page_title: History of Galicia
section_title: The discovery of the tomb of Saint James (813)
hierarchical_section_title: History of Galicia / Medieval Galicia / The discovery of the tomb of Saint James (813)
caption_attribution_description: Saint James the Greater (detail), last quarter of 15th century. French, Burgundy. Limestone, formerly polychromed. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Bequest of Isaac D. Fletcher, 1917.
context_page_description: The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, first by Neanderthals and then by modern humans.
context_section_description: In 813 the most important religious event of the medieval Christian Europe happened, the discovery in Galicia of an ark, which contained remains that were attributed to the apostle Saint James. According to Christian tradition, in this year, a hermit saw near to "Libredon" (ancient Santiago de Compostela) a star on a marble ark. Warned by him, the bishop of Iria Flavia, Teodomiro travelled quickly to the place, identifying the remains as found the decapitated body of the apostle James.
  Myth or reality, this "discovery" was quickly magnified by the Galician-Asturian monarch, Alphonse II (791–842), who in the same year ordered build a church around the tomb "holy", spreading the news throughout Christendom. The diocese of Iria and her owner, became the most powerful ecclesiastical administration not only of high-medieval Gallaecia, but the entire Iberian Peninsula, increasing its power with the constant royal donations to the church of Santiago de Compostela. Transformed into the third pilgrim centre of Christianity, – just after Jerusalem and Rome – was from the 11th and 12th centuries especially when from many parts of Europe began arriving pilgrims, both from Occitania, France, Navarra and Aragon-Catalonia (by land) and from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and German territories (by sea).
  The pilgrim phenomenon was decisive in the cultural and economic shaping of the kingdom of Galicia, developed mainly during Diego Gelmirez's mandate (1100–1136) who successfully converted Compostela in metropolitan church (year 1122), the most important Christian dignity in Occident after Rome. Around the Apostolic tomb grew not only a cathedral – great center of artistic and religious life – but a village then a town, strongly established in the Middle Ages, with a commercial derivative of its status as a holy city, where were crowned Galician kings, where grew the great Galician-Portuguese lyric school, and where is located the capital of Galicia since the Middle Ages.
  Historical and archaeological studies conducted in 20th century cathedral itself, revealed however, that during Gallaeci-Roman time and even during the Suevic period, Compostela was an important place where have buried important dignities – civil or religious – long before the year 813, which led to several specialists to defend that, the body attributed to the apostle Saint James was actually the body of Priscillian, patriarch of the Galicia church, beheaded at Trier in 385.
caption: Burgundian Statue 15th century, it represents the apostle Saint James, dressed as pilgrim. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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