“May the almighty and everlasting God, who is the way, the truth, and the life, dispose the journey according to his good pleasure. May he send his angel Raphael to be thy guardian in the pilgrimage; to conduct thee on the way, in peace, to the place wither thou wouldest go, and to bring thee back again in safety on their return to us.”
____Sarum Missal[i]
Depart León over the río Bernesga through a 16th century bridge
On the calle de los Pereginos
Cross the RR tracks Trobajo del Camino
On the Way: León to Trobajo del Camino
Randi and I departed León early heading west on the avenida Suero de Quiñones toward the Plaza San Marcos.
In the center of the plaza stands a tall gothic stone cross, known as l’Alto del Portillo. It was transplanted here from the Camino from Valdefuentes. It is profusely carved, and has a depiction of the archangel St. Raphael dressed as a pilgrim. This is a theological malapropism, for pilgrims need time, which requires matter, and angels are untouched by both matter and time. But the sculpture is not meant to convey dogma on the nature of angels, but dogma on the ministry of the angels, who are solicitous to the needs of pilgrim man. And this is true; we have the word of the Church and the Scriptures for it.
Besides, since the days Tobias undertook his long journey to help his father and was helped by Raphael, this good archangel has been a patron of travelers, and so follows pilgrims during life, as his archangelic cohort Michael, the psychopompos, guides pilgrims over the threshold of life into death and the judgment of God.
The Hostal San Marcos, now a Parador hotel, but formerly a monastery and pilgrims’ hospital, commands the Plaza. This masterpiece of Spanish Renaissance, funded by Ferdinand the Catholic, was built by Juan de Orozco; hence the façade states “Orozco me fecit.” The Hostal San Marcos sits at the edge of the Bernesga River, which we crossed by means of a 16th century bridge.
I I I
On the other side of the Bernesga is Trobajo del Camino, a suburb of León. Here I met Shawn, the human Raphael I had met in Estella many days ago.
Shawn’s blisters had healed, and he had started walking again. I told him that I had prayed for him at the Plaza San Marcos, at the figure of Raphael.
“I still don’t understand what you meant when you called me Raphael,” he said.
“Raphael,” I explained, “is one of the Archangels of God. He is the patron saint of travelers and pilgrims. We can read about him in the Scriptures.”
“I’m not familiar with the story,” he confessed.
“In the Book of Tobit, the story is told of Tobias, son of Tobit. Tobit was the provisioner for the Assyrian king. During his business for the king, Tobit left some of his own money in trust with a man in the town of Media. When the king died, his successor confiscated all of Tobit’s property. When that king died, Tobit was able to return home to Nineveh. But Tobit was poor. Then he became blind. Tobit remembered he had left some money in trust in the town of Media and asked his son Tobias to collect it. The angel Raphael accompanied Tobias on his journey to Media, cured Tobias’s wife-to-be, Sarah, by delivering her from the curse of the demon, obtained Tobit’s money, healed him of his blindness, and led Tobias safely home. For these reasons, Raphael is regarded patron saint of travelers and pilgrims.”
“I see,” he said. “Now it makes sense.”
Shawn left us. He walked fast—he was with another group—so we soon lost sight of him as we walked from Trobajo del Camino uphill to the town of Virgen del Camino. At the edge of that town, we passed a modern sanctuary dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Collauda-mus veneran-tes omnes caeli principes, sed praecipue fidelem medicum et comitem
R
A
P
H
A
E
L
E
M
in virtute alli-gantem daemonen
La Virgen del Camino
k
Santuario de la Virgin
The modern shrine here stems from the visions of a shepherd named Alvar Simón, who, between 1502 and 1511, was visited by Mary. She asked him to build a shrine on the site of a hermitage there. The Virgin slung a stone, which landed at the place she desired the sanctuary to be built. It became a place of pilgrimage, and many miracles worked there.
The modern sanctuary replaces an older temple. It is ugly. The new church is the work of a Portuguese Dominican, an architect named Coello. The thirteen sculptures on the front are by the Catalan artist Subirachs. The first should have learned from San Juan de Ortgega. The second should have learned from Master Mateo. But they did not, and for that reason we must suffer this artistic affront.
There are some hideous sculptures in the front of the church. I am quite certain the Virgin seen by Alvar Simón did not look like these sculptures, for had he seen these in a vision, I am certain the simple and sensible peasant would have attributed the vision to the devil and would have fled. The modern sanctuary, a bizarre parody of a church, did nothing for me.
I have learned something, and this I comprehend well with the faculties of my mind and heart. That is, that, at least with respect to the Camino, the best things here are old. We need help with our modern temples, for the slick steel and unfinished concrete temples built in the Age of Doubt do not compare with the rough temples of wood and stone built in the Age of Faith. In matters of faith and matters of the heart, there is much we must relearn from the ancients in this new Dark Age of the spirit.
I I I
Down to the valley of Fresnos del Camino across the Astorga-León carretera
At a distance the Peña Portillo the Peña Ubina, and the Peña Teleno
On the Way: Virgen del Camino to Hospital de Órbigo
From Virgen del Camino, Randi and I went south, across the carretera and downhill to a dirt path that was marked “Camino de la Paz,” the way of peace. It was not the route marked on the maps we carried with us. The route on the maps showed a straight sendero beside the highway. That did not appeal to us. So off the highway, across a field we walked, over the railroad, through the towns of Oncina de la Valdorciña, Chozas de Abajo, Villar de Mazarito, La Milla del Páramo, Villarente, into Hospital del Órbigo.
The land between Oncina and Chozas was a delightful hilly green, a marked change from the drab meseta we had traversed the last several days. At Oncina we passed by healthy and fecund vegetable gardens and orchards of apple trees. At Oncina we took a red dirt and gravel road into Chozas de Abajo. Here the land before us was broad, rolling grassland peppered with blue-green, low-growing and shrubby oak trees.
At the town of Chozas we met the Basque José, and how pleased we were to see him. He drank a beer. I had a soft drink instead. The keeper of the Bar was singularly homely. She had reddish dyed hair, was missing a front tooth, and was fat. Despite all that, she was an excellent inculcator of manners. As we talked with José, the grandson of the keeper of the Bar, a young toddler, eyed my pack and headed toward it. He pulled down his pants and his underwear, and was just about to mark his territory against the pilgrim invader. I was not quite certain what to do to stop this misadventure, but his grandmother saw what her grandson was up to. She ran from behind the bar, grabbed the boy, soundly spanked him, lifted up his pants, and yelled, “Cochino.” I was very thankful, but, to save her further embarrassment, I thanked her silently in my heart.
Men are never far from being brutes. If we are not, we probably ought to thank a woman for it.
I I I
The region through which we passed, called the Páramo, or desert, has changed much from the time the medieval pilgrim walked through. A system of irrigation canals built here—the Riegos del Órbigo, has provided water to the thirsty earth and has changed its character from arid moor into a green landscape. So it was full of well-tended fields of potato, corn, beets, tomatoes, and lettuce. There were plants on the side of the road with fuzzy leaves that swilled around the single stem and bore yellow flowers.
