- Time of past OR future Camino
- 2012
For 2024 Pilgrims: €50,- donation = 1 year with no ads on the forum + 90% off any 2024 Guide. More here. (Discount code sent to you by Private Message after your donation) |
---|
Three words.why do people think that the Camino starts in St Jean pied de Porte?
Three words.
Coelho
MacLaine
Hollywood
Well, make that four.
Ignorance.
Many of us start out thinking that what we heard or read was true: that the camino means the Frances, and that the 'complete,' or 'whole' camino Frances starts in SJPP. Period.
Never mind the rich history of countless folk starting from their front steps, wherever those happened to be. The many other routes and possible starting points don't much factor in to our impoverished modern reckoning because we're so brainwashed to think otherwise.
Edit - So @davebugg, you just posted at the same time and proved my cynical reasoning wrong.
our impoverished modern reckoning because we're so brainwashed to think otherwise
Me neither, but maybe this is where Shirley and Paolo come in? Amplified by Hollywood.I have never really understood why SJPDP has so greatly eclipsed Somport as a starting point.
I think that some who walk the Caminos now have the romantic idea that walking the Camino Frances has continued more or less unbroken since the Middle Ages. But by the 1970s the practice had all but died out. The few who did walk it did not follow a signposted footpath but rather made their own ways between the towns and villages from the Pyrenees to Santiago.
The idea of a defined, waymarked, mapped and documented route with a guidebook and dedicated pilgrim accommodation really dates from the late 1970s and early 1980s when Don Elias Valina and his associates marked out the route now known as the Camino Frances. Oddly enough that is not what Valina himself called the route in his seminal 1984 guidebook: he simply refers to it as the Camino de Santiago. In reality the Camino Frances of today is far more a creation of the late 20th century rather than a continuation of medieval practice. Don Elias chose to describe a route which begins in SJPDP. His highly influential book starts there. And a lot of us have something of a fixation with walking a "complete" route.
While it is obviously true that in previous centuries pilgrims walked from many different places to Santiago the 20th century Camino revival began with one clearly defined and documented path. It was only after the revival in interest in the Camino Frances had taken root that the multitude of alternative paths were created or resurrected. The thing which I find most odd in retrospect is that Valina described the route from SJPDP as his second option - the first route he describes is the Somport-Canfranc Aragones way. I have never really understood why SJPDP has so greatly eclipsed Somport as a starting point.
You give them way too much credit. I reckon that the overwhelming majority of those who start in SJPP have not read either of these two books nor seen the movie beforehand. I reckon that it’s the authors of Spanish and French guidebooks initially who are too blame for the fact that SJPP has become a traditional starting point. And it’s traditional now. After all, every tradition has to start at some point in time.Three words.
Coelho
MacLaine
Hollywood
Please do what you like with it!Can I steal parts of this for my group page?
I do not think that explanation really holds water. My mother-in-law walked the Camino Frances as part of an international group in 1985 and SJPDP had already been established as the starting point of the route by then - two years before Mr Coelho's book was published , 15 years before Ms Maclaine's and 25 years before Mr Estevez's movie. When I walked my first Camino in 1990 it was pretty much assumed that long-distance Spanish pilgrims would begin from Roncesvalles and the rest of the world would start from SJPDP.Three words.
Coelho
MacLaine
Hollywood
You give them way too much credit. I reckon that the overwhelming majority of those who start in SJPP have not read either of these two books nor seen the movie beforehand. I reckon that it’s the authors of Spanish and French guidebooks initially who are too blame for the fact that SJPP has become a traditional starting point. And it’s traditional now. After all, every tradition has to start at some point in time.
Nowadays, and seen from "our" vantage point (non-English speaking Continental Europe ☺), SJPP is not only a starting point, it is also an end point: the natural end point of the road from Tours/Paris which is a major traditional road from France to Spain and the natural end point of the modern and very popular long-distance path from Le Puy that has been stylised or fashioned into a "camino de Santiago".I reckon that it’s the authors of Spanish and French guidebooks initially who are too blame for the fact that SJPP has become a traditional starting point.
It's Brierley's fault
It just occurred to me that in the French movie Saint-Jacques… La Mecque of 2005 where the protagonists start in Le Puy, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is a turning point of the narrative: that's where their forced group walk ends and where they would be free to return home but where they decide to continue together to Santiago. Both an end and a start.SJPP is not only a starting point, it is also an end point: the natural end point of the road from Tours/Paris and of long-distance path from Le Puy
Back in the day some french chaps had to start from where they lived, near St Jean and therefore set out from there.
Thus the Frances.
