Pagan origins of the Camino

[Samten]

Hello Fellow Pilgrims,
I am interested in researching the pagan origins of the Camino. Do you have any suggestions of resources and/or authors that I could look into? I don't have a clue where or how to begin.

Thanks so much and Buen Camino!

 

[Tincatinker]

The origins of the Camino de Santiago are wholly Christian.

That some of the routes followed pre-date the Camino and may have been used by pre-Christians is fairly well established. Roman Mithraism invited “pilgrimage” to sacred sites including Finis Terre and there is evidence that Neolithic and early Bronze Age “pilgrims” brought the remains of their dead for inhumation in Galicia from as far as the Danube Delta. In my own traditions is the belief that the soul would migrate to the far-west and the sundering sea.
A search for “Pagan” in thread titles using the forum facility will lead you to some interesting discussion. Very few facts

 

[VNwalking]

there is evidence that Neolithic and early Bronze Age “pilgrims” brought the remains of their dead for inhumation in Galicia from as far as the Danube Delta

I'm sitting here with my mouth hanging open.
And of course I'm curious...so do you have any reading to recommend about that, @Tincatinker?

 

[Tincatinker]

I’m on my phone not my computer so no access just now. I’d previously found a couple of papers relating to inhumation around the coast of Galicia where Isotope analysis had identified the likely natal origins of those remains. The topic was discussed here but a few years ago (2013/2015?) and I believe I cited a couple of sources. I simply don’t have the facility to go hunting tonight.

 

[VNwalking]

The topic was discussed here but a few years ago (2013/2015?) and I believe I cited a couple of sources. I simply don’t have the facility to go hunting tonight.

Thanks, that's enough to go on - I'll do a search.
(BTW...time is sneaky. 2013 is now (alas) a decade old. It feels like a few years to me too.)

 

[Bradypus]

Something I've posted before. Probably my all-time favourite Facebook post. From the American Pilgrims on the Camino Facebook group several years ago. The writer then went on to explain that he knew this to be fact because his late wife had been part of that group in one of her 70+ previous incarnations. Despite polite suggestions from other group members he never amended the post so it may not be the typo that most of us assumed at the time...

 

[Bradypus]

where Isotope analysis had identified the likely natal origins of those remains.

Is there any evidence that the individuals had died in the region where they were born and then were transported to Galicia posthumously? Not simply migrants living in Galicia at the time of death?

 

[Tincatinker]

A search for “pre-Christian tracks” thread from 2013 might pay-off. I can see I put at least one citation in there. Just can’t copy/paste for reasons beyond my ken

Edit: a classic thread by the way

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Lots of peoples have lived and moved about the Galician coastline for millennia, and left behind lots of castros and ruins and pathways and standing stones.
But like Tinca said, there's just about zero historical evidence that anyone was walking to Santiago (or Finisterre) to worship things anytime before about the 10th century. A lot of "song and legend" and "I read somewhere" stuff, but not anything that stands up to academic rigor.

 

[JabbaPapa]

There really is no historical evidence that the Camino had any pagan origins -- for starters, Santiago de Compostela itself did not even exist.

Sure, people went to Finisterra in pre-Christian times, but also in Christian times for reasons of tourism more than anything else. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance there were the Grand Tour and the Petit Tour, that people undertook in youth to go out and see the world, and these existed parallel to and in conjunction with the pilgrimage routes.

Furthermore, the earliest Camino routes followed the Christian pilgrim ways to Rome, that had existed for centuries, just in the opposite direction.

And even supposing that such pagan pilgrimages had existed, between several centuries of Christianity and Arab invasion, and the historic start of the Camino itself, it is impossible for paganism to be a cause of the Camino.

 

[C clearly]

A search for “pre-Christian tracks” thread from 2013 might pay-off. I can see I put at least one citation in there.

Here is a link to that thread, Pre Christian Tracks, which dates mostly to 2013. I have locked that thread - not to stifle discussion in any way, but to help us follow the discussion in a single thread, rather than having two parallel threads going. (If we don't lock that thread, we will certainly get new posts in both.)

This thread has been tagged with "history." Please keep the discussions with that perspective, avoiding religious argument, so the thread can continue.

 

[Tincatinker]

Is there any evidence that the individuals had died in the region where they were born and then were transported to Galicia posthumously? Not simply migrants living in Galicia at the time of death?

Evidence? We are talking archaeology I recall that the clay of the funerary pots had the same origins as the bits inside. Would a migrant take their funerary pot with them?
The Amesbury Archer is a nice example of Neolithic migration which contradicts the above rather nicely

 

[Eve Alexandra]

I hesitate to mention it because I do not think this book is well written at all. That said, I find that when researching prechristian elements like this, I sometimes have to weed through dubious sources in order to find threads to research in more conventional ways. So with that caveat, I found a couple of interesting threads to trace in this otherwise annoying book.

The Hidden Camino: A spiritual journey into the heart of the pilgrimage, where nothing is as it first seems https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GUVR8R0?tag=casaivar02-20

And I highly recommend this book. Much better written, with some interesting elements and explanations of pre Christian history along the Camino, like the memorial to witches who were murdered in the Middle Ages, just outside of Roncesvalles. I would not have known to look for it. She also explained a thing I found hanging on all the doors in SJPP that has prechristian roots.

Moon Camino de Santiago: Sacred Sites, Historic Villages, Local Food & Wine (Travel Guide) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1640496084?tag=casaivar02-20

 

[Tincatinker]

I’m pleased to discover, after a long and pleasant time in the old thread, that I did cite some deep dive stuff

Google Scholar

scholar.google.co.uk

Enjoy

 

[pjacobi]

It's not Pagan vs. Christian! It is that religions recycle ideas.

In Egypt, I saw Christmas tree string lights being used as Ramadan lights. Or was it the Christians copying candlelight processions of ancient Egyptians?


-Paul

 

[naplesdon]

I saw this thread going sideways as soon as it was posted. I hope Tinca can bring back some sense and order to it.
Are we discussing "pagans" or are we researching "pre-historic" migrations?
There were immigration trails worldwide since creation and these immigrants/pilgrims followed certain stars or a constellation in the galaxy of stars to what they thought might be the end of the world. It always seems to be westward for some reason, perhaps to follow the sun? The Native Americans, the Basque, the Celts were all the same.
No one is going to reveal much because there is nothing to be revealed.,
Other than perhaps ancient mankind was seeking away to find a way back to the planet that deposited us here in the first place?

 

[Samten]

Thank you everyone for your posts. They are very helpful. And thank you also for helping me clarify my search by using the term pre-Christian instead of pagan. Buen Camino!

 

[JJW]

It's not Pagan vs. Christian! It is that religions recycle ideas.

In Egypt, I saw Christmas tree string lights being used as Ramadan lights. Or was it the Christians copying candlelight processions of ancient Egyptians?


-paul

Thank you everyone for your posts. They are very helpful. And thank you also for helping me clarify my search by using the term pre-Christian instead of pagan. Buen Camino!

Thanks for your question, it is a topic that can be very interesting if pursued for curiosity rather than proof.
There is a book, When Santa Was a Shaman by Tony Van Renterghem, that will highlight some of the ways pre-christian pagans provided the origins for some of Christianity’s most cherished elements.

 

[Tincatinker]

Other than perhaps ancient mankind was seeking away to find a way back to the planet that deposited us here in the first place?

I think its shocking what The Lizards did to Erich von Däniken. But that's probably a topic for a different forum; not this one

 

[Philtration]

I think its shocking what The Lizards did to Erich von Däniken. But that's probably a topic for a different forum; not this one

I've wondered who to blame for the introduction of bagpipes to Galacia. Obviously it was the lizard people!

 

[CanadianBarb]

I appreciated the various dolmens and caves I encountered in September 2022 along the del Norte. Is there any data on neolithic or mesolithic areas along the Primitivo as I am hoping to walk this caminio sometime this year...

 

[dick bird]

Were there pre-Christian pilgrimages? Absolutely: pilgrimage, in the sense of a visit or journey to a religious site, is still an important part of all the major world religions and many pre-date Christianity. So were there pre-Christian pilgrimages? Yes. To Santiago de Compostela? Almost certainly not since it wasn't a sacred site until Christianity made it one in the ninth century. As for any link between pre-Roman religious practices and post Classical Christianity, I think that is unlikely. That doesn't mean Celto-Iberian culture isn't a fascinating area of study, just don't expect any blinding insights into the Camino de Santiago.

 

[Tincatinker]

I appreciated the various dolmens and caves I encountered in September 2022 along the del Norte. Is there any data on neolithic or mesolithic areas along the Primitivo as I am hoping to walk this caminio sometime this year...

You may find this site useful

https://www.megalithic.co.uk/index.php

https://www.megalithic.co.uk/leaflet_megalith_map.php?country=11

Beware of rabbit holes

 

[dick bird]

I've wondered who to blame for the introduction of bagpipes to Galacia. Obviously it was the lizard people!

That's how you spot them. They can't resist a good pibroch.