The skies were a cloudless cerulean blue, which was pleasant in the morning, but promised a hot afternoon. The sun in the Páramo Leones is hot when its rays are not mitigated by the clouds. Brown splotched and red-winged locusts sang in the fields in the hot afternoon, casting a spell on the tired pilgrim. The breeze was thankfully cool, although it blew arbitrarily and sporadically and was not reliable. The various layers of Cantabrian Mountains could be seen to our right, and the Sierra de León, which we expected to climb in a few days, loomed ahead. There was but one small cloud the size of a man’s fist on the western horizon, and it brought to my mind the story of Elijah and Ahab in the Book of Kings, for like Ahab I saw a nubecula parva quasi vestigium hominis. But it bore no rain, and it would not I supposed, until the new prophets of Baal who are all about us have been challenged and defeated.
I I I
Orbega
Villar de Mazarife and Monseñor
On we walked to the town of Villar de Mazarife. In the town of Villar de Mazarife lives an artist by name of Monseñor. A diminutive man with narrow shoulders but a large head, Monseñor welcomed us into his studio. He was also the hospitaller for the refugio in the town. He showed us his artwork, the subjects of which ranged from voluptuous nudes to sober and chaste ecclesiastical subjects. He showed us his old coat, which hung on a wooden coat rack, awaiting the day—he told us—when it might be called an artistic relic and auctioned to his fans to the benefit of his estate.
It was the month of July, he observed, the time of harvesting wheat. And he drew in my notebook a drawing in Romanesque style, of a man harvesting wheat, a personification of the month of Iulius, which looked like it came straight out of Book XVII of St. Isidore’s Etymologies. He stamped my Pilgrim’s Passport with his stamp, or cello, and, to lend it an air of authenticity and value, signed it with his hand.
He suggested we stay in his refugio, but we declined, saying we wanted to make it to Hospital, the next town with a refugio. “You modern pilgrims are in much too much of a hurry,” he sighed. “But if you must go,” he said resignedly, “then Buen Camino.”
I I I
The Rest Most Memorable
From Villar de Mazarife we traveled on a paved road toward Hospital de Órbigo. We passed the town of La Milla del Páramo on our right. We crossed a carretera, as arrows directed us to a dirt road beyond it. The dirt road meandered through farms and fields of rich vegetation. The path turned out to be over three miles of sheer torture. The road through the farms was full of large pebbles, and they dug into my feet as if they were pestles grinding into the mortars of my soles. There was no way to avoid the path.
Somewhere half way to the town of Hospital I had to take a rest. I found some shade, by a grove of young chopos or poplars, which grew beside an irrigation ditch a short distance from the farm road. Beckoned by the breeze, the poplars lisped a soft lullaby with their shivering leaves. And in their borrowed shade and by the free gurgling of the water, I rested on someone else’s land like a vagrant. I received so much, yet I took nothing and I paid nothing for it. And the only ones I could thank that moment were God and Santiago, and the Virgin who knew them both. From the ground where I lay the corn looked tall. The sky was blue and clear, and whitened with a diaphanous haze at the horizons. There were but a few errant clouds, themselves pilgrims in the vast Leonese sky.
I I I
About the Way: The Paso Honroso
After the Rest Most Memorable, Randi and I got up and we both hobbled into the town of Villavante. We trudged on the painful road, over arroyos and a river and railroad track. Crossing a two-lane highway, we hit a cement road which led us through an ugly path strewn with trash into the outskirts of Hospital de Órbigo. The cement road led to an old Roman bridge, and the old Roman bridge directly over the Órbigo River and into the old town of Hospital.
Hospital del Órbigo sits on the banks of a river with the same name, and we crossed it through the good services of the puente Órbigo. Here, many years ago, in 1434, we would have been greeted by Don Suero de Quiñones, and probably allowed to pass the Paso Honroso without challenge from him, for we bore no knightly implements and our nobility was very tenuous indeed. Had I worn the trappings of a monk, I might have reminded dear Don Suero, without fear of retributive violence but without much hope for repentance, that his knightly challenge and duel did not accord well with the thinking of his Holy Mother Church.
The story of the Honorable Pass has its charm nevertheless; knowledge of it is practically de riguer on the Way, and so here it is described for you, although many have told it before and better, I’m sure.
Suero de Quiñones was a knight, who sought to be released from an impetuous vow he had made to wear an iron collar around his neck every Thursday in honor of his lady. The vow grew tiresome. But Chilvary had its code, and by its code Suero de Quiñones had made his vow, and by its code he had to be dispensed of it. He and his fellows set themselves up here and issued challenge to passerbys in a mighty tournament, the last, they say, of the great era of the medieval chevalier. Upon a horse caparisoned with blue, bearing the device of a collar, and the words Il faut délivrer, “It is necessary to deliver,” the Spanish nobleman challenged 78 knights. The challenged knights accepted. Don Suero broke 177 lances, killed 1 rider, wounded 11, and never lost a match.
It was Esbert de Claramonte of Aragon who had the misfortunue of being killed by means of a lance implanted in his eye into the soft of his brain. Suero sent for his confessor, Master Fray Antón, and other men of God, who told him that the church made no provision for those dying in such tournaments, which involved mortal sin. We hope Esbert finally relented, acknowledged the error of his ways, and so received the absolve te. But about this the stories are unclear. So what the eternal fate of Esbert de Claramonte of Aragon was, we do not know. Given the doubt as to his final confession and absolution, we can say that the noble Esbert died in less fortunate circumstances than the peasant pilgrim being devoured by locusts by the Granja de Sambol outside of Burgos. For one died in noble robes stained with his own blood, the other with a robe of grace stained with the blood of Agnus Dei. Noble robes of gold and fine cloth mean nothing in the hereafter. It is the rough homespun of God’s Mercy, won by the toil of a carpenter, that we wear to Heaven.
When the tournament was complete according to its terms, Suero considered himself released of his vow, went to Compostela, and made there an offering to Santiago, a necklace of gold. That necklace is reputed now to grace the bust of Santiago’s colleague in the college of the apostles, Santiago the Lesser, although I never got to see it.
I I I
Cross the Canal del Riegos del Páramo
To San Martín del Camino
On the Way: Hospital del Órbigo
Earlier still in this place, in the 5th century—nine hundred years before Don Suero—we may have been witness to battles between the Sueves and the Visigoths, or in later centuries Moors and Christians, for this river was sought and fought for by armies of many. The bridge is long, the river through here slow and dammed, the trees are tall, and the weather pleasant, and I suppose for those reasons the land has been coveted by many.
Over the puente romano spaning the río Órbigo
In Hospital de Órbigo
k
San Juan
I had dinner with Randi, Shawn, James and Christian. The dinner was typical Spanish fare: mixed salad and pork chops. We drank a lot of wine, and much water. When Christian saw Shawn put ketchup on his food, he cried in English: “Sacrilege!”
We spoke lightheartedly of the Camino and all its vicissitudes. Why we asked? Why are the paths strewn with painful rocks? Why does the path always take the long way? Why does it have its unexplained, serpentine turnings? Why in the early mornings must we be directed into out-of-the-way towns whose churches and cafés are closed?
