Once upon a time there was Saint-Jacques ....

The pilgrimage of Saint-Jacques of Compostelle during the middle ages is thought of amongst the three great pilgrimages that all good Christians should complete.  There was Rome and the contemplation of the tombs of Peter and Paul, Jerusalem and the Saint-Sepulchre, and then at the extreme west European appeared Compostelle.

Four routes lead to Saint-Jacques from Compostelle. Amongst them: the via Piodensis which crosses the Aveyron. We can often qualify it as the route of Bourguignons and Teutons.

The pilgrimage of Saint-Jacques began at the discovery about the year 800 of the sepulchre of Saint-Jacques, brother of Saint-Jean and great martyr of Christianity.

Saint-Jacques should have had a mission to preach the word of Christ in the Iberian Peninsula.  Coming back from Palestine, he was beheaded by order of the Jewish King Herode Agrippa.  His body was given as fodder for dogs.  Reclaimed by his friends, his remains were carried in a small boat.  Guided by an angel, it crossed Gibraltar, and then later stopped on the Galice coast.

Towards 800, the hermit Pelagius had a dream of the whereabouts of the tomb of Saint-Jacques.  A star guided him to a field, where he found the tomb; it's the field of the star, the "campus stellae" which leads to Compostelle.  The newly celebrated King Alphonse II thus constructed a church. Very soon afterwards arrived the first pilgrims.

The greats of the era didn't remain indifferent to the new place.  After the Bishop of Puy, Godescalac, it was the turn of Raymond II, Count of Rouergue to take the route of Compostelle. Alas!! The Saracens killed him on route.

Moreover, he seized the Sanctuary in 997 quickly retaken by the Christians. Compostelle thus became on of the symbols of the Reconquista, this multisecular battle to get Spain out of Islam.  Saint-Jacques took the surname of "matamore", the killer of Maures.

In the same way as the crusades, Compostelle attracted gallant knights come to fight with the infidel and obtain pardon for their sins.