 

[CanadianBarb]

You may find this site useful

https://www.megalithic.co.uk/index.php

https://www.megalithic.co.uk/leaflet_megalith_map.php?country=11

Beware of rabbit holes

I kind of like rabbit holes - it is amazing what I find sometimes LOL!!!

 

[Kathor1]

The writer then went on to explain that he knew this to be fact because his late wife had been part of that group in one of her 70+ previous incarnations.

This story / typo still has me in giggles ... but if the writer's wife had herself walked with the druids from Stonehenge to Finisterra in one of her former lives who am I to question it ...

Is there any evidence that the individuals had died in the region where they were born and then were transported to Galicia posthumously? Not simply migrants living in Galicia at the time of death?

I have the same question and I am also a little confused about what we are talking about in this thread.

The concept of a pre-Christian Camino means, I guess, that say between the year 1000 AD and the year 2500 BC non-Christianised people - not only from the British Isles but also from the Danube area -, travelled, i.e. walked from where they lived to Galicia, right? And they weren't migrants. And it was not to cope with stressors in their busy lives or to find out who they really are or their gods had meant them to be but it had something to do with their religious beliefs, especially with their idea of an afterlife, right?

So, correct me if I am wrong, we are talking megalithic culture including neolithic culture, Celtic culture, Germanic culture, Roman culture, Gallo-Roman culture and Ibero-xxx culture ? (xxx just means that I am not sure of the correct terminology and don't want to make a mistake)

That's quite a broad spectrum. In particular the area of Celts and Celtic culture includes a huge part of Europe, way more than what is today known as the Celtic fringe, and there was not really a common religious belief. Those near the sea borders may well have had ideas of people going to islands in the West and living there happily after their death but as far as I know those living on the Continent and far away from any sea had totally different ideas of an afterlife. That alone makes me doubt that they had any reason to "go on Camino" and carry the ashes of their dead to the Galician shore. I am curious to see a link to some paper that makes this even plausible.

When I say link, I mean link to an original paper (either original research or original source if it is a document or at least the name of the author in antiquity). The contemporary narratives in blogs and Camino books are not worth the bandwidth or the paper they are printed on.

 

[Kathor1]

We had a thread about this a year ago. The conversation got a little testy at times .

I spent quite some time on finding and reading the authors who, in Latin, are the first to write about the sun altar, the end of the world and all that. Their names are Florus, Pliny and Ptolemy. Of course , I did not bother to bookmark any of it.

What they write in relation to this topic, consists of a few lines. You can find it on the internet. There is zero nada zilch indication that would even indicate that there was a Camino pilgrimage to Galicia and its shores in their time and in the 100 or so years before their time.

And a quote from the thread: What the current narrative of a sun altar and a pilgrimage to it is based on are works of Galician writers of the 19th century and the books and articles and blogs of the contemporary Camino boom.

This material is great for studying how myths are created from hearsay and expanded. So my question to the OP is actually: What are you looking for - the research (boring) or the modern myths (entertaining)?

 

[Kathor1]

Woah, today was my lucky day, I guess .

I discovered the Herculean efforts of Juan Gabriel Satti Bouzas who took more than a bit of an interest in local history and wrote twelve articles that were published (in Spanish) under the title "The Origin of the Camino de Santiago", with one article translated by him into English. He covers the period from the megalithic era around Finisterre to the period of the invasion by the Suebi and the role of the narrative of Saint Martin, that is the long period of time before the narrative of a Saint James in Galicia and in Spain was born and reasonably developed by the year 1000.

Unlike many other writers of articles for the general public, he lists sources: names of writers and names and years of their work. He includes relevant quotes, for example both in Latin and in Spanish translation. So you know "who wrote what and claimed what when about when" instead of presenting everything as a historical fact as so many authors do. I've only glanced through it but as a compilation, this is not bad. Links in the following post.

 

[Kathor1]

twelve articles that were published (in Spanish) under the title "The Origin of the Camino de Santiago", with one article translated by him into English

Los orígenes del Camino de Santiago I: El megalitismo en Fisterra

Los orígenes del Camino de Santiago II: Los ligures y cultos solares

El origen del Camino de Santiago III: Los celtas y el camino de las estrellas

El origen del Camino de Santiago IV: Los nerios en Dugium, Citania Xacobea

El origen del Camino de Santiago V: Los fenicios, su teología solar y ofiolatría
The Origin of the Path of Santiago V: The Phoenicians, Their Solar Theology and Opioiatry

El origen del Camino de Santiago VI: Los griegos en busca del Ara Solis y el Paraíso en Finisterre - 1ª parte

El origen del Camino de Santiago VII: Los griegos en busca del Ara Solis y el Paraíso en Finisterre - 2º parte final

El origen del Camino de Santiago VIII: Los romanos llegan al fin del mundo, alea iacta est!

El origen del Camino de Santiago IX: Ara-Solis: historias de héroes, traición, muerte y resurrección

El origen del Camino de Santiago X: La romanizacion del Camino de las Estrellas

El origen del Camino de Santiago XI: El laberinto mítico en torno al apóstol Santiago

El origen del Camino de Santiago XII: Las invasiones bárbaras y San Martiño, el apóstol de los suevos

 

[Pafayac]

Furthermore, the earliest Camino routes followed the Christian pilgrim ways to Rome, that had existed for centuries, just in the opposite direction.

No, the earliest route was to Jerusalem.
Because the Seljuk Turks have forbidden this pilgrimage, and following the failure of the crusades to re-open it, the pilgrimage to Santiago was set.

 

[Kathor1]

May I suggest that we try harder to stay on topic: Potential or imagined pagan origin of "The Camino" where "The Camino" refers to the Christian pilgrimage to Santiago.

Everybody knows that there were three important long-distance pilgrimages at one time in history: to Jerusalem, to Rome and to Santiago. If anyone is interested in discussing any potential or imagined pagan origins in connection with Rome and Jerusalem, I suggest that they open a new thread. I fear that otherwise this thread will get too unwieldy and disorganised.

 

[Kathor1]

El origen del Camino de Santiago V: Los fenicios, su teología solar y ofiolatría
The Origin of the Path of Santiago V: The Phoenicians, Their Solar Theology and Opioiatry

The links do work but the text description contains a typo because, in English, the correct spelling is ophiolatry.

I learnt yet another new word!!! Ophiolatry means the worship of or attribution of divine or sacred nature to snakes.

 

[Kanga]

@Kathar1na I started to follow the links and wade through them, but the combination of my old age and the freewheeling weirdness of Google translate has left me bewildered. I'd love your scholarly summary please!

 

[Kanga]

Ah, got that one! I missed it the first time round.

 

[JabbaPapa]

No, the earliest route was to Jerusalem.

In the Iberian peninsula, the routes to Rome and to Jerusalem are the same routes.

But as to the Camino, the first pilgrims to Compostela followed routes that geographically led to Rome, including because many of those routes were Roman roads, the network of which was centred upon Rome (though pilgrims from northern Europe went by different ways, and the Via Aquitana did not lead to Rome).

Furthermore, many pilgrims to Jerusalem would go there via Rome (and Constantinople).

 

[dick bird]

No, the earliest route was to Jerusalem.
Because the Seljuk Turks have forbidden this pilgrimage, and following the failure of the crusades to re-open it, the pilgrimage to Santiago was set.

It might be more correct to say the earliest destination was Jerusalem, or at least the Holy Land, and there would have been any numbers of ways to get there.

 

[Kathor1]

So, summarising now, we agree that humans walked around in Spain in all directions, north, south, east, west, and every in-between direction, for really many years before the first pilgrims to Saint James in Galicia appeared on the scene.

I checked how long humans lived near Atapuerca - 1,200,000 years? That's quite a bit of time.

Question now is: Before they got the bad news from Jerusalem in the year 62 or the year 66 or thereabouts, did people walk in the direction of Santiago in a sort of pilgrimagy way?

We have established a time frame but no distance frame yet. My guess is: In order to count for the purpose of this thread, they must have come walking from north of the Pyrenees or would any point on the Iberian territory count? On foot only or do we include boats and ships?

 

[JJW]

So, summarising now, we agree that humans walked around in Spain in all directions, north, south, east, west, and every in-between direction, for really many years before the first pilgrims to Saint James in Galicia appeared on the scene.

I checked how long humans lived near Atapuerca - 1,200,000 years? That's quite a bit of time.

Question now is: Before they got the bad news from Jerusalem in the year 62 or the year 66 or thereabouts, did people walk in the direction of Santiago in a sort of pilgrimagy way?

We have established a time frame but no distance frame yet. My guess is: In order to count for the purpose of this thread, they must have come walking from north of the Pyrenees or would any point on the Iberian territory count? On foot only or do we include boats and ships?

Thank you for sharing the links and for your summary. It will be a pleasure to read the articles.

This has been a good discussion for growth. Of course no one pilgrimed to SdC for Jesus or James before these men were born. But visiting holy places was happening centuries before they were born. Yes, Spirituality held humanity under its spell before the common era and things/activities that gave food, drink and shelter were held to be sacred because they supported life.

