Basic texts of the history of Compostela The Codex Calixtinus is often spoken about, and even more the Pilgrim's Guide. But where do these texts come from ? Who wrote them ? Chronological survey by Bernard Gicquel. GICQUEL, Bernard professeur honoraire fondation david parou saint-jacques 01 August 2005 The 1st to the 8th century Compostela, archives of the Cathedral 1st century : In the brief but decisive passages of the Gospel, Saint James is mentionned at the same time as Peter and John. Only one phrase of the Acts of the Apostles relates to him separately, that which tells of his decapitation. In the absence of more precise infomation on him, the quality of the Apostle, sent by Jesus like all the Diciples, "to the ends of the earth", was encouraged to imagine that he had to keep going until the edge of the ocean. 4th to 5th century : The Comments of Saint Jerome, inspired by the Epistle of the Romans, underlined the place of Spain in the distribution of the Christian Message in opposing the one of the Illyrie. The Evangilism of the World appears there in relation to the apparent movement of the sun from East to West, while each apostle is supposed to rest where he preached the Gospel. 6th Century : The apolistic apocryphal catalogues that follow the oldest attribute, wrongly, with Saint Jerome, mention for Saint James, his preaching in Spain, his tomb in Achaïe Marmarique, and his Saints Day on the 25th July. The first theme uncovered a contamination with Saint Paul, the second, a confusion with Saint James the Minor, the third of an assimilation with the Ancient God Hermes/Mercure, whose festival was celebrated on this date, the day of the Canicule and which according to Tite-Live, posesses in Spain his tomb (close to Carthagène). James and John represent, in work, in the Christian register, Diosures, Castor and Pollux, those to which dusk and twilight are attributed. In the fourth book of his history of Aposlitic combat, composed in Gaule Narbonnaise, which tells of the Evangilism of the world by the Apostles and their Martyrdom, an author which signs the pseudonym Abdias, Bishop of Babylon, provides a detailed account of the martyrdom of Saint James. This account dissociates the meeting of Saint Philippe with Simon the Magician by telling of the conversation of the Magician Hermogène and of his acolyte Philète, whose the name is borrowed from the second epistle of Saint Paul of Timothy. He was also inspired by the life of Saint Peter curing a paralytic on the path to Lydde, to get Saint James to do the same, and converted two henchmen, following the example of Saint Paul and the two archers of the Imperial Guard sent to lead him into torment. 8th century : A hymn of the liturgy Mozarab, dated to the end of the eigth century, because it comprises of an aristocracy of the asturien King Mauregat (783-789), celebrated holy Saint James like the envangelist and the patron of Spain, Numerous churches dedicated to Saint James are constructed in the North of the country. From the 9th century 9th century : The tomb of Saint James is discovered in the premier decades of the 9th century. No Galician text relates directly to its discovery and the reasons why its identification was preserved. The mention of the Achaïe Marmarique in the apolistic catalogues, the majority of the time deformed by the tradition of written manuscript, could suggest the identity of the place of the tomb as Arcis Marmonicas. The French martyrs of Adon and Usard who evoked the tomb facing the sea of Brittany, in the style of Messina de Florus, could be the first textual reflections of this Invention. 10th century : The first version of the Apocryphe Letter of the Pope Léon (probably Léon III, great destroyer of the Priscillianism) brings back the translation of the relics of Saint James of Compostelle, in operating the synthesis of two accounts : a) that which reports the translation of the heritic Priscillien, whose acrostic appears in filigree through the toponyms (Bisria and Ilicinus = Priscillianus) ; b) that which recounts the evangelism of Spain by the seven apostles, according to the model of the greek legend of seven dormants. The first version of the papal letter gives place to the drafting of the liturgic hymns sung at the time of the offices by the pilgrims and whose text distributed the knowledge of Saint James in all of Galicia. There exits three posterior versions of this text, which all differ by some detail ; the last is included in the compliations atributed to the Pope Calixte. 11th century : 1005 to 1027 : Undoubtably in liason with the Normand priory of Saint James of Beuvron, the translation of relics is the object of a sermon of pageantry of Fleury (today Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire). 1072 : An agreement made between the bishopric of Compostelle and the Antealtares Monastry on the part of the benificiaries during the construction of the Cathedral begins in with a paragraph which recounts the invention of the tomb by the Theodemir Bishop, following a revelation made by the hermit Pélage, founder of the Monastry. 12th century : 1103 : Maybe in relation to the visit of Diego Gelmirez, Bishop of Compostelle, of Saint-Martial of Limoges, the account of translation named the Gembloux is written in the form of a liturgy of Saint Martial. It will be retaken in the complilations placed under the patronage of the Pope Calixte. 