The Camino de Santiago de Compostela Ultimate Handbook

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"Twelve Hundred Years of Pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela. Religious Tradition Told by Priest, Poets and Storytellers"

Jack de Groot,

University Press of the South, New Orleans USA

PhD, University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia

(1)

In 1495 a monk named Hermann Künig Von Vach made a pilgrimige on foot from the Einsiedeln Sactuary in Switzerland to Santiago de Compostela. The pilgrim guide which emerged from this large journey was to become very successful. Künig wrote it in verse.

Yo, Hermann Künig Von Vach, voy,
con la ayuda de Dios, a hacer un librito
que llevará por título "El Camino de Sant-Iago".
En él enseñaré sendas y veredas
y cómo debe portarse un auténtico
cofrade de Sant-Iago.
En la bebida y también en la comida;
ni olvidaré tampoco
varios maldades que como corsarios,
le asaltan.
De esto escribiré lindas enseñanzas,
de cómo ha de precaverse un auténtico
cofrade de Sant-Iago. (In: Filgueira, 125)

Outbound he crossed the Alps on what he called the "Obere Strasse" (High Street) to Toulouse in Southern France, after which he entered Spain at Portus Cisere (Roncesvalles) in the Pyrenees Mountains. From here he followed the "Camino francés" or "Vía Aquitania" along towns and villages which in ancient times carried names such as Pampilonia, Ponte Regina (Puente la Reina), Stella (Estella), Illo Gronio (Logroño), Nagera, Sanctus Dominicus (Santo Domingo), Belfuratus (Belorado), Ataporca, Burgas, Fontanas (Hontanas), Frumesta (Frómista) and Sancti Facundi (Sahagún). At Legio (León), "La Bella Desconocida", he diverted the pilgrims to the north, to the San Salvador cathedral of Oviedo and to Lucus (Lugo), in order to avoid the steep and dangerous climbs over the Manzanal (Bierzo) and Februarii (Cebreiro) Passes.

Along de "Niedere Strasse" (Lower Street) the writer returned home, following the "Camino francés" through the Carceris (Valcarce) and Bierzo valleys to places such as Francavilla(Villafranca del Bierzo), Cacauellus (Cacabelos) and Ponsferratus. Being an observant writer, Künig soon discovered why this region had become so well-known amongst the pilgrims "En el Bierzo se deja correr el vino como un círio". (Círio is a large, dripping candle.) He therefore advised them to taste in moderation, as stated in the earlier-given quotation.

Via Siccamolina (Molinaseca) to Osturga, Alterdallia (Tardajos) and Burgas Künig continued his home journey along the "Camino francés", before diverting to Santander and Bilbao on the "Camino del norte". After crossing the border at Irún, he traveled on foot through the west of France where he visited its capital: "Una ciudad llamada Lutecia [Paris], que es la sede de un obispo". Through the low countries he reached Aquisgrán (Aachen, on the German/Bergian border) where his story ended.

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In 1139 a French Cardinal named Aymeric Picaud - from Parthenay-Le-Veux in the Poitiers region - traveled on horseback along the same "Camino francés". Picaud compiled a pilgrim guide titled Liber Sancti Jacobi "Codex Calixtinus", a valuable document with hundreds of handwritten pages with drawings. The book, which is preserved in the archives of the cathedral, contains texts written by Calixtinus II, who was Pope from 1119 until 1124, and by Turpin, the Archpriest of Rheims, as well as by Picaud himself. In one of Calixtinus' sermons the great variety of nationalities of pilgrims who made their way to Santiago is emphasized. The Pope predominantly uses nouns, and doesn't provide the reader with much detail in the quotation which follows. Adjectives feature only on four occasions, to describe the "ungodly people of Navarra" and the "numerous barbarians from everywhere" who go to Santiago.

A este lugar [Santiago] vienen los pueblos bárbaros y los que habitan en todos los climas del orbe, a saber: francos, normandos, escoceses, irlandeses, los galos, los teutones, los iberos, los gascones, los bávaros, los impios navarrros, los vascos, los godos, los provenzales, los garascos, los lorenses, los gautos, los ingleses, los bretones, los de Cornualles, los flamencos, los frisones, los alóbrogos, los italianos, los de Apulia, los poitevinos, los aquitanos, los griegos, los armenios, los dacios, los noruegos, los rusos, los joriantes, los nubios, los partos, los rumanos, los gálates, los efesios, los medos, los toscanos, los calabreces, los sajones, los sicilianos, los de Asia, los del Ponto, los de Bitinia, los indios, los cretenses, los de Jerusalén, los de Antioquía, los glileos, los de Sardes, los de Chipre, los húngaros, los búlgaros, los eslavones, [...] y las demás gentes innumerables de todas las lenguas, tribus y naciones vienen a él en caravana y falanges. (In: Picaud, 198-99).

