Forth pilgrime! Forth best out of thy stalle!
Loke up on hye, and thonke God for alle;
Weyve thy lust, and let thy goste the lede,
And trouthe shal thy delyver, hit is no drede
____ Geoffrey Chaucer, Good Counseil of Chaucer[i]
By little Santa María de las Tiendas
On the Way: Calzadilla to Ledigos
We left early the next morning out of Calzadilla de la Cueza. Walking in the late afternoon had taught us a lesson, and we wanted to get a head start on the sun. Right past the town of Calzadilla de la Cueza the Camino joined with the carretera along which we traveled to Santa María de las Tiendas. There ought be no plural in the name, for from what I could see in the early hours of the morning, this place consisted of but one store if it was one at all. The town stands by where an ancient monastery and church once belonging to the Order of Santiago stood.
There was no present glory in the place. It took great effort to imagine that at one time a pilgrim could hear the murmured orisons of the warrior monks that mingled with the clouds of incense, echoed under the stone vault, and rose unimpeded by the arched rock to the very canopy of the heavens and to the ear of God. The parasitic farmhouse has latched onto its monastic host and has robbed it of some of its stone. The church here was also robbed of its retable, which now rests—put to good use, at least it doesn’t sit in the cold of a museum—in the parish church of St. Martin in Calzadilla de la Cueza.
M
Santiago
As we passed the old monastery, the landscape changed. The flat of the meseta yielded to rolling hills. The ochre of the fields of grain gave way to the foliage of live oaks and deciduous oaks. We traveled over the río Cueza and into Ledigos, which sat along the bend in the road, and had a church dedicated to Santiago. Everything was closed and quiet.
I I I
Through Ledigos to Moratinos
On the Way: Ledigos to Sahagún
It was cool and overcast in the morning. Thick, grey and white billowing clouds covered full the sky. The sun hid, and kept its warmth to itself, and I had to don a coat. From Ledigos we walked to Terradillo del los Templarios, once part of Templar land. To add color to the otherwise drab and ochre buildings of adobe, the clay tile roofs that top them are decorated at their edges with tile painted white. But for the name of the tower, there is little trace of the Templars here, and so we intended not to tarry in Teradillo. That is, we intended not to tarry until we learned that there was a refugio in town and it served coffee and breakfast. At breakfast we were joined by Christian and James, who had been on our tail since we had left Calzadilla de la Cueza.
Lector: Enough about coffee or café con leche and breakfast. You needn’t tell me every time you’ve had coffee on your pilgrimage. For goodness’ sake, man, don’t you think that can be supposed?
Auctor: Given your reaction, I’d say it ought to be.
Lector: You don’t think I ought to complain?
Auctor: In his diaries, Samuel Pepys wrote “Up and to the office,” multiple times and no one seemed to complain.
Lector: Well, that’s another thing. His diaries have age that lend a patine of quaintness to his repetition. You have no such. And your repetitions are dreary. Can we assume from now on that you had coffee and breakfast every morning?
Auctor: I suppose so.
Lector: Fine. Get on with it.
I I I
We went onwards and crossed a series of streams, streams that bore heavenly and dreamy names: the San Juan, the Mañana, and the Presona. We walked by a cemetery, and then some family bodegas built right into the hills on our right. Where there are bodegas there are men. And so it was, for we had reached the village of Moratinos which sat comfortably on the west banks of the río Hontañón.
To San Nicolás del Real Camino
Palencia,
Castilla y León
= = = = = = =
León,
Castilla y León
Climb the Alto del Carrasco
(868 m.)
From Moratinos, we walked to San Nicolás del Real Camino, which was the last village in the province of Palencia. A hermitage is to be found there, named after the Virgin of the Way, and it is constructed in brick and in that style of Mudéjar-Romanesque, which so graces the churches here, and is the glory of Sahagún. Just beyond the town and the río Sequillo, at the alto del Carrasco, we entered the province of León. From the height of the alto de Carrasco we could make out Sahagún about three kilometers away. At the alto de Carrasco, we stopped for a rest and a snack, and were almost hit by a tractor, whose driver did not suspect to find two pilgrims here.
We went downhill into Sahagún. It was late in the afternoon. The sun was full hot in the sky, and there was not a cloud to muffle the heat. We passed by some fields planted with guisantes, or peas, as we crossed the three kilometers of moor before us. The landscape descends, by means of a very slight grade, to the banks of the río Valderaduey. On the west banks of the Valderaduey, but away from the river for its course has changed over the centuries, is the hermitage of the Virgen del Puente, ensconced in a forest of black poplar, chopos.
From the hermitage we walked to Sahagún crossing the railway tracks of the Palencia-León Ferrocarril.
At Sahagún Randi and I met up with Richard, Alyssa, and David (the couple I had met shortly before San Juan), and had a late lunch made special for pilgrims at a restaurant not far from the pilgrim albergue. After lunch I walked the town with Christian and with James.
I I I
By the ruins of the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Bridge by the río Valdera-duey
M
Ermita Virgen del Puente
On the Way: Sahagún
Sahagún: the name is a contraction and corruption of San Fagún (St. Facundus). St. Facundus, and his brave partners, St. Primitivus, Marcellus and his wife, Nonia, and their five sons Claudius, Victoricus, Lupercus, Vincent, and Ramiris were Christian martyrs during the Decian persecution, and their relics, or at least their memory, found sanctuary here.
