The Camino de Santiago: Curating the Pilgrimage as Heritage and Tourism 9781800731929

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The Camino de Santiago

The Camino de Santiago Curating the Pilgrimage as Heritage and Tourism

Michael Murray

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2021 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2021 Michael Murray All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Murray, Michael, 1953- author. Title: The Camino de Santiago : curating the pilgrimage as heritage and tourism / Michael Murray. Description: New York : Berghahn, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021017502 (print) | LCCN 2021017503 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800731912 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800731929 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Camino de Santiago de Compostela. | Sacred space— Conservation and restoration—Europe. | Cultural property— Protection—Europe. | Heritage tourism—Europe. Classification: LCC BX2321.S3 M87 2021 (print) | LCC BX2321.S3 (ebook) | DDC 363.6/9094—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017502 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017503

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-80073-191-2 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-192-9 ebook

Contents

List of Illustrations, Figures and Tables

vii

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction

1

PART I. Setting the Wider Context 1. Perspectives on Pilgrimage as Heritage and Tourism

11

2. The Curatorship of Pilgrimage Places

25

PART II. Framing the Camino de Santiago 3. The Camino de Santiago Geographies

47

4. The Governance of the Camino de Santiago

73

PART III. Curating the Camino de Santiago as Heritage and Tourism 5. Regulatory Planning Protocols

103

6. Programme and Project Investment Guidelines

121

7. Environmental Stewardship

143

8. Information and Communication

163

9. Museums and Storytelling

181

Conclusion. Towards a Different Curatorship of the Camino de Santiago?

194

Epilogue

208

vi

Contents

References

210

Index

225

Illustrations, Figures and Tables

Illustrations 3.1. Saint James as pilgrim, Taboado, 2018 3.2. Santiago Matamoros, Burgos Cathedral, 2019 3.3. The scallop shell and yellow arrow motifs of the Camino de Santiago, Castrojeriz, 2019 7.1. Church of San Juan, Portomarín, 2006 7.2. Chapel of Santiago and its bridge arch, Portomarín, 2017 9.1. ‘Setting-up for the day ahead’, O Cebreiro, 2018

48 49 60 148 148 190

Figures 3.1. The Camino de Santiago routes in Spain and France 3.2. Arrivals recorded at the International Pilgrim Office, 1986–2019 7.1. The planned morphology of Portomarín

52 56 146

Tables 2.1. Information provision at sacred sites 38 3.1. Pilgrims completing Camino de Santiago route options, 2005/2019 57 3.2. Modes of journeying on the Camino de Santiago, 2005/2019 58 4.1. The governance of the Camino de Santiago within the Xunta de Galicia 85 5.1. Key legislative provisions for the Camino de Santiago in Autonomous Communities 108 5.2. Planning instruments for municipalities on the Camino Francés in Castilla y León, 2020 117

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Illustrations, Figure and Tables

6.1. Special investment strategies for the Camino de Santiago 6.2. Tourism development frameworks for regions with UNESCO Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes 8.1. NO-DO films featuring Santiago de Compostela and the Camino de Santiago 8.2. Information provision on Santiago de Compostela Cathedral website 8.3. Camino de Santiago magazines and newsletters

123 128 166 174 178

Acknowledgements

This book could not have been completed without the support of many colleagues and friends. Brian Graham at Ulster University provided a long-lasting introduction to the religious significance of the Camino de Santiago in medieval times during our undergraduate Geography field trips to Montpellier in the 1980s that included interesting visits to heritage sites in Arles, Saint-Gilles and St Guilhem le Desert. During subsequent years we walked the entire 800 kilometres of the Camino Francés from St Jean-Pied-de-Port in France and a substantial transect of the Vía de la Plata from Seville to Cañaveral. David Houston at Queen’s University Belfast joined me on a series of scholarly adventures from Sarria, Ferrol and Ourense to Santiago de Compostela. To both I owe a debt of gratitude for shared insights and good company. The ad hoc Camino Group in Newcastle, Northern Ireland provided a stimulus to seek new perspectives on the planning and management of the Camino de Santiago during our Semana Santa walks in 2017 and 2019. It is only appropriate that I thank this ‘merrie troupe of peregrinos’ for some of my most memorable Camino experiences: Susan Barker, Liam and Ann Dumigan, Aidan and Noelle Hanna, David Houston, Josephine Keaveney, Tina Lennon, Elizabeth McCann, Patricia McGovern, Stephen McKay, Colm McLarnon, John and Patricia Maginn, Sheelagh Murray, Tony and Rose Murray, Vicki Neeson, Joe and Mary Scullion. In mentioning Newcastle, I must also pay tribute to the late Bert Slader who for many years led Camino groups from across Ireland to raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis; Bert was a true pioneer of the Way of Saint James in an era when there was little published by way of maps and guidebooks in English and, for my early walks in Spain during the 1990s, he was a friendly adviser on travel logistics. His entertaining book Pilgrims’ Footsteps (Slader 1989) remains a seminal contribution to the Camino de Santiago travel literature. A number of religious pilgrimage destinations in Ireland and England were visited in spring 2019 while researching this book. My thanks to

x

Acknowledgements

staff and volunteers at Lough Derg, Ballintubber Abbey, Croagh Patrick, Knock, Lindisfarne, Bamburgh, Durham, Walsingham and Canterbury for their pilgrim welcomes, taking time to explain the heritage of each site and answering my all too many questions. My thanks also to Ian McIntosh at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis for his kind invitation to participate in discussions at the Sacred Journeys 6th Global Conference, Maynooth University, Ireland in July 2019. These added valuable insights to themes explored in this book. As a member of the Confraternity of Saint James based in London, I am grateful to Freddy Bowen for supplying me with a pilgrim credencial, often at short notice, for several Camino walks in recent years. I also thank the Editors of the Confraternity Bulletin, for their enthusiasm in publishing my occasional musings on the Camino de Santiago. Many years ago the late Brian Tate, who was a member of the Confraternity and served on the Xunta de Galicia Committee of Camino de Santiago Experts, kindly shared material on regulating the Way in Navarra, that prompted my subsequent interest in curating the pilgrimage as heritage and tourism. The writing of this book has indeed been a journey in itself and to accompany me along the Way, I have sought the literary companionship of Walter Starkie whose memorable travel book The Road to Compostela was published in 1957; he describes his arrival into Santiago de Compostela in the following manner: On four occasions I had visited this shrine and the Road of Santiago had at times loomed largely in my life. . . As Irishman and Celt I had set out from my island following the pilgrim way. . . And now in the fullness of my age I had followed the road once more in an attempt to gather up the memories of a lifetime. As I sat meditating in the silent chapel, the murmur of the crowds of pilgrims in the cathedral and outside in the streets came to me like the gentle roll of the ocean tide. (Starkie 1957: 307)

Starkie’s writing is a vivid drama of lives lived along the Camino that are rooted in places of history and celebrated through the routines of tradition. His eye for detail in both the ordinary and the spectacular still resonates today and, in the pages that follow, I pay tribute to his immense scholarship and wordcraft. I was delighted to receive a publishing contract from Berghahn Books and in that regard I wish to thank Tom Bonnington, Tony Mason, Harry Eagles and Caroline Kuhtz for their editorial support. The much appreciated advice from two anonymous reviewers of my initial proposal and subsequent draft manuscript has helped considerably in shaping the final narrative. My thanks to Julia Goddard for copy-editing the manuscript, Libby Mulqueeny at Queen’s University Belfast for preparation of the line

Acknowledgements

xi

drawings and to the Library staff at Queen’s University Belfast for assistance with my literature search. I acknowledge, with thanks, permissions received from American Pilgrims on the Camino to adapt the style and content of Figure 3.2, from Platforma Veciñal Mina Touro – O Pino Non to include in full the text of its petition to the Apostle in Chapter 7, and from Michael McGrenaghan to publish his photograph of O Cebreiro in Chapter 9. Lastly, my gratitude to my wife, Sheelagh, to whom this book is dedicated. She has given longstanding support to my interest in the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, has accompanied me as a ‘research assistant’ on our many world-wide travels including multiple visits to Spain, often at short notice. Most recently, in the autumn of 2019 we completed a round trip from Bilbao that allowed us to visit several museums and interpretive centres situated along the Camino de Santiago routes, the results of which are reported in Chapter 9 of this book. Together, we have quietly endured the enforced isolation associated with completing this project during the COVID-19 pandemic, unsure when we will be able to return to the land of Saint James. This book is for you, Sheelagh. Ultreïa. Michael Murray Queen’s University Belfast 2021

Introduction

Background On 20 April 1994 my walking companion and I wearily climbed the staircase of the then Pilgrim Office on Rúa do Villar in Santiago de Compostela to present our stamped credencial documentation and request Compostela certificates. It was customary at that time for all such supplicants to be personally interviewed by the Canon of the cathedral, Don Jaime García Rodríguez, and having stated to him what our pilgrimage motives were, he then turned to our itinerary and asked from where and when we started our journey. On learning that we had departed from St Jean-Pied-de-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees on 12 April, he quickly responded that we could not possibly have walked the 800 kilometres in the intervening period. His irritation was compounded when we explained, somewhat unsettled, that we walked over 100 kilometres across six key sections and drove our car for the remainder. Our hopes for a Compostela were dashed at the moment he handed us back our credenciales. Unknown to us, the cathedral administration had revised its distance rule in preparation for the previous 1993 Holy Year and had introduced a new stipulation for granting the Compostela that comprised walking the last 100 kilometres (effectively within Galicia) to the tomb of the Apostle. But the Canon then asked where we are from, to which we responded: ‘Northern Ireland’; he then asked what religion we are and, on hearing our different responses, Jaime García Rodríguez clapped his hands and joyfully exclaimed ‘Reconciliation!’. The curtain divide behind us suddenly opened and one of his staff walked out with two certificates on a burgundy coloured cushion, which were then signed by a smiling Don Jaime with a flourish of his black ink pen. Our pilgrimage was officially recognised, the Canon had exercised his discretion in our favour, and I had received my first Com-

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The Camino de Santiago

postela. Thus began a personal twenty-five years’ interest in the Camino de Santiago which has informed the content of this book and made its authorship an enjoyable task that draws on several very long walks to the shrine of Saint James in north-west Spain.

Pilgrimage and the Purpose of This Book Pilgrimage has been defined as a journey undertaken by a person in quest of a place or circumstance that he or she believes to embody a valued ideal (Morinis 1992: 4). Both the journey and the destination are important to the pilgrim and are denoted by being different from whence people have come. Religious sites fulfil that criterion where devotion at a shrine constitutes a significant moment of arrival and engagement with the ideal of sacredness. But the quest for adventure and personal enrichment, along with wider cultural ideals related, for example, to liberty, sacrifice, atonement and understanding, can also sponsor journeys that may be either secular or spiritual depending on how each individual perceives the pilgrimage undertaking. The British Pilgrim Trust, for example, established in 2014, sees its main goal as advancing pilgrimage as a form of cultural heritage that promotes holistic wellbeing. Pilgrimage is regarded as a spiritual activity open to all without religious prescription (see http://british pilgrimage.org/the-bpt/). In this vein Reader (2007: 226) suggests ‘that it is wrong to see the growth in pilgrim numbers as a universal manifestation of a revival of religious sentiments’ but rather as a turn towards more ‘personalised spirituality’. As argued by Stanford (2021: 14), with ‘its essential intertwining of arduous journey and openness to personal transformation’, pilgrimage ‘fulfils an intrinsic need in the human condition’. Within the academic literature the book by Victor and Edith Turner (1978), Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, is hailed as having a formative influence in this research arena. Their argument is that pilgrimage involves travel to a sacred site located at some distance from the pilgrim’s place of residence (ibid.: 4) and requires giving up temporarily the routines of ordinary life in a ‘betwixt and between’ liminal phase (ibid.: 2) that gives emphasis to seeking salvation and release from the tribulations of the world. Subsequently, the enriched pilgrim returns home to ‘a former mundane existence’, but having made ‘a spiritual step forward’ (ibid.: 15). They state that ‘One motive for going on pilgrimage is the feeling that a saint’s shrine has a sort of “hot line” to the Almighty. One purifies oneself by penance and travel, then has one’s prayer amplified by asking a saint at his own chief shrine to forward it directly to God’ (ibid.: 16). These dimensions to the Turnerian notion of pilgrimage have endured well albeit that there is now an established critique which contests this

Introduction

3

model. Firstly, Eade and Sallnow (1991: 5) point out that a recurrent theme in pilgrimage is the maintenance or reinforcement of social boundaries and distinctions, rather than their attenuation or dissolution. This observation challenges a determinism that prejudges the complex character of the pilgrimage experience which the Turners allege (op cit.: 13) changes pilgrims into ‘a throng of similars’ or ‘a likeness of lot and intention’ out of which emerges a commonness of feeling labelled as communitas. Havard (2018: 89) argues that there is actually conflict within communitas due to differences in, for example, pilgrim personality, cultural background, perceptions of resource scarcity and transformational stress. A humorous review of pilgrim behaviour on the Camino de Santiago (Downing 2021: 60) counsels that a ‘pilgrimage condenses many of the character types we meet through life and squeezes them into a few weeks. There are the garrulous, the overbearing, the down-right boring. They lead to pre-dawn departures and impulsive minor changes to the day’s planning, as we hang back or walk further than intended to avoid them’. Secondly, Coleman and Eade (2004: 2–3) suggest that an overemphasis is bestowed on the place-centredness of sacred travel rather than a deeper appreciation of movement to, at and from the destination sites. And thirdly, as argued by Reader (2007: 219), Victor and Edith Turner pay scant attention to the role played by religious authorities in ‘creating sacred centres’ and securing ‘new religious clienteles’. In that regard pilgrimage routes and destinations can be perceived as being continuously re-made by powerful institutional agency, thus reshaping over time pluralist pilgrim experiences and behaviours. Even the encounter with liminality, core to the Turners’ conceptualisation, has been curtailed, it could be argued, by the Internet, data roaming and social media connectivity to the wider present and keeping people more tied to where they have come from, notwithstanding the advocacy of digital detoxing as a beneficial outcome of pilgrimage activity. Pilgrimage, in short, is characterised by contested meanings, diverse motivations, varied behaviours and a multiplicity of curators. This book explores these themes with reference to the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage that brings people from across the world to the shrine of the Apostle, Saint James, in north-west Spain, which, as suggested by Alonso González (2018: 970), can be viewed ‘as a form of social wealth reproduced and sustained by the “community of the Camino”, an extended network of social actors comprised of pilgrims, civic and religious associations, tourism entrepreneurs, and public institutions and trusts’. The Camino de Santiago commands celebrity status as a journey to be undertaken which is evidenced by a substantial body of writing related to descriptive itinerary guides and personal accounts of transformative experience. Film, television and radio media add considerably to that con-

4

The Camino de Santiago

sciousness of appreciation. This book offers a more critical examination of this contemporary phenomenon through the conceptual lens of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism. However, rather than repeat much of what has been already been said on these topics in the academic and popular literature, the purpose of this book is to explore how the curatorship of the Way of Saint James is being played out in Spain. This institutional arena incorporates the preparation of capital investment guidelines, the exercise of land use planning regulations, environmental stewardship, information dissemination and museology. These activities are key to the long-term sustainability of a heritage resource base increasingly under pressure from tourism growth and they operate within a governance setting which is multi-dimensional, comprising Church, state, civil society, business and university interests. It is, however, an institutional context denoted at times by conflicting ambition and fragmentation that reflects a deeper struggle in reconciling the sacred and secular attributes of pilgrimage. Accordingly, the narrative transcends the much rehearsed pilgrim experience, important though this is, and argues for a more thoughtful engagement that can curate the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism.

Book Structure and Narrative The book is in three parts, the first of which seeks to set the wider context within two chapters containing perspectives on pilgrimage as heritage and tourism, albeit from a predominantly Christian tradition and with particular reference to Ireland and England. In Chapter 1 the key attributes of pilgrimage that comprise the journey and the destination are examined in diverse geographical settings. The pilgrim quest engages not only with holy places but also with other settings that offer scope to deal with personal experiences related to death, atrocity and suffering. Accordingly, mention is made of what is commonly termed ‘dark tourism’. The important point here is that these micro-landscapes of suffering can be equally sacred to visitors and give rise to emotional impacts as powerful as those pertaining at religious centres. The discussion then examines pilgrimage routes as heritage and tourism by giving attention to official designation and ritual at varied spatial scales, from the supra-national to the local. Special centres of pilgrimage are also shaped by institutional and devotee behaviours and these interactions are illustrated with reference to the Sanctuary of Saint Patrick at Lough Derg in north-west rural Ireland. Chapter 2 explores the curatorship of pilgrimage places through five core themes of management practice. Firstly, the preparation of invest-

Introduction

5

ment guidelines is considered on the basis that their availability is key to the ongoing renewal of pilgrimage routes and destinations. They identify both challenges and opportunities and can connect all stakeholders to a funded plan of intervention over a period of years. Their application is illustrated by the case of Lourdes, a town in south-west France with a world-famous Marian shrine. An adjunct to the role played by investment guidelines in place-making is the contribution made by regulatory planning to the control of land use change in settlements and countryside. Pilgrimage itineraries and destinations derive much of their physical character from their immediate setting and the wider zones of visual influence that enclose them. Thus, secondly, the chapter considers the nature of statutory townscape conservation practice with reference to Walsingham, acclaimed as England’s Nazareth. Concern about environmental breakdown is now in the mainstream and the sacred landscapes of pilgrimage are not immune to the impulses of degradation and destruction. Accordingly, environmental stewardship comprises the third curatorship theme introduced in this chapter, which is exemplified by progress made to correct footpath erosion on Croagh Patrick, labelled Ireland’s holy mountain. Information in multiple formats seeks to offer insight and guidance to visitors at places of pilgrimage and thus its availability and dissemination is important in managing sacred routes and destinations as heritage and tourism. This fourth theme is unpacked using ephemera pertaining to Walsingham that have functional, educational and emotional intention. Finally, the chapter addresses the museology of pilgrimage and the stories that are offered for purposes of education, entertainment and selfdiscovery, but which in turn require a curated construction of a presented past. The case of Knock shrine in the west of Ireland is considered against these attributes. In all these matters the underlying question being pursued is how the activities of an institutional web of multiple interests are shaping the pilgrimage drama in ways that are frequently invisible to the transient spectator. Part Two of the book focuses specifically on the Camino de Santiago with Chapter 3 providing commentary on its historical context linked to the cult of Saint James, his multiple representations as apostle, knight and pilgrim, and the appropriation of Saint James and the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela by the Franco regime to bolster a Spanish State ideology of National Catholicism. The contemporary codification of a widening lattice of pilgrimage itinerary options is mapped and set against longitudinal Camino pilgrim data. Attention is drawn to the promotion of the Camino de Santiago as official heritage within Europe and its accompanying impact as tourism development instrument. The discussion concludes by examining the varied characteristics of the pilgrim consumers of this heritage complex along with their personal geographies.

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The Camino de Santiago

Chapter 4 unpacks the stakeholder governance arrangements that have a bearing on responses to the rather prosaic question: ‘Who is looking out for the Camino de Santiago?’ The analysis examines the contributions made by Church, government, civil society, business and university stakeholders and gives attention to their engagement, at times contested, within spaces of collaboration. The chapter begins by drawing attention to the emergence in recent years of a more nuanced representation of pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostle by the Church that is arguably located in the context of the growing celebrity status of the Camino de Santiago as a journey to be undertaken for frequently perceived non-religious reasons. Church-supported organisations that assist with curating the Jacobean pilgrimage and its built heritage are identified. The relationship between multi-level governance across the state and the Camino de Santiago is then unpacked with the cross-cutting character of the latter illustrated by an analysis of the administrative structure and affiliated entities of the Xunta de Galicia in the Autonomous Community that hosts the shrine of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. The significance of partnershipworking at national, regional and local scales is highlighted. The chapter concludes with a commentary on the engagement by international civil society, business and the academy in the pastoral oversight, economic commodification and promotion of the pilgrimage as heritage and tourism. In Part Three the discussion turns explicitly to curating the Camino de Santiago. It critically examines the role of heritage management within this arena of pilgrimage places and tourism economies. Engagement, of course, brings responsibility for sensitive and effective intervention and thus a sequence of five chapters examines a variety of curatorship practices in Spain. Chapter 5 deals with regulatory planning and begins by tracing the emergence of policy measures at national level to protect the Camino de Santiago during the Franco years. The adoption of a new Constitution in 1978 heralded the shift of these responsibilities downwards to the regional administrations and thus the discussion turns to the evolution of regulatory protocols comprising Autonomous Community legislation and territorial plans. The commonplace formula of a protected corridor with adjacent buffer zones is examined. Local planning controls are frequently exercised by the municipalities and, accordingly, the contribution of special plans for the Camino de Santiago at this level of government is identified. The background narrative in this chapter is one of constant and varying heritage recalibration as a result of the interaction between official curators and a web of economic and social interests. Chapter 6 examines programme and project investment guidelines and commences with an analysis of special development strategies prepared specifically for the Camino de Santiago. Of particular note is the manner in which these documents have assumed deeper significance as plans for

Introduction

7

regional restructuring, thus highlighting the political capital of cultural heritage. Generic tourism plans and preparations for the 2021 Holy Year evidence comparable considerations and expose a tension between the religious and secular attributes of the pilgrimage. Nonetheless, while the discussion points to contrasting values and communications styles, it is concluded that the need for Church and state to support the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as both heritage and tourism remains constant. The chapter then turns to an examination of measures for project funding, and a range of initiatives at the European Union, national and regional level that have common purpose with the Camino de Santiago are identified. The important point here is that the pilgrimage is not just about pilgrims and their mobility, but also the communities through which pilgrims travel. Chapter 7 adopts a sharper focus on localism by considering how environmental stewardship plays out against the implementation of macroscale projects that have transformational implications for the Camino de Santiago heritage. Three case studies comprising the reconstruction of Portomarín in the 1960s, the enlargement of the Yesa reservoir beginning in the 1980s and the re-opening of the Touro-O Pino mine on which an adverse environmental impact decision was reached by the Xunta de Galicia in 2020, are detailed. Again, an appreciation of political context is important in this assessment, not least in understanding the contribution of organised opposition. This was clearly suppressed at Portomarín and during the initial construction of the Yesa reservoir. The more recent reservoir enlargement project and the Touro-O Pino mine proposal have, however, witnessed enduring community protest. Nonetheless, while the heritage value of the Camino de Santiago has been constant throughout as a material consideration, the analysis demonstrates that the curatorial approach in each instance has favoured the adoption of mitigation measures. It is concluded that any notion of a permanent and unaltered physical heritage is illusory. Chapter 8 explores information and its dissemination through varied media formats concerned with communicating awareness and engagement. The discussion commences by revisiting the Franco years and the role that the cinema documentary and newsreel played in harnessing the Camino de Santiago as state propaganda at that time. This visual material was deployed to underpin state legitimacy, to celebrate large group pilgrimages as political spectacle, to broadcast significant economic transformation and to project the allure of the Camino Francés, in particular, as a revenue-earning tourism product. This latter element is represented today on the Internet by a vast array of official promotional videos and images and through the availability of printed material in tourist information offices. Both central government and the regions are active on these

8

The Camino de Santiago

fronts, and their efforts suggest the creation of a new form of propaganda constructed around a Camino heritage that shifts between territorial interdependence and competition. Magazines and newsletters sponsored by Church, government, business and civil society organisations add a further dimension of fraternity and scholarship outreach. But for all these curators a colourful Camino de Santiago imagery, that combines tradition and modernity, remains a constant rallying point in their efforts to engage with devout pilgrims and secular tourists. Chapter 9 turns to museums and storytelling in a range of venues along the Caminos de Santiago that host sacred collections, history and art, entertaining interpretation, prehistory, rural tradition and narratives of memory and healing. However, rather than merely describe the characteristics of each site, critical attention is given to exploring the drama of competing cultural meanings that are tendered by their content. While these museums and heritage centres rely on the enthusiasm of local communities and state support to both celebrate and commemorate these pasts in the present, the emotional engagement by visitors can be highly differentiated and reflect life experiences, beliefs, preferences, motivations and expectations. This complexity, in short, is also an explication of pilgrim personality and thus each of the centres examined in this chapter can provide opportunities for individualised pilgrimage encounters. The book concludes with a synthesis of contemporary issues affecting the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage within the context of a wider scholarship on heritage and tourism, and links this with potential adjustments to curatorship praxis with regard to unrelenting pressure from the growth of pilgrim numbers, followed by the tragic circumstances and outcomes linked to the COVID-19 pandemic during and beyond 2020.

PART I Setting the Wider Context

CHAPTER 1

Perspectives on Pilgrimage as Heritage and Tourism

Introduction The book Sacred Places of a Lifetime: 500 of the World’s Most Peaceful and Powerful Destinations (National Geographic Society 2008) is illustrative of a current genre of travel writing that assembles themed locations to interest the armchair explorer or seasoned traveller. Apart from its highquality photography and synoptic guide notes, the intrinsic merit of this book is that it defines the many ways by which the sacred can be appreciated as a combination of forces, beliefs and symbols that infuse global cultural diversity. Each chapter is a journey into the sacred and, as argued by Bowman (1991: 120), ‘the sacred is not something which stands beyond the domain of the cultural; it is imagined, defined and articulated within cultural practice’. Heritage management and tourism promotion as part of that cultural practice constitute important departure points for the analysis of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in this book. In that regard place-centred sacredness can be quite divorced from formal religion although it is frequently interwoven with rituals of religious observance, for example, viewing the tomb of Saint James in the crypt of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. Accordingly, the notion of pilgrimage, as a popular multi-faith activity linked to the sacred, speaks to the special significance of places, persons and events. These characteristics represent the contemporary universal attraction for visitors, over 330 million of whom are embarking annually on pilgrimages across the globe (Fernandes et al. 2017: 2). This chapter examines pilgrimage as heritage and tourism with particular reference to Christian tradition pilgrim journeys and destinations (for further discussion see Harpur 2002).

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The Camino de Santiago

The Pilgrimage Phenomenon Key attributes of pilgrimage comprise the journey, the destination, the pilgrims and the gatekeepers. As noted by Morinis (1992: 15) the essence of the journey is movement, which encompasses important dimensions of meaning and experience that are central to sacred itineraries. In taking the pilgrim from home to a shrine and then home again, a religious journey is of a circular type, but may vary by mode of travel and number of companions, degree of personal interaction, duration and frequency, and time of year. Additionally, movement may be part of ritual at the micro scale whether through the saying of prayers at a sequence of sanctuaries, queuing to venerate relics or touching significant artefacts. Pilgrimage may not, however, be embedded in all religious journeys and in his research Ron (2009: 290–91) differentiates, for example, between pilgrimage and other forms of Christian travel which may, on occasion, overlap. Pilgrimage destinations comprise New Testament sites (for example, in the Holy Land), sites associated with other sacred scriptures (for example, Book of Mormon sites), and non scriptural holy sites (for example, Marian shrines, religious headquarters or Church history sites related to the early saints such as Saint Patrick [in Ireland] and, in the context of this book, Saint James [in Spain]). In contrast, other forms of Christian travel unrelated to prayerful pilgrimage can embrace appreciation of art and architecture and attendance at conferences, plays, processions and pageants. These tourism experiences, nonetheless, can still be part of what is offered at the pilgrimage destination to be enjoyed by those with purely religious motives, so much so that, as noted by Kim and Kim (2018: 4), the boundary between pilgrims and tourists has become unclear due to combined interests. Perhaps, what makes the pilgrimage centre significant, therefore, is its capacity to develop and project ‘an image that is the magnification of some accepted ideals of the culture’ (Morinis 1992: 18), which some pilgrims may describe as the imagined ‘power’ of the special place. These place-based characteristics can vary. For pilgrims in Lourdes (France), for example, the genius loci – the particular spirit of the place – may be physical and mental healing, in Rome (Italy) faith membership, in Medjugorje (Bosnia-Herzegovina) contemporary messages, in Cze˛stochowa (Poland) national resilience, in Fatima (Portugal) world peace, in Walsingham (England) church unity, and in the Holy Land (Israel and Palestine) walking the gospel texts in the footsteps of Christ. What comes through here is that sacred destinations can have more nuanced and differential meaning for believers within a shared rubric of veneration and petitioned intercession. Other religions, of course, demonstrate a comparable symbiosis between pilgrims and place meaning. The annual Haj ritual which brings

Perspectives on Pilgrimage as Heritage and Tourism

13

some 3 million pilgrims to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam and should be performed by all Muslims at least once in their lifetime. For Hindu pilgrims, bathing from the banks of the River Ganges at Varanasi is deeply meaningful. And in Japan the general pattern of circuit pilgrimages, common in Buddhism, extend spiritual quests over more extensive territories; among the most frequented is the pilgrimage to the eightyeight Holy Places on Shikoku Island, popular since the seventeenth century (see Reader 2005). In that case the pilgrim, with white tunic, wide hat and staff, carries a scroll or book in which ink stamps are entered for each temple visited on the way-marked trail. Pilgrims may walk the entire 1,200 kilometres route in a single clockwise excursion or during multiple visits. Alternatively, when the time available is brief they may travel by car or bus between sites, frequently in small groups. For many of these travellers in an increasingly secular society, research indicates the importance of personal insights that are gained along the Way rather than it being solely a Buddhist journey (see Lloyd 2012). As will be discussed below these attributes of Japanese pilgrimage chime well with the Camino de Santiago and with which, in the particular case of the pilgrimage route of Kumano Kodo, there was an official twinning involving the Galician Autonomous Community in 1998. The Museum of Pilgrimages in Santiago de Compostela subsequently hosted an exhibition of photographs about the Kumano Kodo route (Rodríguez del Alisal et al. 2007: 81) and a Dual Pilgrim initiative now operates, complete with a special credencial and completion certificate for those who undertake both pilgrimages. All this, of course, spills over into more secular or spiritual interactions between the journey, the destination and pilgrims, where personal experiences constitute the glue that can connect individuals with cultural meanings. For some, the experience being sought may simply be a form of leisurely curiosity, while for others the engagement may be about strengthening connections and reaffirming cherished beliefs and values. In this context pilgrimage need not necessarily be related to religious settings. Travel to many secular places can, for example, provide a focus for dealing with the impact of death, atrocity and suffering. The pilgrim quest is oriented here to memory and commemoration and while there is a clear overlap with heritage tourists, the more complex experience being sought by the former is often the capacity to come to terms with awful events. The aftermath of war, terrorism and disaster are key components of this dark pilgrimage genre and is illustrated by the naming of the dead on memorials. This practice gathered momentum in the aftermath of the First World War and in Europe it is represented most poignantly, for example, at the Menin Gate in Ypres (54,603 casualties) and at Tyn Cot Cemetery close by (35,001 listed casualties), as well as at the Thiepval Memorial in the Somme (72,338 casualties). In England the centrepiece of the Na-

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tional Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire is the Armed Forces Memorial that remembers conflicts since 1945 and has the names of over 15,000 dead personnel engraved on the walls of an elevated enclosure (for further discussion see Gough 2004; Williams 2014). In the United States the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, situated on the National Mall in Washington DC and dedicated in 1982, has 58,267 names without military rank inscribed on two polished black granite walls submerged into the landscape. Visitors descend along the facing of one wall on a paved path to a point at which the two walls meet at an angle of 125 degrees and with a height of some ten feet. From there they ascend along the second wall to reach ‘ground level’. People see their reflections behind the inscribed names as well as the more distant reflections of the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. There is a ritual of movement for many visitors to the site, with some touching names, taking crayon rubbings of names, or leaving flowers and personal tokens of remembrance. People walk in silence or in subdued conversation and, for some, this is a spiritual pilgrimage to a secular site that has much more to do with memory and healing than religion (Murray et al. 2014: 104). For relatives this is unquestionably a deeply personal moment and, as recorded by Savage (2009: 275), some relatives of the dead have said that they feel the presence of their lost loved one more at the wall than at the actual grave. Additionally, for one group, longitudinal research by Watkins et al. (2010: 351) involving male Vietnam War combat veterans, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), has shown that the severity of a veteran’s symptoms and healing outcomes vary by how many times he had visited the memorial. This emotional journey into a powerful place also encompasses the surrounding grass and wooded areas where there is the semblance of a micro-memorial landscape comprising the Three Servicemen and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial sculptures; these give representation to individual suffering, brotherhood and selfless caring. It is in this space that, on regular occasions, groups of veteran families and friends gather to formally commemorate others who have died as a result of the Vietnam conflict, albeit not in the conflict itself. In short, there is a solemnity to the physical design of and the experience at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that involves movement across a number of commemorative sites, with personal emotions being expressed on an individual basis or given collective expression. Much the same pilgrimage phenomenon can be found at the National September 11 Memorial in New York, dedicated in 2011, where the names of nearly 3,000 victims from the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks are inscribed on bronze parapets enclosing two pools with waterfalls that are set into the footprint of the original World Trade Centre Twin Towers. A white rose flower is placed against the names of the deceased on their

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birthday by the curators of the site – a symbol of innocence, love and living spirit. Similarly, the Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial in New Zealand, dedicated in 2017, is a quiet space of respect. It is a site of remembrance for the 185 people killed in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, whose names are inscribed on a sunken wall of marble panels in a sun-facing riverside setting. The important point in the context of this book is that the pilgrimage concept represents very broad meanings and practices that derive from varied contexts. It offers a diversity of carefully designed ritual spaces which can accommodate the multiple experiences being pursued by individuals. For some people the sacred shrine may be defined by religion, but as noted in the paragraphs above, for others, more secular sites may be sacred to them because of their powerful intersection with death and memory. The solemn apotheosis of this form of journeying is when there is visual contact with the dead whose mortal remains evidence an incomprehensible atrocity denoted by the most barbaric cruelty. While researching this book, the author visited Choeung Ek on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge regime murdered women, men and children over the period 1975 to 1979. A raised boardwalk guides visitors around excavated mass graves where remnants of clothing are still visible and past a tree used by guards for smashing babies. Multiple red and yellow ribbons along with crafted amulets are testimony to the sacredness of this site. At the centre of the former orchard, now Killing Field, stands a glass-sided stupa with the bones and skulls of victims reverently arranged in tiered repose on the basis of age and gender. The emotional impact is powerful and is rooted in the suffering of others – those killed and those who survived. This shocking reality of horrifying events, in the words of Tamashiro (2018: 7), invites the visitor ‘to bear witness to the inhuman’ as an element of peace pilgrimage whereby ‘one has opportunities to glimpse the honour, respect and dignity that define the core of humanness, as well as face the inhuman . . . the darkest side of human nature’ (ibid.: 8). Pilgrimage has the capacity to be transformative and in this case, while visits to Choeung Ek form part of an internationally promoted tourist itinerary, there is surely a deeper meaning that speaks of a desire for societal healing as an antidote to brutality in this place of immense pain.

Pilgrimage Routes as Heritage and Tourism As already stated, the pilgrimage journey requires movement from a place of origin to the sacred destination. The travel industry is now key to arranging and selling international pilgrimage packages that incorporate airline, local transfer, accommodation and guided sightseeing ingredients

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and which are often conducted over several days in association with an invited spiritual director. These commonly combine sacred experiences with the enjoyment of cultural heritage. It is within this broad sweep of organised pilgrimage activity that route-based itineraries have emerged as a popular and alternative mode of travel and where the focus is less on maximising time spent at a single destination but rather on time spent getting to a destination by visiting places along the way. The arrival location and pilgrim motivation may be similar in each instance, but when the journey undertaken is on foot, rather than by vehicle, along an established route with daily stages and distance targets, as in the case of the Camino de Santiago, the trip will be very different by putting the physical capability of the pilgrim foremost. Route-based tourism, more generally, is firmly in the zeitgeist of early twenty first-century travel. It is single theme related, geographically defined but at varied spatial scales from the transnational to the local, and integrated across mobility and directional signage, the promotion of attractions at multiple nodes and the availability of services. Some public sector funding, with follow-on local community and business engagement, are pre-requisites for success in this sphere, but the economic returns can be stronger place branding and greater visitor spend. Academic research has found this arena to be a fruitful topic of inquiry and the resulting case studies are both global and diverse (for example, Lourens 2007; Orba li and Woodward 2008; Snowball and Courtney 2010; Braga et al. 2013; Lempky 2017; Miles 2017). They highlight the multi-modal nature of transport within these corridors of tangible heritage (for example, buildings and monuments) and intangible heritage (for example, traditions, knowledge and skills) whether by car, bus or train, and the slower pace of going by bicycle, horse or simply walking. Travellers may be accompanied by a tour guide or they may self-guide using maps, mobile phone applications and conventional guidebooks. In short, as argued by Moulin and Boniface (2001: 246), the horizontal axis of routes is juxtaposed with a top-down management process whereby the concepts for use are formulated and imposed from above, as are the means of cultural preservation, social and economic development, and the regeneration of far-distant sites, places and communities. The Council of Europe through its Cultural Routes Programme has been active on this front and, over the period from 1987 to 2019, it has certified thirty-eight different itineraries that collectively speak to the importance of European heritage diversity (Council of Europe 2019). The certification process for candidate proposals and the subsequent periodic evaluation of cultural routes draws on contributions from members of an international expert panel that reports to the management structures of the programme. The selected themes seek to enhance the understanding

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of European history and memory. The values underpinning these routes relate to fostering mutual respect by bringing people together beyond cultural division, expanding the accessibility and learning potential of this varied heritage to European citizens, and embedding respect for human rights, tolerance and solidarity. So, for example, religion is included in these itineraries with representation from Christian (both Catholic and Protestant), Muslim and Jewish faith groups. And at a time when the ‘European Project’ is under increasing pressure from fragmentation by the emergence of populist electoral politics, the ambitions of the Council of Europe in this sphere endorse a lattice of cultural networks across its member states. In that regard the recognition given to expansive pilgrimage territories as heritage and tourism is significant and is well represented in the list of certifications. The initial declaration comprising the Camino de Santiago was in 1987, followed by the Vía Francigena in 1994, and the Saint Olav Ways in 2010. The pilgrim experience of slow travel along these transnational routes is underlined, together with opportunities for meeting new people and exploring diverse landscapes and townscapes. Pilgrimage routes can vary in regard to the length and duration of the itinerary and may be given added profile when linked to special occasion participation. In France, for example, the annual Pentecost walking pilgrimage of some 100 kilometres from Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris to Notre-Dame Cathedral, Chartres attracts up to 12,000 pilgrims over its three days. Pilgrims are clustered into one of 250 ‘chapters’, each dedicated to a saint and with each chapter being led by a lay volunteer who, with the help of chaplains, organises the chapter hymns, meditations, rosary and prayers along the Way. A variation on this format of special occasion pilgrimage is exemplified by Tro Breiz in Brittany comprising a circular walking route of some 600 kilometres that connects back to the Middle Ages and subsequent late nineteenth-century Catholic and regionalist sentiments that celebrated the Celtic particularity of the territory (Badone 2014: 456). This pilgrimage is a large group activity for one week comprising several walking stages, one of which is undertaken each year during the summer. The stages are rolled forward annually and pilgrims can register for either the full week or for one or two days. At the time of writing, a new loop cycle began in 2018 and attracted some 2,000 participants. Completion of the trek is scheduled for 2026. The pilgrimage combines religious ceremony, heritage site visits and festival-based entertainment. Pilgrims wear colour coded bracelets that help determine accommodation choices in sports halls or tents and are supported by a large group of volunteers who arrange luggage transfers, food preparation, drinking water and personal safety. The programme for each day commences with a daily briefing; collective walking periods and meal times are indicated and details are given of evening events that can in-

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clude optional attendance at Mass and a civic reception. Accordingly, the yearly event bridges both secular and religious domains and, as observed by Badone (ibid.: 166), ‘The Tro Breiz thus recreates a world in which religious belief or spirituality, social conviviality, connection to the natural environment, the embodied experience of both physical duress and festive activities and heightened aesthetic appreciation interpenetrate seamlessly’. Pilgrimage routes are also denoted by continuity and change whereby detailed adjustments can be made to enhance the pilgrim cultural experience, improve safety, or ease the burden of crossing difficult terrain. This is happening very much with the Camino de Santiago, as discussed below in Chapter Three, whereby the axes of the itineraries are being retained in the face of a growing number of micro realignments. But additionally, new routes can be added by way of extensions to long established transects. Such developments constitute a blending of heritage inclusion, economic benefit and place recognition, all of which can be seen in a project to extend the Saint Olav’s Ways eastwards from the Atlantic coast, through Finland, towards the Russian border. This is being funded by the EU LEADER rural development programme over the period 2014–2020. The fact that the Saint Olav’s Ways is a Council of Europe certified cultural route also gives added insight into the broader underpinning political ambition of strengthening European identity, contested though that concept is. The case of the Saint Olav’s Ways comprises a web of eight pilgrim routes through Denmark, Norway and Sweden that converge at the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, the shrine of the eleventh-century saint. Signposting of the paths with a red coloured cross motif commenced during the 1990s with the re-opening of the most popular 643-kilometre Gudbrandsdalen Path between Oslo and Trondheim in 1997 (Duda 2016: 33). Since then, the development of Saint Olav’s Pilgrim paths has continued apace with more than 5,000 kilometres waymarked. Pilgrims can carry a pilgrim passport that is ink stamped each day and at the end of their walk, that must include the last 100 kilometres into Trondheim, they can use it to demonstrate that they qualify for the Saint Olav’s Letter – a certificate of completion. Pilgrimage, in short, is viewed by promoters of this cultural heritage project as a vehicle for tourism development, whose overall goal would seem to be the establishment of the equivalent of the Camino de Santiago in northern Europe. Arguably, something comparable is being rolled out in Ireland (see Flanagan and O’Sullivan 2016), albeit on a much smaller scale. In 1997 the Heritage Council initiated a pilgrim paths project which since 2013 has been carried forward by an inter-denominational organisation called Pilgrim Paths Ireland whose brief is to promote a network of early Christian penitential routes. To date it has conjoined the waymarking of five trails. One is the thirty-kilometre walk in the west of Ireland from the restored

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thirteenth-century Ballintubber Abbey to Croagh Patrick mountain along the Tóchár Phadraig, a route initially constructed by pagan kings in the middle of the fourth century. The way is denoted by the iconography of Saint Patrick, stiles are inserted in walls, and directional signposts display church and mountain motifs painted in yellow. Walkers can carry a pilgrim passport which is stamped at the end of each one or two days’ itinerary and, when all five routes are completed, it allows the holder to apply for a Teastas Oilithreachta (Pilgrimage Certificate). Work on the ground by other voluntary groups continues to expand these routes, most recently a 104-kilometre trail dedicated to Saint Declan which has been fully waymarked and de-vegetated with the aid of a €150,000 grant from the national Rural Recreation Fund. More broadly, the concept of a Celtic Camino has been floated in order to strengthen brand recognition in the domestic and international tourism markets. In Northern Ireland, the legendary burial place of Saint Patrick in Downpatrick lent itself in 2020 to the production of a thirteen-mile one-day walking pilgrimage around the town that is guided across country lanes and minor roads which with an accompanying interpretative booklet (again for stamps) takes pilgrims to a varied iconography of the patron Saint, including part of an altar on which he allegedly celebrated Mass. A much longer eighty-two-mile waymarked trail, branded as St Patrick’s Way, takes pilgrims from Navan Fort (the ancient capital of Ulster) to Downpatrick (see Kenning 2021). These land-based itineraries are being complemented by investigations that commenced in late 2018 regarding the feasibility of creating a crossborder 350-kilometre navigable pilgrim way along the combined Shannon and Erne waterways that would connect with more than 100 medieval heritage locations including the internationally acclaimed sixth-century monastic sites of Clonmacnoise and Devenish Island. Interestingly, and drawing on his Shannon travels in 1939, Richard Hayward recommends that the more interesting journey from Athlone to Clonmacnoise be made by river than by road (Hayward 1989: 182). All this fits well with the wider observations of Bowman and Sepp (2019: 81) that ‘new pilgrim paths are “routes with roots”, heritagised manifestations of a lost, possibly idealised history, often encouraging access to rural areas and neglected cultural heritage’.

Pilgrimage Destinations as Heritage and Tourism Notwithstanding the significance of the one-off or repeated journey for pilgrims, the essence of faith-based pilgrimage is arrival at a sacred place in which the rituals of personal commitment and religion can be performed. These observances are wide-ranging and include prayer, meditation, bath-

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ing, offerings and ceremony. They are conducted during this time apart, involve individual and collective participation, are rooted in tradition but are subject to contemporary modifications, and are codified by beliefs and rules. Rituals may be time specific and linked to a significant year or date, day of the week or hour of the day. What matters is the overarching social cohesion for many in that pilgrim grouping which invites respectful engagement, reaffirms faith identity, and links the past, through the present, to the future for believers. For others, however, the practice of pilgrimage at these sites may be far removed from organised religion and comprise curiosity or, alternatively, personalised moments of deep reflection and transformation. In linking these behaviours to the context of this book, the important point here is that these dimensions of intangible cultural heritage find visible expression in special places which have been constructed or shaped by institutions and devotees as a physical focus, some of which date back many centuries and even to prehistory, with others being more recent and growing in popularity. The personality of the built environment in urban and rural settings seeks to reflect and amplify the sacred power of place, perhaps through the creation of an enclave space or stand-alone structure. These may be fashioned on a grand scale and comprise temples, cathedrals and mosques, or may be represented in the simplicity of a vernacular architecture and its linked iconography of religious or spiritual meaning. A rock and water cultural landscape of special mountains, hills, islands, caves, rivers, lakes and wells adds another layer of sacredness to place. The holy mountain, for example, can be perceived as a location where heaven and earth intersect in the imagining of revelation and symbolic power. Across the world, these pilgrimage destinations function as heritage and tourism and can be usefully illustrated with reference to the case of Ireland – the much mythologised land of saints and scholars in international branding, tourism promotion and visitor perception. The contemporary reality suggests, however, that this imagery may speak more to ‘a quieter Ireland that no longer exists’ (Scally 2021: 3). Nonetheless, a leading centre of pilgrimage, Lough Derg, deserves a special mention. Pilgrimage as sacred mobility looms large in the historical geography of the medieval Celtic church (Madrell and Scriven 2016: 301), not least in Ireland where the veneration of Saint Patrick is well established at holy wells, lake islands and mountains. However, as pointed out by Nolan (1983: 421), Irish pilgrimage displays some major differences compared with pilgrimage elsewhere in Europe. In the latter, devotional sites are often linked to the physical remains of a saint in an urban setting, while in Ireland there is a linkage between shrine location and landscapes of remote rurality – what Nolan labels ‘hard to reach locations’ (ibid.: 423). One clue to understanding the character of pilgrimage in Ireland is advanced

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as comprising the impact of the penal laws during the eighteenth century which affected the ability of Catholics to practise their religion. Under the 1704 Act to Prevent the Further Growth of Popery, for example, Catholic rituals and pilgrimages were prohibited. Section 26 of that Act stated: And whereas the superstitions of Popery are greatly increased and upheld by the pretended sanctity of places, especially of a place called Saint Patrick’s purgatory in the county of Donegal, and of wells, to which pilgrimages are made by vast numbers at certain seasons; by which not only the peace of the public is greatly disturbed, but the safety of the government also hazarded, by the riotous and unlawful assembling together of many thousands of papists to the said wells and other places; be it further, enacted, that all such meetings and assemblies shall be deemed and adjudged riots and unlawful assemblies, and punishable as such in all or any persons meeting at such places as aforesaid; and all sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other magistrates are hereby required to be diligent in putting the laws in force against all offenders in the above particulars in due execution.

However, isolated places, such as Lough Derg in County Donegal, were difficult to police and this peripherality ensured their survival although, as noted by Elliott (2000: 166), pilgrimages were rarely disturbed after an initial period of clergy persecution. The validation of the Lough Derg pilgrimage is rooted in hagiography and not in the cult of relics as in other territories (Cunningham and Gillespie 2004: 178). The current pilgrimage island, dating back to Augustinian reinvention in the twelfth century and celebrated because of its fifth-century legendary association with a prayerful Saint Patrick, attracts some 15,000 visitors annually. What makes this place special is its physical character and traditions of pilgrimage ritual. The manner in which the approaches to a pilgrimage destination are represented says much about how it seeks to connect its past with the present, and thus the signage on the single road into Lough Derg offers both anticipation and contemporary relevance. The colourful signage motifs give a stylised illustration of architectural continuity and synthesis by portraying the circular prayer beds derived from the stone bases of medieval monastic beehive cells and linked by a Celtic cross to the twentieth-century basilica outline. The use of yellow is symbolic of sunrise and forges a link with a distant pre-Christian celebration of light. The red-orange colours connect with the fire of the Holy Spirit – the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity – and His nine fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. All this has meaning for the way in which this pilgrimage is conducted. Over a continuous period of three days between May and August, a custom established in 1813 to replace longer routines, pilgrims combine prayer exercises with a fast from food and drink (except for the consumption of tea, coffee and dry breads at stipulated times), the removal of all footwear,

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and a twenty-four-hour vigil (from 10pm on the first day to 10pm on the second day) followed by a period of sleep. As observed by Turner and Turner (1978), this pilgrimage ritual of three days has symbolic meaning that connects the shamrock of Saint Patrick to the Trinity and also represents the period of Christ’s sojourn in the tomb after the crucifixion – a period in which, according to tradition, he ‘harrowed hell’; that is descended into limbo and brought out of it the souls of the good pagans born before his incarnation. The Lough Derg pilgrim imitates Christ in being ‘crucified’ and becoming ‘dead’ to worldly things, and in descending into a limbo, or liminoid state, where he undergoes penance in order that he may rise up again, renewed in spirit, on the third day. (Ibid.: 115)

Acclaimed as ‘The Ironman of Pilgrimages’ (The Irish Times 2018), this is a routine that both tests and rewards participants who must be at least fifteen years of age, be able to walk and kneel unaided and be free from any illness aggravated by fasting. Physical wellbeing is important here. In an attempt to widen the visitor base and to cater for older pilgrims, this conventional pilgrimage has diversified since the 1990s to include one-day retreats, and special themed days involving, for example, family and youth gatherings. Tourists on self-drive trips or guided coach tours are also welcome to visit the island on those occasions when there are no official pilgrimage events. But in the context of this book what is noteworthy is how the built and natural environment heritage of the Sanctuary of Saint Patrick, as it is now formally re-branded from the former and more austere moniker, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, helps to enrich pilgrim experiences. On passing under the arrival archway, the mainland departure area for the island comprises extensive car parking, a small chapel, a visitor information desk with historical notes on display, a wet weather shelter and the boat pier, all overlooked by a statue of Patrick the Pilgrim complete with a stout walking staff. Three covered ferries are available to shuttle pilgrims over the ten-minute crossing, representing a symbolic severance with daily living and which is underscored by leaving behind mobile phones, radios and other electronic devices. The getting-away heritage of the pilgrimage site is well captured by the display of the now decommissioned 150passenger, twelve-man rowing boat, Saint Patrick, with accompanying interpretation notes to visitors written in English, German and French. Arrival at the island pier presents a vista of built enclosure comprising the staff house, dining facilities, the women’s dormitory, administration buildings, the men’s dormitory, the basilica (consecrated in 1931) and pilgrim gathering buildings including a multi-functional meeting house, Davog House (opened in 2005). The subliminal wrap-around visual effect of the spatial layout is one of welcome and pastoral support. Behind

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the pier there is the eighteenth-century St Mary’s Chapel, a bell tower, a conveniently placed souvenir shop (for those departing), and a series of connected open spaces that contain the six circular penitential beds dedicated to seven local saints, quiet spaces for reflection and waterfront seating. Social interaction, perhaps over shared cigarettes with a stranger, is unobtrusively attended to. The overall built form is well planned with ample circulation around its edges and allows for views across the lough to forested hills beyond. From its initial one acre during the nineteenth century, the island footprint has expanded to some three acres through a combination of land-fill and platform construction. New walking surfaces have been laid around the basilica to assist a more comfortable rubric of prayer repetition on-the-move and a cadre of paid and volunteer staff ensures high standards of public realm maintenance. In short, the traditions of sacred ritual at this pilgrimage destination are inextricably linked to the physical attributes of the built and natural environment as poetically described by Pochin Mould (1955: 125): The vigil is the pleasantest part, for between the stations one can go outside and watch the dawn coming up over the lake. In the dark of the night the little island is like a ship, with water splashing all about it, and the lamps on the concrete ‘seawall’ burning brightly, the basilica windows glittering, the upper ones clear, the lower dull fires of stained glass. And then it grows lighter, and when the basilica doors are opened after the next station, the arches are outlined against a soft violet sky and you come out to see the sunrise beginning in a splendour of red and gold over the water and hills. And finally the sun is up, and the land lies sparkling in the freshness of the early morning, the green of the woods, the young bracken showing up amongst the darker heather, the lake water rippled and shimmering, small cloudlets in the blue of the sky.

The accompanying curatorship challenges reach into both the spiritual and more secular domains. The Church is conscious that in these changing times the Lough Derg pilgrimage does not become ‘too new-age’, commercial marketing and promotion are valuable in sustaining visitor numbers amidst societal shifts in traditional religious practice, and constant financial donations are required to preserve this island heritage into the future.

Conclusion Pilgrimage is a journey that connects people and places through belief, inquisitiveness, personal search, memory and tradition. The itinerary followed may be deeply religious, spiritual or secular but in each instance the experiences and outcomes obtained are individual, whether in the form of some degree of self-renewal, comforting or potential transformation.

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In writing about Christian pilgrimage Fahey (2002: 213–18) focuses on eight elements that denote its special character: a journey made in faith, the joyfulness of penance, an openness to strangers, discovery of the sacred space within our daily consciousness, expressions of ritual, votive offerings, celebration upon completion, and acceptance that pilgrimage is never over. The different pilgrimage routes and destinations discussed in this chapter allude to these dimensions in varying degrees while recognising the important role of institutional agency in creating, managing and promoting their availability as heritage and tourism. The following chapter takes this analysis further forward by examining important attributes that help to define the curatorship of pilgrimage routes and destinations.

