Caminos de Santiago: A Network of Routes

The Roman roads are the basis for every great communication route in Europe, including the Caminos de Santiago that were ultimately formed to connect places of worship, culture, and work in the Middle Ages.

The historic routes were created before the publication of the Codex Calixtinus. The geographer Al-Idrisi was already aware of the importance of the route and recorded it in 1154 in the Tabula Rogeriana book of maps. It describes an overland and maritime route to and from Santiago de Compostela: from Bordeaux to Santiago by land, from Bayonne to Santiago by sea; from Coimbra to Santiago by land, and a fourth route from Coimbra by river and sea.

The Original Way (Camino Primitivo) is the earliest recorded historical route. Around 850, Alfonso II the Chaste, king of Asturias went to Santiago de Compostela to visit the tomb of Saint James the Apostle, which at that time had just been discovered.

In 950, the bishop of Le Puy went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela accompanied by a large entourage. He took what would later be called the Vía Podiensis (Way of Le Puy) through France and the French Way through Spain.

The great promoter of the Camino de Santiago, Bishop Diego Gelmírez, traveled to Cluny and Rome around 1100 on what would later be known as the Camino Francés and the Vía Lemovicensis (Way of Vézelay), returning by sea to the coast of Catalonia and the Camino Francés. He later traveled to Braga and Porto by the Camino Portugués.

At the start of the 12th century, the office of the Cathedral of Santiago produced a set of five books that were later combined to become what would be known as the Codex Calixtinus. Book five describes, for the first time, the four major routes through France and the Camino Francés in Spain.

The first existing account is of a maritime route followed by Icelanders. The Benedictine monk Níkulás Bergsson took this route on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land between the years 1151 and 1154. He left a written account, Leiðarvísir (itinerary), on his return to Iceland when he had taken on the role of abbot of the recently founded Munkaþverár monastery in the north of the island.

Nompar II, Lord of Caumont, left his birth town for Santiago de Compostela and Finisterre, Noia and Padrón on July 8 and returned on September 3, 1414. His journey roughly followed the Camino Francés. The manuscript of his account is in the British Museum in London.

Today's pilgrims also leave a record of their journey: some leave books of their tales, others diaries, and most of them use their credential with a stamp for each long day completed.