About the same time a young maiden of Pisa, afterwards St. Bona, came to Compostella, and there received singular favors and graces. Sophia, Countess of Holland,[[38]] journeying thither also, fell into the hands of robbers, and through one whole night found that she had nothing to expect but spoliation and death. In the morning their resolution was changed; they threw themselves at her feet and entreated her pardon, allowing her to proceed unharmed on her way. After visiting the tomb of St. James the princess went to Jerusalem, there to spend the remainder of her life.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century pilgrims from all lands had become so numerous that it was frequently impossible, especially on the feast of the patron saint, for all to find even standing-room in the cathedral. The tumult was indescribable, and did not always end outside the doors. On some occasions there were not only blows but bloodshed, so that Pope Innocent III. wrote to the archbishop, saying that his church had need of reconciliation, and the ceremony was performed with water, wine, and blessed ashes.[[39]]
Alman-Zour, as we have previously mentioned, had caused the bells of Compostella to be carried to Cordova on the backs of Christian captives. In 1229 Ferdinand, who had united under his sway the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, made the conquest of Cordova, and, finding the bells in the great mosque, he inflicted retaliation on the infidels by compelling them to carry them, on their shoulders, back to the place whence they had been taken two hundred and sixty years before.
After Louis VII. of France had been on pilgrimage to Compostella, we hear of several other sovereigns from time to time who did the same, among whom was St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal. The Frieslanders, who had a great devotion to St. James, and attributed to his aid a victory they had gained over the Saracens, visited his tomb in immense numbers; the English did the same, and from the time of Edward I.’s marriage with Eleanor of Castile, having stipulated for the safe-conduct of their pilgrims, they arrived in such multitudes that the kings of France became uneasy at so great a concourse, and made an agreement with the king of England that his subjects should obtain permission of them before proceeding to Compostella. In 1434 this leave was granted to about two thousand five hundred persons.
These were the palmy days of pilgrims, who were not only well received at Santiago, whither they brought activity, riches, and life, but they were everywhere sheltered and protected. No cottager was too poor to offer them a resting-place or to share his loaf of hospitality with them. A pilgrim was not only a brother come from perhaps some far distant land to do honor to Monseigneur St. James, but he was also, in those days when postage was unknown, the walking gazette, who brought the news of other countries, and enlivened with his narratives and conversation the hearth of the poor as of the rich.
From the time of the Reformation pilgrimages began to decrease. England and Germany were the first to discontinue them. France showed herself less fervent as soon as the spirit of rationalistic philosophy had infected the upper classes of her people, after which the Revolution carried down the lower ranks into the gulf of irreligion. The wars of the empire, the spoliations of which Napoleon’s generals were guilty, and consequently the deadly hatred which they evoked against their nation in the heart of every Spaniard, struck the last blow at these pious journeyings. Only the inhabitants of the country continued to visit the shrine of their apostle, and even they by degrees lost the habit. Pilgrims are nowadays but few, excepting only on the feast of the patron, and they have ceased to be popular at Santiago. If they chance to be poor, the townspeople turn a deaf ear when they ask an alms “for the love of St. James”; or, should they be rich, seek only to turn them to account and to lighten their purses.
Although greatly fallen from its ancient splendor, Santiago, formerly the capital of Galicia, and now the simple chief town of a judicial circuit, still has importance in the ecclesiastical order. Her archbishop is, by right, the first chaplain of the crown, and her cathedral still subsists in its integrity. She has two collegiate and fifteen parochial churches, though her numerous convents, pillaged in 1807, and subsequently despoiled and suppressed, are at the present time inhabited dwelling-houses, destined to inevitable ruin, and throwing an additional shadow into the general air of melancholy which now hangs over this old city.
There are but few public buildings of antiquity or interest. The streets, with their dark and narrow archways, all start, like the threads of a spider’s web, from the one centre occupied by the cathedral. Everything wears an aspect that is sombre, damp, and cold, augmented by the hue that the granite, of which most of the edifices are built, takes under a climate of such humidity that it has given rise to the disrespectful saying that this city is the sink of Spain. And yet the site is picturesque. Seen from the neighboring heights, Santiago, itself also built upon an elevation, with its ancient buildings, walls, and towers, presents a very striking appearance, and to any one who mounts the towers of the cathedral the grand girdle of mountains encircling the horizon affords a spectacle that well repays the trouble of the ascent.
We are in the great square, and facing the western front, containing the principal entrance of the building, which occupies the middle of a long architectural line, having at its left the episcopal palace, melancholy enough and not in any way remarkable, and at its right the cloister, with its turrets and pyramidal roofs, and its long row of arched windows. This is not the cloister of Gemirez, of which nothing remains, but was built in the sixteenth century by Archbishop Fonseca, who furnished it with a fine library, and also added the chapter-house and other dependencies of the cathedral. The cloister is one of the largest in Spain, half Gothic in style, and half Renaissance.
This western entrance, between the cloister and the palace, is called El Mayor or El Real—the great or royal entrance; not that it merits the title from any particular artistic beauty, but rather from a certain effective arrangement. The four flights of steps, two large and two small, ascend very picturesquely from the square to the doors of the cathedral, allowing a procession to spread into four lines, while above rise the lofty towers, curiously adorned with columns, vases, balustrades, and little cupolas. You see at once that you are not beholding a work which dates from the construction of the building, although the towers are ancient up to the height of the church walls, but the upper portion is much more recent, and the same is evident of the façade, which occupies the space between the towers.