CHAPTER 2

The Curatorship of Pilgrimage Places

Introduction Synonyms for curator include guardian, custodian, conservator, steward, administrator and director. These roles indicate responsibility for something, invite intervention to manage things better and imply public accountability for outcomes that happen. The business of curating has long been associated with art galleries and museums where the emphasis is on acquisition, display and interpretation, but in latter years its scope has widened to embrace cities and landscapes along with their histories, memories and cultural practices. Pilgrimage routes and destinations are embedded in these spaces. In this arena curators engage with the objects of tangible and intangible heritage and the visitor subjects positioned along the now familiar pilgrim-tourist continuum. But more than this, the work of curating is interdisciplinary and requires collaborative leadership that brings multiple interests on board to debate and agree (and disagree) about who does what, when and where. Land and property owners, private enterprise, civil society, religious institutions, political representatives and public management are key participants in devising better outcomes and implementing appropriate solutions that can sensitively balance competing concerns, attitudes and uses. By its very nature such operational work is messy, with the optimum often condemned to the pragmatism of the possible, or even completely sidelined, because of ideological or political preferences. What is most important is the vision of what may be – a vision which can go beyond the short term, which can be strategic and which can be adaptable to changing circumstances. Curating that vision is, arguably, the most acute challenge. While the overarching concern of this book is the curatorship of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism, it is appropriate

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that within this specific context the discussion should now turn to a wider understanding of what the curatorship of pilgrimage places involves. This chapter addresses that matter by discussing five main and related themes: the preparation of investment guidelines, the exercise of regulatory planning controls, a commitment to environmental stewardship, information and communication, and the museology of pilgrimage. In each instance illustrations from contemporary practice are drawn upon. The important point, however, is that these curatorial lenses give a necessary critical focus to the subsequent and central inquiry.

Investment Guidelines Pilgrimage routes and destinations are far from being static spatial phenomena. Change is constant and thus the management of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism requires careful planning to deal with the many issues that relate to visitor growth/decline and consequent changes in the built and natural environment. Ideally such plans will be based on a strategic vision of what will unfold some years ahead and be linked to an action plan that can give guidance for public sector expenditure in infrastructure and services as well as identifying opportunities for private sector and voluntary involvement. The benefits of this planning approach include a level of certainty and consistency in decision making, more efficient use of limited capital, and coordinated intervention regarding the location and scale of investment. Additionally, it is commonplace that the preparation of planning frameworks should be informed by stakeholder consultation which will help with the prioritisation of actions, establish performance standards and more closely link needs and expectations. An interesting illustration of investment guidelines related to a pilgrimage destination is the case of Lourdes in France, which hosts a shrine dedicated to Our Lady and based on a series of eighteen visions by Bernadette Soubirous in 1858. The shrine has a special resonance with healing and thus numbered among the pilgrims who travel here in organised groups or on an individual basis are those who are ill or infirm. Many are seeking, if not a miraculous cure, then certainly comfort and spiritual healing (see Gesler 1996). The rituals of Lourdes underscore that intent and comprise daily Eucharistic and Marian processions at which the sick and disabled are given special place, the assisted bathing in spring water at the Sanctuary pools, drinking and washing, lighting a candle, and prayers at the grotto. Over 7,000 alleged cures have been filed with the Church authorities since the apparitions and, to date, seventy have been officially recognised as miracles, the most recent in 2018. The Sanctuary has an Office of Medical Findings for those who have benefitted from an exceptional

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healing and wish to testify. Subsequent appraisals are carried out by the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (Dowling 1984: 635). The shrine attracts over six million pilgrims each year, mainly between April and October (Agnew 2019: 33). Any discussion of Lourdes requires an appreciation, however, of the fact that this pilgrimage destination has two primary physical components that functionally interact with each other. There is, firstly, the sacred space of the domain extending to some 136 acres which contains the cave-like site of the apparitions, churches, bathing pavilion, formal processional esplanade and administration buildings, all of which are located within a parkland setting bisected by the fast flowing Gave de Pau river. Since 2014 the area surrounding the grotto has been redesigned to enable beneficial use of the whole site. A new footbridge, for example, has been constructed in front of the refurbished bathing pools to give additional access to the opposite side of the river and to where the candle display stands have been relocated to form a ‘chapel of light’ as a feature along a loop walkway. The intervening space between the esplanade and the grotto, formerly given over to the selling of candles and medals along with the noisy filling of water bottles, is conceived as a quiet space for contemplation on the approach to the shrine and where pilgrims now queue between barrier gates to access the ritual of walking through the grotto and touching the rock face where Our Lady appeared. This is clearly a closely managed enclave with attendants frequently calling for silence and perimeter gatekeepers turning back those not conforming to the official dress code. Attention is also given to site security. The Sanctuary of Lourdes is regarded as having a high sensitivity to terrorist risk and thus there has been investment in fencing and gate controls, the installation of video surveillance in pilgrim gathering areas, vehicle access management using retractable bollards, car parking prohibition in the vicinity of the domain and the preparation of an emergency and rescue plan. The second key element in the urban morphology of Lourdes comprises a bustling secular zone of hotels, bars, restaurants and souvenir shops which cater for visitors whether they are devout pilgrims or gazing tourists. As noted by Eade (1992: 28) the shops, as in all pilgrimage centres, provide a means by which the shrine can be remembered when visitors return home. Despite being labelled as ‘Catholic kitsch’ and the subject of ridicule, these mementos of pilgrimage places are often bought to give away to friends or relatives reminding the recipient of the donor and occasion (Shackley 2006: 100). Accordingly, there is a crossover between the profane and the sacred in this part of Lourdes which is underlined by the presence of the much visited House of Saint Bernadette, the staging of the musical Bernadette de Lourdes in a 1,500-seat venue and a suite of museums that elaborate on the story. This connectedness be-

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tween activities within and outside the Sanctuary is elegantly portrayed, it could be argued, as a pilgrimage idyll of ritual and relaxation by Turner and Turner (1978) with their observations that ‘In Lourdes there is a sense of living communitas, whether in the great singing processions by torchlight or in the agreeable little cafes of the backstreets, where tourists and pilgrims gaily sip their wine and coffee. Something of Bernadette has tinctured the entire social milieu – a cheerful simplicity, a great depth of communion’ (230). Notwithstanding this apparent vitality, it would seem, however, that Lourdes has been operating during more recent years in a challenging pilgrimage market. Competing international venues, a decline in pilgrims, and changes in the pilgrim profile away from organised groups has reduced hotel occupancy and profitability with a consequent negative impact on other businesses within the hospitality and retail industries. Additionally, the Sanctuary has been recording operating losses, especially since 2008. In response the Municipality of Lourdes and the Prefecture of Haute-Pyrenees launched a special Lourdes 2016–2030 project in April 2016 that aimed to bring together all public and private sector interests to develop a long range recovery strategy that might translate into action plans capable of short-, medium- and long-term implementation. In order to kick-start the planning process an expert working group was appointed, comprising seven members whose professional skills spanned economic development, urban planning, citizen participation, communication and spirituality. These ‘sages’ engaged, in turn, with a Steering Committee of political and organisation representatives, including senior clergy. Two phases of research were completed: firstly, a situation analysis deploying a SWOT methodology (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) that was able to draw upon secondary data analysis, site visits and consultative engagements with local actors; and secondly, a strategic plan with accompanying actions for territorial development. The deliberations of the experts were published in November 2016 and the final report does not make for comfortable reading (see https:// www.lourdes.fr/95-lourdes/1165-lourdes-2016-2030-comite-des-sages). It is noted, for example, that Lourdes is too parochial in regard to its cooperation relationships with surrounding towns and rural territory, that the town is itself fractured between historic area, hotel, ecclesiastical and neighbourhood politics, that the hotel season is restricted to a sevenmonth pilgrimage economic base and that public finances are stressed. The report raises the spectre of a downward and pervasive spiral of atrophy with adverse consequences for town image, visitor appeal, employment and local tax revenues. At the same time the expert group suggests that an immediate reversal of these circumstances should not be expected and, somewhat controversially, it warns of austerity for a number of years

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ahead. However, the important point here is that an integrated set of municipality-led investment guidelines have now emerged from this analysis and collective conversation that seek to steer the regeneration of Lourdes out to 2030. These are structured under three main headings: (i) the new challenges of spiritual tourism which will support Lourdes as an international pilgrimage destination with enhanced accessibility and linkages to other globally important shrines – the historical narrative of Bernadette is central to this trajectory; (ii) heritage preservation and city modernisation with an emphasis on public realm investment, traffic and parking management, and new leisure infrastructure; and (iii) a better living environment for citizens to include actions for training and employment and a revitalised town centre. By 2019 there were tentative signs that these ambitions were being delivered. A town centre manager had been appointed, a multi-annual framework agreement between Tarbes and Lourdes to finance projects until 2022 in line with this vision was signed off in September 2018, and in April 2019 it was announced that the finances of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes had been rectified through a combination of purchasing savings, lower operating costs related to insurance and staffing, and the creation of new revenue streams by way of candle offerings and increased donations from organised pilgrimages (see http:// www.lourdes-infos.com/65100lourdes/spip.php?article18754).

Regulatory Planning Controls An adjunct to the preparation and implementation of investment guidelines is the contribution made by regulatory planning to control land use change in urban and rural areas. In Europe, for example, this operates on a statutory basis and essentially requires that developers obtain consent from a public agency before building or operational works are carried out. The decision to allow or prevent development is invariably influenced by the content of a regulatory plan that sets out detailed policies, standards and advice on what is acceptable and unacceptable. The important point here is that pilgrimage itineraries and destinations derive much of their character from the immediate setting and the wider zone of visual influence that wraps around them. Insensitive building alterations, inappropriate new-build designs and more space extensive land use change relating, say, to infrastructure projects, quarrying and open cast mining can dramatically alter the heritage value and the related pilgrim experience of these special places. In short, regulatory planning controls can help to protect landscapes and townscapes from unwelcome change, provided of course that there is political support at the decision-making level for this course of action. Approaches to regulatory planning vary globally and

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there is no single planning system. Constitutional and institutional factors profoundly shape the working practices being adopted, but for purposes of illustration reference can be made to the exercise of regulatory planning at Walsingham in England, noted for being the national shrine to Our Lady. It attracts over 350,000 visitors annually. In 1061 the Mother of God appeared in a series of three apparitions to Richeldis, the Lady of the Manor, and requested that she construct in Walsingham a replica of Mary’s Nazareth house as a perpetual memorial to the Annunciation and the birth of Christ (see Coleman 2000). The Holy House was duly built in what were later to become the Augustinian Priory grounds of the village and led to Walsingham being titled the ‘New Nazareth’ and celebrated as the most important shrine to Our Lady in medieval England. Both the Abbey and the Nazareth House were destroyed in 1538 during the Reformation under the direction of Henry VIII, a fate which was duly visited on all the monasteries and convents of England. However, by the late eighteenth century Catholic worship began to be re-established and as this momentum grew during the nineteenth century, the idea of pilgrimage was also rekindled. The Anglican tradition similarly began pilgrimage promotion, notably to Canterbury, and was first to convene a pilgrimage event in Walsingham in 1922 at the site of the ancient shrine. The instigator was Fr Alfred Hope Patten, a priest imbued with the values of pre-Reformation Anglo-Catholicism and, from his early days as resident curate, he conceived of a plan for the establishment of a new shrine to Our Lady at an alternative site in the heart of the village. In 1931 a new Holy House was blessed, followed by the consecration of the completed Shrine Church in 1938. The Roman Catholic tradition was also active at this time and subsequent to the restoration of a small wayside chapel a mile or so outside the village, this site (known as the Slipper Chapel) became the venue in 1934 for the first Masses and a Pilgrimage of Reparation. The Roman Catholic Church formally declared it to be the National Shrine to Our Lady in England (see Rear 2019). Thus, Walsingham has emerged as a pilgrimage destination with two shrines dedicated to the same Marian heritage that are connected by a processional route named the Holy Mile. There has been, as argued by Waller (2011: 12), a determined attempt to recreate the largely fifteenth-century spirit of the place and while today it is hailed as a venue for church unity, it is pointed out that for many years previously there was ‘undisguised hostility’ between the two shrines (ibid.: 13) due to differences in doctrine and ritual. The emergence of more mutually supportive interactions between the two communions since the 1960s is evidenced by the establishment of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) following an historic meeting at that time between Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, which has sustained a

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vibrant dialogue of respectful diversity since 1970. In Walsingham this celebration of joint mission is most visibly represented by the publication of an Ecumenical Covenant in 2018, co-signed by the Administrator of the Anglican Shrine and the Rector of the Catholic Shrine. It is prominently displayed at both sites and declares, inter alia: • shared custodianship of the ‘Holy Land of Walsingham’ alongside the Orthodox Church and Methodist denomination to ensure that the Shrine sites are places of reciprocal welcome for pilgrims from all traditions; • sharing together on certain agreed feast days in prayer, preaching and procession; • working together to share information, resources and skills and establishing joint ventures to enhance the life and ministry of the Shrine; • to collaborate as partners with other national shrines to Our Lady across Europe; and • a commitment to care for the environment and to promote new initiatives to encourage sustainability. The spirit of cooperation is evidenced by a shared website (www.wals ingham.org.uk) with the home page containing a montage of four images comprising the Slipper Chapel, the Anglican Shrine, the ruins of the Priory and the village, each of which is a portal into further information. In the context of this book’s principal theme, it is noteworthy that there is also a direct connection between Walsingham and Santiago de Compostela. The year 1954 was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII as a special Marian Year to celebrate the centenary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption and, to mark the occasion, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Bernard Griffin, commissioned the carving of two statues of Our Lady of Walsingham. One was sent to Westminster Cathedral and the other was brought by Archbishop William Godfrey of Liverpool to Compostela during the National Catholic Pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James where a Holy Year for pilgrims was being convened. This gift from the Church in England and Wales was offered as encouragement for the conversion of England through the prayers of the Spanish people and is now installed in the Chapel of Saint John within the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Moffat 2015: 10). It is against that backcloth of history and created revival, and the contemporary popularity of Walsingham as a visitor attraction for both pious pilgrim and curious tourist, that regulatory planning exercises its responsibility to ensure that changes to the character of the built environment are sensitive to this rich cultural heritage. The sacred landscape comprises

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the village of Walsingham (the Anglican shrine) and the nearby hamlet of Houghton St Giles (the Roman Catholic shrine) with each settlement having designated Conservation Area status dating back to 1974. In England Conservation Areas are defined in legislation as being areas of special architectural or historic interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. Once designated, local planning authorities have a duty to formulate and publish proposals for the preservation and enhancement of any parts of their area which are Conservation Areas. In 2012 North Norfolk District Council, in its capacity as the local planning authority, published a character appraisal and proposals document for Walsingham. It presents a detailed analysis of built form evolution and examines this morphology within the wider landscape setting including significant views into and out of the village. Three ‘character areas’ within the Conservation Area are singled out for special assessment, with particular attention being given, not surprisingly, to the historic core with its high concentration of ecclesiastical buildings, shops and hospitality services that cater for the many visitors. The townscape is described thus: Whilst much of Walsingham’s fame comes from its religious importance, much of its charm lies in its architecture; it is the one surviving North Norfolk example of almost an entire village of medieval timber-framed building and as a result has approximately 168 listed buildings. In fact, the majority of buildings and walls within the historic core are listed. The uniformity in building form and height adds to the special atmosphere of the area, but also makes it difficult to identify particularly prominent buildings; much of the special interest lies in the quality and significance of the built environment as a whole. (North Norfolk District Council 2012: 15)

Each street is examined along with its constituent buildings and landmarks in relation to overall character, building form, materials used, architectural detail, boundary and surface treatment and current uses. Design issues are identified and proposals are advanced to remedy defects. These include building repairs, car and coach parking, bin storage, road surfaces and marking, protecting building lines, the removal of overhead electricity cables, enhanced public realm and additional statutory protection for some buildings and structures. The analysis is a material consideration in the determination of planning applications. Conservation Area status does not mean, however, that change cannot happen, but rather that new development is carried out in a manner that respects this special townscape quality. This is very much the case with the Anglican Shrine which occupies a substantial tract of land in the historic core. Some of this was acquired by Fr Patten during the 1920s with a loan from a benefactor that was subsequently repaid, and over the intervening period a complete pilgrimage infrastructure has been assembled around an extensive landscaped garden re-designed in 2005. A

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street-facing arcaded Welcome Centre with a ramp for disabled access and overhead accommodation was completed in 2008 and new dining and reception facilities have been added within the grounds. Conservation Area designation can also change over time and, in the case of Walsingham, the district council has proposed slightly reducing its area by excluding an area of twentieth-century houses which, it is claimed, devalues the integrity of the boundary. In turn this raises interesting issues regarding the perceived audiences for and beneficiaries of regulatory planning practice which in the context of any local/visitor distinction in pilgrimage and tourism draws apt comment from Coleman (2000: 167): ‘The locality of the people who are uninvolved in the pilgrimage and who occupy its backstage residential areas clearly contrasts with that of the shrine officials and pious incomers who are constructing a context both sacred and rural, for the reception of temporary visitors’.

Environmental Stewardship At a time when there is mounting universal consciousness around the causes and effects of climate breakdown, collective and individual environmental responsibility is very much in the twenty-first-century mainstream. Renewable energy, biodiversity, food production and landscape recreation are key elements of a new multi-functional countryside in which there is societal concern for the ethical and sustainable management of natural and other resources (Tonts and Horsley 2019: 119). Accordingly, environmental stewardship is now centre stage: this, when localised, is defined by Bennett et al. (2018: 597) as the actions taken by individuals, groups or networks of actors, with various motivations and levels of capacity, to protect, care for or responsibly use the environment in pursuit of environmental and/or social outcomes in diverse social-ecological contexts. The sacred landscapes of pilgrimage and the itineraries that pilgrims follow fall within this compass of concern and yet, thus far, have largely escaped critical analysis. The empirical emphasis has long been on the ethnography of these travellers rather than the impact of their movements and the necessary interventions to offset or remedy these consequences. At a macro level pilgrimage-related air travel, for example, generates carbon emissions and thus one proposal gaining traction is that passengers more generally could pay an additional premium on a voluntary basis to offset their flight emissions. Additionally, the outdoor ethics approach of ‘Leave No Trace’, operational in over ninety countries, promotes a code of practice for outdoor recreation activities that has profound relevance for pilgrim walkers and cyclists. Its seven underpinning principles are: plan ahead and prepare; travel and camp on durable surfaces; dispose of waste properly;

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leave what you find; minimise campfire impacts; respect wildlife; and be considerate of other visitors (see https://lnt.org/why/7-principles/). These actions fit well with curating pilgrimage as heritage and tourism, but require special effort with regard to promotion by stakeholder organisations if they are to become widely accepted practice on-the-ground. A partnership approach to environmental stewardship is key to success and, in regard to pilgrimage, can be illustrated by the case of Croagh Patrick, labelled Ireland’s holy mountain. Croagh Patrick is located in the west of Ireland and has been a sacred summit from pre-Christian times, linked with the pagan festival of Lughnasa denoting the commencement of the harvesting season. It subsequently became part of the hagiography of Saint Patrick who, in the fifth century, according to legend, spent time on the mountain fasting and in prayer. Christian pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick dates from the twelfth century and today it is one of the major pilgrim destinations on the island. The mountain, as site of recreation, is climbed all year by over 200,000 people, but the principal pilgrimage falls on the last Sunday in July when some 20,000 walkers ascend 2,500 feet to the summit to participate in an hourly Mass at a small oratory dedicated in 1905 but enlarged in the interim. For some pilgrims additional rituals involve attending confession and performing the three ‘stations’ that comprise circular movement and prayers at sites at the base of the cone summit, on the summit itself and on the western descent (Hughes 2018: 24–26). The latter practice has largely ceased with the result that most walkers ascend and descend by the same route. In his homily delivered on 28 July 2019, the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, explained the contemporary spiritual individualism of this assembly in the following fashion: The pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick, like all pilgrimages, involves a journey, an expense of time, some unusual effort. This pilgrimage is as testing, as stumbling, as rudely physical and penitential as any. For unbelievers, it may seem meaningless – all the sweating, stumbling, inelegantly meandering towards its destiny. . . This pilgrimage is no place for idle curiosity or mindless athleticism, but if someone is truly trying to make sense of life, trying to find answers to the same questions we all face, trying to find ease for suffering of body, mind or soul, we offer them the hospitality of our pilgrimage. We are proud to walk with them and pray they find their goal. . . If you choose to make the pilgrimage, make it in confidence. Whenever we detect the realities of new life in the midst of death, hope in the midst of hopelessness and concern for justice in the midst of oppression, we are encouraged and rejoice. (See https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2019/07/27/ homily-of-archbishop-michael-neary-for-reek-sunday-2019/)

But the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage has also given rise to environmental concern regarding attrition of the walking route and its accompanying danger associated with rugged surfaces. Mountain rescue services are ac-

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tive all year. An initial scoping investigation in 2012 (Jones 2013) drew attention to the significantly degraded condition of the five-kilometre path and the adverse visual impact of the erosion in terms of near and long range views caused by a combination of pilgrim and casual recreation walking, along with charity or sponsored challenge events and multiple training ascents. In places the path is up to thirty metres wide, with edges being actively eroded through run-off, the disturbance of loose material and the spreading out of walkers trying to avoid uncomfortable surfaces. The report suggested customised repair approaches to the different sections of the route and, in relation to environmental stewardship, it recognised the potential of creating a management group of the main stakeholders ‘to establish priorities, seek funding and identify a vision for the future management of the mountain’ (ibid.: 14). Subsequently, The Croagh Patrick Stakeholders Group was formally set up in November 2015, comprising local landowners, the Catholic Church, the community development association, the local authority and a range of organisations spanning mountaineering, mountain rescue, archaeology, business, tourism and adventure sectors. The Head of Environment, Climate Change and Agriculture in Mayo County Council chairs the group, thus bringing executive action into the heart of local government and giving a political capability for public funding. Since its formation the group has consulted with comparable mountain stakeholder groups, published a map/ information leaflet for Croagh Patrick and erected new signage at the base car park, installed people counting technology and considered the thorny issue of public liability with input into the provision of a National Indemnity Scheme for Upland Areas. In 2018 the feasibility of using mountainside materials to create a new pathway was tested, leading to a more complete proposal, submitted by way of a planning application to Mayo County Council in July 2019, for access works. This included the construction of aggregate and stone pitched paths, path drainage works, and habitat restoration. The environmental impact of these operations on the mountain was addressed in an ecological impact statement along with a wider area environmental assessment (Walking the Talk 2019a). It is noteworthy that the path design, using local materials from donor stone collection sites, is set at two metres wide within a ten-metre development corridor with habitat restoration taking place within and beyond this corridor (Walking the Talk 2019b). In October 2020 a co-funding package of €600,000 was agreed between Mayo County Council and the government’s Department of Community and Rural Development to facilitate implementation of the restoration project by the Croagh Patrick Stakeholders Group (Mayo Advertiser 2020). However, this will not be a single fix intervention and ongoing monitoring and maintenance will be required.

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The value of this Croagh Patrick vignette is that insight is given into the potential contribution of partnership-based environmental stewardship in curating pilgrimage as heritage and tourism. It is, put simply, another expression of societal responsibility for practical caring. Stewardship commands multiple meanings representing, for example, a metaphor for Christian living with biblical connotations, public agency environmental management, community-led environmental activism and engaged personal commitment regarding lifestyle choices. These attributes can coalesce around matters of deterioration and overexploitation and require changed behaviours to mediate the relationship between the economic and the environmental value of heritage resources. Accordingly, the environmental impact of pilgrimage activity does pose challenges for pilgrims, religious bodies, tourism promotion agencies, business and government, particularly when each grouping operates separately from the others. But additionally, large-scale public and private sector investment projects, that are independent of pilgrimage, can have profound impact on these sacred landscapes. Later discussion in this book examines how environmental stewardship issues have been addressed in regard to curating the Camino de Santiago.

Information and Communication Nowadays tourism and heritage information is available in many formats, from hard copy to electronic, which allows the curators of pilgrimage routes and destinations to reach diverse and widely spread markets with ease and visual impact. The Internet is often a first port of call for promoters and visitors, with shrine-based websites providing a combination of background narrative, information about daily programmes and support services, and invitations to make donations. Very often the format is multi-language. As computer-based technology continues to advance, smart phones and tablets provide connectedness for users on-the-move. The property Wi-Fi code is commonly now the first question to be asked at a hotel or cafe. Interactive apps, available for download, can provide step-by-step instructions for each stage of a journey and this technology can make available real-time itinerary advice, related entertainment, health-care alerts, weather updates and prayer. Both the annual Islam pilgrimage to Mecca and the Camino de Santiago routes are developing this technology and in the case of Lebanon, for example, a free-to-download travel e-guide was launched in 2018 to promote interreligious tourism related to Christian and Muslim sites. Pilgrims using social networks can post tweets and blogs with photographs to celebrate their achievements and engage with a distant pilgrim community, while religious and tour-

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ism authorities can promote online film and video footage to strengthen their marketing efforts. The iconography of pilgrimage in its landscape and townscape settings offers interest to both the virtual pilgrim as well as the prospective traveller. Cinematic images to download in the form of movies and documentaries may seek to elevate this material to authentic representations of place and human emotion and as suggested by Lopez et al. (2018: 1), the viewer is then able to dream about these visual elements, alternatively to reject them, or ultimately to endorse them. The popular phrase ‘I want to go there and do that’ comes to mind. At-the-site information remains, however, a traditional and well represented mode of dissemination to visitors. It is this material and its imagery that pilgrims and tourists most commonly encounter in their interaction with sacred places and while the sheer amount of it can be bewildering and, on occasion, amount to visual litter, at the same time it is well intentioned and seeks to offer insight and guidance. Poria and Gvili (2007: 73), in their analysis of website information, identify three types of content comprising functional, educational and emotional information, which, in this case, when adapted to the phenomenon of pilgrimage, gives a valuable insight into the management of sacred sites and differences of appreciation between and within the groupings of sightseeing tourists and devout pilgrims. Thus functional information invites engagement (for example, directions to get there, hours of opening, admission prices, programme of events), educational information promotes understanding (for example, reading the historical background of the site, learning about conservation efforts) and emotional information supports participation at and, most importantly for the curating institution, continuity beyond the sacred site when the visitor returns home (for example, by developing a connectedness to the spirituality or religious meaning of the site). In Table 2.1 these dimensions are illustrated by ephemera obtained by the author at Walsingham. Collectively they seek to enrich the pilgrim experience, underscore the significance of the two shrines and generate personal legacies. There is a keen emphasis here on ‘welcome’, with information providing historical interpretation, explaining theology, and inviting participation in prayer and daily ritual, for example, personal sprinklings with Holy Water at the well in the Anglican Shrine Church. Curating pilgrimage as heritage and tourism inevitably incurs financial costs and thus, not surprisingly, there is a quiet emphasis also placed on raising funds, whether through voluntary donations or paying for shrine retail services in site-related gift shops, cafes and the candelabrum. Again, subsequent discussion in this book will relate this analysis of information dissemination to the Camino de Santiago experience which is well represented by electronic and hard copy materials. Over time these have become increasingly sophisticated in terms of production quality but they

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Table 2.1 Information provision at sacred sites. Information category

Information type

Example of Walsingham

Functional

Pilgrim’s daily programme

Leaflet – Programme of religious activity, Easter to October. 8.15am to 8.00pm daily. Advertisement poster – Pilgrim Handbook and prices.

Directions and rules

Outdoor panel board – location of shrine facilities and connections beyond. Sign – ‘Please respect the silence of the Shrine’. Outdoor mounted sign – car parking times and site management regulations.

Institutional activities

Poster – National Grandparents Pilgrimage – ‘a day of faith and fun for all the family – bring a picnic – all welcome’.

Historical narrative

Outdoor panel boards – the Walsingham story. Screen-based narratives within the Welcome Centre – the Walsingham story.

Architecture and art

Wall mounted letter, copy of Papal Decree – granting of Minor Basilica status 27 December 2015. Poster – the ‘Peter Sibley Collection’ at the Museum of the Blessed Virgin.

Guided tours

Leaflet – self guided tour of the Grounds of the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham. Leaflet – pre-booked guided tours that include Abbey grounds and Shirehall Museum.

Sacred ritual

Leaflet – times of Sprinkling at the Well. Panel boards – prayers during the Stations of the Cross. Leaflet – Solemn Mass celebration. Leaflet – ‘The Living Rosary of Our Lady of Walsingham’.

Giving donations

Leaflet – Our Lady’s Lamps, inviting donations to cover the cost of dedicated votive lamps that burn within the Shrine church or Shrine grounds. Freepost envelop instructions – donation towards Rebuilding England’s Nazareth. Envelop instructions – Gift aid it.

Becoming ‘a friend’

Leaflet – ‘Set up a cell of the Society of the Holy House of Our Lady of Walsingham’. Leaflet – ‘Join now the Walsingham Association, be part of Walsingham every day’. Leaflet – ‘Keeping in touch through the Society of Our Lady of Walsingham’.

Educational

Emotional

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also display a measure of competition between the multiple curators of this pilgrimage as heritage and tourism, with each seeking to be seen and heard in a very crowded marketplace.

The Museology of Pilgrimage A more formal infrastructure of heritage centres and museums is present along pilgrimage routes and in pilgrimage destinations. Their functions include giving advice, showcasing displays of artefacts, and telling stories through core and temporary exhibitions, digitised collections and programmes of events. A museum collection may be intimately linked to its physical architecture, as in the case of much cathedral art and precious objects. On the other hand, the facility may be a new build structure or internal revamp of an existing premises in which the physical context adds meaning to the objects and the interactions that take place (Jones and MacLeod 2016: 207). The purpose may be to encourage passive admiration of the aesthetic ensemble, to entertain or to educate, and to facilitate self discovery, but in each instance this requires placing a certain construction on the presented past. What this invokes is a more interpretative curatorship about how that past is being recreated in the present but which in turn begs the key question for visitors, curators and sponsors as to whose point of view, or whose dogma is being stressed. The represented beliefs may be important for many pilgrim visitors, while others may choose to be more critical of these interpretative perspectives. In that vein Chronis (2012: 447) argues for the validity of playing an active role in a tourism destination by creating personal interpretations, while Sorensen (1989: 65) comments that heritage centres more broadly can probably tell us more about ourselves than about the past. How our senses are stirred, how we are invited to recollect and reflect should transcend the opportunity of merely spending some time ‘in the land of yesteryear’ (ibid.: 73). The sheer heterogeneity of the pilgrimage process, as discussed in the previous chapter, chimes well with these sentiments. This differentiation of pilgrimage also relates to museums that appeal to the varied interests of visitors. There are, firstly, museums which function as adjuncts to religious sites, for example, the Open Treasure experience at Durham Cathedral, England opened in February 2018 with grant funding that included £3.9 million from Heritage Lottery. Its installation centrepiece in the former kitchens below the restyled monks’ dormitory is the Treasures of Saint Cuthbert comprising artefacts of Anglo-Saxon provenance. Secondly, there are museums that seek to showcase aspects of the pilgrimage route and destination; the Canterbury Tales visitor attraction, for example, established in Canterbury in 1988, provides an

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entertainment-based and educational narrative dealing with Chaucer’s medieval stories of shared-group pilgrim experiences using professional actor voices. And thirdly, there are museums positioned along pilgrimage routes or in pilgrimage destinations which are independent of this sacred context regarding their content, but which may, nonetheless, be of interest to pilgrim visitors; these can range from spectacular civic institutions hosting world-class exhibits to more modest civil society displays of local history, each of which, with their own integrity, can provide reminders of the past. Turning specifically now to the formal contextualisation of the sacred, the case of Knock shrine in the west of Ireland provides an interesting example of pilgrimage museology. Within the global orbit of Catholic pilgrimage, visits to Marian shrines to venerate the Virgin Mary and seek her intercession command significant popularity. In Ireland the principal Shrine to Our Lady is in Knock, County Mayo, a village situated in a western peripheral rural area. However, in contrast to the pilgrimage antiquity of Lough Derg, the Knock shrine dates back to a silent apparition viewed by fifteen villagers, aged five to seventy-four years, on 21 August 1879 which uniquely comprised the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist, an altar with a cross and the figure of a lamb, around which angels hovered. Two ecclesiastical Commissions of Enquiry convened in 1879 and in 1936 accepted the testimonies of the witnesses as trustworthy and since then Knock has expanded its presence on the world stage of pilgrimage destinations, attracting over 1.5 million visitors annually. Visits by Pope John Paul II in 1979, Mother Teresa of Calcutta in 1993 and Pope Francis in 2018 have enhanced its sacred esteem while the opening of a nearby airport in 1985 has given direct international accessibility. In 2021 Pope Francis bestowed official recognition on Knock as an International Marian and Eucharistic Shrine. The official pilgrimage season runs from April to October and peaks with the national Novena to Our Lady of Knock from 14 to 22 August. Daily live-streamed ceremonies at the shrine include Mass, the Stations of the Cross, Eucharistic adoration, Rosary processions and the anointing of the sick. The shrine estate runs to almost 100 acres and comprises five chapels including a 10,000-seat basilica (blessed in 1976 and refurbished in 2015), support service buildings and landscaped grounds. A religious iconography of a piece of the original parish church apparition wall, a suite of sculptures comprising the apparition scene and additional sculptures of saints within the gardens, holy water fonts, a candelabrum, papal cross and Calvary walkway add solemnity and visual interest. While the shrine is at the heart of the village, it is still possible to be separate from the main street where souvenir shops, accommodation, restaurants and pubs are clustered. Car parks to the north and south of the main site give direct

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access to the sacred enclave and to the marked graves of those witnesses buried locally. This is very much a planned space that has been inspired by a Development Plan prepared by architecture and planning consultants (Boyle and Delaney 1973) and later adopted by Mayo County Council in 1977. Among other things the plan called for the construction of a village centre relief road, formal bus and car parking areas, new toilet blocks, townscape improvements including the removal of unsightly religious retail stalls and, within the village environs, the reserving of land for an airstrip. It is within this context of a changing built form, sustained capital investment, and pilgrim growth and inquisitiveness that Knock shrine museum was opened in 1987, replacing a prefabricated structure with very limited accommodation for the display of artefacts and storytelling. The current exhibition dates from 2006 and comprises material central to the Knock story that is arranged along a central corridor with an accompanying sequence of side rooms. Emphasis is placed on the diversity and scale of pilgrimage groups coming to the shrine from 1880 onwards, including a growing number of international arrivals from the mid-1950s. Little is said about the governance of the shrine, although particular attention is given to the role of sodalities in organising pilgrim visits and the contribution made by the uniformed voluntary organisation, Knock Shrine Society, which since 1935 has allowed laymen (stewards) and laywomen (handmaids) to assist with the welcoming of and caring for pilgrims. Key personalities associated with the development of Knock are profiled – Archdeacon Cavanagh (Parish Priest of Knock in 1879), Judy and William Coyne (founders of Knock Shrine Society), and Monsignor Horan (the administrator of the shrine during its era of physical expansion from the mid-1970s to the 1980s). The displays include ephemera from everyday life in the late nineteenth century along with an eclectic shrine memorabilia of banners, vestments, booklets, photographs and trinkets. The late nineteenth-century theme is represented further in the insertion of a period (perhaps too cosy) two-room furnished cottage and blacksmith’s forge, the apparition scene is re-created, the testimonies of the witnesses are available to view and mention is made of miraculous cures attributed to the intercession of Our Lady. At the end of the walkway a reading room is available for visitors to complete feedback questionnaires and write short reflections that form a living archive of personal experience. The overall display is colourful, includes an audio-visual narrative and is aided by multi-language hand-held audio-guides. A small shop and cafe complete the offer to visitors, whether pious pilgrim or inquisitive tourist. The museum received national commendation awards in 2009 for its excellence in museum standards and overall commitment to collections care.

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Nonetheless, despite this acclaim, it is also useful to consider how this cultural heritage is being interpreted and represented in terms of what is said and not said. This brings any discussion of its museology into the realms of selectivity and in this case recognises that this modern museum cannot be divorced from its dominant religious context. The institutional image being presented is of witnesses, cures, pilgrims and history, but the tension here is that the underpinning curatorship has arguably had to mediate some difficult moments, events and critiques surrounding these themes. These considerations go largely unacknowledged and reflect the hidden politics of pilgrimage destinations. So, for example, the economic and social crises of the late nineteenth century in Ireland involving land reform agitation amidst poverty and hunger is quietly downplayed; the interaction with tenant farmers by a clerical elite, who were reluctant to support land reform (see Hynes 2008), is omitted; alternative illumination theories to account for the apparition, ranging from a magic lantern to phosphorous substances (see Carpenter 2011), are not explored; the tensions between an organised and educated cadre of laypeople with local Church authorities on the development of Knock shrine (see Donnelly 2013) do not surface; and the special relationship between the cultural identity of Irish Travellers and their group devotion to the Knock pilgrimage (see Brownlee 2011) is sidelined. The broader point is important here and is one which highlights the reality that the museology of pilgrimage is not a neutral pursuit. The purpose may be to inform and educate but, as argued by Greenhalgh (1989: 95), there is a need for open political discourse at every level of cultural activity. In a later chapter of this book, and drawing on this analysis of Knock museum, critical consideration is given to the museology styles of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.

Conclusion The core argument in this book is that the curating of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism locates this activity within the scope of institutional agency. This operates at the interface between pilgrims, the spaces through which they move and the sacred places at which they arrive. Pilgrimages can be both religious and spiritual but, as demonstrated in Chapter 1, more secular motivations can also sponsor journeys to special places of memory associated with tragedy, atrocity and suffering. The curiosity and cultural interests of tourists invite them to mingle in both worlds. While the exercising of curatorship responsibilities remains quietly hidden for many travellers, the quality of their experiences is nonetheless intimately tied up with how pilgrimage routes and destinations are managed. In that regard the analysis in Chapter 2 appropriately examines five themes that

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are central to this effort. Regulatory planning control can maintain townscape and landscape amenity, investment guidelines can facilitate planned economic development, environmental stewardship can offset overexploitation and deterioration of the natural resource base, information dissemination can educate and be transformational and, finally, museology can formally enrich the overall pilgrim experience with attention being given to the presentation and interpretation of heritage. As demonstrated above, these are far from being neutral pursuits and involve decision making based on multiple and competing values. Pilgrimage is wrapped up in contested meanings and motivations, but so also is the curating of pilgrimage in terms of power relationships between stakeholders, their preferences and their actions. Examining the tangibility of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism provides an entry point to unpacking this arena. Christian pilgrimage is deeply linked to the performance of ritual which may revolve around various forms of individual and collective prayer in the presence of religious iconography. This prayer may be penitential and invoke personal privations or it may simply involve spending moments away from the crowd in peaceful reflection. Ritual can embrace personal movement and stillness at sacred sites, drinking and bathing in holy water and touching significant artefacts. It can also be profoundly spectacular as evidenced by colourful congregational processions whose reverential character is elevated by candles, incense and hymns. These are all sensory encounters which enrich the tangibility of the pilgrimage experience. At each end of the visitor spectrum these rituals can have profound import for the pious pilgrim or be perceived as merely interesting representations of a folk tradition for passing tourists. And of course when pilgrimage and tourism elide, both meaning and participation are shaped by personal preference. The staging of ritual on the other hand is intimately embedded in the rubric of Church-based institutional agency comprising a blending of ecclesiastical precepts, religious heritage and a mission for contemporary relevance. Practices can become redundant over time and regulations can change with the emergence of new circumstances, leaving the devotee to adapt with acceptance and an invitation to move on. Later in this book critical consideration will be given, for example, to the Church required distances for pilgrimage certification on the Camino de Santiago as a significant illustration of altered ritual which is charged with contestation and differential meaning. The tangibility of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism is also visibly represented by the geography of landscape and settlement settings. The pilgrim formula of departure, passage and arrival is set within shifting contexts of place appreciation which may contribute to personal emotional responses of anticipation, trepidation and jubilation at different stages of the journey. Illustrated guidebooks and published pilgrim stories help to

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shape these interactions with places as travellers seek out recommended built heritage sites, perhaps a dimly lit Romanesque church, a soaring Gothic cathedral, or a quirky exhibition venue, along with heritages of food and drink specialities, craft product manufacturing and artistic performance. There are connections here to regional identity and proud localism but the key question that arises is how all these attributes are being shaped by sectoral and political stakeholders largely invisible to the transient spectator. Those hosting the pilgrimage drama will have competing motives and aspirations, may not always agree with each other, and will exercise differential power. Nonetheless, it is important to understand how the activities of this institutional web fashion pilgrimage as heritage and tourism in specific places. The chapters that now follow seek to throw light on the challenges of curating the spatial and cultural dimensions of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.

PART II Framing the Camino de Santiago

CHAPTER 3

The Camino de Santiago Geographies

The Historical Context The pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela are linked to the cult of the shrine of Saint James the Great and date back to the ninth century. Traditionally, James, one of the Twelve Apostles, was the first Christian missionary to travel to Iberia; having returned to Jerusalem, he was martyred in AD 44. His body was supposedly taken back to Spain for burial where it lay undiscovered until the end of the eighth century. Thereafter, the promotion of Santiago de Compostela as a cult centre led to it emerging alongside Rome and Jerusalem as one of the great pilgrimage destinations of medieval Europe. The motivations for pilgrimage in the Middle Ages were varied. Pilgrims undertook these journeys as expressions of faith, perhaps to fulfil a sacred promise, to venerate sacred relics, or as a way to avoid the pain of Purgatory by earning indulgences. In the case of Santiago de Compostela, the occurrence of a Holy Year, when the feast day of Saint James fell on a Sunday, had added potency. During these designated Holy Years, dating back to a papal decree in 1122, provided a pilgrim had visited the tomb of the Apostle and prayed in its presence, and received the sacraments of Confession and Communion, then a Plenary Indulgence with full remission of sins would be obtained either on behalf of the penitent or on behalf of someone else who was deceased. Pilgrimage, more generally, was also a personal quest for a cure of illness or disability and the petitioning of a miracle through the intercession of the Saints. Santiago de Compostela, however, was less associated with this motive, perhaps because those who undertook the arduous two-way journey had in the first instance to be relatively robust. Pilgrimage could also be directly penitential and indeed when ordered by the Church could allow those convicted with criminal

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or civil offences to execute their sentences in an alternative manner. In a mildly sardonic paper Bell and Dale (2011) identify the varied nature of this pilgrim market along the Camino Francés from the eleventh century onwards. It included, for example, ‘recalcitrant members’ of European universities who were sent on pilgrimage as a form of ‘expiation and punishment’ (ibid.: 622). Finally, of course, as noted by Dunn and Davidson (2000: xxix) in relation to the nineteenth century but which would surely have had medieval antecedents, there were ‘the curiosity-seekers looking for adventure, excitement and new frontiers’. For those with a more cynical attitude to pilgrimage, the journey at that earlier time could be either a holiday or even a means by which to evade domestic responsibilities (Cunningham 2018: 31). The genesis of the cult of Saint James, as suggested by Webb (2002), coincided chronologically with the Islamic occupation of much of the Iberian Peninsula, and while the pilgrimage ‘stirred into life as Christian resurgence gained strength’, it is argued that caution is required in attributing causal connections between these phenomena (ibid.:13). Nonetheless, it was in Asturias that opposition to Islam first began and it is unlikely that rediscovery of the tomb of Santiago was disconnected from these events. The enduring and multiple representations of Saint James, as either the venerable pilgrim or more particularly as a soldier on horseback within the Reconquista narrative – Santiago Matamoros, link into that debate (Illustrations 3.1 and 3.2). The modern revival of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela can be traced back to 1879 when church authorities announced that the bones of Saint James had been re-discovered beneath the Santiago Cathedral. In 1884 Pope Leo XIII declared, in the Bull Deus Omnipotens, the remains to be those of the Apostle and an extraordinary Holy Year was celebrated in 1885, thus setting in motion fresh interest in the Jacobean cult following its sustained decline from the sixteenth century. The combined effects of the final victory over IsIllustration 3.1 Saint James as pilgrim, lam in 1492, the Reformation, the Taboado, 2018 (© Michael Murray). hiding and subsequent loss of the

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Illustration 3.2 Santiago Matamoros, Burgos Cathedral, 2019 (© Michael Murray).

remains of Saint James in 1589 due to the fear of attack by Sir Francis Drake, and the later dismissal of the cult as superstition, had all been relevant factors in that demise. Pack (2010: 336) observes further that liberal governments of the nineteenth century suspended the royal offering to Saint James, thus weakening the Church wealth that supported pilgrim hospitality. While the cult did not disappear completely and, as noted by Dunn-Whitener (2018: 70), there were still pilgrims at the turn of the nineteenth century who, as ‘a microcosm of the world around them’ were ‘penitential, devout, touristic and false, beggars and aristocrats, scholars and peasants’, its power as both a national and universal symbol, nonetheless, did recede (Pack 2010: 336), only to be re-invigorated by the rise of National Catholicism in 1930s Spain. Franco, for example, was famously photographed at the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral portico with his wife, the Archbishop of Santiago, Monsignor Tomas Muniz de Pablos and other Cathedral Council dignitaries on 5 December 1938, all of whom are giving the fascist salute, albeit some ‘with varying degrees of enthusiasm’ (Preston 2006). As described above, there is a dualistic identity to Saint James – venerable pilgrim and warring champion of the Reconquista – and both elements

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The Camino de Santiago

visibly resurfaced within the political context of the regime. Large group pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela became political spectacle and, as reported by Pack (2010: 352), General Franco used the 1937 Holy Year to re-establish the offering (la Ofrendra Nacional al Apóstol Santiago) to Saint James. As the end of Civil War hostilities approached, the Church hoped that those previously unable to make the Jubilee pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostle in 1937 would be able to do so during the following year. Accordingly, a second and extraordinary Holy Year was declared by papal decree for 1938. It has been suggested that the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage during the years of the Franco administration was exclusively linked to Holy Year celebrations (Santos 2016: 239) with these pilgrimages, for example in 1948, being ‘mostly directed by regime organisations that were linked to young people, students, workers, or military men’ (ibid.: 240). Many years later, the invocation by General Franco at the national offering in 1971 is illustrative of this continuity of a militaristic state and its relationship with the Church that played out in Santiago de Compostela during the dictatorship years. Both institutions were strident opponents of Communism. Kneeling before the altar the Caudillo proclaimed: In the name of the Spanish nation, I come to Santiago de Compostela to reaffirm the profession of our faith, initiated for us by you 20 centuries ago. Spain and Santiago have been intimately linked since that time. To speak of Spain and her history is to speak of Santiago, and we cannot refer to Spain without taking Santiago into account. It is stirring to recall medieval Europe when pilgrims from the European countries trudged over wide expanses and mountains, following the routes of the Road to Santiago. Though today’s highways are safe and sound for modern pilgrims we ask God’s protection in the battles of peacetime, helping us save Spain from the materialism which threatens all mankind today. (Information Department of the Embassy of Spain 1971: 2)

The revisiting of the allusion to Santiago Matamoros, previously appropriated into the Falange cause as a symbol against the perceived ideological threat from a fledgling Republic, has, however, been consigned in the interim to an unsavoury past, notwithstanding the commonplace and enduring artistic representation of this violent imagery in churches along the Camino de Santiago. These include the cathedrals in Burgos and in Santiago de Compostela where a less than subtle attempt using shrubs and flowers has been made to soften its visual impact against competing calls in 2004 for its complete removal and retention in the aftermath of the Madrid train bombings. In contrast, and to fit better with the pluralism of modern times, the Compostela certificate (awarded to those who, for example, have walked the last 100 kilometres of a Camino route into Santiago de Compostela) has been quietly redesigned since the 1990s by

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replacing the official seal of a sword wielding Saint James on horseback with the more peaceful motif of the Apostle’s tomb. The iconography of Santiago Matamoros is more commonly referred to now as Santiago Caballero (Santiago the Knight).

The Camino Network The emergence of the medieval pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela formed an intricate web of land-based and maritime connections which linked all of Europe, including the islands of Ireland and Britain, to north-west Spain and while there were many subsidiary routes, the principal focus was on four traditional gathering points at Paris, Vezelay, Le Puy and Arles to which pilgrims came from within France and other countries. From these places the pilgrimage routes crossed the Pyrenees and converged at the Navarrese town of Puente le Reine to form what was coined the Camino Francés (The French Way). Over time a sophisticated infrastructure of market towns, churches, hospitals, bridges and trails was created to serve the medieval pilgrim trade. Today these elements form a heritage complex associated with the contemporary Camino de Santiago (Figure 3.1), whose most prominent itinerary (the Camino Francés) is an 800-kilometre route between St Jean-Pied-de-Port in south-west France and Santiago de Compostela that passes through the tourist-historic cities of Pamplona, Burgos and León. This was signposted in its current format over the period 1982–1986. What is noteworthy is the number of routes across Spain that connect into the primary historical axis of the Camino Francés. Some further observations on the personality of this itinerary along with other routes to Santiago de Compostela, waymarked from the 1990s onwards and which this author has walked, is warranted by way of context setting.

The Camino Francés As noted above, the Camino Francés has long been the principal pilgrimage itinerary to Santiago de Compostela and owes much to its codification in volume five of the Codex Calixtinus, a twelfth-century collection of books dealing with the life and legacy of Saint James. At that time the pilgrimage was intrinsic to the wider power politics of the medieval Roman Church, centred on the great Burgundian abbey of Cluny, and thus it underpinned a strong geographical alliance between France and the northern Spanish Kingdoms. The fifth book in this compilation, reportedly written by a French cleric, Aimery Picaud, is a guide for pilgrims that is notable for its warnings against bestiality and avarice among the inhabitants of

Figure 3.1 The Camino de Santiago routes in Spain and France (adapted from ‘Caminos de Santiago in France Grouped by Main Roads’ by Paulusburg available at https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Caminos_de_Santiago_Francia_(por_grupos) .svg under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence and ‘The Caminos de Santiago in Spain Grouped by Geographical Areas as Indicated by the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of Santiago’ by Paulusburg available at https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Caminos_de_Santiago_Espa%C3 %B1a_(por_grupos).svg under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence).

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northern Spain and the dangers of poisonous water. It was designed to ensure that pilgrims were channelled at that time through the major Cluniac shrines along the Way and help maintain the hegemony of Cluny in medieval pilgrimage. This Cluniac sponsorship of the cult of Saint James and the accompanying infrastructure along the Camino Francés influenced expressions of architecture and art that were much more in line with medieval French forms and tastes; Romanesque styles predominated as, for example, in the now largely destroyed monastery at Sahagún and the aweinspiring Pórtico de la Gloria in Santiago’s Cathedral. The contemporary cultural landscape has, accordingly, to be read through that historical lens with villages, towns and cities, strung like well placed beads on a necklace, where intervening distances are often relatively short, and travellers can combine a tourist gaze with religious devotion within the many churches and abbeys that command visual interest. For many of those who travel between St Jean-Pied-de-Port and Santiago de Compostela, this route is perceived as the ‘only true’, ‘must-do’ and ‘authentic’ pilgrimage itinerary and its reinvented popularity is evidenced by the proliferation of tour operator packages for sale (including university sponsored study visits), multi-language guide books, and a publishing industry (increasingly using electronic formats) based on personal experiences. The 2010 Emilio Estevez movie The Way starring Martin Sheen, described in publicity as ‘a soulful and cinematic journey’ (Empire), has fuelled awareness and interest. Meeting the demands of travellers, in turn, has spawned a diverse and expanding local hospitality sector, supported to different degrees by government agencies and public funds. In peak season it is not uncommon for pilgrims to experience competition for bedspaces and cafe seats leading to perceptions of uncomfortable crowdedness. For many pilgrims the Camino Francés provides an initiation into Camino life and, thereafter, those wishing to return may well opt for other routes that have gained significance since the late 1990s.

The Vía de la Plata The Vía de la Plata (the Silver Route), as a contemporary pilgrimage itinerary, is, in contrast, a more recent construction although its origins reach back to Roman times as a road that initially linked Gijon to Merida and which was subsequently extended south to Seville. Indeed, Merida was very much ‘the city of Rome’ equivalent in Iberia with its bridges, aqueduct and reservoir, amphitheatre, theatre and arch still standing today and forming core elements of a World Heritage Site ensemble designated in 1993 by UNESCO. As recorded by Raju (2011: 5) the Vía de la Plata commenced as a pilgrim artery to Santiago de Compostela in the twelfth century and was a journey taken by Christian pilgrims living under the

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tolerance of Muslim rule. As with the Camino Francés there developed over time an infrastructure of pilgrim hospitals and churches, with pilgrims being given protection by the Order of the Knights of Santiago founded in Cáceres. The settlement pattern, however, across much of the Vía de la Plata south of Galicia is less dense than the Camino Francés, with villages and towns separated by lengthy tracts of largely empty countryside, which, for example, in Andalusia comprises large estates (cortijos) given over to cattle ranching. The result is that walking the pathways of the Vía de la Plata can be a demanding and lonely experience with far fewer pilgrims adding to a sense of personal isolation and the Roman road alignment frequently giving painfully unbroken views to distant horizons. This is the longest of the many routes through Spain and Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, at some 1,000 kilometres from Seville, and in its current format owes much to the work of Jose Luis Salvador Salvador (1942–1995) who signposted and revived the pilgrimage route in the late twentieth century and whose ashes in part are buried at a wayside memorial just beyond El Real de la Jara. On reaching Zamora pilgrims have the choice to continue northwards to Astorga and join the Camino Francés, or alternatively head westwards to Ourense and follow the Camino Sanabrés along some 108 kilometres of stunning countryside into Santiago de Compostela. The latter was waymarked in 1999. This recent reinvention of the Vía de la Plata is underlined by the publication in 1995 of a multi-agency sponsored book of photographs of the Roman road between Seville and Gijon that omits any detailed reference to Santiago de Compostela (see Roldan and Carandell 1995). Accordingly, and notwithstanding its antiquity, the Vía de la Plata as a whole is situated today at a more formative stage of pilgrim itinerary development, attracting not so much first-time travellers but those who, perhaps, have previously completed the Camino Francés and are searching for a more challenging and less crowded experience.

The Camino Inglés ‘There are less pilgrims, but too much asphalt’ is a telling pilgrim commentary on the Camino Inglés published in La Voz de Galicia in 2017. It originates in two north coastal cities, El Ferrol and A Coruña, which are respectively some 110 kilometres and 75 kilometres from Santiago de Compostela. Both were notable arrival ports for pilgrims travelling from Britain and Ireland between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. It is true that today there is considerable road walking along the Camino Inglés, but since its waymarked recovery in 1999, new sections have been introduced to avoid some very steep ascents and take pilgrims through quiet forest environments. Most recently in 2018, for example, a fourteen-kilometre

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section of the route from A Coruña has been reinstated between Sada and Betanzos. This is branded as the Camino Mariñán and is promoted through a combination of sticker labels, painted arrows and information panels. Notably, the route from A Coruña is insufficiently long to qualify pilgrims for their Compostela certificate and thus a pragmatic response by the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral authorities has been to allow pilgrims to add distances completed prior to their departure from home, thus taking them over the 100-kilometre threshold. Several trails in both Britain and Ireland are now deemed acceptable for this purpose and require the evidential proof of a stamped credencial.