More than seventy nationalities are listed, some of which didn't exist in the Middle Ages. Pope Calixtinus II may well have taken this information from the Bible, for instance from the gospel of St. Paul. His intention was to transmit to the few who would have been capable to read this Latin text that the road to Santiago had become overcrowded. Due to the fact that Jerusalem was occupied by the Moslims in the important year 1033 (the Millenium of Christ's death) believers had been looking for alternatives, Santiago de Compostela being one of them. The Galician authorities were forced to hand out fines to corrupt merchants who charged the pilgrims more than the locals for the same goods. Ground pepper to which water had been added, so that its weight increased, was sold to the pilgrim. Also the roasted powder of juniperberries was mixed in, or even black sand. Tailors didn't measure the woolen cloth which was sold to the customers with a standard length called the alma (44,4 centimeters), but used their elbow in stead. Medical doctors behaved badly when they were asked to cure tricky diseases.

No temen adulterar inicuamente los electuarios, los potingues y los jarabes y los demás antídotos con otros ingredientes. Mezclan las cosas buenas con las malas y venden las adulteradas por especies de gran precio. (In: Picaud, 222-23)

Pope Calixtinus II also informs the reader about the diseases of which the pilgrims could suffer while on their way. A substantial part of this quotation (below) derives from a Medieval book of Medicine named Etimol (Book IV), written by St. Isidoro, while other diseases may not have existed at all. More than thirty diseases feature on Calixtinus' list.

[...] leprosos, frenéticos, maniáticos, sarnosos, paralíticos, artríticos, escotomáticos, flegmáticos [...] lunáticos, estomáticos, reumáticos, dementes, enfermos de flujo, albuginosios y de muchas traídoras enfermedades. (In: Picaud, 67)

In the book's final section (Book V) the St. James' Way is described in detail by Picaud himself, descriptions which may often surprise the twenty-first century reader. On the character and lifestyle of the various kinds of people he met while on a pilgrimage to Santiago his statements are convincingly clear. Apparently the populations of Navarre and France didn't like each other much.

Tras este valle [Roncesvalles] se encuentra Navarra, tierra considerada feliz por el pan, el vino, la leche y los ganados. [Los Navarros] comen, beben y visten puercamente. Pues toda la familia de una casa navarra, tanto el siervo como el señor lo mismo la sierva que la señora, suelen comer todo el alimento mezclado al mismo tiempo en una cazuela, no con cuchara, sino con las manos, y suelen beber por un solo vaso. Si los vieras comer, los tomarías por perros [...] Este es pueblo bárbaro, distinto de todos los demás en costumbres y modo de ser, colmado de maldades, oscuro de color, de aspecto inicuo, depravado, perverso, pérfido, desleal y falso, lujurioso, borracho, en toda suerte de violencias ducho, feroz, silvestre, malvado y réprobo, impio y áspero, cruel y pendenciero, falto de cualquier virtud y diestro en todos los vicios e iniquidades. (Picaud, 519-20)

Page after page (the priest) Picaud continues his insults through the use of moderators, stating that "[el hombre navarro] besa lujuriosamente el sexo de su mujer y de la mula," and "por sólo un dinero mata un navarro a un vasco, si puede, a un francés. En algunas de sus comarcas, sobre todo Vizcaya y Alava, el hombre y la mujer navarros se muestran mutuamente sus vergüenzas mientras se calientan." (Picaud, 521)Nowadays the pilgrims and other visitors are welcomed in a different, more peaceful way. They are invited to attend the Pilgrim Mass, which every night is served in the small, foggy village of Roncesvalles, right on the border of Navarra and France. Five or six priests will sing canons, in unison and unaccompanied by musical instruments, after which they request the pilgrims to come forward to the altar to be blessed in eight languages. Often a personal message, spoken by one of the priests, will accompany this blessing: "Be careful pilgrim friends. Over the past days the snow has covered the yellow arrows, so we advize you to follow the main road. May the Apostle protect you during your long journey to Galicia. And remember us when you reach your destination."