The brits - having only a couple of weeks holiday - spotted that there was a ferry to Coruna. They could take that, walk for a few days and hit the beach for the rest of their time getting sunburn, sinking a few scoops of San Miguel, singing ‘aquí vamos, aquí vamos, aquí vamos’, (repeat ad nauseam) and still get back to work before the french had got half way.
Thus the ingles.
If Ryanair existed in the 14th century many would have flown straight to Santiago. (The conditions on most Ryanair flights are designed to remind you of what a 14th C pilgrim had to go through - not a lot of people know that).
My Camino starts at home. I travel by plane, train, automobile and on foot. I walk sections of recognised routes, entire routes and my own routes. Anyone telling me I’m not doing it properly gets a short reply which is unmistakably of Anglo-Saxon derivation.
Bottom line - your life: your rules.
Swear words of the English language. I sense a first major thread drift coming and we are only 25 messages into the thread.Mmmm. Short reply...Anglo-Saxon...two words??
It is also the good fortune of a joyful start.That's one heck of an exciting start.
This made me giggle.determined to travel away from Santiago before walking to Santiago
The famous mountaineering quote. This makes me roll my eyes sometimes and I want to say, well, if you've never walked up a mountain and want to experience walking up a mountain then pick a mountain among the many beautiful mountains around and not a long drawn out slog over a hilly pass where you don't even get to the top of any of the modest mountains to the right and left of you.a potentially crippling walk up and over a thumping great hill for no other reason that I can discern than "that its there" (Mallory, I forgive you)
Well, QED.It became an ambition to follow The Road, just as Coelho's character had. He started from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.
So I blame the Confraternity!
But where did they get that idea, I wonder? Which is basically Tinca's question in the OP...where did that assumption begin, seeing as this is the case:When I walked my first Camino in 1990 it was pretty much assumed that long-distance Spanish pilgrims would begin from Roncesvalles and the rest of the world would start from SJPDP.
I find most odd in retrospect is that Valina described the route from SJPDP as his second option - the first route he describes is the Somport-Canfranc Aragones way. I have never really understood why SJPDP has so greatly eclipsed Somport as a starting point.
Me too. Hahaha. I can hear the dismay. "But...but...the movie makes it look like a mountain!"This makes me roll my eyes sometimes and I want to say, well, if you've never walked up a mountain and want to experience walking up a mountain then pick a mountain among the many beautiful mountains around and not a long drawn out slog over a hilly pass where you don't even get to the top of any of the modest mountains to the right and left of you.
Oh, I thought we had clarified this already ☺.you've pithily stated what is, now. Where it came from is the fascinating part.
But where did they get that idea, I wonder? Which is basicallyTinca's question in the OP
I'm guessing you'll get some pushback about that, @Kathar1na.First of all, what we call the Camino Frances is THE Camino to Santiago, there's not doubt about it, no matter what modern PR wants to tell us.
The Via de Bayona is plenty historical and much more craggy and intersting than that hill from SJPP, with a Roman road/tunnel, and medieval modifications. It may not have the Chanson de Roland mythology/mystique, but that camino and the Norte/Primativo predate the Frances as the way to Santiago by centuries.Too low and not historical enough.
Tincatinker, you have really brought up a subject that has vexed me over the years!I wondered, again, why do people think that the Camino starts in St Jean pied de Porte?
]I also wonder if that experience of crossing over a border from one country to another perhaps adds to the ‘charm’ of starting in SJPP?
This is exactly why I wanted to do it first in 1998. It seemed a romantic notion to walk over the Pyrenees, just like those Resistance fighters during the war. It was pretty exhausting then, as I had not learnt to pack light. It took me 9 hours. More recently, I stayed at Orisson and sent my pack with Express Bourricot. I was still worn out, but I like to think I have crossed the Pyrenees twice on foot. Not many can say that.
Just by the way, an interesting fact is that 90% of the population of Canada lives within 160 km of the US border.I also wonder if that experience of crossing over a border from one country to another perhaps adds to the ‘charm’ of starting in SJPP? This, I think would more appeal to folks from the US and Canada, where national borders are not so near for most.
Oh.
Yes.
Fisterra.
That's part of the 'whole camino,' too.
Whatever.
Well, don't forget to burn your stuff, everyone.
(NOT. Just pointing out the arbitrary nature of 'tradition,' and how we get these ideas and make them into something they never were.)
