When the tomb of St James was discovered, most of Iberia was still in the hands of the Moors and played little part in the early development of the pilgrimage. For Atlantic-seaboard countries, such as Britain, the pilgrimage will have been largely by sea; though this was subject to pirates and bad weather, it was generally very much faster than going by land. Development for the rest of Europe, however, depended upon developing links beyond the Pyrenees, so let's look at the situation in N Spain and the Pyrenees. A further page looks at the situation in SW France. First, a look at some important dates for monastery foundations and other infrastructure improvements.
Monasteries and other Camino-related Infrastructure
- Pyrenees
- 833 - Siresa, 1st monastery in Aragon
- early 9th century - Leyre (destroyed and rebuilt 1022)
- late 10th century - St Michel de Cuxa
- 992 - Sta Cruz de la Serós
- 1007 - St Martin du Canigou
- 1077 - Jaca
- 1082 - Montserrat (based on 9th-century hermitages)
- 1094 - San Juan de la Peña (based on earlier site)
- 1099 - Somport
- 1130 - Roncesvalles
- 1172 - Hospital de Benasque
- other en route
- 761 - San Vicente, Oviedo (destroyed 789 and rebuilt)
- 904 - San Facundo (Sahagún), expanded 1080 to became Spain's Cluny
- 913 - San Miguel de Escalada (Mozarabic, based on earlier Visigothic site)
- 919 - Sto Domingo de Silos (based on earlier Visigothic site)
- 966 - San Isidoro, León (destroyed 988 and rebuilt)
- 984 - San Millán de la Cogolla
- early 11th century - Puente la Reiña
- 1044 - Sto Domingo de la Calzada
- 1050 - Irache hospital
- 1066 - Frómista
- 1090 - Estella
- 1095 - bridge at Logroño
- Galicia
- 561 - San Martin (a Hungarian) converts the previously Arian Suevians to Catholicism, and founds monastery and see at Braga, then Galician capital
- 7th century - Samos
- 8th century - San Martín de Mondoñedo
- 9th century? - O Cebreiro
- 912 - San Martín Pinario, Santiago (church rebuilt 1105)
- 1075 - Vilafrío: 1st Cluniac foundation in Galicia
- 1142 - 1st Cistercians, in Sobrado dos Monxes (on site of earlier monastery from 952)
- 1215 - Franciscans in Santiago (at time of Francis' pilgrimage)
- 1219 - Dominicans in Santiago
N Spain
Vázquez de Parga, Lacarra and Uría Ríu in their seminal 1949 work Las Peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela noted that it's not really possible to say with any certainty which routes early pilgrims took. This has not really changed. However, the underlying trends make it possible to give a broad picture, as is given, for example, on the back of the IGN map. See the Traianus site for some interesting articles on the use of Roman roads by the Camino.
- at the time of the discovery of St James' tomb in the early 9th century, Galicia was in Christian hands, so posed little problem. However, in the rest of N Spain, Christians controlled only the N coastal strip, centred on Pamplona and Oviedo. So the early pilgrimage is likely to have been along this strip, either through to Galicia or turning inland at Oviedo along what is now called the Camino Primitivo. Coastal regions were however subject to Viking/Norman raids throughout the early period so, as the borders of the Christian territories gradually moved south, the pilgrimage route is likely to have moved south too, first to the N slopes of the Cordillera Cantabrica, perhaps via Covadonga, then to the S slopes.
- in the early 10th century, the centre of gravity in the W moved from Oviedo to León, and later in that century, as Castile started to assert itself, Burgos too became a centre. So by 1000, the route we know now W of Burgos, based largely on the network of Roman roads, was probably beginning to be established: Burgos, León, Astorga, Ponferrada. O Cebreiro too will probably have been established as the crossing point into Galicia by this time.
- the 11th century saw the development of Sahagún (founded in the 10th century) into the leading Cluniac centre in Spain, and Frómista too was founded.
- in the E, however, much of the Ebro valley remained in the hands of the Moors, and the commonest route was probably to the N of the current Camino Francés, perhaps along the Roman road, which from Pamplona ran along the Araquil and Zadorra valleys crossing the Ebro in the Miranda area. It was only at the end of the 11th century, when Calahorra was recaptured, that the important Ebro crossing at Logroño could be built.
- this enabled a new route in Navarre to be created over the course of the C11. Nájera was made capital in the early C11; new towns were created at Puente la Reina and Estella, and settlers from France encouraged to move there; other infrastructure was completed, such as the bridges at Puente la Reina and Sto Domingo de la Calzada, and the hostel at Irache. So unlike other sections, where medieval travellers simply used existing roads, this section from Pamplona to Burgos was deliberately created, and is thus the only section which can claim to be a 'pilgrim road', though even here of course pilgrims shared the road with other travellers.
