Santiago de Compostela - History

History

The area of Santiago de Compostela was a Roman cemetery by the 4th century, being occupied by the Suebi in the early 400s, during the initial collapse of the Roman Empire when they settled in Galicia and Portugal. The area was later attributed to the bishopric of Iria Flavia in the 6th century, in the partition usually known as Parochiale Suevorum, ordered by king Theodemar. In 585 the whole settlement together with the rest of Suebi Kingdom was annexed by Leovigild into the Visigothic kingdom of Spain as the sixth province of the realm.

Maybe raided from 711 to 739 by the Arabs, the bishopric of Iria was incorporated into the Kingdom of Asturias c. 750; some tens of years later, at some point between 818 and 842, bishop Theodemar of Iria (d. 847), found some remains which were attributed to Saint James the Greater, during the reign of Alfonso II of Asturias. Allegedly, the Pope and Charlemagne—who anyway was dead by 814—would have had an important role in the discovery and acceptance of this find. Around the place of the discovery emerged a new settlement and centre of pilgrimage, which was already known by Usuard in 865, and that was called Compostella at least from the 10th century.

From this same 10th century on, Compostela became a politically relevant site and several kings of Galicia and of León were acclaimed by the Galician noblemen, and crowned and anointed by the local bishop at the cathedral, among them Ordoño IV in 958, Bermudo II in 982, and Alfonso VII in 1111, so Compostela becoming capital of the Kingdom of Galicia. Later kings were also sepulchered in the cathedral, namely Fernando II and Alfonso IX, last of the Kings of León and Galicia before both kingdoms were united with the Kingdom of Castile.

From the 10th century onwards the site became a pan-European place of peregrination, second only to Rome and Jerusalem. During this same 10th century and in the first years of the 11th century Viking riders tried to assault it—Galicia is known in the Nordic sagas as Jackobsland or Gallizaland—and bishop Sisenand II, who was killed in battle against them in 968, ordered the construction of a walled fortress to protect the sacred place. In 997 Compostela was assaulted and partially destroyed by Ibn Abi Aamir, known as Al‑Mansur ("the victorious"), Chamberlain and effective ruler of the Caliphate of Córdoba. In response to these challenges bishop Cresconio, in the mid‑11th century, fortified the entire town, building walls and defensive towers.

In the 12th century, under the impulse of bishop Diego Gelmírez, Compostela became an archbishopric, attracting a large and multinational population. Under the rule of this prelate, the townspeople rebelled, headed by the local council, beginning a secular tradition of confrontation of the people of the city—who fought for self-government—with the local bishop, the secular and jurisdictional lord of the city and of its fief, the semi-independent Terra de Santiago ("land of Saint James"). The peak of this confrontation was reached in the 14th century, when the new prelate, the Frenchman Bérenger de Landore, treacherously executed the counselors of the city in his castle of A Rocha Forte ("the strong rock, castle"), after attracting them for talks.

Santiago de Compostela was captured and sacked by the French during the Napoleonic Wars; as a result, the remains attributed to the apostle were lost for near a century, hidden inside a cist in the crypts of the cathedral of the city.

The excavations conducted in the cathedral during the 19th and 20th centuries uncovered a Roman cella memoriae or martyrium, around which grew a small cemetery in Roman and Suevi times which was later abandoned. This martyrium, which proves the existence of an old Christian holy place, has been sometimes attributed to Priscillian, although without further proof.