Christian understood. “Pénitence,” he said in French. “Pénitence.”
k
[i] J. Wicham-Legg, ed., The Sarum Missal, quoted in Robinson, Anthology, at 52. “May the almighty and everlasting God, who is the way, the truth, and the life, dispose the journey according to his good pleasure. May he send his angel Raphael to be thy guardian in the pilgrimage; to conduct thee on the way, in peace, to the place wither thou wouldest go, and to bring thee back again in safety on their return to us.”
____Sarum Missal[i]
Depart León over the río Bernesga through a 16th century bridge
On the calle de los Pereginos
Cross the RR tracks Trobajo del Camino
On the Way: León to Trobajo del Camino
Randi and I departed León early heading west on the avenida Suero de Quiñones toward the Plaza San Marcos.
In the center of the plaza stands a tall gothic stone cross, known as l’Alto del Portillo. It was transplanted here from the Camino from Valdefuentes. It is profusely carved, and has a depiction of the archangel St. Raphael dressed as a pilgrim. This is a theological malapropism, for pilgrims need time, which requires matter, and angels are untouched by both matter and time. But the sculpture is not meant to convey dogma on the nature of angels, but dogma on the ministry of the angels, who are solicitous to the needs of pilgrim man. And this is true; we have the word of the Church and the Scriptures for it.
Besides, since the days Tobias undertook his long journey to help his father and was helped by Raphael, this good archangel has been a patron of travelers, and so follows pilgrims during life, as his archangelic cohort Michael, the psychopompos, guides pilgrims over the threshold of life into death and the judgment of God.
The Hostal San Marcos, now a Parador hotel, but formerly a monastery and pilgrims’ hospital, commands the Plaza. This masterpiece of Spanish Renaissance, funded by Ferdinand the Catholic, was built by Juan de Orozco; hence the façade states “Orozco me fecit.” The Hostal San Marcos sits at the edge of the Bernesga River, which we crossed by means of a 16th century bridge.
I I I
On the other side of the Bernesga is Trobajo del Camino, a suburb of León. Here I met Shawn, the human Raphael I had met in Estella many days ago.
Shawn’s blisters had healed, and he had started walking again. I told him that I had prayed for him at the Plaza San Marcos, at the figure of Raphael.
“I still don’t understand what you meant when you called me Raphael,” he said.
“Raphael,” I explained, “is one of the Archangels of God. He is the patron saint of travelers and pilgrims. We can read about him in the Scriptures.”
“I’m not familiar with the story,” he confessed.
“In the Book of Tobit, the story is told of Tobias, son of Tobit. Tobit was the provisioner for the Assyrian king. During his business for the king, Tobit left some of his own money in trust with a man in the town of Media. When the king died, his successor confiscated all of Tobit’s property. When that king died, Tobit was able to return home to Nineveh. But Tobit was poor. Then he became blind. Tobit remembered he had left some money in trust in the town of Media and asked his son Tobias to collect it. The angel Raphael accompanied Tobias on his journey to Media, cured Tobias’s wife-to-be, Sarah, by delivering her from the curse of the demon, obtained Tobit’s money, healed him of his blindness, and led Tobias safely home. For these reasons, Raphael is regarded patron saint of travelers and pilgrims.”
“I see,” he said. “Now it makes sense.”
Shawn left us. He walked fast—he was with another group—so we soon lost sight of him as we walked from Trobajo del Camino uphill to the town of Virgen del Camino. At the edge of that town, we passed a modern sanctuary dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Collauda-mus veneran-tes omnes caeli principes, sed praecipue fidelem medicum et comitem
R
A
P
H
A
E
L
E
M
in virtute alli-gantem daemonen
La Virgen del Camino
k
Santuario de la Virgin
The modern shrine here stems from the visions of a shepherd named Alvar Simón, who, between 1502 and 1511, was visited by Mary. She asked him to build a shrine on the site of a hermitage there. The Virgin slung a stone, which landed at the place she desired the sanctuary to be built. It became a place of pilgrimage, and many miracles worked there.
The modern sanctuary replaces an older temple. It is ugly. The new church is the work of a Portuguese Dominican, an architect named Coello. The thirteen sculptures on the front are by the Catalan artist Subirachs. The first should have learned from San Juan de Ortgega. The second should have learned from Master Mateo. But they did not, and for that reason we must suffer this artistic affront.
There are some hideous sculptures in the front of the church. I am quite certain the Virgin seen by Alvar Simón did not look like these sculptures, for had he seen these in a vision, I am certain the simple and sensible peasant would have attributed the vision to the devil and would have fled. The modern sanctuary, a bizarre parody of a church, did nothing for me.
I have learned something, and this I comprehend well with the faculties of my mind and heart. That is, that, at least with respect to the Camino, the best things here are old. We need help with our modern temples, for the slick steel and unfinished concrete temples built in the Age of Doubt do not compare with the rough temples of wood and stone built in the Age of Faith. In matters of faith and matters of the heart, there is much we must relearn from the ancients in this new Dark Age of the spirit.
I I I
Down to the valley of Fresnos del Camino across the Astorga-León carretera
At a distance the Peña Portillo the Peña Ubina, and the Peña Teleno
On the Way: Virgen del Camino to Hospital de Órbigo
From Virgen del Camino, Randi and I went south, across the carretera and downhill to a dirt path that was marked “Camino de la Paz,” the way of peace. It was not the route marked on the maps we carried with us. The route on the maps showed a straight sendero beside the highway. That did not appeal to us. So off the highway, across a field we walked, over the railroad, through the towns of Oncina de la Valdorciña, Chozas de Abajo, Villar de Mazarito, La Milla del Páramo, Villarente, into Hospital del Órbigo.
The land between Oncina and Chozas was a delightful hilly green, a marked change from the drab meseta we had traversed the last several days. At Oncina we passed by healthy and fecund vegetable gardens and orchards of apple trees. At Oncina we took a red dirt and gravel road into Chozas de Abajo. Here the land before us was broad, rolling grassland peppered with blue-green, low-growing and shrubby oak trees.
At the town of Chozas we met the Basque José, and how pleased we were to see him. He drank a beer. I had a soft drink instead. The keeper of the Bar was singularly homely. She had reddish dyed hair, was missing a front tooth, and was fat. Despite all that, she was an excellent inculcator of manners. As we talked with José, the grandson of the keeper of the Bar, a young toddler, eyed my pack and headed toward it. He pulled down his pants and his underwear, and was just about to mark his territory against the pilgrim invader. I was not quite certain what to do to stop this misadventure, but his grandmother saw what her grandson was up to. She ran from behind the bar, grabbed the boy, soundly spanked him, lifted up his pants, and yelled, “Cochino.” I was very thankful, but, to save her further embarrassment, I thanked her silently in my heart.
Men are never far from being brutes. If we are not, we probably ought to thank a woman for it.
I I I
The region through which we passed, called the Páramo, or desert, has changed much from the time the medieval pilgrim walked through. A system of irrigation canals built here—the Riegos del Órbigo, has provided water to the thirsty earth and has changed its character from arid moor into a green landscape. So it was full of well-tended fields of potato, corn, beets, tomatoes, and lettuce. There were plants on the side of the road with fuzzy leaves that swilled around the single stem and bore yellow flowers.