Strictly speaking, camino de Santiago means way to Santiago. Nobody disputes that there are many ways to Santiago. Nobody disputes, and actually quite a few know, that a long time ago pilgrims walked from home so most of those who walked from their homes in Spain or Portugal didn't walk along the Camino Frances.But to discount the many other ways doesn't do the diversity and historical complexity of the camino justice. The Frances is and was never THE camino. There are too many others to give a single one that title, though UNESCO and others would have us think that.
In a rare display of self discipline, the forum members stayed on track overnight.Swear words of the English language. I sense a first major thread drift coming and we are only 25 messages into the thread.
With the most recent addition to the Compostela rules that is actually the situation for some. If you are a Galician living within a 100km radius of the Cathedral and wish to receive a Compostela at the end of your pilgrimage you must now travel away from Santiago to a point on a recognised Camino route at least 100km from the city and walk from there. The same is true for Galicians further afield who live in some part of the province at some distance from a "recognised" route. What seems like the obvious thing to do - simply to walk by the most convenient/practical/interesting route from your own front door - is no longer acceptable to the cathedral. A situation I find bizarre.It’s fairly obvious why there are multiple routes and why they all proceed to Santiago, but I agree the concept of travelling away from Santiago to walk back to Santiago would have medieval pilgrims very confused.
Do you know which National Geographic issue this was? I have all the issues between 1957 and 1991 and would like to look it up!The first time I heard about the Camino was about thirty years ago when I read an article in National Geographic about a pilgrimage from Le Puy all the way to Santiago, aprox 1600km it said
I have no clue and I only think it was the Geographic as they were dropped into our ready room when they became out of date on the aircraft, but it was a long and excellent article which inspired me at the time even though I procrastinated for nearly twenty years.Do you know which National Geographic issue this was? I have all the issues between 1957 and 1991 and would like to look it up!
I think that is probably true. My own experience has been that the most vocal fans of the movie are often from the USA. And that they first became aware of the Caminos through it rather than any other source. I find that like other examples of "convert vigour" those who have come to the Caminos because of viewing the movie are sometimes inclined to attribute the remarkable growth of the Caminos far more to this one factor than is really justified. One British "newspaper" article I read started with the statement that "Before the movie The Way made it famous, no one really knew about El Camino de Santiago, otherwise known as The Way of Saint James." Which suggests that the Camino boom was essentially invented by Emilio Estevez and all of us who claim to have walked it prior to 2010 such as the 145,877 who received Compostelas in 2009 are deludedI'm guessing more recent pilgrims from the USA are more influenced by the movie, though Paolo and Shirley may have also had an impact.
Three words.
Coelho
MacLaine
Hollywood
An observation which also counters the frequently expressed idea that the huge growth of interest in the Caminos can be blamed mainly on the Blessed John Brierley. A delusion of grandeur from we AnglophonesTo put it into perspective: Last year, more than 75% of those who collected a Compostela were from non-English speaking countries in Continental Europe.
I am lucky enough to live on the Camino de Levante, some 25 km after starting point, so my first camino started at home, and after Santiago finished at Fisterra/Muxia.Back in the day some french chaps had to start from where they lived,
That's the best explanation yet.So I guess it all depends where you are told it starts when you don't know yourself.
I would suggest that the 4th in that list is social media.
Oh, right. Absolutely. Big omission...which exposes my allergy to such things.we all know that if it isn't on Strava, it didn't happen
((Whispering an aside to anyone who knows..."What's Strava?"))
Me neither, but maybe this is where Shirley and Paolo come in? Amplified by Hollywood.
And SJPP is easier to get to than Somport, right?
@C clearly , you have a good point. That's one heck of an exciting start.
Strava produces intriguing aggregate maps, though, see below. Note: the map doesn't show where people jog and walk. It shows were people jog and walk AND register it on Strava. You can see the Camino Frances very clearly.It is a highly specialised social media network and app that allows users to share all the minute details of their physical activities like walking, running or cycling that are captured by gadgets like Fitbit
And why not via Somport? Too high. Why not via Irun which would make the most sense? Too low and not historical enough.
I would suggest that the 4th in that list is social media.
Whilst the initial surge in the popularity of the Camino was to a large degree caused by the initial three, the recent explosion coincides with the explosion in use of social media...facebook, instagram, twitter etc etc. The age of hashtags, blogs, selfies etc has produced a tipping point in the way information is escalated all over the world. I've seen people uploading they're daily trek onto Strava...and we all know that if it isn't on Strava, it didn't happen
If I'd walked the Camino 20 years ago, perhaps even 10 (before smart phones?), I would write a journal, and tell my friends and family about my trip on my return...and show them as many photos as they could tolerate .
Now one can post details, photos, tag in, on a daily basis - all visible my several hundred FB friends, Instagram contacts. I can make my journal public property by blogging.
