1. Gibbon, Vol. I, 394–395.
2. Flying into Madrid for the first time, however, confirmed this preconceived image. The surrounding arid countryside appeared like a backdrop from an El Greco painting.
3. See my earlier study Chrétien de Troyes and the Dawn of Arthurian Romance (McFarland, 2010).
4. Few at the time could have guessed at the worldwide impact this cult would one day exert, the world as we know it today still being centuries removed from the Age of Discovery.
5. Gibbon, Vol. I, 395, n91.
6. For example, see The Islamic Design Module in Latin America by John F. Moffitt (McFarland, 2004).
7. In this respect, the cult of Saint James resembles Arthurian traditions, which gradually progressed over time from a Dark Ages warrior myth to a far more spiritual (and personalized) quest for the Holy Grail.
8. From the Prologue of Canterbury Tales (see Chapter 9).
9. The Haitian customs relating to the Santiago cult are thought to have possibly been imported from the sub-Saharan African Kongo where the saint had a tradition of veneration. See Chapter 11, n11.
10. The Epistle of James from the New Testament is today more associated with James the Just, “brother” or cousin of Jesus, or a written tradition associated with him, rather than with the apostle James the Greater.
11. By way of contrast, several books were published around the turn of the 21st century on James the Just, in many respects an even more obscure figure than James the Greater. This sudden interest came (and went) as the result of what may have been a mistaken recent piece of archeological evidence in Jerusalem.
12. Convincing arguments have been made that the original 12 apostles were intended to be Christian counterparts to the 12 tribes of Israel. This may have even been the intent of Jesus himself.
13. In some parts of the New Testament (Galicians 1:19), James the Lesser is identified as “the Lord’s brother,” although some authorities interpret this as meaning first cousin to Jesus. For a good summary of this problem, see Butler, Vol. II, 203–207.
14. Most of this ancient knowledge reentered and was reintroduced to Spain from North Africa and the Middle East much later thanks to Islamic rule and preservation of these sources.
15. Complicating matters further, southern Spain venerates Saint Torquatus and his Seven Companions as the first to evangelize that region (Guadix, near Granada) during the Apostolic Age of the first century. This stands almost in contradiction to the Santiago tradition that Saint James the Greater passed through the same area while experiencing the first Marian vision near Zaragoza (see Chapter 2). It will be noted throughout this timeline that southern Iberia has historically shown less enthusiasm for the Santiago cult in comparison to Santiago de Compostela and northern Spain, the latter whose economic interests have always been closely tied to pilgrimage and the Caminos.
16. See my earlier study, De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon (McFarland, 2006).
17. This study will betray the author’s own personal enthusiasm for Venetian art pertaining to Saint James the Greater, of which several examples will be examined throughout.
18. Among other useful services, Kendrick supplies the names and works of outstanding scholars throughout the centuries, including Spanish, that have made a critical analysis of this difficult topic. His extensive bibliography alone is well worth the paper it is printed on.
19. For example, Kendrick keenly observed that the outrageous “Lead Book” frauds of the late 16th century surrounding the Santiago cult appear to have been sparked by widespread hysteria surrounding military defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English in 1588. See Kendrick, 69.
20. Kendrick, 14.
21. The Codex Calixtinus of Salamanca is so designated because it is currently housed by the Spanish University of the same name. Also known as Ms. S, the Salamanca illuminated manuscript is one of four surviving long versions of the Codex that is illustrated, the other three being housed at Santiago de Compostela, Rome (in the Vatican City), and London (at the British Library).
22. The scallop shell has also been known to symbolize the Christian baptismal font, as well as pilgrimage.
23. It is possible that the medieval warrior image of Santiago drew the from biblical description (by Jesus) of SS. James and John as “sons of thunder” (see Chapter 1).
24. We have restricted our choices to the mediums of painting and drawing, with occasional references to sculpture, stained glass and architecture.
1. Mark’s Gospel, traditionally attributed to the traveling companion of Saint Peter, is frequently viewed by scholars as the oldest of the four gospels, at least in its original primitive form, possibly written as early as c. 63 CE. See New Jerusalem Bible, 2072.
2. Convincing parallels have been drawn between the sons of Zebedee and the Greco-Roman deities of Castor and Pollux. One of the earliest studies to appear was Boanerges (Cambridge University Press, 1913) by the noted British biblical scholar James Rendel Harris (1852–1941). A similar idea was later advocated by the Spanish scholar Américo Castro. See Kendrick, 183–184.
3. The three synoptic gospels are called as such because all adopt a similar point of view and sequence of events, as opposed to the non-synoptic Gospel of John.
4. Herod Agrippa I was the grandson of the same Herod the Great who attempted to kill the infant Jesus by ordering a Massacre of the Innocents, as recounted in Matthew (2:16).
5. Much later sources such as Voragine assign the traditional date of James’ martyrdom to March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, with his own feast day being July 25, the date of his relics arriving in Spain.
6. The martyrdom of Saint Stephen set off a chain of events leading to the conversion of Saul (i.e. Paul) and the spread of Christianity beyond Judea largely through Paul’s missionary activities.
7. As an example of apostolic outreach, Luke mentions, not James, but rather Philip, who after the Pentecost travels to Samaria and then later baptizes an Ethiopian eunuch, albeit in Gaza (Acts 8:4, 26).
8. Romans is sometimes dated circa 57–58 CE. See New Jerusalem Bible, 2071.
9. Eusebius has much more to say about James the Just, kinsman of Jesus and first Bishop of Jerusalem, to whom the canonical Letter of James is nowadays generally attributed, or at least to his circle.
10. In addition to Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius is thought to have drawn upon an early version of a lost document known as the Passio Jacobi, possibly dating from the third or fourth century, later expanded into the Liber Sancti Jacobi of the Codex Calixtinus (see Chapter 6), dating from the 12th century. See Herwaarden, 314–315.
11. Eusebius details apostolic missions in Asia (III.1), but only refers to SS. Peter and Paul in regards to Rome and the Western Empire. Gaul, Britain, and Iberia do not appear to have been on his radar.
12. According to tradition. Christianity had originally been brought to Armenia by SS. Bartholomew (the Apostle) and Thaddeus during the first century.
13. Although Armenian merchants had been in the Holy Land for many centuries previous, the first documented evidence of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem dates from the years 325–335, in which Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem wrote letters to Bishop Vertaness of Armenia. By the fifth century, Armenian religious establishments in Jerusalem are documented. See Hintlian, 1–2.
14. Kendrick, 33.
15. Culture and Society, 478. T.D. Kendrick notes that at least two other writers from Jerome’s era also believed that an apostle had been to Spain. It is therefore a fair assumption that some kind of Spanish apostolic tradition existed before the fall of the Western Roman Empire. See Kendrick, 28.
16. The alleged heresies of Priscillian appear to have been benign by modern standards. For example, he advocated the study non-canonical writings and apocrypha. His condemnation and execution by Maximus was said to have been primarily motivated by politics, avarice, and old scores to settle amongst the Spanish. Ávila, the seat of his bishopric, is today venerated mainly as the birthplace of Saint Teresa, who for a brief period competed with James the Greater as the patron saint of Spain (see Chapter 13).
17. This event was also an insidious, distant forerunner of the Spanish Inquisition (see Chapter 10).
18. The main contemporary source for events surrounding the Priscillian affair (and a fairly reliable one at that) is the Gallic-Roman historian Sulpicius Severus, writing during the early fifth century. See Herwaarden, 352–353.
19. Arianism, without getting into too much theology, viewed Jesus, as the Son of God, as being inferior to God, hence diminishing the divinity of Jesus.
20. Zurbarán is often favorably compared to Caravaggio (1571–1610) because of his advanced mastery of chiaroscuro oil technique.
21. The dimensions are 252 cm. × 186 cm. (approximately over 8 ft. by 6 ft.).
22. Nicolle, 45.
23. The popular saluki canine breed, originally from the Middle East, is a highly appropriate symbol in this instance. Salukis later became very popular in Europe as well, having been brought there by Crusaders returning home, or perhaps by North African invaders into Iberia.
24. The highly destructive Thirty Years War (1618–1648) involved most of Europe, including Spain, the latter gaining little if anything from the extended conflict.
25. One such contemporary work, Saint James the Greater, is usually attributed to the followers of Zurbarán, ambiguously depicting the apostle as a pilgrim in armor, with dazed and vanquished opponents (or partisans?) at his feet. The painting is beautiful but the message conveyed somewhat confused and the overall effect a bit cluttered.
1. Butler, Vol. II, 26.
2. The original Saint Isidore is not to be confused with his much later namesake, Saint Isidore “the Farmer” or “the Laborer” (1070–1130), patron saint of Madrid. The other five statues surrounding the complex depict Miguel Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Diego Velázquez, King Alfonso the Wise, and the sculptor Alonso Berruguete, along with humanist educators Antonio de Nebrija, and Luis Vives.
3. The statue itself was the creation of noted Spanish sculptor José Alcoverro (1835–1908), unveiled in 1892 in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the first transatlantic voyage of Christopher Columbus. Other works by Alcoverro were exhibited at the 1893 Columbian Exposition held in Chicago.
4. The best known artistic representation of Isidore is probably the painting (c. 1655) by Zurbáran’s younger contemporary, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, depicting the saint as a scholarly and kindly Spanish bishop of the Counter-Reformation era.
5. Butler, Vol. II, 26. Saint Braulio was Isidore’s younger contemporary, Bishop of Zaragoza, and Isidore’s first biographer. Father Alban Butler (1710–1773) was a Roman Catholic hagiographer of the British Enlightenment. His more recent editors include Father Herbert J. Thurston and Donald Attwater.
6. It was during this era in Iberian history that churches affiliated with Saint James the Greater are first identified, such as the Iglesia de Santiago de Meilán, dedicated by Bishop Odoario of Lugo. Landmarks such as these, however, viewed in isolation, do not prove or disprove that James preached in Spain or was buried there; rather it reflects the growing popularity of the saint, particularly in the region of Galicia.
7. Two of Isidore’s brothers, Leander and Fulgentius, and one sister, Florentina, were also later canonized by the church.
