French Route

The discovery of the tomb of St. James in Compostela, is one of the most important events of the Middle Ages in the West.

mapa

And the city that emerges around the grave becomes the third of the holy cities of Christendom, after Jerusalem and Rome, the capital of the West.

We will follow the Camino de Santiago to pick the most important visual traces of the pilgrimage. We do it in the middle of thousands of people cross it daily ...

It was already half a million a year that roamed in the twelfth century.

"We are all pilgrims, that way we walk," said Gonzalo de Berceo. But to be true pilgrim, the way it must be done on horseback or on foot. Our trip network release us, by this time, of such a practice. And we go to the border with France to start down the first of the Caminos de Santiago. Pilgrims came from Germany, Switzerland ... in Europe.

In France, arrived four routes. Three of them came together in Ostabat, in the French Basque country, and came together at Roncesvalles, and the fourth by Somport (Huesca).

The three channels were coming through Roncesvalles:

 

  • The TURONENSE, that from Paris, came to Orleans, Tours, Poitou, Poitiers, Saintes and Bordeaux.
  • The LEMOVICENSE from sta. Maria Magdalena de Vezelay, of Limoges, Perigueux, and Mont de Marsanhasta Ostabat. As she came pilgrims from Belgium and Lorraine.
  • The PODENSE, from the Basilica of Notre Dame de Le Puy, by Sainte Fe and Saint Pierre de Conques deMoissac, brought the pilgrims from Eastern Europe.