History of the Camino and Pilgrimage

"When we first trekked to Compostela in 1974 we did not meet even one other pilgrim on the Road."
Isn't that a very promising start for a book about the Camino*.
I was in Galicia myself in 1992, and walked from Sarria backwards to the monastery of Samos. Don't remember having met any other people on the road. And...I could just touch the famous statue in the cathedral...
In 1986 2.500 people walked the Camino, in 1996 23.000, in 2006 about 100.000 (and even more in the roman catholic Holy Years, like 1999 and 2004). So the growth went very fast!
A way to describe Pilgrimage is 'leaving ordinary life to seek for mental health.' It might have a religious meaning, but that's not a condition of course. Making a pilgrimage journey is an essential character of all world religions. Goethe wrote in the 18. Century that the camino (he meant all pilgrimsways) made Europe for what it is.
Since the end of the 20. Century there is a great revival in Pilgrimage, and the Camino de Santiago is the most important representative of this phenomenon. But the roots are old, very old.

It is so fascinating to realize that in some periods of European history more than ten percent of the European male population was involved in pilgrimage. As a pilgrim, of course, but also in the large trade it attracted. Some of the pilgrims were female.
Not everybody was always in a spiritual mood: prostitution florished along the Camino, too.
The numerous hospitiums you will notice along the Camino symbolize how hard travelling has been in the Middle Ages. Of course, a lot of people went on a pilgrimage already ill, because they sought for cure by doing this. But also lots of pilgrims were robbed and beaten up along the Camino.
Most people were travelling for one or two years. And most of the time they had to walk back, to.


So you will step into a rich and ancient heritage on the road.





* The pilgrimage road to Santiago, by David Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson.
Another source is: Pelgrimage. Een spirituele reis (Pilgrimage. A spiritual and Cultural Journey) by Ian Bradley (2009). Not entirely my kind of book, but it contains some very interesting ideas and facts.