...but not Basques

In the present Spanish provinces of Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya, and Navarra, there is no record whatsoever of Celtic dominance, or, for that matter, any dominance at all. For these are the Basque regions.

The Celts would have found themselves moving through this area, but it would appear that the local populations were sufficiently strong to resist them, or to finally absorb them and completely transform them.

As is well-known, Basque bears no resemblance to Spanish, or any other language.
Farther west, however, the Celts either displaced or dominated the older stocks of people, amongst them would have been the Iberians. Still farther west and northwest, they found people very much like themselves and they began to blend with them. The Celts wore trousers, whereas the Iberians still wore robes. It is likely that the Celts brought the domesticated horse with them and it is also just as likely that the Celtiberians adopted the Celtic mode of dress. Another point worth mentioning is that the Celts had no written language, yet the Iberians did, in some cases quite sophisticated. It is this language which has been used to identify the names of the gods inscribed throughout the northwest.

The Celts came into Iberia with their flocks, families, and wagons. Interestingly, one type of wagon is still in use in Galicia today. Like the Iberians, with whom it is more than likely they share a common racial bond originating in the Middle East, they were a pastoral people. It is difficult to determine which kind of economy was dominant - as in all countries, this is determined by the region itself, but in the northern forests there was an abundance of everything they needed for their animals -beech mast and acorns for pigs, and food for their horses, cattle, and goats. On the Meseta, the land proved perfect for the harvesting of crops, and there it was this type of farming which predominated.

The wild boar seems to have been an object of veneration, possibly of both groups, but certainly after the two began to meld their very similar cultures. In the northwest, several Verracos have been found: crude stone sculptures of life-sized pigs. These appear to date to the 6th century BCE, and are considered Celt-Iberian.

But the veneration of the animal did not preclude its uses as a food, often perhaps as sacrificial animals, whose flesh was later enjoyed. Other animals also seemed to have been held sacred and it is noteworthy that the Irish Celts also kept sacred cattle and swine.
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Treachery...

"Unexpectedly available: Castle with nice views of Portugal and river, tastefully furnished in genuine mediaeval style and fully equipped, low maintenance security for immediate occupancy."

Well, what do you do when you have just acquired a nice piece of real estate in exchange for a few measly royal supporters? You move yourself and your wife in, that's what. And if you happen to have a royal prince around, you move him in too so that he'll be nice and close to his aunt and uncle.

What made the usually cautious Pedro decide to move his wife, Mayor, and little Prince Alfonso Raimundez into his newly captured castle is a bit of a mystery and we can only assume that he thought that Teresa and Henry were a safer bet when it came to establishing the prince's right to the throne.

Urraca was no longer allowing the Battler to lay waste to her dominions, but she showed no sign of handing Galicia over to her son who was, after all, only six at the time. To do so was to give part and parcel to Pedro Froilaz whose ambitions for himself as regent were only too clear.

Instead she sent one of her staunchest supporters, a Galician noble by the name of Arias Pérez, to lay siege to the castle. Pedro presumably came out on his best charger leaving his wife and the prince in the castle.

Diego Gelmirez by this time was beginning his flip-flopping between whoever appeared to be on the winning side. At this point and for some time, he had aligned himself with Urraca's supporters: in this case Arias Pérez and the so-called Brotherhood. But Urraca knew that Diego could just as easily have re-joined his old ally Pedro Froílaz and didn't trust him at all. Be that as it may, Pedro prevailed upon Diego to plead with the queen on his behalf. Diego did just that, but perhaps was already having his doubts about which horse to back; as soon as the seige was lifted, Urraca captured and imprisoned not only Pedro and his wife, but Diego Gelmirez himself, and even her own son!

