Each year on the 30th of December, Spain celebrates the miraculous translation of St. James from Jerusalem to the shores of Galicia. 

In the early ninth century, the Asturian King Alfonso II and Bishop Theodemir of Iria (Padrón) unearthed the tomb of St. James, the son of Zebedee. To some extent, this discovery could not have been foreseen. According to St. Jerome, each of the Lord’s twelve apostles was buried where he had preached the Gospel. Also, St. Paul was believed to have christened Spain. However, in the 7th century, rumours had spread that St. James had been responsible for the foundation of the early Christian communities in Spain; a rumour which Isidore of Seville later scattered widely. After AD 711, when the Iberian population either chose to accommodate the Muslims or took refuge north of the Picos de Europa, St. James succeeded in captivating the imagination of the fragile communities of people who settled in Northern Spain after the conquest. 

Exactly how and why St. James was recruited to play this role remains to be determined. However, some evidence may be gleaned from a hymn, O Dei Verbum (c. AD 784-788), composed at the end of the 8th century to honour the Saint. Called upon to exert his patronage over all of Hispania, he was in the poem exalted as the patron saint of the Iberian Peninsula. Historians have speculated that this invention (inventio) of tradition was part of the Asturian endeavour to combat not just the Muslims but also their Mozarabic collaborators. However, it was later, during the lifetime of Alfonso II (791-842), that the Asturian kingdom was positioned to become a significant player in the ongoing wars with Muslims and Vikings. In this context, Oviedo became the centre of the Asturian Kingdom, while Galicia and later Northern Portugal were brought into the royal sphere of interest. Key to this endeavour was the alliance between the Asturian King and the bishop of Iria, thus leading to the formal “invention” of St. James as the patron Saint of the new kingdom. In the next 50 years, Santiago (Sancti Iacopi or Sanctuary of St James) was built and forged as a Holy Sea, competing with the Bishops of Rome for spiritual supremacy. 

Parallel to the impressive building activities, histories gathered momentum, and soon, mythmakers got busy. The crucial question was, of course, how and why St. James had been translated from his first grave in the Middle East. These matters were relegated to hagiographers who came up with the idea that St. James, after the beheading in AD 44 in Jerusalem, had been carried to the sea and taken by boat to Spain. 

One of the first texts, the Epistola Leonis de translation beati Iacobi in Galleciam, has been tentatively dated to the ninth century. Likely, it was written in Santiago soon after the inventio. According to this text, the Saint’s remains were transported by seven sub-disciples from Libya on a rudderless ship, which through the intervention of the governing hand of God (manu Domini gubernante), sailed for seven days ending up at the confluence of the rivers Sar and Ulla at Iria (now Padrón). Whence, the Saint’s body was raised onto a sunbeam and carried inland to his final resting place at the future Santiago. Soon dispersed throughout Carolingian Europe, this fable gathered momentum, laying the foundation for the future renown of Santiago de Compostela as one of three major sites for pilgrimages apart from Rome and Jerusalem. Thus, the stories of the miraculous translation of St. James to his future resting place were consolidated, ending up in the composite Liber Sancti Jacobi from the twelfth century.

In this (final) version of the translation from the 12th century, we not only read about the seven days the apostles spent at sea but also of how they after the landing fought a ferocious dragon and bested a flock of wild cattle roaming the mountainsides around Santiago. Also, we get a treasured glimpse of the spectacular procession played out every year at the end of December since the 9th century. According to the text – which echoes the first description from the 9th century, the king participated and offered twelve silver marks and twelve gold coins on the altar; also, he rewarded his soldiers with gifts such as silk articles of clothing and mantels to attire them as soldiers. Following this, he walked around the basilica while urging his heralds to sound the trumpet and invite everyone to partake in a great feast. The king was regally dressed through these happenings and followed by many soldiers, counts and other illustrious men. Holding his sceptre, engraved with golden flowers, varied artwork and jewels, he wore a golden diadem decorated with enamelled flowers, brilliant images of cattle and birds, artistic lettering and precious stones. In front of the king was carried an unsheathed double-edged sword embellished with gold flowers, bright lettering, a golden pommel and a silver cross-guard. Further in the description of this procession, we encounter the bishop in full regalia, surrounded by his fellow bishops covered in silken dalmatics, gold belts, gold chains and all sorts of finery. Finally came crowds of devoted people, such as famous people, governors, nobles, and domestic and foreign counts, all dressed in festive clothing. 

“The choirs of venerable women who followed were covered and adorned with gilded shoes, with marten, sable, ermine and fox pelts, with blouses, mantels, furs, grey pelts, with rain cloaks red on the outside and varied on the inside, with little gold amulets, with necklaces, with hairpins, with bracelets, with earrings, with ankle bracelets, with small necklaces, with rings, with gems, with mirrors, with golden belts, with silk bands, with summer garments, with headbands, with cottons (fluffy balls?), with hair twisted with a golden string, and with every other variety of clothing”. 