The roads and paths that lead to SdC were traveled and established long before and for reasons unrelated to James or Christianity. These paths have their origins in the desire to produce and move resources and means to market for distribution. Commerce, as a word, has its origin in the pagan god Mercury.

In that sense, materialism of the pre-christian pagans is the origin of the infrastructure that has evolved into what we now call the Camino. Such an origin does not diminish the current variety of spiritual tropes following the Way, but recognizes that without food, drink and shelter (a decidedly mundane need)—It would not exist. These sacred things occupy the immediate concerns of more posts on this site than any other.

The Christian origins of the Camino of St. James are in the historical period and there is plenty of evidence to research to establish some facts. The activities of the Classical period are not so easy to research because of destruction of architecture and libraries, but some records and ruins have survived for study and speculation, an intriguing occupation.

There are also the folk conventions that have not only survived ancient times, but are also practiced today by many locals we take time to meet. Have you noticed the many appearances of the bruja in art and architecture along your pilgrimage?

Some of these traditions of the folk specific to Santiago, like knocking heads with Maestro Matteo or placing a hand in the column of the Gloria, have been recently lost but not forgotten if we speak of them.

If you want to explore these aspects of local origins, there is no better place in SdC than the Pobo.

 

[Pelegrin]

The only place that I know of massive pagan pilgrimage in Galicia is Monte Facho in Cangas de Morrazo , near Vigo, in honour of god Berobreo. I also read some theories about this god was also venerated in Santo André de Teixido. Both places near the sea. Berobreo was a Galaic god not clear if indigenous or celtic.

 

[Samten]

Los orígenes del Camino de Santiago I: El megalitismo en Fisterra

Los orígenes del Camino de Santiago II: Los ligures y cultos solares

El origen del Camino de Santiago III: Los celtas y el camino de las estrellas

El origen del Camino de Santiago IV: Los nerios en Dugium, Citania Xacobea

El origen del Camino de Santiago V: Los fenicios, su teología solar y ofiolatría
The Origin of the Path of Santiago V: The Phoenicians, Their Solar Theology and Opioiatry

El origen del Camino de Santiago VI: Los griegos en busca del Ara Solis y el Paraíso en Finisterre - 1ª parte

El origen del Camino de Santiago VII: Los griegos en busca del Ara Solis y el Paraíso en Finisterre - 2º parte final

El origen del Camino de Santiago VIII: Los romanos llegan al fin del mundo, alea iacta est!

El origen del Camino de Santiago IX: Ara-Solis: historias de héroes, traición, muerte y resurrección

El origen del Camino de Santiago X: La romanizacion del Camino de las Estrellas

El origen del Camino de Santiago XI: El laberinto mítico en torno al apóstol Santiago

El origen del Camino de Santiago XII: Las invasiones bárbaras y San Martiño, el apóstol de los suevos

Wow! THANK YOU! This is an amazing beginning of a long search into the Pre-Christian origins, practices, and peoples of Galicia. I am very grateful.

 

[dick bird]

I think there is a certain amount of conflation of routes being followed and practices such as pilgrimage which followed pre-existing routes. In travelling to Santiago, pilgrims would obviously have followed existing roads. Two good examples are the Via de la Plata, (which has no connection to silver) but was a drove route and still technically is a drove route in neo-lithic times and also follows a Roman road for much of its length, and the Camino de la Lana which follows another drove road used from the Middle Ages to the late 18th century to drive sheep to the market in Burgos. No one is suggesting that the Camino therefore has its origins in early trade and agricultural practices. Just because pre-Christian religions followed a particular route and the camino sometimes followed a route very roughly approximating to it a thousand or more years later doesn't mean that the Camino de Santiago had some kind of connection to pagan rites.

 

[JJW]

The only place that I know of massive pagan pilgrimage in Galicia is Monte Facho in Cangas de Morrazo , near Vigo, in honour of god Berobreo. I also read some theories about this god was also venerated in Santo André de Teixido. Both places near the sea. Berobreo was a Galaic god not clear if indigenous or celtic.

Fascinating! Thank you for the facts. Here is a narrative from the local turismo and a picture of the castro foundations. There is also the El Rocio in Andalusia, and I learned last year that there is also a local Spring romeria honoring The Lady in Roncesvalles.


“O Facho Mount is located at an altitude of 184 metres, in Costa da Vela. It takes its name from the look-out post erected on its summit. The archaeological interventions established that the first human settlement goes back to the Bronze Age (9th century B.C.E.). A fort and pre-Roman sanctuary was built in the 4th century B.C.E., which remained intact until the 1st century B.C.E. and whose ruins are still preserved. In the 3rdand 4th centuries, a Galician-Roman sanctuary was erected in order to cater to the ancient beliefs. Later on, in the 17th century, a military lookout was built atop of the mount. Throughout the centuries, Monte do Facho was home to many different life expressions, and all of them are part of Galician history. In addition, the top of the mount boasts glorious panoramic views of the Cíes Islands, the cliffs, and the rías.”

 

[JJW]

Fascinating! Thank you for the facts. Here is a narrative from the local turismo and a picture of the castro foundations. There is also the El Rocio in Andalusia, and I learned last year that there is also a local Spring romeria honoring The Lady in Roncesvalles.


“O Facho Mount is located at an altitude of 184 metres, in Costa da Vela. It takes its name from the look-out post erected on its summit. The archaeological interventions established that the first human settlement goes back to the Bronze Age (9th century B.C.E.). A fort and pre-Roman sanctuary was built in the 4th century B.C.E., which remained intact until the 1st century B.C.E. and whose ruins are still preserved. In the 3rdand 4th centuries, a Galician-Roman sanctuary was erected in order to cater to the ancient beliefs. Later on, in the 17th century, a military lookout was built atop of the mount. Throughout the centuries, Monte do Facho was home to many different life expressions, and all of them are part of Galician history. In addition, the top of the mount boasts glorious panoramic views of the Cíes Islands, the cliffs, and the rías.”

And this from Wikipedia about Berobreo.

 

[JJW]

Wow! THANK YOU! This is an amazing beginning of a long search into the Pre-Christian origins, practices, and peoples of Galicia. I am very grateful.

Be sure to check out Pelegrin’s post about Monte Facho, Santo Andrè de Teixido, and Berobreo. If you google any of these names you will find more of what you are looking for. I am glad you asked this question, I have learned a lot with more to go.

 

[Kathor1]

summary please

I'm afraid that is impossible for me to do. I see the great value in these articles by Juan Satti in the fact that he has compiled so many relevant historical sources and that he has enumerated and described them in chronological order. This provides a much better idea of what people did and said or believed (or believed to be true for that matter) or wrote at a certain period of time than the usual contemporary narratives about the past. And it greatly helps to find and go back to the original source of some quote or other and to check it out for oneself.

 

[dick bird]

The roads and paths that lead to SdC were traveled and established long before and for reasons unrelated to James or Christianity.

Not exactly. SdC didn't actually exist at all until after the inventio. That is the point some of us are trying to make with regard to the so-called pagan origins of the camino. Pagans didn't travel to Santiago for any reason, sacred or secular, because it wasn't there.

 

[JabbaPapa]

Not exactly. SdC didn't actually exist at all until after the inventio. That is the point some of us are trying to make with regard to the so-called pagan origins of the camino. Pagans didn't travel to Santiago for any reason, sacred or secular, because it wasn't there.

Well, quite likely there were some dirt tracks through fields at the location, and that formed the basis of the street layout and the original ways into town when it was first born. Those dirt tracks would have led towards the existing roads network, one way or another, much as dirt tracks today do as well.

 

[Kathor1]

[Juan Satti's compilation is better] than the usual contemporary narratives about the past. And it greatly helps to find and go back to the original source of some quote or other and to check it out for oneself.

Here is an example of what I mean. Let's start with this: A BBC Travel online article, published in 2019, about The Camino de Santiago's ancient secret:

The small town of Fisterra sits above a south-facing promontory, Monte Facho [...]. It was [here] that the conquering Romans first set eyes on a simple stone temple built by the Gallaeci to honour the sun – the Ara Solis – consisting of four granite columns and a slender dome above, as described by Galician historian Benito Vicetto. Sadly, nothing remains today of the Ara Solis, which is believed to have been a place of pagan sun worship. ​

​

For the Romans, the Ara Solis, situated at what they considered the end of the known world and facing the setting sun each evening, must have been a captivating and enigmatic sight. Word of the untamed land at the end of the world began to spread through the Roman Empire and beyond, and travellers began making their way to Cape Finisterre to see the site for themselves. It was described in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History written in 77 AD, and by Ptolemy in his Geographia in 150 AD, who initially used the names Nerium or Promunturium Celticum, meaning Celtic Promontory.​

​

Wow, if that is not proof of a non-Christian or pre-Christian pilgrimage similar to the medieval or contemporary one, I don't know what is.

