THE PILGRIM WAY TO SANTIAGO

概要：

A popular pilgrimage both in the Middle Ages and today follows the "Camino de Santiago", or the Pilgrim Way to Santiago, which extends across the North of Spain from Pamplona in the Basque country of Navarre by way of Burgos, the capital city of the former kingdom of Castile, and Leon, the other capital of the older kingdom of Leon, to the holy city of Santiago de Compostela in the region of Galicia. The pilgrims were not only Spanish but also French, Germans and English, and the pilgrimage began to flourish in the 13th century, in the architectural period of Romanesque, with many churches built in that style. At the same time, by bringing together the Christian kingdoms of the North, the pilgrim way provided a means of uniting those kingdoms in the task of reconquest, or Reconquista, of the formerly Christian country of Spain against the Moors, whose strongholds were in the South. That was a task eventually achieved with the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in the North and the conquest of the last Moorish stronghold of Granada in the South in 1492.