Pilgrimage

The Pilgrimage Roads to Santiago de Compostela

The history, legends, development and infrastructure of the medieval pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela through France and Spain

The Pilgrimage Roads

The Pilgrimage Roads

The pilgrimage roads as defined in the twelfth century manuscript referred to as the Book of Saint James follow four distinct routes across France.

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The Compostelan Saints: the Saintly Remains on this Road

The Compostelan Saints: the Saintly Remains on this Road

The Compostelan saints were those listed in the Book of Saint James. The four roads to Compostela were described according to the reliquary shrines of the saints to be found on the way. Chapter eight of the Pilgrim’s Guide contained a list of twenty-three shrines which pilgrims were expressly told to visit on their journey.

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The Pilgrimage Roads: Of the Route of Saint James

The Pilgrimage Roads: Of the Route of Saint James

The pilgrimage roads to Santiago de Compostela numbered four. Like the four rivers of Paradise which flowed to the four cardinal points, the four roads which lead to Compostela have a symbolic resonance. These earthly ways led westward towards the prospect of a return to Paradise.

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Of the days’ journey on the Apostle’s road

Of the days’ journey on the Apostle’s road

According to the Pilgrims’ Guide, the Camino was divided into thirteen stages. During the great florescence of the Compostelan pilgrimage in the twelfth century, travellers reached Santiago by a variety of ways. Some came by sea,  others from El-Andalus and Merida up the Via de la Plata. Only one of these itineraries was set down in writing and that was the road from the Pyrenees, the so-called French Road or Camino Frances.

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The Jacobus: The Book of Saint James

The Jacobus: The Book of Saint James

Authorship of the text of Book Five of the Jacobus, the so-called Pilgrim’s Guide is attributed to Pope Calixtus II. It goes without saying that such medieval attributions of authorship need to be treated with scepticism.

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Cluny and the Compostelan Pilgrimage Roads

Cluny and the Compostelan Pilgrimage Roads

A longstanding debate among historians concerning Cluny’s actual function with regard to pilgrimage, has ideas ranging from it being almost completely a Cluniac invention to a peripheral role only for the Burgundian abbey yet it would seem that the fortunes of Cluny and the Compostelan pilgrimage were strongly intertwined.

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