The skies were a cloudless cerulean blue, which was pleasant in the morning, but promised a hot afternoon. The sun in the Páramo Leones is hot when its rays are not mitigated by the clouds. Brown splotched and red-winged locusts sang in the fields in the hot afternoon, casting a spell on the tired pilgrim. The breeze was thankfully cool, although it blew arbitrarily and sporadically and was not reliable. The various layers of Cantabrian Mountains could be seen to our right, and the Sierra de León, which we expected to climb in a few days, loomed ahead. There was but one small cloud the size of a man’s fist on the western horizon, and it brought to my mind the story of Elijah and Ahab in the Book of Kings, for like Ahab I saw a nubecula parva quasi vestigium hominis. But it bore no rain, and it would not I supposed, until the new prophets of Baal who are all about us have been challenged and defeated.
I I I
Orbega
Villar de Mazarife and Monseñor
On we walked to the town of Villar de Mazarife. In the town of Villar de Mazarife lives an artist by name of Monseñor. A diminutive man with narrow shoulders but a large head, Monseñor welcomed us into his studio. He was also the hospitaller for the refugio in the town. He showed us his artwork, the subjects of which ranged from voluptuous nudes to sober and chaste ecclesiastical subjects. He showed us his old coat, which hung on a wooden coat rack, awaiting the day—he told us—when it might be called an artistic relic and auctioned to his fans to the benefit of his estate.
It was the month of July, he observed, the time of harvesting wheat. And he drew in my notebook a drawing in Romanesque style, of a man harvesting wheat, a personification of the month of Iulius, which looked like it came straight out of Book XVII of St. Isidore’s Etymologies. He stamped my Pilgrim’s Passport with his stamp, or cello, and, to lend it an air of authenticity and value, signed it with his hand.
He suggested we stay in his refugio, but we declined, saying we wanted to make it to Hospital, the next town with a refugio. “You modern pilgrims are in much too much of a hurry,” he sighed. “But if you must go,” he said resignedly, “then Buen Camino.”
I I I
The Rest Most Memorable
From Villar de Mazarife we traveled on a paved road toward Hospital de Órbigo. We passed the town of La Milla del Páramo on our right. We crossed a carretera, as arrows directed us to a dirt road beyond it. The dirt road meandered through farms and fields of rich vegetation. The path turned out to be over three miles of sheer torture. The road through the farms was full of large pebbles, and they dug into my feet as if they were pestles grinding into the mortars of my soles. There was no way to avoid the path.
Somewhere half way to the town of Hospital I had to take a rest. I found some shade, by a grove of young chopos or poplars, which grew beside an irrigation ditch a short distance from the farm road. Beckoned by the breeze, the poplars lisped a soft lullaby with their shivering leaves. And in their borrowed shade and by the free gurgling of the water, I rested on someone else’s land like a vagrant. I received so much, yet I took nothing and I paid nothing for it. And the only ones I could thank that moment were God and Santiago, and the Virgin who knew them both. From the ground where I lay the corn looked tall. The sky was blue and clear, and whitened with a diaphanous haze at the horizons. There were but a few errant clouds, themselves pilgrims in the vast Leonese sky.
I I I
About the Way: The Paso Honroso
After the Rest Most Memorable, Randi and I got up and we both hobbled into the town of Villavante. We trudged on the painful road, over arroyos and a river and railroad track. Crossing a two-lane highway, we hit a cement road which led us through an ugly path strewn with trash into the outskirts of Hospital de Órbigo. The cement road led to an old Roman bridge, and the old Roman bridge directly over the Órbigo River and into the old town of Hospital.
Hospital del Órbigo sits on the banks of a river with the same name, and we crossed it through the good services of the puente Órbigo. Here, many years ago, in 1434, we would have been greeted by Don Suero de Quiñones, and probably allowed to pass the Paso Honroso without challenge from him, for we bore no knightly implements and our nobility was very tenuous indeed. Had I worn the trappings of a monk, I might have reminded dear Don Suero, without fear of retributive violence but without much hope for repentance, that his knightly challenge and duel did not accord well with the thinking of his Holy Mother Church.
The story of the Honorable Pass has its charm nevertheless; knowledge of it is practically de riguer on the Way, and so here it is described for you, although many have told it before and better, I’m sure.
Suero de Quiñones was a knight, who sought to be released from an impetuous vow he had made to wear an iron collar around his neck every Thursday in honor of his lady. The vow grew tiresome. But Chilvary had its code, and by its code Suero de Quiñones had made his vow, and by its code he had to be dispensed of it. He and his fellows set themselves up here and issued challenge to passerbys in a mighty tournament, the last, they say, of the great era of the medieval chevalier. Upon a horse caparisoned with blue, bearing the device of a collar, and the words Il faut délivrer, “It is necessary to deliver,” the Spanish nobleman challenged 78 knights. The challenged knights accepted. Don Suero broke 177 lances, killed 1 rider, wounded 11, and never lost a match.
It was Esbert de Claramonte of Aragon who had the misfortunue of being killed by means of a lance implanted in his eye into the soft of his brain. Suero sent for his confessor, Master Fray Antón, and other men of God, who told him that the church made no provision for those dying in such tournaments, which involved mortal sin. We hope Esbert finally relented, acknowledged the error of his ways, and so received the absolve te. But about this the stories are unclear. So what the eternal fate of Esbert de Claramonte of Aragon was, we do not know. Given the doubt as to his final confession and absolution, we can say that the noble Esbert died in less fortunate circumstances than the peasant pilgrim being devoured by locusts by the Granja de Sambol outside of Burgos. For one died in noble robes stained with his own blood, the other with a robe of grace stained with the blood of Agnus Dei. Noble robes of gold and fine cloth mean nothing in the hereafter. It is the rough homespun of God’s Mercy, won by the toil of a carpenter, that we wear to Heaven.
When the tournament was complete according to its terms, Suero considered himself released of his vow, went to Compostela, and made there an offering to Santiago, a necklace of gold. That necklace is reputed now to grace the bust of Santiago’s colleague in the college of the apostles, Santiago the Lesser, although I never got to see it.
I I I
Cross the Canal del Riegos del Páramo
To San Martín del Camino
On the Way: Hospital del Órbigo
Earlier still in this place, in the 5th century—nine hundred years before Don Suero—we may have been witness to battles between the Sueves and the Visigoths, or in later centuries Moors and Christians, for this river was sought and fought for by armies of many. The bridge is long, the river through here slow and dammed, the trees are tall, and the weather pleasant, and I suppose for those reasons the land has been coveted by many.
Over the puente romano spaning the río Órbigo
In Hospital de Órbigo
k
San Juan
I had dinner with Randi, Shawn, James and Christian. The dinner was typical Spanish fare: mixed salad and pork chops. We drank a lot of wine, and much water. When Christian saw Shawn put ketchup on his food, he cried in English: “Sacrilege!”
We spoke lightheartedly of the Camino and all its vicissitudes. Why we asked? Why are the paths strewn with painful rocks? Why does the path always take the long way? Why does it have its unexplained, serpentine turnings? Why in the early mornings must we be directed into out-of-the-way towns whose churches and cafés are closed?
