- Time of past OR future Camino
- 2022
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The pilgrim office will give a Compostela to someone who walks a minimum of the final 100km to Santiago on one of a handful of recognised routes. Beyond those what constitutes "a Camino" is a very debatable issue. There is a growing network of walking paths across Europe - many of which are signposted as routes towards Santiago as well as being local walking trails. I've lost the original source of this image which I pinched for use in a presentation on the growth of interest in pilgrimage in recent years. This time last year I literally stumbled over a brass scallop shell set in a pavement marking a Camino route in Lithuania. My own view is that any route which takes you to the tomb of the apostle is a Camino.John Brierley said in his presentation that there were hundreds? thousands? of established routes across Europe that could be considered Caminos
I got intrigued so I called up the video recording on YouTube and let it run through, with the sound turned off, with auto-generated English caption turned on, and at 2x the normal speed. This may be the spot you have been looking for: At around 45 minutes, J Breirley says, with great emphasis, that there are, and I quote, 78.000 officially waymarked Caminos to Santiago.a much higher number, but I'll go with Google unless I can find Brierley's quote. Many thanks.
Maybe he's tipping his hat to his Irish heritage?wouldn't consider Brierley to be infallible - after all he called O Cebreiro O'Cebreiro in past editions
"Camino" has become the generic word for a route to Santiago de Compostela. One could also say the Way of St James or Jakobsweg.I would argue that 'camino' being a Spanish word, if it isn't in Spain, it isn't a camino.
"Camino" has become the generic word for a route to Santiago de Compostela. One could also say the Way of St James or Jakobsweg.
I should have known better. I didn't intend to open up a semantic rabbit hole (the worst kind). Suffice it to say, there are lots of ways to walk to Santiago de Compostela. Incidentally, about half the villages in southern England seem to have a 'Pilgrims Way'.Like @dick bird I would personally prefer to keep "Camino" and "Caminho" for naming pilgrim routes in the Iberian peninsula. And maybe Brazil. And other parts of South America....But that ship has sailed and @trecile is right in pointing out that "Camino" is becoming a ubiquitous generic term for a pilgrimage route. As I mentioned above I tripped over this marker for the Camino Lituano in the street in Kaunas last year. 3000+km from Santiago.
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There is a page on his Camino guide website for submitting feedback or queries: https://caminoguides.com/pages/questions-feedback. Anyone have a contact for Brierley or his publisher?
I beg to differ a bit. We are often mixing up the past and the present in forum threads. Contemporary pilgrims want to walk a marked trail that has a name and a total distance expressed in kilometres. Just look at how this forum is structured! We are not content with just saying that we walked to Saint James in Galicia; we want to say, or want to know, on which Camino. Modern Caminos are actually specifically marked hiking trails - except that we are keen to avoid using the word hiking in a Camino context. Perhaps that is the reason why Camino has become a generic term, certainly in English. When did anyone last say that they walked on a Way of Saint James? In French and German, at least that is my impression, perhaps also in Dutch and Italian, it is still quite common to hear and write chemin de Saint Jacques and Jakobsweg instead of Camino.... there are billions of caminos. Wherever a pilgrim is heading towards Santiago that particular way will be a camino.
Brierley specifically said
I can see where your argument is going here, but I don't agree. This was a matter touched on in another thread recently when @JabbaPapa and I discussed semantic distinction between a Camino and the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Here is a link to that, noting there are several contributions to the discussion after that post.In that context, only a route terminating at Santiago de Compostela could reasonably be held to connote a Camino (BIG C). Of course, this is just MY thought on this.
And, those of us here, veteran members of this erstwhile forum, simply encourage more people to do more pilgrimages on the many, many routes of the Camino de Santiago.
An obvious solution to the OP's question.Someone should just ask him directly to clarify what he had been meaning to say ...
But I like this explanation best.One for each pilgrim?
The pilgrim office will give a Compostela to someone who walks a minimum of the final 100km to Santiago on one of a handful of recognised routes. Beyond those what constitutes "a Camino" is a very debatable issue. There is a growing network of walking paths across Europe - many of which are signposted as routes towards Santiago as well as being local walking trails. I've lost the original source of this image which I pinched for use in a presentation on the growth of interest in pilgrimage in recent years. This time last year I literally stumbled over a brass scallop shell set in a pavement marking a Camino route in Lithuania. My own view is that any route which takes you to the tomb of the apostle is a Camino.
