Certain places are marked by a mysterious sign. To some extent, they are impregnated with the spiritual richness spent there. It is not by chance, but on the contrary by an essential bond, that pilgrimages are connected to the worship of relics. Barrès, in connection with the hill of Sion, spoke about "places where the spirit breathes", and he was not wrong; in some manner, he heard it.

Jacques Madaule, Pilgrims like our Fathers,
Saint-Mandé, Tourelle press, 1950

Europeans inherited a pilgrim tradition, shared by many countries and marked by many sanctuaries. The ways leading one of the most famous - Compostella - were indeed recognised as "the first European cultural route "

These pages present the great European pilgrimages.

They give neither useful recommendations nor indications to embark for such or such place; these can be searched in the database by a search engine. They are an invitation to know better the history of these pilgrimages, their influence on the construction of Europe, their importance for today.

why the ways of Santiago de Compostella, first European cultural route?

In 1987, the Council of Europe showed beautiful audacity by choosing the "Ways of Compostella" as the first European Cultural Route. Beyond economic construction, it wanted to find the bases of an identity common to all these countries with exacerbated nationalisms. It had to find ways of connecting countries as different as Norway and Italy, or countries recently reconciled like France and Germany. But, from there, to think of the promotion of a route leading to a Catholic sanctuary! Because it was also a question of reminding Europeans of the importance of "collective memory" attached to Compostella, where a tomb of a companion of Christ is venerated, the holy apostle James. Many popes affirmed that the crowd from all Europe had gone there for centuries, while mixing their respective cultures.

But how could German Protestants accept such a proposal? How were French laics going to interpret it, they who had worked on the separation of Church from State? How were the Netherlands not to remember Spanish domination? How were Cartesian spirits everywhere going to guarantee pilgrim demonstrations, which they deemed to be reserved for the naive in search of miracles, exploited by a skilful mercenary attitude?

Cliché DPM

In fact, the bases were set in the 1960s by some intellectuals, of whom the best known in France remained Rene de La Coste-Messelière. This clever idea had already proven reliable. It had germinated as of the end of the civil war in Spain. Compostella was a possible place of reconciliation of enemy brothers. Since 1938, some pilgrimages had been used to bring Catholic Spain and France together. Automobile tourism, "paid-leaves", the attraction of the sun, had prepared the way. The memory of gatherings around sacred places and of the great migrations of people from the North towards the countries of the Sun had emerged from collective memory. Fascination of Light. The taste for the bucolic intervened; hikers had then started to hit the road starting from Puy in the 1970s, when the first descriptions of routes for walkers had appeared.

Little by little, discreetly, Europeans had started to march... and in 1982, pope Jean-Paul II, European from the East, had come himself as a pilgrim to Compostella, from where he launched this call:

"... oh, old Europe, I launch a cry full of love: you yourself find yourself, be yourself, discover your origins, renew the strength of your roots, revive these authentic values that covered your history with glory and made beneficial your presence in other continents "

from symbolic route to signaled ways

In the 1980s, the word Compostella did not evoke anything for the great majority of European populations. Even intellectuals knew little about its history. Former work had directed historical research towards the routes thanks to a manuscript from the twelfth century rediscovered in the nineteenth century in Compostella, which in 1938 was given the title The Guide of the Pilgrim, a providential document, the ancestor of the Blue Guides!

since the 1970s, Puy imposed itself as principal starting point for Compostella

This guide showed four ways starting from Tours, Vézelay, Le Puy and Arles and leading to Compostella. Four "historical roads" surveyed by pilgrim crowds: the share of History was sufficient. There remained to trace, beyond these Franco-Spanish roads, the European roads. This is where the Council of Europe got involved, with the assistance of experts, joined a few years later by UNESCO. To propose roads, even if for certain countries they are mere indications, but especially to mark them out in excess is often imprudent, because then the symbol tends to be erased in front of a too rigid geographical approach. Tourist guides for motorists also emerged. The cities all rushed in, each wanting to be placed on a famous Historical Way. The routes were numbered, from number 1 to number 9! Then walkers or cyclists wanted paths.

A fever seized many European countries: to set up signs, with the logotype of Europe. It is certainly a recognition of the European idea, but sometimes it is too much. There is a threat of saturation today, all the stronger as the monolithic speech underlining each route gradually loosens. Competition is increasingly tougher, each one wanting to benefit from the flow of pilgrims. Having known success, there is time only to work on better making known the historical richness of the pilgrimage. The Council of Europe has indeed always wanted that these ways also be ones of knowledge and search of authenticity.

a better understood course - a dynamic vision, alive and integrated into the present.

In the 1990s, research progressed. Its results helped understand that the "streets Saint-James, Jakobstrasse, via San Giacomo" had not "for centuries led to Compostella", but that they are ultimate memories of local devotion to Saint James, marked by rituals, pilgrimages, festivals, demonstrations of mutual aid, in short, original and reusable structures of sociability today within very diverse frameworks. It is now known that not all Santiago hospitals were reserved for pilgrims and that not all pilgrims go to Saint-James of Galicia. Their social role is better understood and recognised.

It is also known that the sanctuary of Compostella nourished the imagination of European people, but it was less attended than the first researchers believed. Its history was rich in devotions and prayers, as much as warlike expeditions, political or commercial stakes, festivals and legends.

In the twelfth century, it was made known in Europe in order to encourage knights to come to support Spain in its fight against the Infidels and to help the young king Alphonse VII save his throne before the claims of Aragon. A pseudo-historical chronicle, the Pseudo-Turpin, makes of Charlemagne the first European pilgrim and the first warrior. The kings of France then used this text to incite their knights to go to war against Spain when they wished it. Making way, cultures interpenetrated. the dream of Charlemagne, saint James shows the Milky Way to the Emperor

It is also known that the mentions of crowds walking towards Compostella refer to the symbolic crowds of the Elect of the Apocalypse moving towards a Heavenly Jerusalem made attractive by the beauty of stories and the skill of the persons in charge of the Cathedral. In the Middle Ages, the pilgrims were not as numerous as the first researchers believed. But their flow seldom dried up in spite of the vicissitudes of history. They were more numerous during religious wars, when distressed Catholics turned to Spain, which stayed pure from heresy. A climax was reached in the eighteenth century, as the richness of the facade of the cathedral testifies. The nineteenth century and the Napoleonic wars failed to defeat the sanctuary. Today, it takes part more than ever in the construction of Europe.

the pseudo-turpin in primary school

The drawings below are extracted from a work based on the legend of Charlemagne and Roland in a primary school in Central France. They show the combat of Roland and the giant Ferragut on Camino Frances.