The Camino de Santiago Background Since the 9 th century, the city of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain has been a pilgrimage destination. Tradition has it that the remains of the apostle St. James the Elder are buried there. Along with Rome and Jerusalem, Santiago became one of the three most important medieval Christian pilgrimage sites. When the age of pilgrimage waned in the 15 th and 16 th centuries, the Camino de Santiago entered a period of decline that lasted for hundreds of years. But it has always maintained a presence in the European imagination, and beginning in the 1980s the pilgrimage has made a dramatic comeback. The renaissance of the modern Camino de Santiago emerged from a grass-roots movement in the early and mid 1980s, led by a group of parish priests and local enthusiasts. They began marking the first and most famous of the many routes to Santiago, the Camino Francés, which crosses the north of Spain from the French border 800 kilometers to Santiago. In 1987 they formed the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino, which is today the Camino’s primary support institution in Spain. Two European institutions then lent support: the Council of Europe declared the Camino Francés the First European Cultural Route in 1987, and UNESCO granted World Heritage status first to the Camino Francés in 1993, and then to selected sites on the four principal Camino routes in France in 1998. While the Catholic Church has always recognized and welcomed pilgrims to Santiago, it became a supporter of the walking pilgrimage at this time as well. The regional government of Galicia, where the city of Santiago is located, has also supported the walking pilgrimage since the early 1990s, when it created an agency, the Xacobeo, to promote the Camino de Santiago around the world. In 1972, the Pilgrims Office of the Cathedral of Santiago recorded a total of 67 pilgrims who walked to Santiago. In 1980 that number had increased to 209; in 1990 to 4918, and in the year 2000 to 55,044. Last year, more than 216,000 walking pilgrims registered at the Pilgrims Office. In Holy Years, when the July 25 Feast of Saint James falls on a Sunday, numbers typically increase 50% over the previous year. The surge in numbers of pilgrims has begun to push the Camino into mainstream culture in Europe and in the Americas. In recent years, numerous books about the pilgrimage, both fiction and nonfiction, have been published. These include walking guides, personal memoirs, and novels. Among the more famous authors are German comedian Hans Peter Kerkeling, Portuguese writer Paulo Coelho, and our very own Shirley MacLaine. (I have always thought that these books by these authors, while well known, are more about the author than about the Camino.) In addition, several Spanish, French, and American films have highlighted the pilgrimage; two of the best are Coline Serreau’s Saint- Jacques … La Mecque and The Way by Emilio Estevez with Martin Sheen. (In November, an outstanding documentary about the Camino will be available on DVD. Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago , by Lydia Smith, is the best film that I have seen about walking the Camino today. (Visit the website at http://caminodocumentary.org/.) Although there are many marked pilgrimage routes to Santiago, stretching across Spain, France, and the rest of Europe, most pilgrims begin their walk in Spain. The Camino Francés continues to be the most popular route. In 2013, more than 151,700 people walked on the Camino Francés, accounting for 70% of the pilgrims registered at the Pilgrims Office in Santiago. Other well known routes in Spain are the Camino Portugués (29,500; 13.7%), the Camino del Norte (13,400; 6.2%), the Vía de la Plata (9000; 4.2%), and the Camino Primitivo (6800; 3.2%); other routes combined saw approximately 5200 pilgrims (2.4%). Support Groups and Organizations The big-name institutions associated with the Camino generally do not directly support or care for the infrastructure. The Spanish or French national governments, the Church, UNESCO, and the Council
of Europe, while generous with words, do not (normally) lend material or financial support. Local and regional organizations do, as do several umbrella institutions of local organizations. In Spain, the principal umbrella organization is the Federación Española de Asociaciones de Amigos del Camino de Santiago. Its goals include providing support and information to pilgrims; training and organizing volunteer hospitaleros; collaborating with local institutions (parishes, municipalities, etc.) in the creation and operation of places to welcome and to lodge pilgrims; advocating for the defense, conservation, and development of the historical and cultural heritage of the Camino; promoting cultural activities, conferences, trips and pilgrimages in collaboration with associations; and publishing the magazine Revista Peregrina (since 1987). The real work of caring for the physical trail falls to the local organizations, which may be municipal, parroquial, or an association. These organizations undertake the recovery, conversion, and construction of pilgrim albergues ; they provide volunteers to care for the albergues; and they keep the walking path well marked and in good condition. International organizations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago exist in nearly every country in Europe, as well as in the Americas, South Africa, even Korea and Japan. Three of these international organizations that are particularly accessible to us are the English Confraternity of Saint James, the Canadian Company of Pilgrims, and our own American Pilgrims on the Camino. Camino Lodging One of the characteristic features of the pilgrimage to Santiago in Spain is the donation-based pilgrim’s refuge, or albergue . Since the beginning of the renaissance of the modern Camino in the mid 1980s and the founding of the Federación in 1987, this has been the ideal: a safe overnight shelter, basic but functional, with bunks, toilets, showers, maybe a cooking area, usually a common area, that operates on the basis of donations or contributions, and is overseen by volunteer hospitaleros . Unfortunately the number of albergues that rely on donations has declined in recent years. Most now charge a modest sum of 5 to 8 euros, or 7 to 11 dollars. The volunteer hospitalero is the key to the public albergue system. The Federación sponsors training workshops in Spain, as do several international associations in other countries, including American Pilgrims in the United States. The job of the hospitalero is multi-faceted. The most important duty is to serve as host to a steady stream of pilgrims. Hospitaleros provide a warm welcome to all arriving pilgrims; sometimes converse, sometimes listen, and typically serve as a resource for practical information; at some albergues, organize or prepare a community evening meal for a full house of hungry pilgrims; see pilgrims off in the morning, perhaps after a basic breakfast; keep the albergue clean; keep the albergue maintained — ordering propane, buying food and supplies, doing the accounting — as if they were running a small business maintain good relations between the albergue and the town or neighborhood. Veteran hospitaleros agree that the 15 days of service are one of the most intense, and intensely gratifying, experiences of their life. With the explosion of popularity of the Camino, the last ten years have seen a tremendous increase in the number of private albergues. These generally charge from 10 to 15 euros, or 13 to 20 dollars, but they usually deliver a greater level of comfort than the public albergues. There seems to be a distinction between the private albergues owned and run by people interested in providing a service to pilgrims, and those run simply for profit; this distinction may, however, reside more in attitude and atmosphere than in the quality of the facilities or services. In addition to public and private albergues, larger towns and cities usually also have hotels or pensions.
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