The Camino Portugués The Camino Portugués stretches some 640 kilometres northwards from Lisbon to Santiago de Compostela with the last 120 kilometres taking pilgrims through Galicia from the gateway town of Tui. This inland route, re-established over the period from 1992, is complemented by a post2004 coastal variant between Porto and Padron, with the latter town famous as the legendary landing place for Saint James at the commencement of his evangelising mission in Spain and the subsequent return of his remains following martyrdom in Jerusalem. The Church of Santiago in Padron displays the stone mooring post to which the boat carrying the Apostle was tied, while above the town at Monte Santiaguino a rock outcrop marks the site of his initial preaching of the Gospels. (In passing, it is noted that Padron is also famous for its salted green peppers delicacy.) The iconography of Saint James abounds along the Camino Portugués and in the town of Redondela, some ninety kilometres from the sacred destination, Santiago Matamoros is emblazoned at the Church of Saint James alongside a reminder of more troubled times. It presents an inscribed memorial to supporters of Franco who fell in the Civil War. This style of commemoration across Spain derives from a government decree issued on 16 November 1938 that, with prior agreement of the ecclesiastical authorities, there should be inscriptions on church walls of the names of those who have fallen for God and the Fatherland (Casanova 2005). Much of this inland route runs parallel to and crosses over the main road and motorway network and, on occasion, new pathways take pilgrims away from the dreary experience of walking through industrial developments, for example, at Porrino. Pilgrims will, of course, follow the conventional yellow markers but along the Camino they will also see evidence of the route to the Marian shrine at Fatima denoted by blue arrows indicating an opposite southerly direction. In recent years the Camino Portugués has also emerged as a popular alternative to the crowded Camino Francés as comparative evidence of pilgrim numbers signifies (see below).

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Pilgrimage Data The data on Camino de Santiago pilgrim numbers derive from those arriving at the International Pilgrim Office and presenting a stamped credencial. These statistics are commonly used as a proxy for the annual number of Compostela certificates issued, although caution is advised since there may well be some small variation; even though a stamped credencial is tendered, the award of the Compostela may still be refused on the basis of unacceptable motives or required distance of travel. The time series data seems to commence in 1970 with sixty Camino arrivals being recorded; by 1980 this had risen to a modest 209 pilgrims and by 1985 to 690 pilgrims. As illustrated in Figure 3.2 the data evidence dramatic growth from the 1980s: in 1986 the baseline figure was 1,801 pilgrims, rising to 347,578 in 2019. The Jubilees of 1993, 1999, 2004 and 2010, when the feast day of Saint James fell on a Sunday, display notable spikes and while the overall profile is illustrative of growing international interest, a substantial and larger portion of the Compostela certificates issued in each of these four Holy Years would have been to Spanish pilgrims. In 2004 and 2010 Spanish pilgrims accounted respectively for 76 per cent and 69 per cent of arrivals, with the average across the intervening years being 52 per cent. These figures are more than probably an undercount of those travelling the Camino routes

Figure 3.2 Arrivals recorded at the International Pilgrim Office, 1986–2019 (data from Oficina del Peregrino de Santiago de Compostela (https://oficinadelperegrino .com/estadisticas2/), and adapted from https://americanpilgrims.org/wp-content/ uploads/2020/01/Compostelas-by-year-86-19.pdf, retrieved 19 October 2020).

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in any year given that walkers and cyclists may make multiple stage related trips over a number of years and some may decide on completion not to present themselves at the Pilgrim Office to seek accreditation. The widening of itinerary options since the 1990s as a result of route recovery and new waymarking becomes apparent from more detailed examination of the published data (Table 3.1). In the context of an almost fourfold growth in overall pilgrims between 2005 and 2019 (stripping out Holy Years), the Camino Francés is clearly the dominant choice, accounting for some 43 per cent of this total increase. However, it is significant that its market share has decreased from some 85 per cent of pilgrim numbers to some 55 per cent. The Camino Portugués, including its coastal variant, has, on the other hand, significantly expanded its presence on the Camino stage both in terms of overall numbers and its portion of pilgrimage activity. The Vía de la Plata, Camino del Norte, Camino Primitivo and Camino Inglés also demonstrate an upward trend and, with the exception of the Vía de la Plata, they have also expanded their market share. This redistribution of pilgrims within a profile of dramatic growth across all routes inevitably raises capacity management issues regarding path condition and support infrastructure. It points to new opportunities for tourism development, to potential competition between promoters of this fast evolving product, and ultimately in the longer run to consideration of geographically diverse peak demand scenarios followed by the possibility of flat or downward trajectories of change. The most popular mode of journeying is still walking, followed by bicycle. Over the period 2005 to 2019 the former increased its share of mobility from some 82 per cent to 94 per cent, albeit within the context of a dramatic growth in overall numbers (Table 3.2). Horse-borne travel has always been part of the pilgrimage routine and still has a modest presence. However, what is noteworthy is the recording of new modes of travel by wheelchair and sailing boat (which appears in the Camino data from 2016). Completion of the Camino pilgrimage has become a more inclusive experience. Table 3.1 Pilgrims completing Camino de Santiago route options, 2005/2019. Year

Total

Camino Francés

Camino Vía de Camino Camino Camino Other Portugués la Plata del Norte Primitivo Inglés Caminos

2005 93,924

79,396 5,507 (84.53%) (5.86%)

3,104 3,843 1,028 651 359 (3.3%) (4.09%) (1.09%) (0.69%) (0.38%)

2019 347,578

189,937 94,649 9,201 19,019 15,715 15,780 3,277 (54.65%) (27.23) (2.65%) (5.47%) (4.52%) (4.54%) (0.95%)

Source: Oficina del Peregrino de Santiago de Compostela (https://oficinadelperegrino.com/ estadisticas2/).

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Table 3.2 Modes of journeying on the Camino de Santiago, 2005/2019. Year

Total

Walking

Bicycle

Horse

Wheelchair

Sailing boat

2005

93,924

76,674 (81.6%)

16,985 (18.1%)

242 (0.3%)

23 (0.02%)

—

2019

347,578

327,281 (94.16%)

19,563 (5.63%)

406 (0.12%)

85 (0.02%)

243 (0.07%)

Source: Oficina del Peregrino de Santiago de Compostela (https://oficinadelperegrino.com/ estadisticas2/).

Meanwhile additions to the Camino network continue with, for example, the initiation of the Camino Mendocino connecting Guadalajara with the Camino de Madrid, and the Vía Marina connecting Girona with Barcelona along the Costa Brava and Maresme coastline in 2019. Proposals have been put before the Provincial Council of Cádiz to establish a link with the Vía de la Plata by the recovery of the Vía Augusta which would allow Cadiz to become a new departure point for pilgrims in the south of Spain. In 2021 a tile marked ‘Km 0’ was placed on the facade of the Church of Santiago in Cadiz to symbolically represent the beginning of that route. The Camino de Santiago can now be undertaken by sailing boat on a voyage that connects seventeen marinas in the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia, with the last stage between Monte do Gozo and the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral completed on foot. In 2015 The National Geographic Institute and the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago launched a new 14,075-kilometre sailing and walking Camino from Antarctica, branded as the Camino Blanco. And it would seem that there are no limits to the pilgrimage imagination as evidenced by lobbying for the creation of a Camino de Santiagua that would create an underwater pilgrimage based on a combination of seabed diving and route walking in northern Spain. The tension here between traditional pilgrimage modes and adventure sport is obvious. What is being witnessed is the emergence of a multiplicity of Camino itineraries which raises issues around heritage dilution, economic opportunism and political accommodation. In Galicia, for example, legislation (Ley 5/2016) defines three types of route: main routes that comprise historical sections that are still in use and display traditional characteristics; traces of documented historical remnants that have physically or functionally disappeared; and alternative sections with functional value due to their cultural, environmental or user safety value. It would seem that not only are traditional routes capable of modification, but that also additional itineraries can be created within Galicia based on a combination of evidenced argument, public consultation and approval by decree of the

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Council of the Xunta de Galicia with input from its Advisory Council of the Caminos de Santiago.

The Camino de Santiago as International Heritage The apogee of the Camino de Santiago as official heritage rests today with its international acclaim bestowed initially by the Council of Europe in 1987 when, as noted in Chapter 1, the Camino Francés was designated the continent’s first cultural itinerary. UNESCO followed in 1993 by including the Camino Francés in its World Heritage Site listing, with the four principal and connecting routes in France (from Paris, Vezelay, Le Puy and Arles) inscribed later in 1998. Each designation has a different emphasis, as argued by Schrire (2006: 71), with the Council of Europe placing weight on an intangible heritage of cultural exchange and transterritorial dialogue. Coming on the back of Spain’s accession to the European Union in 1986, the Camino is symbolically held to point towards the ideal of European integration, signifying an attitude of mind that encompasses an attentiveness towards others and a deeply felt commitment to the European project (Graham and Murray 1997: 399). Accordingly, it takes Spain out of the self-imposed historic isolation it experienced during much of the Franco era towards what Schrire cites is ‘a multi-cultural form of Europeanness’ (Schrire 2006: 72). In contrast, the UNESCO designation places more weight on the tangible heritage of material related to places, structures and art along the Camino Francés, which at the time received domestic representation in a special stamp issued by the Spanish Post Office (Correos) in 1995. Until recently the many alternative routes that comprise the Camino de Santiago network in Spain have not been accorded comparable international esteem even though World Heritage Site status has also been awarded to places situated along these trails. In that regard the Vía de la Plata, for example, can point to Seville, Merida, Cáceres and Salamanca as containing significant World Heritage Site elements. However, expressed more prosaically, the ‘dots have not been joined up’ and the Vía de la Plata has been resting on the UNESCO tentative list since 1997. The four northern routes had been listed in a similar fashion since 2007 but were eventually approved in 2015 as an extension to the Camino Francés inscription. These comprise the Camino del Norte coastal route that parallels the Bay of Biscay from Donostia-San Sebastián to Gijon and its three interior connecting routes (the Basque Country – La Rioja Route, Liebana Route and the Primitive Route). Clearly, more secular considerations around comparative cultural heritage merit are being played out against a route-based equality of religious or spiritual significance, al-

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though even on that matter there is also a grading of recognition by the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral authorities which, as noted above, have proclaimed the Camino pilgrimage as an essentially Galician experience for purposes of the Compostela. All this has resonance with the views of Eade and Sallnow (1991) and cited by Roseman (2004: 69) that ‘the characteristics, personal meanings, and ideological significance of pilgrimage journeys and destinations are continuously constructed often in competing ways’. One significant consequence of this broader official recognition of Camino heritage is illustrated by the attention given to signage and waymarking. Apart from the ubiquitous and informal daubing of walls, boulders, poles (and even railway lines) with yellow arrows, the most common logo is the deployment of a stylised scallop shell, the symbol of Saint James, turned on its side and streamlined into a fan of unbroken lines meeting to the left (Illustration 3.3). This represents the many routes of the Camino de Santiago in common purpose, leading westward to the shrine of the Apostle. The blue and yellow colours and, on occasion, specific mention that the signage relates to Itinerario Cultural Europeo, emphasise the mainly borderless European credentials of the motif, with variations on the theme being used for road and off-road travellers. How-

Illustration 3.3 The scallop shell and yellow arrow motifs of the Camino de Santiago, Castrojeriz, 2019 (© Michael Murray).

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ever, the contemporary rise of populism and the prospect of European fragmentation comprise a different trajectory that increasingly questions the validity of an idealised tolerance and multiculturalism based on medieval romanticism. In a withering critique, Gardner et al. (2016: 66) argue that the Council of Europe, as a key driver of the Camino de Santiago project, has emphasised values that were simply not commonplace in the Middle Ages’ geographies of Christian and Muslim territories.

The Morphology of the Pilgrim City The shrine of Saint James dates back to the ninth century and, while the settlement with its consecrated basilica of 899 was destroyed by the Muslims, the rebuilding of the town commenced during the eleventh century. The construction of the cathedral began at that time with successive project phases completed in Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles through to the eighteenth century. The contemporary pilgrim city, therefore, is focused largely on this medieval core comprising an almondshaped mosaic of granite paved winding streets which open out onto occasional plazas, domestic scale buildings that contain a combination of galleried residential apartments and ground-floor tourist services, and the solid architecture of Church and state. The principal node is Praza do Obradoiro which is overlooked by the Baroque facade of the cathedral and its related buildings, the ceremonial offices of the Concello de Santiago, the fifteenth-century Hostal de Los Reyes Católicos (now a Parador hotel), and the former College of Saint Jerome (now part of the University of Santiago de Compostela). The competing topographies of power within this ritual infused built environment are well illustrated by the multiple statues of a pilgrim Saint James that embellish the cathedral and a more active Santiago Matamoros sculpture crowning the city council’s Pazo de Raxoi directly opposite. For today’s pilgrims the square is a gathering place that denotes the end of the journey and it is not uncommon to witness in this special space the celebration of that accomplishment with tearful embraces and staged photographs. In the not too distant past pilgrims would continue by ascending the steps of the cathedral and enter into the twelfth-century Pórtico de la Gloria to insert their fingers into the base of the Tree of Jesse sculpture, a practice now forbidden following substantial restoration of this masterpiece of religious art between 2006 and 2018. The grand arrival in Praza do Obradoiro now sees walking pilgrims being required to enter the cathedral by a side entrance. This ‘old town’ quarter of Santiago de Compostela was designated a World Heritage Site in 1985. The footprint of the pilgrim city is, however, more expansive than this history-laden nucleus and comprises a series of formalised approaches

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from the city edge that takes those walking through a diversity of land use experiences. Across Spain the slow transition from urban fringe to dense suburbia can frequently be a dreary experience and, in Galicia, particular attention has been drawn to the blurring of boundaries between urban and rural areas because of land fragmentation and unplanned peripheral growth (Ayan Vila 2014: 129). The separate routes leading into the medieval core of Santiago share something of that character but they do vary in regard to townscape quality. The Camino Inglés takes walkers past a dusty paper pulp plant, through an enormous industrial and business area and then finally through a series of municipal housing projects; the Camino Portugués, in contrast, heralds a premature arrival at a new build urbanización, following which there remains a winding and hilly countryside ramble before reaching the modern university and its environs. On the Camino Francés, the descent from Monte de Gozo has long been marred by a brutalist sculpture, mostly removed in 2021, that celebrated the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1989 and a functional pilgrim accommodation village built for the 1993 Holy Year. Medium distance views of the cathedral spires remain elusive, with the exception of the approach along the Vía de la Plata which eventually leads pilgrims through the historic Arco de Mazarelos on the southern edge of the medieval city. Waymarking within Santiago de Compostela can be confusing or simply absent. It is as if, paradoxically, the city itself rather than the shrine of Saint James is being perceived by some of the curators of the Way as the destination. The Camino Francés is the exception in this regard and, along what may be dubbed ‘the processing route’ with its metal scallop shells embedded in the pavement, there are reminders of a rich cultural heritage that connects past and present. Notable here is the Porta Itineris Sancti Iacobi, inaugurated in 2004, which celebrates with sculpted images some famous pilgrims who have journeyed to Santiago de Compostela over previous centuries. It is designed as a metaphorical doorway into the city and, with its circular base of stones from towns situated on the Camino, the artwork connects a ritual of movement backwards from where pilgrims have come.

Promoting the Camino de Santiago as Tourism The pilgrim market as a nascent form of mass tourism did flourish during the Franco era, as noted above, and in the 1948 Holy Year it is estimated that some 500,000 people venerated the shrine, with half arriving in groups of over 100 (Pack 2010: 353). The promotional posters of the Camino de Santiago from that period display varied motifs that link the Apostle, the shrine and the pilgrim with more nuanced representations of simplicity, power and mobilisation. Thus in 1948 the classic portrayal of

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the pilgrim as lone traveller complete with traditional costume of cloak, staff and scrip, arriving through a darkened gateway into Praza do Obradoira in Santiago de Compostela and facing the west facade of the cathedral illuminated by the stars of the Milky Way (Vía Lactia), speaks to personal accomplishment at the end of a journey. Interestingly, the red sword of the Order of Saint James that appears as a visual footnote in that poster can be linked more directly to a very stylised Falange iconography as evidenced in the subsequent 1959 artwork. This draws on Master Mateo’s Pórtico de la Gloria at the entrance to the cathedral and positions Saint James against the adopted black and red colours of the regime with the surrounding starbursts most suggestive of the arrows that emerge out of the yoke in its flag. An even more militaristic representation of energetic pilgrim mobilisation marching past a backcloth of religious architecture is evident in the 1965 Holy Year poster. It contrasts sharply with the contemporary pluralism of many pilgrims shuffling into the shrine in 2010. There can be little doubt that during the Franco years the Camino de Santiago as development instrument was inextricably linked to a project of national unity. But it also fitted well with an interest by the government during the 1950s and beyond in developing a tourism product that combined ‘national image’ with ‘religious devotion’ (Pack 2010: 358). Thus, for example, the current luxury Parador in Santiago de Compostela, Hostal de los Reyes Católicos, was opened with state investment in 1954, and in 1962 the Camino de Santiago was formally cited in heritage legislation by the Spanish government. This period of development-guided (desarrollista) policy through to 1969 (see Afinoguénova 2010) witnessed a state driven heritage industry to diversify Spanish tourism away from the coastal resorts, with images of old and new Spain carefully crafted into a branding melange that served multiple purposes: a resource for economic development, an ideological imperative to drive territorial integration, and the need to give the Franco regime in its late stages a new set of political credentials internationally. The Camino de Santiago as development instrument was appropriated into that strategy. Since then, the economic commodification of pilgrimage has intensified within a democratic Spain and while the destination remains significant as a tourist-historic city, it is enjoyment of the routes themselves as cultural itineraries, and in particular the Camino Francés, that defines the quintessential experience for many travellers situated conceptually on the continuum of pious pilgrim to secular tourist. Cities and towns along that route have embraced cultural heritage that involves a collective buy-in to the Camino de Santiago but have also protected their tourism individuality, for example, Pamplona with an emphasis on Hemingway and bull running, Logroño with wine promotion, and Astorga which celebrates its Gaudi architecture of the Episcopal Palace. In this vein Santiago de

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Compostela has sought to position itself more broadly as an international cultural heritage venue, although it would appear to have over-extended that ambition with its incomplete and, for many years, visibly empty €400 million City of Culture of Galicia venue which sits as a lonely edifice on a hilltop well removed from the historic pilgrimage core of the city. This symbolically promised to be the equivalent of the Bilbao Guggenheim, an equally iconic building that could spearhead the transformation of a lagging city, but which had been conceived in an era of Spanish real estate boom back in 1999 and partially opened twelve years later in a period of economic collapse (see Sieira 2019). Proposals to connect the City of Culture with the medieval core by way of an overhead cable car, thus prospectively boosting the fortunes of the former, have proved controversial as an unwelcome visual intrusion in the skyline. The project has been the unfortunate subject of stop-go political decision-making, and only in late 2018 did work get underway to construct the final building that will house a management centre for the three universities of Galicia and a European Centre for Research into Cultural Landscapes; this will function as an Observatory of the Camino de Santiago. More widely, route-based tourism operates at a variety of spatial scales and in diverse cultural contexts. The essence of itineraries is that they combine cultural consumption with points of sale and are closely linked to a continuous re-imaging of place and culture that draws inspiration from nostalgia, memory and tradition. The consumers of this heritage tourism complex comprise a fusion of niches with different demands: long-distance coach- and car-based travellers, cyclists and walkers, and on occasion, as noted above, those in wheelchairs or on horseback. Tour operators within an international market sell all-inclusive packages that focus on the more scenically appealing sections of the Camino, while those with a more independent trait can rely on road- and track-based itineraries that are shaped by daily feasible distances set out in guidebooks and the availability of ‘lift and drop’ luggage services. Moreover, there is evidence that demonstrates the current vogue of promoting these pilgrimage trails as off-road adventure routes. With contemporary cultural tourism increasingly oriented towards sensory experiences, most typically expressed through the linkage between sport and tourism, the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes may be just a very long trek, or a challenging off-road trail for mountainbiking. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Camino de Santiago has been given the accolade of being among ‘the 50 best hikes in the world to put on your bucket list’ (see https://www.roadaffair.com/best-hikes-in-the-world/, retrieved 15 October 2019) and the Camino Francés is now a designated EuroVelo route, one of a series of long-distance cycling itineraries that traverse the continent.

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As tourism development instrument, the regeneration contribution of the Camino de Santiago has been experienced to great effect within many of the rural communities that straddle its various routes (see Szerb et al. 2016). In a mid-1980s motorised expedition along the Camino Francés Brian and Marcus Tate recount, for example, the townscape character of Rabanal del Camino at that time, which takes the traveller right back into a lost rural past. It is a village of cobbled streets and hard-packed soil with drainage down the centre, rough rubble walls and roofs thatched with straw or broom, some of which have collapsed on wretched broken beams. It is the colour of slate set in a sombre, rough landscape of pasture and heather, with little arable land. There was a Templar house here in the twelfth century, perhaps backing on to the angular Romanesque parish church from whose primitive bell tower one can get a first clear view of the Montes de León, and in particular Monte Irago, with the abandoned village of Foncebadon on the eastern slopes. (Tate and Tate 1987: 120)

Recent research in Galicia suggests that the pilgrim presence is helping to curb rural population decline along parts of the Camino Francés due to spending on overnight accommodation and support given to local services (see Turismo de Galicia and Universidade de Santiago de Compostela 2018) and in this regard attention can be drawn to one settlement that exemplifies these changes in fortune. Foncebadon, as mentioned above, is situated on the Camino Francés some 245 kilometres east of Santiago de Compostela, in mountain terrain that takes pilgrims to the highest elevation of the route at Monte Irago (1,505 metres). From personal experience, this is a physically demanding section of the pilgrimage trail that combines use of asphalt secondary roads and steep off-road tracks, but which rewards travellers with some spectacular landscapes and an interesting vernacular architecture of random stone buildings with first-floor wooden galleries. This is marginal farming territory with an often inclement weather pattern which, at the time of this author’s first encounter in 1994, had resulted in the complete abandonment of Foncebadon as a lived-in village. This functional obsolescence was evidenced by dereliction and occasional cattle grazing freely along the main street, using the former church for shelter. Foncebadon had a reputation for harbouring wild dogs – the bane of the walking pilgrim (Slader 1989: 114–27). However, fifteen years later the village had been remarkably transformed. Much of the housing stock had been renovated, possibly for second home occupation, and interpretative signage now directs walkers to new facilities comprising an albergue (hostel), a restaurant with accommodation, and the refurbished church which also serves as a seasonal twenty-two bed albergue. By 2013 a shop had opened. The contribution made by EU

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LEADER rural development programme funding is acknowledged on specially designed wall plaques. Much the same has been happening in nearby Rabanal del Camino where the mix of pilgrim accommodation includes a refurbished albergue managed by the Confraternity of Saint James. This vignette around tourism investment and local development is typical of what has been happening more widely along the Camino de Santiago and now almost every village on the network has at least one bar or cafe (albeit with varying opening times) and many have some basic overnight accommodation for pilgrims. Along the Camino Francés walkers can also avail themselves of informal day-time vendors in the countryside offering snacks and drinks while, on occasion, evening meals are available in restaurants from 6pm to cater specifically for the dining habits of the large non-European market. Internet connectivity abounds and, in an increasingly commercial environment, establishments compete with each other by taking advance bookings (via mobile phone), offering ensuite facilities, washing machines and clothes dryers, and providing lift and drop backpack services. Informal advertising by bundles of leaflets on waymarking stones, fly-posting and signage are commonplace and are illustrative of a local business opportunity that is being readily grasped in hard times, with charges for the most part remaining modest. Moreover, there is some evidence that unapproved accommodation is also seeking to enter the pilgrim market on the Camino Francés, such is the pressure on bedspace availability, which in turn gives rise to vocal complaints from registered hospitality entrepreneurs. On occasion, the quality of accommodation has surfaced as an issue because of mattress flea infestation, necessitating temporary closure of premises by the regulatory authorities. However, a particular downside to the expansion of Camino tourism that has surfaced in recent years is the incidence of crime and harassment against pilgrims which was thrown into sharp relief by the reported disappearance of an American female pilgrim in 2015 (The Guardian 2015). Warnings were subsequently issued by an English-speaking online forum advising single walkers to avoid a twenty-five kilometre stretch of the Camino Francés between Astorga and Rabanal del Camino. In 2017 a Spanish man was found guilty of her murder in a León court (The Telegraph 2017). Additionally, there have been reports of stealing in albergues with perpetrators identified on occasion as acting within an organised group (Diario de Navarra 2019). The police response has been highly visible and it is now commonplace to encounter mounted and motorcycle officers of the Guardia Civil and all-terrain patrol cars across the Camino network. Tips for making the Camino experience as risk free as possible abound and in that vein one IT-based innovation is the availability of a personal security alert service through an app called Alertcop provided by

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the Spanish law enforcement agencies. Pilgrim safety is now firmly embedded in public policy from national to local levels and constitutes a key element of curatorial practice.

Pilgrims and Travellers Today, the consumers of this extensive heritage complex with multiple routes comprise an admixture of niches with different demands and motivations – coach- and car-based travellers, cyclists, those on horseback (few), those in wheelchair (emergent) and walkers (many). Pilgrims are most commonly identified as walkers, though that title is not exclusive to those travelling on foot and certainly does not apply to all within that sub-market, for some of whom the experience may be reduced to a long stroll in the countryside. There is consequently a duality of participation between those with a spiritual motivation following either religious rituals or seeking a fresh inner awareness and those pursuing more secular aspects of route-based travel. In that regard Fernández et al. (2016: 284) have examined pilgrim behaviour following arrival in the Cathedral of Santiago; in 2010 only some 36 per cent availed themselves of the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion, while 90 per cent attended Mass (perhaps to include viewing the spectacular botafumeiro ceremony at its conclusion), 79 per cent embraced the statue of the Apostle above the main altar, and 70 per cent visited the tomb of Saint James in the crypt. The multiplicity of personal accounts of life lived on the Camino over the past thirty years is evidence of these religious/spiritual and more secular orientations (for example, Slader 1989; Hanbury-Tenison 1990; Bentley 1992; Hitt 1994; Tóibin 1994; Nooteboom 1997; Luard 1999; MacLaine 2000; Egan 2004; Moore 2004; Rudolf 2004; Phillips 2005; Boers 2007; Kevin 2008; Cullinane 2010; Murtagh and Murtagh 2011; Soper 2013; Rufin 2016; Cottrell 2018; Lockhart 2018; Weinberg 2018; McNulty 2019; Scott 2019; Walker 2019). This motivational differentiation is thrown into sharp relief by official scrutiny of and rewards to those claiming pilgrim status. Travellers using their physical energy to get to Santiago de Compostela are invited to use a special passport (credencial) to collect dated ink stamps, obtainable from churches, inns and cafes, which act as a personal record of the journey. Traditionally, provided they could demonstrate evidence of having completed at least 100 kilometres by foot, or 200 kilometres by bicycle, the cathedral authorities in Santiago would issue a document known as a Compostela which formally accredits pilgrimage completion. Since the 1993 Holy Year these requirements have been revised and now comprise the last 100 kilometres by foot, or 200 kilometres by bicycle to the tomb

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of the apostle in Santiago de Compostela, even though individual starting locations may be many hundreds of kilometres distant. Pilgrim passports must now also be issued by the Church or by approved agents and there is a perception that too many stamps from bars and cafes along the way are frowned upon. Additionally, those seeking a Compostela are asked to specify on a spreadsheet their primary reason for undertaking the pilgrimage, defined as religious, spiritual, cultural and recreational. In seeking to separate out more secular leisure-related motivations, the cathedral authorities (in effect, mainly international volunteers staffing the Pilgrim Office) will now refuse a Compostela to those deemed unworthy of that pilgrimage accreditation. Instead, a Certificado del Peregrino will be offered to those completing the journey whose motivations do not meet the Compostela regulations. Those awarded either a Compostela or a Certificado del Peregrino can also request, for a modest payment, a Certificado de Distancia (introduced in 2014) which details the route followed, the distance covered, along with the commencement and finishing dates. This reclaiming of the religious and spiritual meaning of pilgrimage can be viewed as a response to the emergent global celebrity status of the Camino de Santiago as a cultural heritage phenomenon, which has seen recorded pilgrims, as noted above, increase from some 1,800 in 1986 to some 347,600 in 2019, drawn from 190 countries. In that latter year 49 per cent of those submitting a credencial claimed religious and other motivations, while a further 40 per cent specified only a religious motivation; some 11 per cent indicated non-religious reasons. Data from the Archdiocese of Santiago gives a little more insight into these broad categories with the more frequent reasons for people making the pilgrimage being: to find themselves, to find meaning in life, to enjoy an environment that favours reflection, to fulfil a promise, to meet other pilgrims, to follow in the steps of other pilgrims who during the centuries have followed the same Way, to honour James as one of Christ’s disciples, and to learn about culture and art along the Way (Archidiócesis de Santiago de Compostela 2017). Total visitor numbers to Santiago de Compostela are, of course, much greater than the total of credencial recorded pilgrims with, for example, some 2.6 million arrivals in 2017. For one particular grouping of pilgrims, a sacred journey, as in medieval times, can be perceived as an instrument of atonement following conviction by the Courts. In 2010 a judge in Ireland ordered a man charged with a public order offence to climb the holy mountain of Croagh Patrick and say prayers at its stations (The Irish Times 2010). The Camino de Santiago has fulfilled a comparable penitential role, most notably through the work of a civil society organisation in Belgium called Oikoten (from Greek meaning ‘away from home’ and ‘by one’s own effort’). It has offered young offenders an alternative to imprisonment, by walking from

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Herent to join and complete the Camino Francés – a distance of some 2,500 kilometres. Since 1982 more than 350 teenagers have completed this four-month itinerary with adult leaders and the evidence is that the journey and its completion can be transformational (Weymouth 2012: 1). This positive personal experience can be life-changing, as commented by a member of Oikoten: For a young person, the best possible outcome of prison is that if the punishment is hard enough, they might not do it again. It’s better to find another solution – something that will make the offender think. That’s what a walk does, it makes you think. You’re trying to give people the chance to experiment, to experience a different world. Trying things, trying things again, without giving up, without being watched and judged. A walk is medicine. Prison is not. (ibid.: 4)

Something comparable operates in Spain through a social reintegration programme from prison (Caminos de Libertad) that facilitates inmate participation in Camino pilgrimages. Segovia prison, for example, has operated this initiative annually since 2002 for those prisoners at the concluding stages of their sentences who participate in a supervised walk along several of the final stages of the Camino Francés. In short, analysis of the pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela demonstrates considerable heterogeneity among travellers, along with contested interpretations of what pilgrimage is and who participants are. The narrative is in line with the observations of Eade and Sallnow (1991: 10) that a pilgrimage itinerary and venue provide a ritual space for the expression of a multiplicity of perceptions and meanings, which the pilgrims themselves bring and impose on these cultural complexes.

Camino Journeys as Personal Geographies of Discovery A related commentary on perception and meaning reveals the Camino journeys as personal geographies that take us into a private world, at times laid bare and related to sensibility and emotion. It is about the shedding of burdens and living in the moment. The ethnographic research of Frey (1998) is important in that regard and in her book Pilgrim Stories, the meanings of the Camino de Santiago are uncovered through narratives of feeling. The sheer breadth of these individual possibilities in various combinations is described thus: Although the Santiago pilgrimage has a religious foundation based in Catholic doctrine regarding sin, its remission and salvation, in its contemporary permutation these religious elements endure, but they also share the same stage with transcendent spirituality, tourism, physical adventure, nostalgia, a place to grieve, and esoteric meaning. The Camino can be (among many other things) a union with

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nature, a vacation, an escape from the drudgery of the everyday, a spiritual path to the self and humankind, a social reunion, or a personal testing ground. (Ibid.: 5)

What becomes apparent from this book are the multiple motivations that initiate engagement with the Camino, the transformational discoveries and learning that so frequently occur, and the challenges and problems that need to be addressed en route. Ritual and routine often elide, the sacred and profane can co-exist and at the conclusion (wherever that may be) a daily linear progression changes to the circuit roundedness of the inevitable home-coming at journey’s end. In that vein, anecdotal and observational evidence that the current author has collected suggests four key attributes that illuminate the Camino de Santiago as personal geographies: meeting with others, suffering and pain, new awareness, and repeating the journey. There can be a gregarious camaraderie among strangers on the Camino de Santiago that is particularly the case with those walking similar distances each day. Walkers and cyclists by virtue of different capabilities are seldom able to establish that quiet familiarity. But yet for all this easy company, many walkers usually do not progress beyond nodding recognition, first name greeting and knowledge of country of origin. It is considered impolite to ask for surnames and occupation, and reasons for pilgrimage are not queried unless volunteered. Quite simply, these are the unstated rules of the road. Evening meals taken together allow for discussions to range widely across global affairs to the tribulations of the day completed and what lies ahead. The close living in the dormitories of the albergues contrasts with the more detached rooming in hotels, though for both sets of occupants there is the opportunity to meet up in the local bars and restaurants where English among world travellers is the essential lingua franca. Rest days and use of public transport can interrupt these routines of conversation among casual acquaintances; it is the itinerary to be followed that is important. But people may meet up again some days later and messages are passed between travellers that are asking after a person’s wellbeing, or perhaps simply indicating that they have completed their journey and are returning home. Accordingly, meeting with others is bounded by the space and time of the Camino and a fleeting sense of common purpose to get to where each person has set as their destination. The sheer volume of walkers along the Camino Francés greatly facilitates that interaction. It contrasts with a more heightened sense of physical and social isolation that is commonplace for those walking the Vía de la Plata and where it may be possible to complete a 30-kilometre stage and not have met anyone that day. The suffering and pain endured by some of those undertaking a Camino de Santiago journey can of course be interpreted as symbolic atonement in

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line with the discipline of other pilgrimage activities worldwide. It is commonplace, for example, to find small cross-like artefacts carefully attached to fences at the summit of a steep trail along the Camino de Santiago that is emblematic of the arduous climb to Calvary. But for those afflicted by deep discomfort, the personal experience is real and present. Blisters from ill-fitting footwear and tendonitis from over-exertion abound, but mostly it is simply sheer exhaustion over long distances and extreme heat that takes its toll. End of trip short illness is not unusual as the body seeks to readjust to fewer demands. The availability of shady resting places and water fountains to refresh tired feet are much sought after amenities. One response, especially noticeable along the Camino Francés, has been the opening of physiotherapy practices in many of its towns which are complemented on occasion by first aid services offered by local branches of the Red Cross. Pilgrims will frequently share remedies and offer advice to each other, but for those afflicted with injury the consequences can mean an earlier than intended and sad departure from the Camino. There may or may not be an opportunity to return. An added dimension to the tribulations imposed on those walking or cycling the Way, and their relatives and friends, can be found in the informal memorials of bereavement that have been erected along the edges of trails and roads. They commemorate those killed by accidents or who have died from illness en route. On occasion these memorials, imbued with spiritual meaning, may be elegant sculptures and artwork, or more commonly just simple wood or metal crosses to which a plaque has been added with a name, country of origin and date of death. The placing of personal amulets by others on these memorials suggests empathy with that loss, represents a ritual that can help preserve social memory and asserts a collective consecrating of the Camino landscapes. A not uncommon conversation among those walking the Camino is having the capacity to go on, another day, another week and to complete the intended itinerary. That resilience is underpinned by a combination of determination and self-awareness which places less emphasis on the speed of movement, but rather a personal courage to continue. The impediments encountered along the way, whether fast watercourses, angry dogs, nasty flies, deep snow or heavy rain, can cause people to reach deep into a reservoir of inner strength which they may not have imagined is present in their personality. The daily grinding out of kilometres is also acknowledged as a time for reflection, about what a person has left behind and may be going back to. Walkers on occasion can be heard singing to themselves from within their reverie, while others will sketch on notepads and write as an alternative form of self-expression and connectedness with their immediate world. The Camino de Santiago for some provides that inner eye on what is, and can induce new sensations of understanding, ac-

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ceptance and tolerance. Frequent testimonies to tears being shed evidence that emotional release and as the late Marion Marples from the Confraternity of Saint James commented at The World Meeting of Confraternities of St James and the VI International Academic Conference ‘1200 Years of Pilgrimage to the Tomb of St James in Santiago de Compostela’, Krakow, Poland in 2013: ‘Life is richer, but more simple’. The commonplace abandonment and occasional burning of pilgrimage clothing and footwear at Finisterre, the notional edge of the medieval world, is emblematic of this personal self-realisation and celebration. A cut measuring tape left behind on the ground can be a particularly poignant indicator of serious accomplishment and personal physical transformation. And lastly there is, following completion, the enduring question as to whether the Camino as personal experience will be revisited at some stage in the future. Visitor numbers point to the popularity of the Camino Francés as a journey of initiation with other routes such as the Vía de la Plata being selected by those who are keen to pursue a different, less pressured and arguably more challenging expedition. For some, the wish to return may only emerge much later when the hardships previously encountered have receded into the back pockets of comfortable memory; for others, the Camino may become likened to a necessary medicine that with regular doses can calm the human condition. In both instances, however, it would seem that the route followed has the power to fire the imagination as travellers seek to connect with the quality of heritage otherness drawn from the past and to live more fully in the landscapes of the present. Previous encounters do assist with preparations to do things differently and better, but they also provide a window through which to make comparisons on the nature of experienced difference.

Conclusion This chapter introduces the cultural heritage value of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage which, following the declared rediscovery of the earthly remains of the Apostle in the city Cathedral of Santiago in the late nineteenth century, has become a phenomenon of contemporary global interest. The discussion points to the emergence of multiple itineraries in recent years, the complex motivations and varied experiences of those travelling in ever increasing numbers towards the shrine, and the role played by the key stakeholders of Church, government, civil society and business in promoting the pilgrim quest. The following chapter examines more closely the governance of the Camino de Santiago.

CHAPTER 4

The Governance of the Camino de Santiago

Introduction The previous chapter in this book throws light on the contribution made over time by Church and state to shaping the Camino de Santiago geographies in Spain. The contemporary arrangements in place, however, are somewhat more complex. These institutions, for example, are multilayered with their constituent components denoted by both independence and interdependency. Furthermore, they are not alone in operating curatorial responsibilities and are joined by civil society, business and universities as key governance stakeholders. None of these operates in isolation and thus in a world of shared agency there are multiple spaces of collaboration that can facilitate a more effective management of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism (see, for example, Pérez Guilarte and Lois González 2018). This chapter deals with these matters by explicating the primary involvement of each stakeholder category in the Camino de Santiago governance arena and exploring various illustrative configurations of collaborative curatorship.

Church On 30 December 2019 the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Monsignor Julian Barrio Barrio, published a pastoral letter announcing the celebration of the Holy Year Compostelano 2021 and inviting pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint James. In his exhortation of Leave your land! The Apostle Santiago awaits you!, adapted from the Book of Genesis, and addressed simultaneously to those arriving with backpacks and suitcases, he revisits the sacred narrative and its contemporary relevance for positioning the

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culture of the spirit ahead of material culture. One paragraph in his letter captures admirably the many attributes of traditional pilgrimage motivation and movement by bridging both secular and religious considerations through an emphasis on the power of faith in a special place: Those who pilgrim to Santiago do not seek first of all a route full of scenic charm and historical heritage, but the path of conversion to God. The pilgrimage is a manifestation of popular piety. You walk with the Church to be challenged by the Word of God and thus be salt, yeast and light to others. You want to revive your baptism and apply your ear to the heart: where we are, what we are. What you are going to admire before the Pórtico de la Gloria, you recognise, as you do, and contemplate it with joy, because you have come to Santiago for an encounter with the risen Christ. You have followed with your own steps, the imprints left by others, the faithful of the Church. Arriving in Santiago, you touch the foundation of apostolic testimony. The experience of the Apostles are the roots of your faith and its fruits are yourselves. (Barrio Barrio 2019a: 4)

His words above resonate with those of Pope John Paul II, when on 27 November 1988 he announced from the Vatican that the Fourth World Youth Day would comprise a gathering in Santiago de Compostela the following August. His invitation, however, gave greater emphasis to the Way itself as the medium for spiritual transformation, but needs to be appreciated in the context of relatively low numbers completing a pilgrim trail (in essence the Camino Francés) at that time. The Pope states: Santiago de Compostela is not only a Sanctuary. It is also a route: a closely woven network of pilgrimage roads. The ‘Santiago Trail’ was for centuries a pathway to conversion and an extraordinary witness to faith. Along this Way arose visible monuments to the pilgrims’ faith: churches and hospices. Pilgrimage has a very deep spiritual significance: it can represent in itself an important form of catechesis. The Church – as the Second Vatican Council reminded us – is, indeed, a people of God on the march, ‘in search of a future and permanent city’. In the world today there is a revival of the practice of going on pilgrimage, especially among the youth. Today, you are among those more inclined to experience a pilgrimage as a ‘way’ to interior renewal, to a deepening of faith, a strengthening of the sense of communion and solidarity with your brothers and sisters, and as a help in discovering your personal vocation. I feel sure that, thanks to your youthful enthusiasm, this year will see a new and rich development of the Camino de Santiago. (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1988a)

While both statements can be appreciated as an earnest entreaty towards the sacred, they also show a subtle difference in the dynamic of how this pilgrimage might be experienced. The prelate’s 2019 comments lean towards a circumscribed territory of city-cathedral-tomb, while the pontifical message argues for a more expanded itinerary and which the Pope in his conclusion references as follows: ‘Then I say to all of you, be on your

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way, young pilgrims of the Camino de Santiago. During the pilgrimage days, try to recapture the spirit of the pilgrims of old, courageous witnesses to the Christian Faith. As you journey on, learn to discover Jesus, who is our Way, Truth and Life’ (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1988a). Arguably what is playing out here is the tension between pilgrimage as a profound moment of spiritual and religious arrival, and pilgrimage as a longer journey of energetic renewal and personal learning. It would appear that the phenomenal growth in pilgrim numbers, highlighted in the previous chapter, has prompted the Church over that intervening period of thirty years to adopt a more nuanced emphasis on protecting its primary mission of venerating Saint James at the sanctuary of Compostela. As noted by Chemin (2016: 30), the emphasis placed on the route and the journey element of the pilgrimage, rather than on the shrine of Saint James, has become ‘a point of contention’ between the Church and secular interests. More generally, this is in line with the Church’s generic guidelines on popular piety: The time spent in the sanctuary constitutes the most important part of the pilgrimage and should be marked by a commitment to conversion, ratified by reception of the Sacrament of Penance; by private prayer of thanksgiving, supplication, or of intercession, in accordance with the nature of the shrine or the objectives of the pilgrimage; by celebration of the Holy Eucharist, which is the climax of the pilgrimage. (Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments 2001)

In his address at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela on 6 November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI unequivocally endorsed the universal significance of places of faith: To go on pilgrimage is not simply to visit a place to admire its treasures of nature, art or history. To go on pilgrimage really means to step out of ourselves in order to encounter God where he has revealed himself, where his grace has shone with particular splendour and produced rich fruits of conversion and holiness among those who believe. Above all, Christians go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to the places associated with the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection. They go to Rome, the city of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, and also to Compostela, which, associated with the memory of Saint James, has welcomed pilgrims from throughout the world who desire to strengthen their spirit with the Apostle’s witness of faith and love. (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2010)

The Church is the principal curator of the Camino de Santiago as religious and spiritual ministry and steers a delicate trajectory of witness. Empirical evidence suggests that the rise of pilgrims on the Camino cannot be interpreted as a religious revival and that many pilgrims are instead ‘looking for an experience outside the margins of material interest and the

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simplistic pursuit of gain’ (Oviedo et al. 2013: 441). These observations do chime with the comments of Archbishop Barrio Barrio who, in talking about the spirituality of the Jacobean pilgrimage, has argued against the reduction of its meaning by adopting a mere political-cultural-tourist perspective (Barrio Barrio 2018). The Official Bulletin of the Archbishop of Santiago underlines this difference between secular and religious intent: ‘Setting out on the Camino is not the same as walking. The idea of the Camino contains within itself the notion of a goal, a project, an objective. Walking is not the same as a stroll or wandering around’ (Del Arzobispado de Santiago 2020). Thus, while government, civil society and business primarily seek to advance the Camino de Santiago as heritage and tourism because of its economic benefits, the Church treads much more warily while recognising that the sacred rubric of pilgrimage and its accompanying estate have heritage and tourism relevance derived from the journey and the destination. The Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela and the Council (Cabildo) of Santiago de Compostela Cathedral exercise challenging governance roles in this sphere. The Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela encompasses some 1,071 parishes across the three Vicariates of A Coruña, Santiago and Pontevedra, with a population of over 1.1 million people who identify as Catholic. Its activities embrace pastoral, evangelising, educational and charitable work. The mother church of the Archdiocese is the Santiago Cathedral and thus it has a unique responsibility in managing the sanctuary that contains the tomb of Saint James. The day-to-day governance of the cathedral and pilgrimage protocol rests with the Council of the Cathedral, comprising a college of senior priests whose duties include: • preparing and celebrating liturgical services; • promoting the Jacobean cult along with its historical, cultural and artistic attributes; • welcoming of and pastoral support to pilgrims; and • assuming responsibility for the heritage of the cathedral. The Council oversees, for example, the calendar for the use of the botafumeiro – a giant thurible that swings on a pulley attached to the central dome of the cathedral into the transepts – when requested by pilgrimage groups at the conclusion of the daily Pilgrim Mass and on twelve special days of Eucharistic celebration; this event is widely acclaimed as a tourist spectacle but has a religious rationale rooted in ancient rites of pilgrim prayer, although in medieval times the incense would have had unquestionable value as a pleasant fragrance. Walter Starkie, in passing, is at his most colourful when he describes this pageant of music, flames and incense:

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The seven men then pulled the ropes, raising the great censer off the floor. At first it moved slowly and it seemed as if it was being pushed by the men from one to the other as in a game, but then it began to gather momentum rhythmically and the men disappeared into the crowd as it mounted higher and higher while flames and trailing clouds of fragment incense became, as it were, the emanations of the soaring music from the choirs and the organ. It swept exultingly above the galleries to the very roof of the basilica and then rushed vertiginously down like a flaming meteor just above the heads of the watchful multitude . . . and towards the end of the hymn the flights of the monster censer became gradually slower and shorter, as its breath grew fainter, until at last it sank lifeless to earth, whereupon it was seized with amazing skill and rapidity by its custodian dressed in scarlet wool and his assistants, who bore it way to its lair in the library of the chapter house. (Starkie 1957: 317)

The Council also takes charge of the running of the Pilgrim Office and in 2015 it opened a new international reception centre funded in partnership with the Xunta de Galicia and the Concello de Santiago; its facilities include a service space for pilgrimage accreditation, library and tourist information office, chapel and meeting rooms. The Director of the Centre, as official signatory to the pilgrimage Compostela, Certificado and Certificado de Distancia, can also be Dean President of the Cathedral Council. In this regard the regulatory role of the Council is illustrated by its widely circulated letter from the Canon Delegate of Pilgrimages in July 1999 reiterating that the requirement for granting the Compostela has been set at a minimum of 100 kilometres on foot or horseback and 200 kilometres by bicycle and that this means at least the last 100 or 200 kilometres. The letter states: People who do specific stretches of the Camino, for lack of time or for other circumstances, are not entitled to the Compostela every time they walk 100 kilometres; the point is to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostle. We ask you to explain this to pilgrims, as lack of information sometimes creates difficulties for us here. (García Rodríguez 1999)

A further intervention occurred in December 2015 on the issuing of the pilgrim credencial which was prompted by the availability of a diversity of models and perceived commercial exploitation by some providers. From the Council’s perspective this was viewed as damaging to the integrity of the Camino de Santiago and the pilgrimage. Accordingly, and subject to a short moratorium to April 2016, the Cathedral Council determined that henceforth its own registered credencial would be the only valid document, with out-of-country institutions to be governed by a special arrangement. In short, both the Archdiocese of Santiago and the Council of the Cathedral are central to the governance of the Camino de Santiago, but the effectiveness of their shared mission is inevitably configured by collabora-

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tive designs. Three Church related bodies require brief mention: the Universal Archconfraternity of the Glorious Apostle Santiago (Archícofradia Universal del Glorioso Apóstol Santiago), the Santiago Cathedral Foundation (Fundación Catedral de Santiago), and Christian Welcome on the Caminos de Santiago (Acogida Cristiana en los Caminos de Santiago).

Universal Archconfraternity of the Glorious Apostle Santiago Confraternities as voluntary associations of the faithful have a long history and within the medieval Spanish Church they organised the pursuit of salvation through good and merciful works of feeding the hungry, offering hospitality, redeeming those in prison and burying the dead (see Flynn 1989). Core to this movement is the precept of brotherhood which defined fundamental obligations and located members in networks that exercised governance on earth and facilitated progression to Heaven (Terpstra 2006: 264). It is within this context that the Universal Archconfraternity of the Apostle Santiago can trace its roots back to a Papal Bull of 1499 that approved the establishment of a pilgrim hospital within Santiago de Compostela under the auspices of a fundraising brotherhood and royal patronage. As with many confraternities dating from the Middle Ages, it gradually declined in significance during the period of spiritual crisis from the seventeenth century, induced by the Enlightenment, only to briefly resurface again in the 1930s and be elevated by Pope Pius XII to the title Archconfraternity Ad Honorem in 1939, and Universal Archconfraternity in 1942. This recognition allowed other brotherhoods across the world with a similar mission of promoting the Jacobean cult to be attached to it. The papal endorsements may, of course, also reflect a special recognition given by the Vatican to the Catholic Church in Spain following the ending of the Civil War and described earlier by the Spanish Bishops in a joint letter to the Bishops of the wider world as a ‘struggle between irreconcilable ideologies’ (The America Press 1937: 3) whereby the ‘law makers of 1931 . . . persisted in roughly twisting the path of our history in a sense completely opposed to the nature and requirements of the national spirit, and especially opposed to the religious sense prevailing in the country’ (ibid.: 6). A radio message by Pope Pius XII to the Faithful of Spain in April 1939, following the cessation of hostilities, invoked the intercession of the Apostle and captured the spirit of Catholic celebration at that time: With immense joy, we address you, dearest children of Spain, to express our fatherly congratulations on the gift of peace and victory, with which God has deigned to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity, proven in so many and so generous sufferings . . . As a pledge of the abundant graces that the Immaculate Virgin and the Apostle Santiago, patrons of Spain, will obtain for you, and which

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the great Spanish Saints have merited for you . . . let us bestow on you our beloved children of Catholic Spain, on the Head of the State and his illustrious Government, on the zealous Episcopate and its Clergy so full of self-sacrifice, on the heroic combatants, and on all the faithful, our Apostolic Blessing. (Pio XII 1939)

Suffice it to say that there is now an enormous academic critique around the relationship between the Franco victory and the Church. Their mutual interests, for example, were recognised by a 1953 Concordat with the Holy See that decreed Spain to be a confessional state while also facilitating ideological cohesion in the regime around Catholicism and legitimacy for the dictator (see Martínez-Torrón 2018). But what is most important in the context of this chapter is that the activities of the Archconfraternity would seem to have faded during subsequent years, and were only revived in the early 1990s in line with the emergence at that time of a democratic civic culture which had been energetically pressuring for the development of Spanish civil society (see Marbán Gallego and Rodríguez Cabrero 2008). The Universal Archconfraternity of the Apostle Santiago is an association of the laity (both men and women), clergy and consecrated persons who, under the supervision of the Holy See, seek to collectively promote the cult of Saint James and pilgrimage to his sepulchre. It has a caring role for pilgrims on all the roads that lead to Santiago de Compostela and works with others to enhance the conservation of the religiouscultural heritage of the Apostle. Annual conferences and the publication of a magazine titled Compostela strengthen social capital within this faith association. Additionally, the presentation of membership medals to new brothers (cofrades) usually takes place each year in Santiago de Compostela on three occasions: the Feast of the Apparition of the Apostle Santiago in the Battle of Clavijo (23 May), the Feast of the Martyrdom of the Apostle Santiago (25 July), and the Feast of the Transfer of the Apostolic Remains (30 December). In 2019, the total number of brothers worldwide stood at just over 3,500, some 50 per cent of whom were Spanish. There were forty-four Santiago Brotherhoods (cofradias) affiliated to the Archconfraternity from across fourteen countries and it is noteworthy that, for most, their dates of aggregation are post-2000. It would seem that the significant growth of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage during that period has had a significant spillover into a new-found vitality of religious voluntary association.

Santiago Cathedral Foundation The Santiago Cathedral Foundation was established in 2008 and its Board of Trustees is chaired by the Archbishop of Santiago. It is concerned with

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the management and promotion of the cathedral’s cultural heritage comprising the cathedral and its related buildings along with a substantial artistic endowment that includes a museum and library. A core activity is dealing with the restoration of the cathedral facades, roof and interior in line with a Master Plan completed in 2009 under the auspices of the Cathedral Council and the Santiago Consortium, and costed in total at €30 million. At a wider scale across Galicia, the preparation and implementation of these co-financed Cathedral Master Plans had been the subject of a collaboration agreement in 1995 between the central government Ministry of Culture and the Xunta de Galicia (Resolution of 8 January 1996 of the General Technical Secretariat); the conservation related research associated with the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral plan subsequently commenced in 2005. It was, therefore, within this rubric of cooperation that the Foundation, the Cathedral Council and Xunta de Galicia signed a significant follow-on agreement in 2015 for the delivery of an action programme supported by €17 million received from central government. This grant aid had been approved in a protocol of collaborative intentions the previous year by the President of the Government of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, on his visit to the city and brought the total capital, both expended and available, for the cathedral’s restoration to some €25 million. Accordingly, Church and state have been partners in completing an ambitious work schedule since 2011 that was designed to conclude, in the main, by the commencement of the 2021 Holy Year. Additional financial contributions come from individuals and business and in that regard an important part of the Santiago Cathedral Foundation’s brief is to oversee a ‘Friends of the Cathedral’ initiative with annual citizen donations set at €25 and corporate donations within the range of €50 to more than €9,000. The ongoing implementation of this restoration vision, along with comparable improvements to the Cathedrals of Lugo, Ourense, Tui and Mondoñedo, is planned by the Xunta de Galicia in order to mark the 2027 Holy Year. One of the treasures of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral is the Portico of Glory (Pórtico de la Gloria) situated behind the main doors facing on to Praza do Obradoiro. Executed in the twelfth century under the direction of Master Mateo, this impressive ensemble of biblical testimony has welcomed pilgrims to the shrine of Saint James over the centuries. The Foundation, supported by philanthropic funding of over €6 million, managed its restoration between 2006 and 2018 (see https://fundacionbarrie .org/programa-catedral) and now carefully regulates guided visitor access into this climate controlled space. The polychromatic stone sculpture conservation work received a European Heritage/Europa Nostra award in 2019. Contemporary pilgrims, as previously noted, enter the cathedral by a side door from Praza de Praterias and thus the once commonplace customs in the Pórtico de la Gloria of inserting fingers into the Tree of Jesse

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and, for students, bumping heads against the carved head of the ‘ancient master’ in order to acquire some of his genius, or least the power of passing examinations (Starkie 1957: 313), can no longer be practised. The continuity of pilgrimage ritual and the imperatives of heritage protection do not always easily co-exist.