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Poets too, over the centuries, have made their way to Santiago, if only in spirit. Juan de Mena, poet from Córdoba and secretary of King Juan II, mentions Galicia in his master piece, the Laberinto de Fortuna, completed in 1444. Also named "Las trescientas", the poem consists of three-hundred octets, one to be read by Juan II every day. While analyzing the Laberinto it isn't difficult to come to the conclusion that Mena's inspiration derives from various texts, such as Lucano's Farsalia, and from El tratado de amor, which was probably written by Mena himself, as well as from El liber regum and Eusebio's Crónicas. The poet would not have intended to hide his sources, to the contrary. In the Renaissance phenomenons such as "imitation" and "influence" weren't yet the Cultisms which they were to become in later times, up till today. By borrowing texts Mena showed his readers that he was a man of great intellect who had read many books.

In some of the early stanzas of the Laberinto de Fortuna Mena provides a description of the terrestrial world divided into five parts: Asia Mayor (the Middle and Far East), Asia Menor (Western Asia, Turkey), Europe, Africa and the Islands of the Mediterreanean Sea. This division of the earth, and in particular of the various regions on the Iberian peninsula, originates from Anselmo's De Imagene Mundi (Cap. XXX): "De Hispania. Inde est Hispania ab Hispano rege dicta, prius Iberia, ab Ibero flumine, et Hesperia, ab Hespero rege nominata. Haec versus occasum Oceano terminatur. Sunt in ea se provinciae: Tarracona, Cathago, Lusitania, Galatia, Betica, Tinguitania a praecipuis civitatibus dictae..." (In: Mena, 1984, 195).

An almost identical list of provinces is mentioned in the following fragment taken from the Laberinto de Fortuna: Tarracona, Celtiberia (parts of Tarracona and Southern Aragón), Cartago la de Hesperia (Cartagena la de España, not the African Carthago), Lusitania, Vandalia (Baetica), Galicia and Tingitania, which had become part of the Northern African Mauretania with its capital Tingis (Tanger). The poet's personal opinion on the character of the persons who populate these ultimate two regions is transmitted to the reader through an application of a non-violent hyperbaton in combination with the Cultism "ferosçe" which in this fragment stands for "feroz", from the Latin "ferox".

España

Vi a las provincias de España e Poniente:
la de Tarragona e la de Celtiberia
la menor Cartago que fue la de Esperia,
con los rincones de todo oçidente;
mostróse Vandalia la bien paresçiente,
e toda la tierra de la Lusitania,
la brava Galiçia con la Tinguitania
donde se cría ferosçe la gente (Mena, stanza XLVIII)

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(2)

A totally different homage to Galicia is written 160 years later by Luis de Góngora y Argote, Culteranist poet and "racionero" from Córdoba. In the early 17th century don Luis traveled on horseback through the north of Spain, from which a to him attributed poem ermerged, as well as parts of his Soledades. To read an extensive analysis of Góngora's links with Galicia in an article written by Jack de Groot, please go to the appropriate webpage on the website jackdegroot.com

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One Tercentenary later poet Federico García Lorca visited the same, badly tempered nort-west of Spain. Because of a small physical handicap, one leg being shorter than the other, Lorca would not have been capable to walk to Galicia. However, Lorca immaculately tasted the atmosphere of fog, rain and serenity which has always dominated Santiago. "Shadow and ash of your sea", he twice exclaims. And: "Santiago, far from the sun./Water of ancient morning/makes my heart tremble." Lorca had fallen in love with the capital of Galicia, which, like Granada, suffered from an absence of salty water: the sea. (3)

Madrigal a Cibda de Santiago

Chove en Santiago
meu doce amor.
Camelia branca do ar.
brilla entebrecida ô sol.

Chove en Santiago
na noite escura.
Herbas de prata e de sono
cobren la valeira lúa.

Olla a choive pol-a-rúa,
laio de pedra e cristal.
Olla no vento esvaído
soma e cinza do teu mar.

Soma e cinza do teu mar
Santiago, lonxe do sol.
Agoa da maña anterga
trema no meu corazón. (Lorca, 152-53)(4)
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Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885), Galicia's "Grand Daughter of Muse", never made a pilgrimage to Santiago because she actually lived in the city. In "Santa Escolástica" (from: En las orillas del Sar, written in the 19th century) a somewhat depressed Rosalía walks the streets of Santiago, entering the cathedral itself to find relief. She describes how the "botafumeiro" is swung, a silver pot filled with incense. Its purpose was to overpower the strong smell produced by pilgrims, who were permitted to stay overnight in the cathedral. By mixing air with inscense it was thought that one could even prevent diseases from spreading. Nowadays a priest will explain to a crowd of thousands of believers, that the swinging of the "botafumeiro" is meant to be seen as an act to praise God, not as a spectacle to attract onlookers (tourists). The loud applause which always fills the cathedral after the ceremony has finished proves that many still haven't understood this message. Rosalía de Castro's poetry is rich, and her message is as cristal clear as the waters of the Rías baixas. Some of her poetry features in the Camino de Santiago Ultimate Handbook.