Christian understood. “Pénitence,” he said in French. “Pénitence.”
k
[i] J. Wicham-Legg, ed., The Sarum Missal, quoted in Robinson, Anthology, at 52.
____Sarum Missal[i]
Depart León over the río Bernesga through a 16th century bridge
On the calle de los Pereginos
Cross the RR tracks Trobajo del Camino
On the Way: León to Trobajo del Camino
Randi and I departed León early heading west on the avenida Suero de Quiñones toward the Plaza San Marcos.
In the center of the plaza stands a tall gothic stone cross, known as l’Alto del Portillo. It was transplanted here from the Camino from Valdefuentes. It is profusely carved, and has a depiction of the archangel St. Raphael dressed as a pilgrim. This is a theological malapropism, for pilgrims need time, which requires matter, and angels are untouched by both matter and time. But the sculpture is not meant to convey dogma on the nature of angels, but dogma on the ministry of the angels, who are solicitous to the needs of pilgrim man. And this is true; we have the word of the Church and the Scriptures for it.
Besides, since the days Tobias undertook his long journey to help his father and was helped by Raphael, this good archangel has been a patron of travelers, and so follows pilgrims during life, as his archangelic cohort Michael, the psychopompos, guides pilgrims over the threshold of life into death and the judgment of God.
The Hostal San Marcos, now a Parador hotel, but formerly a monastery and pilgrims’ hospital, commands the Plaza. This masterpiece of Spanish Renaissance, funded by Ferdinand the Catholic, was built by Juan de Orozco; hence the façade states “Orozco me fecit.” The Hostal San Marcos sits at the edge of the Bernesga River, which we crossed by means of a 16th century bridge.
I I I
On the other side of the Bernesga is Trobajo del Camino, a suburb of León. Here I met Shawn, the human Raphael I had met in Estella many days ago.
Shawn’s blisters had healed, and he had started walking again. I told him that I had prayed for him at the Plaza San Marcos, at the figure of Raphael.
“I still don’t understand what you meant when you called me Raphael,” he said.
“Raphael,” I explained, “is one of the Archangels of God. He is the patron saint of travelers and pilgrims. We can read about him in the Scriptures.”
“I’m not familiar with the story,” he confessed.
“In the Book of Tobit, the story is told of Tobias, son of Tobit. Tobit was the provisioner for the Assyrian king. During his business for the king, Tobit left some of his own money in trust with a man in the town of Media. When the king died, his successor confiscated all of Tobit’s property. When that king died, Tobit was able to return home to Nineveh. But Tobit was poor. Then he became blind. Tobit remembered he had left some money in trust in the town of Media and asked his son Tobias to collect it. The angel Raphael accompanied Tobias on his journey to Media, cured Tobias’s wife-to-be, Sarah, by delivering her from the curse of the demon, obtained Tobit’s money, healed him of his blindness, and led Tobias safely home. For these reasons, Raphael is regarded patron saint of travelers and pilgrims.”
“I see,” he said. “Now it makes sense.”
Shawn left us. He walked fast—he was with another group—so we soon lost sight of him as we walked from Trobajo del Camino uphill to the town of Virgen del Camino. At the edge of that town, we passed a modern sanctuary dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Collauda-mus veneran-tes omnes caeli principes, sed praecipue fidelem medicum et comitem
R
A
P
H
A
E
L
E
M
in virtute alli-gantem daemonen
La Virgen del Camino
k
Santuario de la Virgin
The modern shrine here stems from the visions of a shepherd named Alvar Simón, who, between 1502 and 1511, was visited by Mary. She asked him to build a shrine on the site of a hermitage there. The Virgin slung a stone, which landed at the place she desired the sanctuary to be built. It became a place of pilgrimage, and many miracles worked there.
The modern sanctuary replaces an older temple. It is ugly. The new church is the work of a Portuguese Dominican, an architect named Coello. The thirteen sculptures on the front are by the Catalan artist Subirachs. The first should have learned from San Juan de Ortgega. The second should have learned from Master Mateo. But they did not, and for that reason we must suffer this artistic affront.
There are some hideous sculptures in the front of the church. I am quite certain the Virgin seen by Alvar Simón did not look like these sculptures, for had he seen these in a vision, I am certain the simple and sensible peasant would have attributed the vision to the devil and would have fled. The modern sanctuary, a bizarre parody of a church, did nothing for me.
I have learned something, and this I comprehend well with the faculties of my mind and heart. That is, that, at least with respect to the Camino, the best things here are old. We need help with our modern temples, for the slick steel and unfinished concrete temples built in the Age of Doubt do not compare with the rough temples of wood and stone built in the Age of Faith. In matters of faith and matters of the heart, there is much we must relearn from the ancients in this new Dark Age of the spirit.
I I I
Down to the valley of Fresnos del Camino across the Astorga-León carretera
At a distance the Peña Portillo the Peña Ubina, and the Peña Teleno
On the Way: Virgen del Camino to Hospital de Órbigo
From Virgen del Camino, Randi and I went south, across the carretera and downhill to a dirt path that was marked “Camino de la Paz,” the way of peace. It was not the route marked on the maps we carried with us. The route on the maps showed a straight sendero beside the highway. That did not appeal to us. So off the highway, across a field we walked, over the railroad, through the towns of Oncina de la Valdorciña, Chozas de Abajo, Villar de Mazarito, La Milla del Páramo, Villarente, into Hospital del Órbigo.
The land between Oncina and Chozas was a delightful hilly green, a marked change from the drab meseta we had traversed the last several days. At Oncina we passed by healthy and fecund vegetable gardens and orchards of apple trees. At Oncina we took a red dirt and gravel road into Chozas de Abajo. Here the land before us was broad, rolling grassland peppered with blue-green, low-growing and shrubby oak trees.
At the town of Chozas we met the Basque José, and how pleased we were to see him. He drank a beer. I had a soft drink instead. The keeper of the Bar was singularly homely. She had reddish dyed hair, was missing a front tooth, and was fat. Despite all that, she was an excellent inculcator of manners. As we talked with José, the grandson of the keeper of the Bar, a young toddler, eyed my pack and headed toward it. He pulled down his pants and his underwear, and was just about to mark his territory against the pilgrim invader. I was not quite certain what to do to stop this misadventure, but his grandmother saw what her grandson was up to. She ran from behind the bar, grabbed the boy, soundly spanked him, lifted up his pants, and yelled, “Cochino.” I was very thankful, but, to save her further embarrassment, I thanked her silently in my heart.
Men are never far from being brutes. If we are not, we probably ought to thank a woman for it.
I I I
The region through which we passed, called the Páramo, or desert, has changed much from the time the medieval pilgrim walked through. A system of irrigation canals built here—the Riegos del Órbigo, has provided water to the thirsty earth and has changed its character from arid moor into a green landscape. So it was full of well-tended fields of potato, corn, beets, tomatoes, and lettuce. There were plants on the side of the road with fuzzy leaves that swilled around the single stem and bore yellow flowers.
