Assessing the Experience of a Pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago in the High Middle Ages

Ross Creed
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2016
BA

Subject: Architecture and Sculpture
Country: Spain
Century: 9th-13th Century

10,000 words

The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage route that has been walked for over one thousand years. The route leads to the city of Santiago de Compostela in North-Western Spain. Here in the cathedral of the city, the remains of Saint James the Greater, apostle of Jesus Christ, are said to to held. The circumstances surrounding the arrival of the remains of the saint in the early ninth century are mysterious but regardless, there soon were thousands of pilgrims flocking to the city. At its height it was the third most important pilgrimage in Europe, after Rome and Jerusalem and may have even been the most popular over the Middle Ages as a whole. It remained popular throughout the Middle Ages until dying out in later centuries. However in the late 20th century, it has regained popularity and is visited by over of a quarter of a million people every year.

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Assessing the Experience of a Pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago in the High Middle Ages