Somehow or another, the four were released because by the autumn of 1111 we read in the Historia Compostelana that Diego and Pedro - who presumably having been cell mates were friends again - had young Alfonso crowned King of Galicia in Compostela.
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Pedro Froílez de Traba

Had the marriage of Urraca and Alfonso the Battler been successful there is little doubt that the "Reconquista" would likely have taken place almost 400 years earlier. Both sovereigns were engaged in conflict with the Moorish kingdoms at their southern borders, and Urraca's fathers' advisors would have championed the marriage as the best way to avoid any further incursions into Christian territory. As it was it took Isabel of Castille's joining her kingdom to that of Fernando of Aragon's in marriage to accomplish that, the final blow to the Islamic rulers coming at the surrender of Granada in 1492 when the last Moorish king, Boabdil, was evicted from that glorious city and fled to Morocco.

Had Urraca have liked Alfonso even a little bit (and had Alfonso liked women at all) even the country we think of as Portugal would likely have had a different shape.

But as usual, I am getting ahead of myself.

Before we continue a little more with Urraca's marriage woes, it is time to look at another major player in this Feudal Drama, and that is Pedro Fróilez de Traba.

As we have already seen, with the disastrous attempt of Count Rodrigo d'Ovequiez and Bishop Diego Pelaez in 1085 to rebel against the rule of Alfonso VI (and perhaps create a little enclave of Normandy in Galicia?) many of the formerly noble houses seemed to disappear completely. By the time of which we have been writing (that is around 1110) the names of the aristocracy had changed. The first pre-requisite of maintaining favour in Galicia seemed to be friendship with Diego Gelmirez the Bishop. Second to that was currying favour with Urraca, and sometimes these two opportunities coincided. Often they did not.

Diego knew how to play both sides of the field. So did Count Pedro. They were not always on the same side and sometimes it is dizzying trying to sort out who was in bed with whom (so to speak). I'll try to save you the trouble here by not mentioning too much of the chops and changes.

If you go to Traba today, perhaps while walking from Finisterre to Muxia, you will see a glorious white sand beach, vast wetlands, and a tiny village on a low hill overlooking the Costa da Morte. There is little enough left of the great holdings of the great Counts of Traba.

But once, the landscape - both geographically and politically, was very different indeed.

For one thing, the little Prince Alfonso - Urraca and Raimundo's son who was to become the Emperor Alfonso VII - was brought up there.
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"Ok, so who is going to be King then?"

It is all beginning to sound a bit Monty Pythonesque...

Urraca gave birth in Caldas del Reyes, and if you are planning to walk the Camino Portuguese you will pass through. My recommendation is that you don't. Pass through that is. As of the time of writing there is no albergue there, but, there are some wonderful spa hotels which are not expensive, and soaking in one of the hot pools (and a massage after) is a treat you have deserved. So enjoy. (Recommended: the Hotel Davila.)

It's also a beautiful little town with a Roman bridge. Check out the "other side" of the cross which stands beside it. You'll see something not seen anywhere else and you can look for it from here until well after Padron. An interesting area this in light of the Priscillianist "infestation". (Sic)

Anyway, back to my story.

We left off in 1105. Urraca's child has thrown a...forgive me...Spaniard in the Works. Where before there was no clear legitimate male heir to the throne, now there is and his name is Alfonso, known at that time as Alfonso Raimundez, the patronymic being after his father, Raimundo, Duke of Burgundy, whom we have already met.

Alfonso the king, while perhaps flattered that his grandson had been named after him, still intended to put his illegitimate son, Sancho on the throne. But events were about to unfold that would change all this, and history, forever.

It is interesting to posit what might have happened to the Spanish succession had this half-Moorish boy become king. But history has this nasty habit of being unpredictable and I'll leave that to the historians.

And why? Well, two reasons really.

In 1107 Duke Raimundo the "consort" of the Infanta Urraca was taken ill, and died.

That might not have made much difference to the succession as Sancho remained the Heir Apparent, but don't give up on me just yet.
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Winds of Change...

