The Walking Pilgrim

French shrines

Despite the scepticism in my page on the Liber Sancti Jacobi, it does give us a glimpse of the situation of the pilgrimage at the time it was compiled. We don't know exactly when that was, but probably around 1140. At that time, the pilgrimage was in full swing: the Camino Francés had become the main thoroughfare across N Spain, hospices had just been built on the two main Pyrenean passes at Roncesvalles and Somport, and the main French shrines and monasteries had also been newly built or rebuilt. Here's some dates:

• 910 - Cluny; 3rd church 1089-1130
• 1025-1080 - Limoges
• 1060 - Conques
• 1060-1150 - Toulouse
• 1096 - Tours
• 1096-1106 - reconstruction of Vézelay

An evolving situation

As discussed in the LSJ page, pilgrims will have had to adjust their route in France depending on circumstances at the time; the popularity of individual shrines also changed over time. Here's some more dates, this time for more general events:

• 843 - Treaty of Verdun: Charlemagne's empire is split in 3 parts; the W part is the basis of what later becomes France; Arles/Provence is however part of the middle part
• 896 - Vikings invade Seine estuary; become basis of Duchy of Normandy in 911; invade England 1066, and by 1150 England/Normandy also controls Maine, Anjou and Touraine
• 1152 - Aliénor of Aquitaine marries Henry II of England; Poitou, Guyenne and Gascony are added to English territories
• early 13th century - suppression of Cathars mixed in with struggle for supremacy over Languedoc between France and the County of Toulouse
• 1259 - Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou ceded to France
• 1271 - last parts of Languedoc fall to France
• 1453 - after a century of borders in flux, 100 Years War eventually fizzles out with France controlling all of W France
• 1481 - Arles/Provence finally part of France

As can be seen, France was not one centrally administered country as now, but several separate and frequently warring kingdoms. When LSJ was compiled, the Touraine came under the English Plantagenets, Arles and Provence were part of the German Empire, and Languedoc was largely independent. Shortly after, in 1152, of LSJ's 4 routes, only the first section of the Vézelay route was in French crown lands. Although much was gained by France in the 13th century, it was only in the mid-15th century, when the 100 Years War fizzled out, that it was reunited as France.

Of course, it's hard to know exactly what effect this had on pilgrims. But the Languedoc/Cathar conflict in the late 12th and early 13th century must have made things difficult in the eastern Pyrenees, as must the frequent conflicts with Plantagenet England elsewhere in W France. St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, for example, was created to replace the original town, now called St-Jean-le-Vieux, which was sacked by Richard the Lionheart in 1177.

Likely routes

So which routes did pilgrims take in France? As they started from home, the most used routes will have been from the most populated areas. We can assume that pilgrims were keen to visit the major shrines, both those named in LSJ and others. Coste-Messelière's map is the result of research into these, and also shows major church dedications, hostels, etc. We can also assume that they used existing roads, of which the Roman network will have still been a major component; see Gabriel Thiollier-Alexandrowicz's site for an overview map of the main Roman roads, and the Society for Late Antiquity site for more details on the individual roads. So if a route runs from/through populated areas, passes shrines, and uses a well-established road, the chances are it was an important pilgrim route.

