The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago De Compostela

Book Description

THE PILGRIM'S GUIDE TO SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA presents the first complete English translation of Book Five of the Liber Sancti Jacobi or Codex Calixtinus. This twelfth-century guidebook traces the route from southern France to Santiago de Compostela.

The medieval Christian world knew three major pilgrimage sites - Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries Compostela was by far the most popular.

THE PILGRIMAGE to Compostela was a once-in-a-lifetime human adventure. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims came year after year through France and across the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela near the Atlantic shores of Galicia in far western Spain.

In his study of the road to Santiago Professor Melczer discusses: Relics and pilgrimages The origin of the cult of St. James Myth and historical reality in the tradition of St. James The Iter Sancti Jacobi The Liber Sancti Jacobi Pilgrimage without ideology The iconography of St. James.

This book also includes extensive commentaries and notes that highlight historical, geographical, art-historical, hagiographic, and general cultural matters along the route traced by the Guide.

3rd Printing. Illustrated, map, plan, bibliography, index, Gazetteer, Hagiographic Register.

Customer Reviews:

Highly recommend.......2007-03-16

DO NOT buy this book if you are looking for a modern guide to the Camino.

DO buy this book for a scholarly translation and background of the pilgrims who went before you on the Camino (the guide was written in approx. 1160 AD)! The large introduction is packed with detailed information about the history/legends of St. James and his tomb from the time of Christ through early Church fathers, early Spanish history, Islamic invasion and subsequent withdrawal, and the French connection. There is detailed history on pilgrim routes, what they wore, where they stayed, and more. A great read prior to walking the Camino!

The authentic source for Camino legends.......2004-09-16

When you are not sure of the details of any particular Camino miracle, you need go no further than William Melczer's guide. The Codex Calixtinus is the source of all those stories you read in the other English language books. Melczner's guide is the first complete English translation of Book Five of the Codex Calixtinus - the original medieval pilgrim's guide.

This is a scholarly, extremely well documented book. The entire book is 345 pages. Of this, the actual translated Codex is 50 pages. The introduction and notes demonstrate a through knowledge the medieval pilgrimages. The book includes a haigographical register and gazetteer as well as bibliograpy and index. I had to go to my unabridged dictionary to find out that haigography is the study of saints. The gazetteer contains a short explanation if each place name. Both the haigraphical index and the gazetteer are quite helpful when doing any Camino reading.

This is not a book I would carry with me, but certainly one that is enjoyed after doing the Camino. For those who have time, it supplements any historical reading one may do before the Camino.

An Excellent Book by an Excellent Scholar.......2002-03-15

I personally knew Mr. Melczer both as my instructor and later as a friend and I simply cannot say enough about this man. Studying in Spain with Mr. Melczer in 1990 I can say he truly opened my eyes to history, art and culture. I took copious notes, but I realized I could never fully "absorb" the knowledge that this man imparted to his students. He inspired me to enter the field I am in now.
This book is an excellent presentation of one of the most remarkable journeys traversed by so many people throughout history. The research is excellent and the reading is very clear. This book is a must for any person interested in Spanish history

Revealing, Practical and Poetic.......2001-03-29

As a collector of guide books about Iberia, I found this volume exceptionally revealing, practical and poetic.

Lucid, Inspiring, Insightful and Profound.......2000-08-20

Wow! This book is lucid, inspiring, insightful and profound. It really uses the Guide as a window to the medieval mind. Outstandingly scholarly and genuinely readable. A winner!

The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook

Average customer rating:

A Great Cultural guide
Camino Junkie
Great guide
Wonderful Book on the Cultural Background of the Camino
The best reference on the Camino de Santiago.

The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook
David M. Gitlitz , and Linda Kay Davidson
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Pilgrim Stories: On and Off the Road to Santiago, Journeys Along an Ancient Way in Modern Spain