Christian Welcome on the Caminos de Santiago In 2017, after symbolically walking the last stage of the Camino de Santiago from Monte de Gozo to the cathedral, the participants at a joint meeting of French and Spanish Bishops of the Camino de Santiago published a pastoral letter dealing with the Jacobean tradition of hospitality to pilgrims. Places of welcome, whether hostels, monasteries and hospitals, are mentioned as being true spaces of communion for those wounded in the soul. In this context the hospitable Christian (hospitalero) is commended for the invaluable contribution made to easing the pains of pilgrim passage for those walking and going by bicycle or horse. The pastoral letter accepts that this charitable work can be demanding and rewarding: The hospitable Christian has to bear witness to his Faith . . . Your welcome must be open, fraternal and cheerful to everyone and anyone who arrives without distinction, even if the walker is in a bad mood, has a bad character, smells bad or even is aggressive. In each pilgrim who appears, the hospitalero will see Christ, will see the work of the Creator and offer a homely welcome. This will be done with joy, because Faith should not be sad, grumpy or depressing. (Los Obispos del Camino de Santiago de Francia y España 2017: 12)

It is within this context that Christian Welcome on the Caminos de Santiago operates as a charitable Foundation promoted by the Council of the Cathedral and the Universal Archconfraternity of the Apostle. Its formation in the 1990s owes much to the energy of the then Canon of the cathedral, Don Jaime García Rodríguez. He was also responsible at that time for opening the first pilgrim reception office which, as illustrated in the Introduction to this book, he personally attended to. Don Jaime died in 2009 and is interred in the cloister of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral but through his lifelong commitment to the veneration of the Apostle, his legacy continues to brightly animate the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. While membership of Christian Welcome includes parish priests and religious communities, it is the voluntary work of hospitaleros that really captures the essence of its curatorial contribution. Over short periods of usually two weeks, they are deployed to hostels along the many Camino de Santiago routes or to help service the international pilgrim reception centre in Santiago de Compostela where they are in charge of scrutinising each credencial and undertaking pilgrimage certification. Just

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as the Camino de Santiago pilgrims are global, so also are these volunteers for whom the main requirement is knowledge of the Jacobean cult. For those working in hostels it is customary to have completed a short period of training related to day-to-day management, while previous completion of a Camino pilgrimage and some ability to speak Spanish is also preferred among applicants. The collaborative basis for this engagement is underlined by the support offered within the international network of Camino associations, some of whom run their own hostels and promote volunteerism. It is, however, the pastoral support offered to pilgrims by volunteers that fits most closely with the Church commitment to inclusive Christian welcome and in an Irish initiative called ‘Camino Companions’, based in the pilgrim reception office, two Sisters of the Faithful Companions of Jesus describe their daily experience: Each day we set up Room 6 and prepared the chapel for Mass in the pilgrim centre. During the Mass community spirit was built by pilgrims introducing themselves, saying where they are from and where they started their Camino. They were also invited to light a candle and share a personal prayer. This gave them the opportunity to begin to process the meaning of the Camino in their lives. As volunteers we both felt privileged to be able to pray with them and for them. After the celebration of Mass we welcomed many pilgrims as they shared experiences of their journey with us over a cup of tea/coffee. Room 6 provided a safe space and listening ear for each pilgrim. This was evident by the stories told and emotions shown. Each day we were struck by the honesty and openness with which they spoke. (La Iglesia en los Caminos 2019: 38)

Government The Constitution of Spain, enacted in 1978, copper-fastened a transition to democracy that successfully moved the country away from the years of dictatorship under General Franco into a parliamentary monarchy. While the Constitution underlines the unity of the Spanish nation, it also recognises spatial diversity which is supported by a four-tiered arrangement of government entities. These comprise the central institutions of the Spanish government, seventeen Autonomous Communities positioned at the regional scale, fifty provinces and 8,112 municipalities (Ministerio de Administraciones Públicas 2008). The shaping of the Autonomous Communities derives from petitioning by clusters of long-established provinces in regard to their territorial coherence, both physically and culturally, and from subsequent national parliamentary approval; by 1983 all had achieved that endorsement. The Basque Country (Pais Vasco), with its three provinces, was recognised in 1979, while Galicia, with its

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four provinces of A Coruña, Pontevedra, Lugo and Ourense, was established by statute in 1981. The single province communities such as La Rioja, Navarra, Cantabria and Asturias followed in 1982, as did Aragón, with three provinces, and the nine-province community of Castilla y León in 1983. All of these regions play a central role in the governance of the UNESCO inscribed routes of the Camino Francés and the Camino del Norte in regard to the protection of cultural heritage and tourism development. The Autonomous Communities act on their own initiative within this sphere, but they can also operate together through the signing of a General Protocol of Collaboration that establishes a political framework and methodology for joint working (OECD 2010). La Rioja, for example, signed an initial protocol with neighbouring Castilla y León in 2008 that has been rolled forward by formal addenda in subsequent years to facilitate the launching of mutually beneficial projects in health, education, social services, agriculture and environment; in 2013 both regions expressed their interest in organising activities to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the declaration of the Camino de Santiago as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. La Rioja also signed a General Protocol of Collaboration with Aragón in 2009 which again has been updated in the interim to bring together common themes not previously anticipated, such as renewable energy transitioning. In 2020 their Presidents addressed the possibility of developing a common strategy to promote the Camino de Santiago within their territories on the occasion of Xacobeo 2021 (the Jacobean Holy Year 2021). At the other end of the governance scale the numerous municipalities concern themselves with local infrastructure and public services that vary in line with population size. Many municipalities have a small population and limited resources and thus, under national law (Ley 7/1985 on local regime regulation and Ley 57/2003 on measures for the modernisation of local government), discretionary horizontal grouping arrangements exist to carry out joint projects which primarily consist of comarcas (counties) created by the Autonomous Communities and mancomunidades (commonwealth associations) voluntarily established by the municipalities within the context of regional legislation. Additionally, provision is made for vertical partnership organisations in the form of consorcia (consortiums) which can, inter alia, bring together municipal, provincial and Autonomous Community entities in common mission with private non-profit entities. The important point here in the context of this chapter is that each component of government demonstrates an engagement with the Camino de Santiago, whether through tourism promotion and development, heritage protection, and urban and rural investment. The intensity and geographical spread of these activities does vary and is configured by

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the pluralism of statutory remits, budget availability, competing priorities and, of course, innate Camino interest. It is not surprising, therefore, that the high watermark of institutional commitment in this sphere should be located in those territories in which the Camino de Santiago has a strong presence, which reaches a logical and forceful expression in the case of Galicia where the Xunta de Galicia plays a particularly prominent role. Within its Statute of Autonomy, the powers of the regional government are exercised through its Parliament and President. Overall administrative coordination within the Xunta de Galicia, along with external affairs, lies within the purview of the Ministry of the Presidency, Public Administration and Justice, which in turn is supported by ten Ministries with a range of sectoral briefs. While responsibilities for the Camino de Santiago are most visibly located within the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, it is noteworthy that other Ministries do make a significant contribution to its governance. As illustrated in Table 4.1, it is clear that the Camino de Santiago is a cross-cutting matter embracing organisation regulation, entrepreneurship and enterprise support, environmental planning, pilgrim safety, volunteerism, heritage management, tourism and event promotion. In order to secure a measure of coordination across these sectoral activities within the Xunta, an Interdepartmental Commission for the Camino de Santiago was established by Decree in August 2016 (Decreto 107/2016). This high-level Commission is attached to the Galician Tourism Agency and is headed up by the President of the Xunta de Galicia. It draws its membership from the regional government departments and from the public company SA de Gestión del Plan Xacobeo (discussed below) and operates through a hierarchical structure of Plenary Commission, Permanent Commission and Subcommittees. In short, the vast array of policies and projects in place capture the complexity of a public administration challenge that interfaces with Galician citizens, the infrastructure of state supervision, the business community and those drawn into the region as participants in the Santiago religiousspiritual and cultural mix. Subsequent chapters in this book will deal more fully with some of the key curatorship practices identified in Table 4.1, but what is now abundantly clear is that the Church observances discussed above are inextricably linked to state intervention. In the case of the Camino de Santiago religious and secular remits are joined in the common cause of giving ‘welcome’ and require that the attendant goals of faith witness, economic prosperity and heritage sustainability command mutual respect. Three governance related initiatives are indicative of how these matters intersect within Galicia. Firstly, the formation of the Xunta–Catholic Church Mixed Commission in 1985 is evidence of institutional interde-

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Table 4.1 The governance of the Camino de Santiago within the Xunta de Galicia.

Ministry Presidency, Public Administration and Justice

Finance

Administrative divisions and affiliated entities

Illustrations of Camino de Santiago interest

General Secretariat

• Register of associations for the promotion of the Camino de Santiago. • Register of Foundations of Galician interest, e.g. Fundación Catedral de Santiago.

Directorate General Emergencies and Interior

• Civil protection plan for pilgrims, 2010. • Emergency guidebook for pilgrims: selfprotection measures, 2018.

Directorate General Local Administration

• Approval of Commonwealths (Mancomunidades). • Approval of Consortia (Consorcios).

General Technical and Heritage Secretariat

• Collect information for the Catalogue of Integral Entities of the Autonomous Public Sector, e.g. Fundación para o Desenvolvemento da Comarca de Santiago; Xestión Plan Xacobeo, S.A.

Directorate General for • Restoration and promotion of the Financial Policy, Treasury Camino Primitivo, 2019, with ERDF and European Funds support. Environment, Territory and Housing

Infrastructure and Mobility

Directorate General of Urban Planning and Land use Planning

• Basic Regional Plan of Galicia, 2016 delineates the Caminos de Santiago.

Directorate General of Environmental Quality and Climate Change

• Strategic Environmental Assessment of plans and projects, e.g. Pilgrim hostel in Melide, 2018.

Galician Institute of Housing and Land

• ‘Homes on the Camino’ rehabilitation programme.

Directorate General of Mobility

• Galicia Public Transport Plan, 2018 with dedicated service for pilgrims between Lavacolla airport and O Cebreiro.

Galician Infrastructure Agency

• Road safety for pilgrims and signage, overpass and underpass projects to enhance Camino routes; landscape improvements at Monte de Gozo, 2020. (continued)

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Table 4.1 Continued

Ministry

Administrative divisions and affiliated entities

Illustrations of Camino de Santiago interest

Economy, Employment and Industry

Directorate General for Commerce and Consumption

• Creation of a network of commerce and markets along the Camino de Santiago routes in 138 municipalities, 2019.

Galician Institute for Economic Promotion – IGAPE

• Entrepreneurship training for pilgrim care, 2020. • Modernisation of tourist accommodation for the 2021 Holy Year, 2019.

Education, Universities and Vocational Training Culture and Tourism

• Motivational reading in school libraries on Camino de Santiago stories for children with learning needs, 2019. General Secretariat for Language Policy

• Revitalisation of the Galician language through a Day of Letters with Camino de Santiago symbolism.

Directorate General Cultural Heritage

• Protection and delimitation of the Ways. • Heritage education for students in centres situated on the Camino de Santiago, 2017. • Conservation actions, e.g. the Cathedral plan. • Preparation of mandatory and binding reports on cultural heritage related to the instruments of land use planning and urban planning. • Contribution to European Year of Cultural Heritage programme, 2018. • Register of cultural heritage. • Grant awards, e.g. to audio-visual projects for Xacobeo 2021.

Directorate General Cultural Policies

• Museum management, e.g. Museum of Pilgrimages in Santiago de Compostela. • Courses and seminars, e.g. museum planning.

Galician Tourism Agency

• Directing and coordinating actions related to the overall cultural and tourism enhancement of the Camino de Santiago.

S.A. de Xestión do Plan Xacobeo (Management of the Jacobean Plan)

• Curating the Holy Years; management of public pilgrim hostels.

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Administrative divisions and affiliated entities

Illustrations of Camino de Santiago interest

Health

General Technical Secretariat

• Covid-19 public health measures in pilgrim hostels, 2020.

Social Policy

Directorate General for • Volunteers on the Camino programme, Youth, Participation and 2020. Volunteering • Student volunteerism with a Solidarity Passport on the Caminos de Santiago, 2018.

Rural Environment

General Technical Secretariat

• EU co-financed Rural Development Programme 2014–2020, e.g. afforestation grants and regulations in the buffer zones of the Camino de Santiago.

Galician Agency for Rural Development

• Hospitality training along the Camino de Santiago through the EU LEADER programme.

Ministry

Sea

• Tasting seafood along the Camino Francés and receive a stamped credencial (Compostelata) for completion of the seven stages, 2019. • Sailing the Camino de Santiago by sea through 13 marinas, 2018. • Promotion of tinned fish and seafood along the Camino de Santiago, 2016.

Source: the website of the Xunta de Galicia (https://www.xunta.gal/portada), retrieved March 2020.

pendency in the conservation of Church heritage. Secondly, since 1992 an intergovernmental partnership (Consorcio Santiago) between the Xunta de Galicia, the Concello de Santiago and the Government of Spain has operated under municipal ownership and a Board of Trustees drawn from state, Church and university institutions; its brief is to enhance urban transformation and cultural development in line with the Jacobean heritage of the city. And thirdly, in 2018 the Xunta established the Organising Commission for Xacobeo 2021 (La Comisión Organizadora del Xacobeo 2021) to coordinate the actions of a wide range of stakeholders involved in the forthcoming Holy Year. Its work, building on experience from the early 1990s, has required the blending of pilgrimage and festival in a way that protects the integrity of the shrine, but also projects brand-Galicia on to the world stage.

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The Xunta–Catholic Church Mixed Commission The Autonomous Communities enjoy considerable powers in regard to protecting the cultural heritage of the Catholic Church but, inevitably, effective action depends on cooperation. The approach adopted across Spain has been the negotiation of legally binding protocols that constitute and empower joint commissions and which in Galicia dates from 1985. At that time the Xunta signed a collaboration agreement dealing with the historical, artistic and documentary heritage of the Church within the region. In June 2018 a revised agreement was co-signed by the Ministry of Culture, Education and University Planning and the Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela on behalf of the six dioceses in Galicia following a re-constitution of the Xunta–Catholic Church Mixed Commission in August 2017, under Decreto 84/2017 regarding its composition and operation. The Commission is charged with the preparation of an annual programme of actions related to Church heritage and is serviced by two sub-commissions dealing with registration and active conservation. Symbolically, the Presidency of the Commission is rotated annually between the relevant Minister and the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela. Setting aside the optics of this quiet consensus, there is evidence that delivery has encountered both technical and political challenges. In regard to church restoration, budget constraints can require multiple modifications to proposed schemes, which in the case of the Parish of Coiro in Pontevedra in 2015, for example, resulted in a revised project that necessitated prolonged adjustments to public realm elements. The Commission has also been confronted with tensions around historical memory dating back to the Civil War and its aftermath. In 2017, for example, the General Administration, Justice and Interior Commission of the Galician Parliament approved a motion urging the Xunta to negotiate with the Catholic hierarchy for the removal of Francoist inscriptions on church facades; particular attention was drawn at that time to the unacceptability of a memorial on the church of Cangas do Morrazo commemorating the founder of the Falange, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, and thirty-four local people who had died on the Nationalist side.

The Santiago Consortium The uniqueness of Santiago de Compostela as a city that ‘projects the spirit of Christendom’ in Spain along with its ‘monumental, cultural and artistic heritage’ was recognised by the Franco government in 1964 with the approval of legislation to create a special agency to oversee the coordination of investment related to works, services and facilities which promote the religious interests and tourist attractions of the city (Decreto

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1941/1964). Thus was established the National Board of Santiago de Compostela, under the Honorary Presidency of the Head of State, and with its members drawn from central government ministries, the provincial delegation of A Coruña, the municipality and the Church. The need for the initiative reflected the fiscal constraints on local public intervention at that time and the potential to harness state tax exemptions and grant aid related to conservation schemes in the run up to the 1965 Holy Year. The important point here is that, from this background, there emerged in 1991 the establishment of the Royal Board of Trustees of the City of Santiago to coordinate the actions of the Government of Spain, the Xunta de Galicia and the Concello de Santiago and whose executive agency is the Santiago Consortium (Consorcio de Santiago) established in 1992. The members of the Board comprise multi-level government representatives, the Archbishop of Santiago and the Rector of the University of Santiago. The functions of the Santiago Consortium include the following: • the recovery and re-use of the city’s built heritage public buildings, for example, between 2007 and 2012 the remodelling of the former headquarters of the Bank of Spain in Galicia and its adaptation as the Museum of Pilgrimages; • the rehabilitation of residential and commercial property within the historic core of the city through technical assistance and financial aid, that includes grants for replacing the architectural details of balconies, galleries, railings, doors and windows, fabric maintenance and energy efficiency; • the enhancement of the public realm, comprising the upgrading of streets and squares, the greening of the city, and stone paving repairs; • the preparation of Master Plans for monumental buildings, for example, the offices of the City Council in Raxoi Pazo and Special Management Plans dealing, for example, with improving the periurban and urban landscapes of the Camino Francés, Camino del Norte and Monte do Gozo. The collective effort is aimed particularly at maintaining the Old Town as a high-quality living environment that retains its traditional commercial activities, while at the same time accommodating increasing tourism pressures whose negative consequences can include rental unaffordability and displacement, crowdedness, a shift towards multiple souvenir, bar and fast food outlets, late night noise and litter, and peripheral urbanisation. Santiago de Compostela is not alone in addressing these issues and accordingly the experience gained by the Consorcio has helped to inform a number of EU transnational projects on urban sustainability and has allowed it to share its expertise overseas in partnership with the Spanish Agency for

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International Development Cooperation, for example, in the Ecuador city of Quito which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978.

The Holy Years: Sociedad Anónima de Gestión del Plan Xacobeo and La Comisión Organizadora del Xacobeo 2021 The religious mission of the Church and the more secular interests of the state find a degree of convergence around the planning and delivery of the Holy Year schedule of activities that attract participants in volume into Galicia and, more particularly to Santiago de Compostela. While the popular benchmark date is 1993, which launched the shape of the contemporary celebration, there are notable antecedents. In preparation for the 1965 Holy Year, for example, the Spanish government’s Ministry of Information and Tourism earmarked some 40 million pesetas to finance loans for tourist accommodation along the Camino Francés, from the French border to the city of the Apostle. Some 1.5 million visitors were expected to arrive in Santiago de Compostela. Interestingly, the Ministerial patronage of Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a native of Galicia and close political ally of General Franco, was key to this investment which came at a time when tourism nationally was being utilised as a major driver of the economy and was being marketed under the slogan ‘Spain is Different’. This initiative sought to represent the country’s cultural heritage through pictorial informality and an optimistic imagery (Museo Reina Sofía 2014: 2). Between 1990 and 2005 Fraga went on to hold the Presidency of Galicia and it was under his direction that the 1993 Año Santo Compostelano was reshaped into a secular festival that aimed to complement the Jubilee religious celebration. Clearly, the Xunta de Galicia had taken cognisance of the transformational potential of the 1992 Seville Expo, the Barcelona Olympics and Madrid as European Capital of Culture and was intent on delivering an equivalent spectacular project that might address the economic marginalisation of the region. Accordingly, in 1991 the Xunta de Galicia established the Sociedad Anónima de Gestión del Plan Xacobeo as a public sector business to manage the forthcoming Holy Year in regard to its physical, cultural and economic attributes. Within a budget of €120 million, it was charged with tourism promotion, managing a network of hostels, creating a programme of cultural events and assisting with the provision of services along the Camino de Santiago. This work would be undertaken in conjunction with government bodies, civil society and the Church and would subsequently be branded as Xacobeo 1993; an accompanying logo and mascot called Pelegrin amplified this commercial intent and was visible at both pilgrim resting sites as a public realm feature and on souvenir merchandising. Given the hegemony of Spain’s ‘sun, sea and sand’ imagery, Pelegrin was also part of a wider international campaign

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to transform people’s perceptions of Santiago de Compostela and Galicia as a tourism destination (Roseman and Fife 2008: 114). However, given that this initiative inevitably commodified a celebration of religious renewal, it is not surprising that the relationship with the Church from the outset should be fraught with tensions. As recalled by de Cela Pérez (2019: 7), the Canon of the cathedral had been more concerned at that time with improving the pilgrim credencial, the Compostela certificate, the Pilgrim Mass and making confessions available in different languages, while simultaneously fighting against the trivialisation of the Holy Year and its reduction to an economic and materialistic stimulus. Nonetheless, the 1993 Jubilee has been lauded as an unprecedented success both in terms of tourism and pilgrimage, attracting some seven million visitors to Santiago de Compostela. This prompted closer collaboration between Church and state in delivering the subsequent 1999 Holy Year (Santos 2016: 242). In his analysis of the delivery of Xacobeo 99, Tilson (2005) concludes that a balance was maintained between its religious and cultural dimensions: ‘Indeed, programming that provided a focus for both secular and religious “pilgrims” – whether a Rolling Stones concert or a Catholic European Youth Rally – served as attractive marketing “hooks” to draw visitors from across the civic and spiritual spectrum’ (34). The continuity of this inextricable linkage between both institutions has been demonstrated in the run up to Xacobeo 2021 by the symbolism of convening the 2018 inaugural meeting of the Working Group for the coordination of the Ministries of central government and the Autonomous Communities, chaired by the Xunta de Galicia at the international pilgrim reception centre in Santiago de Compostela. This national scale collaborative effort was promulgated by the Jacobean Council (discussed below) and sits alongside the establishment by the Xunta de Galicia under Decreto 4/2018 of a regional level Organising Commission for Xacobeo 2021 (La Comisión Organizadora del Xacobeo 2021). Its membership comprises representatives of the Galician regional government (including the Sociedad Anónima de Gestión del Plan Xacobeo), the Government Delegation in Galicia, the Municipality of Santiago de Compostela, the Church and the Galician Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (https://xacobeo2021.caminodesantiago.gal/osdam/filestore/1/9/4/1/2_ b4d24c01bbb6fc6/19412_e6d735ec54cc80b.pdf). It is charged with coordinating the different departments of the Xunta, other public administrations including the Galician provinces and municipalities, the private sector and, most importantly, the Church regarding preparations for and delivery of Xacobeo 2021 in Galicia. Its functions are wide ranging and comprise approving the programme of activities within the context of the Xunta de Galicia’s strategic plan, supervising the deployment of the Xacobeo 2021 brand and logo, and promoting the tax incentives available

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to sponsors. The discussion in Chapter 6 will elaborate on the content of this strategic plan and will draw attention to the challenges of maintaining political harmony in the midst of a very thick institutional nexus. The discussion thus far focuses on the case of the Autonomous Community of Galicia, but other regional governments are also active in the Camino de Santiago governance arena through policy prescription and project investment. The chapters in Part Three of this book will provide space for analysis of their contributions. Nonetheless, it is appropriate that attention is also given here to collaborative governance at the national and inter-regional scales in curating the Camino de Santiago. Two intergovernmental bodies that operate with a strategic perspective are worthy of attention: the Jacobean Council (Consejo Jacobeo) involving a partnership between central government ministries and Autonomous Communities; and the Association of Camino de Santiago Municipalities (La Asociación de Municipios del Camino de Santiago) which brings together those with an interest in the Ways of Saint James at local government level, specifically along the Camino Francés.

Jacobean Council The proximity of the 1993 Holy Year, growing interest in the recovery of the Camino de Santiago as cultural heritage, and the need to ensure effective collaboration between central government and those Autonomous Communities through which the Camino de Santiago runs, prompted the Ministry of Relations with the Courts and the Government Secretariat to bring forward legislation in 1991 that established the Jacobean Council (Real Decreto 1530/1991). Its President at that time was named as the Minister of Culture and, symbolically in terms of power sharing, its Vice President was a Minister within the Xunta de Galicia. The composition of the Council comprised Under Secretary representation from five central government Ministries (Economy and Finance, Public Works and Transportation, Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Foreign Affairs and Culture), representatives with the rank of Director from eight Autonomous Communities (Galicia, Castilla y León, La Rioja, Aragón, Navarra, the Basque Country, Cantabria and Asturias), along with representatives from a range of cultural, academic and Church institutions. Quite clearly the Jacobean Council was conceived at the outset to be a high-level public body, at the heart of joined-up central and regional government. Its mission was conceived as being the protection, recovery and promotion of the Camino de Santiago within the context of conserving its historicalartistic heritage, tourism development and pilgrim assistance. In order to improve operational efficiency and realise a better alignment with the later restructuring of central government Ministries, the Jacobean Council

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was reorganised in 1997. Under Real Decreto 1095/1997 governance arrangements were extended to the setting up of a Plenary Committee and an Executive Committee; eight central government ministries assumed membership and the Director General of Fine Arts and Cultural Assets was a named participant. Subsequently, in response to representations from UNESCO regarding the need to guarantee coordinated management of property inscribed on the World Heritage list, a third iteration of state legislation (Real Decreto 1431/2009) was approved for the reorganising of the Jacobean Council. Of particular note is the inclusion of a new Cooperation Committee to specifically deal with World Heritage Site obligations. At that stage, the Autonomous Community of Catalonia had also been added to the list of membership regions. The functions of each layer of administration comprise overall political accountability for decision-making at the Plenary Committee level, operational responsibility at the Executive Committee level, specific liaison on World Heritage Site matters at the Cooperation Committee level, and the production of action outputs at the Working Group level. Cultural policy, in the main, was transferred downwards to the Autonomous Communities by the 1978 Constitution and thus it is not unexpected that central government ministries have had to tread carefully in regard to the curating of the Camino de Santiago. Partnership governance is a significant arrangement within which to diffuse possible tensions, but requires that regional initiative is sensitively accommodated. In that context the visible outputs from the Jacobean Council include a multilanguage pilgrim information poster on official signage and waymarking, produced in conjunction with the Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago, guidance on road safety for walking and cycling the Camino de Santiago, produced by the state General Directorate of Traffic, and a guide for emergencies along the Caminos de Santiago, prepared by the Xunta de Galicia. Technical guidelines on signage along the Camino de Santiago produced under the leadership of the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León were approved for national roll-out by the Plenary Committee in April 2018. Heritage education resources for primary and secondary school children have been published, with the latter in Castilian, Galician, Catalan and Basque languages. And in March 2020 the three Autonomous Communities of Galicia, Cantabria and La Rioja were appointed alongside the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Finance as the Certifying Commission of the Jacobean Council with the aim of facilitating access to tax relief benefits by sponsors of the Holy Year celebrations (Xacobeo 21). Under Ley 6/2018 on the General State Budgets for the year 2018, the Holy Year had been declared ‘an event of exceptional public interest’, thus allowing the draw-down of tax breaks to business investors. The Jacobean Council has been central to the planning

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and funding of events associated with Xacobeo 21 with some €92 million announced in February 2020 by the Spanish Government for the restoration of built heritage, infrastructure improvements and international marketing by the networks of the national tourism agency – Turespaña. Nonetheless, a major limitation of the Jacobean Council remains the absence of some Autonomous Communities with an interest in the Caminos de Santiago, although representations were made in December 2019 for the inclusion of Extramadura and Andalusia given their positioning along the Vía de Plata.

Association of Camino de Santiago Municipalities The Association of Camino de Santiago Municipalities was established in 2015 as a non-profit entity and brings together city and small-town local government bodies situated along the Camino Francés. Over the period from its inception to 2021 its membership has grown from an initial 22 municipalities to 104 municipalities, with offices and a small cadre of technical staff located in Jaca (Huesca). In order to strengthen its collaboration activities, the Association has formed a Business Forum based in Astorga that engages with public and private sector companies and a multi-disciplinary Scientific Committee which meets in Logroño and is made up of academics from several universities and foundations. Essentially, the Association has acted as a platform for its members to promote a wide range of cultural heritage projects and, politically, it gives a collective visibility to engaged localism which always runs the risk of being lost against the more prominent Autonomous Community profiles. It has, thus far, published an annotated map of the Jacobean route (2019), negotiated funding with the Government of Spain to implement an action plan that includes improvements to the Way, has agreed with the Jacobean Council on the preparation of a training plan and manual of best practice aimed at the tourism sector, and is contributing its skills and knowledge to the EU Horizon 2020 project RURITAGE which has the cultural heritage of pilgrimage as one of its innovation areas. The Association is still in its early days, and it remains to be seen if it will have the capacity or, indeed, the ambition to become a national agency consistent with the much wider Camino de Santiago geography vis-à-vis the historical-cultural heritage activities of the extant Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces.

Civil Society Political democracy is regarded as a necessary condition for a deep and extensive civil society and in Spain it was only from the late 1960s that

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some renewed momentum was initiated in this sector, consistent with the emergent economic modernisation of society at that time (see Marbán Gallego and Rodríguez Cabrero 2008). Nonetheless, an acute civil society deficit marked the country’s entry to successful democratisation following the voids of ‘social organisation and political participation’ that characterised the Franco dictatorship (Encarnación 2003: 10). Democratic social reform post-1977 did intensify a process of voluntary participation that added to the fabric of state governance and the 1978 Constitution copperfastened this principle of free association; in Article 9.2 it is stated: ‘It is the responsibility of public authorities to promote conditions for a real and effective liberty and equality of individuals and of groups formed by them; they shall remove obstacles that impede their operations and shall facilitate the participation of all citizens in political, economic, cultural, and social life’. The Constitution allows believers to live according to their religion (Curvino 2013) and to co-exist within a cooperative relationship between state and Church that is beneficial to each institution. Simply put, because the state seeks the betterment of its people, it should encourage participation in social organisations, including religious institutions (ibid.: 562). The Church, divided as it is between liberalism and conservatism, also invites participation by the laity: this was underscored by Pope John Paul II in his address on the vocation and mission of the lay faithful following the 1987 Synod of Bishops on that topic. In an extensive Apostolic Exhortation, titled Christifideles Laici, he states: Groups, associations and movements also have their place in the formation of the lay faithful. In fact they have the possibility, each with its own approach, of contributing to a deeply shared experience in the apostolic life, as well as having the opportunity to embed and make concrete the specific support that their members receive from other people and communities. (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1988b)

It is against that backcloth that associations and brotherhoods, identifying with the Jacobean cult, have flowered in Spain and command the largest collective among all countries for which data is available. In 2020 a total of 183 Spanish associations and brotherhoods provided civil society spaces for people to join together, which, interestingly, aligns with the greatest volume of pilgrims (some 146,400) and the largest share of total pilgrims (some 42 per cent) who arrived at Santiago de Compostela in 2019. The first voluntary group in Spain with an interest in the Camino de Santiago was formed in Estella (Navarra) in 1962 and is preceded internationally only by the Société Française des Amis de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle founded in Paris in 1950. Another early association is the Confraternity of Saint James established in 1983 and based in the UK. Since then, and particularly in the period leading up to and following the

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1993 Holy Year, the number of similar organisations has expanded to become a global phenomenon, which, when added to the Santiago religious brotherhoods, discussed earlier, amount to 379 groups across thirty-eight countries. The data, however, are an undercount of activity as some associations are configured as networks. In the United States, for example, American Pilgrims on the Camino hosts sixty-one local Chapters across thirty-two States and Washington DC in 2021. The Jacobean associations are voluntary membership organisations whose purpose is essentially twofold: to promote the cultural heritage of the pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostle, and to assist pilgrims. Thus, for example, they host a programme of events that can include lectures, local mini-pilgrimages, volunteer hospitality training courses, informal get-togethers for returned and intending pilgrims (perhaps, over a glass of wine) and the dissemination of information (increasingly using websites). Some international associations are licensed by the Council of the Santiago Cathedral to issue the pilgrim credencial and some also provide accommodation along the many Ways of Saint James that very much depend on donations, sponsorship and hospitalero volunteers to maintain their viability. This contribution to the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is significant and can be illustrated by the work of the UK Confraternity of Saint James. It operates two hostels, one at Rabanal del Camino on the Camino Francés where in the year ending September 2019 it welcomed some 5,550 pilgrims, and the other at Miraz on the Camino del Norte, a smaller hostel opened in 2005, which accommodated some 1,800 people over the same period; the pilgrim guests came from over seventy countries (Confraternity of Saint James 2019). In 2020 the Confraternity was awarded the Xunta de Galicia’s most esteemed civil honour, the Medalla Castelão, in recognition of its voluntary work related to the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. The localism of many of the Spanish associations allows them additionally to engage in recovering, maintaining and improving the Camino de Santiago routes that pass through their communities and members undertake waymarking, hedge pruning and litter collection. Their enthusiasm for the spirit of the Camino finds a collective voice in the work of the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago (Federación Española de Asociaciones de Amigos del Camino de Santiago) which operates as an umbrella organisation in the collaborative governance arena.

Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago The Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago was formed in 1993, although the roots of the organisation

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can be traced back to 1985 when the Centre for Jacobean Studies at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela convened a modest conference of thirty religious and laity to celebrate the centenary of the Papal Bull, Deus Omnipotens. Two of the proposals that emerged from this meeting were the desirability of establishing Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago and the appointment of a coordinator to drive this initiative forward. A second milestone was reached in 1987 when the First International Congress of Jacobean Associations was held in Jaca, from which came a call for greater unity of purpose across these voluntary groups; the eventual creation of the Federation became the desired outcome. The International Congress, which is hosted in collaboration with the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago, occurs every three years and by 2020 there had been eleven such events. In 2020 there were forty associations included in the directory of Federation members, each of which has its own approved statutes and has registration details lodged with the necessary public sector regulatory bodies. The significant added value of the Federation, based in Logroño, is the bridging capacity that it offers to link with the multi-level institutions of government and the Church in Spain, as well as reaching out to associations in other countries, embassies and international cultural heritage organisations.

Business and Universities Many Camino travellers are familiar with the travel agencies and tour operators which advertise their services on the Internet comprising group and individual packages that combine international travel and transfers, lift and drop luggage services along pre-set stages, accommodation and on-site emergency support using local agents. Secular promotion combines medieval romanticism, colourful imagery and personal testimonies from satisfied customers and is often more inclined to portray the pilgrimage trails as off-road adventure routes but without the privations of dormitory bunk-beds, reliance on self-catering, and daily painful walking. The Camino de Santiago, however, is a mainstream business product that reaches well beyond the frequently invented allure of the travel and hospitality industries. Its commercial linkages in Spain take many formats that engage with corporations and small enterprises, the public, private and non-profit domains, and multiple sectors from manufacturing to services and retailing. These types of activity include the following: • business networks: the voluntary grouping of commercial interests can add value to the promotional efforts of individual companies

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by strengthening their reach through a collective voice. A useful illustration is the Solpor Association, founded in 2014, which brings together over 120 companies including accommodation providers, cafes and restaurants, shops and taxi companies with a shared commitment to the development of the Camino Finisterre-Muxia. It distributes a pilgrim credencial and completion certificate specifically for this Way which were printed by the Province of A Coruña and it participates in trade shows in order to raise the profile of the territory as an end-of-pilgrimage destination for those visitors who wish to travel beyond Santiago de Compostela. • forum membership: business collaboration can generate fresh ideas around best practice and lead to economic innovation that can benefit local people. This is precisely why the Association of Camino de Santiago Municipalities established a business forum in 2018 following a round-table discussion by companies two years previously. The forum includes banking, telecommunications, information technology, biomedical research, advertising and transportation representatives and among these is Correos, the Spanish Post Office. It has become a prominent back-up agency along the routes of the Camino de Santiago because of its baggage lift and drop service and it regularly supports Camino-related exhibitions across the nation as well as issuing commemorative stamps. • foundations: these vary widely in regard to their provenance and can have an institutional, corporate, community or family background. Essentially, they depend on philanthropy and their remits can extend across research and policy advice, advocacy and social investment for the public good. Grupo Carris, based in Santiago de Compostela, for example, is a major stakeholder in the hotel and wine industries and has established as part of its business portfolio the non-profit Fundación Jacobea to promote the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. • sponsorship and endorsement: financial contributions from business are crucial in assisting with the work of organisations and institutions whose primary source of income may primarily be grants and donations. The investors, in return, can receive valuable publicity that can also have a spin-off impact. Universities demonstrate a prominent profile in the Camino de Santiago governance arena by shaping their conventional activities of teaching and research within a cultural congregation that can strengthen their national and international standing, open up new opportunities for experiential learning, and create additional revenue streams, all of which are now important in an overarching neoliberal design with its emphasis on competitiveness, hierarchical managerialism, and training as a complement to

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education. The codification of the Camino de Santiago as certified experience is illustrated by the initiation of a Pilgrim University Record issued by the Universidad de Navarra in Pamplona to allow for the collection of stamps from universities along the route travelled. It seeks to engage specifically with university students, alumni and staff from across the world. On submission of their record to the Office of Alumni at Universidad de Navarra, endorsed by a stamp from their affiliated university, they will be awarded La Compostela Universitaria (Jacobean University Certificate). This certificate has no religious meaning. From its inception in October 2003 to 2018, almost 44,000 records have been issued to university pilgrims from forty-eight countries, some 44 per cent of whom have presented themselves as students (www.campus-stellae.org/, retrieved 11 October 2019). On a global scale some sixty institutions are members of the Compostela Group of Universities (Grupo Compostela de Universidades), a non-profit higher education association established in 1994 and based in Spain. According to its mission statement, the group is dedicated to promoting and organising activities intended to protect the cultural heritage of the Camino de Santiago along with other cultural routes and to do so through collaborative research, staff and student mobility, and cooperation with public bodies, the private sector and civil society. To this end, the association has developed a network of knowledge transfer links and agreements with, for example, the European Federation of St James Way, the European Institute of Cultural Routes, the Xunta de Galicia and the Association of Municipalities on the Camino de Santiago.

Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated the interaction between Church, government, civil society, business and university stakeholders in the governance of the Camino de Santiago. Their roles are specific and complementary with each contribution adding to the vibrancy of the Jacobean pilgrimage. The discussion has also drawn attention to the prominence of institutional collaboration and how alliances constructed around varying geometries of mobilisation can allow more to be achieved than by working separately. Nonetheless, there are tensions embedded in these relationships which require sensitivity in dealing with fundamental questions as to who is in control and how the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela is being represented. The Church, as custodian of sacred tradition, now finds itself at the centre of a challenging management project that requires multiple interventions which go well beyond its religious and spiritual mission. Its preferred focus is now sharply on veneration at the Tomb of the Apostle

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and the governance evidence presented above demonstrates a blending of institutional emphasis and collaborative design specifically in Santiago de Compostela to support that aim. The Camino de Santiago on the other hand comprises a lattice of pilgrimage routes to the sacred destination and here the evidence points towards a more diffuse governance praxis. At a local level the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago operates as an important civil society coordinating body by building collegiality through information sharing among its members. At the macro level the Jacobean Council brings together central and regional government to oversee the cultural enhancement of the designated World Heritage estate, but there is not complete Autonomous Community participation, nor any overarching vision or management plan, as yet, for the entire Camino network. Accordingly, the analysis in this chapter points to a preliminary conclusion that the pilgrimage components of destination and routes suggest two heritage packages at play with different spatial and organisation imperatives. Linking the rubric of prayerful encounter at the shrine of Saint James with completion of a prescribed travel distance (essentially within Galicia) in the context of an ever widening secular inspired geography of pilgrim trails may no longer be an appropriate formula by which to acknowledge religious/spiritual motivation and an award of the Compostela certificate. The third part of this book takes this observation further forward by throwing light on the many and evolving ways by which the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is being curated as heritage and tourism.

PART III Curating the Camino de Santiago as Heritage and Tourism

CHAPTER 5

Regulatory Planning Protocols

Introduction For those walking or cycling the Camino de Santiago, a commonplace perception is the richness of much of the visual experience. Photographs, blogs and films elegantly portray townscapes and landscapes that suggest continuity from medieval times and which in turn feed into colourful promotional and advertising campaigns. The allure of an aged authenticity in built forms and the presumed absence of modernity are frequent touchstones of pilgrim appreciation, constructed around a romantic notion that change is a stranger in the daily drama of slow movement from place to place. The magnetism of the Camino may well be found in its apparent simplicity and represented traditions of the past, but this masks the complex reality of the contemporary interaction between land-use change and regulatory planning protocols. The corridors and nodes of pilgrimage owe much of their charm as heritage and tourism to the preparation and implementation of urban and rural physical planning frameworks that seek to prevent or at least moderate inappropriately sited or designed development. This is often a deeply fraught arena which can pitch the interests of big business, local landowners, professional groups, planners, politicians and civil society against each other. On 4 June 2020, for example, the newspaper La Voz de Asturias ran a story under the heading ‘La línea de protección de 30 metros en el Camino de Santiago pone en pie de guerra a constructores, arquitectos y aparejadores’ (The 30 metres protection line on the Camino de Santiago puts builders, architects and surveyors on the warpath). They claimed that disproportionate over-protection is hindering investment. Accordingly, the current chapter explores the contribution that regulatory planning makes to the curatorship of the Camino de Santiago. It

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commences by contextualising this public policy intervention within the Spanish planning system with reference to both the years of the Franco administration and the post-1978 democratic reforms. The important point here is that, constitutionally, urban and rural planning is now devolved to the regions (Autonomous Communities). Given the absence of a statutory and prescriptive national spatial plan, it is the regions which, primarily, have responsibility for strategic territorial planning, which in turn strongly influences the shaping by the provinces (on occasion) and the municipalities (much more frequently) of follow-on and more detailed regulatory plans for controlling land-use change. What is interesting is that these four tiers of government do have a bearing on the regulatory planning of the Camino de Santiago. This chapter examines key aspects of its operation.

Early Measures by the Spanish State to Protect the Camino de Santiago Given the imbued symbolism of Saint James by General Franco as a figurehead of Spanish unity during the Civil War and its aftermath, it is not surprising that the Camino de Santiago should warrant high-level attention in regard to its protection and enhancement. However, these policy ambitions were slow to emerge. A three-volume book under the title Las Peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela and published by Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (Vázquez de Parga et al. 1949) had a seminal impact in this sphere by cataloguing not only the cultural history and organising of the pilgrimage but also the diagrammatic representation of its walked itineraries from the conventional departure cities in France and thence across northern Spain. It was awarded a Premio Francisco Franco (Prize) in 1945 for its scholarship. While legislation that had been in place from the middle of the nineteenth century and extended through the first half of the twentieth century, including that of the Second Republic, to safeguard monumental heritage was respected by the regime of General Franco, it was the passage of regulations in July 1958 (Decreto 22/1958) that first widened protection to the setting of monuments and historical-artistic ensembles across Spain (Sanz Larruga 1997: 149). Mandatory approval would be required from the Directorate of Fine Arts for the modification of buildings, streets or squares or the alteration of a surrounding landscape in the vicinity of major and minor monuments of historical-artistic interest. The decree also specified the potential removal or modification of executed works that did not comply with this requirement. Significantly, this legislation provided the context for the eventual publication of a statute in the format of Decreto 2224/1962 to specifically pro-

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tect the Camino de Santiago as a historical-artistic collective. The effusive rhetoric of the decree gives an insight into the close alliance of heritage value and National Catholicism in the prevailing political ideology of that time. It states that the Jacobean route or Camino de Santiago has a deep and emotional rootedness ‘in our homeland’ that has not diminished over time; it is represented in ‘our spirit’ with the ‘same vigorous portrayal as in ancient times’ and has acquired a ‘universal resonance’ that is deeply linked to ‘national feeling’. The regulation indicates that it is advisable to take necessary measures to delimit, reconstitute and preserve the Camino de Santiago, with restoration being carried out ‘if not in full, at least in its most interesting parts’. The decree relates to both the then present and future determinations of cultural assets. Its guardianship was entrusted to the Ministry of National Education under whose Minister, or delegated Director General of Fine Arts, would be established a National Board of Trustees; the membership would include the Cardinal Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela. Two years later specific attention turned to Santiago de Compostela and, under Decreto 1941/1964 and its modification by Decreto 3406/1964, special governance arrangements were announced for the coordination of investment in regard to the religious and tourism dimensions of the forthcoming 1965 Holy Year. The Minister of the Interior advised on the creation and membership of el Patronato Nacional de Santiago de Compostela (The National Board of Santiago de Compostela) that would oversee this work. Provincial boards were also announced around that time for Navarra and Logroño (Sanz Larruga 1997: 150). The key limitation of all these endeavours, however, was the absence of any detailed route information in a map format that could facilitate development management. To go well beyond the indicative drawings of the Camino de Santiago, as presented in the work of Vázquez de Parga et al. (1949) noted above, would remain a regulatory planning challenge, eventually to be taken up by the newly established Autonomous Communities following the post-1978 democratic transition.

The Spanish Constitution and Regulatory Planning System Following the death of General Franco in 1975, Spain moved towards the creation of democratic governance that was formally enshrined in law by the adoption of a new Constitution in 1978. This articulated a series of fundamental rights and liberties for Spanish citizens, it set out a new framework of public administration, and, crucially for regulatory planning, it explicated principles relating to the territorial organisation of the country. Article 148 of the Constitution indicated that the Autonomous Communities may assume competence over town and country

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planning, environmental protection, tourism and monuments of interest. Responsibility for heritage was also assumed by central government and, in Article 149 (xxviii), it was awarded exclusive competence in regard to ‘protection of Spain’s cultural and artistic heritage and national monuments against exportation and despoliation’ (45). The passage of Ley 16/1985 on Spanish Historical Heritage subsequently provided more complete national legislation binding on all public authorities in line with their constitutional mandates. Policy interest in the Camino de Santiago, accordingly, was located in those early days of transition within the sphere of national–regional interaction. From the outset of the implementation of the Constitution, the overall regulatory planning system was similarly configured across central government and the Autonomous Communities. However, ensuing conflict over statutory competences eventually led to this matter being challenged in the Constitutional Court by several of the regions. Its ruling in 1997 decided against the interests of the central administration and held that the Autonomous Communities have exclusive urban planning authority (González Pérez 2007: 35). This decision also has implications for the Camino de Santiago as it firmly places the onus on its evolving delineation and protection on regional government through the preparation of legislation and territorial plans, along with the linked operation at municipal level of determining development licences and enforcement based on detailed local plans. Accordingly, the locus of regulatory planning for the Camino de Santiago has shifted downwards over time. Nonetheless, central government continues to hold an interest in its overall wellbeing as heritage and tourism. This is exemplified by its participation in the work of the Jacobean Council, discussed in Chapter 4 above, and by the content of the Spanish Urban Agenda published by the Ministry of Development in 2018. The preparation of the Spanish Urban Agenda (Ministry of Development 2018) was facilitated by the General Directorate of Architecture, Housing and Land and offers a reference framework for urban areas and urban policies with a social, economic and environmental character. The document takes as its departure points the economic crisis from 2007, the New Urban Agenda of the United Nations and the Urban Agenda for the European Union, both approved in 2016. It seeks to define the attributes of a planning vision or an ‘operating system’ (ibid.: 16) for Spanish cities and their rural hinterlands. Given the previous constitutional tensions between the centre and its regions in regard to spatial planning, the Agenda is carefully presented as ‘a strategic document, non-regulatory in nature, which is imbued with pragmatic approaches that are intended to be useful and, of course, consensual’ (ibid.: 16). These relational sensitivities are underscored by a commentary that allocates implementation actions to the tiers of public administration in line with their statutory remits. Crucially, it argues the need

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to go beyond the preventive controls of regulatory planning and support new formulas of institutional cooperation, citizen participation, local public finance and rural infrastructure. This, in short, is a document that treads warily across political sensitivities and which in its ambitions for inclusiveness and recognition of regional individuality reverts to the inclusion of eighteen maps of the Autonomous Communities and the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Significantly, there is no national-scale diagram by way of territorial synthesis. What makes the Agenda relevant to this current book is that among the layers of information keyed for each descriptive map is the indicative alignment of the Camino de Santiago under the heading Patrimonio Natural y Cultural (Natural and Cultural Heritage). Essentially, this comprises the route of the Camino Francés and not the wider Camino geography, but it makes the point that planning the future of the Camino de Santiago in its entirety comprises a shared responsibility across multiple stakeholders. More generally, the preparation of Municipal Heritage Management Plans is commended (ibid.: 174). The next section in this chapter explores the specific contributions made by the regions and their municipalities by way of regulatory planning. It is appropriate that this narrative is then followed in Chapter 6 with a complementary analysis of investment guidelines and outcomes, given the call in the Urban Agenda for planning actions to go beyond protection and prevention.

Regulatory Planning for the Camino de Santiago in the Autonomous Communities Regulatory planning specifically for the Camino de Santiago in the Autonomous Communities is primarily denoted by three interlocking instruments: legislative provisions, regional territorial plans and municipal special protection plans. The independence of each region to decide on its approach to these matters has resulted in the publication of a substantial body of policy material within which there are evolving variations in content and status reflecting both the local standing of the many Ways and political sensitivities around public intervention. Additionally, it would seem that regulatory planning responsiveness to the challenges of managing the development pressures being placed on the Camino de Santiago is particularly well advanced by those regions which have the Council of Europe Cultural Route (1987) and UNESCO World Heritage Site (1993 and 2015) designations within their territories, notwithstanding the much wider geography of itineraries that traverse Spain. Table 5.1 reflects this situation and offers a hitherto unpublished composite of significant legislative decision-making and its related content.

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Table 5.1 Key legislative provisions for the Camino de Santiago in Autonomous Communities. Autonomous Community Legislation Aragón

Asturias

Content

Decreto 96/1988

Creation of the Technical Coordination Commission for the recovery and revitalisation of the Camino de Santiago.

Resolución de 26 de abril de 1993

File initiated with an interim declaration and cartography of the Camino de Santiago in Aragón.

Ley 3/1999

Omnibus Cultural Heritage provisions in Aragón.

Resolución de 25 de junio de 2001

Provisional delimitation of the Camino de Santiago published for public consultation.

Resolución de 23 de septiembre de 2002

Modification of the provisional delimitation of the Camino de Santiago in Aragón where recovery of the historical road is impossible.

Resolución de 14 de enero de 2004

Continuation of the procedure initiated for the identification and delimitation of the Camino de Santiago in Aragón.

Decreto 202/ 2014

Approval of the Territorial Planning Strategy of Aragón.

Decreto 2/2015

Consolidated text of the Land Planning law of Aragón that specifies Special Territorial Planning Directives.

Decreto 211/ 2018

The Special Territorial Planning Directive of the Camino de Santiago is approved.

Decreto 202/ 2019

Establishes the Coordination Commission of the Camino de Santiago/Camino Francés in Aragón.

Decreto 83/ 1997

Creation of the Jacobean Commission of the Principality of Asturias for the identification, recovery and revitalisation of the Camino de Santiago.

Ley 1/2001

On cultural heritage of Asturias, with municipal Special Plan protection of the paths of the Camino de Santiago cited in the Additional Provisions.

Decreto 63/2006

Delimits the inland and coastal routes of the Camino de Santiago with protection regulations.

Libro Blanco del Camino de Santiago 2016

White Paper on legislative provisions and investment guidelines for the Camino de Santiago in Asturias.

Resolución de 28 de enero de 2020

Modification of Decreto 63/2006 confirming minimum protection bands for the Caminos de Santiago and the role of future Special Plans to expand the protection environment.

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Autonomous Community Legislation Basque Country

Cantabria

Castilla y León

Content

Ley 7/1990

On cultural heritage of the Basque Country.

Orden de 15 de Junio de 1993

Identification and delimitation of the Camino de Santiago route commencement.

Decreto 14/2000

Delimitation and protective regime for coastal and interior routes of the Camino de Santiago.

Decreto 2/2012

Revised delimitation of coastal and interior routes of the Camino de Santiago because of uncertainty, and stating of protective regulations.

Decreto 28/1991

Establishment of the Commission for the Recovery and Revitalisation of the Camino de Santiago in Cantabria.

Ley 11/1998

On cultural heritage of Cantabria.

Acuerdo 15 de febrero 2007

Lebaniega route of the Camino de Santiago declared a property of Cultural Interest under Ley 11/1998 de 15 de octobre on Cultural Heritage of Cantabria.

Resolución 29 de agosta de2013

Files initiated for definition of Camino de Santiago de la Costa and Lebaniega routes and their protection.

Resolución 19 de octobre de 2015

Final declaration of the coastal and inland connecting routes of the Camino de Santiago and their protection.

Decreto 286/ 1987

Establishes the Commission of Castilla y León for the recovery and revitalisation of the Camino de Santiago.

Resolución de 18 To delimit the zone affected by the designation of the de marzo de 1993 Camino de Santiago. Ley 10/1998

Omnibus legislation on territorial planning in Castilla y León

Decreto 324/1999 Defines the area affected by the declaration of the Camino de Santiago as a historic complex. Ley 12/2002

On protection of the cultural heritage of Castilla y León.

Decreto 22/2004

Approval of omnibus planning regulations for Castilla y León to include municipality Special Protection Plans for environment, cultural heritage and landscape.

Decreto 24/2006

A new Camino de Santiago Commission for Castilla y León is established.

Decreto 37/2007

On the protection of the Cultural Heritage of Castilla y León.

Resolución de 25 de mai de 2010

Announcement of public consultation towards approval of the regional plan for the territorial scope of the Camino de Santiago in Castilla y León.

Decreto 58/2013

Modification of the Camino de Santiago Commission for Castilla y León. (continued)

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Table 5.1 Continued Autonomous Community Legislation Galicia

Content

Decreto 147/1983 Xunta de Galicia assumes powers on artistic, archaeological and historical heritage. Orden 14/5/1991 Complementary and subsidiary planning rules for the Camino de Santiago municipalities in the provinces of de 14 de mayo A Coruña and Lugo. Decreto 63/1992

The composition and operation of the Territorial Commissions of Historical Heritage in Galicia are restructured.

Resolución de 12 noviembre de 1992

Delimitation of the Camino Francés approved on an interim basis.

Ley 8/1995

Omnibus legislation on cultural heritage of Galicia; the Commission of the Historical Patrimony of the City and the Camino de Santiago is named as an Advisory Body of the Ministry of Culture regarding cultural heritage.

Ley 3/1996

Protection regulations for the sections of the Camino de Santiago in Galicia.

Resolución de 30 de Julio de 2010

Initiation of the delimitation file for the Camino Francés with exception between Amenal and Lavacolla airport.

Decreto 19/2011

Land management guidelines approved and intention announced to prepare a Special Plan for the protection of the Caminos de Santiago.