But, stop. Take note: Pliny and Ptolemy did describe the contours of northwest Spain, that is true. It is not clear from their description which of several capes in the area they actually mean. The first time that the name finis terrae (end of the earth or end of the world) appears in documents where it refers to the town and the cape that we know under this name today is in the Middle Ages - that's a long time after the Roman occupier had pulled out of Spain; medieval documents were written in Latin and when a placename is written in Latin, it does not mean that it was coined by the Romans. Either Pliny or Ptolemy or both also mention a sun altar somewhere in their geographical descriptions. Where exactly, is impossible to find out. Neither of them saw it with their own eyes. They most definitely did not say that the altar was where today's Finisterre is and they most definitely did not say that people from all over the Roman Empire flocked there.

Now who is Galician historian Benito Vicetto and what did he actually have to say about this. Stay tuned.

 

[Bill's_Walking]

The suspense is killing me!

 

[VNwalking]

Now who is Galician historian Benito Vicetto and what did he actually have to say about this.

The first part is easy.

Benito Vicetto Pérez - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Historia de Galicia – A Historia das historias do Reino de Galicia

historiadoreino.gal

What he actually said takes more time...
But it's in Tomo Segundo - beginning on page 5.
At least that's what the index linked above says.

 

[Kathor1]

The only place that I know of massive pagan pilgrimage in Galicia is Monte Facho in Cangas de Morrazo, near Vigo, in honour of god Berobreo.

Thank you for this fascinating information! You explained already where this place is but since there is also a Monte Facho at Cabo Fisterra an additional look at the map may be helpful to keep them apart. At least it was helpful for me.

 

[JabbaPapa]

travellers began making their way to Cape Finisterre to see the site for themselves

This is a description of tourism, not pilgrimage.

 

[VNwalking]

The only place that I know of massive pagan pilgrimage in Galicia is Monte Facho in Cangas de Morrazo , near Vigo, in honour of god Berobreo

And:
Following a link, I found this - super interesting, because it's about a stone circle right on the Invierno, not far from Monforte, about 120km from present-day Santiago.

Os misterios dos "henge" ou "ringworks" en Galicia... atopan outro na Pobra do Brollón - Historia de Galicia

Tempo de lectura: 8 min. Artigo realizado polo arqueólogo Xurxo Ayán O 28 de febreiro de 2020 o investigador Xabier Moure comunicou ao arqueólogo Xurxo Ayán a localización no...

historiadegalicia.gal

Still reading, but it bears many similarities to henges in England, which were definitely gathering places for people from afar.

Os seus escavadores enmarcan Ventosiños no contexto atlántico europeo e vincúlano aos ringworks do SE de Inglaterra, datados entre o 1100 e o 800 cal BC) (Cano Pan et ao. 134, n. p. 4).

O carácter excepcional dos materiais localizados no interior levou a algúns autores para suxerir que os ringworks eran high status centers (McOmish 2011).

This is of course not about Finisterre, but it's not far away, easily traversed on foot.
Very close by is a castro, Castro de Lourenzo, just steps off the camino. If it were contemporaneous, might it have been like the gathering places at Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge? I'm almost completely ignorant of the science, but find the possibility intriguing.

Edit...the archaeologist spearheading excavation the castro also found the circle.

O arqueólogo Xurxo Ayán leva anos estudando a paisaxe arqueolóxica da súa parroquia, Cereixa, onde desde 2016 dirixe o proxecto do castro de San Lourenzo (Ayán 2021).

It gets very interesting.

Todos os datos dispoñibles na actualidade, á espera do desenvolvemento de sondaxes e escavacións, fannos expor a posibilidade que este círculo de Vilarello correspóndase cun tipo de estruturas de carácter cultual que comezan a ser localizadas e estudadas en Galicia nos últimos anos. Estas rodas, rodelas, henges (máis propiamente cremos que se debería falar de ringworks, se atendemos aos paralelos británicos) presentan unha serie de características comúns: non se integran no imaxinario colectivo a través de lendas e referencias folclóricas, non son identificadas como estruturas doutro tempo polos paisanos, non se emprazan no alto de montes ou outeiros, senón en ladeira, en zonas intermedias próximas ás rupturas de pendente, presentan unha visibilidade directa sobre o terreo circundante, teñen sempre forma circular e un diámetro que oscila entre os 40 e 60 m (Gago Mariño 2021).

o xacemento destas características que achega máis información é o de Ventosiños (Coeses, Lugo), escavado en área durante o transcurso das obras da autovía A-54 Lugo-Santiago entre 2011 e 2013 (Cano Pan et ao. 2015). O lugar, próximo ao veciño castro de Ventosiños, serviu claramente de espazo cerimonial durante a transición do Bronce Final ao Hierro I (séculos XI-IX cal. BC). Segundo os seus escavadores, o sitio seguiu sendo frecuentado ata o século IV a.C. (Cano Pan et ao. 2015: 130). A construción anular (máis recente) alcanza un diámetro interno de 40 m e de 60 m o externo e está rodeada por un foso. Ao norte esténdese un espazo delimitado por un enclós (máis antigo). Neste espazo localizáronse 32 fosas, moitas delas con material cerámico no seu interior correspondente na súa maioría a vasillas cilíndricas e bitroncocónicas. É reseñable tamén a aparición dun bo número de placas líticas perforadas (de lousa) e de elementos de orixe fenicio como unha fíbula tipo Huelva e unha conta de colar oculada de pasta vítrea.
Os seus escavadores enmarcan Ventosiños no contexto atlántico europeo e vincúlano aos ringworks do SE de Inglaterra, datados entre o 1100 e o 800 cal BC) (Cano Pan et ao. 134, n. p. 4). Defínense pola súa morfoloxía anular e pola presenza dun parapeto exterior e un foso. Os diámetros das devanditas estruturas oscilan entre os 40 m e os 120 m de diámetro. Os fosos alcanzan profundidades de ata 4 m e os parapetos elévanse en ocasións ata 3 m. Poden presentar máis dun van no parapeto. No interior aparecen compartimentaciones internas e numerosas fosas. O carácter excepcional dos materiais localizados no interior levou a algúns autores para suxerir que os ringworks eran high status centers (McOmish 2011).

It's totally fascinating, and there's a lot now coming to light, eg.:

Na procura dunha segunda evidencia. A segunda campaña de intervención en Outeiro Grande (Lalín) busca precisar a cronoloxía do enigmático xacemento

A segunda campaña de intervención en Outeiro Grande (Lalín) busca precisar a cronoloxía do enigmático xacemento

www.culturagalega.org

We fixate on Finisterre, but there are many other possibilities for ancient pilgrimage that have nothing to do with the sea.

 

[Kathor1]

This is a description of tourism, not pilgrimage.

Gosh, do we really want to start yet another discussion about what is a pilgrim and what is a pilgrimage in various people's various minds? In the context of THIS thread? And btw, this is a description in a 2019 online article on a BBC website. Wait and see whether it is even based on historically sound knowledge ... of course, you can do your own online research into this if you don't want to wait. It's easy to do. Look at context instead of picking out a single word or sentence for comment.

 

[JabbaPapa]

Gosh, do we really want to start yet another discussion about what is a pilgrim and what is a pilgrimage

No, it is a comment about what is said in that piece.

 

[Philtration]

Yeah, this is all good, but were there any true pagan pilgrims?

 

[Tincatinker]

Yeah, this is all good, but were there any true pagan pilgrims?

Oh mate. Please don't start a True Pagan debate.

You'll only upset the Moon-bathers

 

[dick bird]

I enjoy the wisecracks, but I also enjoy the incredible depth and detail of the research Kathar1na has done on this thread. It really is impressive and it goes a long way to dispel some of the more esoteric twaddle that gets spouted on the topic of the Camino de Santiago.

I am still waiting for some definite link between pre-Christian pilgrimages and ritual journeys and the medieval pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela. Similarities, yes; links, not yet.

 

[Tincatinker]

I don’t think there are links, other than the roads and tracks and passes through the mountains and the navigable river crossings. The timespans are to vast, the cultural shifts to profound. Nothing links Neolithic pot bearers to the Mithraic obsessives of the Roman armies to the sackclothed gourd-bearers sandaling their way to Santiago in search of exemption except the landscapes they trod, the weather they endured and, perhaps, the Orujo they slurped to take the chill of their backs.
That said I will still maintain those were holy roads way before someone made them Holy

 

[VNwalking]

I am still waiting for some definite link between pre-Christian pilgrimages and ritual journeys and the medieval pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela. Similarities, yes; links, not yet.

Who knows? There probably aren't any, and how would we find out anyway? One of those links I posted above noted that there isn't integration of old sites into present-day folklore. They've been forgotten:

presentan unha serie de características comúns: non se integran no imaxinario colectivo a través de lendas e referencias folclóricas

 

[Kathor1]

What he actually said takes more time... But it's in Tomo Segundo - beginning on page 5. At least that's what the index linked above says.

@VNwalking, when I read these lines, I had no idea just how much time it would take. It is very much like the narrative of Saint James in Spain. Every other century or so an author or two or more come along and add something to the narrative and expand and embellish it but what they contribute rests on a very flimsy or fictive basis that would not pass the criteria of our contemporary standards for scientific and documentary research. At the end of two thousand years of this, we have a vast narrative, partly contradicting itself, that usually gets condensed into a few appropriate, and seemingly convincing, lines for the guidebook or the Camino book or the blog.