The more that people are aware of the Camino - and lets face it, most of us love it and are happy to telll whoever is within hearing distance of its wonder - the more people will want to walk it...and the number of people knowing about the Camino rises exponentially...
why do people think that the Camino starts in St Jean pied de Porte?
Three words.
Coelho
MacLaine
Hollywood
Well, make that four.
Ignorance.
Hel, I think that makes you a tinkerI've never been proper in my life.
So ... if I understand correctly, most of the other caminos in Spain are not aligned with the Milky Way?path is aligned with our Milky Way from Ronsevalles to Finisterre
The finest view I have ever had of the Milky Way was a few weeks ago in a national park in the Northern Territory in Australia. An astonishing sight which appeared to be directly overhead. Who knew that I was on the precise line of the Camino Frances?So ... if I understand correctly, most of the other caminos in Spain are not aligned with the Milky Way?
I am full of envy. I just love dark skies and they are far away from where I live. I am also grinning.The finest view I have ever had of the Milky Way was a few weeks ago in a national park in the Northern Territory in Australia. An astonishing sight which appeared to be directly overhead. Who knew that I was on the precise line of the Camino Frances?
Not my words but as I said why let the truth get in the way.... although after walking Francè I walked back from Porto and didn't have same effect on me. Isn't the pyramids aligned with our constellation, maybe it's something similar with that particular route, 'I know nothing...it was my hampster Mr Fawlty'So ... if I understand correctly, most of the other caminos in Spain are not aligned with the Milky Way?
OMG, that's horrifying on several levels.Just in case you feel the need to keep an extremely close eye on your friends or think that the rest of the world would really benefit from knowing your precise location right now to within 6m accuracy
I am envious, but far too proper to qualify.Hel, I think that makes you a tinker
Hmm, I travelled in the Northern Territory recently too, and agree that the Milky Way is a magnificent sight. I fear, though, that if you had tried to use it to lead you to Santiago, you would have discovered why so many early European explorers perished in the Australian outback. I think we would prefer to have you here alive and kicking than looking for your body in the wilds of the Kimberley or Pilbara.The finest view I have ever had of the Milky Way was a few weeks ago in a national park in the Northern Territory in Australia. An astonishing sight which appeared to be directly overhead. Who knew that I was on the precise line of the Camino Frances?
Very kind of you to say so @dougfitzI think we would prefer to have you here alive and kicking than looking for your body in the wilds of the Kimberley or Pilbara.
I have no clue and I only think it was the Geographic as they were dropped into our ready room when they became out of date on the aircraft, but it was a long and excellent article which inspired me at the time even though I procrastinated for nearly twenty years.
Reminds me of the scene in movie when The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man explodesI am a member of several Camino-related Facebook groups. This is probably the most memorable post of the year in any of them
View attachment 64715
A bitOMG! Off topic a bit but I did a google search on Old National Geographic Articles Camino Santiago and this is where I landed. 10 days for $6,395 !!! Holy crap!
Spain Pilgrimage: Walking El Camino de Santiago 2020 | National Geographic Expeditions
0 Days / 0 Nightswww.nationalgeographic.com
I do have a bone to pick with Ms. MacLaine. I read her book prior to initial Spanish Trek. She waxed on about those damn, dangerous, and crazed dogs in Foncebadon. I spent the night in Rabanal del Camino shaking in my narrow Gaucelmo bed awaiting the next day’s mauling. None came. Not a dog in sight.
Members will be aware that I am neither a contrarian nor a provocateur but that I do like, now and again, to ask questions a little beyond which is the best bar to discuss the best sleeping bag in.
So, as I viewed a thread started by a new member who is flying into Madrid and probably training it to Pamplona asking how to get from there to a small provincial French town in the western foothills of the Pyrenees, I wondered, again, why do people think that the Camino starts in St Jean pied de Porte?
Our new member could start walking to the shrine of Santiago from Pamplona, as many do. They could, if they were determined to travel away from Santiago before walking to Santiago, have made their way to historic Roncesvalles. They could, if they wanted to, head for Somport or Irun or even Barcelona but everyone wants to get to StJpdP and then leave it the following morning via a potentially crippling walk up and over a thumping great hill for no other reason that I can discern than "that its there" (Mallory, I forgive you) or because that is where their guide book starts.
With all due respects to @Monasp and the good folk of the Bureau des pèlerins de Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Why?
I think that some who walk the Caminos now have the romantic idea that walking the Camino Frances has continued more or less unbroken since the Middle Ages. But by the 1970s the practice had all but died out. The few who did walk it did not follow a signposted footpath but rather made their own ways between the towns and villages from the Pyrenees to Santiago.