The relics of the martyrs who obtained sanctuary here were not alone, for the Christians of Córdoba sought refuge here from the oppression of the Moor. The presence of these Mozarabic refugees is forever marked in the brick and architecture of the churches, which express, in a way unlike anywhere else in northern Spain, their influence. There is little old of stone here, for there was no good stone for building hereabouts, and so brick was largely used. Brick has its own beauty; what the structure loses in the appearance of stolid strength, it gains in earthy warmth. It takes a genius to bring warmth out of stone; brick naturally has it.
I I I
Sanctus Facundus, omnibus felicitati-bus affluens
On the Camino Francés de la Virgen into
Sahagún
On the Way: An Arch, A Tower, and the Ruins of a Chapel
Sahagún was once host to the greatest Benedictine monastic establishment in Spain, rivaling the power of Cluny in France. The growth and renown of the monastery at Sahagún was the work of many people, but most praise can be placed at the foot of Bernard of Aquitaine, abbot of this place, confessor to Alfonso VI, and finally to be Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of all Spain.
The monastery here had jurisdiction over ninety other monasteries and religious houses, and its income was prodigious. Most of which the monastery used for the good of the poor and the pilgrim and some of which I am sure though I do not know it—alas it is the way of the world—went to places it ought not have gone. But I am certain (for I know the spirit of St. Benedict that moved within the monastery’s walls) that more of its income went to help both the body and the soul of the poor and pilgrim than the swollen budgets of our modern states. Besides these latter, if they help at all, only help the body and often hinder the soul of the poor because they don’t believe in the soul of the poor. The poor have no spiritual souls to the modern secular state. They have only bodies . . . and votes. That is a fact. Only the Church wants the soul of the poor, for the Church knows that man does not live by bread alone, and only the Church has the food to feed the soul.
I I I
An arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel named after St. Mancio are all that remained of the once-great monastery. Monasteries, like monks, suffer the ravages of the appetite of the world. But not all to the degree of the monastery of Sahagún. The Spanish liberal government took aim at this monastery, and it lost both body and soul in the desamortización, or disentailment of the lands of the Church. In the words of the Mother Goose rhyme:
Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben
He ate more meat than fourscore men;
He ate a cow, he ate a calf,
He ate a butcher and a half,
He ate a church, he ate a steeple,
He ate the priest and all the people!
A cow and a calf,
An ox and a half,
A church and a steeple,
And all the good people,
And yet he complained
That his stomach wasn't full
Alas, it is the way of the world and the burden of men. The apogee of the world’s glory leads to the nadir of dust. The monastery sat splendid and dominant once near where the church of St. Tirso is today. Now, but an arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel remain. Cars whiz through its main portal, as if it were an abandoned bridge, whirling up memories like dust on the road. Where the brick and mortar that composed this complex once vast and rivalling Cluny have gone, I do not know, and no one I asked could answer me. Like the monks that occupied this place, they have scattered, as if they were leaves blown about by the hot Leonese zephyr. Sahagún was not to see another Bernard, but a Mendizabál and Madoz, and so its glory passed. God’s favor left this place, and it was abandoned to men’s greed that was called liberalism. All that I saw was an arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel named for San Mancio, and my heart grew melancholy in this place, pierced by a sword of sauceda, a melancholy, as if I had seen a friend grow old and sick, and die.
I I I
Pulvis es, et in pulverem rever-teris.
Item visitanda sunt corpora beatorum martirum Facundi scilicet et Primitivi quorum basilica Karolus fecit.
k
San Tirso
On the Way: San Tirso
After James, Christian, and I saw the remnants of the great monastery, we walked to the church of San Tirso. The Church of San Tirso is old. It dates earlier than 1123. It has three apses, and the blind arcades of Mudéjar-Romanesque in brick. The crossing tower is delicate, and the superimposed arches fine. The apse is a mixed breed of Romanesque and Mudéjar, for its bottom third is made of ashlar stone, and its upper third of brick. And so the confusion carries to its central bell tower, atop the crossing, which has three levels or arcades. The first two with columns of stone and arch of brick. The upper with columns and arch of brick.
I I I
k
Santuario de la Peregrina
From the church of San Tirso we traveled to the Church of the Peregrina, atop a hill at the west edge of town. It is also Mudéjar. The complex that once accompanied the church to house and service the needs of the friars has been dismantled. The church has a disheveled, ruined look, not helped by the incongruous bell-cotes atop its roof, one of which supports a solitary bell and one of which is blank of bell.
The church was closed. As we tried the doors, a man, who had been talking to a group at the edge of the hill, came up to us. He introduced himself as the parish priest of the town of Burgo Ranero. He was not dressed as a cleric, but I had no reason to disbelieve him. His town bears an unusual name, and he told us of its origins.
“There are two theories of how the town of Burgo Ranero got its name,” he started. “The first theory relates to the Monastery of Sahagún, which owned all the land hereabouts. The monks grew grain on the land, and, after harvesting, it required storage. The grain would be stored in graneros or silos that dotted the landscape. One of these was in our town, and so the town was called Burgo Granero. Eventually, the initial G was dropped of and we got the name of the town.”
