Apocalypse
The Apocalypse and the Compostelan Universe
Legends and Prophecies of the End of Time surrounding Compostela, the Saints and the Reconquest of Spain
The World will End in 6000 years
The Annus Mundi method of calculating time from the beginning of the world had been largely superceded by the ninth century, nevertheless it still exerted its influence in matters of an eschatological nature.
Comets in the sky appeared and countless went in pilgrimage
Medieval Christian pilgrimages were grafted onto older pagan ones. The sacred grove or magical dolmen now became a Christian shrine with a miraculous relic to attract Christian pilgrims.
Cluny and the Facade of La Charité
At the Benedictine priory of Charité-sur-Loire in Burgundy a large-scale monumental porch relief sculpture depicts Christ in a mandorla surrounded by the Virgin Mary to one side and the archangels Gabriel and Michael on the other.
The Canons Regular and the Legend of Roncevaux
Canons Regular of the Order of Saint Augustine maintained the shrines and infrastructure of the pilgrimage roads which promoted the legends of Charlemagne.
The gifts of nature have not entirely rotted away
In the twelfth century, men could not help but notice that all around them lay the ruins of a great civilisation.
Film: The Legend of the Last Roman Emperor and the Prophecies of Daniel on the Pilgrimage Roads to Compostela
Video: The Legend of the Last Roman Emperor and the Prophecies of Daniel on the Pilgrimage Roads to Compostela
The Legend of the Last Roman Emperor
A legend of a last Roman emperor was part of medieval Western European Apocalyptic conceptions. Much of Christian eschatological thought was predicated on the notion of the four empires of the world from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, an important text in the medieval period.
Reconquistá
When Pelayo and his band of warriors defeated the Saracen force at the battle of Covadonga in 722, it was a mere eleven years after the Arab conquest of Spain and the intention was to restore the Visigothic kingdom.
In this sign you shall conquer
The Chrismon became the symbol of the kings of the Reconquista and can be found carved above the entrances of numerous twelfth century church in Aragon.
Weighed down by the quantity of their sins the Goths were put to flight
In 711 the Visigothic Christian kingdom of Spain was invaded by a Moslem army of Arabs and north African Berbers. In an incredibly short time, Spain was overrun and defeated.
Compostela and Cluny
This book was written in various places, that is to say, in Rome, in the lands of Jerusalem, in France, in Italy, in Germany, in Frisia and mainly in Cluny. In 1088 construction began, at a small hamlet in the Burgundian countryside, of the largest church in...
Then were innumerable sick folk healed in those conclaves of Holy men
The period between the beginning of the tenth century and the end of the twelfth was the great age of the monastery in European Christendom.
In Cluny a regular monastery shall be constructed
Amongst the lush green grazing pasture of Burgundy, by the banks of a winding river lie the ruins of what was once the largest church in Christendom, that of the abbey of Cluny
The riches of a man are the redemption of his soul
The story of the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, from Luke’s Gospel is frequently repeated in the stone carved images of the churches on the pilgrimage roads and its theme that wealth and salvation are incompatible clearly troubled the medieval aristocracy.
Beatus of Liebana
After the Arab invasion, Christian Spain was restricted to a small kingdom north of the Cantabrian mountains called Asturias. It was from here that the origins of the Reconquest were born and that an abbot, Beatus of Liebana composed a famous commentary on the...
The ruin of Spain and its many and great evils
A Spanish chronicler writing in 754 about forty years after the Arab invasion of Spain was at a loss for words to describe the extent of his country’s misfortune
The Three Orders of the Feudal World
As society moved inexorably towards the End Times a mutually supporting division developed, a caste system imported from the East.