I erroneously had assumed that Vicetto, in the late 19th century, wrote only about the presumed sun altar in connection with Decimus Junius Brutus' miltary campaigns in Galicia some two thousand years earlier, and it would have been easy to show how much Vicetto had added to the Roman historian's account. But Vicetto wrote a lot more about the presumed sun altar, as I now know. So I give you this for your entertainment [translated from Spanish]:

The fame of Ara-Solis [at cape Finisterre] was such, exaggerated by the distance, by the beliefs of those times and by the exalted imagination of the Greeks, that our coasts were visited by an infinite number of people from the East, in a pilgrimage as active as it was fanatical.​

Source: Greek Colonisation, Tome I, Historia de Galicia, Ferrol 1865​

​

For him, and the one BBC article writer cited earlier, the multitudes apparently came from the Greek and Roman world to the distant shores of Galicia while, in contrast to this, I detect, among our contemporary output, a clear preference for multitudes from other pagan worlds, generally from the Celtic-Gallic-Neolithic-Megalithic world, all of them combined. It just fits better into the mysticism that is associated with Galicia I suppose.

 

[JabbaPapa]

As you can see, the location of Compostela is on the old Roman road between Betanzos (La Coruña really) and Vigo, and there is no indication of any Camino-like route towards Finisterra in Roman times :

The main Westerly road leads to Betanzos through Astorga and Lugo.

The major road leading to Gallaecia most similar to the Camino Francès (there was a second slightly more southerly route) stretched from Tarragona through Lleida, Zaragoza, Logroño, Burgos, León, Astorga, Ponferrada, Lugo, La Coruña. Note that it joined a more important road at Tarragona, the Cadíz to Rome one.

You could get as far as Sarria on the major roads, but then getting to the location of Compostela from Sarria would have required a detour through some secondary roads or on the main La Coruña-Vigo one. This too is not indicative of the Camino having some pre-Christian origin, else some simpler route would have existed.

Certainly, there would have been pagan religious sites in such places as Iria Flavia, Lugo, Astorga, Vigo, and so on, which would likely have been centres for local pilgrimages, but the same could be said of any other such locations in the Empire -- but as to similarity with the Camino, you'd have to look to Athens, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Rome, the Temple at Jerusalem, and other such major pilgrimage sites of Antiquity.

As to pre-Roman Galicia, the main cities appear to have been Lugo and Braga, which likely were then also the main religious centres :

Finisterra was clearly some out-of-the-way backwater, a small port town and fishing village, and as to the location of Compostela, part of the farming communities near Iria Flavia.

A more detailed view of the roads in the areas pertinent to Compostela and Finisterra is here :

Note how the local roads of the Cape appear to be centred on what looks like Santa Comba. Local market town clearly, but doesn't resemble at all some site for pilgrimages from afar.

 

[JabbaPapa]

This Ara Solis stuff sounds dubious :

https://concellofisterra.gal/turismo/info_lendas/en/45

Tells the tradition that romans found in that place an altar to the sun (Ara Solis) built by the phoenicians and which Apostle Santiago ordered to destroy a little later.

But suppose such an altar did exist -- where ?

Tha Ancients considered the Promontorium Artabrum to be the whole of that coastline, not the specific location where modern Finisterra is to be found -- either just the western coast, or also the northern coast.

And I cannot help but find the 19th Century origin of this story as being untrustworthy in principle, as many scholars of the period sought, quite erroneously, to find "pagan origins" in all manner of Christian traditions.

At best, one might suppose that there may have been a mariners' cult attached to some location near Finisterra, with some similarity to the mediaeval and modern maritime pilgrimages to Santiago ; but that's not "The Camino", which is primarily a foot pilgrimage route.

 

[Kathor1]

The suspense is killing me!

I got sidetracked ... .

In any case, if I have not yet made it clear enough: I am less interested in what they would call "original research" or "own research" on Wikipedia which is not allowed there, at least in principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

What I am interested in are the actual historical sources, over centuries, that contain claims about anything that could be classified as a pilgrimage of some sort to the region around today's Santiago and how these authors contributed to the narratives that we hear today and that are often presented as facts while they are largely based on fiction when you actually look at the sources. I find that quite fascinating for more than one reason.

From this point of view, Juan Satti's twelve articles are a real treasure trove because he has compiled so many details about these sources, what they say in the original version and in a Spanish translation and in particular, unlike so many other contemporary articles, books and websites, he provides sufficient information (authors, titles of their books, etc) that makes it possible to find and access such sources directly. And with the World Wide Web being the marvellous tool that it is, these sources are now accessible to all of us who have an interest in this topic!

 

[Pelegrin]

​

For him, and the one BBC article writer cited earlier, the multitudes apparently came from the Greek and Roman world to the distant shores of Galicia while, in contrast to this, I detect, among our contemporary output, a clear preference for multitudes from other pagan worlds, generally from the Celtic-Gallic-Neolithic-Megalithic world, all of them combined. It just fits better into the mysticism that is associated with Galicia I suppose.

If my recent DNA origin result counts for this matter : 87 % ( paleolitic+ neolitic), 1% Italian, 10% (UK, France, Germany) (celtic+germanic) , 2% Malta ( Italian, Greek, Phenician, North Africa).

 

[David Tallan]

with one article translated by him into English

If this is the English language article in your list, it doesn't seem to have been translated by the author of the article but rather by the author of the website on which it has been posted.

 

[JJW]

This Ara Solis stuff sounds dubious :

https://concellofisterra.gal/turismo/info_lendas/en/45

Tells the tradition that romans found in that place an altar to the sun (Ara Solis) built by the phoenicians and which Apostle Santiago ordered to destroy a little later.

But suppose such an altar did exist -- where ?

Tha Ancients considered the Promontorium Artabrum to be the whole of that coastline, not the specific location where modern Finisterra is to be found -- either just the western coast, or also the northern coast.

And I cannot help but find the 19th Century origin of this story as being untrustworthy in principle, as many scholars of the period sought, quite erroneously, to find "pagan origins" in all manner of Christian traditions.

At best, one might suppose that there may have been a mariners' cult attached to some location near Finisterra, with some similarity to the mediaeval and modern maritime pilgrimages to Santiago ; but that's not "The Camino", which is primarily a foot pilgrimage route.

Hi Jabba,
Any citations you can share of many 19th C scholars who sought for those origins in any manner of Christian traditions?

 

[JabbaPapa]

Hi Jabba,
Any citations you can share of many 19th C scholars who sought for those origins in any manner of Christian traditions?

I don't really have the materials available to properly answer that question -- interwebs don't cut it, I'd need access to a decent University library -- but even so, that would be a serious research question answerable only with a fairly lengthy paper, longer than just a dissertation, and so unsuited to this place.

And quite off-topic. Briefly though, IT-assisted scholarship since the 1990s has debunked many of the assumptions that were set in place concerning religions in the 19th and early to mid 20th Centuries, among them, as to the case in point, that Christian traditions were just transformed and repackaged pagan ones, which was predicated on some notion of oral traditions and written texts shifting and changing over the Centuries, which is now established not to have been the case at all.

There's also the problem that "pagan" has two different meanings -- the second one being "local, rustic" -- which led to some misleading confusions in the older scholarly work.

As OED puts it :

The explanation of L. pāgānus in the sense ‘non-Christian, heathen’, as arising out of that of ‘villager, rustic’, (supposedly indicating the fact that the ancient idolatry lingered on in the rural villages and hamlets after Christianity had been generally accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire: see Trench Study of Words 102, and cf. Orosius i Præf. ‘Ex locorum agrestium compitis et pagis pagani vocantur’) has been shown to be chronologically and historically untenable, for this use of the word goes back to Tertullian c 202, when paganism was still the public and dominant religion, and even appears, according to Lanciani, in an epitaph of the 2nd cent.]

Christianity did adopt here and there some local pagan traditions, and to this day continues to use "pagan" in the sense of "local, rustic" for some local Christian cults and practices, traditional European village feast days for example, but the 19th Century notion that Christian Religion and its practices are in general transformed pagan ones is "historically untenable".

The practices and traditions of even the earliest Christianity were very different to those of the contemporary paganism. And I could go no further than that without getting completely off-topic, though I would hope that the pertinence of this to some so-called "pagan origins" of the Camino will be apparent.

 

[Kathor1]

I found new treasures .

As mentioned, I am not so much interested in finding "proof" for or against a pre-Christian or non-Christian Camino or pilgrimage to the Santiago area in Galicia before the year 1100 or so as I am interested in understanding how the contemporary narratives of such a Camino developed, where it all comes from. Because there are today obviously such narratives. Of course I have a personal opinion about the "whether or not" but personal opinions are largely irrelevant.