The skies were a cloudless cerulean blue, which was pleasant in the morning, but promised a hot afternoon. The sun in the Páramo Leones is hot when its rays are not mitigated by the clouds. Brown splotched and red-winged locusts sang in the fields in the hot afternoon, casting a spell on the tired pilgrim. The breeze was thankfully cool, although it blew arbitrarily and sporadically and was not reliable. The various layers of Cantabrian Mountains could be seen to our right, and the Sierra de León, which we expected to climb in a few days, loomed ahead. There was but one small cloud the size of a man’s fist on the western horizon, and it brought to my mind the story of Elijah and Ahab in the Book of Kings, for like Ahab I saw a nubecula parva quasi vestigium hominis. But it bore no rain, and it would not I supposed, until the new prophets of Baal who are all about us have been challenged and defeated.
I I I
Orbega
Villar de Mazarife and Monseñor
On we walked to the town of Villar de Mazarife. In the town of Villar de Mazarife lives an artist by name of Monseñor. A diminutive man with narrow shoulders but a large head, Monseñor welcomed us into his studio. He was also the hospitaller for the refugio in the town. He showed us his artwork, the subjects of which ranged from voluptuous nudes to sober and chaste ecclesiastical subjects. He showed us his old coat, which hung on a wooden coat rack, awaiting the day—he told us—when it might be called an artistic relic and auctioned to his fans to the benefit of his estate.
It was the month of July, he observed, the time of harvesting wheat. And he drew in my notebook a drawing in Romanesque style, of a man harvesting wheat, a personification of the month of Iulius, which looked like it came straight out of Book XVII of St. Isidore’s Etymologies. He stamped my Pilgrim’s Passport with his stamp, or cello, and, to lend it an air of authenticity and value, signed it with his hand.
He suggested we stay in his refugio, but we declined, saying we wanted to make it to Hospital, the next town with a refugio. “You modern pilgrims are in much too much of a hurry,” he sighed. “But if you must go,” he said resignedly, “then Buen Camino.”
I I I
The Rest Most Memorable
From Villar de Mazarife we traveled on a paved road toward Hospital de Órbigo. We passed the town of La Milla del Páramo on our right. We crossed a carretera, as arrows directed us to a dirt road beyond it. The dirt road meandered through farms and fields of rich vegetation. The path turned out to be over three miles of sheer torture. The road through the farms was full of large pebbles, and they dug into my feet as if they were pestles grinding into the mortars of my soles. There was no way to avoid the path.
Somewhere half way to the town of Hospital I had to take a rest. I found some shade, by a grove of young chopos or poplars, which grew beside an irrigation ditch a short distance from the farm road. Beckoned by the breeze, the poplars lisped a soft lullaby with their shivering leaves. And in their borrowed shade and by the free gurgling of the water, I rested on someone else’s land like a vagrant. I received so much, yet I took nothing and I paid nothing for it. And the only ones I could thank that moment were God and Santiago, and the Virgin who knew them both. From the ground where I lay the corn looked tall. The sky was blue and clear, and whitened with a diaphanous haze at the horizons. There were but a few errant clouds, themselves pilgrims in the vast Leonese sky.
I I I
About the Way: The Paso Honroso
After the Rest Most Memorable, Randi and I got up and we both hobbled into the town of Villavante. We trudged on the painful road, over arroyos and a river and railroad track. Crossing a two-lane highway, we hit a cement road which led us through an ugly path strewn with trash into the outskirts of Hospital de Órbigo. The cement road led to an old Roman bridge, and the old Roman bridge directly over the Órbigo River and into the old town of Hospital.
Hospital del Órbigo sits on the banks of a river with the same name, and we crossed it through the good services of the puente Órbigo. Here, many years ago, in 1434, we would have been greeted by Don Suero de Quiñones, and probably allowed to pass the Paso Honroso without challenge from him, for we bore no knightly implements and our nobility was very tenuous indeed. Had I worn the trappings of a monk, I might have reminded dear Don Suero, without fear of retributive violence but without much hope for repentance, that his knightly challenge and duel did not accord well with the thinking of his Holy Mother Church.
The story of the Honorable Pass has its charm nevertheless; knowledge of it is practically de riguer on the Way, and so here it is described for you, although many have told it before and better, I’m sure.
Suero de Quiñones was a knight, who sought to be released from an impetuous vow he had made to wear an iron collar around his neck every Thursday in honor of his lady. The vow grew tiresome. But Chilvary had its code, and by its code Suero de Quiñones had made his vow, and by its code he had to be dispensed of it. He and his fellows set themselves up here and issued challenge to passerbys in a mighty tournament, the last, they say, of the great era of the medieval chevalier. Upon a horse caparisoned with blue, bearing the device of a collar, and the words Il faut délivrer, “It is necessary to deliver,” the Spanish nobleman challenged 78 knights. The challenged knights accepted. Don Suero broke 177 lances, killed 1 rider, wounded 11, and never lost a match.
It was Esbert de Claramonte of Aragon who had the misfortunue of being killed by means of a lance implanted in his eye into the soft of his brain. Suero sent for his confessor, Master Fray Antón, and other men of God, who told him that the church made no provision for those dying in such tournaments, which involved mortal sin. We hope Esbert finally relented, acknowledged the error of his ways, and so received the absolve te. But about this the stories are unclear. So what the eternal fate of Esbert de Claramonte of Aragon was, we do not know. Given the doubt as to his final confession and absolution, we can say that the noble Esbert died in less fortunate circumstances than the peasant pilgrim being devoured by locusts by the Granja de Sambol outside of Burgos. For one died in noble robes stained with his own blood, the other with a robe of grace stained with the blood of Agnus Dei. Noble robes of gold and fine cloth mean nothing in the hereafter. It is the rough homespun of God’s Mercy, won by the toil of a carpenter, that we wear to Heaven.
When the tournament was complete according to its terms, Suero considered himself released of his vow, went to Compostela, and made there an offering to Santiago, a necklace of gold. That necklace is reputed now to grace the bust of Santiago’s colleague in the college of the apostles, Santiago the Lesser, although I never got to see it.
I I I
Cross the Canal del Riegos del Páramo
To San Martín del Camino
On the Way: Hospital del Órbigo
Earlier still in this place, in the 5th century—nine hundred years before Don Suero—we may have been witness to battles between the Sueves and the Visigoths, or in later centuries Moors and Christians, for this river was sought and fought for by armies of many. The bridge is long, the river through here slow and dammed, the trees are tall, and the weather pleasant, and I suppose for those reasons the land has been coveted by many.
Over the puente romano spaning the río Órbigo
In Hospital de Órbigo
k
San Juan
I had dinner with Randi, Shawn, James and Christian. The dinner was typical Spanish fare: mixed salad and pork chops. We drank a lot of wine, and much water. When Christian saw Shawn put ketchup on his food, he cried in English: “Sacrilege!”
We spoke lightheartedly of the Camino and all its vicissitudes. Why we asked? Why are the paths strewn with painful rocks? Why does the path always take the long way? Why does it have its unexplained, serpentine turnings? Why in the early mornings must we be directed into out-of-the-way towns whose churches and cafés are closed?
Christian understood. “Pénitence,” he said in French. “Pénitence.”
k
[i] J. Wicham-Legg, ed., The Sarum Missal, quoted in Robinson, Anthology, at 52. “May the almighty and everlasting God, who is the way, the truth, and the life, dispose the journey according to his good pleasure. May he send his angel Raphael to be thy guardian in the pilgrimage; to conduct thee on the way, in peace, to the place wither thou wouldest go, and to bring thee back again in safety on their return to us.”