By 1100, the route of the Camino Francés must have been largely as we know it today. As other parts of Spain were recaptured, routes from there will have started to be used, no doubt using existing roads as available, such as the Via de la Plata, an important N-S Roman road.
Pyrenees
The IGN map shows four main crossings (Irún, Roncesvalles, Somport in the west, Panissars/Perthus in the east), and a further twelve other routes. Coste-Messelière's (see page on France) shows the four plus three other routes.
In the west, the simplest crossing was and remains the bridge of St James at Irún, and this was no doubt frequently used by early pilgrims. Another important early site is likely to have been the Carolingian monastery at Siresa, reached via the Col de Pau/Puerto del Palo W of the Somport, even though little archaeological evidence has emerged to support this.
However, the two Roman roads over the W Pyrenees will also have been major crossing points. The line of the more easterly road is disputed - some claim the direct route of the Col de Pau, others the Somport - but, with the late-11th-century founding by the Augustinians of the Somport monastery and hospice, the Somport clearly became the major pass. Together with the reestablishment of Jaca and other towns, it was strongly promoted by Aragon. The Somport monastery gathered some important relics, but today only a few stones mark the site of what the Liber Sancti Jacobi (LSJ) called one of the three columns of the world.
The other major promoter of the Camino was Navarre. Not only did it create a new road as discussed above; it also promoted the other Roman crossing, via Roncesvalles. This culminated in the other great Augustinian foundation some 30 years after the Somport. From the late C12, Navarre also controlled the land on the N side of the Pyrenees that is still known as Basse Navarre. Here too it created new towns - St Jean Pied de Port and St Palais - and diverted the road via St Jean Pied de Port from the original line via St Michel described in LSJ.
Although it's often thought that the Camino brought the Romanesque style to Spain, in fact, the earliest Romanesque churches were in Catalonia. However, as the Ebro valley and other key towns such as Lérida and Huesca remained in Moorish hands, these will have played little or no role in the early Camino, although it's interesting that one of the earliest recorded pilgrims to Santiago was the abbot of Montserrat in 959.
Once the Moors were kicked out of the Ebro valley in the 12th century, the easy route in the E Pyrenees over the Perthus/Panissars to the other important shrine at Montserrat became available, as were two others over the Col d'Arès to Ripoll and the Cerdagne/Cerdanya to Seo d'Urgell. Ripoll must have had good links with Santiago in the late C12, as the earliest known copy of LSJ was made there in 1173.
The way was also open to the important shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar at Zaragoza, which could have been reached along the Ebro valley from Catalonia. It could also have been reached via the Somport by pilgrims from the north.
Even the central Pyrenees were not closed to pilgrims, despite the heights that needed to be scaled. The presence of the Hospice de France on the N side and the Hospital de Benasque on the S side indicate that the route over the Port de Venasque/Glère was used by travellers, even though this requires climbing 1000m of hairpins and then descending 700m of more hairpins - not a route for the fainthearted! Other hostels, such as Rioumajou, show that other pass routes were used too.
Later developments
As central Spain was recaptured, the political and commercial centre of Spain shifted south. The towns which had been important - Oviedo, León, Burgos - lost in importance, as the capital became first Toledo and, later, in the C16, Madrid, as the important university of Salamanca was founded, and so on. This meant the commercial and political travellers became less and less interested in the E-W route across N Spain, the Camino Francés. Pilgrims to Santiago must have become a larger proportion of travellers on this route.
Also during the course of the Middle Ages, the main road in the western Pyrenees shifted. The Romans did not have a major crossing on the coast, but used the pass at Roncesvalles to get from Bordeaux to Astorga. By the end of the Middle Ages, this was replaced by the coastal crossing at Irún; Burgos and central Spain were reached via Tolosa and Vitoria. This remains the main road today and the corridor was later also used by the railway. By the C16, both France and Spain were developing centralised administrations, and developing a network of post-houses along the major highways. Road inventories were published in both France and Spain. The Spanish one, Pedro Juan Villuga's Reportorio de todos los caminos de España, of 1546, still describes the route over Roncesvalles. But the French equivalent, Charles Estienne's Les voyages de plusieurs endroits de France & encores de la Terre Saincte; d'Espaigne, & autres pays (available online at the University of Virginia), the supplement to his 1552 Guide des Chemins de la France (available online at the French National Library site), describes the route to Santiago as going via St-Jean-de-Luz, not St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and takes the Tolosa/Vitoria road to Burgos. This is also the route taken in the well-known French pilgrim song known as the Grande Chanson, and which starts "Quand nous partîmes de France" (the words and music are also available at the French National Library site). The Roncesvalles route became a minor crossing-point, something it remains to this day.
This loss of importance of both the Camino Francés and the Roncesvalles crossing is, of course, a major reason why it has been less affected by later developments than roads elsewhere in Europe, and why much remains to be seen today.