Jacobean Holy Year 1999

The First Common Awareness of Europe

Europe was made on the pilgrim road to Compostela, said Goethe describing the extraordinary spiritual, cultural and economical vitality of pilgrimage to Santiago since the nineth century. Celebrated in literature, music, art and history, this pilgrimage lead to the building of hospitals and lodgings, cities and villages, and the planning of new roads, bridges, cathedrals and churches.

The road was a melting pot of cultures, disseminator of tendencies and ideas all over the Continent, meeting point of peoples and languages and supporting axis of the first European common awareness.

"Being prayerful of spirit, urged by devotion, he hurried to the extreme of Galicia to humbly implore heavenly forgiveness and the benefit of the Apostle St. James."

The European Council has defined the Road to Santiago as First European Cultural Itinerary and the UNESCO has declared the city of Santiago de Compostela, Cultural Patrimony of Humankind.

The powerful Cluniac Order was the principal promoter of pilgrimages in the Middle Ages. The establishment of the Jacobean Holy Year, by Pope Calixto II and his successor Alexander III (1159-1181), by a Papal Bull (Regis terna), the granting of the grace of the Jubilee (plenary indulgence) to those who visit the Temple of Compostela in the years when the 25th of July (Day of Saint James) coincides on a Sunday, gave the final impulse to the pilgrimages to Santiago. Compostela became the largest centre of pilgrimage in Christendom.

The Black Death, wars and the emergence of Protestantism all contributed to the decline of pilgrimage. The chronicles say that on the 25th of July 1867, there were barely forty pilgrims in the town of Compostela. In 1878, Pope Leon XIII issued a Bull corroborating the authenticity of the rediscovery of the remains of the Apostle Saint James.

Apart from the religious motivations which gave it life, the interest of the Road lies in its artistic and tourist aspects: in its architecture, in its very important Romanesque sculptures, in the art and by its outstanding tourist attractions: landscapes, gastronomy and culture.

James, the son of Zebedee is credited with preaching the Gospel in Spain. The transport of minerals, such as pewter, gold, iron or copper, from Galicia to Palestine was being developed at that time. The Venerable Bede mentioned this in his writings and fixed the location of the body of the Apostle in Galicia. According to tradition the body of Saint James was carried in a ship from Jerusalem to Galicia, where it was buried. The Cathedral, which is the spiritual centre that presides over the town of Santiago, was built centuries later.

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