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The Spanish way to heaven
Editor's Note:Today Salon Travel & Food launches a new column by PBS, CNN and Discovery Channel food and travel guru Burt Wolf. Wolf's wanderings will appear every Thursday.
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Jan. 6, 2000 |
During the 12th and 13th centuries, tens of thousands of pilgrims made the
trip each year, aided by the first travel guide ever published. The
"Codex Calixtinus" was written by a monk and published in 1130. It
warned the pilgrims about dangerous neighborhoods and where the food was
good or bad; if there had been toilets, it would have rated their
cleanliness. It was the Mobil guide of the moment. When the pilgrims got to Santiago, they were given a Composelana, a
document proving that they had made the trip and confirming the reduction
of their time in purgatory. If, however, they made the trip during a Holy
Year -- when St. James' Day, July 25, fell on a Sunday -- then all
their time in purgatory was forgiven and they could go directly to heaven,
without passing GO or paying $200. Santiago was on the heavenly route because the local cathedral held the
bones of James the Greater, the older brother of John the Evangelist. After
Christ's crucifixion, he had been sent as a missionary to Spain. He had worked
there for seven years without accomplishing much, then given up and headed
back to Jerusalem, where he was put to death by Herod Agrippa --
thereby becoming the first of Christ's apostles to be martyred. James' disciples returned his body to Spain, but the site of his burial
was forgotten until 814, when a shepherd was guided to the spot by a shower
of stars. This is how the place got its name -- Santiago de Compostela
translates to St. James of the Field of Stars. Thirty years later a vision of St. James appeared during a battle and led
Ramiro I to a victory over the Moors, who had been occupying Spain since the
early 700s. This put an end to the memory of St. James as a missionary;
henceforth he was memorialized as "St. James the Slayer of the Moors,"
patron saint of Spain and emblem of the Reconquest. At the time, discovering the bones of a saint was a big deal and
illustrated the power of the church. It was also big business. The
Benedictine abbey at Cluny in France was the most powerful Christian
organization in the neighborhood, and pushing the Moors out of Spain was
very much in their interest. They encouraged their French subjects to set
up businesses along the route from Burgundy to the tip of Spain, and to
build churches and hostels along the way. They also taught the locals to
make wine, which along with brandy was a major industry for the
Benedictines. The church was entitled to 10 percent of everyone's action. The majority
of the faithful, however, were peasant farmers. If the church got paid in
farm products, the shelf life was short and reselling the goods for cash
was difficult. On the other hand, if the peasants could be taught to make
good wine, then the church could take its celestial commission by the
barrel, an infinitely preferable alternative. Wine could be stored for
years, it could be shipped from one abbey to another and it could be traded
for just about anything -- and sometimes it even increased in value with
the passage of time. And thus, as the Benedictine monks moved through northern Spain,
they blessed the locals with their winemaking expertise. | ||
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