The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

looked himself like the incarnation of one of the ancient jongleurs from the Toulousain, with his tanned face, Cyrano nose and his iron grey beard, declaimed with great emphasis the Latin poem written in 1199-1215 in praise of the hospital at Roncesvalles and its welcome to pilgrims:

    Porta patet omnibus, infirmis et sanis
    Non solum Catholicis verum et paganis
    Judeis, hereticis, otiosis, vanis,
    Et, ut dicam breviter, bonis et profanis....

    ‘The door is open to all, to sick and healthy, not only to Catholics, but also to pagans, Jews, heretics and vagabonds.... In tins House they wash the men’s feet, they cut their hair. In fact it would take too long to relate all that is done for them. If you saw them repairing the footwear of the poor pilgrims you would give praise to God, and even the mere telling of the benefits given by this House would make you love it all the more. There is always someone at the door giving bread to those that pass and he has no other duty but this, except to beg God to give many blessings to Roncesvalles. Here too, they take great care of those who fall sick and they give them the choicest products of the fields... and beautiful and virtuous ladies undertake the duties of nursing and do it with great charity’. *
    “That was in the twelfth century,” said one of the young pilgrims, evidently a university student, “but don’t forget the tribute paid to the hostel at Roncesvalles in the eighteenth century by our fellow-countryman, Manier, le paysan Picard. He says he was received with a good fire in his room which was most welcome, and a beauteous damsel with her hair done in long tresses served him some soup, black bread, meat, and two or three glasses of wine, and he stayed there the allotted three days.”
    Vous me faites venir l’eau á la bouche, Jean,” said the Professor.
    Where can we eat?”
    You are not living in the eighteenth century, alas, Monsieur,” said I, “and you won’t find hostels and hospitals where you are fed pour I amour de Dieu. I can, however, lead you to a cosy tavern where you will eat cheaply and plentifully.”
    My French pilgrims were delighted at the prospect of food, but one of them with spectacles and the abstracted air of a ratón de biblioteca, said firmly: “Monsieur le professeur, we have not yet seen the remains of the old church of San Cernin, which had such close connexion with Toulouse and our St. Sernin.”
    “Ah, how right you are to remind me, Marcel: you are the only serious student among all of us. We must study the church and the question of San Cernin, for there we shall see l’épanouissement du Moyen Age, when the King of Navarre, Sancho el Mayor, introduced the reform of Cluny into Spain. Let us, first of all, examine the north door with its porch, where we shall see our St. Saturnin standing on the bull that dragged him to his martyrdom and nearby the statue of St. James in long gown with wallet, staff and as well, a raincoat which none of us had the intelligence to bring, though two of us are Normands and come from ‘le pot de chambre de la France’.”
    My heart sank as I saw the Professor making ready to spring astride his architectural hobby horse, and I saw dinner receding into the background. I followed mechanically the Professor and his student pilgrims, listening, as the Spaniards say, como si oyera llover (as I would listen to the rain falling) as he explained how St. Cernin was the oldest Gothic church in Navarre and was of the second half of the thirteenth century and how the old cathedral had been planned by Sancho the Great of Navarre and was built by Bishop Peter of Roda, but had collapsed in 1391, and how the new cathedral was begun by a French Bishop and was southern French in style....
    I became so weary after a while that I slipped away to examine the figure of St. James dressed in a raincoat, which stands in front of the porch in San Cernin. The face of the Saint is a miracle of gentleness and benevolence. At his feet a boy is kneeling looking up imploringly at the Saint’s extended hand. I was so puzzled by the figure of the boy that I asked an old priest who was hobbling into the church to explain its significance. The old priest said quietly: “The boy has every reason to pray, for the Saint has saved his life. He had come on a pilgrimage with his father and mother, but the innkeeper accused him of stealing one of his silver cups and he was hanged for theft, and when the father returns from