8. English translations are rare. One of these (Thomas Deswarte) reads: “James, son of Zebedee, brother of John, and fourth in rank … preached the Gospel to Spain and the western places, and spread the light of preaching in the sunset of the world…. He was buried in Acha Marmarica … this James … was the first to convert the peoples of the Spains.” See Culture and Society, 479. This plural reference to Spain designates the traditional Roman and Visigoth division of Iberia into two separate regions.
9. The ambiguous Latin phrase is most frequently translated as “a place by the sea”; however, the phrase itself may be the result of a scribal error (or series of errors), and scholarly opinion is divided. See Culture and Society, 479. Alternative locations suggested by the phrase for James’ final resting place include the Holy Land or North Africa.
10. Hannibal came of age serving in Spain under his father during the First Punic War. Carthage had long laid claim to Iberia, given the Peninsula’s long Phoenician heritage. Military historians often credit later adoption of the famous legionary short sword or gladius by the Romans from its original Spanish prototype used by their adversaries.
11. Kendrick, 29–30.
12. Isidore himself had help set a precedent in which the Visigoth church would be comparatively independent and self-contained; this trend appears to have accelerated under Julian’s later influence.
13. These questionable outside influences would have even occasionally included the previous likes of Isidore, whose dominance of the church despite his Sevillian background likely raised more than a few eyebrows in To-ledo.
14. Julian, despite his canonization, stands accused of being complicit in harsh Visigoth edicts made against Spanish Jews. A minority opinion defends his reputation in this regard, suggesting that he had little choice in the matter and that his alleged complicity was more of a reluctant acquiescence.
15. See New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia under “Compostela.”
16. King Arthur’s heroic tradition does not appear to have received widespread dissemination until Geoffrey of Monmouth’s highly mythologized History of the Kings of Britain was written during the 12th century.
17. Strictly speaking, the Spanish had always been conquerors, since the Visigoths originally came to Roman Iberia from Germany. Their conquest of the New World, however, would be on an entirely larger and more permanent scale, as the second half of this study shall examine.
18. Isidore probably wrote approximately three centuries after the time of Constantine.
19. See New Jerusalem Bible, 1787 (John 19:25); other ancient sources do not remark on the alleged familial relationship, which seems to speak against its likelihood.
20. Goya had also painted a separate image of the Virgin on a pillar around the same time he executed his first Santiago work in 1768–1769. A very similar image of the Virgin was later incorporated into his Madrid Santiago painting.
21. The extensive private collections of Barberini and Cassiano eventually evolved into the one currently housed by the Palazzo Barberini, still today one of the finest art museums in Rome.
22. Compare, for example, similarities with Poussin’s Inspiration of the Poet, dating from around the same period (circa 1630).
23. Raphael’s masterpiece is today on display at the Prado Museum.
1. New Jerusalem Bible, 2048.
2. See Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. III, Chapter LI.
3. According to tradition, Tāriq’s invasion of Iberia was greatly aided by the Visigoth nobleman Julian, charged by the Visigoth king with guarding the Gibraltar crossing, notwithstanding many political and personal resentments that Julian held against Roderic.
4. Before the eighth century, the vicinity of Gibraltar was more commonly known by its pagan appellation, the Pillars of Hercules.
5. The Visigoth Roman Catholic Church, based in Toledo, which not long previous had proudly resisted all outside influences, even those such as Isidore of Seville (see Chapter 2), now found itself happy to be allowed continued existence under its Umayyad conquerors.
6. Various legends have Pelayo originally residing in the Asturian mountains not by choice, but because he had been exiled there by Visigoth authorities, either before they were overthrown or after their collaboration with the Umayyad invaders.
7. Pelayo is normally portrayed as the first Spanish (as opposed to Visigoth) king. For example, his modern day statuary portrayal can still be seen in the spectacular Plaza de Oriente situated between the Royal Palace and Opera House in Madrid.
8. The 1843 English translation of al-Maqarri by Pascual de Gayangos opts for the less-offensive phrase “thirty barbarians” as opposed to “30 wild donkeys” used by his original source, Ibn Ahmed al-Rází, governor of Andalus. Pelayo’s followers were perceived by the Umayyads as not worth pursuing or conquering, according to the chronicle.
9. Charles held the nominal title of Mayor or Duke, but consistently declined higher honors for political reasons. Because of his military prowess, Charles had been the de facto ruler of Gaul since around 718, possibly the same year that Pelayo of Asturias won his (seemingly at the time) small victory at Covadonga.
10. The Battle of Tours was fought a little over 100 years after the death of the Prophet Mohammad in 632.
11. Adding to the escalating problems of the Umayyads, their Caliphate in the Middle East was overthrown by the Abbasids around 750. Iberian Umayyads, however, remained independently entrenched at Córdoba until 1031 (see Chapter 5).
12. After the Battle of Tours, Charles Martel fought repeated successful engagements against the Umayyads as they continuously attempted to reinvade France from Spain. His grandson Charlemagne later succeeded in establishing the “March Hispania” along the Pyrenees, extending all the way to Catalonia and Barcelona, as an essential buffer zone between his kingdom and that of Andalusia.
13. The 2010 film The Way humorously dramatizes such an argument (see Chapter 20).
14. The Revelation of John, according to tradition, was written or dictated by Saint John the Evangelist, son of Zebedee, and brother of Saint James the Greater. It is therefore natural that Beatus should have made such a strong connection between the two apostles.
15. The anonymous eighth century hymn O Dei Verbum also praises Saint James the Greater as having preached in Spain and is often attributed to Beatus as well.
16. Kendrick, 188–189.
17. Alfonso’s father King Fruela was the brother of Queen Adosinda. Alfonso’s grandfather, Alfonso I, was an effective military leader who expanded the Asturian kingdom into Galicia and León.
18. Charlemagne was himself then proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III circa 800.
19. Interestingly, the 1961 epic film El Cid features many interior set designs that seem to have been inspired by the illuminated art of the Beatus Apocalypses. This film was thankfully made long before the days of computer generated imagery (or CGI).
20. Excellent details regarding the history and provenance of the Silos Apocalypse can be found on the website for the British Library. See http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/silos.html.
21. Joseph Bonaparte was an unwitting participant in Iberian artistic history, as well as political. His ordered demolition of the Madrid Church of Saint James appears to have been one of several highly unpopular moves triggering the bloody revolt of 1810 (see Chapter 16).
22. In addition to the White Rider multitudes of Revelation, the same chapter earlier introduces the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, later famous in both biblical and secular art.
23. The Salamanca Codex Calixtinus is so-named after is current curator, the University of Salamanca, even though the manuscript was itself created at Santiago de Compostela.
24. A more recent and thorough discussion of this topic can be found in “The Islamic Rider in the Beatus of Girona” by O.K. Werckmeister, Gesta (Vol. 36, No. 2, University of Chicago Press), “Visual Culture of Medieval Iberia” (1997), 101–106.
1. See Voragine, Saint James the Greater.
2. Some more recent scholars assert this year as being closer to 818, almost 100 years exactly after Pelayo’s successful rebellion circa 719. See Culture and Society, 481.
3. Pelayo is said to have been attracted to the burial site by bright stars in the sky overhead.
4. The mountainous 323 kilometer Camino Primitivo from Oviedo is widely considered one of the more challenging paths for hikers to Santiago. Thanks likely to Alfonso II, sites along this Camino route became well-known landmarks, such as the Benedictine Monasterio de San Xulián de Samos near Lugo, where according to some sources, Alfonso was born and later, as a young deposed monarch, found sanctuary and refuge, along with his aunt, the Dowager Queen Adosinda. San Xulián also became a forerunner of the great Benedictine Spanish-Franco monasteries that would come to dominate Camino routes during later centuries (see Chapter 6).
5. Thanks to Beatus, Saint James the Greater had by then become, in the words of James D’Emilio, “…inseparably the patron of the Asturian Kingdom and of Hispania.” See Culture and Society, 480.
6. Although not yet officially separated, Constantinople, even at this early stage, ambitiously vied with Rome for supreme authority over Christendom, the latter boasting possession of its own venerated relics, those of SS. Peter and Paul.
7. Hartley, 27.
8. Jan van Herwaarden wrote that “From the ninth century on there were plenty of believers, but the element of doubt never really disappeared.” See Herwaarden p. 352.
9. Earlier proponents of the tradition, such as Isidore and Beatus, were at best ambiguous with respect to James’ exact place of burial.
10. There are other good reasons as well for doubting the historicity of Clavijo, or at least accounts of the battle given much later; however, these are beyond the scope of this study. Among modern scholars, the British skeptic T.D. Kendrick gives a fairly thorough summary in his classic 1960 book.
11. Musa had defeated the Franks in this same vicinity at the First Battle of Albelda in 851. At the Battle of Monte Laturce in 859, spoils taken from Musa by Christian forces included items thought to have been paid as ransom for Frankish leaders earlier taken prisoner.
12. Islamic Toledo, then governed by Musa’s son, was reportedly so impressed by the Christian victory at Monte Laturce that it temporarily paid tribute to Asturias.
13. Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz (1893–1984) was one of the leading Spanish intellectuals of his day, as well as the living symbol of Spanish resistance in American exile against the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. His work on Clavijo was published in 1948, during an era in which Spanish Republican hopes had been temporarily dashed. His debunking of the Clavijo myth may well have been inspired by his personal disdain for the Galician Franco, who embraced and promoted the legend (see Chapter 18).
14. Portus Cale (Grande Porto) was conquered by the Asturian nobleman Vimara Peres in 868, establishing the County of Portucale (northern Portugal) as a Christian jurisdiction; the County of Coimbra (south of Portucale) was conquered by the Galician nobleman Hermenegildo Gutiérrez in 871.
15. It was at this point that Iberian Christians of the north seemed to first think in terms of territorial expansion rather than purely defending what they held.
16. Gradually this power would shift to first Toledo, and then later, Granada.
17. Hartley, 29.
18. The sack of Pamplona by the Franks in 778 formed the prelude to the Battle of Roncevaux Pass and subsequent literary tradition of Roland, which blamed his death on Islamic forces rather than the Christian Basques who in fact killed him (see Chapter 3).
19. Starkie, 57.
20. The story of “Luporia” in connection to Santiago had in fact another written precedent from the first half of the 11th century. See Culture and Society, 522.
21. According to tradition, Athanasius and Theodore were later buried next to Saint James the Greater, and their relics discovered alongside of his by the monk Pelayo during the early ninth century.
