[Gocamino] New Book linking Santiago to the history of Medieval Spain

[Eldor Pederson]

Anyone looking for a readable summary of Spanish history in the late Middle Ages, especially a book linking that history closely to the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, should find a copy of:

 

Lowney, Chris. 2005. A Vanished World: Medieval Spain's Golden Age of Englightenment.  New York: Free Press Division of Simon & Schuster. 320 pp. ISBN 0-7432-4359-5.

 

Lowney, a former Jesuit, writes the history of medieval Spain using the two guises of St. James, Santiago peregrino and Santiago matamoros, as an organizing guide. Lowney states "James's two conflicting images - killer and pilgrim - have nothing to do with the saint himself and everything to do with his devotees. Medieval Spain's Christians projected their hopes and hatreds onto their patron transforming Santiago into a reflection of the best and worst of themselves." (p. 13).  Santiago peregrino is the symbol of a hopeful and humane view of the world apparent in much of medieval and early renaissance Iberian culture, while Santiago matamoros is the emblem of the often brutal, martial, and intolerant society that characterized the Spain of the reconquest. It was that intolerance that resulted in the end of the golden age and, ultimately, the decline of Spain as a world and European power, or so one is tempted to conclude after reading the book..

 

Golden ages of a distant past are always a little dangerous to invoke, and I am inherently suspicious of the literature suggesting that Medieval Spain, and especially the rule of Islam, provided such a golden age, but it is a popular viewpoint at the moment. As another example see the well-received book by  María Rosa Menocal. 2002.  Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. (Boston: Little Brown. ISBN 0-316-56688-8 or 0-31616871-8). As his book's title indicates, Lowney most certainly adheres to the view that there was an enlightened golden age, one that ended when Isabella's forces finally evicted the last vestiges of Islamic rule from Spain.

 

While I have substantial reservations about some of Lowney's comments and conclusions, the book is a comprehensive overview of Spanish history during the Middle Ages and is written for the intelligent general reader, not for a specialist historian, scholar of religion, or some other academic. There is a generous serving of the history that led to and nurtured the pilgrimage as well as much detail about life in the medieval era. Lowney's epilogue is a meditation on the modern pilgrimage beginning at Roncesvalles.