Ultreya

[linda davidson]

Ultreya is one of those wonderful medieval words wrapped around the First
Crusade (in Jerusalem):
ultreya (ultramar) means over the sea. In the old days Spanish stores that
were selling canned goods were often called "ultramarinos" because the
products came from . . .
"Ultreya" or "Ultreia" appeared several times in early French troubadour
poetry when the lovely lady was bemoaning her lover's absence in the
crusades.

In the twelfth-century _Liber Sancti Jacobi_ (does everyone know about
this? sometimes called the _Codex Calixtinus_, when we refer to the copy
that is in the Compsotela Cathedral's library)
appended to the main manuscript are several hastily written pages (folios)
with bits and pieces (other miracles, hymns, etc.).
On one of the folios is the "Dum Pater Familias" hymn which has become the
signal hymn of the pilgrimage. There are lots of recordings of it - usually
sung a bit to slow to hike to in my opinion, but that's another matter.

At the end of of the first verse comes a refrain and at the end of it,
written once this phrase:
Herru Sanctiagu   Got Santiagu
Eultreia   Esuseia
Deus aia nos

Most scholars agree on a Flemish influence in the wording the "Herru
Sanctiagu and Got Santiagu" (got meaning gut, or good.  Deus aia nos is
probably  "Dios ayuda nos": God, help us

I think most people basically agree that the other words, Eultreia    Esus
eia were meant to be encouraging sounds (much like the more modern "Animo"
that we hear from passing pilgrims nowdays) and picked up from crusades
lyric.

Anyone who has worked with this refrain (and there are several, including
myself) knows, too, that this is not the only time that the phrase is used
in the LSJ manuscript: it appears a folio earlier in another hymn

Linda D