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doi:10.1017/S0009640710000776 Being a Pilgrim: Art and Ritual on the Medieval Routes to Santiago. By Kathleen Ashley and Marilyn Deegan. Burlington, Vt.: Lund Humphries, 2009. 264 pp. $60.00 cloth.
In Abbot Suger's Life of King Louis the Fat, the monastic leader described a moment in Louis's life that reflected the popularity of pilgrimage: "When he [Louis] came to the castle of Bethizy, he was at once followed by messengers of William, duke of Aquitaine, who told him of the duke's death on his pilgrimage to St. James." William of Aquitaine was just one of many nobles who underwent the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the locus of the cult devoted to St. James, a list that also included Louis's son, Louis VII. The pilgrimage route to Santiago is a consistent reminder of the power of the saints in the life of Christendom. Pilgrims from the medieval period up to the present day purchase tokens, pins, or any object adorned with a scallop shell as a reminder of the spiritual quest that was successfully fulfilled in mis Spanish town where the relics of James were miraculously discovered. But the roads culminating at the cathedral in Santiago begin elsewhere, and the recent volume by Ashley and Deegan vividly recreates the popular routes that commence at different points in France and progress to Santiago, a journey that established the pilgrimage as an internationally known spiritual destination.
The authors wish to explain the influence of the Santiago routes by presenting the geography, social infrastructure, and...