Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain

by Annette M. B. Meakin

According to the written testimony of Pope Calistus II., the most wonderful cures were effected at the shrine of St. James. “The sick come and are cured, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the dumb speak, the possessed are set free, the sad find consolation, and, what is more important, the prayers of the faithful reach to heaven, the heavy weight of sins is removed, the chains of sin are broken, thither come all the nations of the earth,” and here follows a list of some eighty tribes and nations. These pilgrims travelled across Europe in companies, and in companies they placed themselves beside the sepulchre, the Italians on this side, the Germans on that, as the case might be; every one holding a wax taper is his hand, there they remained to worship the whole night long, and the light from the innumerable tapers made the night like day. Some sang to the accompaniment of the cithara, others to that of the lyre, some to the timbrel, others the flute, others to the fife, others to the trumpet, others to the harp, others to the viola, others to the British and Welsh harp and crouth, others to the psaltery, and others to many other musical instruments. Some weep for their sins, some read psalms, and some give alms to the priests. There does not exist a language or a dialect that is not heard in that cathedral. If any one enters sad, he goes out happy; there is celebrated one continuous festival, people come and go, but the service is not interrupted by day or by night. The doors of the sacred edifice are never closed, lamps and tapers fill it at midnight with the splendour of midday. Thither all wend their way, rich and poor, prince and peasant, governor and abbot. Some travel at their own expense; others depend upon charity. Some come with chains for the mortification of their flesh; others, like the Greeks, with the sign of the cross in their hands. Some carry in their hands iron and lead for the building of the basilica of the Apostle. Many whom the Apostle has delivered from prison carry with them their manacles and the bolts of their prison doors, and do penance for their sins.

“The many thousands of miracles,” says Calistus, “that were worked daily through the intercession of the Apostle in the happy city of his glorious tomb increased the legions of pilgrims, who carried back with them to the utmost confines of the world the name of Compostela!” “And how the highways of Asia and Europe must have resounded in those days,” cries Sanchez, “with hymns of praise sung by the pious pilgrims to St. James!” Every nation had its own special hymns, a mixture of Latin and the local idiom. One of the most beautiful of these compositions was, according to Fita, that sung by the Flemmings, “que es de lo mas selecto de la poesia del siglo xii.” In each verse the name of St. James appears in a different case of the Latin declension.

As we have seen, special roads were built in Italy, France, and Spain to facilitate the pilgrimages. Bridges were thrown across ravines and rivers; inns and monasteries sprang up at the chief halting-places, such as St. Marks at Leon and the monastery of Roncevalles, and in the lonely and dangerous places where they were most needed. The fame of St. James impressed even Rome. In the beginning of the tenth century, Pope John X. (915-928) sent a priest named Zanelo to Santiago to find out if it was really true that so many pilgrims went there and so many miracles were wrought. Book ii. of the Codex of Calistus II. tells of many wondrous miracles.

The most glorious days of the pilgrimages were those in which Diego Gelmirez was archbishop. It is difficult for the uninitiated to see why the tomb of St. James should have been considered to be the most glorious of all the saints’ tombs in the world; but so it was, according to St. Buenaventura.[84] There constantly occurred such frightful crushes and stampedes in the fourteen gateways leading to the sacred edifice, that a great many accidents happened even to the members of the best-regulated pilgrim bands, and free fights ensuing, complaints went up even to the Pope at Rome! For very often the prelate of Compostela was absent from his post, and there was no other to take his place.

There is still preserved among the ancient constitutions of the cathedral a description of the ceremonies prescribed in connection with the pilgrims, and carried out by Archbishop Juan Arias 1282, 1266. The custodian of the altar and a priest standing erect with rods in their hands called up the bands of pilgrims in turn according to their nationality and in their own language, and told them to group themselves round the priest who was to hand them the indulgences they had gained by their pilgrimages. Each pilgrim received a sharp rap from the rod as he passed. As soon as divine worship was over (that is, the portion which they attended), the pilgrims proceeded to lay their offerings before the altar, and then went to venerate the chain. Sanchez thinks this was the chain by which the Jews secured their prisoners. After the chain came the crown, the hat, the staff, the knife, and the stone. It seems that even the hatchet with which St. James was beheaded lay upon the altar when Baron de Rozmilal made his pilgrimage in 1465. The staff is the only one of these sacred relics that has survived to our day.