22. Galicia was comparatively matriarchal in the sense that the men were often simply gone to war, leaving women to make legal decisions otherwise made by men, similar in that regard to ancient Sparta.
23. Among other serious problems, Christian Spain during the later 14th century was embroiled in one of its many civil wars.
24. The Florentine native Giotto (c.1267–1337) is perhaps best famous for his spectacular frescoes in Padua at the Scrovegni Chapel (c. 1305).
1. Specifically, Herwaarden compares Santiago de Compostela (as a Christian religious shrine) to the Muslim Kaaba shrine of Mecca. See Herwaarden, 451.
2. Starkie, 25.
3. Starkie, 27.
4. Herwaarden p. 453. Walter Starkie added that the most trustworthy sources concurring with this account are from Muslim historians. See Starkie, 28.
5. Two centuries later when Córdoba fell to the Christian Reconquista, the Great Mosque lanterns made from the metal bells and gates of Santiago were brought back to Toledo for safekeeping (see Chapter 7).
6. Once again, a comparison of Almanzor’s campaigns with the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage seems apt. Rome, like Christian Iberia, emerged from the conflict stronger than ever, notwithstanding Hannibal’s invasion of Italy and multiple victories there over an extended time period.
7. The precise date of origin for the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico is still debated among archeologists. Its website asserts, with some plausibility, that the current structure was a long evolving project, roughly during the years 1000–1450.
8. All these sites are today found within the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Original dates of construction are surmised to have taken place roughly between the ninth and 12th centuries. Chaco Canyon is also, like Santiago de Compostela, part of a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.
9. Sancho’s queen (and Ferdinand’s mother) was Muniadona of Castile (d. 1066).
10. While Ferdinand was forcing a realignment of political and military power in Iberia, the Berber Almoravids were consolidating control of the North African Maghreb, founding the city of Marrakesh as their capital city in 1062, the same year that Ferdinand invaded the taifa of Toledo.
11. The Cid came of age as a young warrior under Ferdinand the Great’s southern Iberian adventures and conquests. His father and grandfather also served under Ferdinand.
12. More specifically, the title “El Cid” was derived from the Arabic al sayyid, meaning master or chieftain. See Nicolle, 3.
13. According to another disputed tradition, the Cid, along with his Muslim allies, may have been involved in a military victory over Ferdinand’s half-brother, King Ramiro I of Aragón (who was killed in battle), the latter having attempted to encroach upon Ferdinand’s newly-acquired domains by invading the surrounding territories of Zaragoza.
14. Jan van Herwaarden remarked that the Virgin Mary began to overshadow Saint James the Greater as a patron-protector of Spanish Christian armies from the 12th century onwards. See Herwaarden, 483. We would add that this process may have begun in earnest during the 11th century with the southern conquests of Ferdinand.
15. Herwaarden added that veneration of the Virgin Mary also naturally tended to attract a more multicultural following of worshippers than that of Saint James the Greater. See Herwaarden, 487.
16. The bank of the Ebro River was also the purported site of Saint James the Greater’s Marian vision circa 40 CE near the Roman city of Caesaraugusta or Zaragoza (see Chapter 2).
17. Starkie, 69.
18. By way of contrast, King Alfonso V had earlier recognized legal rights of Jews living within the expanding Christian kingdoms at the Council of León in 1020. The immediate result appears to have been at least a blunting of active Jewish resistance against Christian authorities, as well as less overt and arbitrary persecution of Jews within those Christian realms.
1. As an aside, Walter Starkie added that he made no fewer than four personal pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela between 1924 and 1954. See Starkie, 40.
2. Pringle, 169. For more details on Saint Menas (or Mennas), see Butler, Vol. 4, 313–314.
3. Hintlian, 52.
4. To this day, the Armenian Cathedral of Saint James on this same site includes a side chapel dedicated to the ancient associations of the shrine with Saint Menas. See Pringle, 173.
5. Pringle, 169.
6. Geographically, Georgia (not referred to as such in surviving sources until the 11th century) is located to the northwest of Armenia in a more mountainous and then far less developed region. The Georgians were likely viewed by their Armenian Christian neighbors as more barbaric, and possibly heretical as well. The Georgians are thought to have derived their namesake identity from George of Cappadocia (d. 361), the condemned Arian Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. See Gibbon, Vol. III, 2009, n18.
7. Pringle, 169.
8. Armstrong, 64.
9. Pringle, 181.
10. Pringle, 169. Karen Armstrong, in her fine book on the Crusades, makes the not uncommon error of conflating the traditions of Saint James the Greater with that of Saint James the Just (p. 58).
11. Armstrong, 158, 174.
12. Later substantial additions to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela between the 12th and 18th centuries were made in the Gothic and Baroque styles.
13. The distinguished French art historian Émile Mâle (1862–1954) was among those to comment upon the extensive connections between Muslim and Christian Iberian architecture. See Starkie, 3.
14. The Toulouse site was recorded to be a Christian shrine location by the early fourth century and was probably one before that time as well. The Basilica of Saint-Sernin is the largest purely Romanesque church still surviving in Europe.
15. T.D. Kendrick provided an excellent summary of this infamous fraud, perpetuated for obvious political reasons and successfully asserted by the Spanish monarchy for a surprisingly long period of time. See Kendrick, 193–200.
16. Nicolle, 14.
17. Twenty-two years later in 1108, the Castilians were again defeated by the Almoravids at the Battle of Uclés near Toledo; an infirm Alfonso was not present at this engagement but his son and heir to throne, Sancho Alfónsez, was killed in action. Alfonso died the following year in 1109.
18. Later in their conflicts with the Spanish, and with continued help from the English, the Portuguese would adopt Saint George as their patron saint in battle, as opposed to Saint James the Greater (see Chapter 9).
19. Within three years after the death of the Cid in 1099, the Almoravids would temporarily take Valencia.
20. Later, during an era dominated by Crusaders and Jihadists, the comparatively tolerant, multicultural legacy of the Cid stood out even more so.
21. David Nicolle remarked that “Yet there was no real crusading attitude before the 12th century, and even then religious motives were often secondary to political or economic calculations.” The Iberian military career of El Cid must be viewed in hindsight as a prime example of this contrast. See Nicolle, 4.
22. Nicolle, 46. “Jinete” literally translated “horseman.” Later it became more synonymous with the hit and run tactics of light cavalry. Central Iberia, especially around Toledo, became the new epicenter for these asymmetrical tactics. Nicolle also observed that Iberia, because of its topography and isolation, had been a “cavalry arena” since ancient times. See Nicolle, 11, 20. Possibly the first notable instance of this distinctively North African style of cavalry warfare had appeared during the Second Punic War when Hannibal’s Numidian light horseman repeatedly wreaked havoc against the Roman legions in Italy. It was only after the Roman General Scipio Africanus persuaded the Numidians to switch sides that the tide of the conflict seemed to turn.
23. Nicolle, 9.
24. With respect to cattle raising (and rustling), it should be noted that Spain’s reputation for high-quality leather goods extends back to this period in medieval history and beyond as well.
25. Herwaarden, 314–315.
26. Nicolle, 17.
1. Armstrong, 436–437.
2. Pringle, 169.
3. The 11th century Georgian Orthodox Church of Jerusalem had been built under Islamic rule.
4. Herwaarden, 348–352.
5. Surviving the Second Crusade as a young man, Castro was inspired in his example by the Christian military orders originating in the Middle East, such as the Knights Templar.
6. The stated goal of the Fourth Crusade was to recapture Jerusalem, but the Latin army never got any further than Constantinople where the riches of the city and dubious loyalty of Byzantines to the Crusader cause simultaneously provoked greed and fury. The Latin Empire of Constantinople proved to be ephemeral like its Jerusalem counterpart, as well as politically incompetent, falling back into Byzantine hands 57 years later in 1261.
7. Like the Cid before him, Castro had an uncanny knack for fighting on the winning (though not always politically correct) side throughout his long and checkered career. For his pains on behalf of the Almohads, however, he was excommunicated by the Papacy and later died an exile in Morocco, though his remains were later brought back to Spain for burial in a Castilian monastery. Curiously, he was known to be a devotee of Saint Isidore (see Chapter 2).
8. The compositional process of El Cantar de mio Cid appears to have been a long one, beginning perhaps as early as the mid–12th century.
9. Francis of Assisi had begun his famous career as a lay preacher only five years previous to this around the year 1209.
10. Doubleday, 22.
11. David Nicolle observed that “James [El Conquistador] came to the throne virtually penniless. His subsequent seizure of Muslim Majorca in an interesting example of combined land-sea operations was a gamble that opened up trade across the western Mediterranean, thus solving many of the king’s money problems.” See Nicolle, 18.
12. Gibbon, Vol. III, 2099.
13. Among the unenthusiastic who refused to participate in the Eighth Crusade was the companion and later biographer of Saint Louis, Jean de Joinville.
14. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/20/sainte-chapelle-paris-stained-glass-window-restoration-completed.
15. An excellent and detailed photographic documentation by Stuart Whatling of the Jamesian windows at Chartres can be found at http://www.medievalart.org.uk/Chartres/05_pages/Chartres_Bay05_key.htm.
16. By extension, Western Europe, from Germany to Iberia and from Italy to England, became significantly richer during the High Middle Ages, and the first signs were appearing in society of what today would be called an economic middle class.
17. It was during this same era (circa 1260) that The Golden Legend by Voragine first appeared, a very popular work concisely summarizing the Santiago legend for non-Spanish European readers not having access to the Codex Calixtinus (see Chapter 6). Voragine (d. 1298) was the Italian Archbishop of Genoa.
18. Tiepolo’s own painting for San Stae was The Martyrdom of St, Bartholomew.
19. Appropriately, the Musée National du Moyen Âge is located immediately off the Camino Frances (Rue Saint-Jacques) in central Paris just south of Notre Dame Cathedral. Originally, the museum had been built during the 14th and 15th centuries as the Hôtel de Cluny for the abbots of that order which had done so much to develop the Camino over previous centuries.
20. Besides within the museum itself, the image of Saint James the Greater can be viewed within the context of all four panels at http://www.therosewindow.com/pilot/Paris-Musee-Cluny/w37.htm.
1. Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, Translated by M.A. Screech (Penguin, 1991), 696.
2. The bas relief of Alfonso the Wise may be found, along with 22 other figures, within the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives.
3. Karen Armstrong has outlined the 12th century Iberian origins of this intellectual revolution in her classic study, A History of God (Ballantine, 1993), 204–205.
4. The Estoria has generated considerable scholarly debate in modern times, but mostly among Spanish academics and outside of the English-speaking world. For example, the chronicle recounts the so-called Battle of Jerez in 1231, in which Castilian à la jinete (“hit and run”) cavalry conducted a successful raid into southern Iberia. Alfonso X was supposedly among the Castilian raiders, but he would have been only nine years old at the time. Others plausibly maintain that the chronicle in fact refers to a different Alfonso, brother to King Ferdinand III.
5. The repeated tragedies and disappointments of Alfonso’s later reign appear to have affected his mental stability, or least made him more unpredictable and frightening in the eyes of his opponents.
6. Alfonso preferred his grandsons, the children of the slain Ferdinand, as his heirs. Alfonso’s son Sancho, however, had the support of the Castilian nobility, which proved crucial.
7. Doubleday, 211.
8. Prince Ferdinand visited Santiago de Compostela on the Feast Day of Saint James (July 25), 1270. See Doubleday, 152–153.
9. Herwaarden, 484.
10. Herwaarden, 483.
11. Doubleday, 191. The Cantigas helped to further popularize the guitara latina, a forerunner of the modern Spanish guitar, as a musical instrument.
12. Doubleday, 219.
13. Herwaarden, 487.
14. The Hohenstaufen dynasty had for many years ruled the Kingdom of Sicily which, like Iberia, was one of the great religious, racial, and cultural melting pots of Europe. Alfonso would have been well acquainted with its legacy through his mother.
15. Doubleday, 484.
16. Butler, Vol. I, 674.
17. Saint Catherine of Alexandria was, according to legend, a virgin Christian martyr from the great persecutions of the early fourth century. Her tradition, however, does not first appear until the 10th century, thus making hers an even more recent phenomenon than that of Saint James the Greater. She is frequently depicted as a scholar holding a book or bible, along with the device of her martyrdom, popularly known as the Catherine Wheel. See Butler, Vol. IV, 420–421.
1. Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Canterbury Tales, translated by Ronald L. Ecker and Eugene Joseph Crooks (Hodge & Braddock, 1993), Prologue.
2. Ferdinand had condemned two knights to death for allegedly killing one of his favorites. According to some accounts, before their execution, the condemned knights maintained their innocence and prophesized that the king would himself be soon called to divine justice, which in fact came to pass.
3. See Canto XXV from Dante’s The Divine Comedy (Vol. III Paradise). The poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) was writing late in life, circa 1310–1320, hoping to return to his native Florence from where he had been politically banished.
4. Alfonso’s father, Ferdinand IV, had briefly conquered Gibraltar in 1309.
5. The outbreak and progress of the plague in Europe is surprisingly well documented. It reached Sicily in 1347 through Genoese galleys, Pisa in 1348, and Marseilles by early 1349. It then spread like wildfire across the European continent.
6. Ibn Battuta, 934.
7. Boccaccio’s series of novellas titled Decameron is set within the context of young men and women escaping from Florence and the plague to the country. It was written shortly after the height of the pandemic. In contrast to this outward gaiety, Petrarch mourned the loss of his muse Laura, another victim of the plague.
8. The epic conflict began when King Edward III of England disputed ownership of Gascony with King Philip VI of France. Joint sovereignty over large parts of both countries had been perceived as the norm since the days of William the Conqueror.
9. At one point, Chaucer was a POW during the Hundred Years War, but ransom for his release was paid by King Edward III himself, surely a sign of Chaucer’s high royal favor.
10. Church officials are portrayed unfavorably in The Canterbury Tales, and most of the other characters are far from being devout, despite their religious pilgrimage activities. It seems reasonable to suppose a similar mood of cynicism prevailed in Spain and France along the Caminos.
11. Ibn Battuta, 941. Battuta was fortunate to have encountered Granada at the height of its affluence during the reign of Sultan Yusuf I, which was likely a prime motivator in the Castilian initiative under Alfonso XI to attempt conquering the city.
12. Marco Polo dictated his memoirs to Rustichello da Pisa while both were POWs in Genoa during the late 13th century.
13. Ibn Battuta, 934.
14. Ibn Battuta, 940.
15. Ibn Battuta, 934–935.
16. As this is being written, a British Prime Minister is issuing warnings that Great Britain will use military force if necessary to defend the sovereignty of Gibraltar from perceived outside threats of Spanish or European Union naval maneuvers in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit vote. Residents of Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union. Great Britain has effectively controlled Gibraltar since 1704 and the War of Spanish Succession. It has proved a continuing sore spot in Anglo-Spanish relations.
17. The break became official when, after electing the Neapolitan Pope Urban VI in 1378 and then being treated disrespectfully by him, the college of Cardinals, led by the French, elected Pope Clement VII as Pope that same year.
18. The city-shrine of Tours was part of the Camino Frances. Back in the fourth century, Bishop Priscillian had been executed over the objections of Saint Martin and other prominent churchmen (see Chapter 1).
19. The entrance to this famous Parisian landmark is still frequently by the homeless seeking alms given in the spirit of Saint Martin, whose image decorates the church entrance.
20. Butler’s Lives of the Saints favors the latter theory. See Butler, Vol. I, 305 (“St. Severinus”).
21. The martyr Saint Sernin was the first Bishop of Toulouse during the early fourth century (see Chapter 6).
22. The Avilla, Indiana, St. James Restaurant is located within the local St. James Hotel and has successfully been in business since 1948.
23. The results of two early royal commissions by El Greco were coolly received by King Philip II, and so no more were given afterwards.
24. Another variation of this same prototype can be viewed in Novgorod, Russia.
25. Other artists, however, had suggested it. For example, see Pilgrim’s Mass by the Catalan circle of Jaime Hugnet (1414–1492), today on display in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, in which a miserable looking pilgrim (among several) is offered alms by an unidentified saint.
26. These slightly inferior versions do not have Saint James holding a pilgrim’s staff, or at least that part of the portrait is not shown, nor is the bright luxuriousness of the green cloak so obviously akin to that of Saint Martin’s beggar.
1. Ibn Battuta, 941.
2. In 1431, the same year that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, Castile and Granada fought to an effective draw at the Battle of La Higuerula. Although Castile exacted tribute from Granada afterwards, the result seemed to also confirm the latter’s continuing ability to defend itself from outside invasion.
3. The two other papal claimants in 1409 were Benedict XIII and Gregory XII. Interestingly, the voluntary resignation of Gregory XII in 1415 was the last time such an event occurred before the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013.
4. Immediately after Ferdinand’s conquest of Antequera, the city was fortified and grew rapidly in its Christian population. It would prove to be a thorn in the side of Granada for the remainder of the 15th century.
5. After Ferdinand’s death, political relations between and within Christian Iberian kingdoms continued to be unstable. For example, in 1445, a major rebellion against the Castilian crown led by its own nobility was forcibly suppressed.
6. Gibbon, Vol. III, 2360–2361.
7. According to Edward Gibbon, the Turks held Otranto and dared all comers with a mere garrison of about 800 troops, displaying their confidence and contempt for European military capacity of that era. See Gibbon, Vol. III, 2361.
8. Interestingly, the Armenian Church was allowed to return to Constantinople by the Ottomans after it had been previously banished by the Greeks. This was obviously done in part to forcefully remind the Greeks that the Ottomans were now in charge of the city, as well as to keep the local Christian minority weak through division.
9. Edward Gibbon wrote: “We may reflect with pleasure … that the mechanics of a German town had invented an art which derides the havoc of time and barbarism.” See Gibbon, Vol. III, 2354.
10. Both Isabella and Ferdinand were the great grandchildren of King John I of Castile, making them second cousins.
11. Notwithstanding his promise to Isabella, Henry repeatedly attempted to marry Isabella off to foreign royalty, including that of England and Portugal.
12. The end for Granada probably would have come much sooner than 1492 had the Castilians not been engaged in a civil war until 1479, a full 17 years after the fall of Gibraltar to the Reconquista.
13. Ferdinand and Isabella were first betrothed to each other at ages five and six, respectively. At the time, neither was heir to a throne. See Downey, 41.
14. Ferdinand became King of Aragón the following year in 1475, upon the death of his father, King John II.
15. Herwaarden, 489.
16. Isabella herself later became known as an enthusiastic and regular pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela. See Downey, 225.
17. By way of contrast, modern English-language biographies of the English Queen Elizabeth I are plentiful.
18. Isabella was about four years old when she was moved to Arévalo, immediately after the death of her father King John II of Castile in 1454. This would have been a highly impressionable age for her, as noted by biographer Kirstin Downey. See Downey, 37.
19. Segovia and Arévalo are both towns with strong Islamic heritage, today reflected by their surviving architecture. During the formative years of Isabella, this sense of otherness may have reinforced a feeling of insecurity. Curiously, she was known to have developed an appreciation for Islamic culture as she grew older, even as she persecuted its adherents.
20. Isabella’s mother died in 1596. Afterwards, Isabella had a striking alabaster statuette of Saint James the Greater (portrayed as a pilgrim), designed by Gil de Siloe and placed at the head of her tomb in Miraflores. This small but notable work has been most recently displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
21. Downey, 322.
22. Downey, 28–29, 40–41, 408.
23. A good example of this same theme contemporary with the Catholic Monarchs themselves may be found in the Tempietto (“Small Temple”) situated within the San Pietro in Montorio Church in Rome, commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella circa 1502, and decorated with the scallop shell motif of Saint James the Greater. See Downey, 274. The church marks the traditional spot of Saint Peter’s crucifixion.
24. Downey, 410.
25. The painting was commissioned for display in the Spanish Senate chamber.
26. The Crusades and Mogul invasions of the Middle Ages also created refugees, but not along the sweeping scale of what the Spanish and Portuguese were about to initiate after the fall of Granada.
1. Armstrong, 459.
2. Kendrick, 198.
3. The church was itself demolished during the French Revolution, but the imposing Tour Saint-Jacques (Saint-Jacques Tower) still stands as a reminder of its historical significance.
