The First Pilgrim: On the Camino de Santiago

They were long-shot underdogs and if they were to survive, they needed a miracle.The armies of Islam had swept like wildfire into the Iberia peninsula. By the beginning of the 9th century, King Alfonso’s Kingdom of Asturias was one of a couple of enclaves of Christianity remaining in Espania. It was the year 814 and King Alfonso II had just received word that Charlemagne, the Frankish conqueror and protector of the Catholic Church, was dead. Alfonso’s small northern kingdom was no match for the Caliphate of Cordoba which had orchestrated a vast economic revival known as the Andalusian Enlightenment in the south. The sophisticated Arabs minted silver coins, printed paper, read poetry, funded massive libraries, reconfigured the old Roman trading routes and created a far reaching Islamic legal system. The armies of Islam were large, disciplined and well-armed. By contrast, King Alfonso’s kingdom was a land of small farms with little in the way of urban culture, learning, industry or secular institutions. His people were resigned to a meager subsistence economy based on agriculture, fishing and herding. The standing army was small, but the men of Asturias were excellent horsemen and skilled at “hit and run” mountain warfare. The miracle they sought arrived with the news that the beheaded body of Saint James the Apostle was found by a wandering hermit in a Roman cemetery in Galicia. Alfonso’s kingdom might now have the powerful protection of a patron saint. The local Catholic bishop asked King Alfonso to make a pilgrimage to the burial site to confirm the identity of the body and to grant royal protection to the shrine that would be built there. In time, the place would become the holy city of Santiago de Compostela and the path to it would be known as the Camino. This is the story of the first pilgrimage. Accompanying King Alfonso is his Benedictine confessor Father Julian who foresees how Saint James would unite the Christian kingdoms and help to drive the Moors out of Spain. Musa is Alfonso’s foreign minister, born