In order to understand the history of Galicia, we have to consider it from a geographical point of view. For centuries traffic between Galicia and the rest of the peninsula to the east was limited by the access afforded by the pass at Piedrafita. The south, of course, was still considered the Kingdom of Galicia and not the Portugal it was to become.

This had the impact of isolating it in many ways. It is highly unlikely, for example, that any of the bishops had any contact with the Pope. It would not be practical or appropriate. Galicia followed the Visigothic Rite in the Mass not the Roman one and there were subtle differences; differences that the Gallegos were rather fond of.

The structure of the Visigothic Church was disrupted by the short lived Islamic invasion of the north west, but not for long. The memories survived in Gallego hearts and the Rite was revived and followed by all bishops up until the time of Diego Pelaez. Including Diego Pelaez, and that is an important point for our story.

Pelaez you will remember was consecrated by Sancho II, the about to be deposed and disposed of brother of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castille with whom by now, if you are a regular reader, you will be be becoming familiar.

It was an earlier Sancho, “the Great” who invited monks of Cluny to establish a monastery at San Juan de la Peña near Jaca, in Aragon. Richard Fletcher writes in St. James' Catapult that the Cluny monks were “expert at prayer for sin laden kings, and Sancho’s dynasty was to become very rich”.

We are left to make of this what we will.

In this the Order of Cluny gained an ecclesiastic foothold on Spanish soil as early as the first quarter of the 11th century. Aragon, however, is a goodly hike from Galicia (as many of you who have walked the lovely Camino Aragones will know), and the people of Galicia remained firmly entrenched in their Visigothic ways, with a bit of left over Priscillianism and pagan ways mixed in for good measure.

In the face of the Roman Church's hegemony, it was only a matter of time.
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A look back at the beginning...Part One:

Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground since I began this blog back in June, literally and figuratively. I’ve covered 240 kms of Portugal and Galicia, and the holy ground of Santiago has been examined in a little more light.

Is Santiago, Jacobus, St. James buried in the cathedral in Compostela or not? Perhaps it doesn’t make an awful lot of difference. To tell the truth I haven’t met many pilgrims who accept wholesale the story of Santiago and the “translation” of the relics, but it takes nothing away from the pilgrimage experience nevertheless.

Now the church would say that is a contradiction in terms: to go on “Pilgrimage” to a holy place presupposes the religiosity of the pilgrim’s beliefs. But I beg to differ. Almost without exception, the pilgrims I walked with, or have come to know in other ways, would say that the journey is to the interior, to the depths of oneself and for that not only is it not necessary to be a Catholic or even a Christian but that a belief in a Divinity is also an option. What is necessary is a desire to enter into some sort of “conversation” with something mysterious: to remain open to the possibility that anything could be, even the miraculous: a conundrum of thought and spirit.

So why then, if the belief in St. James and Compostela are not essential, am I continuing this blog? Good question! I hope I can answer it...

My first book Pilgrimage to Heresy (Peregrinos de la Herejia in Spanish) concerns a 4th century Spanish bishop by the name of Priscillian whose Gnostic beliefs drew the attention of the Roman Church. What the Priscillianists held was a view remarkably similar to those of the Essenes: a view quite likely espoused by Jesus himself. But by the late 4th century, such views were considered heretical and Priscillian and seven of his followers - including Euchrotia, a woman - were executed, with the full knowledge, even approval, of many members of the Roman church. In Pilgrimage to Heresy dovetailed with the everyday concerns and contemplations of a group of modern-day pilgrims on the Camino Frances, I tell his tale.

Many Gallegos believe that it is Priscillian, not Santiago, who is buried in Compostela. I don’t know. But I do not believe it is St. James. So far I have attempted to demonstrate from my research why this is so, and in doing this I am gradually putting together the basis of my upcoming book, Compostela, to be published in 2010.

Starting tomorrow and every day this week, I am going to attempt to summarise what we have learned so far: from 385CE through to 1100 and the consecration of Bishop Diego Gelmirez.