Much of these narratives, both now and in the more recent past of the last 200 years or so, are focused on Cape Finisterre and on general social and religious contexts for the larger area in northwest Spain throughout hundreds if not thousands of centuries. So here we go:

Tesauros - Diccionarios del patrimonio cultural de España - No encontrado

tesauros.mecd.es

This is a thesaurus of historical geographical names in Spain - a database maintained by the Spanish Ministry for Culture. Ara solis is not in it but it contains the various ancient names for (presumably) Cape Finisterre including the relevant ancient sources. And in particular: A specific settlement known in Roman times that is listed under the name Assegonia as one of the many stopovers on the Roman Road XIX of the Itinerario de Antonino and under the name of Aseconia as a stopover on the Itinerario de Astorga II (with details for both names so that you can find check them out in the initial sources). Quote: Although Assegonia is traditionally related to Santiago de Compostela (it must have been fairly close to where the Cathedral now stands) there is no absolute certainty, but the place denotes an important communications hub in this area of the northwest peninsular.

LacusCurtius • A Gateway to Ancient Rome

Major site on ancient Rome: 6000+ pages, 130 maps/plans, 1200+ images of Roman monuments; texts of Pliny, Dio, Polybius, Appian, Vitruvius, Diodorus…

penelope.uchicago.edu

This website contains, among other stuff, links to Greek and Latin Texts - 61 complete works or authors from Antiquity (some of them bilingual with English translation). Florus, Pliny, Ptolomy, Strabo, Tacitus - they and their major texts are all there and accessible to all of us here.

NADLE: Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre

ndl.ethernet.edu.et

A fully fledged Springer International Publishing edition that has been put online in digital form by a national academic library and is accessible free of charge !!! This deals with various aspects of Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre. 222 pages in English and published in 2015. Although the focus is not on ancient history and I've only just glanced through it I am confident that I am going to find one or the other pearl.

 

[JabbaPapa]

One map I didn't post is this one, which shows various place names in Roman Galleica :



Note that some of the names are Celtic/Gaulish, others Roman, and some Greek -- also modern towns and modern names are provided for reference, towns with white circles such as Santiago de Compostela are not Roman era ones.

 

[Pelegrin]

One map I didn't post is this one, which shows various place names in Roman Galleica :

View attachment 141740

Note that some of the names are Celtic/Gaulish, others Roman, and some Greek -- also modern towns and modern names are provided for reference, towns with white circles such as Santiago de Compostela are not Roman era ones.

I am not an specialist but Gigurri and Seurri (Sarria) sound Preindoeuropean, similar to Euskera. According to this map I could be Baedyi, but I never heard this name before.

 

[Kathor1]

According to this map I could be Baedyi, but I never heard this name before.

The source of the map is Alain Tranoy's book La Galice Romain. Without context (it is a recent publication and not accessible online) it is difficult to say what it is based on. To me, it looks like a visualisation of the compilation of names listed by ancient authors like Ptolemy and Pliny but it would take a bit of time and effort to find the exact spot in their work. They did not draw maps in those days so we can only try to put their words into such cartographic visualisations.

For your entertainment, here is a screenshot from a text that turned up in a quick Google search. The book was published in 1832. It is (translated from German) a Handbook of the Old Geography for Grammar Schools and for Self-Study. It contains such a list of names used by Roman or Greek authors for foreign tribes far away. I don't think that we know what these tribes actually called themselves. BTW, grammar schools stands for secondary schools of an academic nature.

Note:
St. der Beadyi = Stamm der Baedyi, i.e. tribe of the Beadyi.
alle von Ptol. genannt = all mentioned by Ptolemy.

 

[Pelegrin]

Note:
St. der Beadyi = Stamm der Baedyi, i.e. tribe of the Beadyi.
alle von Ptol. genannt = all mentioned by Ptolemy.

View attachment 141754

Thank you @Kathar1na. So the "St der Baedyi" was Betanzos and therefore the Baedyi were Celtic ( the Brigantini). Not sure that those people lived in my place (up in the hills).

 

[Gerard Griffin]

According to a pagan pilgrim (if such there be), there is a huge and powerful line of energy, or "ley line", running along the Camino route we use today.

I have no doubt the Camino pre-dates Christianity by a considerable time. Homo Neanderthalis was probably dodging Mastodons on the Meseta.

 

[JJW]

I don't really have the materials available to properly answer that question -- interwebs don't cut it, I'd need access to a decent University library -- but even so, that would be a serious research question answerable only with a fairly lengthy paper, longer than just a dissertation, and so unsuited to this place.

And quite off-topic. Briefly though, IT-assisted scholarship since the 1990s has debunked many of the assumptions that were set in place concerning religions in the 19th and early to mid 20th Centuries, among them, as to the case in point, that Christian traditions were just transformed and repackaged pagan ones, which was predicated on some notion of oral traditions and written texts shifting and changing over the Centuries, which is now established not to have been the case at all.

There's also the problem that "pagan" has two different meanings -- the second one being "local, rustic" -- which led to some misleading confusions in the older scholarly work.

As OED puts it :

The explanation of L. pāgānus in the sense ‘non-Christian, heathen’, as arising out of that of ‘villager, rustic’, (supposedly indicating the fact that the ancient idolatry lingered on in the rural villages and hamlets after Christianity had been generally accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire: see Trench Study of Words 102, and cf. Orosius i Præf. ‘Ex locorum agrestium compitis et pagis pagani vocantur’) has been shown to be chronologically and historically untenable, for this use of the word goes back to Tertullian c 202, when paganism was still the public and dominant religion, and even appears, according to Lanciani, in an epitaph of the 2nd cent.]

Christianity did adopt here and there some local pagan traditions, and to this day continues to use "pagan" in the sense of "local, rustic" for some local Christian cults and practices, traditional European village feast days for example, but the 19th Century notion that Christian Religion and its practices are in general transformed pagan ones is "historically untenable".

The practices and traditions of even the earliest Christianity were very different to those of the contemporary paganism. And I could go no further than that without getting completely off-topic, though I would hope that the pertinence of this to some so-called "pagan origins" of the Camino will be apparent.

This is all your opinion, except the one citation from OED.

 

[Karl G]

Lots of interesting stuff here but it isn’t clear to me what “Pagan origins of the Camino” means.

Many of the responses seem to have different takes on this. For example, are we talking about the routes themselves, a spiritual pilgrimage that follows those routes, a regular movement of large number of people along the same route, a pilgrimage that ends in Santiago, does the pilgrimage have to follow the exact route or all of the route - and what exactly is the route we are talking about since there are many camino routes?

Maybe the OP @Samten can explain.

In the meantime, it does make for some interesting reading.

 

[JJW]

I found new treasures .

As mentioned, I am not so much interested in finding "proof" for or against a pre-Christian or non-Christian Camino or pilgrimage to the Santiago area in Galicia before the year 1100 or so as I am interested in understanding how the contemporary narratives of such a Camino developed, where it all comes from. Because there are today obviously such narratives. Of course I have a personal opinion about the "whether or not" but personal opinions are largely irrelevant.

Much of these narratives, both now and in the more recent past of the last 200 years or so, are focused on Cape Finisterre and on general social and religious contexts for the larger area in northwest Spain throughout hundreds if not thousands of centuries. So here we go:

Tesauros - Diccionarios del patrimonio cultural de España - No encontrado

tesauros.mecd.es

This is a thesaurus of historical geographical names in Spain - a database maintained by the Spanish Ministry for Culture. Ara solis is not in it but it contains the various ancient names for (presumably) Cape Finisterre including the relevant ancient sources. And in particular: A specific settlement known in Roman times that is listed under the name Assegonia as one of the many stopovers on the Roman Road XIX of the Itinerario de Antonino and under the name of Aseconia as a stopover on the Itinerario de Astorga II (with details for both names so that you can find check them out in the initial sources). Quote: Although Assegonia is traditionally related to Santiago de Compostela (it must have been fairly close to where the Cathedral now stands) there is no absolute certainty, but the place denotes an important communications hub in this area of the northwest peninsular.

LacusCurtius • A Gateway to Ancient Rome

Major site on ancient Rome: 6000+ pages, 130 maps/plans, 1200+ images of Roman monuments; texts of Pliny, Dio, Polybius, Appian, Vitruvius, Diodorus…

penelope.uchicago.edu

This website contains, among other stuff, links to Greek and Latin Texts - 61 complete works or authors from Antiquity (some of them bilingual with English translation). Florus, Pliny, Ptolomy, Strabo, Tacitus - they and their major texts are all there and accessible to all of us here.

NADLE: Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre

ndl.ethernet.edu.et

A fully fledged Springer International Publishing edition that has been put online in digital form by a national academic library and is accessible free of charge !!! This deals with various aspects of Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre. 222 pages in English and published in 2015. Although the focus is not on ancient history and I've only just glanced through it I am confident that I am going to find one or the other pearl.

Thank you Kathar1na for all the citations and sources which will allow us to continue research into this topic and enhance our understanding .

 

[gowhipple]

Were there pre-Christian pilgrimages? Absolutely: pilgrimage, in the sense of a visit or journey to a religious site, is still an important part of all the major world religions and many pre-date Christianity. So were there pre-Christian pilgrimages? Yes. To Santiago de Compostela? Almost certainly not since it wasn't a sacred site until Christianity made it one in the ninth century. As for any link between pre-Roman religious practices and post Classical Christianity, I think that is unlikely. That doesn't mean Celto-Iberian culture isn't a fascinating area of study, just don't expect any blinding insights into the Camino de Santiago.

