This section deals with the long and complicated evolution of what has become one of the most popular pilgrimages in the world. For route-specific histories, click here.

 

Overview

Following Santiago de Compostela’s establishment in the ninth century, the practice of walking the Camino de Santiago—a pilgrimage with the end goal of visiting the relics of St. James the Greater, believed to be housed in the Cathedral of Santiago—officially began at the end of the tenth century. Initially a regional phenomenon, the pilgrimage began to attract many foreigners in the eleventh century and reached the height of its popularity and splendor by the twelfth century. Monarchs and church leaders legitimized and supported the Camino, and guide and courier services, as well as local businesses, developed in response.

With the religious and political tensions of the Reformation, pilgrim numbers dwindled temporarily. The Camino experience a revival during the second half of the seventeenth century that lasted well into the eighteenth, when a new wave of skepticism and anti-clericalism swept through the Spanish upper class. In recent decades, the pilgrimage has become popular once again, attracting pilgrims from around the globe. The Camino is designated both a European Cultural Route and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.