I have never really understood why SJPDP has so greatly eclipsed Somport as a starting point.
I do not think that explanation really holds water. My mother-in-law walked the Camino Frances as part of an international group in 1985 and SJPDP had already been established as the starting point of the route by then - two years before Mr Coelho's book was published , 15 years before Ms Maclaine's and 25 years before Mr Estevez's movie. When I walked my first Camino in 1990 it was pretty much assumed that long-distance Spanish pilgrims would begin from Roncesvalles and the rest of the world would start from SJPDP.
When I first flirted with the idea of pilgrimage many years ago, it was with a French friend as we discussed the road from Paris to Mont Saint-Michel.
I thought that was precisely the point I had made in my first post in this thread: that the notion of SJPDP being "the start" of the Camino Frances springs from the deliberate creation of a specific signposted walking route from there by Valina and others from the late 1970s.It's still an invention of the 1970s.
I think it would be more accurate to say that Romans and astrologers of the 1500s did not know the Milky Way was made of stars, but it is entirely possible it was lost knowledge or the original author of that statement was asleep during his lessons.I learnt only very recently that up to about the time of Galileo people didn't know that the Milky Way consists of stars. So if Charlemagne was shown a path of stars by Saint James in 800 and something, it cannot have been the Milky Way, can it?
First of all, what we call the Camino Frances is THE Camino to Santiago, there's not doubt about it, no matter what modern PR wants to tell us.
Secondly, the contemporary revival started in France
those damn, dangerous, and crazed dogs in Foncebadon
I don't think it is lost knowledge. Many contemporary narratives are mixing all the old legends into one sauce and serve it to their readers. The Milky Way is called milky way or similar in other languages because people didn't know and couldn't see that it consists of stars. So their explanation was that it's milk or dust or footprints of souls etc etc.I think it would be more accurate to say that Romans and astrologers of the 1500s did not know the Milky Way was made of stars, but it is entirely possible it was lost knowledge or the original author of that statement was asleep during his lessons.
the walk taken as a whole is broken into 3 stages, the body (physical), mind (emotional) and spirit (soul)
Or they could start further away, eg from Madrid? Or somewhere in France - like Le Puy? RightMembers will be aware that I am neither a contrarian nor a provocateur but that I do like, now and again, to ask questions a little beyond which is the best bar to discuss the best sleeping bag in.
So, as I viewed a thread started by a new member who is flying into Madrid and probably training it to Pamplona asking how to get from there to a small provincial French town in the western foothills of the Pyrenees, I wondered, again, why do people think that the Camino starts in St Jean pied de Porte?
Our new member could start walking to the shrine of Santiago from Pamplona, as many do. They could, if they were determined to travel away from Santiago before walking to Santiago, have made their way to historic Roncesvalles. They could, if they wanted to, head for Somport or Irun or even Barcelona but everyone wants to get to StJpdP and then leave it the following morning via a potentially crippling walk up and over a thumping great hill for no other reason that I can discern than "that its there" (Mallory, I forgive you) or because that is where their guide book starts.
With all due respects to @Monasp and the good folk of the Bureau des pèlerins de Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Why?
That and a train stationThe alternative suggestion is that SJDP just had the best marketing department.
Because in good Catholic tradition, you must start out in suffering
And when did cheap flights start?
Some of the old histories were just embellished propaganda. One I read talked of Charlemagne following St Jame's 'way of stars', defeating the 'infidel Galicians' and the Saracens ... then going to Galicia and embellishing the tomb, when Galicia was Christian, was not under Arab control and Charlemagne never made it past Navarre.I don't think it is lost knowledge. Many contemporary narratives are mixing all the old legends into one sauce and serve it to their readers. The Milky Way is called milky way or similar in other languages because people didn't know and couldn't see that it consists of stars. So their explanation was that it's milk or dust or footprints of souls etc etc.
It did get connected with Saint James but I think again mainly in connection with souls and dying at first, something we don't want to hear so much about in our times. Legend says that Saint James showed a path of stars to Charlemagne, and many people including scholars assume it was the Milky Way because they know little about the history of astronomy. Or even astronomy.
This whole stuff drove me mad at first, it still does sometimes. Because many of the contemporary narratives are unable to distinguish between what is mere fiction, what is mainly fiction with a bit of historical fact thrown in and what actually happened for sure. Plus most of these narrators have no clue WHEN a story developed. They just present everything in a time sequence as if it happened one after the other and people knew about it at the time when it supposedly happened.Some of the old histories
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?