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The Pilgrimage to Santiago |
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jueves, 12 febrero 2004 |
The pilgrimage to Compostela emerges within the Christian tradition as
a journey of devotion to a saint’s tomb. Alongside this basic feature,
other reasons for making this pilgrimage include the desire for
adventure or sense of mystery that drew medieval travelers to
Finisterre, the place that was believed to be the end of the world, or
the mere fulfillment of a canonical or civil punishment for one’s sins
or crimes. The existence of other reasons does not take away from the
fact that the true meaning of the Camino de Santiago which begins to
take shape with the walking of the pilgrims is one of a religious
pilgrimage with all of the characteristics that we have seen in all
religions.
The great boom of the Jacobean pilgrimage takes place between the 11th
and 14th centuries. it is not easy to calculate the number of pilgrims
that walked the Camino in that time period. Some sources have offered
estimates based on data taken from statistics, passage through specific
toll roads, data from pilgrim itineraries, and from other sources.
Based on this information, the European Center for Compostelan Studies
in Paris has estimated an amount of between 250,000 and 500, 000
pilgrims per year during those centuries. This number seems overstated
keeping in mind the demography of that timeframe and the difficulties
involved with making a pilgrimage.
Starting from the 15th century a decline in pilgrimage begins until the
last decades of the 20th century when a resurgence in the Jacobean
phenomenon occurs and there is a growing presence of pilgrims coming
from Spain, other European countries, and even from continents which
are geographically and culturally different from ours.
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