“The other theory,” he related, “stems from the lake that is by our town. It is full of ranas or frogs, and they fill the air with their croaking at night. So the town was called Burgo Ranero, or Town of the Frogs.”
With that he wished us well, a Buen Camino, and he returned to his group.
I I I
k
San Lorenzo
James, Christian, and I went to Mass at the church of San Lorenzo. A funeral was taking place for a woman of the town, whose name I heard but forgot, and the Mass was a Requiem Mass.
The church of San Lorenzo is also of Mudéjar brickwork; it has blind arches with horseshoe shape. It is well known for its square bell tower of brick, again Mudéjar in style. In dimension the tower is massive relative to the church, but it is pierced all through with arches, so much so that it is impossible to tell whether there is more space than brick, more brick than space, or the space and brick are equal.
The church and the regular pews were full, so we sat with some townsmen in the choir, and sat in the choir stalls that at one time were occupied only by monks. And while we stood during the liturgy, I leaned backwards and rested my hindparts on the misericords. Although any monk is used to it, it was the first time I had gone to the liturgy and rested on a misericord. Leaning against the misericord, and feeling rather monkish, I prayed for the soul of the woman whose body rested in the bier.
I I I
On the Way: Evening in Sahagún and the Sleep of a Free Man
The evening at the albergue was hot; nay, it was stifling, for there was no wind, and the windows few in any event. The albergue was full and noisy, and it was clear there would be no rest. When it grew dark, I decided to leave the albergue, and I went to a small park nearby.
There in the park, in the middle of the city of Sahagún, under the flapping of a the yellow and red of a Spanish flag that waved on a flag pole up above, I slept a pilgrim’s sleep. That is to say, I slept fitfully, for I had traded the sounds of the albergue for the sounds of the city. I did not hear the sounds of a country night. Between the voices of arguing Spaniards, the horns of passing trains, the rumbling of the diesel engines of commercial trucks, and the whooping cough of an old man chronically ill across the street, I slept. But it was cool, very cool; and the stars shone down on me to the extent that they were not drowned out by the city lights.
I thought as I lay undisturbed in the middle of the park, that had I done this in any American town, I’d have been tagged a loiterer, a nuisance, a vagrant, and a ne’er do well. I would likely have been harangued and mugged by the wicked of the night or collared by the police and thrown out of town or thrown into jail. But in Spain, they recognized me as a pilgrim. To the Spaniards I was holy, set apart from the standards of the world, and free of everyday convention. I have never felt as free from the supervision of men, and I doubt I ever will be as free, as the night I slept in the park at Sahagún.
I I I
When the city noises ceased, and the air grew still, I was visited by a sucubus, a bastard daughter of Πορνεία. She tried to enter my sleeping bag. But I was tired, had neither time nor strength to tackle with a demon, so I shoved her away with a quick prayer to Mary and to Her Son. And the sucubus left me without more, probably to find a gilt or a sow, where it made the farmer very happy for the piglets she would farrow in 114 days or thereabouts.
Q Waning gibbous moon
k
[i] Geoffrey Chaucer, “Good Counseil of Chaucer,” quoted in Martin Robinson, Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: An Anthology of Pilgrimage. London: Harper Collins. 1997, p. 142.Forth pilgrime! Forth best out of thy stalle!
Loke up on hye, and thonke God for alle;
Weyve thy lust, and let thy goste the lede,
And trouthe shal thy delyver, hit is no drede
____ Geoffrey Chaucer, Good Counseil of Chaucer[i]
By little Santa María de las Tiendas
On the Way: Calzadilla to Ledigos
We left early the next morning out of Calzadilla de la Cueza. Walking in the late afternoon had taught us a lesson, and we wanted to get a head start on the sun. Right past the town of Calzadilla de la Cueza the Camino joined with the carretera along which we traveled to Santa María de las Tiendas. There ought be no plural in the name, for from what I could see in the early hours of the morning, this place consisted of but one store if it was one at all. The town stands by where an ancient monastery and church once belonging to the Order of Santiago stood.
There was no present glory in the place. It took great effort to imagine that at one time a pilgrim could hear the murmured orisons of the warrior monks that mingled with the clouds of incense, echoed under the stone vault, and rose unimpeded by the arched rock to the very canopy of the heavens and to the ear of God. The parasitic farmhouse has latched onto its monastic host and has robbed it of some of its stone. The church here was also robbed of its retable, which now rests—put to good use, at least it doesn’t sit in the cold of a museum—in the parish church of St. Martin in Calzadilla de la Cueza.
M
Santiago
As we passed the old monastery, the landscape changed. The flat of the meseta yielded to rolling hills. The ochre of the fields of grain gave way to the foliage of live oaks and deciduous oaks. We traveled over the río Cueza and into Ledigos, which sat along the bend in the road, and had a church dedicated to Santiago. Everything was closed and quiet.
