This history is largely taken from A Concise History of Spain by William D. Phillips, Jr. and Carla Rahn Phillips, Cambridge Univ. Press (2d ed. 2016).
St. James, or Santiago, was one of Jesus’ 12 apostles. Following Christ’s death and resurrection, Santiago worked to convert the inhabitants of Spain to Christianity. Santiago met with little success until the Virgin Mary appeared to him sitting atop a pillar in the city of Zaragoza, where the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pilar now stands, containing the pillar, which is venerated. According to the Phillips, Maria Pilar is to this day a popular baptismal name for girls in northern Spain.
Santiago returned to the Holy Land and was the first of the apostles to be martyred for his faith. After his death, Santiago’s followers claimed his body, which was transported by ship to Spain. While near the Spanish coast, the ship encountered a wedding party of pagans. The bridegroom’s horse tripped, and the bridegroom fell in the water. When he was rescued by those on the ship, he had a scallop shell clinging to his clothes. The scallop shell was used as a dipper in an impromptu baptism, forever becoming a symbol of Santiago.
Santiago’s followers endured a series of challenges in burying the martyr’s body, including a dragon and a combative pagan queen. Eventually they prevailed, even converting the queen to Christianity, and burying Santiago’s body in a field near the present-day town of Santiago de Compostela.
More than seven centuries later, Christians, led by King Alfonso II, and Muslims were locked in repeated battles for control of the Iberian peninsula, battles that would be waged for almost another 800 years. During Alfonso’s reign, Santiago’s remains were rediscovered by local citizens in the field, which was lit by stars. (A reading of “Compostela” is “field of stars.”) A cathedral was built to house his remains, which became the terminus of one of the foremost pilgrimage routes in medieval Europe, outranked only by Rome.
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