The Camino is riddled with history and legend. On the evening of the first day on the Camino Francés, you meet one of the Camino greats: Charlemagne; or should I say, Emperor Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire. (That was a chunk of western Europe that he united.)
Having crossed the mountain pass into Spain, you come into the monastery complex of Roncevalles. Though Charlemagne fought battles all over the place, the battle at Roncevalles goes down in fame and legend. He was returning from a military campaign in Spain in 778 where he had been securing his interest with the Muslim factions who ruled Spain at that time. But he made some enemies along the way and taking the mountain pass, his rear-guard was attacked.
A brave warrior Roland was in charge of the back of the army. (Roland is said to be Charlemagne’s nephew.) The story goes that Roland blew his horn to get help, but wires got crossed – no help came. He and his troops were all slaughtered, however, they did allow Charlemagne to get away to safety. In Medieval times, the heroism of Roland was glorified as an example of chivalry – the brave and noble knight.
Though these two warriors are heroes along the route of the Camino; they were not of the pilgrimage, as the bones of St-James had not yet been discovered in Santiago.
Another brave warrior along the Camino is El Cid. He was a home son from the city of Burgos. Here pilgrims can see a magnificent statue of him with a flowing beard and on horseback. He was a mercenary and there were plenty of customers for his service. But history tells us that he was an honourable knight and only fought for the good guys. His tomb is in the cathedral in Burgos. Originally, he was laid to rest at a monastery with his beloved horse Babieca, but the church decided otherwise – he was dug up and re-interred in the cathedral with his wife, and the horse got left behind.
Many true heroes of the Camino were members of orders of knights and religious orders who worked to improve conditions for the pilgrims. My favorite is Santo Domingo de Calzada. He is such an interesting character with a wonderful legend that I think I must honour him with his own future post on this blog.
I love history. As a very amateur history buff, I pick and choose the bits I like. When I was writing my novel: Pardon my Camion, I had great pleasure weaving some of the tales and events into the story. I did, however, notice there was a lack of any record of women heroes. And a big gap for me was information about the Civil War of the 1930s, though if you listened and looked around, painful memories were there.