caminka
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As I was in Santiago a day before my birthday this year, I was looking for a fitting gift for myself. In the cathedral's shop I saw this book by Julio Vázquez Castro called La peregrinación a Santiago de Diego de Guzmán, Diario inédito de 1610, published by alvarellos and xunta. Oh? I thought, and looked inside. It was a professional transcription with an accompanying historic analysis and study. It even wasn't that expensive. Et voila!, I found my present.
The book was posted home because I had more camino plans to fulfill first, but it was one of the first things I picked up when I got home, I was so excited. (The book on academia.edu and a review.)
The excitement was a bit tarnished when I started to read the actual transcription. Diego de Guzman was a royal chaplain in the service of Felipe III and Margarita of Austria and he made a pilgrimage in the king's and queen's names in the Holy Year of 1610. The royal couple planned to go themselves but the queen was having health issues after a recent birth (she died next year in her eighth childbirth) and they decided to abandon the journey. With such high and important position, Diego and his entourage were received everywhere by high dignitaries and catered to in rich homes. He enumerates these more often then describing the actual journey, but there are some interesting tidbits about towns and observations that perhaps point to his personal interest in art. He is also very detailed about the Santiago's cathedral, its masses and ceremonies and in describing the gifts the queen and king sent. He gives the second oldest known description of how the botafumeiro was operated, for example (the oldest one is from Hieronymus Münzer from 1494).
The really interesting part was his return journey - the entourage took Camino de Invierno all the way from Santiago to Ponferrada. This was in fact the first account of a pilgrim I came across that travelled the whole of Camino de Invierno and that (at least partially) describes it.
It is on fol. 47v - 48r, p. 188 - 195 of the book. Here is the translation. A league is 15,000 feet or 4.1795 km.
Monday 11 [October]. We said the mass in the church and at nine left to have lunch in la Bega [possibly Vedra], three leagues from Santiago, in an orchard owned by the council, where we were accompanied by the archbishop, his steward and his maestrasala. We left to dine in Chapa [Silleda], another three leagues, jurisdiction of the said archbishop, where he also gave us diner.
Tuesday 12. We went to eat, in four leagues, to a place belonging to the count of Lemos, where we were hosted by a mayor of this town [possibly Lalín], and then we went for four more leagues from there to a benedictine priory called Chantada. This is a place owned by the marquis of Astorga and in it is the benedictine convent where there are usually three monks, and they have a church, a cloister and a fine house, and they belong to [the monastery of] San Benito el Real de Valladolid. We arrived before a great deluge in the middle of the night.
Wednesday 13. We left Chantada after having heard mass and crossed puente de Belasar [the bridge of Belesar], so called because they say it was built by a roman commander named Belisario. This is a very rocky route and the incline is one of the worst in Spain; under the bridge flows river Mino. We arrived for lunch four leageus from Chantada to Monforte de Lemus, a town on a hill and entered from a plain, which has a castle and stone houses, all encircled by a wall, belonging to the count of Lemos. Inside the town is a very old monastery of the benedictine order, and another of the franciscans is outside of the town, there is a college of the Society [de la Compania, colexio de Nosa Senora de Antiga], a famous building founded by don Rodrigo de Castro, archbishop of Seville, and where theology, arts and grammar are tought to read and write, they said it has eight tousand ducats [worth of rent]. I lodged in the count's palace and dined there.
Thursday 14. We went to say mass in the said college of the Society where they made us a dialogue and a dance, and we ate lunch, waiting for the bishop of Lugo who wished to visit me. We left at noon for Balle de Quiroga, five leagues of poor routes and inclines. We arrived at night to the houses called after this valley and here came to us don Alonso de Solis, abbot of San Clodio [de Ribas de Sil], and ferried us in a boat to the houses of his abbey, about a quarter of a league away, and the river we crossed was the Sil. We slept in one of the houses of the abbey and left it at sunrise.
Friday 15. We took another boat across the river and the said abbot accompanied us for four leagues to have lunch in one the abbey's places called San Miguel de Montefurado. We saw the mountain underneath which flows the river Sil through a tunnel wide twenty brasas [arms?] all dug out by picks because the stone is all flint; they say it is the work of the Romans, and on top of the mountain they sow and there are vines. We had lunch in this place then went to sleep four leagues further to a place called el Barco [de Valdeorras], which belongs to the count of Ribadavia, and is on the bank of the river Sil.
Saturday 16. We left at sunrise and travelled to have lunch, for five leagues, in a place they call Las Borenas [Borrenes], all along the bank of the river Sil, it [the town] belongs to the marquis of Villafranca [del Bierzo]. From there we went to sleep in Ponferrada, three leagues, and were lodged in the convent of San Agustin.