Decreto 227/2011 Delimitation (with maps) of the Camino Francés from the municipality of Pedrafita do Cebreiro to O Pino with exception between Amenal and Lavacolla airport. Decreto 144/2012 Delimitation (with maps) of Camino Francés between Amenal and Lavacolla airport. Decreto 247/2012 Delimitation of the Camino Francés in the municipality of Santiago de Compostela. Decreto 267/2012 Delimitation of the Camino de Santiago del Norte. Decreto 154/2013 Delimitation approved of sections of Camino del Norte, Portugués, Ruta de la Plata, Camino de Fisterra passing through the municipality of Santiago de Compostela. Decreto 110/2014 Delimitation approved of Camino de Santiago Inglés. Decreto 158/2013 Delimitation approved of the Camino de Santiago del Norte, Ruta de la Costa.

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Autonomous Community Legislation Galicia (continued)

Ley 5/2016

Content Cultural heritage of Galicia; Title VI, Article 73 – Article 82: planning regulations for the Camino de Santiago.

Decreto 107/2016 Creates the Interdepartmental Commission of the Camino de Santiago.

La Rioja

Decreto 93/2017

Includes regulations for the Advisory Council of the Camino de Santiago.

Decreto 83/2018

Approves the Basic Regional Plan for Galicia.

Resolución 589/2019

Superior Court of Justice of Galicia judgement on the appeal against the designation of the Camino Francés at Lavacolla Airport, O Pino.

Decreto 20/1988 Creation of the Commission for the recovery and revitalisation of the Camino de Santiago. Resolución de 10 Approval of Special Plan for the protection of the de agosto de 1998 Camino de Santiago de la Rioja. Ley 7/2004

Navarra

On cultural, historical and artistic heritage of La Rioja.

Ley Foral 6/1987 Regional urban standards for protection and use of land. Acuerdo de 28 de Interdepartmental Commission created by agreement to coordinate measures for the Camino de Santiago. enero de 1988 Decreto Foral 107/1988

Provisionally defines the Camino de Santiago for public consultation over 2 months.

Decreto Foral 290/1988

Definitive delimitation of the Camino de Santiago and protection regulations.

Orden Foral 107/1993

The Camino de Santiago as having cultural interest in the matter of real estate is provisionally defined.

Decreto Foral 324/1993

The territorial scope of the Camino de Santiago is definitively delimited as having cultural interest to complement its previous declaration as a historicartistic ensemble.

Ley Foral 14/2005 Omnibus legislation protecting the cultural heritage of Navarra and confirming the preparation of Special Protection Plans by local entities. Sources: Sanz Larruga 1997; González Bonome 1999; Santiago Iglesias 2008; Somoza Medina and Lois González 2017; and information derived from Autonomous Community Official Gazette/Bulletin websites, retrieved from December 2019 to June 2020.

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Possibly the single most critical event in stimulating the emergence of contemporary legislative provisions to protect the Camino de Santiago was the declaration by the Council of Europe in 1987 recognising the Camino Francés as a cultural itinerary. That unleashed a frenzy of regulatory planning initiatives by the Autonomous Communities within whose territories the Way is demarcated and collaboration with the ministries of central government. In 1987 a cooperation agreement was signed between these parties, leading to the establishment of a high-level Coordinating Council which subsequently became the Jacobean Council by Royal Decree 1530/1991. As a first step in the attempted delivery of this shared commitment to work more closely together, several of the Autonomous Communities legislated for the setting up of regional commissions to advise on the recovery and delimitation of the Camino de Santiago: Castilla y León in 1987, Aragón, La Rioja and Navarra in 1988, and Cantabria in 1991. Also around that time, a state sponsored commission was established to identify the paths of the Camino de Santiago and to catalogue its built heritage. Tensions between the various stakeholders arising from administrative fragmentation proved the undoing of that attempt at coordinated action, although in another contemporaneous research project an illustrated analysis of the relationship between settlement form and landscape morphology across the full extent of the Camino Francés was published (see Passini 1993). In the case of Galicia, as host of the pilgrim destination, a report on the revitalisation of the Camino de Santiago had been published previously in 1985 which included an analysis of the history and itinerary of the Camino Francés, the extant legal framework for its protection, and proposals for the establishment of a Technical Commission for the Coordination of the Camino de Santiago along with new legislation on its delimitation and land-use planning regulations. As observed by Sanz Larruga (1997: 157), this ambitious action programme was not executed. By 1991, however, the urgency attached to making preparations for the forthcoming Holy Year, branded as Xacobeo, set in train a wave of public administration initiatives in Galicia that included interim protection for the Camino de Santiago through the approval of province-based planning regulations. In 1992 new legislation (Decreto 63/1992) specified that the Historical Heritage Commission of Santiago de Compostela and the Camino de Santiago would have a territorial remit, to include the Camino de Santiago within the Autonomous Community, and have appointed to it a UNESCO representative. In 1993 UNESCO inscribed the Camino Francés on the World Heritage list. The passage of Ley 3/1996 eventually brought a regional perspective on regulatory planning controls into play, following the approval of cultural heritage legislation for Galicia during the previous year (Ley 8/1995). The 1996 legislation provided for

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the initiation of procedures for the delimitation and demarcation of the Camino de Santiago routes in Galicia with a lead role being taken by the Xunta’s Ministry of Culture. The width of the Way would be at least three metres, and have adjacent to it lateral protection areas with a minimum width of three metres and areas of environmental protection consisting of two thirty-metre wide strips measured from the outer edge of the Way. The subsequent detailed prescription would then be set within the framework of a special plan for the protection and promotion of the Camino de Santiago that would be prepared in consultation with its advisory committee and those municipalities located along the Way. The approval of Ley 5/2016 on the protection of cultural heritage restated these goals of delineating and safeguarding the Caminos de Santiago and again promised the preparation and approval of an integrated territorial plan for the routes. This has been slow to emerge although, in 2018, the Xunta de Galicia adopted the Autonomous Basic Plan of Galicia (discussed further below) with significant route designations, although legal proceedings at that time were still unfolding regarding a small section of the Camino Francés at Lavacolla airport. At root here within this protracted period of over three decades are the hidden tensions between the exercising of private land development rights and the wider public interest of heritage protection which surface in the technical-political arena when routes are defined with precision, along with land-use prohibitions and sanctions for breaches in the regulatory code. More generally, as noted by Agronoff (2007: 49), there is considerable local identity and loyalty within each region of Spain which contributes to resistance in being managed from above. These attributes play into the party and electoral politics of regulatory planning protocols. The post-Franco legal protection of the Camino de Santiago in Spain was first secured by the Autonomous Community of Navarra in 1988 and the content of this statute is illustrative of why such concerns may arise. In this case a definitive delineation with supporting graphic documentation and an accompanying protection protocol is defined in Decreto Foral 290/1988. The Preamble acknowledges the input of the Interdepartmental Commission and the importance of a period of public consultation followed by the consideration of written representations prior to its adoption. The Camino de Santiago is then defined as a strip of land three metres wide which will function as a long-distance pedestrian and equestrian path on which all motor vehicles, with the exception of those seeking farm access, are prohibited. On either side of this pathway a strip of land three metres wide is given special emphasis in serving to enhance the integrity of the route. Tree planting is permitted, infrastructure may be authorised but other forms of construction and all operations related, say to quarrying and mining, are forbidden. Additionally, a thirty-metre zone of

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environmental protection on each side of the outer edge of the pathway is included in the legislation and within which there is a strong presumption against development. Apart from the construction of infrastructure and facilities linked to the conservation, improvement and enjoyment of the Way and its environment which may be authorised, all other construction activities are prohibited. The legislation decrees that all local and regional planning documents and determinations must incorporate these provisions. Finally, a series of statutory Articles provides enforcement details on infractions and their punishment by fines and mandatory restoration of land and buildings to their initial situation. The Decree is succinct in its coverage and, to its credit, it has not only stood the test of time, but has also acted as an exemplar for other Autonomous Communities to follow or adapt. The formula of a delineated path width, adjacent buffers and wider landscape protection zones is commonplace, although the planning documentation has over time become considerably more strategic and wideranging in order to comply with evolving procedural obligations, European Union environmental assessment directives, and the need to transcend mere regulatory decision-making. The 2010 draft Regional Plan of Territorial Scope for the Camino de Santiago in Castilla y León and the Special Directive for Territorial Planning of the Camino de Santiago-Camino Francés as it passes through Aragón, approved by the Governing Council of the Autonomous Community in 2018 (Decreto 211/2018), are useful illustrations of this more recent genre of spatial planning, albeit with very different outcomes arising from their respective planning processes. In June 2010 the Ministry of Development in Castilla y León announced the beginning of a public consultation period of forty-five days aimed at contributing towards the approval of its regional plan for the territory of the Camino de Santiago (Resolución de 25 de mai de 2010). The plan incorporated an analysis of some 422 kilometres of the route of the Camino Francés and an additional 218 kilometres of alternative itineraries, which in total involved eighty-five municipalities and a further 111 smaller settlements. The main purpose of the plan, over a ten-year period, was stated as protecting and revitalising the Camino corridors through a series of actions that ranged across landscape quality, road infrastructure, services, energy and municipal planning instruments. Two scales of Camino protection were advanced: the reinstating of a 100-metre band on each of the path, as decreed by the Autonomous Community in 1999 (Decreto 324/1999); and a wider one-kilometre visual influence control zone whose precise delimitation would be subsequently informed by onthe-ground landscape characteristics. (The width of this secondary zone had previously been prescribed in a scoping brief by the Junta de Castilla y León.) Particular attention was given to standards for the retention of

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vernacular architecture and monumental structures and design principles were set out for new buildings, open space and public realm in towns and villages (see Andrés and Masiá 2011). The praiseworthy and overarching goal can thus be viewed as wanting to protect the Camino space as a whole landscape. However, for reasons related perhaps to local political opposition to this fine-grained planning control, or more likely interdepartmental rivalry within the Autonomous Community, the regional plan would appear not to have been adopted. In 2016 the authority to initiate the preparation of a specific Territorial Plan for the Camino de Santiago in Castilla y León was explained by the Ministry of Development and Environment as being within the remit of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism because of the subject matter (La Nueva Cronica 2016). All this points to the wider challenges across Autonomous Communities of securing integrated sectoral and territorial planning when powers and practice are ‘zealously compartmentalised in the different competency areas’ (Ivars Baidal 2004: 329). The Aragón planning project formally commenced in 2016 although its antecedents can be traced back to 1988 with the formation a Technical Coordination Commission for the recovery of the Camino de Santiago (Table 5.1) and subsequent provisional delimitations that included mention of protected thirty-metre bands on each side of the Way. Between August and October 2017 a draft of the Special Directive was made available for public consultation and oral hearings, and following consideration of representations, a revised document together with a Strategic Environmental Assessment was submitted in January 2018 to the Aragónese Institute of Environment Management for independent scrutiny. The modifications included in the new plan comprised the possible future identification of alternative pilgrim paths, road safety and the mention of the role of local tourism associations in delivering some of the action programme elements. Taking into account the Institute’s feedback, the Special Directive was finally adopted in December 2018. Given a longstanding controversy in Aragón regarding the potential impact on the Camino de Santiago from the enlargement of the Yesa Reservoir (see Chapter 7 below), the completion of these new regulations could be interpreted as seeking to draw a line under the politico-technical debate during that recent period. But what also comes through here is the careful attention given to procedural protocol that ensured that the preparation of the Special Directive was in compliance with the content of the overarching Aragón Land Planning Law of 2015. Accordingly, the Autonomous Community was able to confidently declare, given potential Court litigation, that the regulatory provisions contained in the Special Directive of Territorial Planning for the Camino de Santiago are mandatory in their effect and have particular significance in relation to environmental protection. The previously de-

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clared thirty-metre protection buffer zone on each side of the Camino is restated, but the Special Directive also breaks new ground in Aragón by defining one-kilometre wide linear bands on each side of the delimited route as comprising its ‘scope’. This outer limit draws where possible on easily recognisable elements in the landscape such as rural roads, forest tracks, railways and water courses and takes account of inter-visibility between the Camino and these nearby areas; in short, the concerns being addressed relate to the possible alteration by and the adverse visual impact of development related actions within the environs of the Way. Accordingly, the Special Directive offers a sensitive approach to the protection of cultural heritage that is more attuned to landscape realities, but which in turn places strong reliance for effective implementation on appropriate regulatory planning decision-making by or on behalf of the sixteen rural municipalities in the Provinces of Huesca and Zaragoza through which the Camino de Santiago passes. There is, however, an additional dimension to the Special Directive regarding the expansion of sustainable tourism consistent with the protection of cultural heritage. The departure point here comprises the objectives of the Aragón Territorial Planning Strategy (Decreto 202/2014) which seek to strengthen the economic competitiveness, social cohesion and demographic composition of the region, not least in rural areas. A series of strategies and action measures are set out in the Special Directive for the revival of settlement nuclei, farm tourism, natural resource management, enhanced accessibility and external collaboration. These steer the Special Directive into the realm of investment guidelines, discussed more fully in the next chapter, but critically it allows for the realisation of a more comprehensive and integrated perspective on planning for change. Essentially, the Aragón Special Directive for Territorial Planning of the Camino de Santiago-Camino Francés combines a high-level regulatory regime with transformational programme-led ambitions. Turning now to the role of the municipalities in curating the Camino de Santiago as heritage through regulatory planning, it is recognised that this level of government is a main actor in this sphere (see Keyes et al. 1993; OECD 2017). They can prepare a General Urban Plan (Plan General de Ordenación Urbana del Municipio) which sets out restrictions on development and which can give special emphasis to the protection of historic districts. Property that is declared as having cultural interest can have the immediate environment around it declared a protected zone with accompanying regulations for spaces, plots and buildings whose alteration would adversely affect the cultural heritage attributes. For staffing budgetary reasons, very small municipalities will often not have any land-use plan or deal with building permits and, in those cases, these regulatory functions are usually exercised at Provincial level. The Spanish planning system also allows for the preparation by municipalities of Special Protec-

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tion Plans (Planes Especiales de Protección) which may serve to expand on the provisions in a regional Territorial Plan or municipal General Urban Plan. The important aspect here is that they offer a measure of statutory protection for historical-artistic sites and countryside, not least through the detailed listing of buildings and the preservation of landscape character. This instrument has been deployed in the case of the Camino de Santiago although its use does vary considerably across and within the Autonomous Communities with the regional administrations performing a supervisory role in regard to their approval. In order to more fully understand the nature of this intervention, a de novo analysis of municipalities located on the Camino Francés within Castilla y León was carried out. The results are summarised in Table 5.2. The non-approval of the territorial plan for the Camino de Santiago in Castilla y León, discussed above, prompted a number of municipalities to prepare Special Protection Plans largely over the period 2013 to 2019. Indeed, the draft regional plan from 2010 had indicated the value of publishing special plans for landscape protection particularly in regard to the need to preserve views into and out of settlement nuclei. Some twenty such plans have now been written, and on occasion have been updated, with the greatest concentration being in the Province of León which correspondingly has the lowest dependency by municipalities on provincial planning regulations. The draft regional territorial plan is still regarded as a valid reference document and its regulatory rubric of a protected pathway and landscape buffer zones is carried forward. In the 2016 Special Plan for the protection of the Camino de Santiago in the municipality of San Justo de la Vega, for example, the rural axis of the Camino is protected at a minimum width of three metres and, in the built up area, Table 5.2 Planning instruments for municipalities on the Camino Francés in Castilla y León, 2020.

Province

Municipalities on the Camino Francés

Municipalities with a Special Protection Plan for the Camino de Santiago

Municipalities with other planning instruments

Municipalities with reliance on Provincial planning instruments

Burgos

29

4

11

14

Palencia

19

3

1

15

León

33

13

18

2

Total

81

20

30

31

Sources: List of municipalities derived from Castilla y León Decreto 324/1999; planning instruments derived from municipality websites and Archivo de Planeamiento Urbanístico y Ordenación del Territorio vigente, retrieved January 2020.

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the space between the building facades facing on to the Camino is protected. Additionally, the buildings along the Camino de Santiago whose facades and plots overlook the Way are protected. Bands of 100 metres on either side of the Way as it crosses rural land are indicated in order to safeguard cultural heritage, with wider protection in the countryside on each side of the Camino de Santiago comprising the visual envelops out to the horizon. The village is located three kilometres east of Astorga and, given its proximity, would be susceptible to urban generated development pressure and thus these controls can be appreciated as precautionary in intent. The regulatory planning response is deemed consistent with Autonomous Community legislation in the form of Decreto 324/1999 and with the extant general planning instruments for the municipality that have been in force since 2003. Furthermore, the content of the special plan is deemed compliant with the requirements set out in Decreto 37/2007 which specifies a minimum content comprising spatial and economic analyses, illustrated inventories of property with heritage value, zoning plans and building regulations. The prescription of the Plan Especial, therefore, goes well beyond the provisions of the General Urban Plan by bringing considerable place-based depth to the protection of the Camino de Santiago. Its principal value is perceived as stronger legal security in decision-making by giving precise physical details of protected buildings and plots. The Plan Especial for San Justo de la Vega is expansive in its format, but concern must remain regarding the protections available within a loosely defined wider visual envelop in the surrounding countryside. Moreover, at a strategic level it also highlights a piecemeal approach across the region to the protection of the Camino de Santiago in that its entire routing, as illustrated in Table 5.2, is not covered by equivalent regulatory protocols. The recent experience in Galicia of more complete statutory coverage is, consequently, worth brief examination by way of comparison. This commentary, thus far, points to two main trajectories of regulatory planning within the Autonomous Communities: that by the regional administrations and that by the municipalities. In July 2018 the Consello de la Xunta de Galicia approved the Basic Regional Plan for Galicia (Plan Básico Autonómico de Galicia) following compliance with mandatory procedures of strategic environmental assessment, a period of public and department consultation, the consideration of representations, examination by an independent environmental agency and final consideration by the Superior Commission of Urban Planning in Galicia (Decreto 83/2018). The significance of the Plan is that for the first time in Galicia all municipalities now have access to a comprehensive planning instrument that can give legal certainty to decision-making in relation to land zoning and building regulations. The Basic Regional Plan is designed to

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be complementary to municipality General Urban Plans and does not replace them. It repeals, however, the subsidiary planning ordinances of the four provinces (Ourense, Lugo, Pontevedra and A Coruña) and integrates into a single reference document all relevant central government and Autonomous Community regulations. The Basic Regional Plan for Galicia, accordingly, bridges multiple spatial scales (national, regional, provincial and municipal) and by incorporating these land management protocols, it aims to provide transparency, speed of decision making and consistency in this sphere of public policy. The Plan, needless to say, has profound relevance for curating the Camino de Santiago network of routes in Galicia. The accompanying portfolio of maps gives varying representations of Camino heritage that comprises in some instances a zone of protection (for example, the Camino Francés), or just simply the alignment of the route itself (for example, the Camino de Invierno). It is noteworthy that these data draw on earlier fieldwork undertaken by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism/Ministry of Culture, Education and University Planning over the period from 2010 which subsequently informed a series of legislative declarations with attached detailed maps on delimitation: the Camino Francés from its entrance into Galicia to the municipality of O Pino (Decreto 227/2011), the Camino Francés in Santiago de Compostela (Decreto 247/2012), the Camino del Norte (Decreto 267/2012), other Camino routes within Santiago de Compostela (Decreto 154/2013), the Camino Inglés (Decreto 110/2014), and the Camino del Norte Ruta de la Costa (Decreto 158/2014). There is a commitment to updating at least annually the Basic Regional Plan for Galicia, including its cartography, thus ensuring its ongoing relevance and completeness regarding the Camino de Santiago itineraries. A final observation is that to counteract any perception that the planning regime in Galicia has adopted an absolutist and negative stance on development along the Camino de Santiago, the Xunta has published two non-statutory design guides in 2012 and 2016 that are aimed at assisting with the authorisation of development projects in a manner consistent with sustaining the cultural heritage of the Camino de Santiago (Xunta de Galicia 2012; Xunta de Galicia 2016). Particular attention is given to the form, materials and finishes of residential, commercial and industrial development within the three- and thirty-metre buffer zones with consideration also being given to public realm, infrastructure and afforestation investment. Regulatory planning is a balancing process across often competing interests and, in Galicia, the Camino de Santiago experience, thus far, would suggest that reaching political consensus on protecting its heritage attributes requires considerable time, steadfastness and a willingness to devise pragmatic planning instruments.

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Conclusion This chapter offers an important analysis of the contribution made by regulatory planning protocols to curating the heritage integrity of the Camino de Santiago. Essentially, the process within Autonomous Communities has required the setting up of expert committees, followed by the identification of the routes, and then finally the preparation of regulatory planning guidelines. For those directly unaffected by planning policy, it is an activity that may largely go unnoticed. Yet, the potential contribution being made to protecting the Ways of Saint James is immense and this helps to sustain an environmental character that pilgrims enjoy and tourism agencies promote. The planning quest has not been a quick fix, has had to take into account both technical and political considerations, and over time has pursued more precise delineations and greater certainty in decision-making that can meet the test of legal rigour. Nonetheless, what lies beneath this complexity of legislation and plans is the exercising of competing power relationships, so much so that across many decades the Camino de Santiago is constantly being recalibrated as a result of the interaction between its official curators and a web of economic and social interests. As concluded by Somoza Medina and Lois González (2017: 60), physical-territorial planning and strategic-economic planning do not always walk side by side.

CHAPTER 6

Programme and Project Investment Guidelines

Introduction The thrust of the previous chapter is to highlight the contribution that regulatory physical planning policy is making to the protection of the Camino de Santiago through a combination of protected route designations, the delimitation of buffer zones and controls on development that extend out to the wider zones of visual influence. Essentially, this intervention can be regarded as trying to stop unwelcome things from happening on behalf of the public interest. There is, however, an additional set of interventions that support pilgrimage as heritage and tourism and which emphasise positive management through investment. Again, the initiative primarily rests with government and its agencies to determine the scope of these priorities and to link this with implementation in terms of timing, budgets and other stakeholder participation. A focus on visitors that provides for a diversity of needs has to be set beside a willingness to allow those travelling an itinerary to nurture their own experiences from an admixture of religious, spiritual and secular engagement. At the same time, it is vital that host communities are energised to participate in and benefit from these spaces of investment. This chapter deals with these matters and considers how planning and development proposals are manifested in three approaches to curating the Camino de Santiago: special investment strategies, tourism development frameworks, and project guidelines and funding.

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Special Investment Strategies In December 2012 four voluntary associations from Medina de Rioseco, Vallisoletana, Segovia and Madrid with an interest in the Camino de Madrid signed off on a Master Plan for the period up to 2021 that is designed to encourage the delivery of measures that might assist with preparations for and delivery of the 2021 Holy Year. This is regarded as a working document that would be useful to the Autonomous Communities of Madrid and Castilla y León, the provincial councils of Segovia, Valladolid and León, municipalities, community groups and those parishes situated along the itinerary. The intended reach of the investment strategy is wide, but what makes it distinctive is that it is one of the first such plans in Spain to look towards the Jubilee year time horizon of 2021 and it is very much bottom-up in its design. The Camino de Madrid runs for 320 kilometres from Madrid to Sahagún at which point it joins up with the Camino Francés for a further 356 kilometres to Santiago de Compostela. The strategy is concerned with the itinerary to Sahagún and is underpinned by several principles, agreed previously in 2009 at a forum attended by more than forty institutions and associations, which capture the essence of what this type of plan should concern itself with: • that the Camino from Madrid to Santiago belongs to everyone, both pilgrims and residents in the towns along the Way, as well as their respective institutions; • that Jacobean organisations must work in harmony in line with their competences; • that the pilgrim must be respected and safeguarded on the pilgrimage; • that hospitality is the cornerstone of the pilgrimage and must be promoted along the Camino to Sahagún; • that protection of the cultural and environmental heritage of the towns along the Camino de Madrid is essential; • that the Camino must be an agent for transmitting cultural and economic benefits across the territory in which it is located; • that the Camino de Madrid deserves legal recognition and protection that guarantees its integrity and enhances its potential. (Asociación Amigos de los Caminos de Santiago de Madrid et al. 2012: 3–4) These principles have been cited at length because they constitute notions of inclusion, wellbeing, conservation and sustainability which must lie at the heart of efforts to secure the development of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism. The proposals that flow from this statement of values comprise the maintenance and improvement of signage, a more spatially balanced distribution of hostel accommodation, higher standards of hygiene,

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extended convenience services in small towns and villages to benefit local people and pilgrims, better information on the local geography and culture, the creation of wooded rest areas, the restoration of drinking water fountains, road safety for both pilgrims and motorists, and revitalising towns adjacent to the Camino by signage placed at key access roads (ibid.: 39–40). Such proposals can brook no criticism and their robustness is reflected in subsequent special investment strategies with broadly similar content, but where the lead role in those instances has been taken by the regional administrations. Table 6.1 summarises, by way of illustration, the content of four strategies that have been published for the Camino de Santiago in Galicia (2015), Asturias (2016), Aragón (2018) and Castilla y León (2018). Table 6.1 Special investment strategies for the Camino de Santiago.

Content

The Master and Strategic Plan for the Camino de Santiago in Galicia 2015–2021

The Government of Asturias White Paper for the Camino de Santiago

The Guideline for the Camino de Santiago – Camino Francés The Jacobean as it passes 2021 Plan of through Aragón Castilla y León

Stated ‘A roadmap that purpose will establish guidelines for the restoration and protection of the Ways in our region . . . coordinating every public and private actor . . . a management tool for the Galician Government . . . will contribute to the strengthening of Galicia’s tourism brand.’

‘proposes lines of action that affect the protection and management of the Way, its signalling and accessibility for everyone, its international standing in European heritage networks and cultural tourism, its sustainability, support for the hostel network and its role as a cultural and innovation hub . . .’

‘to promote the sustainable development of the municipalities through which the Camino crosses the Autonomous Community, making the management, protection and improvement of natural and cultural heritage compatible with economic competitiveness, strengthening social cohesion and demographic balance.’

Structure 8 strategic lines, 27 action plans and 68 specific actions.

10 lines of action and 80 measures.

10 programmes 9 strategies, 35 programmes and and 63 actions. 172 actions.

‘the protection of the essential values of the pilgrimage to Santiago, especially its cultural and spiritual patrimony and the management of the phenomenon regarding its heritage, the pilgrims and citizens living in the territory.’

(continued)

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Table 6.1 Continued The Master and Strategic Plan for the Camino de Santiago in Galicia Content 2015–2021

The Guideline for the Camino de Santiago – The Government of Asturias White Camino Francés The Jacobean Paper for the as it passes 2021 Plan of Camino de Santiago through Aragón Castilla y León

Themes 1. Administrative collaboration within the Xunta, Galicia and Europe. 2. Protecting and maintaining Camino heritage. 3. Improving accessibility, signage and safety. 4. Plans for environmental management. 5. Pilgrim services in Santiago; new cultural and tourism products. 6. Cultural promotion of pilgrimage routes to Santiago. 7. Hostel services, volunteering, training for excellence, health and wellbeing, entrepreneurship and interpretative centres. 8. Research, education and promotion

1. Protecting the Camino. 2. Signage and maintenance of the Camino. 3. Accessibility for all and road safety. 4. Stakeholder collaboration. 5. Heritage tourism promotion. 6. Internationalisation 7. Hostel assistance, regulation and volunteer training. 8. Landscape enhancement. 9. Jacobean cultural heritage. 10. Communication technology and business support.

Budget

€56.1m to 2021. Annual funding.

1. Identification, conservation and improvement of the Way. 2. Economic revitalisation of towns. 3. Services for residents and pilgrims. 4. New hostels, tourism quality, local produce and agriculture aid. 5. Natural environment and renewable energy. 6. Rural and urban landscapes; intangible cultural heritage. 7. Mobility, accessibility, road safety. 8. Collaboration. 9. Media, social networks and education.

1. Information repository on Ways; path assessment and maintenance. 2. Attention to monumental heritage and iconography of Santiago. 3. Guidelines for territorial and urban planning along the Ways. 4. Infrastructure and services in settlements and localities; training and employment for local people. 5. Pilgrim health and safety, community associations and volunteerism. 6. Student education. 7. Signage and disabled accessibility. 8. Artistic and creative activities. 9. Tourism promotion. 10. Collaboration.

Annual funding.

€12m to 2021.

Sources: Xunta de Galicia 2015; Consejo de Gobierno del Principado de Asturias 2016; Diputación General de Aragón 2018; Junta de Castilla y León 2018.

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Autonomous Communities value their independence of action and that individuality of approach to planning for the Camino de Santiago comes through very clearly in these documents. In Galicia and Castilla y León the emphasis is on preparations for the 2021 Holy Year, though in the case of the former the motivation would seem to lie more with the international imaging potential of a particular tourism brand that is also chasing economic spillovers from Santiago de Compostela into the rest of the region. The strategies for Asturias and Aragón are longer term in their ambition and while each gives considerable attention to the Jacobean theme, the Aragón guideline goes well beyond this perspective and seeks to engage with a more complete approach to regional restructuring in regard to economic competitiveness, social cohesion and demographic balance. These are big concepts that seek to inform bold approaches to planning and development. In other words, the Camino de Santiago is being used as a rhetorical lever to shape deeper policy goals that respond to wider societal challenges within that Autonomous Community. Santiago de Compostela and the tomb of the Apostle are certainly geographically remote from the lived lives of its inhabitants and thus the political imperative of perceived responsiveness to domestic issues is key to understanding a stance that allows the Aragón strategy to extend its compass of concern from agriculture and agri-food to urban regeneration, infrastructure and services for local people. In each instance the structure of the documents is broadly similar, comprising banner-like headlines that cascade downwards to multiple actions that vary in their specificity; some actions are hard deliverables that are comparable with the proposals advanced for the Camino Madrid, discussed above, while others are soft nudges to do things differently. Accordingly, the actions need to be read against the promised budgets, and given the urgency of a visible response in the face of the fast approaching 2021 Holy Year, it is not surprising that Galicia and Castilla y León should indicate the intended scale of expenditure. And on an annual rolling-forward basis, the Principality of Asturias announced in 2017 the implementation of thirty-eight measures comprising an investment of some €835,000 for the three Camino routes passing through the region (Consejo de Gobierno del Principado de Asturias 2017a). A steady stream of funded achievements always makes for good media coverage and photograph opportunities. The underlying commonality, however, in all documents is envisioned collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, a recognition that there are constraints on each regional administration on what they can achieve by acting alone. Chapter 4 in this book has highlighted just how interdependent the institutions and agencies of the Camino de Santiago governance arena really are, and these special investment strategies are a further reminder of the importance of good civic relationships. The documents are indeed roadmaps to imagined futures,

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but they are transitory agendas which will certainly be revisited and refashioned in the lead up to subsequent Holy Years. A common but important feature in these investment frameworks is a commitment to maintaining and improving the Camino de Santiago routes. The ubiquitous yellow arrow and scallop shell, along with a diverse artwork of directional stonecraft, provide reassurance that the way being followed will get pilgrims to the end of that day’s stage, taking into account road safety, ease of passage and visual interest. In that regard, route originality should more correctly be interpreted as a zone of movement where the precise axis is subject to detailed reconfiguration. This is most apparent along stretches of the Camino Inglés on which new stretches are being waymarked to make the journey shorter or to avoid steep ascents. A related consideration is the presence of route alternatives, most common on the Vía de la Plata and Camino Portugués, which require advance interpretation through the aid of pilgrim guidebooks. And on some occasions it is simply best to ignore signage in the vicinity of new roads or railways and rely on gut instinct. In short, the Camino de Santiago is constantly being remade by state bodies and civil society through physical works that offer more comfortable walking surfaces, avoidance of tramping through water courses, and separation from road traffic. Major infrastructure projects can also impact on the precise routing. Nonetheless, these improvements are not without controversy and have been condemned by some local associations as diluting the historical integrity of pilgrimage trails, not least when they are widened, paved with concrete or re-located to allow for land consolidation. Path maintenance, on the other hand, requires annual painting of the yellow arrows and in 2019, for example, the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago reported that its members had repainted the signage along some 5,000 kilometres of pilgrim routes (see https://www.caminosantiago.org/cpper egrino/asociaciones/campa04.asp).

Tourism Development Frameworks Tourism strategies are a universal feature of government interest in a sector of the economy that can create wealth and generate employment, and in Spain their preparation and implementation can be found at central government, region, province and municipality levels. Invariably, they are far from being slim documents but the essence of their content can be distilled into four components: product development (something to sell), accommodation and hospitality (somewhere to stay and eat), accessibility and mobility (how to get there and how to travel around), and marketing and promotion (who to target and how to engage their attention). These

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are the building blocks of the tourism industry which are then added to by operational measures related to collaborative governance, training, research, budgets and delivery. The strategies are commonly territorial in their coverage and aspire to comprehensiveness, but they can also be themed around a particular resource such as cultural heritage, landscape or sporting activity, what might be called in the business literature a ‘unique selling product’. They are future oriented over a period of several years and then are rolled forward into subsequent programme iterations that may be coterminous with public finance management and government election cycles. They may also be aimed at preparations for a time-specified special event and seek to present a prospectus of action-oriented investments that will add to the experience of that special event. The corresponding depth of engagement, however, does vary and, as might be expected in regard to the Jacobean milieu as tourism product, much depends on its geographical concentration, the availability of alternative products, and the politics of decision-making on behalf of an ever critical and segmented electorate comprising business, local residents and civil society groups. The legitimacy of tourism development frameworks is consequently reinforced by a much stated emphasis on participatory planning processes involving expert advice, stakeholder consultation and primary data collected from visitors. The important point here is that all these characteristics can be identified in regard to the Camino de Santiago network of pilgrimage routes and their shared focus on Santiago de Compostela as host of the pilgrimage shrine. This section of the chapter examines the embedding of Jacobean heritage in several broad-ranging regional tourism strategies and then goes on to explore the content of the Xunta de Galicia Xacobeo 2021 Strategic Plan, published in 2019, to assist with celebrating that forthcoming Holy Year. The shape of tourism investment frameworks commonly moves from a wide-ranging analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT), to the defining of a vision or mission statement, and then to objectives that inform programme lines and their attendant actions. Table 6.2 summarises the key principles and product development priorities contained in the eight tourism strategic plans for those Autonomous Communities which are crossed by UNESCO inscribed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes. These regions do not contain the traditional sand and sea costas much favoured by the high-volume international tourism markets and thus they have in common a dependency on environment and culture as the twin springboards from which to launch their publicity campaigns. The investment frameworks also suggest an underlying fragility within the sector and frequent attention is drawn to the challenges of seasonality, increasing the spend profile of visitors, and strengthening governance arrangements. The political imperative of spreading the benefits of tourism and the ongoing search for new products with a territorial

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Table 6.2 Tourism development frameworks for regions with UNESCO Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes. Tourism Plan

Key principles

Product priorities

Aragón Tourism Strategy 2016–2020

• Improved coordination. • Creation of innovative products. • Consolidation of ‘star’ products and development of ‘emerging’ products. • Training and capacity building of local people. • Increase the quality and accessibility of experiences. • Professionalise the tourism sector. • Strengthening promotion through ICT. • ‘Aragón’ as a driver for tourism products. • Repeat business.

STAR PRODUCTS • Snow and skiing. • Rural environment and accommodation. • Cultural heritage. • Trekking. • Mudéjar art. • Spas. • Natural protected areas. • Adventure sports. • Romanesque art. • Nature: ecotourism. EMERGING PRODUCTS • Francisco de Goya. • Camino de Santiago. • Gastronomy. • Campsites and mobile homes. • Family activities. • Spiritual and religious tourism. • Mountain biking. • Wine tourism. • World Heritage. • Conventions. INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS • Fishing. • River and reservoir sports. • Hiking around mountain lakes. • Ornithology. • Historical commemoration events. • Slow driving (touring). • Leisure science (palaeontology). • Astronomy. • Language tuition. • Myco-tourism (mushrooms).

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Tourism Plan

Key principles

Product priorities

Principality of Asturias 2020 Sustainable Tourism Programme

• Sustainability. • Internationalisation. • Capability to remove seasonality. • Territorial balance.

• • • • • • • • •

Tourism Marketing • Adjust seasonality. Plan for Cantabria • Diversify demand through 2018–2019 more international visitors. • Project new messages around economic recovery. • Higher average spend, increasing sales and more high-value products. • Communication through mobile devices. • Greater private sector participation. • Digital marketing and monitoring systems.

Gastronomic tourism. Nature tourism. Rural tourism. Active and sports tourism. Cultural tourism. Industrial tourism. The Ways of St James. Cities of Asturias. Coast and Seaside Towns.

MAIN PRODUCTS • Coast-Beach. • Culture-heritage. • Rural-nature. • Urban getaway of Santander. SPECIALISED PRODUCTS • Business events. • Sport-adventure. • Health & Wellness. • Ferry-Cruises.

Strategic Plan for • Compatibility between • Tourism in Castilla environmental conservation • • y León 2019–2023 and tourism development. • • Equity and social cohesion drawing on the UNWTO Global • • Code of Ethics for Tourism. • • Economic prosperity in • Castilla y León based on • quality employment & • professional role models. • • Social dialogue and training. • • Education for the public and • private sectors regarding responsible and sustainable tourism management. • • Partnership based tourism • sustainability management • programmes. • • Traveller awareness of • sustainable tourism. • • Sustainable tourism in the culture of schools and universities. • Use of digital technology in the tourism sector in Castilla y León.

Natural spaces and reserves. Motor-home travel. Festivals. Historical re-enactments. Film tourism. Archaeology. Hunting and fishing. Astro-tourism. Environment for schools. Product based touring routes. Bullfighting. Agri-food and gastronomy. Camino de Santiago religious tourism and pilgrimage. Holy Week celebrations. Mining tourism. Castles and museums. International cathedrals. Snow and skiing. World Heritage properties.

(continued)

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Figure 6.2 Continued Tourism Plan

Key principles

Product priorities

Galician Tourism Strategy 2020

• Make Galicia a sustainable, innovative and competitive tourist destination. • Participation and collaboration among tourism stakeholders are the basis on which an offer of unique resources and experiences is based. • Effective marketing in the internal and external tourism markets. • A brand that identifies us as a territory, namely Galicia. • Quality will add value to all sectors of the economy.

• • • • • • • • • •

La Rioja Partial Plan for Tourism Excellence 2018–2021

• Transfer the values of La Rioja PRIORITY PRODUCTS brand to the tourism product, • Wine tourism. reinforcing its link with the • Camino de Santiago & territory (uniqueness), with Ignaciano. its culture and traditions • Cultural tourism. (authenticity), and with the • Sports tourism. know-how of its people • Meetings and fairs tourism. (quality). • Promote actions that reinforce cross-cutting aspects of tourism linked to market intelligence and innovation. • Improve internal cohesion and governance in the tourism sector.

Strategic Plan for • Optimise the tourist Tourism in Navarra opportunities contained in 2018–2025 Navarra. • Orientate towards economic, environmental and social sustainability. • Competitiveness based on product and destination differentiation. • Differentiation based on the territory, its culture and landscape. • Adopt prioritisation for products. • A tourist territory characterised by innovation. • Citizen participation.

Caminos de Santiago. Nature and ecotourism. Cultural tourism. Beach and coast tourism. Nautical tourism. Inland and rural tourism. Conferences & exhibitions. City breaks. Wine and food. Health, wellbeing & thermal tourism. • Sports tourism (golf). • Itinerary tourism. • Emergent products (e.g. artisan practices, language, astronomy).

• Rural-nature (hiking, cycling, schools & families in nature parks). • Cultural (Camino de Santiago, Camino Ignaciano, Romanesque Route, Renaissance Route, Hemingway Route). • Essential Navarra (Gastronomy-Oenology, the Wine Route, weekend getaways). • Meetings (congresses, conventions, incentive travel and events).

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Tourism Plan

Key principles

Product priorities

Vasco Tourism Strategy 2030

• Promote the consumption of local products and local culture among tourists. • Build competitive advantage through high-quality experiences. • Regular review of the resource inventory to offset deterioration. • Technology-based marketing to attract longer-stay, highspending customers. • Customer relationship management to build loyalty around high rates of satisfaction. • Marketing support to tourism companies using digital technology. • Talented leadership in the governance of tourism management. • Culture shift from bureaucratic management procedures to agile and fastresponse engagement with tourism entrepreneurs. • Reduce operating costs, extend the season, increase spend and stay-time, territorial deconcentration, diversify demand, environmental sustainability, competitiveness based on innovation and human capital, increase wellbeing for Basque society.

HIGH PRIORITY PRODUCTS • Itineraries (e.g. The Basque Route). • Meetings. • Food and wine. • Getaways. • Basque Coast. MEDIUM PRIORITY PRODUCTS • Nature. • Culture. LOW PRIORITY PRODUCTS • Sports tourism. • New niches.

Sources: Diputación General de Aragón 2016; Consejo de Gobierno del Principado de Asturias 2017b; Gobierno de Navarra 2017; Xunta de Galicia 2017; Gobierno de Cantabria 2018; Gobierno de La Rioja 2018; Gobierno Vasco 2018; Junta de Castilla y León 2019.

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specificity that can generate comparative advantage (or differentiation, as it is called on occasions) are much rehearsed themes. However, these are not quick fix deliverables and, as attested to by the guiding principles in these frameworks, they require inputs related to training, education and a professionalism that is oriented to quality. The Camino de Santiago as tourism product commands a varying profile against all these considerations. It commonly sits within lists of largely similar tourism products (Table 6.2) and in most instances it is overtly represented as an imaging brand and activity with sporting, religious and spiritual meaning. Thus, the Aragón Tourism Strategy 2016–2020 hails spiritual tourism as a product strength and identifies the Camino as an emerging product whose strategic attractiveness is beginning to grow, but has not yet been sufficiently developed in regard to market share. In the Navarra Tourism Strategy 2018–2025 the region’s ‘rich and varied cultural and historical heritage, especially from the medieval period’ is noted and the Camino de Santiago is observed as being a destination brand that has consolidated itself within the international arena. This is echoed within the 2020 Galicia Strategy, within which the many routes of the Camino de Santiago are elevated to a strategic line on their own and then deployed to give traction to other tourism products that can appeal to an international market. Galicia has indeed a strong comparative advantage over other regions in this sphere and not surprisingly the Camino heritage informs its future ambitions for the sector as whole, but this begs the question as to whether too much product weight is being loaded on to this cultural heritage. The Basque region, in contrast, has adopted the bold approach of promoting ‘The Basque Route’ as a more definitive marker for its territory. This project is awarded high-priority status in the 2030 investment framework and, while the Camino de Santiago is profiled, it sits alongside several alternative itineraries that seek to widen the geographical spread of motor-based tourism activity. It would seem that the Basque Region has deliberately pursued a more independent trajectory to avoid any dilution of its tourism base in the context of considerable product overlap with adjacent Autonomous Communities. La Rioja comprises a further variation and while it is understandably comfortable with its product appeal of wine tourism, the region gives considerable attention to an empirical analysis of and prescription for Camino tourism as an opportunity to diversify its economic base. A further and emergent feature in these frameworks is the conscious targeting of time horizons and narratives to fit closely with the reach and content of overarching policy documents. Thus, for example, following the adoption in 2015 of a United Nations declaration on sustainable development that references tourism, the Government of Spain published its 2030 agenda for sustainable tourism across the country in 2019, which, inter alia, states:

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The tourism potential of Spain must be a factor that contributes to addressing the great challenges facing Spanish society, such as the growing depopulation of rural areas or inequality. It is necessary to manage tourism as an engine of economic and social development, and ensure that the wealth benefits and also the burdens generated by tourism, are distributed with greater equity throughout the territory and across all groups in society. (Gobierno de España 2019: 10)

The sustainability theme is particularly well represented within the Asturias tourism programme and calls on the Camino de Santiago to be an engine for rural transformation and greater territorial balance that resonates with these comments from the national agenda. In short, what comes through from these investment frameworks is the deployment of tourism in general as a ‘passport to development’ (after de Kadt 1980) and a multi-purpose Camino de Santiago, in particular, as a metaphorical stamp (sello) to embolden the credencial of citizen expectation.

Xacobeo 2021 A programme of events to celebrate the 2021 Holy Year has been coordinated at a national level by the Jacobean Council (https://consejojac obeox21.es/en/agenda/). Prominent within the listing of performing arts, exhibitions, academic activities and tourism promotions is the contribution of agencies linked to the Xunta de Galicia and which derive from its Xacobeo 2021 Strategic Plan. This was launched with great fanfare in July 2019. The eye-catching headline commitment is to invest €247.7 million up to 2022, but significantly the plan also looks towards the more distant Holy Years of 2027 and 2032 on the basis that the promised short-term investment will have longer impact and act as a precursor to those followon special events. The tone of the document comes across, however, as a quasi-political manifesto, not least in the way that rhetorical emphasis is given to the envisaged benefits for Galician citizens. In its opening pages, for example, the plan states: the Xunta wants to turn this celebration into something extraordinary and unique with international repercussions. . . The Xacobeo 2021 must mean an opportunity to foster our culture, take care of our landscape and promote our talent. It is an event that will attract resources and stimulate our economy, especially that of the rural territories through which the Camino passes. The Xacobeo 2021 will also be a unique opportunity to create local community cohesion and feelings of pride among the Galician people. (Xunta de Galicia 2019a: 8)

It is not without significance that forthcoming regional government elections in 2020 loomed large at that time in the consciousness of the body politic and thus, not only is Xacobeo 2021 hailed as a celebration,

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but also as ‘an opportunity to trace the course of Galicia over the next decade’ (ibid.: 8). As a technical document to facilitate this trajectory of change, the investment guidelines follow the well-trodden rubric of survey-analysisplan. The net of participatory involvement in the Xunta de Galicia Xacobeo 2021 Strategic Plan is cast widely and the context setting frameworks of the Master Plan of the Camino de Santiago 2015–2021 and the Tourism Strategy of Galicia 2020, discussed above within this chapter, are acknowledged. Strategic values (such as, hospitality, creativity and legacy) and guiding principles (such as gender equality, accessibility for all and environmental sustainability) inform the mission statement and vision, and are closely followed by specific lines of action which are broadly defined within three clusters: the celebration of Jacobean heritage, the people – both Galicians and pilgrims, and the physical spaces of the Camino de Santiago. A total of thirty-one themes are then put forward for elaboration at a later stage which partly mirror the range of generic products summarised in Table 6.2 above. But there is also a degree of welcome specificity which gives voice to Jacobean heritage and signposts forthcoming spiritual and religious projects, pilgrim storytelling, the support offered by associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago along with maintenance, enhancement and conservation of the Ways that cross Galicia. A preliminary programme of some 170 events and activities, prepared by the Xunta de Galicia Organising Commission for Xacobeo 2021, was subsequently launched in December 2019 at the City of Culture (Citadade da Cultura) in Santiago de Compostela (Xunta de Galicia 2019b). The schedule is heavily geared towards conferences, exhibitions, music and literature and it is noteworthy that the largest category of initiatives relates to marketing and promotion, including attendance at international tourism trade fairs. In contrast, the spiritual and religious category of projects, notwithstanding its prominence in the Xacobeo 2021 Strategic Plan of the previous July, is denoted by only one event – an Inter-religious meeting (Encontro interrelixioso) and the category of Pilgrims (Peregrinas) is devoid of any attention. The secularism of Xacobeo 2021 as heritage and tourism has clearly prevailed. Nonetheless, the Xunta did endeavour to qualify the content and delivery of this preliminary announcement by pointing out at the launch event that the December 2019 programme should be interpreted only as a ‘living text’ that was still dependent on collaboration, a response from central government and, in passing, the results of the Autonomous Community elections during the 2020 election year. The preparation and delivery of investment guidelines can be regarded, accordingly, as a messy business and in that vein, three issues regarding Xacobeo 2021 require brief consideration: political tension, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the perspective of the Church.

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Political Tension The signs of unease in the relationship between the Xunta de Galicia and the Spanish Government visibly surfaced in January 2020 following the investiture of the Sánchez coalition in Madrid. Its declared commitment to an efficiency of public spending could be easily interpreted as a tightening of budgets and prompted the then Galician Minister for Culture and Tourism to suggest that ‘it would be a true lack of vision and a loss of opportunity’ for the whole of Spain if the central government were not to be involved in Xacobeo 2021 (Bolsamania 2020a). Concern was expressed that this event had not been mentioned in some programme agreements. The Government response was swift and comprised the setting up of a commission to monitor investments for the forthcoming Holy Year and a restating of past and current expenditure related to the special celebration (Europa Press 2020a). In dismissing this initiative, the Xunta in turn condemned the commission created by the Government Delegation in Galicia as being nothing more than a ‘smokescreen’ and unnecessary, since there already existed official forums that enjoy the participation of the different stakeholders. The point is made by way of added criticism, that the Government representative in Galicia had not attended meetings of the Xunta sponsored commission established in 2018 (Europa Press 2020b). However, it is a moot point as to whether or not the playing out of this issue merely reflected deeper political party rivalries in the run up to a regional election that, prior to its postponement because of COVID-19, had been scheduled for April 2020. The ruling party of the Xunta de Galicia at the time of these exchanges was affiliated to the PP (Galician People’s Party) while Prime Minister Sánchez is a member of PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party). Previously in the 2009 regional election the ruling PSOE and its Galician Nationalist coalition partner had been defeated by the PP on a margin of one seat, while in the subsequent 2012 and 2016 elections the PP were returned with a majority of only seven seats. The stakes could not have been higher, therefore, in terms of political advantage and it would seem that Xacobeo 2021 had simply been caught in the crossfire.

The Potential Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has had a catastrophic impact in Spain and the daily briefings published by the Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago (https:// www.caminosantiago.org/cpperegrino/prensa/tbprensa.asp) have painted a gloomy picture of closed churches, cafes and hostels, very few pilgrims and deep worries around an uncertain longer term economic recovery of the Camino. The consequences for tourism marketing and promotion are reflected, for example, in changes to the ‘Green Spain’ territorial brand

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which reached its thirtieth anniversary in October 2019 and draws on the collaboration of the Asturias, Basque Country, Cantabria and Galicia Autonomous Communities. In April 2020, the four regions agreed to suspend all international promotion related to ‘Green Spain’ and focus instead on the national market with the hope that this re-orientation might invigorate the tourism industry across northern Spain with its strong product base developed around nature, food and wine, rural tourism and the Camino de Santiago (Bolsamania 2020b). The significance of this decision points towards prospective changes to the 2021 Holy Year and it is not surprising that this celebration has been extended into 2022. There is Papal discretion and a degree of precedent on the matter when, previously, Pope Pius XI created an extraordinary Holy Year in 1938 to facilitate pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela that had been impacted by the Civil War during the previous 1937 Holy Year. This required flexibility is illustrated by the Spanish government announcement in May 2020 that tax benefits for private sector investors in Xacobeo 2021 would also run through to 2022.

The Perspective of the Church Finally, some comment is required on the relationship between Xacobeo 2021 and the mission of the Church to invite veneration of the Apostle in a Holy Year celebration. The discussion in this chapter suggests a challenge in reconciling these different ambitions and the evidence points to a clear separation of the secular and the religious dimensions of the special event. The Church, for example, is unequivocal in stating a position that is very different from the Xacobeo 2021 popular mainstream: the Compostela Holy Year has primarily a religious purpose. It is a true Year of Grace in which, through continuous conversion and assiduous preaching of the Word of God, the faith and witness of Christians are favoured; through prayer and charity the holiness of the faithful is promoted; and through hope for the future, the continuous evangelisation of society is encouraged, which can be the greatest spiritual and apostolic reward in accordance with a rich and historic tradition. (Barrio Barrio 2019b)

Pope Francis in his December 2020 message to the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela on the occasion of the Opening of the Holy Door in the cathedral that begins the Compostela Jubilee Year comments further on this religious meaning. He states that three gestures remind pilgrims of the reason for their trip: The first is to contemplate in the Pórtico de la Gloria the serene gaze of Jesus, merciful judge, who with his open arms offers us his forgiveness and welcomes us into

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his house . . . The second is the emotional embrace of the image of the pilgrim Apostle. We embrace the entire Church in him . . . The third is the participation in the Eucharistic liturgy, the sound of the bells, the smoke from the botafumeiro, the songs and prayers [which] invite us to feel that we are the People of God who make their traditions a song of praise. (La Iglesia en los Caminos 2021: 5)

This alternative reading of the Holy Year is underlined by the production of separate branding instruments. The Church, for example, does not use the moniker Xacobeo 2021, preferring instead the more complete phrase Año Santo Compostelán 2021; nor has it adopted the stylised scallop shell logo of Xacobeo 2021 which it has replaced with an assembled image that combines the scallop silhouette, a starburst of lines and the Cross of Santiago, which collectively expresses the union of Apostolic tradition, pilgrimage and pilgrim fraternity across space and time. Additionally, the official Church poster adopts the Pórtico de la Gloria as its central feature symbolising pilgrim welcome. The inscription below the feet of Saint James – ‘Leave your land. The Apostle is waiting for you’ – alludes to the universal invitation of the Holy Year. In short, there are contrasting communication styles between Church and state and there are very different underlying values but, in common, there is the acknowledgement that the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is both heritage and tourism.