I I I
Through Ledigos to Moratinos
On the Way: Ledigos to Sahagún
It was cool and overcast in the morning. Thick, grey and white billowing clouds covered full the sky. The sun hid, and kept its warmth to itself, and I had to don a coat. From Ledigos we walked to Terradillo del los Templarios, once part of Templar land. To add color to the otherwise drab and ochre buildings of adobe, the clay tile roofs that top them are decorated at their edges with tile painted white. But for the name of the tower, there is little trace of the Templars here, and so we intended not to tarry in Teradillo. That is, we intended not to tarry until we learned that there was a refugio in town and it served coffee and breakfast. At breakfast we were joined by Christian and James, who had been on our tail since we had left Calzadilla de la Cueza.
Lector: Enough about coffee or café con leche and breakfast. You needn’t tell me every time you’ve had coffee on your pilgrimage. For goodness’ sake, man, don’t you think that can be supposed?
Auctor: Given your reaction, I’d say it ought to be.
Lector: You don’t think I ought to complain?
Auctor: In his diaries, Samuel Pepys wrote “Up and to the office,” multiple times and no one seemed to complain.
Lector: Well, that’s another thing. His diaries have age that lend a patine of quaintness to his repetition. You have no such. And your repetitions are dreary. Can we assume from now on that you had coffee and breakfast every morning?
Auctor: I suppose so.
Lector: Fine. Get on with it.
I I I
We went onwards and crossed a series of streams, streams that bore heavenly and dreamy names: the San Juan, the Mañana, and the Presona. We walked by a cemetery, and then some family bodegas built right into the hills on our right. Where there are bodegas there are men. And so it was, for we had reached the village of Moratinos which sat comfortably on the west banks of the río Hontañón.
To San Nicolás del Real Camino
Palencia,
Castilla y León
= = = = = = =
León,
Castilla y León
Climb the Alto del Carrasco
(868 m.)
From Moratinos, we walked to San Nicolás del Real Camino, which was the last village in the province of Palencia. A hermitage is to be found there, named after the Virgin of the Way, and it is constructed in brick and in that style of Mudéjar-Romanesque, which so graces the churches here, and is the glory of Sahagún. Just beyond the town and the río Sequillo, at the alto del Carrasco, we entered the province of León. From the height of the alto de Carrasco we could make out Sahagún about three kilometers away. At the alto de Carrasco, we stopped for a rest and a snack, and were almost hit by a tractor, whose driver did not suspect to find two pilgrims here.
We went downhill into Sahagún. It was late in the afternoon. The sun was full hot in the sky, and there was not a cloud to muffle the heat. We passed by some fields planted with guisantes, or peas, as we crossed the three kilometers of moor before us. The landscape descends, by means of a very slight grade, to the banks of the río Valderaduey. On the west banks of the Valderaduey, but away from the river for its course has changed over the centuries, is the hermitage of the Virgen del Puente, ensconced in a forest of black poplar, chopos.
From the hermitage we walked to Sahagún crossing the railway tracks of the Palencia-León Ferrocarril.
At Sahagún Randi and I met up with Richard, Alyssa, and David (the couple I had met shortly before San Juan), and had a late lunch made special for pilgrims at a restaurant not far from the pilgrim albergue. After lunch I walked the town with Christian and with James.
I I I
By the ruins of the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Bridge by the río Valdera-duey
M
Ermita Virgen del Puente
On the Way: Sahagún
Sahagún: the name is a contraction and corruption of San Fagún (St. Facundus). St. Facundus, and his brave partners, St. Primitivus, Marcellus and his wife, Nonia, and their five sons Claudius, Victoricus, Lupercus, Vincent, and Ramiris were Christian martyrs during the Decian persecution, and their relics, or at least their memory, found sanctuary here.
The relics of the martyrs who obtained sanctuary here were not alone, for the Christians of Córdoba sought refuge here from the oppression of the Moor. The presence of these Mozarabic refugees is forever marked in the brick and architecture of the churches, which express, in a way unlike anywhere else in northern Spain, their influence. There is little old of stone here, for there was no good stone for building hereabouts, and so brick was largely used. Brick has its own beauty; what the structure loses in the appearance of stolid strength, it gains in earthy warmth. It takes a genius to bring warmth out of stone; brick naturally has it.
I I I
Sanctus Facundus, omnibus felicitati-bus affluens
On the Camino Francés de la Virgen into
Sahagún
On the Way: An Arch, A Tower, and the Ruins of a Chapel
Sahagún was once host to the greatest Benedictine monastic establishment in Spain, rivaling the power of Cluny in France. The growth and renown of the monastery at Sahagún was the work of many people, but most praise can be placed at the foot of Bernard of Aquitaine, abbot of this place, confessor to Alfonso VI, and finally to be Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of all Spain.
The monastery here had jurisdiction over ninety other monasteries and religious houses, and its income was prodigious. Most of which the monastery used for the good of the poor and the pilgrim and some of which I am sure though I do not know it—alas it is the way of the world—went to places it ought not have gone. But I am certain (for I know the spirit of St. Benedict that moved within the monastery’s walls) that more of its income went to help both the body and the soul of the poor and pilgrim than the swollen budgets of our modern states. Besides these latter, if they help at all, only help the body and often hinder the soul of the poor because they don’t believe in the soul of the poor. The poor have no spiritual souls to the modern secular state. They have only bodies . . . and votes. That is a fact. Only the Church wants the soul of the poor, for the Church knows that man does not live by bread alone, and only the Church has the food to feed the soul.
