medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (25. July) is the feast day of:
James the Great (d. ca. 42). J. and his brother John, the sons of
Zebedee, were Galilean fisherman along with Simon Peter. They are
prominent in gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry and are always given
early in lists of the Twelve Apostles. According to Acts 12:1-2, J.
was martyred on the orders of Herod Agrippa I (reigned 41-44). The
legend that he had evangelized parts of Spain is at least as old as the
seventh century. In the early ninth century J.'s sepulchre
was "discovered" in Galicia at what is now Santiago de Compostela. As
is evidenced by its mention in the Martyrology of Florus of Lyon (808-
30), word of this event spread quickly. By the tenth century people
from abroad were making pilgrimages to his shrine and J. was on his way
to becoming a patron saint of pilgrims. He is frequently represented
in art with a pilgrim's hat and staff, often too with the seashell that
was the special badge of those returning from Compostela.
J.'s cathedral at Compostela was begun in 1075. Behind its baroque
facade is a very impressive late twelfth-century main entrance, the
Portico de la Gloria, whose numerous statues are the work of Santiago
de Compostela's famous Maestro Mateo:
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/m/master/mateo/p_gloria.jpg
Mateo's stone choir for the cathedral is said to have followed in
around 1200. Demolished in the seventeenth century, it has been partly
re-created in the cathedral museum using surviving pieces. See:
http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue11/reviews/gerrard.htm
and, for a virtual presentation, this website:
http://www.fbarrie.org/fundacion/webcoro/historia/historia.htm
And here's J.'s sepulchre in the crypt:
http://www.galinor.es/santiago/fotos/sepulcro.jpg
In 1084 a donation was made to a hospital at today's Altopascio (LU) in
Tuscany, on a major pilgrim route to Rome. It is not known whether the
hospital were already named for J., but it certainly was in the twelfth
century, when it became the headquarters of a group of hospitalers of
St. James who founded dependencies along major pilgrim routes
(including one in Paris founded in 1180 whose modern successor church
is still known as Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas [= Altopascio]). In 1239
Gregory IX recognized them as a protective order, the Brothers of St.
James of Altopsacio, guided by the rule of the parallel order of St.
John of Jerusalem. Because some were sword-bearing and because their
chief symbol was a tau cross, they became known as the Knights of the
Tau. They were suppressed in 1587. Their church of San Jacopo
Maggiore at Altopascio, rebuilt in the nineteenth century, preserves
its twelfth-century facade and late thirteenth-century belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/hybqu
http://www.mondimedievali.net/pre-testi/images/guerz01b.jpg
Another Italian dedication to J. from the twelfth century is the much
rebuilt church of San Giacomo Maggiore at Gavi (AL) in Piedmont, whose
portal is worth a look:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immagine:Gavi_2.JPG
High-resolution version:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/8/84/Gavi_2.JPG
Better known, probably, is the church of San Giacomo Maggiore in
Bologna, an Augustinian foundation begun in 1267 and restored in 1915.
An Italian-language account of it is here:
http://web.tiscali.it/agostiniani/chiesa.html
San Giacomo Maggiore's late thirteenth-century facade (porch altered,
sixteenth century):
http://web.tiscali.it/agostiniani/giacomo1.jpg
http://www.gagliardino.it/gallery/bologna/dsc03141
Rear view, with attached Chiesetta di Santa Cecilia backed up onto a
portion of the twelfth-century city wall:
http://tinyurl.com/rdkru
The interior is largely baroque (with Renaissance chapels). But here's
a "gothic" fresco of J. in the chapel of Sts. Cosmas and Damian:
http://web.tiscali.it/agostiniani/giacomo.jpg
Finally, here's a late-thirteenth century fresco of J. from the circle
of the apostles on the ceiling of the baptistery of Parma:
http://www.cattedrale.parma.it/Img/voltabatt/61-giacomoM_Z.jpg
J. is not always represented as a pilgrim.
Best,
John Dillon
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