Pagan origins of the Camino

[Chemin5]

Hello Fellow Pilgrims,
I am interested in researching the pagan origins of the Camino. Do you have any suggestions of resources and/or authors that I could look into? I don't have a clue where or how to begin.

Thanks so much and Buen Camino!

There is a French book called "Les Etoiles de Compostelle" by Henri Vincenot, he makes a link between the druids and the emerging Christianity; his premise is that the druids instructed the cathedral builders as a way to protect sacred sites. Lots of research has gone into the book. The hero walks to Compostelle.

 

[Kathor1]

a French book called "Les Etoiles de Compostelle" by Henri Vincenot

The book has apparently been translated into English and is available on Amazon.com.

The title is The Prophet of Compostela: A Novel of Apprenticeship and Initiation by Henri Vincenot.

An customer-reviewer writes on Amazon:

Although written as a novel - and a darned good one, Vincenot has succeeded in being true to the facts of history and following up with his near clairvoyant intuition on historic detail. Vincenot, an award winning writer in France - has yet to be discovered here in the U.S. Here through the eyes of a carpenters' apprentice, he shows how the Druids, the Carpenters, Stone Masons and Knights Templars worked together under the authority of Bernard of Clairveaux, to create the network of great Cathedrals which were the architectural embodiments of all known sciences of the time.​

I have not read it. It sounds like a great tale.

But know what you buy! One reviewer says it is about an apprentice carpenter to a team of church builders with secret mathematical and astronomical knowledge (the golden ratio, the divine proportion) passed down from Celts, and another one writes: On the whole, it is about building with Phi. If you don't know what the root of 5 plus 1 divided by 2 is then the book is not for you.

You have been warned.

 

[dick bird]

There is a French book called "Les Etoiles de Compostelle" by Henri Vincenot, he makes a link between the druids and the emerging Christianity; his premise is that the druids instructed the cathedral builders as a way to protect sacred sites. Lots of research has gone into the book. The hero walks to Compostelle.

It is a work of fiction, as is The Da Vinci Code, or the movie Titanic, which were also well-researched, but still works of fiction.

 

[falcon269]

they meant something else to them than they mean to us today

No 100km rule. No 200km rule. No long line for a compostela (or even a compostela). No "you can't touch that."

We do discus things intensely, often things quite peripheral to the core matter. Perhaps we all have turned into Shirley MacLaine with her hats, wild dogs, grey hair roots, and celebrity.

 

[Kathor1]

No 100km rule. No 200km rule. No long line for a compostela (or even a compostela). No "you can't touch that."
We do discus things intensely, often things quite peripheral to the core matter. Perhaps we all have turned into Shirley MacLaine with her hats, wild dogs, grey hair roots, and celebrity.

That is not at all what I meant when I wrote that these bones, these miracles - they meant something else to them than they mean to us today.

If I had to express what I meant to say in very few words then it would perhaps be this: Medieval pilgrims were focused on the destination, namely the relics and the tomb of a major saint, and on the beneficial effects they could obtain there for their life on earth and for their life after their death. Contemporary pilgrims are focused on the way, namely walking for a long time and over a long distance, and on the beneficial effects they can obtain for their life, in their current personal situation, by doing so.

Of course one can quibble with this, there will be exceptions, differing individual views, but in general, for the mass movement now and the mass movement then, it describes a fundamental difference imho.

 

[JabbaPapa]

If I had to express what I meant to say in very few words then it would perhaps be this: Medieval pilgrims were focused on the destination, namely the relics and the tomb of a major saint, and on the beneficial effects they could obtain there for their life on earth and for their life after their death. Contemporary pilgrims are focused on the way, namely walking for a long time and over a long distance, and on the beneficial effects they can obtain for their life, in their current personal situation, by doing so.

I don't quite agree, though there's also truth in what you suggest.

In the case of shorter local foot pilgrimages that are also day hiking routes, sure - - but Christian pilgrims whether Mediaeval or Modern would tend to view the longer pilgrimages as a series of destinations and shrines strung out along a certain Way, as well as the parishes and dioceses and other parts of the Church, including of course all the other Christians, locals or pilgrims, found along the way. That is more than just the destination.

Portuguese foot pilgrims can walk to Fátima in sometimes very large village groups, with much broader purposes than just the destination.

I might suggest that Mediaeval/Christian pilgrims tend(ed) to view pilgrimage as a community/church endeavour, as can be seen in parish/diocesan coach pilgrimages, whereas most Santiago foot pilgrims either approach it individually or in smaller groups with secular approaches.

Otherwise, a Christian approach to pilgrimage is more often for thanksgiving and for worship than for the seeking of some benefits.

These are of course not entirely separate approaches, and there is a huge area of overlap between the two.

 

[David Tallan]

Some facts:
Not only does the "Camino de Santiago" have pagan origins, but Christianity itself has roots in pagan traditions.
The exploration of America did not begin with Christians; "pagans," such as the Vikings, had already arrived in America before them.
Imagination does not require faith. It is a cognitive capacity and the source of scientific and technological development.

And there I was thinking Christianity had its origins in Judaism.

I'm not sure what the exploration of America has to do with anything, but I suspect the Indigenous peoples arrived and explored it long before the Vikings (and got much further in their explorations).

 

[David Tallan]

"camino"
Del latín vulgar cammīnus, voz de origen celta, y este de origen hispánico o hispánica; cf. celtíbero camanon.

https://dle.rae.es/camino

"caminus"
Latin
Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek κάμῑνος (kámīnos).

Noun

fireplace
furnace, forge
(poetic) Vulcan's forge
(figuratively) fire

caminus - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

Which is exactly what Katar1na said. The origin of Camino is camminus (two ns) and not caminus, and it therefore has nothing to do with the word for fireplace, furnace, forge, despite them possibly sounding similar.

 

[hecate105]

Cor - I'm so glad I spent many weeks slogging up to the Orkneys - all the sacred stones and circles and ancient sites - even christian churches - it felt like a pilgrimage - and if some ancestor pulled the bloomin' great altar stone all the way down to Stonehenge - then I reckon it WAS a pilgrimage! (or do I have to do it the other way round to be sure!)

 

[Kirkie]

That is not at all what I meant when I wrote that these bones, these miracles - they meant something else to them than they mean to us today.

If I had to express what I meant to say in very few words then it would perhaps be this: Medieval pilgrims were focused on the destination, namely the relics and the tomb of a major saint, and on the beneficial effects they could obtain there for their life on earth and for their life after their death. Contemporary pilgrims are focused on the way, namely walking for a long time and over a long distance, and on the beneficial effects they can obtain for their life, in their current personal situation, by doing so.

Of course one can quibble with this, there will be exceptions, differing individual views, but in general, for the mass movement now and the mass movement then, it describes a fundamental difference imho.

Oh, I do appreciate your point here, that Medieval pilgrims were focused on the destination and that Contemporary pilgrims are focused on the way.