From:  The Miracles and Translation of St. James. Books Two and Three of the Liber Sancti Jacobi. Ed. and transl. by Thomas F. Coffey and Mary Jane Dunn. Italica Press 2019. 

Rocking the boat

Parallel to the official version of the translation of the Saint from Jerusalem to Galicia, a more popular and folkloristic version arose, claiming the Saint had miraculously sailed to Galicia on a rock at his mission’s beginning. Others maintained that the vessel on which his dead body was brought had indeed been a piece of rock of which part was left at Jaffa. We know of this folkloristic undercurrent from another text in the Liber Sancti Iacobi, a sermon called Veneranda Dies, ascribed to Pope Callixtus II (1065 –1124). In this text, we read how others say

“Others say that the Apostle himself, sitting on a rock, was transported by the waves of the sea from Jerusalem to Galicia, as commanded by the Lord. No vessel was involved, and a piece of this rock is said to have remained in Jaffa. Others say the same rock was carried on the vessel, along with the dead body. But I have verified myself that both fables are nothing but lies.”

From: The stones that sailed across the sea in Galician culture. By José M. Andrade Cernadas. In: Translating the Relics of St. James. From Jerusalem to Compostela. Ed. By Antón Pazós. Routledge 2017, p. 140

The Veneranda Dies sermon was specially drafted to commemorate the feast of the translation on the 30th of December and the date of the Pope’s election. Calixtus was born the fourth son of Count William I of Burgundy and a member of the highest aristocracy in Europe. One sister was married to the Count of Savoy, another to the Duke of Burgundy, and yet another to the count of Flanders. More pertinent, though, was his brother Raymond, who was married to Urraca, the queen of León, the mother of the future King Alfonso VII of León. As such, the sermon was intended to confirm the official stance of the Roman Bishop to the rather elaborate claims of the Bishop of Santiago to sit in an “Apostolic Seat”. Settled in 1095, the issue at stake was whether Santiago was obliged to accept the authority of the newly reestablished metropolitan archdioceses of Toledo and Braga or might refer directly to Rome. Along these lines, the sermon represented a carefully balanced act to bolster the surge of pilgrims traversing Christendom while at the same time furthering the Asturian Kingdom’s aspiration to reorient its interests towards the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula and the wider crusading movement.

In this perspective, the Catholic suppression of the older and perhaps popular tradition of saints bent on missionary endeavours while traversing the open seas may have appeared for the best. Recently, José Cernedas, mining the hagiographic literature of the Irish, Breton and Galician corpora, did not find a direct source for the traditions of St. James sailing on rocks or the rocking boat steered by the hand of God. However, the enticing fact is that the fifth to the seventh centuries continued to witness a lively traffic of luxury wares along the Western shores of Europe from Malaga and Cadiz and all the way up to Tintagel in Cornwall (and probably further). And, notes Cernadas, Early Medieval Celtic Christianity was particularly engaged in the sea-born missions such as those of St. Gildas and others.

St. James – from Spanish Patron to a mystical watery Saint

Today, St. James has once again been reinvented. Officially, he may still be considered the patron saint of Spain. However, the invention of the miraculous voyage of the Saint’s body across the Mediterranean in the ninth century once again sits uncomfortably with modern people and pilgrims. As it apparently did at the turn of the first Millennium, when a series of high-level political meetings were orchestrated in Rome, Clermont-Ferrand and Santiago to negotiate the solution we may read about in the Veneranda Dies sermon. The compromise, yes, was that the Saint had been part of the first Apostolic mission to Spain. And yes, his remains had been brought back to Galicia by his sub-apostles. However, he had never sailed on a rock to Spain, nor had his decapitated head been left behind in Jerusalem (or been transported elsewhere). Fiat, Pope Calixtius seemed to write in his 12th-century sermon.

Today, though, it seems very few care any longer. Some people walking the Camino in the 21st century may seek a formal absolution. Some may even regard the walk as a penitential endeavour. For most, the opposite is the case. Today, people’s primary reason for walking the Camino is the odd spiritual experience mixed with a deeply felt encounter with a mixture of nature and heritage.

Hence the return to the final closure is experienced by people not walking to Santiago de Compostela, but all the way to Finesterra. Here the stick is thrown into the water, the obligatory seashells are collected, and the stars are contemplated. Perhaps, the enigmatic cipher – St. James – has once more been rekindled as a Celtic watery saint?

 

FEATURED PHOTO:

Relief of the translation of St James from the gate in Pedron. Source: wikipedia

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