Soria - Santo Domingo

Soria is located on the Douro River at about 1065 meters above sea level.

A strategic enclave due to the struggles for territory between the kingdoms of Castile, Navarre, and Aragon, Soria became part of Castile definitively in 1134, during the reign of Alfonso VII. Alfonso VIII was born in Soria in 1155. Booming during the Late Middle Ages thanks to its border location and its control over the cattle industry. In 1380, a court order forbade the Jews to try their own criminal cases in court. In addition, a decree was confirmed, according to which Jews were not allowed to be employed in the royal administration or among the nobility. These resolutions served as the basis for hate speeches that led to the massacre of the Jewish population in 1391. Soria went into a slow decline over the next few centuries. It was damaged greatly during the Peninsular War.

This church was built in the 12th century but underwent alterations later. In 1170 Alfonso VIII celebrated his nuptials with Eleanor of England here and had a new church with three naves erected, replacing the modest previous one. His wife Eleanor was the daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, from whom she obtained the Duchy of Aquitaine which she brought as a dowry to her marriage.

It has a façade with two orders of arcades at the sides of the portal, which is surmounted by a rose window. The portal has an elaborated archivolt with Biblical characters and scenes, including the 24 elders of the Apocalypse, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Youth, the Passion, and the death of Christ. The tympanum has representations of God the Father sitting with the Child, four angels with the symbols of the Evangelists, the prophet Isaiah and the Virgin Mary. The capitals on the jambs of the entry feature biblical scenes from Genesis and the life of Christ.

The Elders of the Apocalypse

Revelation 4:4
"And round about the throne were four and twenty seats; and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had on their heads crowns of gold."