The objective of the travelers along the Pilgrim's Way is to reach the city of Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, in the northwestern corner of Spain. This city grew up around the reputed burial place of Santiago - the Apostle Saint James. As the story goes, James had preached for several years in Spain and especially in Galicia, and after he had been beheaded by the Romans in AD 42, two of his disciples brought his body back to Iberia, where a crypt and small chapel were built. The tomb was forgotten for the next several centuries, during which time Spain invaded by the Moors. In the early ninth century, on hearing reports of miracles - stars and angelic voices - in a forest some kilometers inland from the coast, an important Galician bishop ordered the area inspected, and a chapel and sepulchre containing some human remains were discovered, which the bishop concluded were those of Saint James. It so happened that a few years earlier, Saint James had been declared patron saint of the Christian kingdom of Asturias, Galicia's eastern neighbor, by its King Alfonso II the Chaste. Asturias was the only region to never fall under the dominion of the Moors, and thus the Christian monarchs had taken refuge there, and it was from this mountainous, misty green land where the Christian reconquest of Spain from the Moors was to begin. On hearing of the discovery, King Alfonso decided to visit the tomb to venerate the saint and seek his protection in the long struggle that lay ahead. Thus, this monarch, who is often considered the first pilgrim to Santiago, made the journey from his court in Oviedo, modern-day capital of the principality of Asturias. On arriving at the spot, he ordered a hermitage to be built in honor of the saint, and the place was named "Compostela", coming from the Latin campus estellae - field of stars. And in the process, he gave the Christians an idol to defend, a myth to fight for, and a place to worship him. Indeed Santiago was to be invoked frequently during the reconquest and is alleged to have appeared on a horse, sword in hand to aid the Christians in vanquishing the Moors on several occasions. As mentioned earlier, the reconquest began in the northern region of Spain, and the Moors were slowly pushed southwards, but initially only the northern part of the country, behind the Cantabrian mountains, was relatively safe for travel. As word spread of the discovery of Saint James' burial place, pilgrims began to make the journey from all over Christendom. The first established route was that followed by King Alfonso from Oviedo, somewhat inland of the northern coast (now known as the "primitive route") but soon a route following the northern coast (the coastal route) came into use, following old Roman and commercial roads, and the Church and kings of resurgent Christian Spain built new churches, hospitals, refuges, roads and bridges, and new towns sprung up along the way; other pilgrims came by sea from the British Isles, Brittany and the low countries directly to points in Galicia close to Compostela. As more lands further to the south came under Christian control, the monarchs designed other routes to help to repopulate the reconquered lands, and to develop the Camino into a route for military and commercial transport and for the spreading of Christianity. They took advantage of existing Roman roads running from the Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees westward to Europe's most westward point - Finisterre (Land's End) in Galicia, and a new main route to Compostela was established, (now known as the "French Route") less arduous in terms of terrain and climate than the more northern variants and to this day remains the most popular route followed to Santiago de Compostela. In 1075 work was begun on the cathedral in Compostela, and in 1122, Pope Calixtus II proclaimed that every year in which July 25 fell on a Sunday would be a Compostelan Holy Year. This was the golden age of the pilgrimages in the middle ages, from the XI to the XIII centuries. In the XIV century the pilgrimages began to decline and the Christian world started to forget about Compostela due to several factors: the Christian reconquest had pushed southwards and the important cities of the land came to be in the south, the discovery of America and the beginning of the Spanish empire directed attention overseas, the rise of Protestantism, and the division of the Catholic world, together with plagues, wars and hunger. In 1588 the archbishop of Santiago hid the saint's tomb, in fear that they would be robbed by the English pirates led by Francis Drake, and they were to remain hidden for the next 3 centuries. In 1878 the tomb was re-discovered when some repairs were being done in the Cathedral, and Pope Leon XIII tried to promote the pilgrimage in his papal bull of 1884, but less than 50 pilgrims a year made it to Compostela until the mid 1960s, when a well-known Galician priest published his doctoral thesis about the Camino de Santiago, and worked to establish the first 'associations of friends of the Camino'. These groups began work diligently to promote the route and slowly the number of pilgrims increased. In 1982 1,868 pilgrims received the "Compostela", the official certificate issued by the Catholic church on arrival in Santiago de Compostela, recognizing that one has walked at least 100 km. of the route. The various regions of Spain that the routes pass through began to improve the infrastructures - special pilgrims' refuges and hostels, signing along the route and the paths themselves. In the mid '80s, Santiago de Compostela was declared a UNESCO World Heritage City and more and more pilgrims began to arrive. In 1985, 2,491 Compostelas were awarded. In 1987 the European Council declared the Camino de Santiago the First European Cultural Itinerary and in 1991 the number of Compostelas awarded had increased to 7,274. In the Holy Year of 1993, 100,000 persons received the Compostela and in total, some 4 million persons came to visit the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. In 1999, the last Holy Year of the 20th century, over 7 million people visited the city, most of them as pilgrims of one kind or another.

Close Window