Oviedo Cathedral

The cathedral of the Holy Saviour in Oviedo is the great shrine church of Asturias in northern Spain. King Fruela I founded it in 781, and his son Alfonso II made Oviedo the Asturian capital, enlarged the church after 802 and established the see in 810.

Alfonso raised the Cámara Santa to hold relics carried north from Toledo when the Moors overran the south in 718. These included the bloodstained Sudarium, venerated as the cloth that covered Christ's head and kept in the silver-bound Arca Santa. In 1075 Alfonso VI, his sister and the Cid opened the relic chest after days of fasting.

Bishop Pelagius restored the church in the twelfth century. The Gothic cathedral was begun in 1388 under Bishop Gutierre; its tower went up in 1528 and was finished with an octagonal spire in the mid-sixteenth century.