ASIN: 0312254164

Book Description

The road across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest was one of the three major Christian pilgrimage routes during the Middle Ages, leading pilgrims to the resting place of the Apostle St. James. Today, the system of trails and roads that made up the old pilgrimage route is the most popular long-distance trail in Europe, winding from the heights of the Pyrenees to the gently rolling fields and woods of Galicia. Hundreds of thousands of modern-day pilgrims, art lovers, historians, and adventurers retrace the road today, traveling through a stunningly varied landscape which contains some of the most extraordinary art and architecture in the western world. For any visitor, the Road to Santiago is a treasure trove of historical sites, rustic Spanish villages, churches and cathedrals, and religious art.To fully appreciate the riches of this unique route, look no further than The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago, a fascinating step-by-step guide to the cultural history of the Road for pilgrims, hikers, and armchair travelers alike. Organized geographically, the book covers aspects of the terrain, places of interest, history, artistic monuments, and each town and village's historical relationship to the pilgrimage.The authors have led five student treks along the Road, studying the art, architecture, and cultural sites of the pilgrimage road from southern France to Compostela. Their lectures, based on twenty-five years of pilgrimage scholarship and fieldwork, were the starting point for this handbook. AUTHORBIO:DAVID M. GITLITZ and LINDA KAY DAVIDSON, specialists in Hispanic studies at the University of Rhode Island, met on the Road on their first pilgrimage to Santiago in 1974. Davidson has written several scholarly works on the pilgrimage to Compostela with co-author Maryjane Dunn. Gitlitz is the author of various books on Hispanic and Sephardic culture, including the prize-winning Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews. Their first book written together, also from St. Martin's Press, was A Drizzle of Honey: The Lives and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews, for which they won the National Jewish Book Award and the award for Distinguished Scholarship form the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Customer Reviews:

A Great Cultural guide.......2007-01-14

My wife and walked part a portion of the Camino Frances (Leon to Santiago de Compostela) in May of 2004. In walking the Camino, I think one must consider several sources. One of these should be topographical and describe the lay of the land, one logistical and describe where you may find comfort, and one cultural. This book is the best that I know of in fulfilling that last category.

While some may find this a useful guide to carry, I agree with some of reviewers who suggest not taking this book on the road. [Hopefully the authors will never read this review... ] I did carry this book, but I ripped out the irrelevant portions of the journey before I began, and every night I ripped out the pages covering the day's journey so as to lighten the load. [ I should point out that I bought another copy when I got home, so as to make amends for the destruction of the book. ]

Even had I never walked I still think what I learned about Spain, the history and cultural of the regions covered by the Camino, and aspects of the architecture and other features covered in this book to be fascinating.

Camino Junkie.......2006-03-12

I walked the Camino in the Fall of 2004 and took this book along with a much thinner more practical guide book. I loved, loved, loved having this book! My thin, practical guidebook told me of the trail, and places to stay and eat. This guidebook brought the experience alive for me. Everynight before I went to sleep, I would read the passage about the day I had just walked, and then would read the passage about the next day's walk. I saw and experienced things I would have totally missed if I did not have this book. I would walk along and think of the millions of pilgrams that had walked this path for over 1000 years. In this books there are excerpts from journals of medieval pilgrams, which really made me feel the history of this pilgramage. I too worried about the weight of the book, but found that in the long run it was really worth the added pound in my backpack. I do recommend taking a more practical guidebook as well. I found the guidebook put out by the Confraternity of St. James to be great! If you are not one bit interested in the History and Folklore of the Camino, then skip this book. But if you are, this book is invaluable. I found that I was sharing it with other pilgrams all the time, who wanted more info on what we were experiencing.

Great guide.......2005-09-09

For anyone planning to walk The Way of St James pilgrimage across Norther Spain, this book provides fascinating local history. I read it after I walked, and wish I had done it the other way around.

Wonderful Book on the Cultural Background of the Camino.......2005-07-15

I did the Camino in 2003 using this book as a guide. In fact it was the only one I brought with me.

It's strengths are not in the trail directions it gives. There are much better guides for that. I suggest you consult one of the Camino web sites to find out the most current and recommended version of those. the operative word is current. The Camino does change from year to year, new alberges open, others disappear, the trail moves, street names change (Franco related ones are definitely on the outs), etc.

That said, this is a wonderful book for the historical background and descriptions of the countryside it provides. I read this book and I became fixated on doing the Camino. If you are going to do the Camino or are just interested in the Camino, read this book. If you know someone who is going to do the Camino, get them this book. It is the best book I've ever read in terms of Camino cultural information.

The best reference on the Camino de Santiago........2004-06-17

I bought this book in 2003 before embarking upon the Camino Frances. It turned out to be a marvelous multi-faceted reference. Due to weight considerations, I left it at home, instead of schlepping it 800 KM across Spain. Then, outside of Burgo de Ranero, I see THIS BOOK, waiting for me on a roadside bench. "That's my book!", I exclaim. Needless to say, it traveled with me the rest of the way to Santiago. Regardless of weight. If there's only one book you get about the culture, history and architecture of the Camino, this should be it. Buy this book!

