Fig. 295.—Our Lady of Mountserrat, with a Spanish Inscription signifying “Celestial abode of Our Lady of Mountserrat.”—This mountain derives its name from its rocks being shaped like the teeth of a saw (sierra, saw). This symbolical saw is seen in the hands of the Infant Jesus.—Reduced Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the Sixteenth Century, belonging to M. Bertin, publisher, of Paris.
But in the night of February 4th, A.D. 36, whilst he and his eight neophytes were sound asleep in the plain upon which Saragossa now stands, they were awaked by celestial music, and this music was the voice of angels celebrating the praises of the Virgin. Santiago prostrated himself with his face to the ground, and before him he saw the august mother of Christ, standing on a pillar of jasper, surrounded with angels, and with the same smile of ineffable sweetness which he had seen on her features when he left Jerusalem. “James, my son,” she said to him, “you must build me a church upon this very spot. Take the pillar upon which I am standing, place it, with my image upon its summit, in the midst of a sanctuary dedicated to me, and to the end of time it shall never cease to work miracles.” The apostle at once commenced the work, aided by his disciples, and the church was soon constructed. Such, according to the legend, was the origin of the cathedral and the pilgrimage of Our Lady of the Pillar (Nuestra señora del Pilar).
The Virgin of the Pillar (Virgo del Pilar) was not the only one held in profound veneration by the Spaniards during the Middle Ages; every petty kingdom, every principality, every important town of the Iberian peninsula had its Madonna, its Señora, which attracted numerous pilgrims. Amongst them may be mentioned Our Lady of Mountserrat, in Catalonia (Fig. 295), Our Lady of France (la Rena di Francia), half-way between Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo, and Our Lady of the Dice (Señora del Dado), in the kingdom of Leon—sanctuaries which stood in the midst of mountainous ranges, and which could only be reached on foot or with mules.
In a small town called El Padron—the Monument—which is but the ancient Iria, where Santiago, called James the Elder, taught (Fig. 296), and which was for a long time the guardian of his earthly remains, there flowed beneath the high altar of the church, which was dedicated to him, a stream of spring water, the ripple of which, like heavenly music, mingled with the prayers of the pilgrims, who were so numerous that their knees have worn holes in the stone slabs of the sanctuary. The body of the illustrious martyr, when brought from Compostella to Santiago, was laid upon a granite block which was miraculously fashioned into a tomb, and it never emerged therefrom save as a phantom either to appear in vision before kings, prelates, and other pious persons who had invoked it, or to seize a lance and combat the enemies of Christianity. Thus, the legend tells us, he was seen in 946, riding a white horse, holding in his hand a banner emblazoned with a red cross (such as the knights of Santiago wear on the left side of their mantles), and marching at the head of the Christian barons against the Moors or Saracens.
The pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella was famous as early as the ninth century; people came with votive offerings from all parts of the Christian world. The road leading to this sanctuary was perpetually crowded with an army of pilgrims, and such continued to be the case throughout the Middle Ages. On returning to their own country, the pilgrims of “Monseigneur St. James” formed a regular order of Catholic chivalry; they kept up the pious devotions in which they had engaged during their pilgrimage, and maintained till their lives’ end the spirit of religious fellowship which had united them under the same banner.
Fig. 296.—The Magician Armogenes, in the presence of the Compostella pilgrims, orders devils to bring him the apostle St. James (the legend of the saint gives the contrary version).—After a Miniature from “The Holy Scriptures,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Burgundian Library, Brussels).
France, notwithstanding her warlike spirit, did not pay so much honour to the warlike saints as did Italy and Spain to St. George and St. James, but she seems to have held in highest esteem the healing saints, as we may term them, such as St. Martin of Tours, St. Roch, St. Christopher, St. Blaze, St. Lazarus, &c., whose venerated relics have been the object of so many celebrated pilgrimages (Fig. 297). She has also rendered touching homage to certain specially holy women, the worship of whom has become almost national, such as St. Mary Magdalene and St. Martha, St. Barbara, St. Geneviève, &c. But in no country has the worship of the Virgin Mary been more general or more sublime than in France, where the mother of God had so many venerable sanctuaries; such as that of Our Lady of Puy, Our Lady of Liesse, Our Lady of Chartres, Our Lady of Rocamadour, Our Lady of the Thorn, Our Lady of Auray, and Our Lady of Victory, amongst others.