4. Armstrong, 458.
5. Europeans, and Asians as well, had reached the New World on previous occasions; it was the voyage of Columbus, however, that changed the course of history.
6. Columbus Day has been a federal holiday in the U.S. since 1937, although it has been celebrated in the U.S. since the 18th century. Today, American Columbus Day always falls on the Monday of the week of October 12, and therefore usually does not correspond to that exact date. Other Latin American countries celebrate Columbus Day, although a severe worldwide backlash gained momentum during the 20th century. This movement was in support of indigenous American peoples who were killed, enslaved, or dislocated, resulting from the European conquests that began with Columbus.
7. The Feast Day of the Virgin of the Pillar is celebrated throughout Latin America as well, including Brazil.
8. Even in Spain, however, there are notable exceptions. For example, in 2016 the mayor of Barcelona, along with others, decided to boycott festivities in a show of solidarity with oppressed indigenous peoples of the New World.
9. The treaty allowed Portugal to claim Brazil, that area being geographically closest to Europe. Spain was given the rest, which dissatisfied Portugal. Pope Alexander VI was Spanish-born. No other European powers accepted the treaty, and a good argument can be main that it helped fuel the Protest Reformation, especially in England.
10. Isabella’s only son and favorite, John, Prince of Asturias, died in 1597 at age 19. She was said to have never recovered from this blow.
11. In one of the more bizarre episodes from this era, sometime during the early 1500s, King Nzinga Mbemba (1460–1542) of the African Kongo, known as Alfonso I by his Portuguese sponsors, was victorious over his rival brother for the throne at the Battle of Mbanza Kongo, claiming supernatural help from Santiago Matamoros. Alfonso proved to be a key figure in the establishment of Christianity within the sub–Saharan continent. Ironically, by this late point in history, Portugal had largely replaced Saint James the Greater with Saint George as warrior protector patron of their state.
12. Vespucci had been a crew member of Portuguese expeditions to the New World between 1499 and 1502.
13. Charles was the only male descendant of Ferdinand and Isabella surviving to adulthood. The only other surviving issue was their daughter Catherine of Aragón, destined to become Queen of England as the first wife of Henry VIII, and as such, a key figure in the English Reformation.
14. Starkie, 5–6. See also Weckman, 111–112.
15. Herwaarden, 488.
16. Starkie, 44; Weckman, 112.
17. Traditional Islam offered the vanquished a choice of conversion, tribute or the sword. For Catholic conquistadors, tribute was not typically an option offered.
18. Curiously, by coincidence (or not), the baptized name of Juan Diego combines the two names of the sons of Zebedee, John and James, or the Sons of Thunder, as Jesus called them (see Chapter 1). Diego is another Spanish variation of James (see Introduction).
19. The same Franciscans who had converted and rechristened Juan Diego were among the doubters. The Dominicans, however, saw merit in the alleged visions, and supported his claims. Juan Diego was later canonized by the Roman Catholic church in 2002 as the first Native American saint on record.
20. Raphael’s masterpiece may today be viewed at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
21. Luther had little use for pilgrimages (see Chapter 14).
22. The provenance of the engraving states that it was the gift of the Potter Palmer family to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1956. The Palmers were well-traveled Chicago hotel and real estate magnates, as well as patrons of the arts.
23. By contrast, the Christian knights being led by Santiago are heavily armored, more reflective of European warfare during the 15th century.
24. On the other hand, given that Europe was then being threatened by the Ottoman Turks, Schongauer’s engraving might have been designed as a strident inspirational harangue against the Islamic enemies of Christendom, especially given that German soldiery often faced the eastern European front.
25. The English, French, and Dutch were all slow to catch up in this regard, but would eventually do so with decisive effectiveness (see Chapter 12).
1. Sung by Ophelia during the mad scene from Hamlet, Act IV, scene v, 23–26. See also Starkie, 60.
2. This law made Henry VIII and succeeding English monarchs supreme heads of the Church of England.
3. The term La Leyenda Negra (“Black Legend”) was first coined during the late 19th century by the influential Galician-born novelist and critic Emilia Pardo Bazán.
4. Named after the north central Mexican province that was the flashpoint of the conflict.
5. Another sign of progressive advances during this era were the founding of national universities in both Mexico City and Lima, Peru, the first of their kind in the New World.
6. For example, one symbol of this Protestant resistance was in the Jacobikerk (“St. James’ Church”) in Ultrecht, still today the beginning point for Dutch pilgrims traveling to Santiago de Compostela. By the 1580s, during the reign of Charles’ son Philip II (as conflict in the Low Countries escalated), the Jacobikerk was declared Protestant by the locals, stripped of its Roman Catholic iconography, and used as an artillery platform against occupying Spanish forces.
7. During his abdication speech, Charles asked forgiveness from anyone he may have wronged, widely interpreted as an allusion to his Protestant opposition.
8. There is some evidence that Elizabeth consciously modelled her style of governance after her highly-revered and similarly-named Spanish predecessor, Isabella. One of the most widely read books of the age in all languages (including English) was The Courtier by Baldesar Castiglione, an Italian diplomat who spent his final years in Madrid and in the book lavishes tremendous praise on the legacy of Isabella.
9. More precisely, St. James’s Palace was built by Henry VIII on former site of a leper hospital by the same name. Queen Elizabeth I is said to chosen this palace as a waiting place for news during the Spanish Armada crisis of 1588.
10. Martin Luther had himself preached against religious pilgrimages. Better to stay home and take care of one’s family and the poor, he argued. See Harpur, 128–129. Given unflattering portrayals of pilgrims by the likes of Chaucer and Boccaccio, this criticism appears not to have been entirely unfounded.
11. There is no preserved definite reference to Shakespeare’s Othello before 1604; however, Shakespeare’s source material from the Venetian writer Cinthio had been published in 1565. See De Vere as Shakespeare (Chapter 36) by William Farina (McFarland, 2006).
12. Cymbeline was not published until the First Folio of 1623. The play was partially based on a much earlier story by Boccaccio. A primitive stage adaptation of Shakespeare’s work may have been performed at the English court as early as 1578, a period during which political relations between England and Spain were seriously deteriorating.
13. Starkie, 60.
14. Shakespeare’s Hamlet did not appear in print until 1603. An early allusion to the play made by Thomas Nashe, however, dates from 1589, the year after the Spanish Armada. This “Ur-Hamlet” may or may not have been an early version by Shakespeare the writer, depending on which authorship theory is accepted.
15. “Rossillion” is often taken to mean the French province adjacent to the Pyrenees Mountains and Spain, but in the play this is more likely a reference to the town of Roussillon in the Rhone River Valley, north of Marseilles. The latter port would in fact be a logical destination for Helena whether she was shipping west to a Spanish Camino or her true destination, Italy in pursuit of Bertram.
16. An English version of the Italian-sourced tale (by Arthur Brooke) first appeared in 1562. The first printed quarto version by Shakespeare dates from 1597.
17. Even by this early date, Drake had already been awarded his knighthood.
18. Most famous among these traditions was that of one María Pita, who after her husband had been killed, personally dispatched an approaching English standard bearer.
19. Starkie, 58–59.
20. Also like Drake, Gilbert was eventually rewarded for his efforts with a knighthood.
21. To give a single example, by the beginning of the 17th century, global agricultural production had begun a major shift. New World crops such as corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and chocolate found new European markets, while Old World crops such as sugar, coffee, cotton, and tobacco thrived in the Americas.
1. Cervantes, Miguel de, Don Quijote, Translated by Burton Raffel, Edited by Diana de Armas Wilson (W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), Volume 2, Chapter 58, 664–665. In the biblical Book of Genesis, Hagar was the Egyptian concubine or second wife of Abraham and mother of Ishmael. Both mother and son were expelled from Abraham’s household after his wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac, but both are revered in Islam through their family connection with Abraham.
2. Evidence of the growing popularity for Saint Didacus during the 15th and 16th centuries in Spain is surprisingly abundant. For example, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales in central Madrid, originally a palace for Charles V and later converted into a Claretian convent for the wealthy by his daughter Joanna, includes a portrait of Saint Didacus among its many treasures, but little or no artistic trace of Saint James the Greater is to be found.
3. Saint Didacus died on November 12, 1463; however, his official Feast Day was later changed to November 13.
4. For example, the founding in 1648 of Santiago, Nuevo León, Mexico, was anticlimactic in that the town proved to be a comparative backwater, a small suburb of the greater town of Monterrey, Mexico.
5. In 2015, the 400th anniversary for the publication of Don Quijote (Part II), the tomb of Cervantes was reportedly rediscovered in central Madrid. See http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150318-don-quixote-cervantes-tomb-madrid/.
6. Cervantes, 663.
7. According to some sources, Cervantes’ father was of Galician ancestry.
8. Cervantes, viii–ix.
9. For example, the Iglesia Santiago Apóstol de Surco in Lima, Peru, was built in 1571, the same year that a young Cervantes fought and was crippled at the Battle of Lepanto.
10. By comparison, in 1607 the Spanish founded Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of their more recent settlements in the New World. In contrast, Jamestown, Virginia, was founded by the English that same year, but was abandoned between 1610 and 1616 before being later reestablished.
11. Between 1630–1654, Dutch Brazil or New Holland effectively controlled large portions of Atlantic coastal South America.
12. Cervantes, vii (Note 9).
13. See Auden’s provocative 1948 essay, “The Ironic Hero: Some Reflections on Don Quixote.”
14. Teresa died six years before the Armada was defeated in 1588; therefore, many Spaniards looked backed at her pious life with nostalgia, as time before Spanish political ascendency had been permanently curbed.
15. Kendrick, 60–68.
16. Quevedo publicly advocated in favor of Saint James the Greater over Saint Teresa of Ávila in his pamphlet addressed to King Philip IV, Su Espada por Santiago (1628). Quevedo was also among those partisans asserting that James and Jesus were first cousins, lending an almost clannish outlook to his advocacy. See Starkie, 55–57.
17. Starkie, 55.
18. The Virgin Mary icon of El Viejo, according to tradition formerly possessed by Saint Teresa herself, was reportedly brought to the New World in 1562 by her brother Rodrigo Ahumada.
