The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela

by William Melczer (Editor)

The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela presents the first complete English translation of Book Five of the Liber Sancti Jacobi or Codex Calixtinus. This twelfth-century guidebook traces the route from southern France to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.

The medieval Christian world knew three major pilgrimage sites - Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries Santiago de Compostela was by far the most popular. Pilgrimage to Compostela was a once-in-a-lifetime human adventure. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims came year after year through France and across the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela near the Atlantic shores of Galicia.

In his study of the road to Santiago, Professor William Melczer discusses Relics and Pilgrimage; The Origin of the Cult of St. James; Myth and Historical Reality; The Iter Sancti Jacobi; The Liber Sancti Jacobi; Pilgrimage without Ideology; and The Iconography of St. James. This book also includes extensive commentaries and notes that highlight historical, geographical, art-historical, hagiographic, and general cultural matters along the route traced by the Guide. Illustrated, introduction, gazetteer, hagiographical register, bibliography, index.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Christian, Travel

368 pages, Paperback

First published June 29, 1993

Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first guidebook to the Camino is wonderfully documented without a lot of scholarly additions. It's a look at how the Camino was done in the old days, including a wonderful, frothing rant by the narrator when his horse is poisoned.

[Laura Leaney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I admit, I skipped around. I read the sections I thought I'd like, but had to push through the ponderous prose.

[Krk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars because the introduction by William Melczer and the endnote he provides to the actual guide are informative and helpfull.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've only given this three stars because it's a bit heavy to read. However, that's the intent, it's a scholarly work, not a popular travelogue. It's intended to give us the history, and what was written in one of the first ever guidebooks to the Camino. As such, it requires a great deal of historical context.

Perhaps I'll be able to rate it again, once I get to the meat of the guidebook, as I'm still in the introduction. I DO find it quite interesting, it's fascinating to see and imagine how people lived, day-in and day-out, under what us westerners would call privation. It's very difficult to imagine living life carrying a gourd to drink, sleeping on straw mattresses every night, and having only the clothes on your back. Many of us have no concept of a life this hard, then to make it more difficult, going on pilgrimage.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides historical info about the Camino. Lacks any practical advice for current pilgrims.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but fascinating.

[Brett Goble · Rating 5 out of 5]

there are bones in the church there are bones in the church there are bones in the church there are bones in the church there are bones in the church there are bones in the church

[Alice]

no rating bc i read it for school

[Coen McGarrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Functions best as a historical text, very dense. Impressive in its collection. However, the notes section (including hagiography and bibliography) starts on page 134/345.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book because it was a translation of the original Liber Sancti Jacobi, the first guide to El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I wanted to learn more about its origins and original intents. The book gives a detailed introduction to the history of the pilgrimage, a translation of the original text, and a hagiography of all the saints associated with the Camino. The other half of the book contains footnotes and annotations! It’s a highly technical book, more of a compendium of all resources ever written about the Camino. Made me feel like I was taking undergrad Spanish history again, but without the grade. Hence, it took me around a year to finish the book. Some major take-aways: This camino, though through Spain, was primarily sponsored by France. Rome and Jerusalem had been the top two pilgrimage sites in the Christian world, and France wanted their end of the continent to have some pull. The Liber itself, seems to be written by Frenchmen, who displayed some prejudices about Spain and Spaniards themselves. (Something about them being prone to bestiality). The cult of St. James (San Iago… Santiago, get it?) was also pushed into the limelight during the time of the Reconquista. James became the Patron of Spain, it was he who is rumored to have come to Charlemagne in a dream, which encouraged him to fight the infidels, force the muslims out of power in Spain. I have modern-day reasons for wanting to complete the Camino de Santiago, but it was interesting reading about how the camino began, and what prompted the first few centuries of pilgrims to make the often life-threatening, year long trek. I will come back to this book, for fact checks, but I won't re-read it in its entirety.

[Bruce · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting, though rather useless, description of the Camino de Santiago.