Project Guidelines and Funding In Chapter 4 attention is drawn to the roles played by Government, business and civil society in the governance of the Camino de Santiago. Their legitimacy and credibility in this arena depend very much on an engagement that is action-oriented and supported by the availability of funding. In this regard there is evidence that a contribution is being made to Camino related heritage conservation and tourism development whose objective is to improve not only the pilgrim experience, but also bring benefits to local communities through grant aid and new lines of credit. At central government level a prominent baseline for financial support is set by the law on Spanish Historical Heritage (Ley 16/1985) that replaced legislation in force for almost fifty years and which, while containing sufficient instruments for policy effectiveness, lacked material means for implementation (San Martín Calvo 2001: 267). The 1985 legislation, on the other hand, proudly states that the Government will arrange the necessary measures so that the financing of conservation, maintenance and rehabilitation works, as well as the archaeological inspections and excavations carried out on properties declared to be of cultural interest, have preferential access to official credit in the manner and with the require-

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ments established by its regulatory standards (Article 67). Moreover, the Act specifies that in the budget for each public work, above a specified threshold and with limited exceptions, financed totally or partially by the state, a line of funding equivalent to at least 1 per cent of the state contributed funds be made available to finance the conservation or enhancement of Spanish Historical Heritage (Article 68). In October 2013 a determination by the Ministry of Development that this should be increased to 1.5 per cent was approved by the Government. This funding is available to Autonomous Communities, provinces and municipalities, universities, consortia and foundations. The regulations require that the actions for which grant aid is requested be declared Assets of Cultural Interest, be publicly owned (except for example, actions to be carried out on assets included in the UNESCO World Heritage List), and that the intended use be of a tourism, socio-cultural or public service nature. Special attention in evaluating all bids will be given to projects that are part of historicalartistic itineraries. Accordingly, applications that are located along the Camino de Santiago have been well placed to receive this support and by 2020, when a new round of funding was announced, a total of seventyseven projects had been completed ranging from the upgrading of walking surfaces and public realm, to the restoration of historic buildings and structures. In León, for example, some €2.13 million was expended over the period 2001–2004 on new paving and waymarking within the vicinity of the cathedral that was co-financed on an equal basis between the Ministry of Development and the City Council of León; between 2007 and 2011 two roofing and facade projects with a total value of €819,000 were undertaken at Samos Monastery with 25 per cent co-financing from the Xunta de Galicia and Samos Municipality in each instance; and in Castrojeriz, some €728,000 was spent between 2012 and 2013 on works to protect its ancient fortress with 75 per cent of the budget coming from the Ministry of Development and the balance from the Foundation for the Historical Heritage of Castilla y León, (see http://patrimoniohistorico .fomento.es/content.aspx?u=/MFOM/LANG_CASTELLANO/DIREC CIONES_GENERALES/ARQ_VIVIENDA/1_CULTURAL/INFO_ GENERAL/, retrieved 30 October 2020). Partnership and co-funding emerge as significant attributes in the implementation of project guidelines, and this is further evidenced in the sphere of housing rehabilitation. As noted by Hooper (2006: 319), ‘there are few issues in Spain that arouse more passion than housing’ and, in addressing this policy challenge, governments over the years, including from the Franco era, have long facilitated home ownership, not least through tax relief incentives. There have been successive national housing plans since 1981 that have consistently promoted new house building and urbanisation, but alongside this trajectory there have also been guidelines re-

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lated to the refurbishment of buildings and houses. Following the creation of the Autonomous Communities, urban renovation programmes were introduced gradually into state housing policy and included specific renovation measures in Integrated Rehabilitation Areas (ARI). In that vein, a plan prepared for Santiago de Compostela in 1990 is hailed as being the first in Spain to integrate housing renovation with social and economic revitalisation and heritage protection (Hernández Aja et al. 2015: 9). However, the national emphasis remained for a long time on new build and urban areas. The 2009–2012 State Housing and Rehabilitation Plan broke new ground by specifically including mention of rural municipalities in the programme for comprehensive rehabilitation areas. The subsequent State Plan for the period 2013–2016 included actions related to the conservation of buildings declared as having major cultural interest or located within historical-artistic complexes (Article 20). The response in Galicia was initially twofold. Firstly, public aid for areas of housing rehabilitation in rural municipalities was approved by decree in 2009 (Decreto 402/2009); and secondly, in 2010 a bilateral agreement between the Xunta de Galicia and the central government Ministry of Development formally declared the Caminos de Santiago an Área Rehabilitación Integral (ARI); seven routes were recognised: the Camino Francés, Camino Inglés, Camino de la Plata, Camino Primitivo, Camino del Norte, Camino Portugués and Camino Finisterre-Muxia, comprising in total 108 municipalities and 568 parishes (see https://ari-igvs.xunta.gal/sites/default/files/documentacion/ Declaracion_ARI_Caminos_de_Santiago_0.pdf, retrieved 30 October 2020). The disbursement of public money through the ARI initiative is managed by the Galician Institute of Housing and Land under the title Vivendas do Camino and offers a combination of central government aid and regional grant for each home undergoing renovation along the pathway of the Caminos in cities and towns, and across the entire parishes of rural municipalities through which the routes pass. The guidelines point to the eligibility of maintenance works to bring houses into line with contemporary regulations, energy efficiency improvements and accessibility adaptations and in 2019, in order to ease administrative delays in processing applications, authorisation procedures related to the rehabilitation of Galician built fabric heritage were simplified (Galician Institute of Housing and Land Resolution of 2 August 2019). The Autonomous Community legislation (Ley 1/2019) also acknowledges the wider contribution that this initiative makes to the preservation of rural settlements by avoiding abandonment and depopulation. In 2019 the ARI scheme for the Caminos de Santiago in Galicia was re-launched with a budget of €1.5 million and with the addition of two more routes (the Camino de Invierno and the Camino Portugués de la Costa). This has brought the number of eligible municipalities in Galicia up to 126 and, in turn, has raised the

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number of constituent parishes to 687. The political optics of this intervention are not without significance and again the ambition of spreading the benefits of the Camino de Santiago to local people is all too apparent. The financial services sector has a key role to play in stimulating business investment related to tourism and heritage and, in the run up to Xacobeo 2021, CaixaBank has emerged as a key lender to the hospitality industry across Spain. In June 2019 the bank announced a credit line of €1 billion through its Hotels and Tourism Division to assist tourist accommodation projects linked to the Camino de Santiago that was subsequently rolled out with the high-profile signing of collaboration agreements by several of the Autonomous Communities and the territorial directors of CaixaBank (La Voz de Galicia 2019). Some €950 million of the budget has been aimed at the modernisation of hotels and hostels situated along the various routes that traverse urban and rural areas. Additionally, €50 million has been targeted at promoting entrepreneurship and business start-up related to opportunities derived from the pilgrimage itineraries. Clearly, the economic development potential of the Camino de Santiago is being harnessed by the business sector, but additionally the non-profit sector has been active in promoting employment initiatives connected to its presence in local communities. In Castilla y León a partnership between Fundación ONCE (a national organisation concerned with the training and labour market integration of people with disabilities) and COCEMFE-Castilla y León (a federation of over fifty disability groups in that region) has resulted in the publication of three guidebooks for those provinces through which the Camino Francés runs: the first for Burgos in 2015, with those for León and Palencia following in 2017 (see https://cocemfecyl.es/doc umentacion-de-interes/, retrieved 30 October 2020). Each gives detailed information on market niches, and promotes awareness of accessibility for all in the Camino tourism industry. The availability of adequate financing is recognised as key to business formation and expansion, and importantly the guidelines not only engage with the commercial banking sector, but they also signpost alternative funding sources such as micro credit, business angels and venture capital. Running through these guidebooks is the consistent theme that success lies with the viability of any project and not with the nature of disability. In short, an appreciation of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism identifies strongly with societal values of social inclusion, equality and participation that are defined not just by pilgrim diversity, but also by all those living and working in host communities. The Jacobean routes in Europe straddle national borders and regional boundaries and thus it is not unexpected that the European Union should be supportive of initiatives that involve inter-jurisdictional cooperation. Across the continent a raft of programmes has operated since the reform

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of grant aid arrangements by the European Commission at the end of the 1980s and in each instance the goal is to facilitate innovative projects that can have wider application across member states and further afield. Funding can be used to test new technologies and methods and a project budget can make provision for technical assistance, capacity building and dissemination. The overarching technical goal is to demonstrate the transferability of best practice in a manner that will contribute to the deepening of European solidarity. The Camino de Santiago as heritage and tourism has been deployed as an experimental platform for projects linked to several streams of finance, for example: • the EU INTERREG programme, concerned with regional development, has sought to strengthen the Camino de Santiago in Spain through territorial alliances in France and Portugal. Within the 2014–2020 period the Jacob@ccess project has provided cross-border interpretive centres customised for people with physical and mental disabilities in Ostabat (France), Jaca and Pamplona (Spain), with some €68 million coming from the European Regional Development Fund (see https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/projects/ France/jacob-ccess-breaking-social-barriers-on-the-way-of-saintjames, retrieved 30 October 2020); • INTERREG has also supported the production of cartography software in the Facendo Caminho project, announced in January 2020. This is designed to aid the promotion of the pilgrim Ways in Galicia and northern Portugal with grant aid amounting to €657,000 (see https://observador.pt/2020/01/16/facendo-caminho-une-norte-deportugal-e-galiza-para-promover-caminhos-de-santiago/, retrieved 30 October 2020); • the EU LIFE programme as an instrument for the environment and climate action has supported the Life Stars+20 project with partners drawn from the five Autonomous Communities of the Camino Francés. Its purpose was to demonstrate a reduction of CO2 emissions and the consumption of energy and water in pilgrim accommodation using a combination of new technology and modified guest behaviour, with the transferable potential of the model being validated by an Austrian partner. The final report of that project, which more than met its target of 20 per cent reductions, was presented to the Xunta de Galicia in July 2018 (see https://www.lifestarsplus20.eu/, retrieved 30 October 2020); • the EU COSME programme for small- and medium-sized enterprises has resourced the Saber Universal project to devise accessiblefor-all tourism interventions along the Camino de Santiago and along Saint Benedict’s Way in Italy with an emphasis on training

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for service providers. It involved devising trips for seniors and those with visual or cognitive disabilities travelling with a companion and linking these with accommodation and transfer arrangements (see https://www.openuproutes.eu/il-progetto-saber/, retrieved 30 October 2020). These are but a few of the many proposals that have been supported by EU funds with the Camino de Santiago as the driver of innovative practice. But additionally, the experience of the Camino de Santiago has been drawn upon by other project promoters searching for transferable lessons on how best to curate their own pilgrimage heritages. It is worth mentioning here, Green Pilgrimage with partners drawn from Britain, Norway, Sweden, Romania and Italy. Notably, it includes membership by the Church of England, through the Diocese of Canterbury. This INTERREG project, with a budget of some €1.138 million for the period 2017–2021, has published an extensive database of good practice and a library of study visit findings that include observations on the Camino de Santiago and insights obtained from key stakeholders around its management protocols (see https://www.interregeurope.eu/greenpilgrimage/, retrieved 30 October 2020). In short, there is much evidence of creative and diverse curatorship practice in this sphere of pilgrimage. It may well be dependent on shortterm competitive programme funding but it is unlikely that beneficiaries are indifferent to the longer term macro political objectives of European cohesion and integration.

Conclusion This chapter draws attention to the multiple ways in which investment is being prompted and delivered around the Camino de Santiago theme. The pilgrimage routes have powerful utility value and are being subjected to no small amount of political leverage regarding the creation and distribution of perceived economic and social development benefits. Accordingly, pilgrimage is not just about pilgrims on the move, but also quite clearly the people in those communities through which pilgrims travel. The evidence is that religious tradition is being appropriated for secular gains that are derived from pilgrimage as heritage and tourism. It may be that the best outcome is peaceful coexistence between the Church, government, civil society and commerce that allows each entity to pursue its own interests within the shared spaces of routes and destination. This chapter reveals something of the nature of that pragmatic accommodation.

CHAPTER 7

Environmental Stewardship

Introduction Curating the interaction between environment and society to secure stewardship outcomes requires a combination of transnational organisational leadership, high-level government commitment, business responsiveness and civil society action. The varied landscapes and townscapes of Spain are special spaces within which the Camino de Santiago endures as cultural heritage and where the activities of each of these stakeholder groups are visible. Projects both big and small, but with environmental consequences, now attract scrutiny which can generate interventions that may range from constructive advice to hostile protest. Political context and policy conventions are important in understanding the nature of public action and thus what may have been quietly tolerated or suppressed in the past cannot be viewed as a precedent that constrains the present and steers the future. Accordingly, the relationships of engagement can shift over time, between conflict and consensus, depending on the acceptability of societal benefits, the perceived scale of potential threats and the appropriateness of mitigation measures. International protocols around environmental impact increasingly dictate public administration behaviour in regard to procedures related to project design, consultation and decisionmaking. This chapter examines how environmental stewardship, defined as approaches to using, restoring and protecting, has impacted the sacred landscapes of pilgrimage and the itineraries that pilgrims follow. The discussion considers how the medieval alignment of the Camino de Santiago has played a role in mediating the outcomes of three macro scale projects in Galicia and Aragón/Navarra: the Belesar reservoir and the associated reconstruction of Portomarín completed in the 1960s; the Yesa reservoir, its contemporary expansion and the survival of cultural heritage; and the

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Touro-O Pino mining proposal on which the Xunta de Galicia reached a determination in 2020. These projects, of course, may not directly impinge on the consciousness of the travelling pilgrim compared with local inhabitants, but collectively they have prompted passionate debate around how best to steward core assets of the Camino environment.

The Belesar Reservoir and Portomarín – Reclaiming the Past as Heritage? In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War power shortages were a feature of everyday life and had a particular impact on industrial production. The generating of hydro-electricity was regarded as a reliable source of energy and, therefore, its expansion was seen as essential in driving forward the further industrialisation of the national economy. But, as noted by Swyngedouw (2007), the ambitions of Franco’s mission also extended to the agricultural sector where, as part of a modernisation programme, irrigation water and land would become available to a previously landless peasant class. In this post-war context, the re-making of the hydro-social landscape was part of a wider goal to create a culturally, politically and physically integrated nationalist territorial scale and to ‘obliterate earlier regionalist desires’ (ibid.: 11). During the years of the dictatorship the number of dams across the country increased from some 180 to over 800, with this growth particularly marked from the mid-1950s following accords with the USA that enhanced flows of capital, expertise and steel (ibid.: 13–14). In Galicia the catchment of the river Mino was hailed as a strategic resource for much needed electricity generation and in 1955 the government announced the construction of the Belesar dam downstream from the village of Portomarín. The electricity company Fuerzas Eléctricas de Noroeste Sociedad Anónima (FENOSA), based in A Coruña, took charge of the project which at that time was deemed the largest of its kind in Spain and was inaugurated by el Caudillo in 1963. At the initial planning stage a lower water level had been anticipated which might have saved Portomarín, but the reservoir holding capacity was revised upwards in 1958 for operating efficiency purposes. The rising water levels subsequently flooded a total of twenty-six villages across some fifty kilometres of river valley terrain (Fernández Rodríguez 2019: 92) and in this process the medieval settlement of Portomarín, previously declared by Franco as a national site of historical-artistic interest in 1946, was inundated. What pilgrims travelling the Camino Francés encounter today is an interesting but stage-managed urban design that incorporates elements of a built history re-created on a new site overlooking the reservoir. It is a construction that has raised awkward questions around reclaiming the past as heritage.

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Old Portomarín In his journey to Santiago de Compostela in 1954, following closely the route of Amery Picaud and the twelfth-century narrative of the Codex Calixtinus, Walter Starkie summarises his initial encounter of Portomarín with these few words: From the highlands we descended towards the plain, and saw in the distance the church of Portomarín nestling on the banks of the River Mino. Although today a forlorn little hamlet, lying so far from the modern world that life does not seem to have changed there for five hundred years, it was, nevertheless, an important stage in the Jacobean pilgrimage . . . In 993 Portomarín was given by the King to the See of Santiago, and its importance grew because it was situated by the ancient bridge over the Mino, of which today only a fragment remains. (Starkie 1957: 295)

At that time the village comprised two neighbourhoods, one on each side of the river, San Juan on the right bank and San Pedro on the opposite side, whose combined population in 1950 was some 450 inhabitants. Fortunately, an extensive photograph archive has survived (http://porto marincidre.blogspot.com/2013/01/portomarin-viejo.html) which allows for an appreciation of both the built environment and aspects of community life before the abandonment. Both nodes were linear in form, following the curves of the Mino, and comprised a series of narrow streets, mostly unpaved or with stone cobbles and with open surface water drains. The houses and business premises comprised in the main a combination of two- and three-storey structures and in a few instances displayed the combination of column and arcade that would subsequently become the architectural signature of the new settlement. Community life revolved around the riverfront walkways and each neighbourhood had its distinctive Romanesque church, with the ruins of the twelfth-century rebuilt Roman bridge also containing, above one of its two remaining arches, a small chapel dedicated to Santiago in which medieval pilgrims received a blessing on their way to Compostela. Essentially, this was a farming and artisan village with animal and equipment storehouses situated at groundfloor level in the larger properties. Following the collapse of the Roman bridge in the late nineteenth century, the connection between each side of the river was made initially by rowing boat and later by a replacement bridge completed in 1930.

Planning and Reconstruction of New Portomarín The design of a new Portomarín commenced in 1955 and was overseen by the architect and planner Francisco Pons-Sorolla and his professional colleague Manuel Morena Lacasa (Castro Fernández 2010). While the

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principal concern was to rescue key buildings of historical and architectural importance and to re-locate them within a planned setting, the technical brief also required the development of a modern village with all amenities. Rather than repeat the linear and organic structure of the existing settlement with its medieval roots, the decision was taken to design a compact greenfield settlement on lands well above the water level of the reservoir. At that time the National Institute of Colonisation was involved in a project of new village development across rural Spain that was linked to agrarian reform and resettlement. Between 1945 and 1970 some 300 ‘new towns’ were constructed (Centellas Soler 2010: 109) and while Portomarín was not part of that initiative, it is noteworthy that many of the urban design principles applied to the former can be identified in its morphology. These comprise a geometrical layout that incorporates grid variations with diagonal mesh offsets, a public square at key intersections which contains an imposing church and town hall, a variation in house types and plot sizes that, in part, reflect occupational status, and a social infrastructure of school, clinic and police station. All these elements are present in the plan for Portomarín (Figure 7.1). The main shopping street (originally Calle General Franco and renamed Rúa de Compostela in 2015) leads uphill to the main square (Plaza de los Condes de Fenosa) within the core grid, beyond which there is a diagonal mesh that reflects

Figure 7.1 The planned morphology of Portomarín (adapted from http:// portomarincidre.blogspot.com/2013/05/portomarin-portomarin-nuevo.html, retrieved 30 April 2020).

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the rising topography but also avoids the creation of very long street perspectives. A combination of curved and straight edges defined by the road network and public open space give visual enclosure to the plan form. The implementation of the design was completed between 1960 and 1964 and has established a new local vernacular of whitewashed walls, granite quoins and architraves, with dark green finishes to woodwork and railings. The pillared arcades, shared surface paved streets and flights of steps emphasise pedestrian convenience with the south facing aspect across the reservoir giving maximum sunshine and views to the distant countryside. As a town planning project, the case of Portomarín is particularly notable for the manner in which some elements of its built heritage have been re-assembled and re-shaped. This process has been subject to commentary, not least by members of the design team. In an article for a Madrid-based professional magazine, Arquitectura, Pons Sorolla (1961) discussed some of the dilemmas linked to the transplanting of monuments with artistic and historic value. The analysis is fascinating because it was published at the time that this work was being carried out and thus it reads almost as a reflective diary of someone in search of exoneration. His argument rests on the proposition that the complete or partial relocation of exceptional heritage buildings is to be condemned and can only be condoned as the lesser evil when extraordinary circumstances arise, when remaining in situ is incompatible with the national interest, or, when faced with their irredeemable disappearance, it is necessary to come to their rescue in part or in whole. In choosing a new location, he underlines the importance of a setting that is close in character to the initial site. The construction of the Belesar reservoir precipitated radical intervention at Portomarín. He argues that moving the two medieval neighbourhoods in their entirety would not have been feasible given the poor quality of much of the materials and, in the same vein, a reproduction of the village would have been condemned from the outset as ‘reprehensible life size, mockpastiche’ (Pons Sorolla 1961: 21). Accordingly, the planning scheme, discussed above, served as the technical entry point to accommodate those elements in the old town of greatest monumental value. Thus, the fortress church of San Juan (known also as San Nicolas) would come to enjoy a commanding presence in the main square (Illustration 7.1), the smaller church of San Pedro a more quiet location, and the remaining section of the Roman bridge with the chapel dedicated to Santiago forming a symbolic pilgrim gateway to the village at the end of the new and higher bridge across the river Mino (Illustration 7.2). Unquestionably, these are landmark structures that define much of the photogenic personality of Portomarín today. There is also, however, an alternative narrative that invites a more critical appreciation of this outcome.

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Illustration 7.1 Church of San Juan, Portomarín, 2006 (photograph by José Antonio Gil Martínez, taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_San_ Xo%C3%A1n,_Portomar%C3%ADn#/media/File:Portomar%C3%ADn.jpg under CC BY 2.0).

Illustration 7.2 Chapel of Santiago and its bridge arch, Portomarín, 2017 (© Michael Murray).

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Reclaiming the Past as Heritage? At the scale of the individual element, what was re-created on the new site was different in detail from whence it had been removed (Fernández Rodríguez 2019: 94–95). The church of San Juan was modified by restoring the crenellations that had once defined it as a fortress building, the rear sacristy was removed and the stonework used for repairs elsewhere, and the eighteenth-century baroque altarpiece at the head of the sanctuary was placed in storage, only to be discovered in 2007 among an assortment of antiques in the Pazo Berbetoros house, itself partially relocated from the San Pedro neighbourhood and lavishly restored. Only the facade of the church of San Pedro with its Romanesque doorway was deemed worthy of transfer to a new site and this was subsequently appended to a new build structure. These alterations went further to include the enhancement of siting. In the case of the remains of the Roman arch bridge across the river Mino and the chapel to Santiago, a new staircase of forty-eight steps was constructed to facilitate pilgrim ascent above the main road into Portomarín at the end of the new bridge. The original riverside setting of the church of San Juan was replaced by the village square and the height of the church was exaggerated by keeping the surrounding buildings at two storeys. Photographs show the former entrance to the church as being below its north side street level, whereas in its current setting the church appears isolated in a flat space with the steps up to the front doorway further enhancing its monumental character. The church of San Pedro was previously situated within an alleyway cluster of dwellings, whereas it now enjoys a wooded park environment with a much longer uninterrupted vista to the front doorway. Clearly, there is an issue around the integrity of what has been achieved, which speaks more to dramatic reinvention rather than mere reconstruction. The propaganda value to the Franco government cannot be discounted (Castro Fernández 2010: 238) since by giving Portomarín an image that combined history and modernity along the ancient pilgrim route, attention could be drawn to the efforts being made to promote physical revitalisation. The emotional story of displacement, referred to locally at that time as ‘Atropello’ (outrage), was sidelined and open protest in the form of a lock-in at the church of St Juan was punished by arrest and fines. On the fiftieth anniversary of the completion of the new town, these painful memories were still being expressed, as illustrated by the newspaper testimony of one resident reported under the heading ‘Los opositores al traslado de Portomarín fueron silenciados’ (Opponents of the Portomarín Relocation Were Silenced) (La Voz de Galicia 2013: 4). Instead, the creation of picturesque spaces and show-cased monumentalism, along with the replacement of the poor-quality housing and public realm in old Portomarín, gave the village a new set of official credentials that could

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also help elevate the international tourism attraction of the Camino de Santiago. From a very low base, this effort gathered momentum during the 1960s and was formally given national strategic endorsement by the Ministry of Information and Tourism in 1971 when the Camino was declared one of eight routes across Spain that would be targeted for tourism development (Orden de 9 de marzo de 1971). As evidence of that high-level commitment, the Minister of Information and Tourism, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, had opened a Parador de Turismo in Portomarín in 1966; his patronage was recognised by a street adjacent to the church of San Juan being named in his honour. There is no doubt that the many visitors to Portomarín enjoy its ambience and hospitality, but most will be unaware of the contrived representation that lies hidden in the commodification of its heritage.

The Yesa Reservoir and the Survival of Abandonment? Driving between Pamplona and Huesca in the autumn of 2019 is an unusual experience with alternating sections of mountain motorway and winding national road hugging the shoreline of the Yesa reservoir. At low water level the sandy landscape is eerily empty and the traveller experience is that of solitude derived from the virtual absence of any dispersed rural settlement or inhabited villages. On occasion a few cars parked along the roadside point to something of interest below. Later investigation indicates the presence of thermal springs at the foot of the abandoned village of Tiermas. These date from Roman times and during the medieval era were an important stopping off point for pilgrims on the road to Compostela. Other abandoned villages in the vicinity include Escó and Ruesta that are set back on higher sheep grazing land and denoted respectively as onetime places of importance by their solid stone church and fortress towers. The main feature of habitation comprises the small village of Sigüés and its enclosure by a newly erected concrete wall to protect it from inundation. The tranquillity, however, is illusory and masks a complex web of technocratic planning, political rivalry and community protest related to an expansion of the reservoir. Since the 1990s this project has captured the interest of international media, provoked comment from the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and generated litigation within the National and Supreme Courts of Spain. The wellbeing of the Camino de Santiago is an important part of that story but one which, in the context of environmental stewardship, is linked to wider debates on water management policy, reservoir capacity, and project safety. This section of the chapter pays particular attention to the survival of cultural heritage within this area of Aragón and Navarra referred to as Embalsa de Yesa.

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The Reservoir Expansion Project The 74-metre high Yesa dam across the River Aragón, with a storage capacity of 471Hm3 at a normal maximum level of 488m, was inaugurated by General Franco in April 1959 with the propaganda newsreels of the time showing jubilant crowds waving white handkerchiefs during this momentous occasion. Its initial purpose was to supply water carried by the Bardenas Canal for the irrigation of some 61,000 hectares of land connected to rural resettlement in the Ebro Depression and much later for domestic consumption in Zaragoza. The quiet backstory, however, comprised the relocation of inhabitants from the villages of Escó (253), Ruesta (441) and Tiermas (756) during the 1960s, whose agricultural livelihoods were destroyed by the inundation of their most productive land; the reservoir at that time was 14.7 kilometres long by 2.4 kilometres wide (Navas et al. 2009: 16). The later expansion of the Yesa reservoir arose from studies carried out in the 1970s on regulating some tributary rivers of the Ebro through additional dam construction. Because of environmental and social considerations, the option of multiple impoundment was discarded in favour of increasing the capacity of Yesa reservoir and by 1983 a technical consensus had emerged around an enlargement project. The proposal at that time comprised a threefold expansion of capacity to 1,525Hm3 at a normal maximum level of 521m. In 1992 the Water Pact of the Autonomous Community of Aragón endorsed its implementation and the project was also cited that year by Royal Decree as being ‘a works of general interest’ (Ley 3/1992) in response to the need for urgent measures at national level to deal with the effects of drought. Implementation was subsequently carried forward by Ministerial approval of the Ebro Basin Hydrological Plan (Real Decreto 1664/1998). A contract for delivery of the project, budgeted at some €113.5 million, was signed in 2000 and preliminary works commenced the following year. Excavations for the dam began in September 2003. However, in September 2004 the Aragón Water Commission (an advisory, multi-stakeholder body established in 2001) reviewed the intended scale of the Yesa expansion scheme in the context of the Aragón Water Pact and, taking in to account the desirability of maximising the reduction of its environmental impact and securing an adequate increased supply of water, agreed to advocate a reduction of the normal maximum level to 510.5m. The revised capacity would be 1079Hm3. The wideranging briefing document prepared the previous July, on which that significant change of direction was based (Comisión del Agua en Aragón 2004), had concluded: ‘With the expansion set at a level of 510.5m, the effects on patrimony are minimal. The vast majority of the impacts presented by the original project on the archaeological and paleontological

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sites, on the elements of artistic-historical interest in Sigüés, on the hermitages of the area, and on the Camino de Santiago, disappear’ (12). Thereafter, over the period from 2005 the project promoter, the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation, engaged intensively with central government in the preparation of revised technical analyses and the publication of an Environmental Impact Assessment statement which attracted just over 3,700 representations. In October 2011 the modified scheme at a new normal maximum level of 511m and with a revised budget of some €222.7m was finally approved by the Minister for the Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs. However, this was not the end of the matter as a judgement from the Spanish Supreme Court was still awaited on the outcome of an appeal from a previous determination by the National Court in 2007 that had dealt with procedures and decision-making relating to the events of the year 2000. In April 2012 the Supreme Court dismissed this appeal brought by opponents of the Yesa reservoir enlargement. What emerges from this chronology is the protracted nature of a planning process that generated the need for revision and cost adjustment in the context of a highly charged adversarial engagement by parties with an interest in delivering or preventing the project. That context requires some further consideration in order to more fully appreciate the consequences for the Camino de Santiago cultural heritage.

The Politics of Project Adjustment and Protest The idea of inter-basin water transfer projects has long been a feature of hydrological planning in Spain and was designed to allow the movement of a surplus supply in one area to other areas that may be experiencing shortages, thus alleviating adverse impacts on agriculture, industry and urbanisation. Essentially, the concept of transfer was viewed as a macro scale balancing process. The 1993 National Hydrological Plan, for example, proposed the interconnection of all the principal basins on the Iberian peninsula, but administrative and political factors frustrated its implementation. An Ebro basin transfer had been included in that plan but following sustained drought conditions in the south east of the country during the 1990s, the proposal was revisited in the 2001 National Hydrological Plan within which it was intended to transfer 820Hm3 across a distance of 750 kilometres (Albiac et al. 2006: 732). Accordingly, the storage capacity of the enlarged Yesa reservoir would have had strategic significance in facilitating the Ebro transfer which itself became a targeted focus of strong opposition from water resource experts and civil society groups. In addition, the Spanish government was alerted to the non-conformity of the Ebro transfer project with the EU Water Framework Directive and, based on economic and environmental considerations, the reluctance by

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the EU to co-finance its delivery. All these matters came to a head in the aftermath of the 2004 General Election which saw the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) form a minority government that ousted the previous Peoples Party (PP) administration. The 2001 National Hydrological Plan was cancelled and, consequently, so also was the Ebro transfer that had depended for its success on the 521m water level. The outcome, as noted by Casajús-Murillo (2012: 17), was an immediate ‘behind the scenes negotiation’ that included the PSOE, the Aragónese Party (both of which at that time were in coalition government in the region), the General Irrigators Community of the Bardenas Canal (La Comunidad General de Regantes del Canal de las Bardenas), and the Union of Farmers and Ranchers in Aragón (Unión de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Aragón). Out of that discussion emerged a new proposition for a medium height reservoir that would expand water supply and avoid the flooding of Sigüés. It was that proposal which also helped to inform the revisions brought forward by the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation. Essentially, therefore, the adjustment to a normal maximum level of 511m emerged in the context of a political accommodation with producers, but it did not bring on board a range of pressure groups whose common purpose has long been to halt any enlargement of Yesa reservoir. The dominant local voice in the protest movement was the local Rio Aragón Association that has reached out to form an issue network with environmental organisations and municipalities affected by the expansion. It has, for example, formed an alliance with COAGRET, an NGO based in Zaragoza that seeks to coordinate the work of communities across Spain affected by reservoirs and water transfers. Over the period since 1999 Rio Aragón has been at the forefront of organised protest that has comprised a combination of city and reservoir demonstrations, hunger strike action, mobilisation for a general strike within the territory, and music concerts (Carrera López 2012). Politicians have been lobbied, academic commentary has been sought, documentary films have been produced and a formal complaint was lodged with the European Commission in Brussels. The scale of this activity has been unrelenting and has involved litigation in the courts. The language of protest was direct and impassioned and in a 2018 mobilisation poster for a protest march it was declared: ‘Yesa is not to be filled; Yesa is not a simple matter; We want to live here’ (Jacetania Express 2018). In the early days the key issues revolved around the inundation of Sigüés (a small town on the northern side of the reservoir), damage to the natural environment and loss of cultural heritage, but with the construction of the new dam progressing towards a completion date of 2021, attention has turned to public safety. Concern has been raised regarding geological instability and arguments have been presented that connects this with the appearance of mountainside cracks. The danger of the down-

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stream flooding of Sangüesa should the dam be breached has commanded media attention and has put the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation centre stage in issuing reassurances to the contrary (El Confidencial 2020). The war of words shows no sign of abating and highlights the challenges to conflict resolution that surface within the realm of environmental stewardship. In that heated context it might be easy to lose sight of the Camino de Santiago, but its curatorship has remained a thread of common interest between these adversaries in the Yesa enlargement project.

The Camino de Santiago Cultural Heritage The most popular route into Spain from France is by the Camino Francés from St Jean-Pied-de-Port to Roncesvalles. The Camino Aragonés offers a much quieter alternative: in 2018 a total of 404 pilgrims, when handing in a stamped credencial at the pilgrim office in Santiago de Compostela, stated that they had followed this route. It commences at the Pyrenees mountain pass of Somport, where two routes from Montpellier, via Pau and via Carcassonne, converge to cross the border. The 160-kilometre itinerary makes its way southwards to Jaca and then turns west to converge with the main spine of the Camino Francés at Puente la Reina. On reaching the Yesa reservoir pilgrims can choose to follow either a northern or southern route, both of which lead to Sangüesa, a small town some eight kilometres below the dam. Historically, the latter route was most favoured because it presented fewer fast flowing river crossings. Tourism promotion material and guidebooks have continued that tradition and today both Artieda and Ruesta are well-placed stopovers on the edge of the reservoir. The addition to the World Heritage list in 1993 of the Camino Francés from Roncesvalles is well known, but what is less well canvassed is the contemporaneous designation by UNESCO of the Camino Aragonés as part of that inscription. Amery Picaud refers to both routes in the Codex Calixtinus and that acknowledgement was material to its inclusion. Indeed, the route between Somport and Puente la Reina is commonly regarded as a variant and while it enjoys a degree of individuality, the heritage notation treats it as a single entity. This international acclaim has placed the loss of cultural heritage as a result of the Yesa reservoir expansion at the centre of the development-protection conflict and prompted the commencement of scrutiny by the UNESCO Bureau of the World Heritage Committee in 2001. The minutes (World Heritage Committee 2002) of its plenary meeting that year evidence this state of alarm: The Bureau took note of the reservations made by ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) concerning the dam project that represents a threat

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for a part of the Route of Santiago de Compostela. It expressed its concern with regard to the impact of the dam which risks flooding a part of the Route of Santiago de Compostela and requested the Spanish authorities to study all alternative solutions to avoid any negative impact on the values and integrity of the World Heritage site. (131)

There then followed a lengthy period of dialogue with the Spanish authorities to assess impacts and identify mitigation measures. At the normal maximum level of 521m, 7.1 kilometres of the southern route and 2.3 kilometres of the northern route would have been flooded and historical sites in Sigüés along with two hermitages at Ruesta would have been lost. An alternative legal commentary even suggested that a twentytwo-kilometre stretch of the Camino de Santiago would disappear but in the same document (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport 2002 at http://yesano.com/informes/Camino_Santiago/2009_ICOMOS_info rme_Yesa_Camino_Santiago.pdf, 50–53), it is argued that the current route is not the original road travelled by pilgrims, that the UNESCO declaration only affects landmarks on the route rather than a specific route, that the route is not a fixed one, and that the aim is to re-route the road through areas that are not going to be flooded. This redefinition of the boundaries of the Camino de Santiago ‘to conform to contemporary economic requirements’ was curtly dismissed by ICOMOS as carrying with it ‘a suspicion of sophistry’ in its advice to the World Heritage Committee in 2003 (see https://whc.unesco.org/en/soc/2769). Previously, in 1993, the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Education for Aragón published its resolution that identified the physical delimitation of the Camino de Santiago with the supporting graphic documentation determining its layout (Resolución de abril 26, de 1993). Interestingly, the southern route along Yesa reservoir is designated ‘Camino Actual’ (the current Camino) and the northern route ‘Camino Alternativo’ (alternative Camino). The alignments were specified as being complementary to the declaration of the protection of the Camino de Santiago by the Franco government in Decreto 2224/1962. However, by 2004 the World Heritage Committee responded favourably to proposals to reduce the flooding of the southern route to 3.4 kilometres and the northern route to 800 metres as a result of lowering the enlargement level of the reservoir. In addition, protected monuments in Sigüés and Ruesta would not need to be re-located under force majeur legal provisions (see https://whc.unesco.org/en/soc/1473). In 2005 all executive governmental parties were able to accept this compromise which, as noted above, moved to the formal preparation of the 511m normal maximum level modification by the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation. Nonetheless, the advisory Spanish National Committee of ICOMOS con-

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tinued to express its regret regarding the consequences of the outcome for the integrity of the Camino de Santiago. Its position is stated in these terms: The Camino has continuity, the route is practicable, it makes sense. To deliberately destroy it when it has reached such a high level of protection and then to replace it with a false path is meaningless. Acceptance of that philosophy could then be extended to monuments, replacing them when they ‘get in the way’ and to ‘get over’ the problem by simulating them in another location . . . This destruction, this ‘distortion’ of the route, marked by the heritage of pilgrimage and the traces of history, affects the whole Camino de Santiago, a World Heritage Site. (ICOMOS Comité Nacional Español 2009: 18)

All this suggests that official curating of the Camino de Santiago is accompanied at times by a fluidity of heritage construction. The proposed adjustments to the Way and their rationale, described above, strike a chord with the more general observation of Alonso González (2018) that institutions need to conceal the reality of an elusive protection and recovery ambition by enacting ‘new and complex territorialisations’ in a succession of legal and planning policy stipulations (978).

The Survival of Abandonment? In Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 of this book attention is drawn to the publication in 2018 of the special guideline for the territorial planning of the Camino de Santiago–Camino Francés as it passes through Aragón (Decreto 211/2018). When read in the context of this discussion around the enlargement of the Yesa reservoir, the document is indeed timely in that it seeks to draw a line under this deeply contested recent past and give the Camino an official fresh beginning that embraces both heritage protection and investment. The guideline obliquely revisits the debate around the delineation of the route by indicating that the UNESCO inscription will be regarded as a point of reference and that other historical traces will continue to be researched in order to extend the geography of pilgrim movement. The document offers a wide-ranging strategy for safeguarding and promoting the Camino in Aragón and includes generic measures for the rehabilitation of settlement nuclei. The fact that the abandoned villages of Escó, Ruesta and Tiermas are specifically mentioned as being of interest because of their relationship with the Camino offers, perhaps, some crumbs of comfort regarding their future prospects. Their survival following abandonment is illustrated by a degree of local activism. In Escó, architectural designs have been prepared with the support of the village association for building restoration and, in particular, for the creation of a visitor and exhibition centre within the former church. The townscape

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of Ruesta is being recovered and the CGT Union (Confederación General de Trabajadores) has opened hostel accommodation and provided meeting space for the hosting of conferences. Tiermas is probably the site of historic interest in most danger and, while its voluntary group has endeavoured to plead its case, the evidence thus far points to continued physical decay as illustrated by the partial collapse of the church in 2015. No small amount of energy (and funding) is required to sustain these efforts but, as with many voluntary initiatives, atrophy can set in and undermine ambition. An answer to the question posed on the survival of abandonment can be measured against that criterion. But at the very least, one enduring legacy most probably will be the representation of these villages and their Camino de Santiago setting as places of memory in the dialectic of natural resource utility and the displacement of heritage.

The Touro-O Pino Mining Proposal: Effective Community Action? The pilgrim Mass at noon each day in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is always attended by a large congregation with standing space reduced to a minimum. This was the scene on Sunday 27 May 2018, but with added colour and poignancy. Some 100 residents from the neighbouring municipalities of Touro and O Pino, dressed in red t-shirts with a protest logo, had completed a walking pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostle to seek his intercession in their opposition to the re-opening of a copper mine that threatened their local environment. They had crowded into the cathedral and after a reading from the Gospels, one member of the community action group, Plataforma Veciñal Mina Touro-O Pino Non, was invited by the chief celebrant to come forward in the sanctuary and offer a petition to Saint James. Her words (see film archive at https:// youtu.be/CbTs83dnQ0Y) were greeted with loud applause: Apostle Saint James We come before you after doing this short pilgrimage from O Pino. All of us – women, men and children – have walked to your house full of sorrow and fear. We belong to the Neighbourhood Platform Mina Touro O Pino Non; two municipalities that are located on the final stage of the Camino de Santiago (French Way) and almost in the shadow of this cathedral. Saint James, the pilgrimage is not a goal or aim by itself, but implies an exceptional opportunity for introspection, for us to look inside ourselves. It is also an opportunity to express and communicate our concerns and worries, hoping to find answers and light. In the papal encyclical Laudato si Pope Francis has asked us to look after and save the Earth, our planet, as a matter of urgency. He says: ‘The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole

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human family together to seek a sustainable and integrated development, for we know things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; He never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home. Here I want to recognise, encourage and thank all those striving in countless ways to guarantee the protection of the home which we share. . . Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded’. And he adds: ‘There are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected. . . The alliance between the economy and technology ends up sidelining anything unrelated to its immediate interests’. And he denounces the passivity of politicians and society, who look somewhere else while we degrade planet Earth, our home. And of those who, at most, make a speech or say a few words but who do not commit themselves to defending the common good and ecology with concrete actions. We denounce the very serious danger that reopening the mine in Touro and O Pino would pose for people living in these two municipalities and for the protection of nature. We strive every day to educate our children in a clean environment, without pollution, without noise from rock blasting, with mutual respect and hard work. We want the pillars to support good citizens in the future to be education, sport, music and the respectful way our children should treat each other. From this Neighbourhood Platform, we want to raise our voice to stop the reopening of the mine in Touro and O Pino. We are trying to protect our municipalities from the destruction that the mine will bring about. The loss of our houses, our jobs and nature: the hills and valleys, the rivers, streams and groundwater. We do not want the constant rock blasting and all that entails. We ask you, Saint Apostle: We ask you to sustain us in our struggle to protect Planet Earth and our land. We need to be sensitive about all the attacks that nature suffers because of our predatory and destructive behaviour. We ask you that those who govern us and have political responsibilities do not look away. They need to get involved in protecting coexistence and creation. We ask you that companies and big corporations learn to value nature’s resources beyond immediate economic profits. We ask you that society as a whole feels called to work in the protection of our planet, which was given to us by God. We have the responsibility to take care of it. We ask you that our children can inherit from us a world that is better, more just, cleaner and well cared for. We have arrived here with the weight of a huge responsibility which exceeds our strength. We want to find help in you, comfort and intercession. You did not become discouraged when faced with problems and you knew how to keep strong knowing that you were announcing Jesus the Saviour. Support us now in our struggle for nature´s sake, and at the same time for the good of humankind today and in the future.

These sentiments, reported in full, speak to environmental stewardship as a societal responsibility and forge a unity of purpose between the Camino de Santiago as cultural heritage, journeying to the tomb of the Apostle as

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pilgrimage, and organised protest as a legitimate expression of opposition to a business project deemed injurious to the natural environment and community wellbeing. Subsequently, in late January 2020 the Directorate General for Environmental Quality and Climate Change of the Xunta de Galicia announced that it had signed a negative Environmental Impact Statement relating to the open cast mining project. This section of the chapter explores the circumstances leading to that outcome, which was much celebrated locally, and the weight given to the Camino de Santiago as a material consideration in the decision-making process.

The Project Outline The mining project is located some seventeen kilometres east of Santiago de Compostela on lands comprising the San Rafael Exploitation Concession that was granted in 1958 through to 2068, initially for iron pyrites. This was later altered to the extraction of copper pyrites and from 1973 to 1986 mining operations were conducted until low prices intervened to cause closure. During these thirteen years a total of 21 Mt of ore, at an average grade of 0.61 per cent copper was extracted from four primary pits (Ore Reserves Engineering 2018). The industrial process comprised open cast mining using drilling and blasting and the transportation of material to a treatment plant for the production of copper concentrate. Exploratory drilling recommenced in November 2015 through to April 2017 and in May 2017 the Xunta de Galicia Directorate General of Energy and Mines in the Ministry of the Economy, Employment and Industry initiated the environmental assessment process. Documentation relating to a reopening of the mine, submitted on behalf of the multinational corporation promoter, Atalaya Mining PLC and its subsidiary, Cobre San Rafael SL, was forwarded in July 2017 to the Directorate General of Environmental Quality within the Ministry for the Environment, Territory and Housing (Resumen No Téchnico de la Documentación Aportada Actualización del Proyecto de Explotación Vigente de Cobre de Touro [A Coruña, Galicia] [Non Technical Summary of the Documentation provided as an Update of the Current Copper Exploitation Project at Touro (A Coruña, Galicia)] available at http://descargas.xunta.es/descargar?url=00d59a4b6ff8-4902-b983-919b9000a60f1503577586000). The proposed project extends across 10.6 square kilometres and involves extracting 267.1 Mt of rock, of which 102.7 Mt is mineral enriched with an average grade of 0.41 per cent copper. The lifespan of the project is envisaged as being fifteen years, of which the last two will be devoted to production and environmental rehabilitation. The initial investment is estimated at €170 million with the creation of 500 direct jobs in its first year of operation. The plans indicate that mining pits can be used for the storage of waste

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materials and a commitment is given to adopt comprehensive waste management with minimum effect on existing watercourses. The proposal is mindful of community concerns and addresses the issue of social acceptability in the following manner: The investments made by the project and the hiring of personnel will produce benefits for the regional economy as well as create direct and indirect jobs. This is one of the main factors for the social acceptability of the project. However, the project may also have a negative impact due to environmental disturbances such as dust emissions, noise, vibrations, and increased traffic on the roads, all of which will affect the local communities. Therefore, the Company will provide the most appropriate mitigation measures to minimise these impacts. For example, sampling systems will be installed to monitor the air quality, measure the sound levels from noise sources and sensitive points (nearby homes, estates, etc.), and blasting will be designed to control vibration. These controls will determine whether the measures are adequate to eliminate risks and minimise the disturbance. (Ore Reserves Engineering 2018: 20–28)

Project Evaluation Legislation (Ley 21/2013) enacted by the Spanish government has put in place a common set of procedures for the assessment by regional administrations of plans, programmes and projects that may have a significant impact on the environment. Essentially, this transposes the EU regulations deemed necessary for protection of the environment into national law. Public participation and consultation with different administrative bodies are regarded as fundamental principles in informing the preparation of a report by an environmental agency and, accordingly, in this case the Ministry of Economy, Employment and Industry published its resolution in August 2017 notifying a thirty-day public information period, open examination of the project file containing the environmental impact study prepared by the promoter, and an invitation to submit written representations. A wide-ranging list of public bodies whose interests span water management, agriculture, forestry, the natural environment, cultural heritage and local government had also been identified for purposes of technical consultation. There then followed through to January 2019 the submissions arising from public engagement, the reports of the statutory consultees and rebuttal evidence from the promoter that collectively informed the issuing of the negative environmental impact statement by the Directorate General for Environmental Quality and Climate Change (Xunta de Galicia 2020). Two reports issued by Aguas de Galicia and the Directorate General of Natural Heritage were key in informing that decision, with the former voicing concern about additional pressure on river systems and groundwater, and the latter expressing the potential for a

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serious impact on the Ulla–Deza river system which is part of the Natura 2000 international network of protected natural areas. Turning now to the Camino de Santiago as a material consideration in the evaluation of the mining proposal, a close reading of the project documentation indicates that both the promoter and objectors have been sensitive to the issue of potential impact on cultural heritage. In its environmental impact assessment report, Cobre San Rafael S.L. acknowledged that the Camino Francés runs through the municipality of O Pino for eighteen kilometres and is characterised by a combination of historic places and a varying topography. The geographical relationship between the operational area of the mine and the alignment of the Camino within its protected buffer corridor is illustrated in a diagrammatic form and it is concluded that the mining project does not ‘directly affect’ the Camino de Santiago or its immediate zone of respect (ámbito de respecto). The Spanish office of ICOMOS, however, has taken a different view. Its submission (ICOMOS 2018) drew attention to the negative impact on the landscape setting of the Camino Francés which defines its character, the potential destruction of documented historic branches of the Camino de Santiago and the loss of archaeological sites. Emphasis is placed on the duty of state parties to protect UNESCO-inscribed cultural heritage which in this case relates to the important attributes of ‘spirit and sensitivity’ that define its exceptional universal value (ibid. 17). However, in its submission the Directorate General for Cultural Heritage acknowledges an exchange of documentation with the project promoter and points to the introduction of mitigation measures that would safeguard archaeological sites during mining operations, contribute to road safety for pilgrims and reinstate the disturbed pilgrim pathway branches during the environmental restoration phase. It would seem, therefore, that while the Camino de Santiago was regarded as being relevant in the overall evaluation of the project, little or no weight was attributed to this factor in shaping the final negative decision on the basis of the evidence available. Nonetheless, its presence loomed large in the approach adopted by civil society to contest approval of new mining activity.

The Decision as Social Victory? From the outset in 2017, the proposal to reopen the Touro-O Pino mine has been met with strongly voiced community opposition that, quite simply, was not prepared to adopt commitments made towards social acceptability by the promoter. The demonstrations, that on occasions have filled Prazo do Obradoiro in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, with protesters dressed in red t-shirts and skull-like masks, made headline news in the local media and certainly did not go un-noticed by local

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politicians with an eye to success in forthcoming elections. However, the Xunta Minister with responsibility for environmental affairs rejected any suggestion that the outcome had been influenced by the citizens’ voices and underlined the technical assessment as being the sole consideration. And yet there is surely a paradox here, given the legal requirement for public participation in the environmental impact assessment process. Robust evidence is key to rigorous decision-making, but a parallel process of emotional advocacy through informed citizen action is a valued hallmark of liberal democracy. Accordingly, the rejection of the mining proposal, notwithstanding the outcome of any legal appeal or fresh application, is not just a technical conclusion, but most importantly it is also a social victory. The Camino de Santiago has been a conduit that has helped to shape this mobilisation. The petition to the Apostle from Plataforma Veciñal Mina Touro-O Pino Non, delivered in this most symbolic of special places, speaks to pilgrimage as a quest for environmental justice.

Conclusion The three case studies presented in this chapter underscore the fragility of the Camino de Santiago when faced with large-scale projects that give rise to major environmental impacts. In each instance there has been official acknowledgement of the heritage of pilgrimage, but the responses have favoured the adoption of mitigation measures rather than defending the status quo. A permanent and unaltered physical heritage is illusory. These approaches, however, are intimately reflective of their prevailing political and policy context which has evolved over more recent years to a more complete appreciation for an environmental stewardship that questions the evidence of project proponents. To this is added the vocal presence of citizen action that is now prepared to mobilise within issue-based networks and to challenge those in power. While government at different levels can promote a panoply of procedures, regulations and standards, it is organised civil society that increasingly can hold decision-makers to account. Its engagement with the Camino de Santiago has never been more necessary given that to date a number of attempts have been made to have it placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger (see Sánchez-Carretero 2013: 145–46; del Castillo Fondevila 2017: 129). A new economic infrastructure of wind turbines, roads and railways, urban extensions, airport expansion, industrial development and golf course provision are cited as real and present threats to the integrity of this Jacobean heritage. This chapter, at the very least, demonstrates that there is limited scope for complacency.

CHAPTER 8

Information and Communication

Introduction The Camino de Santiago commands world-wide acclaim as a journey to be undertaken which is evidenced by a substantial body of writing related to descriptive itinerary guides and personal accounts of transformative experience. Cinema, television, radio and the Internet add considerably to that consciousness of appreciation. Some 838,000 results, for example, were obtained from the Google search engine in November 2020 using the phrase ‘Camino de Santiago pilgrimage’ whereas, by comparison, other places such as ‘Walsingham pilgrimage’ generated 182,000 items and ‘Lough Derg pilgrimage’ only some 59,000 items. Nonetheless, the Camino de Santiago, in general, and Santiago de Compostela, in particular, are dwarfed by the profiles of ‘Fatima pilgrimage’ (1.79 million results) and ‘Lourdes pilgrimage’ (1.32 million results), although the comparison must be tempered by the high standing of the latter as Marian shrine sites of miracles. Santiago de Compostela, in contrast, is not commonly regarded as a place of miracles (Santos 2002: 47). The important question that arises is how to make sense of the sheer volume of information and communication associated with the Jacobean pilgrimage. Given the core narrative in this book around curatorship, it would seem appropriate that the focus of this chapter should be on official representation and dissemination. Accordingly, and drawing on the previous analysis in Chapter 2 of information categories and types, the discussion examines four forms of media that have been concerned with communicating awareness and engagement. The underlying motivations for this official social transmission can of course vary considerably and alter over time. Thus, in selecting the enormous archive of news and documentary films from the Franco era that promoted the Camino de Santiago and its desti-

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nation of Compostela, the propaganda attributes of this material become all too apparent. In contrast, the contemporary content posted on the Autonomous Community and Church websites, along with the printed media available in tourist information centres and accommodation, are primarily functional and educational. The aim is to promote broad spectrum visitor interest and give advice. Official magazines and newsletters, on the other hand, seek to extend and deepen knowledge within more specialist and membership interest groups of civil society. All these media, of course, have emotional spillovers derived from their ambitions to build a personal connectedness with the many components of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism.

Camino Imaginations and the Information Cinema In 1963 three members of Los Amigos del Camino Santiago: Centro de Estudios Jacobeos, founded in Estella the previous year, set out to complete the 800-kilometre pilgrimage from Roncesvalles to Compostela. As previously noted, the Association was the first voluntary group that had been established in Spain to specifically promote the Camino de Santiago and assist with the recovery of the ancient pilgrimage route. An important part of these pilgrims’ mission was to map the Camino, document its condition and identify improvements required for the forthcoming 1965 Holy Year, not least in regard to overnight accommodation. Travelling with the aid of a mule and cart, the two friends (Antonio Roa Irisarri and Jaime Eguaras Echávarri), along with the parish priest from a neighbouring village (José María Jimeno Jurío), set out in wintry conditions on 8 April and completed their journey on 29 April. The following day they received their Compostela certificates and were admitted as Elder Brothers to the Universal Archconfraternity of the Glorious Apostle Santiago. The pilgrimage was far from leisurely travel and during their days on the road they encountered illness, hunger and rough sleeping conditions. At the same time they gained celebrity status and were welcomed at the completion of different stages by senior ranking clergy, politicians and local inhabitants. (For photographs and commentary see Camino de Santiago: The Modern Pilgrimage, available at https://www.sasua.net/estella/articulo .asp?f=santiago2&n=Peregrinaci%C3%B3n%20a%20Santiago.) Another reason why the memory of that pilgrimage endures is the existence of a short, two-and-a-half-minute newscast film prepared by the NO-DO production company, that captured their progress westwards from Burgos to Frómista. Billed in the cinema programme as Tres jovenes peregrinos por la ruta jacobea: desde Navarra a Santiago de Compostela (Three Young Pilgrims on the Jacobean Route: From Navarra to Santiago de

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Compostela), the film (NO-DO1063C) portrays the popular imaginary of pilgrimage: the men are wearing monastic robes emblazoned with the Cross of Santiago and scallop shells, they carry walking sticks, they eat and drink by the roadside, they pray often and fall to their knees before the Crucifix in the Benedictine church of San Martín de Tours de Frómista. But more than this, the empty landscape of the flat meseta, the architectural detail of church buildings and a brief encounter with a friendly local farmer signify the personality of this part of Spain and, for the viewing audiences, the film is projecting the subliminal message that these are your devoted brothers in your Catholic and rural patria. In short, the film emphasised the prevailing political ideology of National Catholicism, deeply embedded in the state governance of the Franco regime, which was frequently mirrored in other films produced by NO-DO. The information cinema dealing with news and documentaries (Noticiarios y Documentales Cinematográficos, hence the title NO-DO) commenced its screenings in 1943 and continued through to 1981. The creation of the production company reflected the need for total information control by the state and the aspirations of different agencies of government to tell their stories of achievement. The newsreels became an established and mandatory component of the viewing public’s weekly entertainment at a time when newscasts, other than those of NO-DO, were prohibited and other news agencies were not permitted to independently obtain images of what was happening in Spain. Essentially, this was a prism through which the government could put ‘The whole world within reach of the Spanish people’ and also be mindful of ‘Taking Spain to the whole world’ (Ramirez 2008: 255). These slogans were reinforced by the opening credits which from the 1940s portrayed the flight of an eagle westwards from the northern Pacific to Spain that descended symbolically upon the Franco regime’s coat of arms, with its motto Una, Grande, Libre (United, Great, Free). By the 1960s the imagery had shifted to suggest a more outwardly engaged Spain with the curtains of the state being pulled back on scenes from an American space launch, the Vatican Council processing in front of Saint Peter’s Basilica and the United Nations in session, along with favourite domestic pursuits comprising fashion and flamenco, bull-running and the Corrida, motor-racing and football spectating. In its final phase from the mid-1970s onwards, the screen title was again revised to project Spain’s shared roots within an interconnected Mediterranean basin by using a map that scrolled eastwards, devoid of national frontiers. An overlay of multiple ley lines connecting compass nodes on the fiefdom mini-sketches of historical buildings with flags suggests a more polycentric spatiality of interconnectedness. Constant throughout these periods was the distinctive clarion call of a brass ensemble at the commencement of each newsreel. Research by Sánchez-Biosca and Tranche (2006) offers

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an authoritative and wide-ranging commentary on the Spanish cinematography newscast and reveals the NO-DO archive as an instrument of political propaganda during the times of Francoism. But in the context of this chapter, the NO-DO material also uncovers something of the character of the Camino de Santiago and its varied official meanings designed to shape a collective imagination. The content goes well beyond the short newscast to include documentary and magazine feature films and also a repository of unused footage that can be viewed without commentary or a manufactured atmosphere from dubbed music (Table 8.1). Four themes emerge from this material: state legitimacy, large group pilgrimages as political spectacle, economic transformation and the latter-day ‘grand tour’.