1105 : Without doubt the occasion of the dedication of the cathedral of Compostelle, the 21st April, was one year to the day after the Basilisc of Vézelay, maître Panicha redesigns the liturgic hymns attributed to the Pope Léon which will appear from now on under this double attribution. 1120 : With the occasion of Council of Reims, which represents an important moment in the conflict of investors, the Pope Calixte II in writing to Saint-Denis, between others Hugues de Poro, representing Diego Gelmirez of the Council, the history of Charlemagne and Roland of Latin. This here, known today under the name of Chroniques de pseudo-Turpin is a ficticious autobiography attributed to Turpin, archbishop of Reims, to encourage French Knights to leave on Crusade in Spain. The Pope Calixte died the day before Christmas in 1124, before that this project wasn't carried out. But the text of Pseudo-Turpin will come one of the more widespread of the Middle Ages (more than 300 manuscripts). It is he who imposes in the later centuries the image of the valient knight Roland, of which the Song in Roman, much less widespread - one knows of only ten manuscripts of it -,that will be discovered after 1830. Ceramic by J-L Robillard, the boat of Saint James Integral translation and comments of the Codex Calixtinus 1131-35 : In the background of pontificial schism, the patriarch of Jerusalem, Guillaume of Messines, sent the regular canon of Saint Augustine Aimeric Picaus to Compostelle by Cluny, to rejoin Diego Gelmirez with the cause of the Pope Innocent II. Aimeric is carrying liturgiques pieces and the miracles composed for Guillame of Messines in the honnor of Saint James. He will increase in the course of the route his collection of Italian Miracles of Saint Gilles and the rhodaniens miracles in going up towards Cluny, then the borrowed miracles of Saint Léonard in redecending towards Compostelle, where he will collect finally some Spanish miracles. This collection does not go beyond 1135 : The canons of Compostelle, there until the under rule of Saint Isidore and only associated to the regular canons of Saint Augustin, becoming whole Augustins. It is also the year when the Compostelle Cathedral is finished, and the miracles which ascend Saint James protecting his pilgrims on the paths which are done well to encourage the faithful ones not to doubt the dangers of pilgrimage. The translation of Marchiennes which mentions the stone found at the time of the reflection of the church of Padron in 1134 and which would have taken the form of the body of Saint James is without doubt contemporary. 1139 : The death of Diego Gelmirez marks the achievement of the Historia Compostellana writen in its glory and in which accounts a Translation des Reliques and an account of the Invention of the Tomb appear. The ancient Abbey of Vézelay, Albéric, cardinal of Ostie, and perhaps pontificial legate, adds the last miracle to the collection of Aimeric Picaud and he suggests placing a collection of the Jaquaires texts which one posesses under the patronage of the Pope Calixte II, 1140 : The first version of this compilation comprises of the Chronical of Turpin in its brief version, the preface letter of the Pope Calixte, a dossier on the Translation, - with the fourth version of the letter of the Pope Léon, the Translation of Limoges/Gembloux and three solemnities of Saint James - , and the Miracles attributed to the Pope Calixte. This compilation doesn't have a title. 1144-45 : The compilation which takes the name of Liber Miraculorum sancti Jacobi changed the order and the nature of its componants. The Translations pass by the head and are followed by miracles, then of the long version of the Chronique of Turpin. Between these collections appear satellite texts, on Saint Eutrope of Saints, on the Navarrais, on the death of Turpin, on the emir of Cordous, etc. With the end of the compilation is a poem of Aimeric Picaud, which is the only versified contents of the collection of miracles, as well as an apocryphe authentification of the meeting by the Pope Innocent II, that was confirmed by the Cardinal. 1160 : The satellite texts tend to gather in a volume which occupied the fourth place and became the Guide du Pèlerin. A very vast liturgic compilation of sermons and of offices take the premier place, the Miracles the second, and so it is the Translations which take the third. The Puesdo-Turpin seems to have been provisionally isolated with the profit of texts more specifically religious. This form of the collection could be a contemporary realisation of Portail de la Gloire of the Cathedral. 1165 : The canonisation of Charlemagne regave religious news to Pseudo-Turpin and encourages to reinstate it among other texts. There it took the fourth place, between the Translations and the Guide du Pèlerin which slides to fifth place. It is under this form that it presents today the Codex Calixtinus or the Livre de Saint Jacques de Compostelle, works of luxury whose copies have been very little in number, while various versions of Liber Miraculorum sancti Jacobi which is the source continued to be distributed in XIIIth and XIV century.