The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

built. Later on in the ninth century Charlemagne, on his return from his Spanish expeditions, presented no less than six bodies of the Apostles, according to an ancient Latin distich:

    Sex vehit hie rediens Hispanis ab oris
    Carlos apostolici corpora sancta gregis.

    This number was even increased to eight, and among them they included also that of St. James and, as we have seen earlier, Dr. Andrew Boorde when he arrived as a pilgrim in Compostella was told by the cleric who shrived him that there was not one ear nor bone of St. James in Compostella, for St. James the Great and St. James the Less and all the other saints had been taken to Toulouse by Charlemagne.
    When I descended to the lower crypt to pray at the foot of the caskets containing the relics I found a group of men and women who were making the pilgrimage to Compostella. Near each casket was a printed history of the Saints or Apostles which made fascinating reading, owing to the macabre details of their sufferings and their miracles recorded in the laconic emotionless style of a doctor’s case-book.
    The printed history of St. James the Great described his apostolate in Spain, his return to Jerusalem, his martyrdom, the journey of his body to Spain and the discovery of his tomb and relics, but added at the end: ‘L’Empereur Charlemagne, ayant obtenu la plus grande partie en fit présent à la Basilique de St. Sernin’. I was disappointed with the comments on St. James the Less, for there was no mention of his commemoration together with St. Philip, the Apostle, on May 1, old May Day, and yet the two saints are near neighbours in the crypt of St. Sernin. The two saints are coupled together in the Lectionary of St. Jerome and in the Sacramentary of Gregory, as in the Roman and Anglican Liturgies. * The body of St. James the Less lies here, in the crypt, but, as has been mentioned, his head was presented in 1116 by the temperamental Queen Urraca, daughter of Alfonso VI King of Castile and León, to the great Diego Gelmirez, Bishop of Compostella. Be all that as it may, today in rainy Toulouse I am saying two decades of the Rosary in propitiation of St. James the Less and St. Philip the patrons of the fullness of the springtide with sunshine flowers and games and dancing.
    The comments on the pieces of the true Cross, which St. Helena the mother of the Emperor Constantine had the consolation of discovering, described how the pieces had been distributed all over the world but ended with the following naïve phrase: ‘Their authenticity was again proved in the procès verbal officiel of 1807.’
    The two saints who intrigued me most in the crypt were St. Gilbert (1184-90) and St. Edmund, King of England. The former, according to the printed comment by the casket, came from Lincolnshire and founded the confraternity of the ‘Gilbertins’ and became Abbot. He was persecuted by Henry II Plantagenet because of his defence of St. Thomas of Canterbury. St. Edmund King of England was martyrized by the Danes in 870, and his last words according to the commentary were: ‘Ma religion m’est plus chère que la vie; jamais je ne consentirai à offenser Dieu que j’adore.’ His relies and those of St. Gilbert were brought from England to France by King Louis VIII, who gave them to the canons of the Cathedral of St. Sernin in return for their hospitality during the siege, which he carried out against the Albigensian heretics in Toulouse. How the sinister Albigensian war even today dogs the pilgrim along the Road of St. James!
    It gave me a genuine feeling of patriotic pride to read of these two English saints and my prayers to both of them were fervent. They still show their gratitude to Toulouse and the Entente Cordiale by miracles from time to time; as for instance in 1631, when Toulouse was delivered from the plague by the intercession of St. Edmund, King of England. Charlemagne had such good relations with all countries, Christian and infidel, owing to his power that he was continually receiving relics as gifts, and in those early mediaeval days relics were many times more valuable as assets than tribute or war indemnities.
    I was surprised to find most of the pilgrims kneeling before the casket containing the remains of St. Jude the Apostle, who, moreover, unlike most of his fellow saints, was surrounded by ex votos, or plaques of white marble with lettering in gold, giving the name of the petitioner (many of whom went back to the eighties of the last