Most of the pilgrims, after they had done with Santiago, went on to Padron to see the spot where the Holy Body had been landed by the Disciples. But there was a great deal to be done in Santiago. Money-changers sat with little heaps of coin close to the entrance of the church, and did a lively business with the foreigners. Scallop-shells had to be purchased, for the pilgrim who returned home without his shell would not get his friends to believe he had got as far as Santiago. This shell, the pecten Veneris or ostra Jacobea (Linn.), was called in Galicia ó Jacobea (the shell of St. James). It received the first of these names because it resembled in its form the comb employed by the ancients, and Aphrodite was supposed to comb her hair with one of these shells when rising from the sea. It is the common convex bivalve so familiar to English eyes, white inside, and the fish of which somewhat resembles an oyster, though it is less delicate in flavour and odour. This sacred shell was offered for sale to the pilgrims in all sizes, and made of many different materials: there were shells in black jet, in porcelain, in silver, in copper and in brass, in tin and lead. Traders called los conchiarii, concheiros, or latoneros, sold shells, images of the Apostle, crosses, medals, and other objêts de religion to the pilgrims. The insignia of St. James consisted chiefly in the metal scallop-shells which the pilgrims attached to their robes and broad-brimmed pilgrim’s hats. Villa-Amil, quoting Lopez Ferreiro,[85] tells us that in virtue of an edict of Gregory IX. about 1228, in answer to a petition from the Archbishop and Corporation, the manufacture of these shells in any place except Compostela was strictly prohibited. In 1224 any one found falsifying them was threatened with the anathema of Pope Alexander IV., and in 1266 Pope Clement IV. went even so far as to publish an edict excommunicating those pilgrims who purchased or wore any other shells than those manufactured in Compostela. Alfonso X., also, in 1260 forbade the pilgrims to wear any insignia of St. James that had not been manufactured on the spot, because by so doing they caused the Cathedral of Santiago to suffer loss both in honour and revenue. Later on, in 1581, confiscation of the article and a fine were imposed on those who dared to falsify the insignia of the Apostle or gilded them with saffron that would not wear. The inns of the town of Santiago at which the pilgrims put up had the sacred sign of the scallop-shells over the central porch. Many of these, now turned into private houses, may still be seen by the traveller. “But how,” the reader will ask, “did the scallop-shell come to be chosen as the chief emblem of St. James?”

Next, perhaps, to the scallop-shells in popularity among the pilgrims were the images of St. James, also manufactured for them at Santiago, a favourite material being black jet (azabache). Dr. Fernando Keller, an antiquarian of Zurich, published in 1868 a description of two jet figures of St. James found in Switzerland, near the chapel for leprous pilgrims at Einsiedeln; and a similar one found in Scotland has been described by a Scotch antiquary as the signaculum of a pilgrim to Santiago, blessed at the shrine before it was carried away. The poorer pilgrims who could not afford a jet image contented themselves with a pewter one. But Villa-Amil says there is plenty of evidence that the sale of the images had nothing to do with the Cathedral, and that the workers in jet were in the habit of besieging the pilgrims and worrying them into the purchase of their images. A few years ago, according to Villa-Amil, not a single specimen of the ancient Santiago jet-worker’s art was known (except to a few persons) to be in existence. Yet the confraternity of jet-workers flourished up to the close of the sixteenth century. They are mentioned in a curious notice in a memorial dated August 8, 1570, which Villa-Amil gives at length. In the Ordinances of the Confraternity there are some interesting technical details, such, for instance, as the statement that jet from the Asturias was preferred to Portuguese jet “because it took the straw,” i.e. had the power of attraction. With regard to the jet images—the bearded image of St. James, with pilgrim’s hat, robe, and staff, usually had two smaller images kneeling on either side of it, but sometimes there was only one. On the upturned brim of his hat there is the conventional shell, and in his left hand he holds an open book. A rosary is suspended from his girdle. He is usually barefooted and barelegged. From the hook of his staff is suspended the leathern bag which was part of every pilgrim’s staff. The kneeling figures are attired in pilgrim’s garb, also with rosaries. The figure of St. James is never more than seven inches high. The more ancient ones bear traces of gilding. Examples are to be seen in the Kirker Museum at Rome, in the British Museum, in the Museum at Perugia, in the Cluny Museum, and in many other places. Mr. Joseph Anderson, according to Villa-Amil, was long under the impression that the only piece of jet workmanship in the United Kingdom was the little figure of St. James in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. A very rare and interesting specimen is the one of which Señor Villa-Amil has kindly presented me with an illustration, and which is in the possession of Guillermo de Osma.

The jet-workers (azabacheros) gave their name to the street in which they carried on their trade, which led up to the principal entrance of the cathedral, the façade of which is still known as la Azabacheria.

Señor Villa-Amil[86] has devoted a most interesting chapter to the subject of the Santiago money-changers. He is convinced that there is absolutely no foundation for the popular fallacy which attributed to these money-changers the functions of a noble corporation, and wrapped them in a romantic halo, as though they were something like “Knights of the Round Table.” It is not true that, while they spent their days in changing the pilgrims’ money, they guarded by night the sepulchre of St. James. On the contrary, it is now quite certain that, according to the earliest mention that has been found of them, their position was neither a high nor a remarkably honourable one. They are mentioned in reference to a statute passed in the year 1133 to prevent them from using false weights. And Mauro Castella Ferrer, in his History of St. James, informs us that a man who had been a money-changer, or the master of such, was prohibited from wearing the garb of St. James! Far from being looked upon as honourable knights, men of this trade were constantly being upbraided all through the Middle Ages for the abuses of which they were the originators. This was the case not only in Santiago, but all over Spain. One charge against them was that they knowingly received and circulated coins that they knew to be worthless.

The Confraternity of Money-Changers of Santiago was in existence in the middle of the fifteenth century—for in 1450 Juan II. conceded to them certain privileges. Money-changers, silversmiths, and jet-workers represented the most important industries in Santiago in the Middle Ages, and all these were established in quarters close to the Cathedral. The money-changers, according to Aimerico, carried on their trade in the Azabacheria in company with the jet-workers. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries these money-changers were no longer simple money-changers seated on the ground with heaps of coin piled around them; they had risen to the rank of respectable bankers, and many of them were men of considerable standing and wealth. Villa-Amil thinks that Francisco Trevino, whose tomb and effigy may still be seen in the capilla del Salvador of the cathedral, and who was secretary to Archbishop Fonseca in the sixteenth century, was one of these money-changers.