19. Like his contemporary Shakespeare, Cervantes was attracted to the romance form in his final work.
20. King Philip III had expelled the Moriscos from Spain in 1609, after the publication of Don Quijote Part I in 1605 but before the publication of Part II in 1615. Sancho describes Ricote’s disguised appearance as that of a “carnival clown” and “a god damned Frenchy,” momentarily forgetting that the other pilgrims are German (Raffel translation).
21. This surprising, delightful device is unexpectedly introduced by Cervantes in Book I, Chapter 9, long after the narrative is well underway.
22. On the other hand, in a repressive police state such as Spain during this period, devices like this help to partially explain how great artists were sometimes able to get away with making bold social statements.
23. Pisan sometimes phonetically signed his work “H. Pizan.”
1. Bunyan, John, Pilgrim’s Progress (Dover Thrift, 1678 / 2003), Book II, 268.
2. The shocking behavior of partisans during the Thirty Years War had in fact been anticipated two generations earlier by Montaigne, writing in midst of the French Wars of Religion, who noted that true repentance is a rare thing and that “I can find no quality so easy to counterfeit as devotion unless our morals and our lives are made to conform to it; its essence is hidden and secret: its external appearances are easy and ostentatious.” See Montaigne’s essay “Of repenting” (Frame translation).
3. Milton’s passionate prose defense of free speech, for which he sometimes paid dearly, was also influential on the future founders of the American republic.
4. In addition to Stephen, James, Peter, and Paul, specifically named in the text among the early martyr-saints are SS. Ignatius, Romanus, and Polycarp.
5. Bunyan, 226–227.
6. Hedging any direct Camino associations, Bunyan’s character Mr. Honest observes that Christiana’s son James should model himself after James the Just. No mention of James, son of Zebedee, is made until a few pages later. See Bunyan, 256.
7. Phoebe was the name of the “deaconess” praised and trusted by Saint Paul in the final chapter (16) of his New Testament letter to the Romans. Gaius was the name of Paul’s host from the same epistle. Interestingly, Romans includes Paul’s stated intention of visiting Spain because no Christian missionary had supposedly preceded him there (see Chapter 1).
8. For English Puritans, even a domestic pilgrimage to, say Canterbury, was considered frivolous and unnecessary in terms religious salvation.
9. The infamous Salem witch trials took place in 1692–1693, almost during the same time period in which the writings of Sor Juana Inés were coming under heavy criticism by the Spanish Inquisition.
10. The two knights of Santiago in question were Don Juan Camacho Gayna and Don Juan de Orue y Arbieto. See Sor Juana, or, the Traps of Faith, by Octavio Paz, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden (Harvard University Press, 1988), 431–432. Juana’s own personal badge was a ubiquitous medallion, seen in all her visual representations as a nun, portraying the Annunciation to the Virgin.
11. In 1633, Galileo had been forced by the Vatican and Inquisition to formally recant his scientific belief in the heliocentric theory of the earth’s orbit around the sun.
12. This site had been a convent since the late 16th century. Its expansion and beautification was completed during the late 17th century.
13. Many of Ribera’s Saint James portraits appear to use different models, thus adding a multifaceted visual sense to the legend.
14. As a parent, Rembrandt carefully ensured that several of his children were christened within the Dutch Reformed Church, the politically correct choice for that time and place. One can easily speculate that he did not want his children exposed to the same type of prejudice that he presumably had been as a noncommitted churchgoer.
15. The same approach applied to Rembrandt’s pagan mythological subjects.
16. Rembrandt’s painting of Saint James the Greater was reportedly auctioned for $25.8 million to a private collection by Sotheby’s in 2007. See “Rare Rembrandt Sells for $25.8 Million,” Associated Press for the Washington Post, January 25, 2007.
17. Another fine example of the genre from this period is the 1655 portrait by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682), a contemporary of Velázquez and Rembrandt.
18. To give a single small example, in Mexico, Sor Juana had enthusiastically corresponded on scientific matters with Isaac Newton (1643–1727), who considered her an intellectual peer. Soon afterwards, all of her writings were suppressed, whereas in England, Newton was not only tolerated but celebrated, despite holding unconventional religious beliefs that made many others uncomfortable.
1. John Adams autobiography, part 3, “Peace,” 1779–1780, sheet 11 of 18 [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
2. To this day, within the confines of the U.S. Great Lakes region, one can sometimes hear remnants of the French language being spoken on Native American reservations.
3. This was indeed the immediate cause of the American Revolution, as many American colonists proved unwilling to be taxed arbitrarily for being allegedly protected from the French by the British Empire during the Seven Years’ War.
4. Davis, though evidently a man of keen intelligence and reputed personal charm (for a pirate, at least), later became mentor for the more brutal Bartholomew Roberts (1682–1722), a fellow Welshman who succeeded his command after Davis was killed in an ambush set by Portuguese authorities.
5. By 1726, matador Francisco Romero is credited with establishing many of the stylistic forms still closely associated with bullfighting. Flamenco music and dance are first mentioned as a distinctive Spanish art form by José Cadalso in his Cantas Marruecas from 1774.
6. Santiago city later became part of the Philippine Province of Isabela, named after Queen Isabella II of Spain.
7. The Portuguese, French and English could make similar boasts, but on a less extensive scale.
8. Serra’s canonization by Pope Francis was not without controversy. Some argued that Serra was comparatively insensitive towards Native American cultures, while others disapprovingly noted his close collaboration with the Spanish Inquisition.
9. Santiago de Querétaro (today known as Qerétaro City), the largest municipality in this region of Mexico, was originally founded in 1531, the same year as the shrine at Our Lady of Guadalupe (see Chapter 11).
10. Father Serra founded nine California Franciscan missions during his lifetime, earning the nickname “Apostle of California.” He died at the Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel.
11. Serra was known to have favored the American Revolution as being anti–British and offering more freedom of religion for Roman Catholics.
12. Also known as the Mission Dolores, founded on June 30, 1776, five days before July 4, 1776. The landmark is part of the appropriately designated Mission District of San Francisco.
13. Despite his skepticism, Adams regretted never being able to see the shrine at Santiago de Compostela. See John Adams by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster, 2001), 229–231.
14. Franklin was particularly disdainful or mystified by Adams’ demeanor towards the French.
15. Charles III was the son of the Spanish Bourbon King Philip V, and the great-grandson of the French King Louis XIV. He had previous been the King of Naples and Sicily, but inherited the Spanish throne upon the death of his siblings.
16. For example, the magnificent Sabatini Gardens, located adjacent to the Royal Palace, still display the scallop shell symbols of Santiago pilgrims along portions of its gated perimeter.
17. Tiepolo’s The Immaculate Conception was originally painted for the newly-constructed Church of Saint Pascual in Aranjuez near Madrid.
18. In this late work, Tiepolo literally portrays the Virgin standing astride a globe, crushing a serpent (representing Satan) beneath her feet.
19. See Giambattista Tiepolo, 1696–1770, edited by Keith Christiansen (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) p. 231.
20. The Seven Years’ War broke out four years later in 1754.
1. The prologue to Section 27 begins: “Revelation given to Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Harmony, Pennsylvania, August 1830.” See Doctrine and Covenants, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Section 27: verses 5 & 12).
2. Almost immediately, Joseph Bonaparte was derisively nicknamed Pepe Botella (“Joe Bottle”) by his Spanish subjects for his alleged alcoholism, generally considered among Mediterranean peoples to be a moral weakness rather than a disease. The shortened moniker of “Pepe” for a royal personage named “Joseph” was particularly disrespectful.
3. Goya’s May 2, 1808 painting inverts the Santiago Matamoros image by having Spanish patriots on foot pulling Islamic Mamelukes off their white steeds, while on May 3, 1808 these same patriots become political martyrs (with blessings from a martyr-priest) at the hands of a French firing squad.
4. Other small Spanish churches from an earlier era, however, have managed to survive. Some of these include the Iglesia de Santiago Apóstol in Valladolid, and the Iglesia de Villa del Prado Santiago Apóstol in suburban Madrid, both dating from the late Reconquista era of the 15th century.
5. In hindsight, it is safe to say that neither of the Bonaparte brothers harbored sufficient sympathy or respect for the Spanish Santiago cult, since both were products of the Age of Enlightenment, in which worldly success and progress mainly depended on individual Reason (and talent) rather than religious Faith.
6. Also known as the so-called Diploma of King Ramiro I (see Chapter 6).
7. Kendrick, 170–171. Joseph Bonaparte had in fact been the first authority to officially abolish the tax, one of the few initiatives that were later kept by an independent Spanish government (see Kendrick, 168).
8. Kendrick, 171–178.
9. During the same period, Great Britain and the fledgling United States busied themselves by fighting the pointless War of 1812 to a stalemate. One notable action of that conflict occurred in 1814 near the harbor of Valparaíso, Chile, in which American the frigate USS Essex under the command of Captain David Porter was captured by the British.
10. Good artistic examples for both Santiago Mataespañoles and Santiago Mataindios may today be viewed in the Museo das Peregrinacions at Santiago de Compostela. Many of these are Peruvian in origin. For example, see http://museoperegrinacions.xunta.gal/es/santiago-mataespanoles.
11. At least two other Mexican towns have been named after Matamoros as well.
12. Matamoros has become nearly synonymous, both in good and bad ways, with the maquiladora business model promoted by the NAFTA treaty.
13. This was the curiously-named Port of Bagdad, no longer in existence. The place name may have derived from the arid climate and desolate landscape of the region, as well as the use of camels by Confederate supply trains.
14. This equates to approximately $500 million in 2017 dollars.
15. Grant emphasized that the Mexican army was not lacking in courage or patriotism. See Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (University of Nebraska Press, 1885/1996), 101–102 (Chapter V).
16. In perhaps the most bizarre episode of the Mexican War, mostly Irish-born Mexicans (some of them American army deserters) made a ferocious but futile stand against the U.S. army at Churubusco near Mexico City. One of the prominent leaders of that resistance was named Santiago O’Leary. Grant, an eyewitness, later noted that “…Churubusco proved to be about the severest battle fought in the valley of Mexico.” See Grant’s Memoirs, 88 (Chapter IV).
17. Like most historians of worth, Grant expressly and consistently maintained that the War between the States was a direct outgrowth of the Mexican War.