I I I
An arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel named after St. Mancio are all that remained of the once-great monastery. Monasteries, like monks, suffer the ravages of the appetite of the world. But not all to the degree of the monastery of Sahagún. The Spanish liberal government took aim at this monastery, and it lost both body and soul in the desamortización, or disentailment of the lands of the Church. In the words of the Mother Goose rhyme:
Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben
He ate more meat than fourscore men;
He ate a cow, he ate a calf,
He ate a butcher and a half,
He ate a church, he ate a steeple,
He ate the priest and all the people!
A cow and a calf,
An ox and a half,
A church and a steeple,
And all the good people,
And yet he complained
That his stomach wasn't full
Alas, it is the way of the world and the burden of men. The apogee of the world’s glory leads to the nadir of dust. The monastery sat splendid and dominant once near where the church of St. Tirso is today. Now, but an arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel remain. Cars whiz through its main portal, as if it were an abandoned bridge, whirling up memories like dust on the road. Where the brick and mortar that composed this complex once vast and rivalling Cluny have gone, I do not know, and no one I asked could answer me. Like the monks that occupied this place, they have scattered, as if they were leaves blown about by the hot Leonese zephyr. Sahagún was not to see another Bernard, but a Mendizabál and Madoz, and so its glory passed. God’s favor left this place, and it was abandoned to men’s greed that was called liberalism. All that I saw was an arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel named for San Mancio, and my heart grew melancholy in this place, pierced by a sword of sauceda, a melancholy, as if I had seen a friend grow old and sick, and die.
I I I
Pulvis es, et in pulverem rever-teris.
Item visitanda sunt corpora beatorum martirum Facundi scilicet et Primitivi quorum basilica Karolus fecit.
k
San Tirso
On the Way: San Tirso
After James, Christian, and I saw the remnants of the great monastery, we walked to the church of San Tirso. The Church of San Tirso is old. It dates earlier than 1123. It has three apses, and the blind arcades of Mudéjar-Romanesque in brick. The crossing tower is delicate, and the superimposed arches fine. The apse is a mixed breed of Romanesque and Mudéjar, for its bottom third is made of ashlar stone, and its upper third of brick. And so the confusion carries to its central bell tower, atop the crossing, which has three levels or arcades. The first two with columns of stone and arch of brick. The upper with columns and arch of brick.
I I I
k
Santuario de la Peregrina
From the church of San Tirso we traveled to the Church of the Peregrina, atop a hill at the west edge of town. It is also Mudéjar. The complex that once accompanied the church to house and service the needs of the friars has been dismantled. The church has a disheveled, ruined look, not helped by the incongruous bell-cotes atop its roof, one of which supports a solitary bell and one of which is blank of bell.
The church was closed. As we tried the doors, a man, who had been talking to a group at the edge of the hill, came up to us. He introduced himself as the parish priest of the town of Burgo Ranero. He was not dressed as a cleric, but I had no reason to disbelieve him. His town bears an unusual name, and he told us of its origins.
“There are two theories of how the town of Burgo Ranero got its name,” he started. “The first theory relates to the Monastery of Sahagún, which owned all the land hereabouts. The monks grew grain on the land, and, after harvesting, it required storage. The grain would be stored in graneros or silos that dotted the landscape. One of these was in our town, and so the town was called Burgo Granero. Eventually, the initial G was dropped of and we got the name of the town.”
“The other theory,” he related, “stems from the lake that is by our town. It is full of ranas or frogs, and they fill the air with their croaking at night. So the town was called Burgo Ranero, or Town of the Frogs.”
With that he wished us well, a Buen Camino, and he returned to his group.
I I I
k
San Lorenzo
James, Christian, and I went to Mass at the church of San Lorenzo. A funeral was taking place for a woman of the town, whose name I heard but forgot, and the Mass was a Requiem Mass.
The church of San Lorenzo is also of Mudéjar brickwork; it has blind arches with horseshoe shape. It is well known for its square bell tower of brick, again Mudéjar in style. In dimension the tower is massive relative to the church, but it is pierced all through with arches, so much so that it is impossible to tell whether there is more space than brick, more brick than space, or the space and brick are equal.
The church and the regular pews were full, so we sat with some townsmen in the choir, and sat in the choir stalls that at one time were occupied only by monks. And while we stood during the liturgy, I leaned backwards and rested my hindparts on the misericords. Although any monk is used to it, it was the first time I had gone to the liturgy and rested on a misericord. Leaning against the misericord, and feeling rather monkish, I prayed for the soul of the woman whose body rested in the bier.
I I I
On the Way: Evening in Sahagún and the Sleep of a Free Man
The evening at the albergue was hot; nay, it was stifling, for there was no wind, and the windows few in any event. The albergue was full and noisy, and it was clear there would be no rest. When it grew dark, I decided to leave the albergue, and I went to a small park nearby.