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At the Pilgrim's Museam in Santiago 38 Caminos are listed as official.I'm following up on an American Pilgrims on the Camino webinar I enjoyed a few weeks ago. John Brierley said in his presentation that there were hundreds? thousands? of established routes across Europe that could be considered Caminos. I'd like to pass along that statistic, but I don't immediately find it in my scan of the YouTube post of the event. Does anyone know where it is in the video? Even better, does someone know that statistic? Extra credit for the source! Thanks and Buen Camino.
agreeI wouldn't consider Brierley to be infallible - after all he called O Cebreiro O'Cebreiro in past editions (I'm not sure about current editions of his guidebook.)
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Speak for yourself, but I generally don't, even though some parts of my Caminos do follow some portions of some more organised routes.I beg to differ a bit. We are often mixing up the past and the present in forum threads. Contemporary pilgrims want to walk a marked trail that has a name and a total distance expressed in kilometres.
I say so routinely, and if I use Camino, then it's just as a convenient shorthand.When did anyone last say that they walked on a Way of Saint James?
That isn't true, though the old waymarkers were very different to the modern ones.Specifically named and waymarked Caminos for contemporary pilgrims/walkers on foot are a fact.
In the past, that simply did not exist as such.
Jacquet is specific to French.I happened to have a look at the entry for jacquet in the French Wikipedia. Jacquet denotes a Saint James pilgrim, the word has no equivalent in English.
I decided to stop asking for a Compostela at the end of my Camino journeys when the pilgrim office decided that they would only be issued to those who walked an approved route. I've always believed that a pilgrimage is best defined by it's destination - not by the distance or route walked. I had no problem in disregarding the waymarked route through France on my journey to Rome. Until recently I believed that the waymarked routes were simply a convenience for pilgrims. It seems that they are now a constraint.Speak for yourself, but I generally don't, even though some parts of my Caminos do follow some portions of some more organised routes.
To be fair to Katar1na, I am pretty sure she was referring to the majority, and I think that is one category you would be happy to exclude yourself from. Not only that, the original question referred to 'established routes that could be considered caminos', so I think her answer to the original question is also fair. However, the original question opens up the debate on what exactly is meant by a camino, and it is a basic premise of linguistics that there are as many definitions of a word as there are users of it (which is the point Lewis Carroll was making in the Humpty Dumpty quote), so the notion that there are as many caminos as there are pilgrims is also valid.Speak for yourself, but I generally don't, even though some parts of my Caminos do follow some portions of some more organised routes.
A common Spanish Camino proverb is that the Camino goes through every village, and along every pathway.
Billions might be a low estimate of potential Camino routes - - though of actual Camino routes, the literal answer to the question would be the same as the answer to "How many have been on pilgrimage to Santiago ?".
Those of us walking on these Ways of Saint James in an old-fashioned manner are not invalidated by the current (historically inaccurate) tendency to give special names and distinct identity to some recently waymarked hiking routes.
If it doesn't pass through or end in Santiago de Compostela, furthermore, then it isn't a Way of Saint James.
I say so routinely, and if I use Camino, then it's just as a convenient shorthand.
That isn't true, though the old waymarkers were very different to the modern ones.
The Tours, Vézelay, Arles, Le Puy, and Francès names for those particular routes are not modern in origin.
As to the waymarkers, there was a combination of old Roman road style ones, of white stones on church steeples, montjoies along certain routes, and so on.
Jacquet is specific to French.
Historically, pilgrims to Rome were called "pilgrims", paradoxically those to Santiago "romeros", and those to Jerusalem "palmeros". And those are all from Latin, so meaningful in all Western European languages.
Possibly romero meant something like roamer, wanderer ?
But generally, that there is some modern fashion for naming, officialising, waymarking, touristifying, and so on is not sufficient to cancel all of the very numerous Camino Ways that exist outside of any such purposes of classification or normalisation.
Er, no, just tell them you've been unable to fill in the online form, get a ticket from the doorman, and nobody at the desks will insist that you must have followed an "official" route, despite some unfortunate artefacts (bugs or bad design or both) in the online registration site.I decided to stop asking for a Compostela at the end of my Camino journeys when the pilgrim office decided that they would only be issued to those who walked an approved route.
I just have. But please don't let that be a reason to stop anyone else doing the same thing. I personally doubt whether there are even 78000 waymarks, let alone waymarked pilgrimage routes or caminos.@Elizabeth C., did you write to John Brierley via the contact page on https://caminoguides.com/pages/questions-feedback to ask him directly? Because if you didn’t I will. I am such a curious cat …
That was exactly what happened the last time I asked for a Compostela. I had started my journey at San Andres de Teixido and I was told that was not a recognised starting point and that I had to walk the final 100km on a recognised route. As it happens I had joined the Camino Ingles at Neda - 102km from Santiago and therefore technically I qualified to receive a Compostela. But I believe that intention is an important part of pilgrimage. I had no idea at the time that this new rule had been introduced and it played no part in my decision to walk that section of the Ingles. I did not feel justified in accepting a Compostela for which I was qualified purely by chance.nobody at the desks will insist that you must have followed an "official" route, despite some unfortunate artefacts (bugs or bad design or both) in the online registration site.
