CHAPTER ROOM

The Gothic style arrived in Asturias with the construction of the chapter house of the Cathedral. It is believed that it was at the initiative of Bishop Fernando Álvarez (1293-1295), a cultured and well-traveled man who would have known the new way of building in France. It has a quadrangular floor plan and is covered with a vault of eight panels supported on squinches. Built in classical Gothic, it has been linked to the so-called “Plantagenet style”. The construction began in the year 1293, it is assumed that it was attached to the Romanesque cloister, in a place that was intended for burials.

The chapter houses arise in monasteries as spaces intended for the reading of the monastic rule, but in the Cathedral the main function performed by this room was to serve as a meeting space for the capitulars; The first meeting of the chapter in this space took place in 1314. In its walls there are four tombs in arcosolium.

In the 17th century, a door was opened in one of its walls to communicate with the archive room, so that, when the chapters took place, the canon archivist could directly access the archive with the documentation emanating from the meeting, in the same way as If a document was required to be consulted, it could be easily accessed.

In the 18th century, they wanted to improve this space by making it more sumptuous. For this purpose, the large openings that currently illuminate it were opened and a vestibule was added to one of the sides that today serves the chapter archive. The Oviedo sculptor José Bernardo de la Meana (1715-1790) was commissioned to create the door to that vestibule, open to the cloister, and which today guards the tombstones recovered in archaeological excavations, as well as the remains of the choir grille. José Bernardo de la Meana's workshop was also in charge of carving the benches for the chapter house, today scattered throughout various rooms of the cathedral.

The choir stalls

The remains of the late Gothic choir stalls can be admired here. After their dismantling, at the beginning of the 20th century, the stalos were dispersed throughout the cathedral. Most of it was installed in the Chapel of Santa Bárbara and suffered considerable damage during the revolution of 1934. In 1975 these remains were valued and recovered. In total five upper and twenty-three lower stalos were assembled. At the end of the 15th century, Bishop Juan Arias del Villar (1487-1498) had commissioned Alejo de Vahía to create a choir stall composed of forty-four upper stalos and forty-six lower stalos. Between the years 1491 and 1497, a workshop of “foreign masters” dedicated to this work is documented in the Cathedral.

Delicate inlay work was done on the backs of the high chairs, highlighting among them the missing bishop's chair, on which his portrait appeared. In the lower stalos, the backs are decorated with reliefs of prophets, judges and kings from the Old Testament, as well as apostles and saints. On the chair reserved for the dean, the representation of the Church and the Synagogue was carved. Mythological, allegorical and satirical themes were displayed in the misericords, arms and spandrels of the backrests.

Altarpiece of the Transfixion

In front of the stalls, and attached to the cloister wall, the relief of the Transfixion or the Crying over the Dead Christ is preserved, a Flemish work from the late 15th century that was part of the tomb of the architect Juan de Candamo y de las Tablas, senior master. of the cathedral between 1458 and 1489, and his wife, Catalina González de Nava. This burial was located in the southern transept. In the relief, to the right and left of the scene, the architect and his wife were portrayed in a praying attitude, accompanied by their patron saints.

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