Majestad de los templos, mi alma femenina
te siente, como siente las maternas dulzuras,
las inquietudes vagas, las ternuras secretas
y el temor a lo oculto tras de la inmensa altura. (From Santa escolástica, IV)

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Finally, after having quoted text written by priests and poets of the past, the moment has come to write down the story of a contemporary storyteller. On the descent from "Monte do Gozo" which overlooks Santiago, an Italian lady named Bea sits in a wheelchair. She is accompanied by a man, as well as by a large dog which has been carefully attached to this chair. Luggage has been kept to a minimum, just a small bag on her lap and a backpack tied to the back of her seat. To combat rain and sunshine she wears waterproof, leather boots, a cap and a raincoat.

The three come from Rome (they carry a book full of stamps) and are about to achieve their first goal: attend the Pilgrim Mass at noon in Compostela. From here on they will be moving in eastern direction, to Jerusalem, after which they will return to Rome. More than 5000 kilometers still lie ahead, through Spain, then through Southern France along the "Vía Domitia", through Italy along the "Vía Postumia" to Triest, then through Croatia, Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria and Greece to the European and Asian regions of Turkey, in order to end up in Israel via Syria and Lebanon.

When asked how long this trip will take, the lady's answer is: "Dos años." Two years.

"Where will they sleep during the next 800 nights?"

"Donde sea," (wherever) is her reply. Someone will always take care of them when the purse is empty. A bright smile appears on her face every time "Santiago", "Rome" or "Jerusalem" are mentioned.

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Bea's story reminds of the one written by Doménico Laffi on his arrival in Santiago in 1670. Laffi, a priest from Bologna, published a book titled Viaje a Poniente about his experiences on the camino. Together with a friend, the painter Doménico Códice, he had walked from Northern Italy along the "Vía Aemilia", through Southern France along the "Vía Aquitania" to Santiago. When the two reached the same "Monte do Gozo" from where Bea and her companian contemplated the city, their "Te Deum" sounded: "cantando, continuamos el descenso hasta el burgo". (More of Laffi's text can be found in the Camino de Santiago de Compostela Ultimate Handbook.) Unlike Picaud, Laffi hardly ever complaints about people's behavior, bad weather or physical pain. He produced a much more positive story. As the German philosopher Goethe stated: "Europe was made through pilgrimages to Santiago."
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NOTES

(1) This picture features in A Memoria de Santiago, published in 2000 by Xeriais (Carlos Díaz Martínez)
(2) Right picture: Don Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627) painted by Velázquez.
(3) Picture taken in 1935. Book cover: Actas del Congreso Federico García Lorca: Clásico Moderno 1898-1998. Granada: Diputación de Granada, 2002.
(4) The translation to English (and some interpretation) can be found on the website: jackdegroot.com

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Castro, Rosalía de. En las orillas del Sar. Santiago: Librería Gali, 1982.
Filgueira Valverde, José. Compostela, Camino y Estela. Galicia: El Lector Viajero, 1999.
García Lorca, Ferderico. The Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca. Edited by Francisco García Lorca. Fifth Printing. New York: New Directions, 1961.
Góngora, Luis de. Poesías. México: Editorial Porrúa, 1978.
Groot, Jack de. The Camino de Santiago de Compostela Ultimate Handbook. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2009.
------ Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Chronicle of Love. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2007.
Künig Von Vach, Hermann. Die Walfart und Strass zu Sant Jacob. Strassbourg: Matthias Hupfuff, 1496.
Laffi, Doménico. Viaje a poniente. Santiago: Biblioteca Mágica del Peregrino, 1992.
Mena, Juan de. Laberinto de Fortuna. Madrid: Editorial Alhambra, 1976. (Also Espasa Calpe).
Picaud, Aymeric. Liber Sancti Jacobi. Codex Calixtinus. Galicia: Xunta de Galicia, 1998.
Textos de Sala. Santiago: Museo das Peregrinacions.

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This refereed article was published in Antípodas. University of Auckland / La Trobe University: no. XVI, pp. 45-56, 2005.