A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino Fisterra: Santiago de Compostela to Finisterre Including the Muxia Extension

Average customer rating:

Superb -- this is all you need!
Full color maps, trail profiles, route descriptions, history

A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino Fisterra: Santiago de Compostela to Finisterre Including the Muxia Extension
John Brierley
Manufacturer: Findhorn Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago: Camino Frances - The French Way of St. James (Camino Guides)
A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino Portugues: The Portuguese Way of St. James Porto to Santiago de Compostela
The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook
Camino Chronicle: Walking to Santiago
Walking the Camino De Santiago

ASIN: 1844090027

Book Description

Including a revolutionary new mapping system, this guide shows all the different routes to Santiago and Finisterre, along with accommodation details.

Customer Reviews:

Superb -- this is all you need!.......2006-06-20

I used this book and the similar Camino Portugues book for my pilgrimage in April 2006. They are both superb. I followed Brierley's suggestions pretty much to the letter. The book contains excruciating details as well as a longer and spiritual view.

I think of the book as a personal gift to each of us pilgrims. Brierley obviously loves his work and the Camino. He kept me on track, put me to bed early and awake early when it was important, encouraged me to appreciate the wonderful people and sights along the camino. He offers history lessons, lists of practicalities, maps and directions. This book is all you need!

Full color maps, trail profiles, route descriptions, history.......2003-07-05

Same format as the Camino Frances guide - laid out in three stages. One stage per day, one map per stage total of 95 pages. In addition to covering the route, it has a section of practical information on when to go, covers Galician history and culture. A beautiful full color guide.

Following the Milky Way: A Pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago

Average customer rating:

"If we were religious, would it hurt less?"
One of the best on the Camino.
Going to Santiago...a must read!

Following the Milky Way: A Pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago
Elyn Aviva
Manufacturer: Pilgrims' Process, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Buen Camino
Walking the Camino De Santiago

ASIN: 0971060908
Release Date: 2003-07-16

Book Description

Following the Milky Way is the story of Elyn Aviva's 500-mile-long journey on foot on the Camino de Santiago. This 1000-year-old pilgrimage road stretches from the French Pyrenees across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela, sup-posed tomb of St. James the Apostle. It is a journey that crosses the landscape of the soul as well as the mountains and mesetas of Spain. This book is a vivid memoir of a life-changing adventure, chance encounters, unforeseen dangers, and unexpected pleasures. Spanish history, wine, food, lit-erature, art, architecture, and legend share equal time with the stories of pilgrims that Elyn meets along the way. Following the Milky Way is a fascinating his-torical document. Today, hundreds of thousands of people-including Shirley MacLaine-are going on the Camino, but Following the Milky Way describes the pilgrimage in 1982, when the Camino was nearly abandoned. This second edition includes a new introduction that explores the meaning of pilgrimage in greater detail, delves more deeply into the esoteric symbols and pre-Christian shrines that lie hidden within the Way, and provides a unique look at the changes that have occurred in the pilgrimage in recent years.

Customer Reviews:

"If we were religious, would it hurt less?".......2004-03-08

The review heading is a quote from day 10, July 18, 1982 in Elyn Aviva's fascinating tapestry of trail journal and scholarly insight. This story was first published in 1989. The 2nd edition was published in 2001. Prior to the 2nd edition, the author walked the Camino again in 1997 and again in 2000.

The Camino in 1982 was a vastly different experience from the modern Camino, and for this reason the author has left the text of the body unchanged except for some editing. She has added an 18 page Introduction to the 2nd Edition where she describes some of the changes over the last twenty years and talks about the other pre Christian pilgrimage routes that some believe evolved into the Christian Camino.

I had never read the original edition, and really enjoyed the account of Elyn and her friend Bill's journey. They had never backpacked before, and started out carrying heavy packs, wearing new boots, and throughout the book I emphasized with the experience of new backpackers, gradually becoming fit. In 1982 there were few refugios compared to today, and frequently they slept under the open sky. The trail was poorly marked, sometimes non existent compared to today. Sometimes they had to hitch. Particularly in the earlier part of the trek, the local people did not look on pilgrims with favor.

Each day gets a section in the book, with a little map showing maybe a third of the entire Camino, with a little bracket showing the distance walked for the day. The first day has a similar map of the entire route - not a map for detailed info, but a simple line with place names. Day 1 starts in St. Jean Pied de Port and the book ends with Day 47 - leaving Santiago.

