After a hiatus of almost 200 years, it went through major embellishments of great splendor in the 15th and 16th centuries: the spires of the main facade, the capilla del Condestable, 'Chapel of the Constable' and dome of the transept.

[citation needed] Burgos became a bishopric in 1075 by the king Alfonso VI of León and Castile "the Brave" on authority of Pope Gregory VII, giving it a canonical continuation with the episcopal tradition of the diocese of Oca, whose prelate was in 589 already recorded as a signatory to the Third Council of Toledo during the reign of the Visigoths.

There is documentary evidence that the monarch donated the outdoor area of the royal palace that had belonged to his father Ferdinand I of León and a small church dedicated to Saint Mary that was under construction.

But the church soon became too small for the needs of a city that was the symbolic capital of the kingdom, a powerful bishopric (the cathedral chapter had more than thirty canons already before 1200) and an increasingly dynamic business center.

Presumably, the first master builder was an anonymous French architect - although some researchers posit the name of the canon Johan de Champagne, cited in a document of 1227 -, most likely brought to Burgos by bishop Maurice himself, after his trip to France and Germany to arrange the marriage of the monarch with Elisabeth of Swabia.

The work progressed very quickly and in 1238, year of the death of the founder prelate, buried in the presbytery, the front and much of the transept and the naves were already almost completed.

He was succeeded later by Aparicio Pérez, active in 1327, Pedro Sánchez de Molina and Martín Fernández, who died in 1396 and 1418 respectively.

In the 15th century the Colonia family, originally from Cologne, incorporated the open spires of the main facade (between 1442 and 1458), the dome over the transept and the Chapel of the Constables.

c. 1518–1569) and Felipe Vigarny, who replaced the original cimborio (a domed crossing tower) constructed by Juan de Colonia (sunk after a hurricane).

In the 1890s Vicente Lampérez y Romea, master architect of the cathedral from 1887, undertook an extensive restoration of this chapel, removing the plaster added of the walls and vaults and completely renovated the cover that gives the nave.

On August 12, 1994, a statue of Saint Lawrence came off from the final stretch of the north tower of the main facade, which made public the immediate need to resume the protection and conservation measures of the monument.

Finally, are noteworthy other contemporary interventions, without seeking any modification of the monument, have significantly contributed to the enhancement of the cathedral, as has been the elimination in the early 20th century of some buildings that had been attached to the temple, as the Archbishop's Palace.

This portal was built in the 13th century and, with its iconography dedicated to the Virgin, it was considered the most important sculptural manifestation of Gothic art in Castile.

The third part show an elegant gallery marked by spires and several pinnacles, and consists of two large windows with mullions and tracery of three quadrilobed oculi.

Above it stands a thin rail-cresting of pointed arches with a statue of the Virgin and Child, accompanied by the inscription Pulchra es et decora (lit.

The tympanum is surrounded by three archivolts occupying the 24 elders of the Apocalypse, playing or tuning medieval musical instruments, several choirs of angels and an allegory of the Arts.

In the side jambs are carved six figures, after the rest of the portal, four of which represent Moses, Aaron, Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle; the other two are not easily identifiable.

Its two upper sections, structured along the lines of the central body of the facade of Saint Mary, are occupied by a rosette and on it a set of open gallery with three arches with soffits openwork with triple quatrefoil and supported by mullions against the looming one statuary interpreted as the Divine Liturgy, which Christ administers the Eucharist flanked by twelve angels cerifers[check spelling] and thurifers.

In addition, the environment of the door was renovated in the 18th century, in 1786, with a semicircular arch of large voussoirs and of the Baroque style, which replaced a Gothic mullion in which would be represented the figure of God the Father.

Shortly undertake the remodeling, the Council decided to close this door by the excessive and annoying traffic of neighbors who descended into the lower part of the city with supplies and utensils.

Below and above the jambs, and extending through the surrounding wall, forming friezes, blind respective series of ogival and trefoil pointed arches, that in the lower socket mounted on paired columns with vegetable capitals.

On the lintel justly above the door appears a long scene in relief chaired by Archangel Michael with a scale weighing the souls; around him, to the left, a demon trying to unlevel in their favor the weight of the sins as well as those convicted who are driven to Hell, and, to the right, a little house with the open door representing the entrance to paradise, where are already nobles, a king, a queen, a monk with hood and a Franciscan friar, the blessed.

At the top of the tympanum appears another motif common to the Romanesque, the Deesis, with Christ enthroned as universal judge, with arms raised, showing the wounded of the side and flanked by the Virgin and St. John imploring mercy for souls of the poor.

The attempts at drama and grimacing expression that show various images of this facade away of the full French classicism and put in relation to a more naturalistic trend of clear Hispanic flavor.

The facade of the portal of the Coronería extends upwards with a large window of stepped triple bow and on it, needles by respectives marked spires, a gallery of three ogival arches, with mullions and tracery of three quadrilobulates circles.