Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France, a World Heritage site

A pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place which is made for religious reasons and in a spirit of devotion. It is a practice present in most religions: the destination is a place where a connection can be made with one or more supernatural beings.

The tomb of the apostle James the Great, located in western Spain at the furthest tip of Europe, has been a major destination for Christian pilgrims from all over the continent since the 9th century. 

In Spain, the property also includes the monuments that can be found along the Camino Francès and the Camino del Norte, which lead to the tomb of the apostle in Santiago de Compostela. The city’s cathedral and historic centre are also inscribed on the World Heritage List.

The French property is a symbolic evocation of a pilgrimage to a distant shrine, through a selection of 71 buildings or groups of buildings and 7 stages of one of the routes (via Podiensis). These elements are scattered across 10 regions and 95 towns and villages. 

Criterion (ii): The Pilgrimage Route of Santiago de Compostela played a key role in religious and cultural exchange and development during the later Middle Ages, and this is admirably illustrated by the carefully selected monuments on the routes followed by pilgrims in France.

Extending across different routes throughout France, the property offers a panorama of Romanesque, Gothic, Classical and Baroque religious art and architecture over several centuries.

Pilgrimages were part of a general movement of artistic forms, objects, relics (saints’ physical remains or personal effects), techniques and ideas. Abbeys, which were both economic powers and cultural centres, played their part in these trans-Pyrenean exchanges.

Criterion (iv): The spiritual and physical well-being of the pilgrims travelling to Santiago de Compostela were met by the development of a number of specialized types of edifice, many of which originated or were further developed on the French sections.

Pilgrims need to pray at the relics of the saints they visit during their journey. They need to cross mountains and rivers and to be welcomed and cared for. The buildings selected illustrate how these needs are met. The priory at La Charité-sur-Loire is a good example.  

Often located outside city walls, hospitals were set up to receive travellers. The duty of charity meant that pilgrims had to be welcomed and given alms. The old pilgrims' hospital in Pons, founded around 1160, was built around the road.

Set back in the mountains, hospitals such as the Hospice du Plan in Aragnouet which were owned by the Order of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, were used for agricultural purposes and to secure the mountain passes for travellers, pilgrims and merchants. 

Criterion (vi): The Pilgrimage Route of Santiago de Compostela bears exceptional witness to the power and influence of the Christian faith among people of all classes and countries in Europe during in the Middle Ages.

Regardless of the pilgrimage or the pilgrim’s itinerary, Saint James is a popular saint, and many churches, such as that of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, are dedicated to him. The brotherhoods under his patronage ensure mutual aid and assistance between their members. 

At the end of the 20th century, the revival of the pilgrimage began with the creation of a dense network of signposted paths. A contemporary pilgrimage is expressed without being a reconstruction of the medieval pilgrimage. The buildings illustrate its history.