Anyone who has walked the Camino will appreciate this story, and anyone about to travel the route will benefit from the history included with the day to day narrative.

Modern day walkers - read this for background, but be sure to get the Confraternity of St. James The Camino Frances guide to take with you, as well as either John Brierley's guide or Davies and Cole's guide. Also, check the forums such as GoCamino and Santiagobis and websites such as backpack45.

One of the best on the Camino........2001-08-24

Elyn Aviva has written an excellent book on walking the Camino. She includes the human interest angle as well as interesting info about the history, cultural aspects, and architecture. The fact that her walk was in 1982, before the Camino became the popular pilgrimage route it is now, is quite interesting. I consider this book to be a great addition to my growing library of books on this subject.

Going to Santiago...a must read!.......2001-07-23

This account of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, made in 1982, before the current resurgence, contains everything you need to know about history, architecture, myth and legend along the ancient route across northern Spain and more. It is a personal account, but one chock full of customs and lore, as well as facts and individual musings on the nature of pilgrimage and what drives a pilgrim to leave home and hearth to trek 500 miles to the medieval end of the world.

Elyn tells her story with humor and pathos and ask the reader to consider just what the pilgrimage route and the symbols contained therein might really mean for today's pilgrims. It is, after all, both an inner and outer journey.

A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino Portugues: The Portuguese Way of St. James Porto to Santiago de Compostela
Average customer rating:

San Miguel Says.....

Superb -- this is all you need!

Excellent guide, colored maps, trail profiles, photos, accomodation guide

a faithful walking companion.

Best guide I've seen

A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino Portugues: The Portuguese Way of St. James Porto to Santiago de Compostela
John Brierley
Manufacturer: Findhorn Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook

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Walking the Via de la Plata: The Camino de Santiago from Sevilla to Santiago de Compostela

ASIN: 1844090558

Book Description

Including practical advice and a list of accommodations for each day’s stage, this guide covers the increasingly popular Portugese Route.

Customer Reviews:

San Miguel Says............2007-06-27

Very thorough review if the Portugues Way. Will test it's accuracy next Spring.The French Way is much more frequented and pilgrim's catered for, so a good guide for this less popular walk is essential. John Brierley's work 'A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino Portugues' will be my bible for the journey.

Superb -- this is all you need!.......2006-06-20

I used this book and the similar Fisterra book for my pilgrimage in April 2006. They are both superb. I followed Brierley's suggestions pretty much to the letter. The book contains excruciating details as well as a longer and spiritual view.

I think of the book as a personal gift to each of us pilgrims. Brierley obviously loves his work and the Camino. He kept me on track, put me to bed early and awake early when it was important, encouraged me to appreciate the wonderful people and sights along the camino. He offers history lessons, lists of practicalities, maps and directions. This book is all you need!

Excellent guide, colored maps, trail profiles, photos, accomodation guide.......2006-02-08

This guide follows the format of Brierley's Camino Frances guide: very pleasing to look at: glossy paper, colored photos almost every page, multicolor maps and trail profiles, parts of text set off by shading. It has the information the walker needs, where the alburgues are, how many beds, alternate choices. There is an introductory section with introduction, overview, followed by planning and preparation information. The main body of the guide follows, organized in 11 stages where each stage corresponds to a typical day's travel. Each stage has a map and a trail profile.

The planning section is very useful - detailed equipment list, travel info, essential phrases in Spanish and Portuguese and a short history of the Camino
.
This guide also makes a serious effort to address the spiritual or inner path side of the journey. In addition to the map and profile, each stage begins with three paragraphs - the Physical Path - a narrative overview of the day's walk, the Mystic Path - to awaken you to the spiritual potential of the day's walk, and Personal Reflections - a quotation from the author's reflections. In each stage there is a page with blank lines for the walker to write in their own reflections. The mystic path, and blank reflections page didn't work for me, but that is personal preference.

For me, the colored maps, elevation profiles and photos are the strong points of the book.

The Camino facilities change from year to year, and inevitably publications will have typos and errors of fact. Do future pilgrims a favor by emailing the publication's website if you find errors in the text.

a faithful walking companion........2005-07-11

As a frequent Camino walker, I have used many guide books. This book on the Portuguese Way from Porto to Santiago is a total "must" for a succesful pilgrimage.
The maps for each stage are clear, possible detours are included.
Also for each stage, contour outlines are given and the distances are adjusted for height.
Accomodations and restaurants are listed with phone numbers .
Description of each stage is broken down to "The Pratical Path, "The Mystical Path" and "Personal Reflections" Some might be skeptical about the last two but it adds an emotional factor to the walk, something I have not yet seen in any other guide.
Photo's are plenty. over 200 photos. The author suggest not to bring a camera because the photo's you need are already in the book. It saves weight......
With all the suggestions for planning of your trip, this guide will keep you on the right track.