So pleasant to meet you in person @Bradypus and I think I have remembered the purpose behind the 100K continuously on a single Camino thing - - and it's not about enforcing certain "official" routes, but rather about preventing people who travel by bus or something from one route to another qualifying for a Compostela.That was exactly what happened the last time I asked for a Compostela. I had started my journey at San Andres de Teixido and I was told that was not a recognised starting point and that I had to walk the final 100km on a recognised route. As it happens I had joined the Camino Ingles at Neda - 102km from Santiago and therefore technically I qualified to receive a Compostela. But I believe that intention is an important part of pilgrimage. I had no idea at the time that this new rule had been introduced and it played no part in my decision to walk that section of the Ingles. I did not feel justified in accepting a Compostela for which I was qualified purely by chance.
Very interesting history of Le Puy which I plan for 2024. Thanks for posting. (I just about gave up on the thread with all the nonsense generated by a simple request for advice!)Many places in Europe (with no pilgrimage history) had brotherhoods or confraternities devoted to Saint James (and numerous other saints). Some places, like Le Puy, which has always been a pilgrimage destination, evolved into a starting place for a pilgrimage to Compostela just 50-odd years ago. The 'Camino Le Puy' is now being made by walking.
In 1886, by complete chance, whilst authenticating manuscripts in the National Library in Paris, archivist Léopold Delisle spoted the name “Godeskalk” written in a prologue on a 10th century manuscript. The manuscript had been sent in a batch with others from Le Puy to a wealthy collector in Paris in 1681, thus saving it from possible destruction in Le Puy during the revolution. He wrote about his find in an academic journal in Le Puy but nobody took much interest in it.
The prologue, in Visigothic text, tells us that Bishop Godescalc, who had a special devotion to the Virgin Mary, knew that a valuable manuscript cited in the histories of Spain and Toledo from the 7th century titled De virginitate perpetua Mariae Virginis was in the library of a new monastery in Albelda near Logoroño and decided to obtain a copy for his parish. In 950, on his way to Compostela with a large retinue he detoured to Albelda where he compelled the monk Gomez to make a copy of the manuscript. (Gomez added the prologue with Godescalc’s name to the manuscript, telling us that the Bishop collected the manuscript in January 951 on his return to Le Puy.). Although this manuscript was copied at least a dozen times in Europe, until 1886 nothing was known about Godescalc’s pilgrimage. Even now, nobody knows when he left, the size of his retinue, or what route they took as there is there is no trace whatsoever of the Bishop’s journey amongst the documents in his church, nor any historic pilgrim diaries or accounts of pilgrimages made to Compostela.
The document remained incognito for another 54 years until Joseph-Marie Martin was appointed bishop of Le Puy in 1940. A Cannon of the church remembered the article by Léopold Delisle and showed it to Bishop Martin. In 1950 the Society of Friends of Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle was founded with Mgr Martin listed as an Honorary Member, and in 1951 celebrations are held on 25th July in Santiago in honour of the millennium of Godescalc’s visit.
And so, in the 1970's the Camino from Le Puy was born, a route designed using hiking GR routes to lead pilgrims to the Pyrenees.
This is interesting, and there's a good deal of validity in it, but the anachronisms of our contemporary Camino notions are a bit different to what you suggest.Many places in Europe (with no pilgrimage history) had brotherhoods or confraternities devoted to Saint James (and numerous other saints). Some places, like Le Puy, which has always been a pilgrimage destination, evolved into a starting place for a pilgrimage to Compostela just 50-odd years ago. The 'Camino Le Puy' is now being made by walking.
In 1886, by complete chance, whilst authenticating manuscripts in the National Library in Paris, archivist Léopold Delisle spoted the name “Godeskalk” written in a prologue on a 10th century manuscript. The manuscript had been sent in a batch with others from Le Puy to a wealthy collector in Paris in 1681, thus saving it from possible destruction in Le Puy during the revolution. He wrote about his find in an academic journal in Le Puy but nobody took much interest in it.
The prologue, in Visigothic text, tells us that Bishop Godescalc, who had a special devotion to the Virgin Mary, knew that a valuable manuscript cited in the histories of Spain and Toledo from the 7th century titled De virginitate perpetua Mariae Virginis was in the library of a new monastery in Albelda near Logoroño and decided to obtain a copy for his parish. In 950, on his way to Compostela with a large retinue he detoured to Albelda where he compelled the monk Gomez to make a copy of the manuscript. (Gomez added the prologue with Godescalc’s name to the manuscript, telling us that the Bishop collected the manuscript in January 951 on his return to Le Puy.). Although this manuscript was copied at least a dozen times in Europe, until 1886 nothing was known about Godescalc’s pilgrimage. Even now, nobody knows when he left, the size of his retinue, or what route they took as there is there is no trace whatsoever of the Bishop’s journey amongst the documents in his church, nor any historic pilgrim diaries or accounts of pilgrimages made to Compostela.