____Sarum Missal[i]
Depart León over the río Bernesga through a 16th century bridge
On the calle de los Pereginos
Cross the RR tracks Trobajo del Camino
On the Way: León to Trobajo del Camino
Randi and I departed León early heading west on the avenida Suero de Quiñones toward the Plaza San Marcos.
In the center of the plaza stands a tall gothic stone cross, known as l’Alto del Portillo. It was transplanted here from the Camino from Valdefuentes. It is profusely carved, and has a depiction of the archangel St. Raphael dressed as a pilgrim. This is a theological malapropism, for pilgrims need time, which requires matter, and angels are untouched by both matter and time. But the sculpture is not meant to convey dogma on the nature of angels, but dogma on the ministry of the angels, who are solicitous to the needs of pilgrim man. And this is true; we have the word of the Church and the Scriptures for it.
Besides, since the days Tobias undertook his long journey to help his father and was helped by Raphael, this good archangel has been a patron of travelers, and so follows pilgrims during life, as his archangelic cohort Michael, the psychopompos, guides pilgrims over the threshold of life into death and the judgment of God.
The Hostal San Marcos, now a Parador hotel, but formerly a monastery and pilgrims’ hospital, commands the Plaza. This masterpiece of Spanish Renaissance, funded by Ferdinand the Catholic, was built by Juan de Orozco; hence the façade states “Orozco me fecit.” The Hostal San Marcos sits at the edge of the Bernesga River, which we crossed by means of a 16th century bridge.
I I I
On the other side of the Bernesga is Trobajo del Camino, a suburb of León. Here I met Shawn, the human Raphael I had met in Estella many days ago.
Shawn’s blisters had healed, and he had started walking again. I told him that I had prayed for him at the Plaza San Marcos, at the figure of Raphael.
“I still don’t understand what you meant when you called me Raphael,” he said.
“Raphael,” I explained, “is one of the Archangels of God. He is the patron saint of travelers and pilgrims. We can read about him in the Scriptures.”
“I’m not familiar with the story,” he confessed.
“In the Book of Tobit, the story is told of Tobias, son of Tobit. Tobit was the provisioner for the Assyrian king. During his business for the king, Tobit left some of his own money in trust with a man in the town of Media. When the king died, his successor confiscated all of Tobit’s property. When that king died, Tobit was able to return home to Nineveh. But Tobit was poor. Then he became blind. Tobit remembered he had left some money in trust in the town of Media and asked his son Tobias to collect it. The angel Raphael accompanied Tobias on his journey to Media, cured Tobias’s wife-to-be, Sarah, by delivering her from the curse of the demon, obtained Tobit’s money, healed him of his blindness, and led Tobias safely home. For these reasons, Raphael is regarded patron saint of travelers and pilgrims.”
“I see,” he said. “Now it makes sense.”
Shawn left us. He walked fast—he was with another group—so we soon lost sight of him as we walked from Trobajo del Camino uphill to the town of Virgen del Camino. At the edge of that town, we passed a modern sanctuary dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Collauda-mus veneran-tes omnes caeli principes, sed praecipue fidelem medicum et comitem
R
A
P
H
A
E
L
E
M
in virtute alli-gantem daemonen
La Virgen del Camino
k
Santuario de la Virgin
The modern shrine here stems from the visions of a shepherd named Alvar Simón, who, between 1502 and 1511, was visited by Mary. She asked him to build a shrine on the site of a hermitage there. The Virgin slung a stone, which landed at the place she desired the sanctuary to be built. It became a place of pilgrimage, and many miracles worked there.
The modern sanctuary replaces an older temple. It is ugly. The new church is the work of a Portuguese Dominican, an architect named Coello. The thirteen sculptures on the front are by the Catalan artist Subirachs. The first should have learned from San Juan de Ortgega. The second should have learned from Master Mateo. But they did not, and for that reason we must suffer this artistic affront.
There are some hideous sculptures in the front of the church. I am quite certain the Virgin seen by Alvar Simón did not look like these sculptures, for had he seen these in a vision, I am certain the simple and sensible peasant would have attributed the vision to the devil and would have fled. The modern sanctuary, a bizarre parody of a church, did nothing for me.
I have learned something, and this I comprehend well with the faculties of my mind and heart. That is, that, at least with respect to the Camino, the best things here are old. We need help with our modern temples, for the slick steel and unfinished concrete temples built in the Age of Doubt do not compare with the rough temples of wood and stone built in the Age of Faith. In matters of faith and matters of the heart, there is much we must relearn from the ancients in this new Dark Age of the spirit.
I I I
Down to the valley of Fresnos del Camino across the Astorga-León carretera
At a distance the Peña Portillo the Peña Ubina, and the Peña Teleno
On the Way: Virgen del Camino to Hospital de Órbigo
From Virgen del Camino, Randi and I went south, across the carretera and downhill to a dirt path that was marked “Camino de la Paz,” the way of peace. It was not the route marked on the maps we carried with us. The route on the maps showed a straight sendero beside the highway. That did not appeal to us. So off the highway, across a field we walked, over the railroad, through the towns of Oncina de la Valdorciña, Chozas de Abajo, Villar de Mazarito, La Milla del Páramo, Villarente, into Hospital del Órbigo.
The land between Oncina and Chozas was a delightful hilly green, a marked change from the drab meseta we had traversed the last several days. At Oncina we passed by healthy and fecund vegetable gardens and orchards of apple trees. At Oncina we took a red dirt and gravel road into Chozas de Abajo. Here the land before us was broad, rolling grassland peppered with blue-green, low-growing and shrubby oak trees.
At the town of Chozas we met the Basque José, and how pleased we were to see him. He drank a beer. I had a soft drink instead. The keeper of the Bar was singularly homely. She had reddish dyed hair, was missing a front tooth, and was fat. Despite all that, she was an excellent inculcator of manners. As we talked with José, the grandson of the keeper of the Bar, a young toddler, eyed my pack and headed toward it. He pulled down his pants and his underwear, and was just about to mark his territory against the pilgrim invader. I was not quite certain what to do to stop this misadventure, but his grandmother saw what her grandson was up to. She ran from behind the bar, grabbed the boy, soundly spanked him, lifted up his pants, and yelled, “Cochino.” I was very thankful, but, to save her further embarrassment, I thanked her silently in my heart.
Men are never far from being brutes. If we are not, we probably ought to thank a woman for it.
I I I
The region through which we passed, called the Páramo, or desert, has changed much from the time the medieval pilgrim walked through. A system of irrigation canals built here—the Riegos del Órbigo, has provided water to the thirsty earth and has changed its character from arid moor into a green landscape. So it was full of well-tended fields of potato, corn, beets, tomatoes, and lettuce. There were plants on the side of the road with fuzzy leaves that swilled around the single stem and bore yellow flowers.