There in the park, in the middle of the city of Sahagún, under the flapping of a the yellow and red of a Spanish flag that waved on a flag pole up above, I slept a pilgrim’s sleep. That is to say, I slept fitfully, for I had traded the sounds of the albergue for the sounds of the city. I did not hear the sounds of a country night. Between the voices of arguing Spaniards, the horns of passing trains, the rumbling of the diesel engines of commercial trucks, and the whooping cough of an old man chronically ill across the street, I slept. But it was cool, very cool; and the stars shone down on me to the extent that they were not drowned out by the city lights.
I thought as I lay undisturbed in the middle of the park, that had I done this in any American town, I’d have been tagged a loiterer, a nuisance, a vagrant, and a ne’er do well. I would likely have been harangued and mugged by the wicked of the night or collared by the police and thrown out of town or thrown into jail. But in Spain, they recognized me as a pilgrim. To the Spaniards I was holy, set apart from the standards of the world, and free of everyday convention. I have never felt as free from the supervision of men, and I doubt I ever will be as free, as the night I slept in the park at Sahagún.
I I I
When the city noises ceased, and the air grew still, I was visited by a sucubus, a bastard daughter of Πορνεία. She tried to enter my sleeping bag. But I was tired, had neither time nor strength to tackle with a demon, so I shoved her away with a quick prayer to Mary and to Her Son. And the sucubus left me without more, probably to find a gilt or a sow, where it made the farmer very happy for the piglets she would farrow in 114 days or thereabouts.
Q Waning gibbous moon
k
[i] Geoffrey Chaucer, “Good Counseil of Chaucer,” quoted in Martin Robinson, Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: An Anthology of Pilgrimage. London: Harper Collins. 1997, p. 142.
Loke up on hye, and thonke God for alle;
Weyve thy lust, and let thy goste the lede,
And trouthe shal thy delyver, hit is no drede
____ Geoffrey Chaucer, Good Counseil of Chaucer[i]
By little Santa María de las Tiendas
On the Way: Calzadilla to Ledigos
We left early the next morning out of Calzadilla de la Cueza. Walking in the late afternoon had taught us a lesson, and we wanted to get a head start on the sun. Right past the town of Calzadilla de la Cueza the Camino joined with the carretera along which we traveled to Santa María de las Tiendas. There ought be no plural in the name, for from what I could see in the early hours of the morning, this place consisted of but one store if it was one at all. The town stands by where an ancient monastery and church once belonging to the Order of Santiago stood.
There was no present glory in the place. It took great effort to imagine that at one time a pilgrim could hear the murmured orisons of the warrior monks that mingled with the clouds of incense, echoed under the stone vault, and rose unimpeded by the arched rock to the very canopy of the heavens and to the ear of God. The parasitic farmhouse has latched onto its monastic host and has robbed it of some of its stone. The church here was also robbed of its retable, which now rests—put to good use, at least it doesn’t sit in the cold of a museum—in the parish church of St. Martin in Calzadilla de la Cueza.
M
Santiago
As we passed the old monastery, the landscape changed. The flat of the meseta yielded to rolling hills. The ochre of the fields of grain gave way to the foliage of live oaks and deciduous oaks. We traveled over the río Cueza and into Ledigos, which sat along the bend in the road, and had a church dedicated to Santiago. Everything was closed and quiet.
I I I
Through Ledigos to Moratinos
On the Way: Ledigos to Sahagún
It was cool and overcast in the morning. Thick, grey and white billowing clouds covered full the sky. The sun hid, and kept its warmth to itself, and I had to don a coat. From Ledigos we walked to Terradillo del los Templarios, once part of Templar land. To add color to the otherwise drab and ochre buildings of adobe, the clay tile roofs that top them are decorated at their edges with tile painted white. But for the name of the tower, there is little trace of the Templars here, and so we intended not to tarry in Teradillo. That is, we intended not to tarry until we learned that there was a refugio in town and it served coffee and breakfast. At breakfast we were joined by Christian and James, who had been on our tail since we had left Calzadilla de la Cueza.
Lector: Enough about coffee or café con leche and breakfast. You needn’t tell me every time you’ve had coffee on your pilgrimage. For goodness’ sake, man, don’t you think that can be supposed?
Auctor: Given your reaction, I’d say it ought to be.
Lector: You don’t think I ought to complain?
Auctor: In his diaries, Samuel Pepys wrote “Up and to the office,” multiple times and no one seemed to complain.
Lector: Well, that’s another thing. His diaries have age that lend a patine of quaintness to his repetition. You have no such. And your repetitions are dreary. Can we assume from now on that you had coffee and breakfast every morning?
Auctor: I suppose so.
Lector: Fine. Get on with it.
I I I
We went onwards and crossed a series of streams, streams that bore heavenly and dreamy names: the San Juan, the Mañana, and the Presona. We walked by a cemetery, and then some family bodegas built right into the hills on our right. Where there are bodegas there are men. And so it was, for we had reached the village of Moratinos which sat comfortably on the west banks of the río Hontañón.
To San Nicolás del Real Camino
Palencia,
Castilla y León
= = = = = = =
León,
Castilla y León
Climb the Alto del Carrasco
(868 m.)