The document remained incognito for another 54 years until Joseph-Marie Martin was appointed bishop of Le Puy in 1940. A Cannon of the church remembered the article by Léopold Delisle and showed it to Bishop Martin. In 1950 the Society of Friends of Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle was founded with Mgr Martin listed as an Honorary Member, and in 1951 celebrations are held on 25th July in Santiago in honour of the millennium of Godescalc’s visit.
And so, in the 1970's the Camino from Le Puy was born, a route designed using hiking GR routes to lead pilgrims to the Pyrenees.
I wrote to John Brierley and he very kindly wrote back to explain he actually meant 78000 kilometres of waymarked caminos, which makes a lot more sense.@Elizabeth C., did you write to John Brierley via the contact page on https://caminoguides.com/pages/questions-feedback to ask him directly? Because if you didn’t I will. I am such a curious cat …
He means 78000 kilometres as he has confirmed in an email. This is not far off the 51000 miles mentioned by Woody.I'm following up on an American Pilgrims on the Camino webinar I enjoyed a few weeks ago. John Brierley said in his presentation that there were hundreds? thousands? of established routes across Europe that could be considered Caminos. I'd like to pass along that statistic, but I don't immediately find it in my scan of the YouTube post of the event. Does anyone know where it is in the video? Even better, does someone know that statistic? Extra credit for the source! Thanks and Buen Camino.
He means 78000 km.
My conclusion observing the many Portuguese walking to Fatima was that it was not the route that was important at all, but getting to the Sanctuary. There was only one pilgrim walking to Fatima along the alignment of the Camino Portuguese, while there were hundreds walking along reserved lanes on the major road network. It seemed many were walking in community groups, with support teams following them or attending to them in the towns where they stopped.For a contemporary comparison, the Portuguese who walk from their villages to Fátima don't care about official routes, they just take the natural paths from their homes, but they still end up congregating in certain places, which in turn gives rise to certain particular routes becoming more formalised.
I have never and would never treat the Camino as an end in itself, but only ever as a means to the destination(s), so I don't think it's so much an over-simplification, but a somewhat inaccurate generalisation.It probably over-simplifies the matter, but whereas the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela is important for the journey one undertakes, the pilgrimage to Fatima is a means of reaching the destination, and is not an end in itself.
The paradox is that without a journey, there is no pilgrimage. The journey actually creates the pilgrimage as much as the destination, and for many pilgrims the camino is a profound and transforming experience whether or not that is what they were looking for. This is not a new idea: Bunyan's 'The Pilgrim's Progress' (arguably the best piece of religious literature in English) is built around exactly this idea of a journey as both a metaphor for and a catalyst of transformation.I have never and would never treat the Camino as an end in itself, but only ever as a means to the destination(s), so I don't think it's so much an over-simplification, but a somewhat inaccurate generalisation.
Multiple purposes for "doing the Camino" or walking the Way of Saint James exist, and my impression is that most pilgrims have multiple reasons at the same time, but the pilgrimage as a pilgrimage is to the tomb of the Apostle, not to a hiking route, nor to sections thereof.
I do not discount the fact that many "do" it for the experience and not for the destination, nor would I dis anyone walking these ways in a different manner than myself, or than the more overtly Christian pilgrims, so that suggesting the journey simply "is" the most important thing about these Ways of Saint James goes too far in my opinion.
You have read into my post something I didn't intend, nor did I think was possible when I wrote it. For the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the walk (or ride) is a necessary part of the process of visiting the tomb of the saint. It is right there on the Cathedral's webpage. The end is to visit the tomb, but one undertakes that by walking.I have never and would never treat the Camino as an end in itself, but only ever as a means to the destination(s), so I don't think it's so much an over-simplification, but a somewhat inaccurate generalisation.
Multiple purposes for "doing the Camino" or walking the Way of Saint James exist, and my impression is that most pilgrims have multiple reasons at the same time, but the pilgrimage as a pilgrimage is to the tomb of the Apostle, not to a hiking route, nor to sections thereof.
I do not discount the fact that many "do" it for the experience and not for the destination, nor would I dis anyone walking these ways in a different manner than myself, or than the more overtly Christian pilgrims, so that suggesting the journey simply "is" the most important thing about these Ways of Saint James goes too far in my opinion.
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