Best guide I've seen.......2005-06-29

The "Camino Portugues" has managed to provide the most integrated and concise travel guide that I've ever come across (and I've used plenty). It manages to provide a complete picture of this lesser known pilgrimage route with an easy to follow step by step process complete with pictures and colorful maps. It loads up on all of this practical information and somehow doesn't become sterile. It's a great read as part of your pre-travel preperation. There are even places that I'm using for additional notes (reserved as "reflections" for those that want to use it as a summary journal).

There are no other updated English guides for this Camino, and as it turns out, with this book, you don't need any. It's the complete package.

Average customer rating:

Good...
internal journey
glimpses into a soul
Unreadable
Dosmujeres and I Had Different Expectations

Road to Santiago (Directions)
Kathryn Harrison
Manufacturer: National Geographic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Walking the Camino De Santiago

ASIN: 0792237455
Release Date: 2003-11-01

Book Description

In the spring of 1999, Kathryn Harrison set out to walk the centuries-old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. "Not a vacation," she calls it, "but a time out of time." With a heavy pack, no hotel reservations, and little Spanish, she wanted an experience that would be both physically and psychically demanding. No pain, no gain, she thought, and she had some important things to contemplate. But the pilgrim road was spattered with violets and punctuated by medieval churches and alpine views, and, despite the exhaustion, aching knees, and brutal sun, she was unexpectedly flooded with joy and gratitude for life's gifts. "Why do I like this road?" she writes. "Why do I love it? What can be the comfort of understanding my footprint as just one among the millions? … While I'm walking I feel myself alive, feel my small life burning brightly."

Throughout this deeply personal and revealing memoir of her journey, first made alone and later in the company of her daughter, Harrison blends striking images of the route and her fellow pilgrims with reflections on the redemptive power of pilgrimages, mortality, family, the nature of endurance, the past and future, the mystery of friendship.

The Road to Santiago is an exquisitely written, courageous, and irresistible portrait of a personal pilgrimage in search of a broader understanding of life and self.

Customer Reviews:

Good..........2007-09-04

Having read and enjoyed Shirley MacLaine's "The Camino" several years back, I was happy to revisit the pilgrimmage experience in Kathryn Harrison's "Road to Santiago." Harrison has a graceful command of language that makes this memoir pleasant and easy to read. Apart from style and readability, I'm not sure this book has much to offer. Harrison details three different trips to the road (one solo, one while pregnant, and one with a pre-teen daughter.) All of this is supposed to signify something, but I'm not sure it's anywhere near as profound as the author hopes. She finishes the path and sees her family "luminous and exalted and mine." Alrighty then. Not exactly the Dalai Lama, this one.

internal journey.......2007-04-09

For my recent compilation of pilgrimage quotations ("Ultreia! Onward! Progress of the Pilgrim") I read all 40 or so contemporary English journal accounts available about the various routes. Harrison's is clearly within the first grouping of 8 or so best such books (i.e. largely those written by established authors and/or academics). There is really little to be learnt about the Camino in this book but much to gleam about the life of one of America's most talented writers of fiction (and one whose past has been so clouded in pain). Consequently I can understand why those looking for a straightforward account of the pilgrim route will be disappointed in this book. However, for those bored to death by the pedestrian prose of the majority of the self-published texts currently available on the subject, the present volume is a much needed attempt at another direction. And Harrison is probably the most skilled wordsmith who has ever written about the Camino; indeed, I used 7 quotations of hers in my review volume Ultreia!

glimpses into a soul.......2005-01-19

If you are looking for a travelogue about the pilgrims' road to Santiago de Campostela, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for one intelligent, well-educated, American woman's experience, told from the heart, read Kathryn Harrison. I read her slim but captivating volume in 2 hours. She has managed to convey in words, in only 150 pages, the effect that this walk/trek/meditation has had upon her consciousness, not on only one journey, but on three. Her words are luminous and capture slivers of her psyche. Isn't that what pilgrimage is all about?