(The accompanying photos, by the way, are all from the Camino Portuguese.)
Click on the link to go to the Camino de Santiago Forum for more information about this wonderful walk.
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After Diego Pelaez...

Alfonso couldn't allow Galicia to remain without a bishop, that was for sure, and so he appointed Pedro of Cardena to fill the vacant post. Trouble was this was not exactly his job...that is to say the Pope knew nothing about it. This was simply Not Good.

Once he found out (the Pope at the time was Urban II) Alfonso's choice was outright rejected and we can be sure that letters had been flying back and forth from Diego Pelaez and the Vatican at this time also (Diego Pelaez had found refuge at the court of the King of Aragon, not exactly a friend to Alfonso VI). Pope Urban rejected outright the deposition of Diego Pelaez and chastised Alfonso most resoundedly for having the gall to remove, seize, and imprison a bishop. Alfonso was forthwith instructed to reinstate Diego and no backchat! Urban then backed up his demands with a letter to the clergy and people of Compostela which said: "We forbid you to accept or obey this upstart so-called bishop, Pedro," or something more ecclesiastical and Latin to that effect, and poor Pedro, who likely had had little choice but to obey his king, was summoned to Rome toute de suite!

In the meantime, Alfonso himself had other problems to consider. For one thing he was surrounded by the Moors on virtually all sides; for another, his Queen, Constance, had produced the Infanta Urraca, but so far there was no male heir. And everyone around him was very aware of it. He was obliged to hold on to what he had so far gained and turn a blind (though watchful) eye to Galicia for the time being.

In Compostela, the building of the cathedral came to a grinding halt, and in the words of historian Bernard Reilly, it was: "scarcely more than a handful of piers, melancholy and silent in the winter rains of the northwest".

Never had Galicia needed a champion more.
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The bishop rebels...

By 1080, the Roman Liturgy was beginning to replace the old Mozarabic (Visigothic) rite. The influence of the Order of Cluny was starting to change the way that people in Galicia would worship from henceforth. And not all welcomed this change.

We are not sure if Bishop Diego Pelaez was one of these, but there can be no doubt that he would have felt the winds blowing from France. King Alfonso VI made Constance of Burgundy his queen, and as often happens, this seemed to involve importing a few relatives as well.

Up to this point, Toledo had been the capital of the old Visigothic kingdom for many hundreds of years. By the late 11th century it was still in Moorish hands, but this was all to change. Alfonso captured Toledo, making Bernardo, a Frenchman, its archbishop. Perhaps Diego Pelaez felt that Galicia was to slip into the backwaters with the new changes with the shrine of St. James assuming less and less importance.

The Infanta Urraca, Alfonso and Constance's only issue, was promised to Raymond, also of France. In the absence of male heirs, this meant that Raymond, a foreigner, would become king.

Perhaps it was all too much got the independent Galicians to bear. This increasing hegemony threatened a vanishing way of life. Before Galicia had been effectively cut off from the rest of the kingdom, yet retained its autonomy, even its king, in this case the imprisoned Garcia. Now, although the pilgrim road had opened Compostela up to the world, instead of achieving its rightful place as the Spanish rival to Rome, it was slipping behind the newly captured Toledo.

In 1087 Count Rodrigo Ovéquez led a rebellious force into Lugo, capturing the city, and his accomplice, it would seem, was none other than our own Diego Pelaez, Bishop of Compostela.

Of course, it was doomed from the start, a daring plan simply destined for failure.

Thirty years later, whilst Diego Gelmirez was archbishop, one of his clerics wrote that charges against Diego Pelaez had been that he had sought the assistance of William of Normandy, "The Conqueror" of England, and although it was not stated, it is impossible not to add: perhaps to free Garcia and re-establish him as the King of Galicia.

