The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James Read Online Free PDF Page B

the deeds of prowess of the Twelve Peers during the fourteen years that had preceded the fatal engagement at Roncevaux. This letter was the preface to the celebrated chronicle entitled Turpini Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi, written by the so-called pseudo-Turpin, which has aroused such a tempest of criticism in the academic world. *
    Joseph Bédier, who in the matter of epic poetry deserves to be called Maestro di color che sanno, has shown step by step how the chronicle of Turpin, which formed the fourth book of the Codex Calixtinus, or Book of St. James, was closely related to the great pilgrimage. According to the chronicle, Charlemagne was old and weary after a life spent in warring episodes and he wished to rest. One night in the heavens he saw a starry road which crossed France and Spain to the world’s end. It ran across the sky to Galicia, where the body of St. James at that time lay unrecognized. Many a night he saw the portent and understood it not. At last a fair lord appeared to him, and when the Emperor asked: “Lord, who art thou?” he answered: “I am James the Apostle, Christ’s servant, the son of Zebedee, John the Evangelist’s brother, elect by God’s grace to preach His law, whom Herod slew: look you, my body is in Galicia, but no man knoweth where, and the Saracens oppress the land. Therefore God sends you to recapture the road that leads to my tomb and the land wherein I rest. The starry way that you saw in the sky signifies that you shall go into Galicia at the head of a great host, and after you all peoples shall come in pilgrimage even till the end of time. Go then; I will be your helper; and as guerdon of your travails I will get you from God a crown in heaven, and your name shall abide in the memory of man until the Day of Judgment.”
    According to the chronicle, Charlemagne then had made three expeditions into Spain. In the first he besieged Pamplona and captured

    it, and pushed on as far as Compostella, and beyond as far as El Padron, where the boat arrived from the Holy Land carrying the body of the Apostle. He then rode into the sea and stuck his lance there, in sign of his dominion even to the ends of the world. In the second expedition he had entered Spain again to chastise the Saracen King Agolant, whom he defeated on the banks of the River Cea and then he built an abbey where Sahagún now stands. In the third expedition he had assembled all his army in the landes of Bordeaux and crossed the Pyrennees by the Somport Pass and again had become Master of Spain. On the way home he had captured Saragossa, but in the mountains his rearguard was attacked by Saracens. Roland and his thousand knights were slain and buried by the Emperor at St. Romanin of Blaye and Belin, St. Seurin at Bordeaux and les Alyscamps. At the end the Emperor dies and all the deeds of his life are placed in the balance on the Day of Judgment, and it is not certain whether they will weigh down his multitude of sins, but a headless Galician throws in the stones of all the churches built by him and thus he mounts to Paradise.

THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JAMES

    Soon after the death of Diego Gelmirez the celebrated Order of Knighthood of St. James was instituted to commemorate the life and deeds of Santiago Matamoros, whose war-cry, ‘Santiago y cierra España’ (‘St. James and close Spain’) roused the Spaniards as they rode into battle.
    In the will of San Juan de Ortega there is a reference to lawless brigands who attacked the pilgrims, and according to this the first Knights of St. James were knights-errant, who protected the weary and defenceless. According to tradition the Order was founded by Ramiro I, King of León, and there were thirteen freiles, or professed knights in memory of Jesus Christ and His twelve Apostles. The society which arose in the twelfth century, the age of the Crusades, was however, essentially warlike, and war became the main business of life for a people seeking to regain their country