The skies were a cloudless cerulean blue, which was pleasant in the morning, but promised a hot afternoon. The sun in the Páramo Leones is hot when its rays are not mitigated by the clouds. Brown splotched and red-winged locusts sang in the fields in the hot afternoon, casting a spell on the tired pilgrim. The breeze was thankfully cool, although it blew arbitrarily and sporadically and was not reliable. The various layers of Cantabrian Mountains could be seen to our right, and the Sierra de León, which we expected to climb in a few days, loomed ahead. There was but one small cloud the size of a man’s fist on the western horizon, and it brought to my mind the story of Elijah and Ahab in the Book of Kings, for like Ahab I saw a nubecula parva quasi vestigium hominis. But it bore no rain, and it would not I supposed, until the new prophets of Baal who are all about us have been challenged and defeated.
I I I
Orbega
Villar de Mazarife and Monseñor
On we walked to the town of Villar de Mazarife. In the town of Villar de Mazarife lives an artist by name of Monseñor. A diminutive man with narrow shoulders but a large head, Monseñor welcomed us into his studio. He was also the hospitaller for the refugio in the town. He showed us his artwork, the subjects of which ranged from voluptuous nudes to sober and chaste ecclesiastical subjects. He showed us his old coat, which hung on a wooden coat rack, awaiting the day—he told us—when it might be called an artistic relic and auctioned to his fans to the benefit of his estate.
It was the month of July, he observed, the time of harvesting wheat. And he drew in my notebook a drawing in Romanesque style, of a man harvesting wheat, a personification of the month of Iulius, which looked like it came straight out of Book XVII of St. Isidore’s Etymologies. He stamped my Pilgrim’s Passport with his stamp, or cello, and, to lend it an air of authenticity and value, signed it with his hand.
He suggested we stay in his refugio, but we declined, saying we wanted to make it to Hospital, the next town with a refugio. “You modern pilgrims are in much too much of a hurry,” he sighed. “But if you must go,” he said resignedly, “then Buen Camino.”
I I I
The Rest Most Memorable
From Villar de Mazarife we traveled on a paved road toward Hospital de Órbigo. We passed the town of La Milla del Páramo on our right. We crossed a carretera, as arrows directed us to a dirt road beyond it. The dirt road meandered through farms and fields of rich vegetation. The path turned out to be over three miles of sheer torture. The road through the farms was full of large pebbles, and they dug into my feet as if they were pestles grinding into the mortars of my soles. There was no way to avoid the path.
Somewhere half way to the town of Hospital I had to take a rest. I found some shade, by a grove of young chopos or poplars, which grew beside an irrigation ditch a short distance from the farm road. Beckoned by the breeze, the poplars lisped a soft lullaby with their shivering leaves. And in their borrowed shade and by the free gurgling of the water, I rested on someone else’s land like a vagrant. I received so much, yet I took nothing and I paid nothing for it. And the only ones I could thank that moment were God and Santiago, and the Virgin who knew them both. From the ground where I lay the corn looked tall. The sky was blue and clear, and whitened with a diaphanous haze at the horizons. There were but a few errant clouds, themselves pilgrims in the vast Leonese sky.
I I I
About the Way: The Paso Honroso
After the Rest Most Memorable, Randi and I got up and we both hobbled into the town of Villavante. We trudged on the painful road, over arroyos and a river and railroad track. Crossing a two-lane highway, we hit a cement road which led us through an ugly path strewn with trash into the outskirts of Hospital de Órbigo. The cement road led to an old Roman bridge, and the old Roman bridge directly over the Órbigo River and into the old town of Hospital.
Hospital del Órbigo sits on the banks of a river with the same name, and we crossed it through the good services of the puente Órbigo. Here, many years ago, in 1434, we would have been greeted by Don Suero de Quiñones, and probably allowed to pass the Paso Honroso without challenge from him, for we bore no knightly implements and our nobility was very tenuous indeed. Had I worn the trappings of a monk, I might have reminded dear Don Suero, without fear of retributive violence but without much hope for repentance, that his knightly challenge and duel did not accord well with the thinking of his Holy Mother Church.
The story of the Honorable Pass has its charm nevertheless; knowledge of it is practically de riguer on the Way, and so here it is described for you, although many have told it before and better, I’m sure.
Suero de Quiñones was a knight, who sought to be released from an impetuous vow he had made to wear an iron collar around his neck every Thursday in honor of his lady. The vow grew tiresome. But Chilvary had its code, and by its code Suero de Quiñones had made his vow, and by its code he had to be dispensed of it. He and his fellows set themselves up here and issued challenge to passerbys in a mighty tournament, the last, they say, of the great era of the medieval chevalier. Upon a horse caparisoned with blue, bearing the device of a collar, and the words Il faut délivrer, “It is necessary to deliver,” the Spanish nobleman challenged 78 knights. The challenged knights accepted. Don Suero broke 177 lances, killed 1 rider, wounded 11, and never lost a match.
It was Esbert de Claramonte of Aragon who had the misfortunue of being killed by means of a lance implanted in his eye into the soft of his brain. Suero sent for his confessor, Master Fray Antón, and other men of God, who told him that the church made no provision for those dying in such tournaments, which involved mortal sin. We hope Esbert finally relented, acknowledged the error of his ways, and so received the absolve te. But about this the stories are unclear. So what the eternal fate of Esbert de Claramonte of Aragon was, we do not know. Given the doubt as to his final confession and absolution, we can say that the noble Esbert died in less fortunate circumstances than the peasant pilgrim being devoured by locusts by the Granja de Sambol outside of Burgos. For one died in noble robes stained with his own blood, the other with a robe of grace stained with the blood of Agnus Dei. Noble robes of gold and fine cloth mean nothing in the hereafter. It is the rough homespun of God’s Mercy, won by the toil of a carpenter, that we wear to Heaven.
When the tournament was complete according to its terms, Suero considered himself released of his vow, went to Compostela, and made there an offering to Santiago, a necklace of gold. That necklace is reputed now to grace the bust of Santiago’s colleague in the college of the apostles, Santiago the Lesser, although I never got to see it.
I I I
Cross the Canal del Riegos del Páramo
To San Martín del Camino
On the Way: Hospital del Órbigo
Earlier still in this place, in the 5th century—nine hundred years before Don Suero—we may have been witness to battles between the Sueves and the Visigoths, or in later centuries Moors and Christians, for this river was sought and fought for by armies of many. The bridge is long, the river through here slow and dammed, the trees are tall, and the weather pleasant, and I suppose for those reasons the land has been coveted by many.
Over the puente romano spaning the río Órbigo
In Hospital de Órbigo
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San Juan
I had dinner with Randi, Shawn, James and Christian. The dinner was typical Spanish fare: mixed salad and pork chops. We drank a lot of wine, and much water. When Christian saw Shawn put ketchup on his food, he cried in English: “Sacrilege!”
We spoke lightheartedly of the Camino and all its vicissitudes. Why we asked? Why are the paths strewn with painful rocks? Why does the path always take the long way? Why does it have its unexplained, serpentine turnings? Why in the early mornings must we be directed into out-of-the-way towns whose churches and cafés are closed?
Christian understood. “Pénitence,” he said in French. “Pénitence.”
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[i] J. Wicham-Legg, ed., The Sarum Missal, quoted in Robinson, Anthology, at 52.
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