Unreadable.......2004-02-19

Let's assume that the road to Santiago is inherently interesting. That the history, sights, sounds, smells, other pilgrims, architecture, locals, the travail of hiking the road, natural history, geology, weather, and so on, deserve an honest rendering. Fair enough? In a book with the National Geographic imprint, one could be forgiven expecting travelogue lite, but travelogue nevertheless, with informed observations. Some personal insights are expected, even if they have to do with blisters. One reads a book about the road to Santiago expecting to be carried along on the trip by the author. Kathryn Harrison's trip -- in my opinion and it may not be your experience of the book -- is a dreary, suffocating slog through the author's stunning self-absorbtion and callow, melancholy, teen-age soul searching. You've got to read this book, or at least the first 10 or 20 pages. If you do get through the whole book, then you will have taken a trip far more gruelling than the road to Santiago. The tiresome questions and their equally tiresome answers will make you squirm right out of your skin. This book is a dog.

If this book (or the first 30 pages) has given rise to such strong negative feelings, then it must be addressing something in me. It's probable that it is addressing no more than my excitement about finding a book about the Santiago pilgrimage, which I very much want to take, and being dropped into a hell of boredom. My heart does go out to Kathryn Harrison, honestly. She suffers as much as we all suffer, and there is no humor in suffering. This book's subtext is a call for her suffering to be addresed. And I wish her well. But all that notwithstanding, this book stinks.

Dosmujeres and I Had Different Expectations.......2004-01-11

As an inveterate fan of Kathryn Harrison's writing, I began this book several times, put off by the notion of a pilgrimage to a foreign shrine. But a few days ago I forced myself to get to about page nine, and then I was hooked. So hooked that I've underlined and dog-eared and penciled in the margins so I could return to favorite passages again and again.

The thing about Kathryn Harrison is that she puts words to thoughts, emotions, and viewpoints that are usually soul-secrets we ordinary folks hide, even from ourselves. For instance, she writes of her 12 year old daughter, "I'm afraid of my child: her beauty and her silences, her ability to wound me." Oh yes, yes, I think.....exactly! But I wouldn't have realized that when my daughter was 12.

About friends she writes, "...amazing friends, the profound mystery of friendship: love outside of lust or blood." Yes, yes, exactly! Think about it! Kathryn Harrison forces me into unique, but dead-on, perspectives I so enjoy pondering.

A book from a Travel Series isn't something I would normally buy. But ANY book by Kathryn Harrison is an experience I wouldn't want to miss.....intense, haunting, lyrical, and..........spiritual? All her books are "spiritual", but not in a goody-two-shoes, genuflect, rosary kind of way. It's that you end up feeling spiritually affected by such gorgeous, profound writing. Don't get the idea that it's a HEAVY read, however. It's pure 24-karat pleasure I'm not up to the task of adequately describing. Pages 102 and 103 are my favorite, for their unique insight and ability to soothe my soul.

Book Description

I. The Manuscripts This volume presents a fresh interpretation of the origins of the Guide, its dissemination and its reception over six centuries, based on a new analysis of the twelve extant manuscripts and a collation of the variants. The authors introduce their detailed Catalogue of Manuscripts with a full discussion on the origins, patronage, authorship and production of the manuscripts. And to accompany the Catalogue, there is also a body of illustrations in which a selection of the significant pages from each extant copy is reproduced. II. The Text This en regard editio offers a new English translation of the Latin Text of probably the earliest surviving copy of the Guide - the Codex Calixtinus in the Archivo de la Catedral de Santiago de Compostela. Extensive annotations of both the Latin and English texts collate this manuscript with the other eleven extant copies. All aspects of the contents of the text are commented on - saints, relics, buildings, place-names, language, costumes, customs, history and art. More detailed discussions on the monuments are cross-referenced to the entries and illustrations in the companion volume, the GAZETTEER. Also included here is an exhaustive Bibliography, and a Map of the routes.

The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela: A Gazetteer

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The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela: A Gazetteer
Annie Shaver-Crandell , Paula Lieber Gerson , and Alison Stones
Manufacturer: Harvey Miller
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1872501931

Northern Spain:Road/Compostella (Architectural Guides for Travelers)

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Northern Spain:Road/Compostella (Architectural Guides for Travelers)
Michael Jacobs
Manufacturer: Chronicle Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Notes toward a history of medieval and renaissance art: With a translation of the pilgrim's guide to Saint-James of Compostela

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Notes toward a history of medieval and renaissance art: With a translation of the pilgrim's guide to Saint-James of Compostela
Constantine Christofides
Manufacturer: University of Washington Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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