This is not as far fetched as it may sound. No less than three of William's daughters had been suggested as marriage partners for the three brothers. Prior to his bethrothal to Constance, Alfonso was to marry Agatha, but she died on route to her bridegroom. Another daughter, one Alberta, was mentioned in connection with Sancho, and may even have married him. What is interesting is that her name (William had a lot of daughters) also comes up in connection with Garcia, the youngest, the dispossessed king of Galicia. Was there some rivalry between the two brothers which history has swallowed up? A romance lost and forgotten? We will never know.

The rebellion lasted for two years. As it was it was all to come to naught. William died unexpectedly when a riding accident threw him onto the pommel of his horse. The ringleaders of the rebellion, including Diego Pelaez, were rounded up and thrown into prison.

The Historia Compostelana tells us that Diego Pelaez was brought in front of his accusers in chains. He was forced to declare himself unworthy of his office, to surrender his pastoral ring and staff. Much later he was banished, exiled, and he spent the rest of his days in Aragon at the court of Pedro who was no friend to Alfonso, and subsequently none to Diego Gelmirez either. But I am getting ahead of my story.

Building on the cathedral stopped. Maestro Esteban followed Diego Pelaez east and began to work on a new cathedral to be built at Pamplona. The masons dispersed. An angered pope tried to re-instate his bishop who meanwhile languished in the dungeons, but with no success. And the bishopric stayed empty for 12 whole years while Diego Gelmirez, moving his way up through the ranks, was happy to bide his time.
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Diego Pelaez...

Ask most people connected with the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and they will say that it was the child of the first archbishop, Diego Gelmirez, and in many ways this was so. What you may not be told, however, is that it was Gelmirez’ predecessor, Diego Pelaez, who first conceived of enlarging the basilica, nor that the first architect was one Maestro Esteban, most likely a Frenchman.

If we know little enough about Priscillian of Avila, we know even less about Diego Pelaez. We don’t know when he was born, nor where. It seems likely that he was a native of Galicia, but Pelaez (of the family of Pelayo) was a common enough name and crops up quite a bit in connection with the Camino both in Galicia and Asturias. We are told by the authors of the Historia Compostelana (of which you are going to learn a lot more in the weeks to come) that Diego Pelaez was consecrated by Sancho II. While this is possible, subsequent events were to make it more likely that Pelaez had enjoyed the patronage of Garcia of Galicia, and bishops in those days were kings’ men through and through. Besides, the Historia Compostelana is not known for its…um…accuracy.

Be that as it may, by the time that the groundbreaking began (with the old church still inside), Sancho had been dead for 3 years, at the hands of his brother Alfonso. Garcia, having made the mistake of seeking a truce with his brother, was languishing in prison as an unwilling guest in the Castillo de Luna in the mountains above the Rio Orbigo. Diego Pelaez, in his untouchable position as bishop, was perhaps enjoying the relative isolation of his see at Compostela.

The new church was to be constructed in the French “Romanesque” style. With a Latin cross form, three naves and a ground area of 8,300 square meters, this was to be far, far grander than any of the churches of St. James before. An increasing number of merchants and artisans were settling along the pilgrimage route. The work progressed under the watchful eyes of not only Maestro Esteban, but also two master masons known as Bernard and Robert. At least 50 men were employed upon the building during the time of Diego Pelaez.

In some ways, the eventual fate of the church at Compostela was a victim of its own success. Compostela (it had been known by this name since 1056) became more and more “European”. The see had already been moved from Iria Flavia by that time. Prior to this, Galicia had in many ways been cut off: politically and especially geographically. Bishop Cresconio, Pelaez forerunner of long tenure, had had more to worry about with Norman and Viking invasions than incursions from rival kings. For this he had fortified the coastal areas and in particular (for our story as you will see) built a castle at Torres del Oeste near Iria. During Diego Pelaez’ time as bishop, this as occupied by his seigneur, Gelmirio who had several sons, one of which, Diego, is to rise to almost unapproachable power as the first archbishop of “Santiago de Compostela”.
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