18. Thus, within the space of half a century, two French monarchs (Joseph Bonaparte and Napoleon III) alienated large Spanish-speaking countries. In the case of Bonaparte, it was Spain itself; for Napoleon III, Mexico, formerly New Spain.
19. It seems unlikely that Obregón ever viewed the Antrobus portrait of Grant, though this is unknown. The poses used in both paintings was common for military portraiture of that era.
20. The Antrobus portrait of Grant was sketched out in late 1863 after Federal victory at Chattanooga. Grant holds field glasses in his left hand while placing his right hand upon an artillery field piece.
1. The Song of the Cid (Raffel translation), 51.
2. The present-day adobe-style structure for St. James Episcopal Church was built in 1959. The other co-patron of Taos is Santa Anna (Saint Anne).
3. Also known as the Taos Revolt, comprised mainly of Pueblo Native Americans and long-time Hispanic residents.
4. The Parisian Camino initially travels in a southwesterly direction, then westward over the Pyrenees Mountains into northern Iberia.
5. Kendrick, 179.
6. During the Peninsular War of the early 19th century (see Chapter 16), neither the British nor the French showed much interest in the comparatively remote Santiago de Compostela, probably a fortunate development for the physical welfare of the shrine itself.
7. Starkie, 58–59.
8. Kendrick, 179–180. At this juncture, the Galician Santiago tradition came into direct contradiction with the Armenian Jerusalem tradition which had long claimed possession of similar relics.
9. Another factor likely working in favor of Santiago shrine defenders at this stage in history was that the highly unpopular Voto de Santiago, or Spanish national tax in support of the shrine, had been officially abolished by 1834 (see Chapter 16).
10. Kendrick, 180.
11. Kendrick, 216.
12. For an excellent overview, see “Marginalizing Spain at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893,” by M. Elizabeth Boone, in “Centering the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Art,” Nineteenth Century Studies (2011): 199–220.
13. The Battle of San Juan Hill was in fact mostly fought on the less glamorously named Kettle Hill, part of the San Juan Heights located in the eastern suburbs of Santiago de Cuba.
14. Roosevelt had resigned from a cabinet post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to risk his life in the Spanish-American conflict. After the American media glorified his exploits with the Rough Riders, within three years he progressed from Governor of New York and Vice President of the U.S., to finally President, after William McKinley was assassinated in 1901.
15. One of the more striking prototypes of this sculpture is today on display within the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.
16. The painting is today owned by the Art Institute of Chicago.
17. Lakota chief Little Big Man has been accused of being one of Crazy Horse’s last assailants. He is not to be confused with the fictional character of the same name from the 1964 novel by Thomas Berger and 1970 film by Arthur Penn (based on the novel).
18. Surely the most unusual representation in this regard is the ongoing (and controversial) Crazy Horse Memorial on Thunderhead Mountain in Custer County, South Dakota. While the actual memorial has made limited progress since its beginning in 1948, and may never be completed, the original model by Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski (1908–1982) is quite impressive. Crazy Horse is depicted on his white stallion pointing towards the burial grounds of the Lakota people. The monument was commissioned unilaterally by Henry Standing Bear (1874–1953) partly in response to the nearby Mount Rushmore project, which includes an image of Theodore Roosevelt.
19. The famous war cry of Crazy Horse was “It is a good day to die.”
20. The Lakota artist Black Hawk is not to be confused with the earlier Sauk military leader by the same name (1767–1832) who led Native American resistance against U.S. settlers in the Upper Midwest during the first half of the 19th century.
21. See American Indians: Celebrating the Voices, Traditions & Wisdom of Native Americans, published by the National Society for American Indian Elderly (Goldstreet Press, 2008), 202.
1. Lewis, C.S., The Pilgrim’s Regress (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1933/1981), 52.
2. The revolution finally ended in 1920 with the free election of Álvaro Obregón as Mexican President, after implementation of a new national constitution in 1917.
3. Fátima or Fatimah was the youngest daughter of the Prophet Mohammad and the wife of Ali. She is venerated throughout the Islamic world. The Portuguese village was more precisely named after an Iberian Muslim princess (who in turn was named after the daughter of the Prophet) who converted to Christianity either voluntarily or by force, depending on the source.
4. The two canonized children died shortly thereafter from a Spanish flu epidemic. The third child, Sister Lucia dos Santos, eventually took holy orders and lived until 2005, writing her memoirs during the interim.
5. The most recent film to portray the Armenian Genocide was The Promise (2016), which failed at the box office and received mixed reviews as drama, but high critical praise for its historical accuracy.
6. In many respects, the Armenian Genocide of World War I was a precursor to the even larger holocaust that would play out in Germany a generation later.
7. Zorro’s true surname “de la Vega” (“of the Valley” or “of the Meadow”) is suggestive of mountainous Galicia or Green Spain.
8. In addition to the 1920 silent film, Zorro has been the subject of numerous reinterpretations and sequels, including the 1940 remake starring Tyrone Power, and the 1998 version with Antonio Banderras.
9. Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende has recently updated the same theme with her novel Zorro (2005). In this version, the hero’s Spanish mentor is Santiago de León, captain of the Madre de Dios (“Mother of God”), but more of a secularized free-thinker and member of a secret society otherwise reminiscent of the historical Order of Saint James.
10. The post–World War I era was politically dominated by, among other things, the women’s rights movement, both in Europe and America. For example, in 1929, Ecuador became the first Latin American country to legally adopt woman’s suffrage.
11. The designer was the Polish-French sculptor Paul Landowski.
12. The Spanish Civil War was the first major conflict in which the horrors of modern aerial bombardment were introduced by Nazi-armed Nationalist forces, powerfully immortalized by the artist Pablo Picasso in his sprawling work Guernica (1937), today on view at the Museo Reina Sophia in Madrid.
13. Some historians have plausibly argued that the Spanish Nationalist counterrevolution of 1936 was largely a reaction against prominent Communist and anti–Catholic elements among Spanish Republicans. It is certainly true that Spanish Republicans underestimated the power of its own native religious cults, as well as being too anti–Catholic in general to achieve widespread populist support.
14. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), the Battle of Mérida was fought in a region of Spain (Extremadura) which had produced many conquistadors during the Age of Discovery (see Chapter 11).
15. Starkie, 57.
16. The historical origins of the Spanish Legion go back centuries to the time of the Holy Roman Empire, but the modern unit was formally organized in 1920. By the time of the civil war outbreak, it had routinely seen action in North Africa, and was the most battle-seasoned corps in all of Iberia. Many of its recruits were from northern Spain. During Franco’s lifetime, it was his personal regiment, for all practice purposes. To view them on parade, for example, annually on Spanish Columbus Day (October 12) in Madrid, is indeed an impressive spectacle.
17. Astonishingly, after the war Franco commissioned a mural painting by Arturo Reque Meruvia, still on display at the Military Historical Archives in Madrid, titled Alegoría de Franco y la Cruzada (1948–1949). It literally depicts Franco as a Reconquista knight in shining armor, with an all-white Santiago Matamoros riding through the skies above him.
18. Bishop Lartigue was a member of the Sulpician order (the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice), who supplanted the Canadian Jesuits in prominence after the latter’s general suppression during the 18th century. In this respect, French Sulpicians were akin to the Spanish Franciscans of Latin America.
19. The new cathedral became, in some respects, a symbol of French-speaking Canadian nationalism. It has been designated a national historic site. Also located in central Montreal are two historic Protestant churches named after Saint James the Greater, the Anglican Church of Saint James the Apostle (today known as St. Jax Montréal), and St. James United Church (originally Methodist), both built during the late 1800s and both situated along the Rue Sainte-Catherine.
20. On a personal note, the author’s grandmother, Sicilian-born Frances Coletti Farina (1888–1958) was also a lifelong devotee of Saint Joseph.
21. The Charlier sculpture of Saint Jacques at Saint Joseph’s Oratory is highly unusual in that it combines the imagery of Santiago Matamoros (a sword) with that of a pilgrim (a scallop shell).
22. See Matthew 4:21–22; Mark 1:19–20; and Luke 5:10.
23. Basaiti may have been influenced as well by Andreas Mantegna’s depiction of the same event from his Life of St. James cycle at the Overtari Chapel in Pauda, painted during the mid–15th century but since destroyed during World War II (see Chapter 19).
1. Kendrick, 14.
2. This new international image was reflected in 1945 when poetess Gabriela Mistral, aka Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga (1889–1957), became the first Latin American awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. Though a Chilean by birth, with many Chilean landmarks now named after her (including within the capital city of Santiago), Mistral was in fact a well-travelled exile for most of her adult life, finally living and dying in the United States, and always a strong proponent of non-violent conflict resolution.
3. Before her death, Perón was awarded the honorary title “Spiritual Leader of the Nation.” The controversies and adoration surrounding her subsequent entombment are worthy to the traditions of most Christian saints, including Saint James the Greater.
4. Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice was produced in 1976; the major motion picture based on the musical and starring (an appropriately named) Madonna, was released in 1996.
5. For one example, see the section on “Latin America” from the Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity by John McManners (Oxford University Press, 2001).
6. Coming of age in Buenos Aires during the Perón years of the 1940s and 1950s was a young Jorge Mario Bergoglio (b. 1936), later becoming Pope Francis I. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/you-cant-understand-pope-francis-without-juan-peron—and-evita/2015/08/01/d71e6fa4–2fd0–11e5-a879–213078d03dd3_story.html?utm_term=.006a88b59281.
7. Some of these include St. James Episcopal Church in Waimea, and Saint James the Fisherman Episcopal Church in Kodiak.
8. Speculative motivations for the subsequent 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy have sometimes, with a degree of plausibility, been tied to prior events in Cuba, either originating with Castro, his opponents, or both. The question falls outside the scope of this study; however, the chaotic political violence of the era did evoke medieval Spain. For example, two years before the Kennedy assassination, the film El Cid dramatizes the assassination of Spanish King Sancho II (of Castile and León) in 1072.
9. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were, according to most sources, killed by government authorities in Bolivia circa 1908, an event romanticized in the 1969 film by George Roy Hill.
10. Troubles in Nicaragua reacting to foreign interference dated back to 1956 when the unpopular U.S.–supported dictator Anastasio Somoza had been assassinated.