From Moratinos, we walked to San Nicolás del Real Camino, which was the last village in the province of Palencia. A hermitage is to be found there, named after the Virgin of the Way, and it is constructed in brick and in that style of Mudéjar-Romanesque, which so graces the churches here, and is the glory of Sahagún. Just beyond the town and the río Sequillo, at the alto del Carrasco, we entered the province of León. From the height of the alto de Carrasco we could make out Sahagún about three kilometers away. At the alto de Carrasco, we stopped for a rest and a snack, and were almost hit by a tractor, whose driver did not suspect to find two pilgrims here.
We went downhill into Sahagún. It was late in the afternoon. The sun was full hot in the sky, and there was not a cloud to muffle the heat. We passed by some fields planted with guisantes, or peas, as we crossed the three kilometers of moor before us. The landscape descends, by means of a very slight grade, to the banks of the río Valderaduey. On the west banks of the Valderaduey, but away from the river for its course has changed over the centuries, is the hermitage of the Virgen del Puente, ensconced in a forest of black poplar, chopos.
From the hermitage we walked to Sahagún crossing the railway tracks of the Palencia-León Ferrocarril.
At Sahagún Randi and I met up with Richard, Alyssa, and David (the couple I had met shortly before San Juan), and had a late lunch made special for pilgrims at a restaurant not far from the pilgrim albergue. After lunch I walked the town with Christian and with James.
I I I
By the ruins of the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Bridge by the río Valdera-duey
M
Ermita Virgen del Puente
On the Way: Sahagún
Sahagún: the name is a contraction and corruption of San Fagún (St. Facundus). St. Facundus, and his brave partners, St. Primitivus, Marcellus and his wife, Nonia, and their five sons Claudius, Victoricus, Lupercus, Vincent, and Ramiris were Christian martyrs during the Decian persecution, and their relics, or at least their memory, found sanctuary here.
The relics of the martyrs who obtained sanctuary here were not alone, for the Christians of Córdoba sought refuge here from the oppression of the Moor. The presence of these Mozarabic refugees is forever marked in the brick and architecture of the churches, which express, in a way unlike anywhere else in northern Spain, their influence. There is little old of stone here, for there was no good stone for building hereabouts, and so brick was largely used. Brick has its own beauty; what the structure loses in the appearance of stolid strength, it gains in earthy warmth. It takes a genius to bring warmth out of stone; brick naturally has it.
I I I
Sanctus Facundus, omnibus felicitati-bus affluens
On the Camino Francés de la Virgen into
Sahagún
On the Way: An Arch, A Tower, and the Ruins of a Chapel
Sahagún was once host to the greatest Benedictine monastic establishment in Spain, rivaling the power of Cluny in France. The growth and renown of the monastery at Sahagún was the work of many people, but most praise can be placed at the foot of Bernard of Aquitaine, abbot of this place, confessor to Alfonso VI, and finally to be Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of all Spain.
The monastery here had jurisdiction over ninety other monasteries and religious houses, and its income was prodigious. Most of which the monastery used for the good of the poor and the pilgrim and some of which I am sure though I do not know it—alas it is the way of the world—went to places it ought not have gone. But I am certain (for I know the spirit of St. Benedict that moved within the monastery’s walls) that more of its income went to help both the body and the soul of the poor and pilgrim than the swollen budgets of our modern states. Besides these latter, if they help at all, only help the body and often hinder the soul of the poor because they don’t believe in the soul of the poor. The poor have no spiritual souls to the modern secular state. They have only bodies . . . and votes. That is a fact. Only the Church wants the soul of the poor, for the Church knows that man does not live by bread alone, and only the Church has the food to feed the soul.
I I I
An arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel named after St. Mancio are all that remained of the once-great monastery. Monasteries, like monks, suffer the ravages of the appetite of the world. But not all to the degree of the monastery of Sahagún. The Spanish liberal government took aim at this monastery, and it lost both body and soul in the desamortización, or disentailment of the lands of the Church. In the words of the Mother Goose rhyme:
Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben
He ate more meat than fourscore men;
He ate a cow, he ate a calf,
He ate a butcher and a half,
He ate a church, he ate a steeple,
He ate the priest and all the people!
A cow and a calf,
An ox and a half,
A church and a steeple,
And all the good people,
And yet he complained
That his stomach wasn't full
Alas, it is the way of the world and the burden of men. The apogee of the world’s glory leads to the nadir of dust. The monastery sat splendid and dominant once near where the church of St. Tirso is today. Now, but an arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel remain. Cars whiz through its main portal, as if it were an abandoned bridge, whirling up memories like dust on the road. Where the brick and mortar that composed this complex once vast and rivalling Cluny have gone, I do not know, and no one I asked could answer me. Like the monks that occupied this place, they have scattered, as if they were leaves blown about by the hot Leonese zephyr. Sahagún was not to see another Bernard, but a Mendizabál and Madoz, and so its glory passed. God’s favor left this place, and it was abandoned to men’s greed that was called liberalism. All that I saw was an arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel named for San Mancio, and my heart grew melancholy in this place, pierced by a sword of sauceda, a melancholy, as if I had seen a friend grow old and sick, and die.
I I I
Pulvis es, et in pulverem rever-teris.
