A Decade of Research: Travel Literature and the Artistic Heritage of the Way of St James

Abstract

Most of the towns, villages and monasteries located along the various historic Caminos that led pilgrims to the tomb of St. James in Santiago de Compostela produced no medieval or early modern chronicles of their own. They lack the most basic written or graphic reports of their artistic and monumental possessions, despite the importance of those stopping points for international travellers since the ninth century. By contrast, there are abundant narratives composed by the pilgrims who travelled through those sites, documents which offer descriptions of buildings and artwork they saw along their paths. During the decade from 2009 to 2019 various governmental and research institutions have given us new critical editions of these travellers' accounts with varying sorts of detail for the study of the Camino's historical and artistic legacy. This study surveys some of the most interesting texts chronologically from the earliest reports until the twentieth century. From about 70 years ago, most travel narratives devolve into promotional copy for mere tourism.