The book was posted home because I had more camino plans to fulfill first, but it was one of the first things I picked up when I got home, I was so excited. (The book on academia.edu and a review.)
The excitement was a bit tarnished when I started to read the actual transcription. Diego de Guzman was a royal chaplain in the service of Felipe III and Margarita of Austria and he made a pilgrimage in the king's and queen's names in the Holy Year of 1610. The royal couple planned to go themselves but the queen was having health issues after a recent birth (she died next year in her eighth childbirth) and they decided to abandon the journey. With such high and important position, Diego and his entourage were received everywhere by high dignitaries and catered to in rich homes. He enumerates these more often then describing the actual journey, but there are some interesting tidbits about towns and observations that perhaps point to his personal interest in art. He is also very detailed about the Santiago's cathedral, its masses and ceremonies and in describing the gifts the queen and king sent. He gives the second oldest known description of how the botafumeiro was operated, for example (the oldest one is from Hieronymus Münzer from 1494).
The really interesting part was his return journey - the entourage took Camino de Invierno all the way from Santiago to Ponferrada. This was in fact the first account of a pilgrim I came across that travelled the whole of Camino de Invierno and that (at least partially) describes it.
It is on fol. 47v - 48r, p. 188 - 195 of the book. Here is the translation. A league is 15,000 feet or 4.1795 km.
Monday 11 [October]. We said the mass in the church and at nine left to have lunch in la Bega [possibly Vedra], three leagues from Santiago, in an orchard owned by the council, where we were accompanied by the archbishop, his steward and his maestrasala. We left to dine in Chapa [Silleda], another three leagues, jurisdiction of the said archbishop, where he also gave us diner.
Tuesday 12. We went to eat, in four leagues, to a place belonging to the count of Lemos, where we were hosted by a mayor of this town [possibly Lalín], and then we went for four more leagues from there to a benedictine priory called Chantada. This is a place owned by the marquis of Astorga and in it is the benedictine convent where there are usually three monks, and they have a church, a cloister and a fine house, and they belong to [the monastery of] San Benito el Real de Valladolid. We arrived before a great deluge in the middle of the night.
Wednesday 13. We left Chantada after having heard mass and crossed puente de Belasar [the bridge of Belesar], so called because they say it was built by a roman commander named Belisario. This is a very rocky route and the incline is one of the worst in Spain; under the bridge flows river Mino. We arrived for lunch four leageus from Chantada to Monforte de Lemus, a town on a hill and entered from a plain, which has a castle and stone houses, all encircled by a wall, belonging to the count of Lemos. Inside the town is a very old monastery of the benedictine order, and another of the franciscans is outside of the town, there is a college of the Society [de la Compania, colexio de Nosa Senora de Antiga], a famous building founded by don Rodrigo de Castro, archbishop of Seville, and where theology, arts and grammar are tought to read and write, they said it has eight tousand ducats [worth of rent]. I lodged in the count's palace and dined there.
Thursday 14. We went to say mass in the said college of the Society where they made us a dialogue and a dance, and we ate lunch, waiting for the bishop of Lugo who wished to visit me. We left at noon for Balle de Quiroga, five leagues of poor routes and inclines. We arrived at night to the houses called after this valley and here came to us don Alonso de Solis, abbot of San Clodio [de Ribas de Sil], and ferried us in a boat to the houses of his abbey, about a quarter of a league away, and the river we crossed was the Sil. We slept in one of the houses of the abbey and left it at sunrise.
Friday 15. We took another boat across the river and the said abbot accompanied us for four leagues to have lunch in one the abbey's places called San Miguel de Montefurado. We saw the mountain underneath which flows the river Sil through a tunnel wide twenty brasas [arms?] all dug out by picks because the stone is all flint; they say it is the work of the Romans, and on top of the mountain they sow and there are vines. We had lunch in this place then went to sleep four leagues further to a place called el Barco [de Valdeorras], which belongs to the count of Ribadavia, and is on the bank of the river Sil.
Saturday 16. We left at sunrise and travelled to have lunch, for five leagues, in a place they call Las Borenas [Borrenes], all along the bank of the river Sil, it [the town] belongs to the marquis of Villafranca [del Bierzo]. From there we went to sleep in Ponferrada, three leagues, and were lodged in the convent of San Agustin.
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I do hope this counted as a pilgrimage for the lackeys as well, do you know if it did?
. She is not a lady pilgrim. It is a reproduction of a 19th engraving that is traded on the internet as a reprint or a poster. It often carries the caption "Pilgrimage to the Baths of Panticosa" or a variation thereof. I don't know whether this caption was coined by the artist or whether it dates from a later period.