11. One indicator of the new public mood was the 1986 Roland Jaffé anti–imperialist film The Mission, which won an Oscar for best cinematography.
12. The cycle was situated along the northern wall of the Ovetari Chapel, and was likely painted in its entirety by Mantegna.
13. Problems also included artistic differences between Mantegna and other painters, with Mantegna completing more of the work than originally planned. Between 1451 and 1453 (the year of Ottoman conquest), no work was completed due to funding shortages.
14. Mantegna’s work may today be viewed at the National Gallery in London.
15. The exact sequence of events as related by Voragine is somewhat confusing. The healing miracle was said to have occurred as James was being led to execution, but the conversion and condemnation of Josias is presented as a rather drawn-out affair on its own, before he is martyred along with James.
16. Compare, for example, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta’s Martyrdom of St. James from 1722, in which Josias before his conversion is portrayed as a brutish lout (see Chapter 7).
1. Codex Calixtinus, Book V (Pilgrim’s Guide), Chapter IX, Translated by Denis Murphy (2011). See https://sites.google.com/site/caminodesantiagoproject/.
2. Witness, for example, Ridley Scott’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and John Glen’s Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992).
3. As of this writing in mid–2017, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, another highly important event in human history, seems to be receiving far more favorable reception.
4. Father Rother is scheduled to be beatified (quite appropriately) by Pope Francis I before the end of 2017.
5. This writer and his wife had the privilege of seeing the original ensemble perform at the Chicago Theater during its first international tour.
6. As reported by (among others) the Washington Post on October 7, 2001.
7. In a curious diplomatic tightwire act, Colombia officially supported the U.S. but declined to send troops.
8. The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp is located to the immediate southeast of the highly symbolic city of Santiago de Cuba.
9. The Latin American trend of increased friendliness towards the PRC had in some respects begun in 1998, when self-described Marxist Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela. This election inaugurated the so-called marea rosa (“pink tide”) in Latin American politics.
10. By 2010, Ciudad Juárez on the Mexican-U.S. border had become the world’s leading city for violent crime per capita, although that rate began to decline immediately thereafter.
11. For one account of the heist, see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/9376658/Stolen-Codex-Calixtinus-recovered-in-Spain.html.
12. See https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/1107/In-Spain-Pope-Benedict-XVI-lambasts-aggressive-secularism.
13. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/sep/21/pope-francis-in-cuba-pontiff-to-hold-mass-in-holguins-revolution-square-live.
14. Pope Francis is often credited with helping to continue the thaw of formal relations between Cuba and the United States.
15. All of the statues at St. John Lateran were personally commissioned by Pope Clement XI, and designed to fill the 12 interior porticos of the recently built structure, designed by Francesco Borromini.
16. Mantegna’s mural showed Saint James the Greater as evangelist directly engaging demons in debate from the pulpit while other bystanders in the audience flee or hide in terror.
17. Today it is generally accepted that the Letter of James was written as a pseudonym for James the Just, Bishop of Jerusalem, sometimes equated with the apostle Saint James the Lesser.
18. Not by coincidence had these two nations been the same ones in which laissez-faire capitalism had been most aggressively promoted since the Industrial Revolution.
1. Taken from Santayana’s The Life of Reason, written in 1905–1906. The proverb is still displayed at Auschwitz in Poland.
2. Conversely, those most damaged by the recent Great Recession—representing the overwhelming majority—had never fully recovered from its adverse effects.
3. De facto German leadership of the E.U. was widely apparent long before Great Britain’s “Brexit” vote to leave the Union on June 23, 2016.
4. The Jerusalem Armenians are neither ethnic Arabs nor Muslims, yet the conflation of the two groups persists because of their longstanding ties in government, business, and general coexistence.
5. Prior to his 2010 visit to Santiago de Compostela, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem (on May 15, 2009), attempting to promote Christian unity and draw attention to the plight of the Armenian community there.
6. The recently established Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) held annual summits in 2014 at Santiago de Guayaquil in Ecuador, and in 2008 (its first) at Santiago, Chile (see Chapter 20).
7. See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spanish-city-badalona-hispanic-day-holiday-genocide-christopher-columbus-a7355481.html.
8. As this is being written, the city of Barcelona has suffered a lethal terrorist attack from Islamic extremists, despite its historically mild political views on Spanish nationalism. Thus, Spain continues to be the object of violence for perceived misdeeds committed during an earlier millennium.
9. The blatant anti–Mexican rhetoric of real estate developer and reality talk show host Donald Trump seemed to initially propel the then-candidate past his numerous Republican Primary rivals.
10. The devastating electoral loss of the Clinton campaign most certainly failed to address this anxiety, rooted largely in voter economic insecurity, thus taking political incompetence to new and greater heights.
11. For example, commercial relations between the U.S. and Cuba continue to move slowly towards normalization, notwithstanding recent election results. As if to punctuate the beginning of a new era, the death of Fidel Castro at Santiago de Cuba on November 25 signaled the end of the old contentious regime, at least in terms of the Cuban Revolution’s most prominent figure.
12. The complex causes of these phenomena are completely beyond the scope of this study; however, plausible (and widely cited factors) include general decline of the public education system, allowed disregard of the news media for fairness and accuracy in reporting, and growing hysteria over economic downsizing of the American middle class and concentration of wealth.
13. Part III of Santayana’s The Life of Reason is titled Reason in Religion. The philosopher dwells at length at the perceived conflicts between religion and science, but finds the two surprisingly compatible.
14. See http://dali.exhibits.wag.ca/shows/display,artwork/106/santiago-el-grande.
15. Similar in this respect to the depiction of Santiago Matamoros in the Salamanca Codex Calixtinus (see Introduction).
16. The work was in fact seen on display at the St. Petersburg Dalí Museum in late 2014. See http://thedali.org/exhibit/santiago-el-grande-2/.
17. To the right of the saint (and his supernatural steed) are what appear to be multiple images of the Madonna and Child ascending to heaven, recalling the Pillar tradition of nearby Zaragoza (see Chapter 2), a tradition near and dear to Dalí’s native Catalonia as well.
18. Dante never specifically names Saint James the Greater, but clearly identifies him as the church father who attracts pilgrims to Galicia in Spain. For one English translation of the Paradiso, see Mark Musa (Penguin Classics, 1984/1986).
19. Dante had been banished from Florence as a political supporter of the papacy, versus its then opposition, the Holy Roman Empire, with which the ascendant Florentine party was aligned.
1. New Jerusalem Bible, 1642. See also Mark 10:35.
2. The phrase “post–truth society” has gained increasing usage during the new century since the Second Iraq War and widely circulated claims regarding weapons of mass destruction. The origins of the idea, at least in modern times, are traceable to the mid–20th century literary works of British novelist George Orwell.
3. The first American saint in the strict historical sense, or rather, Native American saint, was Juan Diego, original witness to the Marian vision at Guadalupe during the early 16th century (see Chapter 11).
4. Mother Cabrini has since been recognized as the patron saint of all immigrants, a fitting and highly relevant status for our own times. Her Feast Day is November 13.
5. The Chicago National Shrine for Mother Cabrini is located on the site of the former Columbus Hospital, originally founded by Cabrini and where she herself died in 1917. The author’s cousin Philip Farina (see Acknowledgements) was born at Columbus Hospital.
6. Cabrini’s life and work closely paralleled the author’s own immigrant family history, my father’s ancestors coming to Chicago from Sicily around the same period.
7. Another site closely affiliated with Cabrini’s legacy is Assumption Catholic Church at 323 West Illinois Street in Chicago, built in 1886 and whose school was staffed by Cabrini’s religious order, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. See http://assumption-chgo.org/WA.asp?dseq=10. The author’s father was baptized at this church in 1916 (the year before Cabrini’s death), and the public funeral service of his father’s first cousin, noted actor Dennis Farina, was held here in 2013. Though having no overt connections to Saint James the Greater, the proto-apostle-martyr of Jerusalem is artisticly portrayed several times within the church interior, as is Mother Cabrini (in stained glass).
8. Despite her fragile health, Cabrini is said to have made over 20 trans-Atlantic voyages during a lifetime that predated long-distance commercial aviation.
9. Evanston, Illinois, especially showcases numerous merchants of Armenian textiles, an ancient but still-thriving commercial art form locally dominated by immigrants and descendants of immigrants from that distant part of the world. Disclosure: Evanston is also the longtime abode of the author.
10. Saint James of Nisibis (d. 338) became Armenian Bishop of his namesake city during the early fourth century, having survived the great persecutions of Christians by Roman authorities of the preceding decades. James was reputedly a cousin of Saint Gregory the Illuminator (see Chapter 1), and his presence is documented at the historic First Council of Nicaea held in 325 CE, where he was noted as an eloquent proponent of Christian orthodoxy in the face of the Arian heresy.
11. The city of Nisibis (after which the later Armenian Saint James took his name) is today located in modern-day southeastern Turkey.
12. If choosing to fly Air France to Madrid or some other closer walking distance to Santiago de Compostela, one might easily encounter promotional videos of models wearing the classic “St. James” striped shirt, popularized long ago by the artist Pablo Picasso, and manufactured in the French Normandy town known by the same name, so designated long ago, according to tradition, by William the Conqueror.
13. Recent debate over U.S. immigration policy represents only one facet of this complex problem. For instance, there can be little denying that the American economy depends heavily upon cheap, unregulated, and typically illegal immigrant labor, especially in the agricultural sector.
14. A statue of the Polish-born Pope John Paul II stands in front of the cathedral, as well as his own shrine in the lower-level crypt. He was canonized in 2014 by his protégé Pope Francis I.
15. Kendrick, 172–173.
16. The Venetian attitude towards Spain was highly ambivalent at best. Though formally aligned in religion, Spain’s economic and political rise had come at the expense of Venice. Spain’s agent Christopher Columbus hailed from Genoa, the traditional enemy of the Venetian Republic and much more conservative in temperament. Generally hostile towards the Inquisition, Venice had built its empire by looking east, while Spain now looked west for expansion. Consequently, Venetian artists tended to be far less impressed with the legend of Saint James the Greater as a military protector.
17. The follow-up to this memorable incident in Matthew is a beautiful sermon by Jesus on the importance of humility through sacrifice and service to fellow human beings. “…anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave.” (Matthew 20:26–28)