Veneration
In memory of Dominic's miracle, a rooster and chicken, with white feathers, are kept alive at the cathedral all year round (they are called descendants of the original birds who miraculously danced even though roasted); they are maintained by means of donations and a different rooster and chicken are switched each month. The pairs of roosters and chickens, when they are not at the cathedral, are kept in a chicken coop maintained by the Cofradía de Santo Domingo (Confraternity of Santo Domingo), called the Gallinero de Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A wayside shrine (hornacina) built in 1445 holds a relic associated with the miracle: a piece of wood from the gallows from which Hugonell was hanged.
The pilgrims gathered the feathers of these favored birds, or they got them from the priest, and they would affix them to their hats. It was also said that if the birds ate breadcrumbs directly from the end of the pilgrim’s staff that the pilgrim would arrive safely in Compostela.
The German pilgrim Hermann Künig (15th century) claims to have seen the room where the roasted birds began to sing and dance; other documents written by pilgrims state that Hugonell’s shirt had been conserved by the church of Santo Domingo and that the gallows themselves were conserved there as well. These artifacts are now lost.
A verse commemorating this miracle runs: “Santo Domingo de la Calzada / Donde cantó la gallina después de asada.”
Read more about this topic: Dominic De La Calzada
Famous quotes containing the word veneration:
“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)