The Credencial: The Pilgrim Passport

In the 12th century, pilgrims wore a specific type of clothing: a tabard with a cape, a round wide-brimmed hat to protect from the sun and rain, sturdy shoes, a walking staff, and a leather basket or bag adorned with the shell or scallop.

The scallop is the classic Jacobean symbol. Pilgrims completing the Camino received it as a certificate of their pilgrimage, guaranteeing that they would receive help and other privileges. The perforations near the top confirm that they were used as a badge.

Accreditation has been performed in several different ways over the centuries. The image shows two examples of this: a knight gives his shield to the Apostle and a pilgrim shows his accreditation containing wax seals.

Pilgrims doing the Camino to redeem themselves of sentences imposed by the authorities needed to return to their place of origin with a recognized document certifying that they had successfully completed the pilgrimage. This document was known as an evidentiary letter.

In 1775, Pedro Francisco Suarez de Góngora, the Spanish Ambassador to Lisbon, asked the Galician authorities to facilitate the transit of José Antonio Martínez. He carried a passport signed and stamped by the Embassy in Lisbon.

The Compostela is the document certifying successful completion of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. It is issued by the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It came about in the 16th century due to the need to provide pilgrims arriving in the city with a document allowing them to be admitted to places such as the Royal Hospital of Santiago.
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Little by little, the Compostela began to be used to access all types of accommodation along the Way. At the same time, it became a meaningful and cherished certificate of the pilgrimage itself.

With the decline of pilgrimages in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Compostela began to be used less and less, but it continued to be of great use along the Way, where those who showed it on their return from Santiago were looked after.

Throughout the 19th century, the Compostela cemented its role as a certificate for the pilgrimage and lost its initial objective of providing safe passage to albergues and hospitals.

The pilgrimage practically disappeared for a large part of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. The more modest certification contrasted with the wealth displayed in previous centuries.

The announcement of the 1666 Jubilee makes two things clear: Santiago is the only patron saint of Spain and the graces granted are the same as if loyal, confessing, remorseful Christians visited the churches in Rome during the Jubilee Holy Year.

Although a decline in pilgrims was already evident, the announcement of the 1717 Jubilee in honor of St. James, sole patron saint and protector of Spain, meant there were similar numbers to the century before.