State Legitimacy The legitimacy of the Franco administration was founded on its Civil War victory (Rigby 2000: 73) and even though formal hostilities ceased in 1939, part of the NO-DO political brief was unquestionably to remind the Spanish people, both the victors and the vanquished, that this outcome was secured by blood sacrifice. Its newsreels worked hard to maintain that narrative. In its opening broadcast of 4 January 1943 (NO-DO 1) the content introduces el Caudillo in military uniform, with a well-placed crucifix attached to the wall above his right shoulder, conducting the affairs of Table 8.1 NO-DO films featuring Santiago de Compostela and the Camino de Santiago. NO-DO Category

Year

Title

Length

National information

1943 to 1976

48 newscasts that include these title words: Camino de Santiago, Compostela, peregrinos or peregrinación

Very brief film within a multi-item, 10 minutes newsreel.

Black and white documentary

1944

Un Día en Santiago

11 minutes

1952

A la Paz de Dios

10 minutes

1955

Camino de Santiago

15 minutes

1970

El Camino de Santiago

50 minutes

1976

Visita Real a Santiago

11 minutes

1982

Camino de Santiago

31 minutes

1983

Año Santo Compostelano

30 minutes

Historical archive

1955

Camino de Santiago

2 hours 23 minutes

Magazine

1965

Peregrinación a Compostela

10 minutes

Colour documentary

Source: https://www.rtve.es/filmoteca/no-do/.

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state in his official residence, Palacio Real de El Pardo, on the outskirts of Madrid. The staged scene then moves from the action of battle to victory parades, which are then linked with images of urban reconstruction, social renewal and economic recovery. The propaganda message is simple, that the patria is now in safe hands, and good times with an abundance of food have returned. The Civil War theme endured and even as late as 1974, in the year prior to Franco’s death, NO-DO was still releasing celebratory reminders of this difficult past. In Barcelona 39, using documentary material from that era, jubilant crowds are shown giving fascist salutes in Placa de Catalunya and Nationalist soldiers reverently attend open air Mass. The legitimacy of the Franco regime was closely intertwined with the benediction of the Church and it was very much the case that religious events were also prominent in the state cinematography. Thus, the newsreel of the 1952 International Eucharistic Congress, the first to be held since the end of the Second World War, lionises Franco in his appearance with religious leaders. Under the heading of ‘peace’, Pope Pius XII is fulsome in his comments during a radio address to delegates: Spain has had this high honour, a just recognition of its strong, profound and apostolic Catholicism, of giving hospitality to this great Assembly, which will add a page to its religious events, which must be counted among the most brilliant in its fruitful history . . . Spain and Barcelona, or, better said, the thirty-fifth International Eucharistic Congress, will pass into the Golden Book of the great Eucharistic events for their perfect preparation and organisation, for the breadth and success of their study topics, for the brilliance and wealth of the exhibitions and contests that have enriched it, for the imposing attendance present, for the Catholic sense that has inspired it, especially remembering the persecuted brothers, and for the social content that it has wanted to provide, so in keeping with Our wishes. (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1952)

By citing Spain’s apostolic Catholicism, a strong connection is made with Saint James being sent forth to convert and baptise; by acknowledging the persecuted brothers, the struggles of the Civil War come to mind. Both dimensions converge in the NO-DO imagery of the Camino de Santiago as a journey to salvation and in Santiago de Compostela as a place in which to invoke redemption. In 1952, coinciding with the theme selected for the International Eucharistic Congress, NO-DO produced a black and white documentary A la Paz de Dios (To the Peace of God) in which two well-dressed pilgrims, a man and a woman, guided initially by a shepherd, make their way from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostela via Puente de la Reina, Burgos and León, with side visits to the Benedictine Monasterio de Santo Domingo de Silas and the Marian shrine of Covadonga. The allusions to medieval military engagement are an obvious sub-plot with famous battles

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taking place at Roncesvalles and Covadonga, and the supposed wooden coffin of El Cid hanging in the cloister of Burgos Cathedral. Additionally, the eleventh-century restoration of Monasterio de Santo Domingo de Silas by the abbot of San Millán de la Cogolla in La Rioja suggests an oblique reference to the legendary appearance of San Millán Matamoros at the Battle of Hacinas in 939, a lesser known victory during the Reconquista (see Linares 2009). In the final shot of this film both pilgrims, who are emblematic of a comfortable present, are kneeling in deep thought before the sepulchre of Santiago, the apostle. Unlike other NO-DO films there is no visual mention of Santiago Matamoros, and while this legend remains as a shadow that symbolically connects the Renconquista and the Civil War victories, the production reads as an epiphany moment denoted by the arrival of these two visitors into a sacred space. With the camera closing on their faces, the take-away message is that the nation has received the special gift of inner peace through the Apostle’s intercession.

Large Group Pilgrimages as Political Spectacle Seven Jubilees, on which the Feast Day of Saint James falls on a Sunday, occurred between 1943 and 1982 and NO-DO was always on hand to film religious events connected to these Holy Year celebrations in Santiago de Compostela. The ceremonial opening and closing of the Holy Door into the cathedral, processions of the faithful through the city streets and the national offering to the Apostle were camera-worthy rituals. Longdistance, large group pilgrimages were also a notable feature of religious practice during the Franco years and the newsreel archive throws an interesting light on how they acquired additional meaning as political spectacle. Four organisations are prominent in these films: Acción Católica (Catholic Action) – an international social movement of the laity created to defend the Church and assist with its mission of evangelisation that was revived in Spain at the end of the Civil War (NO-DO 296A); Sindicato Español Universitario (the Spanish University Union) – a Falange student organisation founded in 1933 and proscribed during the Civil War, that was active in Spanish universities through to 1965 (NO-DO 291A); Frente de Juventudes (The Youth Front) – created in 1940 to instil Falange ideology in young males (NO-DO 604A); and La Organización Juvenil Española (The Spanish Youth Organisation) – a voluntary association founded in 1960 and dedicated to training young people about citizenship (NO-DO 1754A). In most instances the newscasts show their organised pilgrimages as uniformed marches complete with backpacks and cruciform walking sticks. The style is between regimented militia and outdoor pursuits boy-scout, sleeping in tents, open air cooking and washing in streams. Each group has its religious leader. In Santiago de

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Compostela the regional composition of the pilgrimage is revealed by unfurled banners and flags that carry the names of cities and provinces, thus suggesting a spirit of proud national unity. The petitioning of the Apostle in the sanctuary of the cathedral underlines the accomplishment of their collective mission. The overriding impression from these newscasts is a pervading sense of duty that has been shaped by the state and adopted by the Church. These pilgrimages are of their time and contrast with the post-Franco contemporary informality of groups of young people on the Camino that is presented in the 1983 colour documentary Año Santo Compostelano, most likely filmed with NO-DO expertise during the Jubilee of the previous year and which was attended by Pope John Paul II.

Economic Transformation From the early days of NO-DO much of the content was given over to what was labelled esfuerzo industrial (industrial effort) and this included the construction of reservoirs and canals for hydro-power and irrigation. General Franco was often in attendance at the opening ceremonies, along with Church representatives who blessed the infrastructure. The massive scale of this engineering investment as a response to drought conditions and electricity demand is illustrated, for example, in a 1944 newsreel (NO-DO 97A) which was released almost contemporaneously with the short black and white documentary Un Día en Santiago (A Day in Santiago). The latter film commences with rural workers walking into Santiago de Compostela, some herding cattle, other carrying bags of grain and vegetables. The agricultural scene takes in a large outdoor cattle market with the impression of deals being done. The mood music then changes from the lilt of pipes to a more ceremonial rendition as the cathedral appears in the distance between the windblown branches of city trees. Traditions of religious devotion in the Pórtico de la Gloria and in the votive chapels conclude with the oversight imagery of the Apostle in the sanctuary. The setting then moves to the city university where students are congregating in the corridors of the cloister before class commences. Finally, as evening approaches, people are making their way home to dark houses, it begins to rain heavily and a fountain spout pours water into a stone well. City folk seek to avoid the rain by taking shelter beneath the street arcades and dodge past pavement puddles. When it is dark, a few street lights provide minimum illumination and the silhouette of a local policeman on patrol is filmed in the final scene walking past a trough brimming with water. The film has been critiqued as merely an artistic interpretation of the typical Santiago that is both lyrical and descriptive (Matud Juristo and OrtizEchagüe 2007), but when set against the background of post-Civil War industrialisation, it could be argued that the production also has an alter-

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native meaning as an allegory of economic transformation. The sacred intervention of Santiago as the wind of change in a context where water becomes a valued and available resource for rural wellbeing and power generation, and where a university education brings forward a new generation of scientists and engineers, speaks to the then present. Thus, the policeman on patrol becomes a visual metaphor for the watchful but caring state. In short, the film adds to the subtle propaganda of a shared mission between Francoism and the Church to shape an appreciative politics.

The Latter-day Grand Tour Tourism features significantly in the NO-DO archive and over the period from 1945 to 1980 not fewer than 250 newsreels were broadcast around that theme. Following the Second World War tourism presented Spain with an opportunity to gain vital foreign earnings and project a new political alignment for itself, particularly towards the United States with which it shared a similar disdain for Communism. Road-based travel became part of the inventory of tourism promotion and from the late 1930s the government designed a national routes programme using coaches to transport groups of visitors across a lattice of main roads to many of the most prominent heritage cities of Spain (del Río Lafuente 2016). Santiago de Compostela was included in two itineraries that departed from Madrid and Barcelona and, as a 1951 NO-DO newsreel illustrated, the passenger comforts of a new bus fleet included the luxury of reclining seats (NO-DO 447A). In 1955 NO-DO produced a fifteen-minute black and white documentary about the Camino de Santiago, half of which deals with religious procession and cathedral architecture in Santiago de Compostela. This is clearly aimed at stimulating the tourist gaze in a single destination, with the remainder of the film providing a backcloth of legend interspersed with notable churches, bridges, castles and vernacular streetscapes that brings these attractions along an almost impassable unpaved route to the viewer. The intensive opening up of the coast for resort development during the 1960s, with the tourism Minister, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, frequently in attendance at hotel launch events (see for example, NO-DO 1271A), prompted counter-balancing attention on inland potential. With improved road conditions, car touring emerged as a popular option by which to experience a different Spain and, within that genre of tourism promotion, the Camino de Santiago was sold as a re-imagined ‘grand tour’ that allowed travellers to enjoy its varied landscapes and rich Romanesque architecture. In 1970 NO-DO produced a colour documentary, El Camino de Santiago, that portrayed this experience as being steeped in history, but with the comfort of modern amenities. The only representation of

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pilgrimage is the occasional imagery of a ghost-like solitary walker from a medieval past, thus suggesting a car journey that follows centuries-old tradition. This is very much an invitation to secular tourism that lingers long on the lavish hospitality of elegant hotels conveniently located at the end of a day’s driving and sightseeing. Diagrammatic maps are used to help the traveller plot the itinerary and places of interest. Arrival into Santiago de Compostela is depicted by a fashion conscious couple in a red, opentop sports car that makes its way across an almost empty square in front of the eighteenth-century cathedral facade, parking at the front door of Hostal de Los Reyes Católicos – the grandest of all Paradors. The commercial intent is underlined by the photography of its lounge, dining room and bedrooms, with even the prices for a double en-suite marked as between 240 and 300 pesetas. Guests in chic evening attire dance to live music in a candle-lit garden. NO-DO often reused its film footage for subsequent broadcasts and much of the religious heritage content of this fifty-minute documentary was re-issued in an edited format in 1982 to promote the then Holy Year. It ran for thirty-one minutes and, by including a host personality at the outset to welcome and explain, the film retreated from the anonymity of its predecessor. Both productions conclude with a de rigueur triumphant salute to the Apostle, that combines processional colour in the cathedral with the visual drama of the botafumeiro. The dubbing of the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah on to the 1982 version gives this ceremonial encounter a Baroque sophistication and poses the rhetorical question: ‘What better way to finish a latter-day grand tour?’

Surfing for the Virtual Experience on the Internet Given its international appeal it is not surprising that the Camino de Santiago should feature on the Spanish government’s official tourism promotion website. The May 2020 homepage, for example, invites a clicked response to the question: ‘Are you interested – St James Way?’ which then opens up the details of stages along the French Route and the Northern Route together with prices for a variety of travel options that are outsourced to the business sector for advance booking. Alternatively, the Camino de Santiago and Santiago de Compostela, as phrases, can be searched via the web map page under headings such as Active and Adventure Sports, Hiking Trails, Cultural Routes, Religious Tourism and World Heritage Cities. A link is offered to the Santiago de Compostela tourism information website that contains no fewer than thirty short videos for home viewing. Key to successful Internet promotion is keeping the material fresh and up to date and, in this instance, the providers are all too aware of the global COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences for tour-

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ism in general and pilgrimage as group engagement activity. One video message for the Camino de Santiago during the Spring of 2020 is especially emblematic of this different context by headlining ‘Ultreïa – Keep going’ but deploying the sub-title ‘Stay at home’. Under the terms of the Spanish Constitution the Autonomous Communities enjoy significant tourism responsibilities and each has its dedicated multi-language capability website on which to promote product diversity along with information on accommodation choices and accessibility. The coverage given to the Camino de Santiago does vary from its noticeable absence at regional scale in the case of Castile-La-Mancha, its publicity at province level in Valencia related to the Camino de Levante, and its watermarking of the Xunta de Galicia tourism portal. Even the Canary Islands promote a seventy-three kilometre Camino de Santiago route on Gran Canaria which was granted Jubilee status in a Papal Bull by Pope John XXIII in 1965. On occasions, the Camino is embedded in generic route-based and themed itineraries that suggest ‘Natural paradise at your fingertips’ (in Asturias), ‘Live your experience’ (in Castilla y León), ‘Your journey begins’ (in the Basque Country) and ‘Get to know the towns on the Camino’ (in Navarra). The easy virtual access is extolled as ‘From your screen and whenever you want’ (in Murcia). Information on route stages, distances and required walking time are commonplace and colour aerial photographs are used to show routing and services. Images of interesting places are presented using 360-degree rotating photographs, although surprisingly, across all regions the quantity of official videos is quite modest. On occasion the film material is hybrid in content with, for example, the opening screen for La Rioja offering ‘a glimpse’ of what is on offer and suggesting freedom to be yourself. Camino walkers and cyclists progress between the vines within a theme of wine and food. Other short films deal specifically with the Camino de Santiago and a 2011 production on behalf of the Xunta de Galicia is typical of this genre. It depicts pilgrims walking at speed across ancient landscapes of colour with an arrival in Compostela at sunset and is set to the excitement of acoustic guitar music. The closing screenshot, ‘Can you keep the secret?’, is a message that seeks emotional engagement and is in line with an equivalent 2020 promotional film also designed to arouse curiosity by its personal question, ‘Haven’t done the Way of Saint James yet?’ Clicking on the instruction ‘Discover it’ opens a visual experience that invokes Turnerian communitas among international, multi-generational and multi-modal travellers collectively being summoned to the shrine of the Apostle by the bells of the cathedral. It is in this spirit that the video of the Mozarabic Way in Andalusia, with unintended irony, proclaims ‘The last adventure of the 21st century’. Accessibility for all is much in evidence and in the case of Catalonia, promoting its Cami de Sant Jaume, stage-based information is commu-

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nicated simultaneously by voice, sign language, sub-titles and images. Moreover, particular attention is given to identify accessible routes and destinations that are suitable for those with constrained mobility. The regional platforms are conscious of the protocol of acknowledging the contribution made by civil society associations to the development of the Camino de Santiago tourism product. The Comunidad de Madrid tourism website, for example, directs users to the portal of the Association of Friends of the Camino de Santiago in Madrid, with attention focusing on the four-day walk between Madrid and Segovia. In 2020 the Xunta de Galicia, with business sector support, launched an online platform, Hasta la Vista, that communicates a synthesis of these information elements designed to promote Xacobeo 2021. Each of the nine Camino itineraries in Galicia is portrayed through a short video with central characters telling their stories along the journey. Unlike earlier productions these films bring viewers into a deeply personal world that in turn connects with the particular landscape and cultural heritage setting of each route. Linked portals identify accommodation and restaurants, offer further detail on attractions, and allow for the uploading of testimonies (branded as pilgrim confessions). It is a further variation on the commercial promotion of the 2021 Holy Year. Finally, it is appropriate to specifically mention the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in regard to web-based information and communication. For those with a specific interest in pilgrim numbers, the homepage maintains a daily count of those presenting a credencial at the Pilgrim Welcome Office. But more than this, the website is a single repository of religious and heritage material related to the cult of Saint James and its celebration under the auspices of the cathedral. As summarised in Table 8.2, the content fits closely with the classification set out in Chapter 2 and offers an assembly of functional, educational and emotional information that is animated by a combination of colour images, video and music. Particular care is taken to explain the difference between pilgrimage to win the Jubilee (Plenary Indulgence) in a Holy Year and pilgrimage to obtain the Compostela: To win the Jubilee requires: Visit the Tomb of the Apostle in the cathedral and say a prayer. Receive the Sacrament of Confession (be it in the cathedral or anywhere else fifteen days before or after). Receive Communion. This Indulgence is applicable to the deceased. Neither the Grace of the Jubilee nor the pilgrimage are linked, of themselves, to the Compostela. The Jubilee can be won by travelling by any means and it is possible to receive the Compostela without winning the Jubilee. (http://catedraldesantiago.es/peregrinacion/#ritos)

The important distinction here is that many of the pilgrims coming to Santiago de Compostela may have had no association with the Camino

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Table 8.2 Information provision on Santiago de Compostela Cathedral website. Information category Functional

Educational

Emotional

Information type

Examples of information

Pilgrim’s daily programme

• Times and venues of Masses and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Directions and rules

• Opening hours and access arrangements to the basilica, the museum, the archive/library and pilgrim welcome office. • Booking arrangements and prices for entry to the Pórtico de Gloria and museum. • Rules to access and borrow from the archive/library. • Pilgrim regulations for the credencial and Compostela certificate.

Institutional activities

• The Archdiocese, Cathedral Council (Cabildo) and Cathedral Foundation, Pilgrim Office and Archconfraternity.

Historical narrative

• The Apostle Santiago, his mission in Spain and his return to Galicia.

Architecture and art

• Images and narrative of the architectural evolution of the cathedral: its facades, towers and chapels; museum spaces and collections. • View sculpture detail in image, 3D model and video formats in the digital catalogue. • YouTube videos of Pórtico de Gloria restoration in progress. • Download the cathedral restoration masterplan. • Visit other sites of ecclesiastical heritage in Santiago de Compostela: download the booklet on Santa María La Real de Sar.

Guided tours

• Download the official cathedral audio guide on to your mobile phone.

Sacred ritual

• Pilgrim rites and winning the Jubilee. • The liturgical calendar and special services. • Listen to liturgical organ recitals via the Soundcloud platform. • YouTube video of the botafumeiro ceremony.

Giving donations • Become a ‘Friend of the Cathedral’ by making an and becoming annual or one-time only donation online. ‘a friend’ • Subscribe to the cathedral newsletter and stay informed (free online registration). • Invitation to join Christian Welcome on the Camino. • Light a candle for your intentions at the digital lampadario and give a donation. Source: http://catedraldesantiago.es/.

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de Santiago and are there to complete the sacred rituals linked to venerating the Apostle. Conversely, many of those completing the prescribed distances along the Camino de Santiago may obtain a Compostela but then may choose not to go on to win a Holy Year Jubilee. Essentially, the pilgrim market is segmented on the basis of the journey undertaken but its components may or may not overlap in regard to the extension of sacred ritual.

Camino Bumph as Take-Home Memorabilia Tourist information centres have a significant presence along the Camino de Santiago routes and by providing a wide-ranging service related to all local and regional tourism activity, they can simultaneously cater for the needs of visitors on city breaks, motorised tourists, and those cycling or walking. Their value to pilgrim travellers frequently revolves around accommodation, transport and medical assistance queries. For the most part, walkers and cyclists have pre-planned their pilgrimages and, therefore, would be familiar with the number of stages and distances to be completed. They will usually carry a guidebook or will have downloaded a relevant app to a mobile device: a reluctance to add paper weight to their backpacks and panniers is not unexpected. And yet the proliferation of government, business and civil society literature, in leaflet and booklet formats, shows no sign of abating. Printed information is not in short supply and for those whose queries are solved by self-help from wall-mounted leaflet holders and behind-the-counter staff selection, this free Camino bumph often finds its way home as memorabilia and as a primer of good intentions for subsequent trips. For those curating the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism, this vast array of printed material serves many purposes. Apart from giving information, it reinforces the imagery of the brand, it prompts curiosity and it invites visitor engagement. It also identifies agency at work, celebrates territorial individuality and, politically, does not go unnoticed by electorates keen to maximise the economic returns from tourism. In other words, the tourist information centres are the shop windows of public administration. The public value of this service has, however, to be counterbalanced by viability and thus it is common to find that the centres perform an additional retail role, selling local crafts, food and drink to earn extra revenue. Inevitably, this generates further bumph. Some centres will seek to intimately connect with the history and cultural traditions of the Camino de Santiago with mini-displays and this may include the sale of souvenirs in the merchandised offer. In the context of this chapter the most relevant consideration is that Camino bumph mirrors the reshaping of the Camino

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over time in regard to the governance of place promotion and its linkage with the experience offered to travellers. Among the early tourism booklets on the Camino de Santiago, produced by the Spanish government, was a free guide for car-borne visitors. This was published in 1964 by the Subsecretaría de Turismo and was distributed through its six information offices in Canfranc, Jaca, Burgos, León, Logroño and Santiago. The format is evocative of the twelfth-century Codex Calixtinus with the imitation parchment cover suggesting a folio of river crossings, Romanesque churches and medieval townships along the Way. Inside it contains a combination of artist drawings denoting the Camino Francés itinerary, colour photographs and text, along with supplementary technical information showing the national road classification and number between towns, distances to attractions off the Camino and the location of petrol stations. The two entry points into Spain from Somport and Roncesvalles are explained and, among the many thumbnail heritage attractions that are listed, some interesting observations are made regarding places and events mentioned in previous chapters of this book. Thus, for example, the driving route takes visitors along the northern edge of Yesa reservoir on the Camino Aragonés and the ‘famous’ Roman thermal springs at Tiermas are highlighted; the ‘unfortunate’ loss of Portomarín, ‘one of the most picturesque towns on the Camino’, following the ‘recent’ construction of the Belesar dam, is described; and the stones of Santiago de Compostela are referenced as expressing the centuries-long ‘link between Spain and Europe’. This booklet deserves contemporary recognition because it constitutes the essential baseline for subsequent largely similar publications and marks a significant moment in the opening up of Spain from its previous years of isolation. In 1990 the national tourism agency, Turespaña, published an equivalent leaflet titled ‘The Pilgrims’ Way to Santiago – Visiting the Sights’. The main substantive difference from the 1964 booklet is the politically correct staging of the Camino Francés under the headings of the five Autonomous Communities through which it progresses. While the governance of place promotion is now shared across the tiers of state administration, it is the regions that command centre stage given their constitutional responsibilities and financial resources. Each publishes an enormity of glossy Camino bumph that combines information about places and events, tips and rules for the pilgrim, accommodation and daily stages. Again, the format has remained relatively stable as each region almost jealously seeks to maximise its presence by downplaying the spatial relationships it has with adjoining territories, except perhaps by including an overall schematic route diagram. In Galicia, for example, a series of multi-language guidebooks were published in 2012 for each of the pilgrimage itineraries that cross the region. The format comprises a generic

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introduction to the Way of Saint James, the city of Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral of Santiago. Each booklet has a customised cover photograph and contains a detachable information supplement particular to the Way that is referred to as a Pilgrims’ Passport with space provided for stamps. However, it is not a credencial that is accepted by Church authorities and is simply a promotional tool for the Galicia Ways. The notion of interdependency would seem to be politically fraught and yet one illustration of good practice that has emerged is the publication of a booklet in 2017 for the Northern Ways to Santiago. This is a joint venture between the Governments of the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia, Navarra and La Rioja, with input from Turespaña. The initiative acknowledges their shared work in securing the recognition of these pilgrimage routes as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site portfolio in 2015. As a free passport sized travel guide, it extends to almost 200 pages and had a print run of 8,400 copies. The attributes of the Camino de Santiago are increasingly interdependent and thus an extension of this collaborative practice to other pilgrim itineraries makes sense.

Fraternity and Scholarship through Magazines and Newsletters The availability of Camino-related magazines and newsletters is evidence of a mature pilgrimage with wide appeal. Both outlets serve to reinforce awareness, convey information and share reflections. They are conduits for the creation of bonding social capital between congregations of people with similar interests and, often, shared nationality that reflects the geography of membership associations. For those who have completed a Camino pilgrimage, it is a way by which to tell others about personal experiences and to continue to re-live the daily routines of movement, encounter and achievement in the stories of others. Some magazines are more akin to academic journals with the merit of research articles determined by a process of blind refereeing, while others rely on editorial discretion around the newsworthiness of contributed material. The publications illustrated in Table 8.3 comprise a selection of outputs which fit well with these characteristics of scholarship and fraternity. Their sponsorship extends across Church, government, business and civil society involvement and while the traditional mode of hard copy is still deployed, the need to reduce printing and distribution costs has witnessed an increasing shift towards digital production, web-based publication and e-mail circulation. The magazines and newsletters listed in Table 8.3 display in varying degrees the attributes of functional, educational and emotional outreach. Newsletters such as la Concha and Pilgrim Footprints give primacy to con-

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Table 8.3 Camino de Santiago magazines and newsletters. Date first published Frequency

Category

Publication title

Organisation

Church

Compostela

Archícofradia Universal del Glorioso Apóstol Santiago

1948

Annually

Barca de Santiago

Archidiócesis de Santiago de Compostela

2011

3 to 4 each year

Annuarium Sancti Iacobi

Cabildo de Cathedra de Santiago de Compostela

2012

Annually to 2017

La Iglesia en los Caminos

La Acogida Cristiana en el Camino

2014

2 each year

Revista Catedral de Santiago

Fundación Catedral de Santiago

2018

2 each year

Government Ad Limina

Business

Turismo de Galicia/SA for 2010 the Management of the Xacobeo Plan

Digital magazine – La Fundación Jacobea/ Fundación Jacobea Grupo Carris

Annually

2018

5 published to 2020

Center d’Études Compostellanes of the Société Française des Amis de Saint Jacques de Compostelle

Since 1970

Annually

The Confraternity of Saint James Bulletin

The Confraternity of Saint James

1983

From 4 to now 2 each year

Peregrino

Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago

1987

5 each year

Ruta Jacobea

Los Amigos del Camino Santiago. Centro de Estudios Jacobeos

2002

Annually

La Concha

American Pilgrims on the Camino

2009

4 each year

Pilgrim Footprints

Canadian Company of Pilgrims

2017

12 published to May 2020

Civil society Compostelle

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veying institutional activities across the organisations and their chapters, along with member reflections, news from the Camino routes including changes to Church procedure, and resources to delve into. The Confraternity of Saint James Bulletin has similar content but also acts as a hybrid learned society journal with mini academic papers that explore, for example, the history of the Jacobean cult and the cultural heritage of the Camino de Santiago. Book reviews add an extra common thread of interest. For civil society groups the newsletter can act as a ‘business card’ to grow memberships and accompanying subscriptions, and to attract donations to help meet the overheads for the services that many groups provide, whether it be office premises, the training of hospitaleros, and the operation of albergues. Church related publications such as Compostela and Revista Catedral de Santiago embrace both scholarship and fraternity with the former profiling the meetings of the Archconfraternity and the induction of new cofrades, and the latter paying particular attention to the restoration of the cathedral, its museum and archive repositories interspersed with commercial advertising. Their emotional and educational value to readers is well canvassed. Meanwhile, the pure scholarship ambition of some of these publications is illustrated by Ad Limina and Compostelle, each of which has an international advisory editorial board and follows strict peer review protocols prior to the acceptance of a research paper for publication. The absence of language diversity, nonetheless, remains a limitation on the international accessibility of much of this material, although online translation can help in the case of web-based publications, depending on the digital protection format used.

Conclusion This chapter has explored how curating the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism has over time appropriated a multiplicity of images that are designed to appeal to popular imagination. The geographical points of reference along a journey ever westwards have largely remained constant, whether in the cinema newsreels as propaganda during the Franco years, the contemporary representation of virtual pilgrimage via the Internet, tourist information centre bumph, and magazines and newsletters. In that regard, for example, the facade of the Cathedral of Santiago becomes a postcard of perpetual recognition that symbolises the Church in action. The cathedral is a rallying point for devout pilgrims and secular tourists, for state administration and business investment. More broadly, the landscapes, places, people and events that are represented become images imbued with different meanings that speak to tradition, modernity, connectedness and resilience. The need to be heard comprises a

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curatorial process of creative transformation that can seek to construct an appreciative politics, forge a solidarity of engagement or, at its most basic, stimulate the tourist gaze. Accordingly, the narratives that are woven by information and communication may both sharpen and blur reality. The enduring personal challenge here, perhaps, is making the distinction between the availability and the integrity of what is being offered.

CHAPTER 9

Museums and Storytelling

Introduction There is a diversity of storytelling experiences curated by the Church, state and civil society institutions along the Camino network. These comprise, for example, the display of sacred artefacts staged in formal collections that offer permanent and time-limited exhibitions of the sacred. There is also a more entertainment-oriented display style available for pilgrim travellers that combines amusement with education about Camino traditions reaching back to the medieval era. And there are venues situated on the Camino that have scant thematic connection with this cultural capital and which seek to speak to wider international audiences about events in the past with contemporary resonance. The spaces used are churches, church related buildings and secular architecture which may be adapted for museum purposes by refurbishment and special fitting out, with attention being given to visitor circulation along self-guided itineraries and the thematic coherence of annotated displays. On occasion new build premises are also evidenced, perhaps to replace unsuitable structures or to provide a forum that commands additional visitor appeal by virtue of its spectacular design credentials. The Guggenheim in Bilbao and the City of Culture in Santiago de Compostela (mentioned in Chapter 3 above) come to mind here. To adapt the observations of Franklin (2016: 90), both these venues share commonalities with the people flows of the Camino de Santiago and are positioned in cultural landscapes of tourism. This chapter explores these varied topographies of museology and draws on evidence collected by the author during a succession of Camino journeys. However, rather than merely describe the contrasting characteristics of each site, attention is also given to the underpinning values and the drama of competing cultural meanings that are reinforced by the content of these museums and

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heritage centres. These attributes focus on how selected powerful messages are communicated to diverse audiences and their potential to reconfigure relationships between individuals and wider society.

The Sacred Collection The great cathedrals of Spain are significant tourism attractions that invite visitors to connect with their evolving history through a soaring built form and artistic detail. The recent expansion of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes beyond the Camino Francés, as discussed in Chapter 3, now brings many more of these churches into the pilgrim gaze and has, in turn, created an additional market which may be interested in viewing their repositories of sacred art. The Gothic Cathedral of Burgos, dedicated to Santa Maria and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, is typical of this church-based museum concept. The admission charge is modest, but the visitor is additionally rewarded with a complimentary electronic listening device which guides an appreciative stroll within a waymarked succession of tympanum doorways, side chapels, choir and high altar, golden staircase, sacristy, and cloister enclosures. In this instance the tourist cathedral is separated by rails in the nave from the spaces of daily prayer in side chapels that are accessed through the main entrance, thus allowing for continuity of the primary function of the religious site. The multiple sculptures are splendid, not least those with a polychromatic finish and there are, not surprisingly, representations of Saint James both as pilgrim and knight. The internal museum of the cathedral, with its tapestries, paintings and goldsmith treasure, houses a striking eighteenth-century altarpiece dedicated to the Apostle, although, in line with the 2004 debate over the proposed removal of the Santiago Matamoros statue from the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, this politically sensitive iconography of a sword-wielding Saint James is now quietly downplayed in the promotional material of Burgos Cathedral. Accordingly, museums are very much places where myth and reality intersect and they constantly demand that curators make decisions on what and how to exhibit, while considering competing ideologies and societal sensibilities. A church or monastery cloister represents a potentially attractive environment in which to curate a sacred collection, not least because of its innate ambulatory ambience. Covered or stained glass arches and subtle overhead lighting within four long and narrow corridors can establish a quality space within which to arrange a circular sequence of panel boards and sculptures. This is precisely what has been created in the cloister of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada which displays items from

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its art and craft collection on a permanent basis, along with temporary exhibitions such as that titled Dominicus Millennario. Named after its patron Saint and celebrating the millennial of his birth, this exhibition ran for four months from 1 July to 3 November 2019. It comprised four sections: the origins of the Saint and his childhood monastic influences; his role as builder of bridges, roads, hospital and cathedral; miracles to which he is attributed; and his legacy today. An understanding of the life of Santo Domingo was provided by a combination of pictorial works, sculptures and documents, and in the museum shop adjacent to the cloister, visitors had the option of purchasing the exhibition catalogue. This blending of permanence with visiting displays is vital in refreshing the cultural heritage offer to both the local community and visitors. The outbuildings of an ecclesiastical complex can find new purpose when converted to a museum. A useful illustration is Roncesvalles, the popular stopping-off village on the first stage of the Camino Francés that starts in St Jean-Pied-de-Port in France and crosses the Pyrenees. Such is the growth in pilgrim numbers that additional dormitory accommodation and hotel rooms have also been incorporated into former monastery buildings, new visitor information services have been provided by the Gobierno de Navarra, and daily tours now operate to take in the heritage enclave comprising the church of Santa Maria, the burial chapel of King Sancho VII, the chapel of Santiago, the adjacent ossuary and burial chapel dedicated to Charlemagne, and the treasury museum of religious paintings, precious metalwork and jewels belonging to the collegiate that dates back to the twelfth century. The museum is housed in part of the library building and is only accessible by guided tours conducted in Spanish at a time in late morning when most pilgrim walkers have left Roncesvalles to complete their next stage. Accordingly, the principal visitors who are led from showcase to showcase would seem to be travelling by car or tour bus, which emphasises the point that Camino travellers comprise a range of tourism sub-markets defined by their mobility.

History and Art Within the sacred collections category, discussed above, there is a curatorial temptation to allow the artwork to speak for itself, rather than being linked with a more complete explication of its historical context. On other occasions the sheer amount of material on display can be overpowering, if not disorienting, when the noise of timelines, events and obscure personalities is factored in. However, sacred art taken away from its immediate religious environment and housed within a secular museum really does require the addition of measured explanations of circumstance to

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make it more meaningful. In Barcelona, for example, the Palau Nacional museum on Montjuïc hill displays a wide range of secular and sacred art in a temple-like building constructed for the 1929 International Exhibition. Interestingly, its Baroque architectural style complete with towers is most evocative of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, a point that is underlined by the construction of an adjacent pastiche village (Poble Espanyol) containing representative elements of an imagined Spanish vernacular as part of that world fair. The highlight of the art museum is arguably the presentation of a series of eleventh-century to fourteenthcentury polychrome murals and altar frontals from Catalan Romanesque church interiors that are accompanied by notes on content interpretation and, most importantly, conservation-restoration practice. Accordingly, the museology takes visitors beyond quiet appreciation to a deeper understanding of the ambition of this technical intervention, notwithstanding legitimate concerns around the separation of this art from its genius loci. As Lowenthal (1990: 17) comments in regard to curatorial authenticity: ‘Every relic displayed in a museum is a fake in that it has been wrenched out of its original context’ (cited by Prentice 2001: 6). The fact that museums can curate more than the mere exhibition of the objects in their collections can be taken a step further in regard to the comparative insights they may offer around different societies. The Museo das Peregrinacións (Museum of Pilgrimages) in Santiago de Compostela attempts to take visitors on that individual journey of discovering more than the subject might initially suggest. This was established in 1951 by the Spanish government’s Directorate of Fine Art and the municipality, and opened its doors to the public in premises on Calle San Miguel in 1996 following the transfer of its ownership and management to the Xunta de Galicia. In 2015 the display of its acquisitions was moved to a newly constructed gallery adjacent to the cathedral in Plaza de las Platerias. This building was formerly the Bank of Spain, with the €5.5 million budget allowing for the creation of a purpose-built multi-level space behind the original facade. The permanent exhibition comprises three main subject areas: pilgrimage as a universal phenomenon that engages different religions in different cultural settings over time; the diverse iconography of Saint James and the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage from its medieval roots; and the evolving built form of the city of Santiago de Compostela. A combination of freestanding artefacts on raised podiums, floor to ceiling glass boxes and electronic screens within enclosed nooks are used to tell the story of pilgrimage with a physical connection being made to the tomb of the Apostle by the insertion of a large roof window on the top floor that gives an uninterrupted view of the cathedral. The internal spatial arrangement which flows from the global to the local, and from the general to the particular, invites visitors upwards through three

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floors, along with back and forth movement on each floor, and adds extra meaning to the exhibition components. Thus, the ubiquitous yellow arrow of the Camino as a directional motif is replaced here by a yellow wave with no attached end points and symbolises a constant reminder of the inter-linkage between personal discovery and the museum as performance: the building becomes a visually exciting stage on which the almost animated display material is the dramatis personae. At first glance, therefore, this museum is certainly engaging and informative, but as demonstrated elsewhere in Chapter 2 above, a more critical appreciation raises the possibility of some potentially uncomfortable questions. Thus, for example, to what extent is this museum offering a sanitised account of the heritage of pilgrimage by masking the fissures and abrasiveness connected with the history and context of Christianity across Europe and in Spain. One illustration can serve to throw light on these matters. Tucked away in a corner on the top floor is a television screen that shows film footage of the reinvention of pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint James from the late nineteenth century. The unsettling appropriation of the pilgrimage by General Franco and the interweaving of its traditions with the politics of National Catholicism is only briefly acknowledged in a very fast flowing sequence of largely Holy Year images. The Museum of Pilgrimages in Santiago de Compostela, with its attention given to history and multiple art forms, is unquestionably a valuable part of the Camino infrastructure, but its messages that help to shape public imagination, while simultaneously responding to powerful institutional agency, may be more quietly hidden than transparent.

Entertaining Interpretation Theatricality is key to a memorable experience within this genre of museum and in Iacobeus: El Secreto del Camino at Castrojeriz, opened in 2014, the spectacular is much in evidence. The setting is the deconsecrated church of Santo Domingo on whose vaulted ceiling the narrative commences with a light show on the creation of the universe, the visual drama of the Vía Lactia and their intertwining with the Camino de Santiago. Viewers are invited to suspend historical rigour and indulge in legend. Thereafter, a series of six box-like capsules, designed as walking stages, explore different aspects of Camino life and myth. The contrasts between the medieval pilgrim environment and today are boldly illustrated by video projection, panel-board expositions and wall-mounted artefact display boxes. The overall animation is enhanced by viewer participation in the manual opening of information portals, by questions posed along ‘the Way’ regarding motivation and personal transformation, and

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by a concluding opportunity to post an electronic message to friends and family. A comparable interpretation centre opened within a disused shop in Pamplona in March 2019, branded as Ultreïa, which tells the story of the Jacobean route and its relationship with the city. A significant feature of the centre’s design is its enhanced accessibility for those with disabilities, and over three stages there is, firstly, a welcome space with low-level touch screens; secondly, a video area offering a multi-language historical tour of Pamplona; and thirdly, a large surround multi-projection triptych which tells the story of a blind minstrel in a fourteenth-century pilgrimage setting. From June to August 2019 this centre, with inclusiveness at its heart, was visited by 2,310 people, just under half of whom were from outside Spain. Notwithstanding the scale and ambition of this entertaining interpretation, any long-term success would appear to rest on regular maintenance and new technology investment. Revenue flow is vital here but may not sufficiently materialise in line with a business plan prepared to draw down initial grant aid for capital expenditure. The case of the interpretative centre of the Way of Saint James in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, titled km550 el camino express (550 Kilometres of the Camino Quickly Revealed), is a salutary reminder of troubled sustainability. This opened in December 2008 as a tourism excellence flagship project co-funded by the municipality, the Gobierno de la Rioja and central government. It closed in 2016 with only the tourist information office remaining available to visitors. The project was marketed as a sensory journey along the Camino de Santiago using three-dimensional projection, pastiche architecture, mirror screens and sound effects. People were invited to experience the essence of being a pilgrim having been given a lantern, stone and cloth cape and stamping their personal faux credencial at each of the exhibition stages. The explanatory note on the inside of this passport-sized leaflet states: The Interpretative Centre of the Camino de Santiago in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, gives this credencial to the undersigned, dressed in the pilgrim’s attire, to complete on foot the express road from Puente la Reina to Santiago going through 6 demanding stages during which you will cover 550 kilometres in a record time of 18 minutes. Please stamp the seal of each corresponding locality in this little Compostelana in order to accredit your journey. May the peace of God be with everyone and may you cherish the hope of the pilgrim.

Treadmills positioned in front of cinematic landscapes were designed to evoke these many days of walking across different terrains. However, by the time of its closure it was reported (La Rioja 2017) that the computer equipment had become obsolete, some of the audio-visual material did

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not operate and that basically the centre did not offer a good service; for example, the possibility of taking a final photograph dressed as a pilgrim was not available. Whimsical it may have been (and it was still closed in 2019), but it nonetheless represented a serious attempt to extend the tourism offer in a town more noted for its elevated hen and rooster coop within the Romanesque cathedral. The synthesis of pilgrimage and entertaining interpretation is probably, however, best represented in Montserrat, located on the Camino Catalán that now commences, as a feeder trail, a short distance away in Barcelona. Montserrat is a mountain sanctuary dedicated to the veneration of the Virgin Mary whose statue above the altar in the basilica, as a physical icon of this eleventh-century cult, is embraced by pilgrims and tourists alike. The eroded rock landscape setting is spectacular and is enhanced by an ensemble of stone monastic buildings set into the cliff edges. The site is a day trip out of Barcelona for those arriving by train, car and tour bus with the last stage of the ascent made either by cable car or by a cog railway situated beside a large car park at the base of the mountain. But apart from being a sacred site, Montserrat also seeks to entertain. For most visitors the daily performance of L’Escolanía Choir in the basilica is the key attraction, but this extends to include high-level walks within the mountains that are accessible by additional funicular rides and other trails close to the monastery complex that display sculptures and memorials. There is a formal museum of sacred and secular art and a separate audio-visual walkthrough heritage centre that tells the story of Montserrat, its special role as a place of cultural identity and devotion for Catalans, and the daily routines of monastic life. Large-scale food, drink and souvenir shopping, and hotel or hostel accommodation for those who wish to linger a while longer, are a key part of the site services. Accordingly, what makes Montserrat relevant to this analysis of Camino museology is the manner in which its spiritual, religious and profoundly secular attributes are fused as powerful heritage performance within an extensive built and natural environment. This narrative, however, as already alluded to elsewhere, is carefully staged and few visitors would realise that the site was completely destroyed by Napoleon’s army in the early nineteenth century and then rebuilt, and was abandoned during the Spanish Civil War when a number of its monks had been killed during the anticlerical violence of that time. Moreover, any reference to the Camino de Santiago is virtually absent, whether through design or accident. At one time in the recent past a large outdoor route map adjacent to the main restaurant had positioned Montserrat on the Camino Catalán, but this has been replaced by an annotated drawing of the site and the timetable of religious services in the basilica. Whether to reduce devotional overload or maximise place identity, it would seem that

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the loyalty of site managers is now exclusively to the Virgin of Montserrat, with the promotion of pilgrimage linked to Saint James being regarded as a ritual apart.

Prehistory Travellers are constantly reminded by the iconography of the Apostle that the story of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is rooted in early Christian beliefs and tradition. There is, however, a more ancient cultural heritage that is showcased, notably at Atapuerca on the Camino Francés, just a few kilometres east of Burgos. Its archaeological deposits, dating back some one million years, contain a fossil, ceramic and painting record of the appearance and way of life of human evolution. While the area commanded passing scientific interest from the mid-nineteenth century, it was only during the period from the 1970s onwards that systematic excavations across multiple sites were able to reveal the extraordinary richness of the early findings. Within the framework of the 1985 Spanish Historic Heritage Law, the archaeological site of Atapuerca was declared a Site of Cultural Interest in 1991 and was subsequently inscribed by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in December 2000. The key guided attractions for contemporary visitors are situated along a viewing pathway within a former railway cutting, with additional interactive interpretation being provided at an adjacent purpose-built Centre for Experimental Archaeology and at the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos. Nonetheless, concerns have been expressed that the tourism benefits of this infrastructure have not reached into local villages, thus prompting community involvement in heritage management to complement curatorship by official agents (Eugenia Conforti et al. 2015: 336). Heritage-based tourism is consciously packaged with extra attractions for reasons of critical mass and specialist market appeal and in that regard the Atapuerca site is linked, for example, with Palaeolithic cave art along the Cantabrian coast of the Camino del Norte at Altamira. These rock paintings have been dated back to 18,000 BC and were declared a World Heritage Site in 1985. For reasons of conservation and tourism management, access to the original cave art is strictly regulated and most visitors make do with viewing a to-scale reproduction, opened in 2001, within the adjacent National Museum and Research Centre (see Parga Dans and Alonso González 2019). The site receives some 250,000 visitors each year, the majority of whom are Spanish. Most probably, therefore, international Camino travellers constitute a small minority of this number which suggests that the cross-overs to the archaeology tourism

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niche may be quite modest. Simply put, curating an appreciation of prehistory museology is balanced between capacity management obligations and widening the Camino offer of outstanding attractions discovery during individual journeys.

Rural Tradition For those walking or cycling the Camino de Santiago the shared experience is substantially that of countryside lanes, quiet villages and panoramic vistas. There is often a sense that more people previously lived in the rural than at present, at a time when non-mechanised agriculture was the staple economic activity which was complemented by small-scale handcraft industries. This representation of rural life in the past, notably in Galicia, is formalised by displays and educational storytelling in a range of ethnographic museums sponsored by public bodies and by individual or community initiatives. The histories, images and artefacts invariably project rural tradition as fundamental to understanding regional identity, or rather a pre-selected interpretation of its society. The case of O Cebreiro village, marking the mountain gateway into Galicia on the Camino Francés, offers an interesting illustration of a museum that seeks to portray an image of rurality that is intrinsic to Galician culture. The village is famous for its sanctuary of Santa Maria, a stone-built church dating back to the ninth century and restored during the 1960s, which is associated with the Miracle of the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Unquestionably, O Cebreiro is a tourist honeypot with its fog, mists and rain providing an almost magical atmosphere for the writing of Brazilian author Paulo Coelho (1997: 205–24). It is, however, the adjacent ensemble of curved stone houses with thatched roofs (pallozas) that receives primary visitor admiration as a representation of a historic vernacular architecture (Illustration 9.1). Four buildings constitute a Mountain Areas Museum, with the interior of one complete with period furniture and tools, along with interpretative notes on the accompanying agricultural lifestyle of cattle rearing. In 2018 the museum hosted some 15,000 visitors and has been the subject of ongoing restoration by way of roof repairs, lighting and invasive insect treatment. However, interesting as this created expression of cultural heritage may be for some passing travellers, whether walking pilgrim or motorised tourist, there is some academic debate as to whether this format of museology must continue to be the ‘science of disappearance’ constructed by myths that idealise and harmonise a rural world that is agrarian, static and free of conflict (Pereiro and Vilar 2008: 100–01). Thus, the pallozas of O Cebreiro have been condemned as an archaeological fossil with visitors being

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Illustration 9.1 ‘Setting-up for the day ahead’, O Cebreiro, 2018 (© Michael McGrenaghan).

greeted instead by a new rural housing architectural reality that is hybrid, urban and denoted by feismo (ugly-ism) (Ayan Vila 2014: 129). The promotional imagery of the Camino will never allude to this landscape otherness, preferring instead the bucolic simplicity of rural tradition.

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Memory and Healing Museums not only act as rich storehouses of cultural heritage, but also can seek to present messages around powerful events to visitors in order that they truly become places of individual learning and societal transformation. The Gernika Peace Museum functions in this role and is respected internationally for showcasing the terrible aerial bombing of the town on 26 April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. The museum, founded in 1998, is situated directly on the Camino del Norte in the town centre and it numbers many pilgrims among its guests. The principal displays are on the first floor and, following an introductory analysis of the concept of peace, visitors are then immersed in the Gernika experience. This consists of three principal elements. Firstly, after entry to a sealed room, audio-visual technology is used to relay, through ‘Begoña’s story’, the severance of normal life by the shocking events of that day. The urgent peal of church bells, the dull drone of planes and the loud ticking of a wall clock are followed by the noise of explosions and sudden darkness. As the lighting returns, the destruction caused by a direct hit on Begoña’s residence is dramatically portrayed by piles of rubble behind a glass screen, on top of which lies the shattered and silent clock symbolically marking forever that fateful moment. Secondly, an exit door leads to an exhibition of photographs and artefacts dealing with the political context of the bombing and its physical consequences. Continuity with ‘Begoña’s story’ is maintained by a glass walkway over rubble that acts as a guide to movement within this space. And thirdly, a small, circular auditorium conveys visual messages in a film titled In Memoriam derived from several peace-making initiatives worldwide and the contribution that Gernika seeks to make by way of a response to the challenges of reconciliation. Included here are images of conflict resolution in Berlin, Northern Ireland, Guatemala and South Africa. On the second floor attention is given to Picasso’s celebrated painting Guernica through a three-dimensional viewing arrangement and in an adjacent room witnesses of the bombing narrate their personal testimonies based on video archive material. As an institution that draws on painful memory and the practice of peace, the Gernika Peace Museum fits well with the universal pilgrim quest for a humanity of healing. Less well known on the international stage, but nonetheless important in this narrative of memory and pain, is the General Archive of the Spanish Civil War in Salamanca, a tourist-historic city on the Vía de la Plata. Its documented heritage speaks to the cultural politics of a deeply divided past (and present) in Spain. The Salamanca archive was initiated in 1937 as an anti-communist information and propaganda repository and was used by the military dictatorship as an instrument of political

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repression long after the ending of formal hostilities in 1939. In the postFranco era the role of the Archive changed to become a research engine for former Republicans and their families to obtain documentation that might entitle them to compensation. Notably, in 2007 the Spanish Parliament passed a Law of Historical Memory at which point the General Archive of the Spanish Civil War was integrated into a new Historical Memory Records Centre. (For further exploration of this institutional evolution, see Melgar-Camarzana 2018; Romero 2018.) Issues have surfaced around the ownership and return of documentation that continue to reflect conflicting interests (Balcells 2014: 1). The Centre comprises two buildings in Salamanca with its original site unobtrusively located inside the walled entrance to the historic core under the shadow of the vast cathedral complex. Visitors are introduced to its curatorship activities within that building by audio-visual presentations and can then view three permanent exhibitions dealing with the Civil War, Freemasonry and the reconstructed interior of a Masonic Lodge. Freemasonry had been considerably repressed by the Franco administration as many politicians during the Second Republic had Masonic Lodge membership and the education philosophy introduced to schools at that time, with its roots in Freemasonry enlightenment, had been strongly opposed by the Catholic Church and its satellite organisations such as the Federation of Friends of Catholic Education (Párraga Pavón 2010). A more complete analysis of the commencement of the Second Republic in 1931, the politics of the Civil War, the ideological and performance characteristics of the Franco regime, and the subsequent transition to democracy all feature in the galleries of a second building, custom-renovated in 2015. In the midst of so much detailed exposition, one modest exhibit offers a particularly poignant reminder of the brutality and propaganda slogans of those troubled times. On two wall boards twenty-eight postcard-size images, published by the opposing Republicanos and Nacionales, distil key messages around inter-communal aggression, terror and death. The theme of the innocent child as victim is common to each grouping. Especially noteworthy are the competing narratives of political leadership which on one side seek to deify General Franco as a hero of national unity, and on the other as a puppet of more powerful interests comprising the Catholic Church, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Clearly, the exhibited material is a timely and challenging public expression of previously buried memory that seeks to display the sharp cleavages in twentieth-century Spanish history. Given the appropriation of some core imagery of the Camino de Santiago narrative within the rubric of National Catholicism by the Falange, the collective contribution of this archive is one that offers a welcome environment of understanding among all sides in a society where there is still much searching for a coherent (as opposed to singular) perspective on a dif-

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ficult past comprised of victims, perpetrators, witnesses and the families of loved ones.

