(Re:millions...St.francis...)

[Joe & MJ]

Barry--Now I'm curious...what type of article are you writing? for
publication? for school? What's your interest in the Camino based on? Will
you share it (your article) with us first (or at least with Linda for
possible inclusion in the "Friends" newsletter)?

I wish I could help you with the medieval numbers. I looked through our
(Linda's and my) Santiago bibliography and couldn't come across anything
specific. I also browsed through the majority of my "big" Camino books but
couldn't find anything in them either (although I admit it was just a rather
cursory browse). I honestly don't remember any article that set forth good
census figures for the Camino in general.

As a bit more general information, you may want to look at the Introduction
to The Pilgrimage to Compostela in the Middle Ages which Linda and I edited
in 1996 and which appeared in paperback in 2000 (Routledge, ISBN
0-8153-1638-0 or 0-415-92895-8). We put together a short appendix of names
of known/famous pilgrims to Compostela by century. I note that there are
only 3 9th century names (and one of those is an Arab poet!); 6 names in the
10th century; 17 in the 11th century; 30 in the 12th century; and 23 in the
13th century (and yes, we list St. Francis as traveling in 1214). Don't know
that this helps much, but many of the names are of kings, princes, etc.
There could be hundreds traveling with them. At the same time, some of the
names are of saints/hermits and so would be solitary travelers.

Maryjane


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Road to Santiago Pilgrimage [mailto:GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU]On
> Behalf Of Barry Evans
> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 1:51 PM
> To: GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU
> Subject: Re: Travelling in good faith and good faith alon
> (Re:millions...St.francis...)
>
>
> Perry, Once again, no one's attacking your beliefs! Some of us
> are interested
> in the history of the camino (I'm writing an article). It DOES
> matter to us,
> not as a matter of faith, but as a matter of seeing how much
> truth there is to
> the old legends.
> I was hoping, in starting this discussion, that someone would
> either come up
> with some piece of history to confirm or deny the legend of a
> million pilgrims
> a year walking the camino, to weave that into my own story (eg
> there's ample
> historical evidence, I think, that St. Francis made a pilgrimage
> to Rome, which
> seems to be lacking for the Santiago story). So far, we've had a lot of
> opinions, but nothing you could call evidence one way or the
> other, which may
> be where we'll have to leave this.
>
> But meanwhile, please afford us the courtesy of discussing this
> without this
> constant sniping at our interest! Just delete anything with
> "million" in the
> subject line, you don't have to read it or be bothered by it!
> barryevans
>