As a vehicle for the spread of ideas and change, the pilgrims’ road to the shrine of St James the Great at Santiago de Compostela (popularly known as the Camino de Santiago), has always exerted an influence on the arts.
For centuries, the Camino was enriched, as it still is today, by the experiences of those who travelled along it, driven by their determination to reach their goal.
Over time, a two-way relationship evolved between the people living along the route, who had so much to teach the pilgrims, and the pilgrims themselves, who were eager to share their stories about their various places of origin.
It was during the early centuries of pilgrimage that many of the features that cultural historians directly associate with the Way of St James were forged.
There are two main musical links with the pilgrimage: the actual music devoted to the cult of St James, and the iconography that grew up around the figure of the Apostle.
The latter include the paintings and sculpture that grace the idealised representations of what have been called the stone orchestras carved on the porticoes of churches and, more generally, the images to be found along the Camino. |
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