Conclusion This chapter draws attention to the multiple and enriching experiences that museology offers those travelling the Camino de Santiago network of routes. Some connect directly with the heritage of pilgrimage by embracing sacred, religious and more secular narratives, while others display cultural heritage ambitions that link places and histories on, but not of, the Camino geography. The exhibitions are communication conduits where meaning is reinforced by the selected artefacts, their careful positioning within the gallery spaces, and the accompanying narratives and pathways of movement that are constructed by curators. However, there is an accompanying variation in the depth of engagement and understanding by visitors, whereby empathy with these meanings and underpinning values are deeply personal; thus, the emotional resonances, or ‘take-home’ messages, can be highly differentiated among those who view the collections and reflect their life experiences, beliefs, preferences, motivations and expectations. The venues rely considerably on the enthusiasm of host communities and public sector intervention to both celebrate and commemorate these pasts in the present. At a time when so much of the current Camino guidebook literature and Internet information emphasises the detail of itineraries, accommodation and services, it is perhaps appropriate that pilgrim audiences should support a greater critical awareness of this infrastructure and the stories that are being told. Each of the centres examined above, through their thematic selection and modes of display, can provide new opportunities for pilgrimage encounter.

Conclusion Towards a Different Curatorship of the Camino de Santiago?

Introduction Pilgrimage routes are inextricably linked with a destination and are denoted by movement towards a special place followed by the completion of anticipated rituals upon arrival. The Camino de Santiago fits closely with this rubric of pilgrim behaviour and, during the many journeys that eventually end in Santiago de Compostela, the gained experiences will have been profoundly shaped by the multiple curators of heritage and tourism examined in this book. For the most part, the exercise of this institutional agency is invisible to travellers, but its presence is very real in managing the history, practices and environment in which they are immersed. There have been many notable events and periods in the past that have fashioned this cultural landscape, ranging from the rediscovery and validation of the alleged remains of Saint James at the end of the nineteenth century, to the appropriation of the cult of the Apostle by the Franco regime and its deployment as propaganda in a state ideology of National Catholicism. The contemporary remaking of the Camino de Santiago, as the primary focus of this book, gathered momentum from the 1980s within the context of an emergent liberal democracy and fledgling civil society in Spain, a Church that was embracing societal reconciliation on the international stage, and deepening bonds of integration within a European project of territorial interdependence. From the 1993 Holy Year, in particular, the pace and scale of change within the cultural complex that is the

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Camino de Santiago has intensified. Many additional routes have been recovered, a sophisticated service infrastructure has been facilitated through public policy and private sector investment, heritage protection legislation and plans have been adopted, and global reach information and communication have expanded. The issuing of an ever greater annual volume of Compostela certificates is hailed as the litmus test of engaged pilgrim participation. And yet in 2020 this edifice has come crashing down as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and there are uncertainties about the short- to medium-term future. This final chapter weaves a narrative across this backcloth of continuity and adjustment and questions whether a different Camino de Santiago should and can evolve in the years to come. In building towards that conclusion, the next section revisits the relationship between heritage, tourism and pilgrimage that provides a context for a suite of core themes, issues and future possibilities related to the curatorship of the Camino de Santiago.

Heritage, Tourism and Pilgrimage Revisited At around the same time in the 1980s that the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage was gaining renewed popularity, there emerged a lively academic critique of the heritage industry, the distinction between heritage and history, and their linkages with tourism. A seminal publication at that time was Donald Horne’s (1984) The Great Museum: The Re-presentation of History which interestingly takes as its departure point the symmetry between the medieval pilgrim who visited the shrines of dead saints and the contemporary tourist who visits monuments and museums armed with guidebooks as latter-day ‘devotional texts’ (ibid.: 10). He argues that sightseeing comprises in the main a ceremonial ritual of photography and souvenir collection related to the venerating of art and artefacts as secular relics, with participants ‘looking for escape from the dislocations of the industrial society’ (ibid.: 21). Tourists may embrace the ‘cults of simplicity’ or an ‘authenticity of old ways’ nostalgia, but his stark warning is the need to be sceptical about reconstructions of history lest the past become an escapism of ‘therapeutic fantasy’ (ibid.: 251). David Lowenthal’s (1985) The Past is a Foreign Country subsequently provided a masterly exploration of how American and European societies deal with the past as heritage through a combination of appropriation, celebration, reshaping and obliteration. Much of the commentary explores the impulses of preserving the cultural landscapes of town and country. His assertion is that the more we save, the more aware we become that permanence is an illusion due to continual alteration and reinterpretation. This has profound meaning for

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the routes and places of pilgrimage whose iconography, imagery, memory and legend seek to transport travellers ‘backward in time’. While ‘the past remains integral to us all’, his final words that it is ‘resurrected into an ever changing present’ (ibid.: 412) speaks to those with an interest in both consuming and curating that heritage. Lowenthal’s advocacy offers insightful advice for informed engagement: ‘Once aware that relics, history and memory are continually refashioned, we are less inhibited by the past, less frustrated by a fruitless quest for sacrosanct originals’ (ibid.: 412). These comments resonate, for example, with the ongoing debate around improvements made to the detailed alignments and surface conditions of the Camino de Santiago. This critical sensitivity to a more nuanced and dynamic relationship between history, heritage and tourism has been explicated by John Urry (1990) in The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. Across the three editions, with the later versions published in 2002 and 2011, the opening words that there are ‘many professional experts who help to construct and develop our gaze as tourists’ (ibid.: 1) remain a constant observation on institutional agency involvement in selecting, constructing and reproducing objects of visitor interest which can separate the ordinary/everyday and the different extraordinary. His observations chime with the earlier work of Dean MacCannell (1976), The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, which also generated iterations in 1999 and 2013, and which suggested that ‘some mysterious institutional force operates on the totality in advance of the arrival of tourists, separating out the specific sights which are attractions’ (ibid.: 42). This complexity of heritage production comprises an interaction between official ‘sight sacralisation’ and the ‘ritual attitudes’ (or responsive behaviour) of tourists, with the former comprising stages of (i) selection, authentication and naming, (ii) visibility and boundary setting, (iii) formal presentation, (iv) mechanical reproduction, for example through the preparation of images, and (v) social reproduction whereby famous attractions are adopted as brands elsewhere (ibid.: 44–45). Pilgrimage routes and destinations, not least the Camino de Santiago, demonstrate a comparable staged process of religious heritage production involving legislative intervention, route discovery, protected delineation and physical enhancement. Meanwhile, pilgrims engage with diverse information and communication media that stimulate ambition, anticipation and consumption. Camino replication and leisured enjoyment of heritage routes in varied locations (or caminoisation, after Bowman and Sepp 2019) provide an extended compass of social reproduction. The analysis in Urry’s follow-on book, Consuming Places (1995), draws attention to the social experience of tourism as being linked to the

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ability of having a good time in the company of others (ibid.: 131). Arguably, this expression of collective consumption strikes a chord with the Turnerian construct of communitas and as Urry suggests, ‘other people give atmosphere to a place. They indicate that this is the place to be and that one should not be elsewhere’ (ibid.: 138). Additionally, it is emphasised that this collective consumption by congregating tourists is learned behaviour and is underpinned by trusted signposts that signal where a collective gaze should occur. The interesting corollary to this is that there are multiple knowledges upon which tourists – not just industry professionals – draw, and that accordingly ‘trust is not something simply given but has to be worked at and continually negotiated and contested . . . people have to learn to open out to others who are often geographically very distant’ (ibid.: 144). In short, knowledge is co-produced and, when applied to life on the Camino de Santiago, it transcends the routines set out in the many available pilgrims’ guides, and ranges from informal chat among pilgrims to the Internet posting of individual blogs for group insight. Finally, the collective consumption of tourists is denoted by what Urry labels ‘open hospitality’ that prompts interaction between hosts and guests based on ‘a belief that the outsider is deserving of special generosity’ (ibid.: 147). This is portrayed as a badge of honour for those who welcome everyone. Again, the parallels with pilgrims on the move are all too apparent and extend from volunteerism by helpers to the provision of low-cost overnight accommodation. The daily availability of a free meal, albeit for a limited number of Compostela recipients, in the Hostal de los Reyes Católicos Parador evidences, for example, the continuity of a tradition of pilgrim generosity dating back in that instance to medieval times. To conclude, this brief commentary demonstrates just how embedded the curatorship of pilgrimage is within ideas and insights that have shaped the research trajectories of heritage and tourism. The cross-overs are keenly apparent in their shared attributes of producing and re-creating sights, mobility and collective consumption. The relevance of these factors is particularly underlined by the energy that goes into place-making and place-maintaining (after Coleman and Eade 2018: 3) and the significance of planning interventions at local, regional, national and supranational levels. These extend well beyond religious authority into the governance spheres of the state, civil society and commerce whereby ‘the language of the sacred is shown to be deployed in ways that are as entrepreneurial as they are pious’ (ibid.: 6). The detailed analysis in this book of the political, cultural and economic issues involved in curating the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism, and the identified tensions between religious and secular interests, fit with that observation.

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Themes, Issues and Possibilities The Camino de Santiago as a Symbol of European Unity Since the mid-1980s there has been a convergence of interest in the Camino de Santiago by high-profile supra-national institutions. In 1987 the Council of Europe hailed it as the first European Cultural Itinerary and by 2019 had designated some thirty-eight themed routes across the continent that are illustrative of cultural diversity. The declared values underpinning these itineraries relate to fostering mutual respect by bringing people together beyond cultural division, expanding the accessibility and learning potential of this varied heritage to European citizens, and embedding respect for human rights, tolerance and democracy. UNESCO inscribed the medieval core of Santiago de Compostela on its World Heritage List in 1985 and followed this up by similarly recognising the ancient pilgrimage trail to the tomb of the Apostle in 1993 and its extension to include routes to the north of the Camino Francés in 2015. The universal acclaim of the route to Santiago is regarded by UNESCO as including its ‘outstanding witness to the power and influence of faith among people of all social classes and origins in medieval Europe and later’. Funding from the European Union (EU), in order to strengthen integration and reduce disparities, has facilitated many local rural development projects along the Camino de Santiago and has sponsored inter-regional and transnational cooperation initiatives that have enhanced the tourism infrastructure of pilgrimage. The lattice of medieval pilgrimage routes that are spread across Europe and make their way to north-west Galicia suggest an empirical reality of Christian tradition. In that regard the Church has been rather more prescriptive in attaching the significance of the religious meaning of the Camino de Santiago to a progressive Europe built on values from a distant past. Reference has already been made to Papal visits to Santiago de Compostela and, in an address at its cathedral during the 1982 Holy Year, Pope John Paul II stated: My gaze extends at these moments over the European continent, over the immense network of communication routes that unite the cities and nations that comprise it, and I see again those roads that, since the Middle Ages, have led innumerable masses of pilgrims, drawn by devotion to the Apostle, and continue to lead to Santiago de Compostela – as evidenced by the Holy Year celebrated this year . . . Since the eleventh and twelfth centuries, under the impulse of the monks of Cluny, more and more of the faithful from all corners of Europe have come frequently to the tomb of Santiago . . . The whole of Europe founded itself around the ‘memory’ of Santiago, in the same centuries in which it was built as a homogeneous and spiritually united continent . . . The history of the formation of the European nations goes hand in hand with its evangelisation, to the point that the European borders

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coincide with those of the penetration of the Gospel. After twenty centuries of history, despite the bloody conflicts that have confronted the peoples of Europe, and despite the spiritual crises that have marked the life of the continent . . . It must be affirmed that European identity is incomprehensible without Christianity . . . And still today, the soul of Europe remains united because, in addition to its common origin, it has identical Christian and human values, such as those comprising the dignity of the human person, the deep feeling of justice and freedom, industriousness, spirit of initiative, love of family, respect for life, tolerance and the desire for cooperation and peace. (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 1982)

Accordingly, the Jacobean cult as Christian heritage has been allowed to assume a socio-political significance constructed around a powerful rhetoric of territorial and cultural cohesion. The Camino de Santiago carries a heavy ideological load and if Brussels can be perceived as the technocratic capital of the continent, then Santiago de Compostela becomes its spiritual home. All this masks the reality of European fragmentation within nation states prompted by an ever louder advocacy of separatism, populist politics of anger and the questioning of EU membership that is driven by the exceptionalism of economic independence. Across the continent the chimera of compliant togetherness has visibly been abandoned, if indeed it ever existed. Thus, the equating of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James as the apotheosis of a common European heritage belies the reality of a multiculturalism that can equally embrace the values of what it means to be human. As argued pithily by Graham et al. (2000: 234), ‘there is no one landscape or iconography that can encompass Europe’s diversity’. All this points to the need for a less didactic representation of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as a symbol of European unity.

The Camino de Santiago as a Rhetorical Lever Shaping Political Goals The Autonomous Communities in Spain are prominent in promoting tourism within their regions and have devised investment strategies to aid its development. It is not surprising that the Camino de Santiago should feature as a product component in those territories through which the pilgrimage trails progress on their way to Santiago de Compostela and, indeed, specific planning frameworks have been prepared in some regions to give added emphasis to this heritage resource. Clearly, there is competitive positioning at play with evidence of territorial differentiation and maximising comparative advantage including, in the case of Galicia, the initial advantage of the Apostle’s shrine. But what is also apparent is that the Camino de Santiago is linked to wider regional development aspirations that appear to address geographical peripherality, economic re-

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structuring and demographic imbalance. Its appeal to regional electorates is continually being resold as a political project that promises a spread of benefits and the inclusion of all. In short, the secularisation of the Camino de Santiago very much defines its contemporary representation as a theme that can be cross-cutting in public administration and can command loud endorsement in the media by powerful politicians. The preparations for and content of Holy Year celebrations, when the July feast day of Saint James falls on a Sunday, throw this distinction between the spiritual/religious and secular/profane meanings of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela into sharp focus. The 1993 event has had a seminal impact in that regard with its commercial commodification through festivalisation earning substantial political capital but with the Church, perhaps, less comfortable with this shift to popular entertainment. At that time, it was recorded, for example, that the cathedral Canon had been more concerned with improving the pilgrim credencial, the Compostela certificate, the Pilgrim Mass and making confessions available in different languages, while simultaneously fighting against the trivialisation of the Holy Year and its reduction to an economic and materialistic stimulus (de Cela Pérez 2019: 7). In the run-up to the 2021 Holy Year, it would seem that past experience has been repeated, with the state and Church taking notably separate trajectories in regard to defining its purposes, presenting their branding messages and devising programmes for visiting and domestic congregations. On the other hand, each recognises the need for collaborative working within the space that defines pilgrimage as heritage and tourism. It remains important that both institutions are represented on current and future Xacobeo working groups and demonstrate a willingness to attend press briefings with their inevitable photograph opportunities projecting a unity of purpose.

Curating the Built and Natural Environment of the Camino de Santiago Regulatory physical planning seeks to serve the public interest by protecting the built and natural environment from unwelcome development. By curtailing the rights of land and property owners, it is a governmental activity that can arouse passionate debate around the scope of this intervention, particularly when heritage is at stake. The Camino de Santiago falls within that compass of concern with Spanish government legislation dating back to 1962, advising measures to delimit, reconstitute and preserve the Jacobean route as a historic-artistic collective. In the post-Franco era regulatory planning specifically for the Camino de Santiago is a regional matter and is characterised by three interlocking instruments: legislation, territorial plans and municipal special protection plans. The independence

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of Autonomous Communities to decide on customised approaches to these matters has resulted in the publication of a substantial body of policy material within which there are evolving variations in content and status reflecting the local standing of the many Ways and accompanying political sensitivities. The broad pattern consists of a designated trail, buffer zones and wider areas of visual influence within which there are detailed landuse controls and sanctions for breaches of the planning code. Over time the regulatory quest has been to pursue more precise delineations and greater certainty in decision-making that can meet the test of legal rigour. Nonetheless, the issue that arises here is the absence of a comprehensive regional and intra-regional coverage of plans and policies that relate to the considerably extended geography of the Caminos de Santiago. Moreover, it is clear that what lies beneath this complexity of legislation and plans is the exercising of competing power relationships, so much so that across many decades the Camino de Santiago is constantly being recalibrated as a result of the interaction between its official curators and a web of economic and social interests. The technical scrutiny of development proposals requires a consideration of potential environmental impact and mitigation. The application of this principle is constant across all projects regardless of size, although it is considerably more in-depth for infrastructure and economic development proposals with strategic significance. While inappropriate smallscale developments can have a cumulative adverse effect on the integrity of the Camino de Santiago if permitted, the undertaking of large-scale investments can be destructive. The legacy of reservoir construction is a case in point but which in turn throws light on processes of decision making that can no longer afford to be dismissive of citizen sentiment. The reconstruction of Portomarín was a technocratic project under high-level political patronage that brooked no dissent from local people. In contrast, both the enlargement of Yesa Reservoir and the Touro-O Pino mining proposal evidence sustained community protest, although the extent of the weight given to this as a material consideration remains unclear. Nonetheless, the public value of public involvement is its capacity to challenge the official curators of Camino heritage and hold them to account, if necessary in the courts. Economic development and heritage protection can clash and thus organised citizen action should be welcomed as the standard-bearer of an engaged environmental stewardship that can mediate across those interests.

Communicating the Camino de Santiago as Imagined Geographies The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism has gathered around it an enormous repository of information that is capable of global communication. Common themes over time consist of telling the story

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of Saint James in Spain, the emergence of Santiago de Compostela as a place of pilgrimage from the medieval era, throwing a cloak of romanticism over its landscapes and Jacobean iconography, and selling memorable experiences enriched by the involvement of the hospitality industry. The Church is an active partner in this arena with the virtues of piety and devotion often sidelined by an imagery of pomp and spectacle that infuses public consciousness. It treads a difficult path between upholding the religious integrity of devotion at the shrine of the Apostle and promoting a secular offer of cultural tourism that can help fund the conservation of a demanding heritage estate. The archive of films and newsreels produced by NO-DO during the Franco years around this cultural complex portrays a heritage that was inextricably tied to projecting the values and ambitions of the regime. National unity in a confessional state was the recurrent message. In the contemporary world of Internet short videos, the actual topography of places, buildings and ceremonial ritual has not really changed but revised imaginations invite meanings of personal adventure, discovery and delight. Previous representations of an appeal to national unity have been largely replaced by regional competition with the language of the advertising industry communicating messages around what is special and what is different. This is the new political-administrative propaganda into which the Camino de Santiago has been appropriated. The downside to these imagined geographies is the reality of overcrowding along some of the trails, the emergence of criminality and pilgrim danger, a selfish individualism in the daily race to accommodation, the frustration in not being able to get a cafe seat and the deterioration of the local environment by vandalism, litter, path erosion and visually obtrusive advertising. These issues seldom feature in the officially constructed narratives of Camino tourism presented in short films, take-home bumph and magazine media. Museums and interpretive centres perform a particular role in telling the stories of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage or by virtue of their location telling their own stories to the tourist-pilgrim. Through their theme selection and modes of display, they can provide new opportunities for pilgrimage encounter that can be thought-provoking, entertaining and confrontational. The purpose may be to encourage passive admiration of the aesthetic ensemble, to educate, and to facilitate self-discovery, but in each instance this requires placing a certain construction on the presented past. Perhaps, as Ferguson Cameron (1995: 54) opines, museums are no more than ‘a meeting place where ideas can be shared and where collections are useful only as occasional interpretive tools’. The key question invoked for visitors, curators and sponsors is whose point of view or whose dogma is being stressed by what is included and excluded. Consequently,

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as venues of communication they are not neutral in outlook, they speak to memory and invite personal reflection.

The Camino de Santiago or the Tomb of the Apostle as Pilgrimage A close reading of formal speeches by senior clergy within the Church suggests a nuanced shift in emphasis from pilgrimage as journeying the Camino de Santiago, to pilgrimage as venerating the Apostle within the Cathedral of Santiago. As observed by Greenia (2018: 13), ‘pilgrimages are always named for the places that one wants to arrive at’ but, as demonstrated by this book dealing with the Camino de Santiago, ‘the journey may eclipse the site altogether’. By tradition both these dimensions remain linked, but the retreat towards a more faith-oriented praxis at the sacred destination can easily be understood in the context of the increasing secular character of the Camino experience. Many participants regard it as a travelling adventure in good company, prompted by a combination of media exposure and promotion by a tourism industry keen to reap economic dividends from the commodification of religious heritage. Indeed, research reported previously in this book (Fernández et al. 2016: 284) relating to pilgrim behaviour at the end of the journey indicates that participation in the sacred rituals of Confession and Holy Communion is a minority activity, and while large numbers embrace the statue of the Apostle above the main altar, descend to the crypt to visit his tomb and attend Mass (perhaps to view the much acclaimed spectacle of the botafumeiro in action), the latter elements have meaning both as tourist curiosity and religious ritual. This cathedral behaviour resonates with the broader observation of Coleman and Bowman (2019: 14) that ‘the tourist, passerby or undecided semi-believer may move in and out of the rhythms and spaces of conventional liturgy’ while crossing perhaps back and forth between ‘sacred space’ and ‘common ground’. In short, the conventional understanding of pilgrimage movement as a round trip from home to holy place and back home is reconfigured in the case of Santiago de Compostela. The commonplace linear and single direction Camino pilgrimage formally commences with an initial stamp on the pilgrim credencial some distance from the city and, at the end of every Camino de Santiago route, the chosen final destination may simply be the city of Santiago with its souvenir shops and hospitality, the International Pilgrim Office to obtain certification, or the cathedral crypt to venerate the Apostle. The journey may also proceed further westwards to terminate at Finisterre or Muxia. Some pilgrims may embrace all these secular and sacred rituals of behaviour, but others may be much more selective in line with personal values and motivation.

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The issuing of a Compostela certificate to pilgrims has grown steadily and, for many recipients, can be interpreted as a prize that acknowledges their physical exertion. The citation translated from Latin is the following: The Chapter of this Holy Apostolic and Metropolitan Cathedral of Compostela, custodian of the seal of the Altar of Saint James, to all the Faithful and Pilgrims who arrive from anywhere on the Orb of the Earth with an attitude of devotion, or because of a vow or promise to make a pilgrimage to the Tomb of the Apostle, Our Patron Saint and Protector of Spain, recognises before all who observe this document that . . . [Name] . . . has devotedly visited this most sacred temple having done the last hundred kilometres on foot or on horseback, or the last two hundred by bicycle with Christian sentiment. In witness whereof I present this document endorsed with the seal of this same Holy Church. (See https://oficinadelperegrino.com/peregrinacion/la-compostela/)

The document is premised on the completion of a pious journey to the tomb of the Apostle and thus the cathedral authorities try to remain vigilant in distinguishing conventional religious and spiritual criteria from secular motivations to determine eligibility. For those who volunteer leisure and cultural reasons for undertaking their Camino an alternative Certificado is offered. In 2014 an optional Certificate of Distance was introduced and is notably inclusive of both categories. One might wonder if, in due course, this could become the only certification offered by the International Pilgrim Office which, while recognising the physical effort of undertaking the Camino de Santiago, would essentially remove a perceived piety distinction between the current Compostela certified pilgrims and the many other unrecognised pilgrims who, as transported religious tourism individuals and groups, also arrive at the cathedral to venerate Saint James. The purchase of the much less known certificate for having visited the cathedral and tomb of the Apostle, available from the office of the Archconfraternity, provides documentary validation of an attitude of devotion for all such pilgrims. A related issue is the requirement to complete at least the last 100 kilometres on foot or on horseback, or the last 200 kilometres by bicycle, in order to qualify for either a Compostela or a Certificado. It would seem that this regulation was only introduced as an administrative mechanism to more efficiently manage pilgrimage accreditation during the 1993 Holy Year given the limited staffing of the pilgrim office at that time. Compostela certificates issued during that period made no reference to this stipulation. Simply stated, it has no apparent religious or spiritual rationale and, since the largest travel mode is walking, it has not brooked any criticism from tourism proponents within Galicia. However, given the sheer multiplicity of Camino itineraries that have been recovered in the interim, it would seem only but equitable and in the best interests of carrying capacity on

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crowded routes, that the prescribed minimum distances, with an official credencial as evidence, might be achieved across that wider geography. When combined with multi-modal travel to Santiago de Compostela, as the eventual city destination, pilgrim witness could still be given at the tomb of the Apostle.

Camino Replication and the Dilution of Difference The discussion in Chapter 1 draws attention to the emergence of other pilgrimage routes at varied scales in Europe which seek to imitate the Camino de Santiago as the definitive exemplar. As suggested by Bowman and Sepp (2019: 81), ‘the new pilgrim paths are “routes with roots”, heritagised manifestations of a lost (possibly idealised) history, often encouraging access to rural areas and neglected cultural heritage’. The structuring of itineraries into stages of varying length, the availability of interpretive and promotional materials, the use of customised waymarking, the deployment of pilgrim passports that allow for the collection of ink stamps, the award of completion certificates and the purchasing of souvenirs are all familiar ingredients in the product development mix. These alternative ‘caminos’ may be special occasion events, guided or un-guided, individual or group-based. The secular and the sacred may at times elide through rituals of prayer and blessing, while individual spirituality may be enhanced by a sense of deeper self-awareness and personal effort, sometimes stumbling, that is in close communion with the cultural landscape. Accordingly, the mobility of doing ‘the camino’ has shifted to doing ‘a camino’ with the Spanish etymology of the word now assimilated as an instantly recognised universal vocabulary in linguistic pluralism. It is no longer necessary, for example, to walk the Camino Francés to be labelled a ‘camino’ enthusiast and while the perception of difference may become blurred, the important consideration is that participants, whether pious pilgrim or leisured recreationist, find what they anticipate. Again, much of that experience will be conditioned by the hidden curators of pilgrimage who must constantly re-work, amplify and sell heritages which may be as fractured as they are coherent.

Curating the Post-pandemic Camino de Santiago In June 2020 The Guardian newspaper published its regular long-essay feature under the title ‘How a Small Spanish Town Became One of Europe’s Worst COVID-19 Hotspots’ (Tremlett 2020). The article catalogues the fatal consequences of the outbreak in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, situated on the Camino Francés in La Rioja, and tells an all too

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familiar story of life under lockdown, to the easing of restrictions, followed by a community questioning why this town seems to have been especially afflicted with the contagion. In concluding that ‘only the boldest pilgrims will pass through Santo Domingo this summer’ (ibid.: 9), the adverse impact on the local economy, so dependent on pilgrimage tourism, is likely to be keenly felt. From medieval times the pilgrim itineraries of Europe have always been conduits for the transmission of disease and in the mid-fourteenth century, for example, the Black Death wreaked havoc having probably entered the continent via ship transport and then spread by land trading. Highly connected cities receiving pilgrims, goods and people from many other cities would have had a high probability of receiving recurrent waves of pathogens (Gómez and Verdú 2017). The settlement pattern along the historic Camino de Santiago, in close proximity to the seaports of A Coruña and Ferrol, would fit well with that assessment. Looked at from the perspective of COVID-19 in 2020, it is clear that concerns around contact and spread have justified the closing of the Camino network, comprising Church, civic and commercial infrastructure, and the curtailment of movement into and across Spain for a period of time. Nonetheless, given the significance of tourism to regional economies, the gradual easing of restrictions in line with greater containment of the virus had changed the national messaging in the summer of 2020 to a more positive: ‘Spain will wait, Never stop dreaming’, and in the case of Santiago de Compostela: ‘I miss you’. The Internet invitation from the Xunta de Galicia was a more direct ‘Galicia Volve’ (Galicia Returns), showing walkers on the Camino de Santiago and social distancing in an open-air countryside restaurant. However, consumer confidence based on the creation and roll-out of efficacious vaccines, the availability of rapid testing and an absence of infection transfer will remain key to the restoration of pilgrim numbers in volume, although it is very difficult to see a return to the previous pattern of year-on-year growth in the short run. Not surprisingly, the data on pilgrim arrivals recorded by the Cathedral Pilgrim Office demonstrated a marked decline in 2020 compared with the previous year. Over the period January to December the comparative figures were some 347,500 in 2019 and only some 54,000 in 2020. The pilgrim market had shed its international underpinning and while European pilgrims made up over 90 per cent of the 2020 data set, it is noteworthy that almost 70 per cent of this total was accounted for by Spanish citizens. The potential longevity of COVID-19 and its virus variants, ongoing travel restrictions and public health regulations for accommodation and restaurants will have consequences for pilgrimage participation, capacity management and economic viability. One outcome is the extension of the 2021 Holy Year into 2022 following Papal consent to a request received from the Santiago de

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Compostela Archdiocese in June 2020. Furthermore, in order to reduce personal contact and the risk of infection, the Pilgrim Office has introduced a digital credencial and stamp generator that is complementary to the traditional mode of pilgrimage certification. All this points towards the pause in business as usual being an opportunity to take stock of how a post-pandemic Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism may be curated differently. The Camino de Santiago has long been a theatre of private conversations among pilgrims and between these travellers and those whom they encounter, perhaps as hospitaleros, confessors or in pastoral ministry. Shared stories can comfort those weighed down by the tribulations of life and can enrich the pilgrim experience by allowing for good advice to be acted upon. The latter may only be suggestions based on experience relating, perhaps, to route alternatives, a friendly bar with good coffee, or caution when walking alongside a busy road, but it serves to build a mutuality of support. These insights are important. But this tradition of trust relationships also has profound relevance for an institutional agency involved in curating the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism because it underlines the value of collective learning based on the transmission of ideas through new conversations. Sustainable development can easily be condemned as an empty cliché if its accompanying rhetoric rings hollow in political discourse. And yet the themes of collaborative action, environmental stewardship, appropriate investment and sensitive regulatory planning policy, along with ethical communication and story-telling, are at the heart of what that phrase should mean. This book constitutes a serious attempt to relate those themes to the Ways of Saint James. Accordingly, the period ahead should look to the power of a wide conversation by identifying what can be done differently and better. It should not be a short-term discussion, it should be inclusive of all with a curatorship interest in this cultural complex, it should debate tensions between economic imperative and religious meaning, and it should seek to learn from the multi-culturalism of other pilgrimage encounters. These deliberations may well prove an opportune moment, within a vast timelandscape of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism, to re-boot the Camino de Santiago.

Epilogue

Following my early pilgrimages along the Camino de Santiago, two coauthored articles were published in 1997 in Tourism Management and Ecumene. Each has been well received by the academy but this book could not have been written at that time. Governance arrangements surrounding the curatorship of pilgrimage as heritage and tourism have matured during the interim and there are now multiple policy interventions and investment outcomes which were previously absent. Moreover, the availability of and access to data was considerably constrained. The Internet has dramatically changed the research context and, along with greater transparency in legislative and policy documentation, it has been possible to trace the evolution and application of state and Church decision-making and announcements. Most of the material is published in Castilian Spanish, along with Galician, Basque and Catalan, and here the use of translation software has aided understanding, although interpretation requires both careful appreciation and a common-sense approach to the nuances of language and idiom. My background in teaching and writing about regional development and planning law has been invaluable in that regard. Newspaper coverage has been helpful, though what is published often tends to be descriptive and devoid of critical comment. The repetition of similar story-lines in national and regional media points to widespread reliance on press statements prepared and circulated by public relations staff. Nonetheless, when this output is read as a whole, it is possible to follow the progression and complexities of institutional agency in curating the Camino de Santiago. This recourse to secondary data analysis has been complemented by empirical observation during numerous walking and car-borne expeditions over twenty-five years. Again, this book could not have been written without those insights gained from having been there, whether on the road or in the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral.

Epilogue

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Photographs, diary notes and collected ephemera (along with a flourishing multi-disciplinary academic literature) have all added vitality to my understanding of the varied personalities of Camino geography, its spatial variation and change over time. This book provides a baseline for further research in this field and thus, in looking to the future, the final call is one which asks, firstly, for a longitudinal narrative on how the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage as heritage and tourism has fared against the backcloth of considerable pilgrim energy and stakeholder involvement examined in these pages. To that author, I extend a sincere ‘Buen Camino’. Secondly, the approach taken in this book to explore the agency of multiple interests in shaping the pilgrimage arena lends itself to comparative investigation at the global scale. Oversight of the pilgrimage phenomenon extends well beyond religious leadership and is linked to the activities of multi-level government, commerce and civil society. These influence, and in turn are influenced by, patterns of consumption within broader society in general and by pilgrims in particular that collectively acknowledge a coexistence of the sacred and the secular. The narrative in this book is a detailed case study of practice, but it can provide a template to examine other encounters with political, economic and cultural power in the context of different religions in other territories that live pilgrimage renewal continually.

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Index

Agronoff, R., 113 Alonso González, P., 156 American Pilgrims on the Camino, 96, 168 Anglican Shrine Church (Walsingham, England), 30, 37, 38 Aragón planning project, 115–16, 125, 132 ARI. See Integrated Rehabilitation Areas Armed Forces Memorial (National Arboretum, England), 13–14 Autonomous Communities additions to, 93 establishment and activities of, 82–84 regulatory planning by, 107–20 shrine of Saint James hosted by, 6 tourism promoted by, 199 for urban planning, 106 websites, 172 Barcelona Olympics, 90 Barrio Barrio, Archbishop Julian, 73–74, 76 Basque Route, 58, 109, 131, 132 Belesar Reservoir, 144–50 Bell, A.R., 48 Benedict XVI (Pope), 75 Bennett, N.J., 33 Bilbao Guggenheim, 64, 181 botafumeiro ceremony, 67, 76, 137, 183, 186, 203 Bowman, M., 19, 203 Brussels (Belgium), 153, 199 Buddhist pilgrims, 13 Bull Deus Omnipotens, 47, 97

Burgos Cathedral, 49, 168, 182 business and universities publications, 178 role in Camino de Santiago governance, 97–99 CaixaBank, 140 Cameron, Ferguson, 202 Camino Aragonés, 154, 176 Camino Blanco, 58 Camino bumph, 175–77 Camino Catalán, 187–88 Camino del Norte, 59 cave art and, 188 delimitation of, 110, 119 hostels on, 96 pilgrims completing, 57 planning for, 89 Camino de Madrid, 58, 122–23, 125 Camino de Santiago celebrity status of, 3–4, 6 Council of Europe declaration, 17, 112 curatorship of, 6, 8 curatorship of built and natural environment, 200–201 development strategies for, 6–7 as European unity, 198–99 heritage management and, 11 imagery of, 8 as imagined geographies, 201–3 investment guidelines for tourism development, 126–33 investment strategies for, 123–24 new routes and dilution of difference, 205

226

NO-DO features on, 166, 170–71 pilgrim behaviour on, 3 promotion of, 5 protection of, 6 research, 208–9 for shaping political goals, 199–200 as state propaganda, 7 tourism and, 11 Camino de Santiago, governance of, 208. See also curatorship role of business and universities in, 97–99 role of the Church in, 73–82 role of civil society in, 94–97 role of government in, 82–94 Camino de Santiago routes. See also Camino Francés; Camino Inglés; Vía de la Plata Camino network, 51–56 historical context for, 47–51 as international heritage, 59–61 maintenance of, 126 modes of travel on, 58 morphology of pilgrim city, 61–62 multiplicity of itineraries, 58–59 penitential role for, 68–69 as personal geographies of discovery, 69–72 pilgrimage data for, 56–59 pilgrims and travellers on, 67–69 signage on, 60–61 tourist promotion and, 62–67 UNESCO and, 83, 127–31 Camino de Santiagua, 58 Camino Francés, 7, 19, 54 approach to pilgrim city, 62 Council of Europe recognition, 112 delimitation of, 110, 119 as EuroVelo route, 64 experience of, 63 first aid on, 71 guidebook, 176 hostels on, 96 as journey of initiation, 72 overlooking Belesar Reservoir, 144–45 as physically demanding, 65 pilgrims completing, 57

Index

planning for, 89 planning instruments for, 117 police patrols and pilgrim safety on, 66–67 as principal pilgrimage itinerary, 51–53 prison inmates on, 69 regulatory planning for, 114–16 Touro-O Pino mine and, 161 in The Way film, 53 World Heritage Site, 59, 112 Camino Inglés delimitation of, 119 pilgrims completing, 57 sections added to, 54–55 shortening of, 126 Camino Mendocino, 58 Camino Portugués approach to pilgrim city, 62 iconography on, 55 pilgrims completing, 57 route alternatives, 126 Camino Primitivo, 57 Camino Sanabrés, 54 Cangas do Morrazo, 88 Canterbury (England), 30, 39–40 Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial (New Zealand), 15 Casajús-Murillo, L., 153 Castrojeriz, 138, 185–86 Cathedral Council (Santiago de Compostela), 76–77, 80 Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 182–83 Celtic Camino (Ireland), 19 Certificado de Distancia, 68, 77, 204 Certificado del Peregrino, 68 Chapel of Santiago (Portomarín), 147–49 Chemin, J.E., 75 Choeung Ek (Cambodia), 15 Christian Welcome on the Camino de Santiago, 81–82 Church, the Christian Welcome on the Camino de Santiago, 81–82 Compostela and, 77 Franco and, 79

227

Index

in governance of Camino de Santiago, 73–82 perspective on Xacobeo 2021, 136–37 publications, 178, 179 Santiago Cathedral Foundation, 79–81 Universal Archconfraternity of the Glorious Apostle Santiago, 78–79 cinema for information and communication, 164–71 NO-DO production company, 168–71, 202 The Way film, 53 City of Culture, Galicia, 64–65, 134, 181 civil society American Pilgrims on the Camino, 96, 168 in Camino de Santiago governance, 94–97 Confraternity of St. James, 66, 72, 95–96 publications, 178 Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago, 58, 96–97, 126, 135 COAGRET, 153 COCEMFE-Castilla y León, 140 Codex Calixtinus, 51, 145, 154, 176 Coelho, Paulo, 189 Coleman, S., 2, 33, 203 communitas, 2, 3, 28, 184, 197 Compostela, 1–2, 50, 60, 164, 200 awarding of, 56 Church and, 77 COVID-19 and, 195 improvement of, 91 regulations for, 67–68, 175 steady growth of, 204 Concello de Santiago, 61, 77, 87, 89 La Concha, 177–78 Confraternity of St. James (UK), 66, 72, 95–96 Conservation Areas (England), 32–33 Consuming Places (Urry), 196–97 Council of Europe, 16–18, 59, 61, 107, 112, 198

COVID-19 Compostela and, 195 curatorship in post pandemic, 205–7 health measures, 87 information and communication on, 171–72 pilgrims and, 8 Xacobeo 2021 and, 134–36 Coyne, Judy, 41 Coyne, William, 41 Croagh Patrick (Ireland), 5 environmental stewardship at, 34–36 iconography of, 19 for penance, 68 Stakeholders Group, 35 Cultural Routes Programme, 16, 86 curatorship, 4–5 of Camino de Santiago, 6, 8 environmental stewardship and, 33–36, 43 information and communication, 36–39, 43 investment guidelines and, 26–29, 43 museology of pilgrimage and, 39–44 overview of role, 25–26 regulatory planning, 29–33, 43 curatorship, creation of different Camino de Santiago as European unity, 198–99 Camino de Santiago as imagined geographies, 201–3 Camino de Santiago built and natural environment, 200–201 Camino de Santiago for shaping political goals, 199–200 new routes and dilution of difference, 205 in post pandemic, 205–7 revisiting heritage, tourism, pilgrimage, 195–98 Santiago/St. James veneration, 203–5 Cze˛stochowa (Poland), 12 Dale, R.S., 48 de Cela Pérez, D.A., 91 Dunn-Whitener, M., 49 Eade, J., 3, 27, 60, 69

228

Ebro Hydrographic Confederation, 152–55 Elliott, M., 21 Embalsa de Yesa, 150 environmental stewardship, 7 for Belesar Reservoir and Portomarín, 144–50 at Croagh Patrick, 34–36 curatorship and, 33–36, 43 Touro-O Pine mine and, 157–62 Yesa Reservoir and, 150–57 EU COSME programme, 141–42 EU INTERREG programme, 141–42 EU LEADER rural development programme, 18, 65–66, 87 EU LIFE programme, 141 Facendo Caminho project, 141 Fahey, F., 24 Falange, 50, 63, 88, 168, 192 Fatima (Portugal), 12 Fernández, B., 67 Foncebadon, 65 Fourth World Youth Day, 74–75 Fraga Iribarne, Manuel, 90, 150, 170 Francis (Pope), 40, 136–37 Franco, Francisco, 5–7 Church and, 79 death of, 105 dictatorship of, 82 fall of, 55 modernisation programme, 144 at national offering, 1971, 50 national unity and, 63 newsreels of, 151, 166 NO-DO films giving legitimacy, 166–67, 202 at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, 49 Santiago de Compostela recognised by, 88–89 Frey, N., 69–70 Fundación ONCE, 140 Ganges River, Varanasi, India, 13 García Rodríguez, Don Jaime, 1, 81 Gernika Peace Museum, 191 Godfrey, Archbishop William, 31

Index

González, Alonso, 3, 156 government. See also Autonomous Communities; regulatory planning Association of Camino de Santiago Municipalities, 91 in Camino de Santiago governance, 82–94 Jacobean Council, 91–94, 96, 100, 106, 112 Organising Commission for Xacobeo 2021, 91–92 publications, 178 Santiago Consortium, 88–90 Sociedad Anónima de Gestión del Plan Xacobeo and, 90–92 Xunta–Catholic Church Mixed Commission, 88 The Great Museum (Horne), 195 Greenia, G.D., 203 Green Pilgrimage project, 142 Griffin, Cardinal Bernard, 31 Grupo Carris, 98, 178 Grupo Compostela de Universidades, 99 Guardian, 205 Gvili, Y., 37 Haj ritual, 12–13 Havard, M.E., 2 Hayward, Richard, 19 heritage management, Camino de Santiago and, 11 pilgrimage destinations as, 19–23 pilgrimage routes as, 4, 15–19 preservation, 29 revisiting in curatorship, 195–98 Yesa Reservoir, cultural heritage and, 154–56 Hindu pilgrims, 13 Holy Land (Israel and Palestine), 12 Holy Mile (Walsingham, England), 30 Holy Years 1937, 50 1938, 50 1948, 62–63 1954, 31 1965, 63, 105 1982, 171, 198

229

Index

1993, 1, 56, 62, 92, 194, 200, 204 1999, 56 2004, 56 2010, 56 2021, 7, 73, 80, 122, 125, 206 2027, 80 curatorship for, 86 papal decree for, 47 Hooper, J., 138 Horne, Donald, 195 Iacobeus interpretive centre (Castrojeriz), 185–86 ICOMOS. See International Council on Monuments and Sites Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (Turner, E., and Turner. V.), 1–2 information and communication Camino bumph for, 175–77 on COVID-19, 171–72 in curatorship, 36–39, 43 Internet for, 171–75 magazines and newsletters for, 177–79 NO-DO production company, 164–71 at Walsingham, 37–39 Integrated Rehabilitation Areas (ARI), 139 International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), 154–56, 161 International Pilgrim Office (Santiago de Compostela), 1, 56–57, 77, 203–4, 206–7 Internet Autonomous Communities websites, 172 for information and communication, 171–75 pilgrimage and, 36 Santiago de Compostela Cathedral website, 173–74 Xacobeo 2021 promotion, 173 Xunta de Galicia website, 172–73 investment guidelines curatorship and, 26–29, 43 legislation for, 137–38 for projects and funding, 137–42 special investment strategies, 122–26

strategies for Camino de Santiago, 123–24 tourism development frameworks, 126–33 Xacobeo 2021, 133–37 Itinerario Cultural Europeo, 60 Jacobean Council, 91–94, 96, 100, 106, 112 Jacobean pilgrimage, 18, 48, 76, 78, 81–82, 140–41 Jerusalem, 47, 55 John Paul II (Pope), 40, 62, 74–75, 95, 198–99 John XXIII (Pope), 172 Knock (Ireland), 5, 40–42 Kumano Kodo (Japan), 13 Leo XIII (Pope), 48 List of World Heritage in Danger, 162 Lois González, R.C., 120 Lough Derg (Ireland), 4, 20 as Ironman of Pilgrimages, 22 pilgrim experience at, 22–23 three-day ritual at, 21–22 Lourdes (France) genius loci, 12 as pilgrimage destination, 5 recovery strategy for, 28–29 ritual at, 26–28 sacred space at, 27 souvenirs and entertainment at, 27–28 Lowenthal, David, 184, 195 MacCannell, Dean, 196 magazines, 177–79. See also specific magazines Marples, Marion, 72 Mecca, 13, 26 Medjugorje (Bosnia-Herzegovina), 12 Menin Gate (Ypres, Belgium), 13 Monte do Gozo, 58, 62, 89 Montserrat sanctuary, 187 Morinis, A., 12 Mountain Areas Museum (O Cebreiro), 189–90 Muniz de Pablos, Archbishop Tomas, 49

230

Museo das Peregrinacións (Santiago de Compostela), 184–85 museums. See also specific museums Canterbury (England), 39–40 cave art and, 188 for entertainment, 185–88 history and art displays, 183–85 Knock (Ireland), 41–42 for memory and healing, 191–93 museology of pilgrimage, 8, 39–43 Museum of Pilgrimages, Santiago de Compostela, 13, 86, 89, 184–85 rural traditions and, 189–90 sacred collections in, 182–83 storytelling displays, 181–82, 185–89, 202 Treasures of Saint Cuthbert (Durham Cathedral, England), 39 Muslim pilgrims, 13 National Geographic Society, 11, 58 National September 11 Memorial (New York), 14–15 Neary, Archbishop Michael, 34 newsletters, 177–79 newsreels, 7, 151, 166 Nidaros Cathedral (Norway), 18 NO-DO production company creation of, 165 depicting economic transformation, 169–70 features on Camino de Santiago, 166, 170–71 features on Santiago de Compostela, 166, 170–71 for information and communication, 164–71 propaganda and, 166 providing Franco legitimacy, 166–67, 202 showing pilgrimage as political spectacle, 168–69 Nolan, M.L., 20–21 O Cebreiro, 188–90 Oikoten, 68–69 Organising Commission for Xacobeo 2021, 91–92

Index

Pack, S.D., 49, 50 Padron, 55 Palau Nacional museum (Barcelona), 184 pallozas of O Cebreiro, 189–90 Paris (France), 17, 51, 71, 95 The Past is a Foreign Country (Lowenthal), 195 Patrick (Saint), 4, 19, 20, 21, 22, 34 Patten, Fr Alfred Hope, 30, 32 Paul VI (Pope), 30 Pentecost walking pilgrimage (France), 17 Las Peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela (Vázquez de Parga), 104–5 personal geographies of discovery, 69–72 Picaud, Amery, 51, 145, 154 pilgrimage curatorship of, 4–5 defined, 2–4 Internet and, 36 for memory and commemoration, 13–15 motives for, 1, 2 movement and, 12, 15 as multi-faith activity, 11–12 museology of, 8, 39–42 NO-DO showing as political spectacle, 168–69 phenomenon of, 12–15 revisiting in curatorship, 195–98 routes as heritage and tourism, 4, 15–19 as sacred mobility, 20 sacred space of, 24 secular motivation for, 42 pilgrimage destinations. See also specific pilgrimage destinations Christian travel and, 12 as heritage and tourism, 6, 19–23 sacred destinations, 12, 15, 24, 27, 180, 215 pilgrim documentation. See also Compostela Certificado de Distancia, 68, 77, 204 Certificado del Peregrino, 68

Index

credencial, 1, 56, 91, 200 pilgrim passport, 18, 19, 68, 205 Teastas Oilithreachta, 19 Pilgrim Footprints, 177–78 Pilgrim Paths Ireland, 18–19 Pilgrim Stories (Frey), 69–70 Pius XII (Pope), 31, 78–79, 167 planning instruments, 85–87. See also Jacobean Council; regulatory planning for Camino del Norte, 89 for Camino Francés, 89, 117 Conservation Areas (England), 32–33 Cultural Routes Programme, 16, 86 EU LEADER rural development programme, 18, 65–66, 87 for Knock (Ireland), 41–42 municipal, 114, 118 for Walsingham (England), 30–33 Pochin Mould, D., 23 Pons-Sorolla, Francisco, 145, 147 Poria, Y., 37 Porta Itineris Sancti Iacobi, 62 Pórtico de la Gloria, 53, 61, 63, 80–81, 137, 169 Portomarín, 7, 143 environmental stewardship for, 144–50 planning and reconstruction of, 145–47 reclaiming past in, 149–50 Praza do Obradoiro (Santiago de Compostela), 61–62, 80 Primo de Rivera, Jose Antonio, 88 PSOE. See Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party Quito, Ecuador, 90 Rabanal del Camino, 65, 66 Raju, A., 53 Ramsey, Archbishop Michael, 30 Reader, I, 2, 3 Reconquista, 48–50, 168 Reformation, 30, 48 regulatory planning Aragón planning project, 115–16, 125

231

Basic Regional Plan for Galicia, 111, 118–19 by Autonomous Communities, 107–20 for Camino Francés, 114–16 in curatorship, 29–33, 43 General Urban Plan, 116–19 legislation for, 104–5, 108–14, 118 Spanish constitution and, 105–7 Spanish state early measures, 104–5 Special Protection Plans, 116–17 for Walsingham (England), 30–33 Xunta de Galicia adopting, 113 ritual botafumeiro ceremony, 67, 76, 137, 183, 186, 203 Confession, 34, 47, 67, 91, 173, 200, 203 Haj ritual, 12–13 Holy Communion, 47, 67, 76, 173, 203 indulgences, 47, 173 at Lough Derg (Ireland), 21–22 at Lourdes (France), 26–28 Mass, 18, 34, 38, 40, 76, 82, 91, 200, 203 Tree of Jesse sculpture and pilgrim ritual (Santiago de Compostela Cathedral), 61, 80–81 Rome (Italy), 12, 47, 75 Ron, A.S., 12 Roncesvalles, 154, 168, 176, 183 RURITAGE, 94 sacred collections, 8, 182–83 Sacred Places of a Lifetime (National Geographic Society), 11 sacred space, 180, 215 at Lourdes, 27 of pilgrimage, 24 Saint Olav Ways (northern Europe), 17, 18 Salamanca General Archive, 71, 191–92 Sallnow, M.J., 3, 60, 69 Salvador, Jose Luis Salvador, 54 Samos Monastery, 138 Sánchez-Biosca, V., 165–66 Santiago Cathedral Foundation, 79–81

232

Santiago Consortium, 88–90 Santiago de Compostela Aragón planning project and, 125 connection to Walsingham, 31 Franco recognising, 88–89 guidebook, 177 NO-DO features on, 166, 170–71 as pilgrimage destination, 1–2, 5 Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, 11, 72, 157 Confession and Holy Communion at, 67 Franco at, 49 Jacobean studies at, 97 Pórtico de la Gloria, 53, 61, 63, 80–81, 137, 169 website, 173–74 Santiago/St. James, 12, 47 Autonomous Community hosting shrine, 6 Chapel of Santiago, 147–49 remains of, 48–49 Santiago Caballero, 51 Santiago Matamoros, 49–51, 61, 168, 182 Santiago the pilgrim, 48 shrine of, 2–3, 6, 15, 199 tomb of, 11, 67, 99, 184 veneration of, 203–5 Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 182–83, 186–87, 205–6 Sanz Larruga, F.J., 112 Schrire, D., 59 Sepp, T., 19 Shikoku Island, Japan, 13 Sisters of the Faithful Companions of Jesus, 82 Sociedad Anónima de Gestión del Plan Xacobeo, 90–92 Société Française des Amis de SaintJacques de Compostelle, 95 Solpor Association, 98 Somoza Medina, X., 120 Soubirous, Bernadette, 26–29 Spanish Civil War, 144, 187, 191–92 Spanish constitution, 105–7 Spanish Federation of Associations of Friends of the Camino de Santiago, 58, 96–97, 126, 135

Index

Spanish Historical Heritage Law, 137–38 Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), 135, 153 Spanish Urban Agenda, 106–7 spiritual tourism, 29, 132 Stanford, P., 2 Starkie, Walter, 76–77, 81, 145 storytelling, 8, 41, 134 museum displays, 181–82, 185–89, 202 St. Patrick’s Way (Northern Ireland), 19 Swyngedouw, E., 144 Tamashiro, R., 15 Tate, Brian, 65 Tate, Marcus, 65 Teastas Oilithreachta, 19 Teresa (Mother), 40 Thiepval Memorial (France), 13 tourism Autonomous Communities promoting, 199 booklets, 175–76 Camino de Santiago and, 11 Holy Year, 2021, and, 7 investment guidelines for Camino de Santiago development, 126–33 pilgrimage destinations as, 6, 19–23 pilgrimage routes as, 4, 15–19 promotion on Camino de Santiago routes, 62–67 revisiting in curatorship, 195–98 spiritual tourism, 29, 132 The Tourist (MacCannell), 196 The Tourist Gaze (Urry), 196–97 Touro-O Pino mine, 7, 147, 201 Camino Francés and, 161 environmental stewardship and, 157–62 project evaluation, 160–61 project outline for, 159–60 question of social victory, 161–62 Tranche, R.R., 165–66 Treasures of Saint Cuthbert (Durham Cathedral, England), 39 Tree of Jesse sculpture and pilgrim ritual (Santiago de Compostela Cathedral), 61, 80–81 Tro Breiz (Brittany), 17–18 Turner, Edith, 1–2, 22, 28, 197

233

Index

Turner, Victor, 1–2, 22, 28, 197 Tyn Cot Cemetery (Ypres, Belgium), 13 Ultreïa interpretive centre (Pamplona), 186 UNESCO Merida inscription, 53 tourism development for Camino de Santiago routes, 83, 127–31 World Heritage Site listings, 59, 83, 90, 93, 107, 112, 182, 198 Yesa Reservoir and, 150, 154–56 Universal Archconfraternity of the Glorious Apostle Santiago, 78–79 Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona), 99 Urry, J., 196–97 Vázquez de Parga, L., 104–5 Vía Augusta, 58 Vía de la Plata, 94 approach to pilgrim city, 62 as challenging, 72 isolation on, 70 links to, 58 pilgrims completing, 57 route alternatives, 126 as Silver Route, 53–54 tentative World Heritage Site listing, 59 Vía Francigena, 17 Vía Marina, 58 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington DC (USA), 14 La Voz de Asturias, 103 Walsingham (England), 5 church unity and, 12

connection to Santiago de Compostela, 31 Conservation Area status, 32 information and communication at, 37–39 regulatory planning controls for, 30–33 shared custodianship of, 32 Washington DC, 14, 96 Webb, D., 48 Xacobeo 1993, 90 Xacobeo 2021, 83–84, 87, 91–92 Church perspective on, 136–37 COVID-19 and, 134–36 investment guidelines, 133–37 online promotion of, 173 political tensions and, 135 Xunta de Galicia planning, 133–35 Xunta de Galicia, 6, 7, 80, 84–86 design guides by, 119 partnerships, 87, 91 plans adopted by, 113 powers of, 110 website, 172–73 Xacobeo 2021 planning, 133–35 Xunta–Catholic Church Mixed Commission, 88 Yesa Reservoir, 7, 115, 176, 201 cultural heritage and, 154–56 environmental stewardship, 150–57 expansion project for, 151–52 politics and protest against, 152–54 survival of abandonment and, 156–57 UNESCO and, 150, 154–56