• the Paris/Tours route, apart from being the one with the most detailed description in LSJ, is the one that most obviously fits these criteria. Pretty much the entire length coincides with the main N-S route through W France: a Roman road that remained a major road throughout the Middle Ages and up to the present day. There can be little doubt that this easy and straightforward route was an important pilgrim route. Note that, according to the Antonine Itinerary, the Roman road S of Saintes made a detour via Talmont; this would have made it easy for pilgrims to cross the Gironde estuary and continue down the coast to Irún, something not mentioned in LSJ. At Dax (Aquae Tarbellicae) the Roman road divided: the left fork to the Somport and Zaragoza, the right to Roncesvalles and Pamplona, though by the late Middle Ages the main road used the easy coastal route via Bayonne, as it continues to do today (see Spanish page for more on this)
• from the Rhone delta in the region of Arles too, the main E-W route through S France via Montpellier to Toulouse is an obvious route, and a road based on a Roman road runs most of the way to the Somport, though a detour would have been necessary to visit St-Guilhem-le-Désert, as LSJ recommends. Coste-Messelière shows the main route continuing from there W to Castres and bypassing St Thibéry, but also shows the main road route via St Thibéry and Narbonne as an alternative. This latter too remained a major road throughout the Middle Ages (though Beaucaire rather than Arles was the main commercial centre) up to the present day, and is also an obvious major route for pilgrims
• a major medieval road based on the Roman one also ran through Limoges, and corresponds to the bulk of the route in LSJ. The main branch of this ran S from Orleans, so would have provided an alternative to the route via Tours, but there was also a branch from Bourges. Given Vézelay's decline in the C14, it's unlikely it attracted many pilgrims in the later Middle Ages, and given the lack of major population or roads in the area, it must be questionable whether it ever played much part in the pilgrimage to Santiago
• the Le Puy route too looks highly questionable: the Massif Central was and remains sparsely populated, it is subject to bad weather for much of the year, and there are few if any major roads (there is a map of the main roads in the area in medieval times on the Fondation David Parou site). Although a straight line from Switzerland to Navarre goes roughly through Le Puy, it's likely that many pilgrims from the E will have used the easier road south along the Rhone to Arles or St Gilles instead, as Coste-Messelière's map shows and as later described by Künig von Vach. Of course, the lack of population centres and major roads was precisely the reason why this route was used for the first of the GR 'chemins de St Jacques', but that development had little if anything to do with pilgrimage
• LSJ also tells us that pilgrims from the east used the Somport pass, whereas those on the other routes used Roncesvalles. This surely must be regarded as suspect. Even coming from the east, the Somport is a longer way round, as the only comfortable approach is from Oloron (Oloron to Puente-la-Reina via the Somport is some 50km longer than via Roncesvalles). By then, only 20-30km separate the routes, a trivial distance in the context of a march to Santiago. As stated above, pilgrims from the N could have chosen either route. The more likely situation is surely that pilgrims from all directions made a choice, some choosing the Somport, others Roncesvalles. Once Zaragoza with its important Jacobean shrine to Our Lady of the Pillar was freed from the Moors in 1118, the Somport would have been an obvious route there from SW France
• in any case, many from the N will have preferred the easy way via Bayonne and Irún, the main road by the late Middle Ages and a route not mentioned by LSJ, which no doubt was keen to praise the then newly opened facilities at Roncesvalles and the Somport
• of course, once the Ebro valley opened up, many from the E will have preferred an eastern or even central Pyrenean crossing and not gone through SW France at all. LSJ doesn't mention this possibility because it was not feasible at the time LSJ was compiled
• finally, what about the sea crossing? Is it simply coincidence that the only hostel/hospice in France whose charters specifically mention pilgrims to Santiago is the Hôpital St Jacques in La Rochelle, a leading Atlantic port? From more or less anywhere in W France, a pilgrim could have gone by ship to Galicia and back before a pilgrim on foot had got much beyond the Pyrenees. It's likely that this was a very popular method for not only British but also French and other continental pilgrims to get to Santiago

All in all, the only sensible thing to do is not to put too much store on LSJ's claim that there were four roads to Santiago. Coste-Messelière's map shows large numbers of routes, any one of which can claim to be a road to Santiago.

How many used the individual routes?

Short answer: no one knows. Clearly large numbers visited the main shrines: such a remote and inaccessible place as Conques, for example, would not have grown so large without a large number of pilgrims passing through. But how many of those were 'local' visiting only the local shrine, and how many were en route to Santiago? Large numbers of hospices were built on the various roads. These were often religious foundations, but they were used by all travellers, not only pilgrims. The closer they are to an important shrine, the clearer the link with pilgrims, but even a dedication to St James does not necessarily mean a link with the pilgrimage to Santiago. The closer you get to Spain, the clearer the link with Compostela, but further away the link is less clear. Arles, for example, will undoubtedly have been a stopping-off point for Italians going to Compostela, but equally it will have been a stopping-off point for travellers from Spain and SW France to Rome. All roads go in two directions.