I believe there are subtle and sometimes not so subtle links between pre-Roman practices and Christianity, if you are prepared to see them. I believe there are still Pagan influences on many of the Churches and architecture that are still visible, but fading and sometimes they've been purposely removed as the religious practices appear move forward across time and culture. Just my opinion. But it's an opinion held by others too. The Way of the Wild Goose was an interesting read by the author of the Moon Guide to the Camino de Santiago. Beebee Bahrami is a cultural anthropologist who has been writing about this area for years. I saw many people physically carrying her Moon Guide in September on the Camino Frances.
I carried both books and other guides with me in the kindle app on my phone... no extra weight. Although, I only opened them a couple of times in 37 days. I did my reading before the Camino and then walked. I may go back on my own "goose" chase of some sort one day. Although I do not identify as a "moon-bather," it was a rewarding experience to kick up our pace and make it to Finisterre for the sunset and the full-moon rising in October, right before the rains of the remnants of Hurricane Ian reached La Costa Morte. I've been noticing many links, coincidences, and synchronicities lately in my life. I think I could come up with my own cult. But I don't believe anyone would join. While my son was riding the "Ian" storm out in our home in Florida, we had our only two days of rain on the entire Camino Frances. Up and over O'Cebreiro and the next day on through Samos to Sarria from Tricastela, we slipped and slid, walking in the Rain and rivers of cow #$$%^. I will admit that I am a self-identified hurricane-bather, two typhoons in Okinawa and several hurricanes here in Florida. I just haven't found a mystical hurricane believing tribe to join yet. There are some parallels to the Camino. After quite a bit of work, you can come together and cook up a feast, and enjoy each other's company, at least until the lights go out.

 

[JJW]

I believe there are subtle and sometimes not so subtle links between pre-Roman practices and Christianity, if you are prepared to see them. I believe there are still Pagan influences on many of the Churches and architecture that are still visible, but fading and sometimes they've been purposely removed as the religious practices appear move forward across time and culture. Just my opinion. But it's an opinion held by others too. The Way of the Wild Goose was an interesting read by the author of the Moon Guide to the Camino de Santiago. Beebee Bahrami is a cultural anthropologist who has been writing about this area for years. I saw many people physically carrying her Moon Guide in September on the Camino Frances.
I carried both books and other guides with me in the kindle app on my phone... no extra weight. Although, I only opened them a couple of times in 37 days. I did my reading before the Camino and then walked. I may go back on my own "goose" chase of some sort one day. Although I do not identify as a "moon-bather," it was a rewarding experience to kick up our pace and make it to Finisterre for the sunset and the full-moon rising in October, right before the rains of the remnants of Hurricane Ian reached La Costa Morte. I've been noticing many links, coincidences, and synchronicities lately in my life. I think I could come up with my own cult. But I don't believe anyone would join. While my son was riding the "Ian" storm out in our home in Florida, we had our only two days of rain on the entire Camino Frances. Up and over O'Cebreiro and the next day on through Samos to Sarria from Tricastela, we slipped and slid, walking in the Rain and rivers of cow #$$%^. I will admit that I am a self-identified hurricane-bather, two typhoons in Okinawa and several hurricanes here in Florida. I just haven't found a mystical hurricane believing tribe to join yet. There are some parallels to the Camino. After quite a bit of work, you can come together and cook up a feast, and enjoy each other's company, at least until the lights go out.

Like Iago, you may be a son of thunder.

 

[hecate105]

Something I've posted before. Probably my all-time favourite Facebook post. From the American Pilgrims on the Camino Facebook group several years ago. The writer then went on to explain that he knew this to be fact because his late wife had been part of that group in one of her 70+ previous incarnations. Despite polite suggestions from other group members he never amended the post so it may not be the typo that most of us assumed at the time...

View attachment 141430

Us pagans have a lot to live up to....

 

[hecate105]

I appreciated the various dolmens and caves I encountered in September 2022 along the del Norte. Is there any data on neolithic or mesolithic areas along the Primitivo as I am hoping to walk this caminio sometime this year...

www.megalithicportal.com is a brilliant site for finding ancient sites - from holy wells to stone circles - all over the world. If you enjoy suchlike - you can add sites and photos too!

 

[hecate105]

No primary sources - but if you are interested in possible paths of pagan making - surprisingly the book 'Rosslyn' by Tim ~Wallace-Murphy digresses much to possible reverse Camino routes thru Europe....
So much so that I made my long-suffering husband cycle 3100 miles from Sintra to Rosslyn - the Uk leg with our dear departed dog Oaky (at 5 stone he made an admiral 'land anchor' in his trailer) We only completed the last 26 miles last summer due to standing in a bee swarm......(like you do!)
Funnily enough we are off to cycle Portugal again in March - so will investigate that crazy pillar in Sintra again....

 

[hecate105]

Us pagans have a lot to live up to....

Oh dear - that could be a typo or Freudian slip too - Us pagans or US pagans...!! Sorry y'all....

 

[Gerard Griffin]

Bloody pagans, can't get away from them

 

[Tincatinker]

We’ve been around longer. It ain’t our fault. This linear perception of time got imposed on us by them what thinks that everything needs a beginning to happen to get to where it’s got. Let there be light; preferably accompanied by a big BANG and that’ll cover every explanation for everything. And so long as there’s someone in charge, supervising everything then all we have to do is follow the light…

ps. Bl**dy pagans, they’ll believe whatever suits ‘em. And walk that road to wherever they can

 

[JabbaPapa]

This is all your opinion, except the one citation from OED.

No it isn't. But let's not derail the topic.

 

[Kathor1]

Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre. 222 pages in English and published in 2015. Although the focus is not on ancient history and I've only just glanced through it I am confident that I am going to find one or the other pearl.

I had a closer look at Chapter 3 of this Springer Publishing book.

Chapter 3 is about Analysing Narratives About the Camino by Manuel Vilar. Subchapters are:

• Introduction
• Claims from a Local Perspective
• Towards a Global Connection
  
  • The Early Years of This New Period [= first half of 20th century]
  • New Beginnings. The Bibliography in the 1990s
• References to Classic Pilgrims and Travellers as a Resource [= medieval first-hand Camino pilgrimage/travel reports]
  
  • The Definite Step Towards Global Roots
  • Guidebooks for the Camino
  • The Contributions of Anthropology
• Concluding Remarks: Esoterism, Literature and Legends

In a nutshell: This does not primarily deal with what Roman authors from the period of the Roman occupation of Iberia wrote or what the Galician scholars of the 19th century wrote, it is about what is written now in the context of the revival/recreation of "Camino".

To whet your appetites , I give you, without further context, two quotes from this chapter (next post).

 

[Kathor1]

without further context, two quotes from this chapter

page 84 of 222:

Pombo (1990) does this following on from historian Ferreira Priegue (1988b: 136–137), author of a work focusing on the study of medieval routes in Galicia. This scholar looks to different documentary sources, such as boundary markings and deeds of sale, as well as references in the texts of ancient pilgrims, in order to draw a map of the historical routes in Galicia. Pombo also refers to a possible Roman road network to finis terrae, using the work of Compostela canon López Ferreiro, mentioned earlier, as a source of inspiration.​

​

What he tries to demonstrate is that there were Roman roads to the west of Compostela, whose route has not yet been determined (Pombo 1990: 39), in the belief that the pilgrimage route to finis terrae would largely follow the path of a Roman road network, as it does in other locations. Behind this lies the idea that the lands of Finisterre were not an unknown and impassable territory in antiquity. They were not a cultural wasteland, but rather a territory fully incorporated into the civilized Roman world, a world in which Christianity grew and spread in its early years.​

​

page 88 of 222:

This chapter [3] has discussed the existing bibliography [...]. [...] we have tried to include the intellectual approach to the topic and the various perspectives from which it has been tackled. However, it must be said that in a work of this type, it is not possible to cover all issues. Therefore, there are areas which we have not discussed, such as esoteric literature, contributions from the field of literature and analysis of the importance of legends in constructing imagery and the process of heritagization of the Camino. [...]​

The legends, especially those linked with religious events, were viewed as ‘true belief’ by local scholars, among others (Ramón y Ballesteros 1970). In contrast, there is also the widespread belief that these legends were created to assimilate pagan cults into Christianity and the cult of St James. This makes it possible to justify pilgrimage to the lands of Finisterre based on a strong tradition of earlier pilgrimages. However, the information which would support this has not been found or is not sufficiently illuminating. [...]​

Esoteric literature is without a doubt one field which deserves attention, due to both its abundance and success. It has become something which we might consider a social phenomenon. If we gave it a quick reading, we would see that there is one constant which is repeated: the Camino to Finisterre is an initial route established on top of a pagan route dating from before the discovery of the Apostle’s tomb (Agromayor 1999: 232 and Aracil 1991: 125). This ‘secrecy’ and combination of rituals is discussed in the book El camino secreto de Santiago [The Secret Camino to Santiago], by Rafael Lema. He maintains that the Costa da Morte, where the author is from, was a place filled with sacredness, with stone shrines where worship of the death and resurrection of the sun was practiced, until Christianity successfully associated this route with the figure of St James the Apostle. In this regard, Robert Hodum (2005: 72) also maintains that in the Middle Ages, pilgrims, alchemists, esoterics and Muslims followed the route of the stars to Finisterre, where they found ‘the mystical union of water and sky.’ But all of these works lack specific documentary sources to provide a solid basis for his theories, which grow stronger as they are regularly repeated.​

​

​

 

[JabbaPapa]

Interesting, but obviously weak.

