Santiago de Compostela - city of the Saint - a great story
This brief article is about the Santiago in Galicia, Spain and
not the one in Chile.
Santiago de Compostela started life in the 9th century as a
church and monastic development built over the tomb of one of
the apostles, Saint James - or so it is claimed!
On the face of it this does not sound terribly interesting, but
it is, and even if you have no real interest in Christianity
there is a great semi mythical story to it.
It is asserted that St James was sent out in to the world by
Jesus to preach "the word of the Lord" and some how found his
way to what we now know as modern day Spain. Travelling through
the country, James found himself in Iria Flavia (now known as
Padron - see
http://www.galiciaguide.com/Padron-galicia-st-james.html), from
where he regularly preached and made Christian converts of the
locals.
Later he returned to Jerusalem, but was not welcomed and was in
fact beheaded at the Kings orders. On hearing this, former aides
in Galicia headed to the Holy lands to retrieve his body which
they successfully managed to do.
With his remains on board, albeit headless, they returned by
boat to the Iberian Peninsula and moored up at Padron. From
there his body was taken to a spot, now known as Santiago, and a
burial took place.
Over the next 800 years, due to warring, invasion and the
persecution of Christians, his place of internment was lost
until, in the 9th century, a hermit witnessed an unusual event.
What the hermit saw was a series of lights in the sky with, it
is claimed, accompanying noises. Knowing that Saint James was
rumoured to be buried in this area, the man took these events as
a signal from God and contacted the Archbishop with his news.
A few days later, after a successful search of the area, the
tomb was uncovered and the legend of St James and Santiago set
into motion. The King instructed that a church be built on the
spot where his mortal remains lay and the early beginnings of
Santiago were spawned.
The name - Santiago de Compostela!
Compostela is derived from a phonetically similar Latin term
meaning something akin to "star field", hence Santiago of the
star field or "compostela".
Is this story true? Certainly a massive Christian community
believe so and Santiago is acknowledged by the Pope and Vatican
as the 3rd most important place in Christendom. True or false it
still makes a good tale.
To find out more about Santiago de Compostela's significant
connection with Saint James, the miraculous event that connects
the two and the "way of St. James" holy pilgrimage (Camino),
take a look at http://www.galiciaguide.com/Santiago-index.html.
Here you will find more information about the story of St. James
and Santiago in Spain.