The Camino de Santiago and your Holiday Rentals in Spain

If you have never made a pilgrimage before why not book your HOLIDAY RENTALS IN SPAIN this year and explore the Camino de Santiago: the Way of St James? There are millions of pilgrims that travel to Spain each year to walk this medieval route across northern Spain. This ensures you will not be alone on this your first journey into Spain’s religious history.

People are of two different minds when it comes to the name of Santiago with how and why it was named. Some say that this pre-Christian name of Santiago is from local Galician, originally a form of Latin, from Sanctu Iacobu or Saint James. The second part of the name, Compostela is believed to also be from Latin, Campus Stellae or Field of the Star, but if you look at the old Roman Latin word of Composita Tella it means burial ground. Then there is the belief that the pilgrim’s way was named after the apostle St James whose tomb was uncovered in 819 AD on the northwest coast of Spain. The name of St James in Spanish is Sant Iago or Santiago. To give credence to this line of thought there is a legend stating that St James came to Spain after Jesus’ death and preached here. He then returned to Jerusalem where after his death he became one of the first Christian to be martyred. The legend further states that to keep St James’ body from being desecrated some followers exhumed his remains and brought them back to Spain to be buried. The church verified the remains as those of St James after which King Alfonso II built a church on top of the tomb. Later when Alfonso III came to power he had an even larger church built.

The Moorish military commander Abu Amir al-Mansur attacked the town in 997 at which time he destroyed the entire town even St James’s church. The only thing he didn't disturb was the apostolic tomb; it is believed this was done out of respect for the martyr buried there.

The reputation of the shrine was soon to spread beyond the Pyrenees after the reconquest in 1037 by Bermudo III. This was accomplished by improving the roads leading to the shrine which in turn allowed the pilgrims an easier access to the shrine. The number of pilgrims increased from the ones first recorded in the middle of the 10th century to a point where between 1092 and 1105 Santiago de Compostela was only succeeded in the number of pilgrims by Jerusalem and Rome. As a result in 1078 Alfonso VI who was King of Castile and Leon ordered the present cathedral to be built.

Eventually there were four pilgrimage routes organized by the 12th century. All of these routes started in France but they converged in the Basque country with a single track which crossed northern Spain. The route passed through Burgos, Carrion, Sahagun, Leon, Astorga and Lugo, which St Francis of Assisi is said to have travelled on his pilgrimage to Santiago in 1214.

As you venture out from your HOLIDAY RENTALS IN SPAIN to take your place on this pilgrimage route stop and consider why some of the first people made this trek. It seems that the inquisitors at the time of the Spanish Inquisition at Carcassone ordered the guilty parties to make this pilgrimage as a penitence for their wrong doing.

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