The pilgrim's guide toSantiago de Compostela

the long version

The 12th-century Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela, the earliest account of the pilgrim routes through France and Northern Spain to the shrine of St. James, is such a text. Surviving in twelve copies, the text describes points of interest along the Routes, the relics of saints, and like all good travel guides, offers the medieval pilgrim details of where accommodation, good food and wines were to be found. Furthermore, the Guide comments on the customs and inhabitants of the different regions crossed, and describes the buildings and monuments encountered along the Routes. The present volume offers a new English translation of the Guide, from the original Latin, based on the Codex Calixtinus or Liber Sancti Jacobi kept in the Cathedral of Santiago. A unique Gazetteer accompanies this text, consisting of 730 entries, in which all the important towns, monuments and buildings (even those now lost) encountered by the 12th-century traveller are described and illustrated. This thoroughly researched, detailed catalogue of monuments, with its highly informative text and 580 illustrations, should prove to be an indispensable resource for the serious scholar of the art and architecture of the period. Moreover, the book will be of immense value to the modern traveller who wishes to follow the route to Santiago de Compostela with a 12th-century guide-book in hand.