquest of Spain brought again an almost universal ruin over the land. The influence of the climate, the beauty of the Andalusian skies, softened the fierce character of the victors, and their minds speedily received a wonderful intellectual development. Never did any people make so much progress in so short a time, in art, in science, in culture of ideas, and also in a certain elevation of sentiment. Architecture of great magnificence and originality made rapid advances among them, of which the richness always bore the stamp of a peculiar tastefulness and delicacy. The vanquished were unable to make the same progress, nor were they to attain to great results until after having received the contact of the works of their conquerors. These results were arrived at later on, thanks to a certain courtesy which, outside the war as it were, and in times of truce, established between the two peoples mutual relations and currents of influence which left their impress on all the creations of genius.