From Mosque to Church

Legend has it that in 1085, as King Alfonso VI was making his entrance into his newly seized city, the horse of his most famous knight, Rodrigo Diaz, El Cid, stopped before this mosque and began pawing (hoofing?) the wall. It was soon broken open and inside was an image of Christ illuminated by a lamp (la Luz of the Church's title) which had miraculously remained illuminated since the capture of the Visigothic capital some 360 year earlier. Naturally this is nonsense, if for no other reason than because it can be deomnstrated that El Cid was not in Toledo in 1085. At any rate, the moral of the story is that the mosque was supposed to have been a church prior to the Muslim invasion of the eighth century. The message is clear: the Muslims usurped Christian rule, and the Christians are just in "reconquering" their patrimony. So the mosque, along with all of the other mosques of the city, was seized in the early twelfth century, despite treaties promising the Muslim population of Toledo their independence and protection.

In 1187, the Mezquita was granted to the Knights of the Hospital of Saint John as the Santa Cruz chapel. At some point thereafter, the apse was appeneded to the mosque, turning the structure into a genuine church. However, the architects were extremely careful to match the new construction with the older building.