St. James

"Son of Thunder" and "Slayer of Moors"

Santiago Matamoros

St. James was one of the earliest apostles called by Jesus. According to Mark 3.17 Jesus called James and his brother "sons of thunderbolts" or Boanerges. Later James was turned into the ferocious patron saint, who according to later Spanish legend secured the victorious Reconquest. In Spanish this victory is called the "Reconquista" and is the 750-year process by which Christians reconquered what is today Portugal and Spain from the Muslim and Moorish states.

Legends about St. James
Legend has it that St. James after the crucifixion of Jesus travelled to Spain to preach the Gospel there before returning back to Jerusalem where he was the first apostle to be martyred in 44 AD. After his death, his body was miraculously transposed to Spain where it was discovered in 818 by a bishop called Teodomir. The bishop immediately sent notice to the Asturian King Alfonso II of whom it was later told that he made the first pilgrimage to Compostela where the body of St. James lay. Already in 770, the designation of St. James as patron saint had been prepared by Beatus of Liébana, who called him "The shining head of Spain, protector and patron of our people". At that time the Visigothic Kingdom had been reduced to a small and pitiful rest north of Picos di Europa with the rest of Iberia governed by the Muslims. Later St. James was nicknamed Matamoros or "Slayer of Moors".

First Church
Alfonso II caught on to this legend and built the first church in Compostela, which was later called San Tiago de Compostela. This church was demolished in 871 to make room for another larger and exceptionally splendid church, which was destroyed in 997 by the Arab leader from Cordoba, Almanzur. According to legend he rode his horse into the church and had it drink from the baptismal font. Traces of the fire and the frenzied vandalism was discovered when the site was excavated in 1946. After the destruction of the church (but not the actual tomb) Christian slaves were forced to carry the large bell to Cordoba where it was hung upside down as a symbol of Almanzor having silenced Christianity. In 1236 after the fall of Cordoba, Muslim slaves carried it back on their shoulders to the new cathedral.

Present Cathedral
The present cathedral is a mixture of Romanesque architecture and later Baroque embellishments. In its present form it still presents itself as a pilgrimage church with the central canopy behind the high altar and the actual relics below in the crypt with the possibility for the pilgrim to make a perambulation.

First pilgrimage
The first recorded pilgrim, apart from King Alfonso and his family, was a French bishop in c. 860. Since then, a more or less continuous flow of people have made their way towards this shrine. In the Middle Ages about 100 - 300 pilgrims journeyed to the cathedral each year, but it deteriorated later on. Around 1986 the idea caught on again and the cathedral could record 2,491 pilgrims. In holy years the numbers usually double, but apart from that growth has been remarkable. In 2006 over 100.000 people were registered in the ledgers. To this should be added the many people who walk part of the way until they have completed the entire pilgrimage from the French border to Santiago covering more than 700 km. Most pilgrims (95 %) travel on foot, Two thirds are Spanish and among the rest of the pilgrims, France and Germany dominate. Some 82 % walk along the classical French Route from le Puy en Vellette over Roncevalles and Pamplona.

References

The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. By Alfonso Rodríguez de Ceballos. London: Scala 2000.

The Miracles of Saint James. By Thomas F. Coeffey. Linda Key Davidson and Maryjane Dunn. New York: Italica 1996. (Translation of parts of the Liber Sancti Jacobi).

The Pilgrimage to Compostela in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, Linda Kay Davidson and Maryjane Dunn, London: Routledge 2000

The definitive site is Saint Jacob, but there are hundreds of alternative Santiago de Compostela sites.