Local pilgrimages can obviously be established as existing in the region, but the same is true everywhere else in Europe.

Still doesn't amount to any real evidence of a pagan Camino.

 

[JabbaPapa]

Homo Neanderthalis was probably dodging Mastodons on the Meseta.

Highly unlikely, given that the Meseta as such did not exist -- forested wilderness existed there instead.

 

[pepi]

The origins of the Camino de Santiago are wholly Christian.

That some of the routes followed pre-date the Camino and may have been used by pre-Christians is fairly well established. Roman Mithraism invited “pilgrimage” to sacred sites including Finis Terre and there is evidence that Neolithic and early Bronze Age “pilgrims” brought the remains of their dead for inhumation in Galicia from as far as the Danube Delta. In my own traditions is the belief that the soul would migrate to the far-west and the sundering sea.
A search for “Pagan” in thread titles using the forum facility will lead you to some interesting discussion. Very few fact

I have some issues with the term "Pagan", it is a negative, pejorative connotation from a purely Christian point of view, traditionally often used as a snooty insult.
Jews for example, use the term "nochri" (נכרי) which does not carry the same negative connotations as the English word "pagan" Rather, it simply refers to those who are not part of the Jewish community or who do not share the same religious beliefs as Jews.
I wished that there would be an alternative, neutral term to describe any number of religious traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), as well.
In lack of such a neutral term, I yield to accept the word "pagan" as a simplification referring to any belief system that does not recognize the Abrahamic God or adhere to their religious texts.
Nevertheless and in the consciousness of its roots, why not avoid the word, when other terms may just as easily be used, for example in the title of this thread, like "Non-Christian origins of the Camino"?
Or am I overly woke?

 

[Tincatinker]

@pepi, words get used in ways that change their meaning and context over time. Pagan, in its Latin root, just meant one who dwelt in the countryside as opposed to those who dwelt in cities. Paganus / Urbanus. Possibly, later, used in a pejorative sense by those sophisticated urbanites who, even then, had forgotten where their food came from.

The OED has “a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions.” as a definition for pagan but that is a later interpretation in my view. I call myself a pagan because my belief systems do not concur with the monotheistic constructions. I’ve been described as anything from Animist to Heathen including “nutter” none of which matters a jot to me. As a child I was called a “Ditch Pig” I’m happy to “own” that one.
“Nochri”? I could offer atheist, un-believer, infidel. Eventually, I think, we’ll all just have to accept that belief is just that, faith is something we can have and our roads are how we get there

 

[Kathor1]

the term "Pagan"

I am not a native speaker of English and I can't tell what people associate with the word pagan or heathen for that matter. I was intrigued to learn today that the first known use of the word pagan appeared in the English language quite late - 15th or 16th century. This made me curious and I had a search in online King James bibles. No pagan appeared in a search of older versions but plenty of heathen, and in newer versions this is replaced by the word Gentiles.

As so often, context is everything. In this thread, when posters refer to history (known, uncertain or fictive), it is obvious that they do not refer to non-Christian religions because nobody assumes that Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam, to name but a few, had much or anything to do with the topic of the thread. Roman and Greek beliefs in Antiquity may be included but I guess the majority of posters understand pagan to refer, in the context of this thread, to the belief systems of Celtic people and of other people who lived in Iberia and in those parts of Europe that were not part of Roman-Greek culture.

As to the use of pagan in the joke comments in the thread and the meaning of the word in that context ...

 

[pepi]

@pepi, words get used in ways that change their meaning and context over time. Pagan, in its Latin root, just meant one who dwelt in the countryside as opposed to those who dwelt in cities. Paganus / Urbanus. Possibly, later, used in a pejorative sense by those sophisticated urbanites who, even then, had forgotten where their food came from.

The OED has “a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions.” as a definition for pagan but that is a later interpretation in my view. I call myself a pagan because my belief systems do not concur with the monotheistic constructions. I’ve been described as anything from Animist to Heathen including “nutter” none of which matters a jot to me. As a child I was called a “Ditch Pig” I’m happy to “own” that one.
“Nochri”? I could offer atheist, un-believer, infidel. Eventually, I think, we’ll all just have to accept that belief is just that, faith is something we can have and our roads are how we get there

That may be so, @Tincatinker, but as an agnostic, I take offense to being called a pagan.

 

[Dawn Gibson]

Hello Fellow Pilgrims,
I am interested in researching the pagan origins of the Camino. Do you have any suggestions of resources and/or authors that I could look into? I don't have a clue where or how to begin.

Thanks so much and Buen Camino!

Hi. I found this book fascinating, The Hidden Camino by Louise Sommer. Here's an Amazon link...

Amazon.co.uk

 

[JabbaPapa]

I was intrigued to learn today that the first known use of the word pagan appeared in the English language quite late - 15th or 16th century.

14th Century -- OED has a 1375 example.

Very much agree with the rest of your post.

"Pagan" in this context, and in the context of the religions of Antiquity, would refer to Graeco-Roman, Celtic/Gaulish, British, Germanic, Egyptian, Mithraic, other Middle Eastern, and other European, Middle East, North African non-Christian and pre-Christian religions.

But not for example North American or Siberian shamanic ones, nor Buddhism, Hinduism, or other world religions.

 

[dick bird]

I was intrigued to learn today that the first known use of the word pagan appeared in the English language quite late - 15th or 16th century. This made me curious and I had a search in online King James bibles. No pagan appeared in a search of older versions but plenty of heathen, and in newer versions this is replaced by the word Gentiles.

That's because the King James Bible was a translation: in some sections, a translation from texts that were in themselves translations of translations. Later bible translators have had access to earlier sources. According to Wikipedia (and they do give references and links for those assiduous enough to check):

Paganism (from classical Latin pāgānus "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism,[1] or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not milites Christi (soldiers of Christ).[2][3] Alternative terms used in Christian texts were hellene, gentile, and heathen.[1] Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Graeco-Roman religion[4] and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian.[4] Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry".[1][5]

The English probably didn't use the word until the 14th century because they are slow to catch on. Also, anyone saying anything in a scholarly or religious context would have said it in Latin.

 

[dick bird]

I have some issues with the term "Pagan", it is a negative, pejorative connotation from a purely Christian point of view, traditionally often used as a snooty insult.
Jews for example, use the term "nochri" (נכרי) which does not carry the same negative connotations as the English word "pagan" Rather, it simply refers to those who are not part of the Jewish community or who do not share the same religious beliefs as Jews.
I wished that there would be an alternative, neutral term to describe any number of religious traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), as well.
In lack of such a neutral term, I yield to accept the word "pagan" as a simplification referring to any belief system that does not recognize the Abrahamic God or adhere to their religious texts.
Nevertheless and in the consciousness of its roots, why not avoid the word, when other terms may just as easily be used, for example in the title of this thread, like "Non-Christian origins of the Camino"?
Or am I overly woke?

Not necessarily pejorative, like many once derogatory terms it has been 'reclaimed' by people who happily apply it to themselves. It is also used more neutrally nowadays to describe pretty well any non-mainstream belief system, particularly if it has mystic or animistic or traditional roots or connections. Words change their connotations as social attitudes change.

 

[Kathor1]

I quite like the summary of definitions that I read on The Grammarphobia blog. They refer to current usage and meaning of the word pagan in English and, basically, say what I had thought anyway and how I used it in the thread:

… today “pagan” has four principal meanings, not all of them derogatory. Here’s what it means in modern English, according to standard dictionaries.

• In speaking of past civilizations, “pagan” refers to the polytheistic people and religions of ancient times, before the Judeo-Christian era. This is how archeologists and historians use the term. And in our opinion, this isn’t a demeaning usage—or at least it isn’t labeled as such in standard dictionaries.
  
  
• In speaking of the present, “pagan” is used for believers and beliefs that fall outside the mainstream religions, as in contemporary Druidism, nature worship, and such [...]. That use isn’t considered demeaning either.
  
  
• However, many dictionaries say that “pagan” is “disparaging,” “derogatory,” or “offensive” when used in reference to contemporaries who are neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim—that is, “heathen” in the missionary’s sense of the word. This use of “pagan,” however, is labeled “dated” or “historical” in some dictionaries.
  
  
• And “pagan” is derogatory when it refers to someone who behaves in an irreligious, unorthodox, or uncultivated way. As some dictionaries note, this usage can be meant humorously.

 

[dick bird]

Debating the meaning of 'pagan'! Makes a very pleasant change from debating the meaning of 'pilgrim'.