Item visitanda sunt corpora beatorum martirum Facundi scilicet et Primitivi quorum basilica Karolus fecit.
k
San Tirso
On the Way: San Tirso
After James, Christian, and I saw the remnants of the great monastery, we walked to the church of San Tirso. The Church of San Tirso is old. It dates earlier than 1123. It has three apses, and the blind arcades of Mudéjar-Romanesque in brick. The crossing tower is delicate, and the superimposed arches fine. The apse is a mixed breed of Romanesque and Mudéjar, for its bottom third is made of ashlar stone, and its upper third of brick. And so the confusion carries to its central bell tower, atop the crossing, which has three levels or arcades. The first two with columns of stone and arch of brick. The upper with columns and arch of brick.
I I I
k
Santuario de la Peregrina
From the church of San Tirso we traveled to the Church of the Peregrina, atop a hill at the west edge of town. It is also Mudéjar. The complex that once accompanied the church to house and service the needs of the friars has been dismantled. The church has a disheveled, ruined look, not helped by the incongruous bell-cotes atop its roof, one of which supports a solitary bell and one of which is blank of bell.
The church was closed. As we tried the doors, a man, who had been talking to a group at the edge of the hill, came up to us. He introduced himself as the parish priest of the town of Burgo Ranero. He was not dressed as a cleric, but I had no reason to disbelieve him. His town bears an unusual name, and he told us of its origins.
“There are two theories of how the town of Burgo Ranero got its name,” he started. “The first theory relates to the Monastery of Sahagún, which owned all the land hereabouts. The monks grew grain on the land, and, after harvesting, it required storage. The grain would be stored in graneros or silos that dotted the landscape. One of these was in our town, and so the town was called Burgo Granero. Eventually, the initial G was dropped of and we got the name of the town.”
“The other theory,” he related, “stems from the lake that is by our town. It is full of ranas or frogs, and they fill the air with their croaking at night. So the town was called Burgo Ranero, or Town of the Frogs.”
With that he wished us well, a Buen Camino, and he returned to his group.
I I I
k
San Lorenzo
James, Christian, and I went to Mass at the church of San Lorenzo. A funeral was taking place for a woman of the town, whose name I heard but forgot, and the Mass was a Requiem Mass.
The church of San Lorenzo is also of Mudéjar brickwork; it has blind arches with horseshoe shape. It is well known for its square bell tower of brick, again Mudéjar in style. In dimension the tower is massive relative to the church, but it is pierced all through with arches, so much so that it is impossible to tell whether there is more space than brick, more brick than space, or the space and brick are equal.
The church and the regular pews were full, so we sat with some townsmen in the choir, and sat in the choir stalls that at one time were occupied only by monks. And while we stood during the liturgy, I leaned backwards and rested my hindparts on the misericords. Although any monk is used to it, it was the first time I had gone to the liturgy and rested on a misericord. Leaning against the misericord, and feeling rather monkish, I prayed for the soul of the woman whose body rested in the bier.
I I I
On the Way: Evening in Sahagún and the Sleep of a Free Man
The evening at the albergue was hot; nay, it was stifling, for there was no wind, and the windows few in any event. The albergue was full and noisy, and it was clear there would be no rest. When it grew dark, I decided to leave the albergue, and I went to a small park nearby.
There in the park, in the middle of the city of Sahagún, under the flapping of a the yellow and red of a Spanish flag that waved on a flag pole up above, I slept a pilgrim’s sleep. That is to say, I slept fitfully, for I had traded the sounds of the albergue for the sounds of the city. I did not hear the sounds of a country night. Between the voices of arguing Spaniards, the horns of passing trains, the rumbling of the diesel engines of commercial trucks, and the whooping cough of an old man chronically ill across the street, I slept. But it was cool, very cool; and the stars shone down on me to the extent that they were not drowned out by the city lights.
I thought as I lay undisturbed in the middle of the park, that had I done this in any American town, I’d have been tagged a loiterer, a nuisance, a vagrant, and a ne’er do well. I would likely have been harangued and mugged by the wicked of the night or collared by the police and thrown out of town or thrown into jail. But in Spain, they recognized me as a pilgrim. To the Spaniards I was holy, set apart from the standards of the world, and free of everyday convention. I have never felt as free from the supervision of men, and I doubt I ever will be as free, as the night I slept in the park at Sahagún.
I I I
When the city noises ceased, and the air grew still, I was visited by a sucubus, a bastard daughter of Πορνεία. She tried to enter my sleeping bag. But I was tired, had neither time nor strength to tackle with a demon, so I shoved her away with a quick prayer to Mary and to Her Son. And the sucubus left me without more, probably to find a gilt or a sow, where it made the farmer very happy for the piglets she would farrow in 114 days or thereabouts.
Q Waning gibbous moon
k
[i] Geoffrey Chaucer, “Good Counseil of Chaucer,” quoted in Martin Robinson, Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: An Anthology of Pilgrimage. London: Harper Collins. 1997, p. 142.Forth pilgrime! Forth best out of thy stalle!
Loke up on hye, and thonke God for alle;
Weyve thy lust, and let thy goste the lede,
And trouthe shal thy delyver, hit is no drede
____ Geoffrey Chaucer, Good Counseil of Chaucer[i]
By little Santa María de las Tiendas
On the Way: Calzadilla to Ledigos
We left early the next morning out of Calzadilla de la Cueza. Walking in the late afternoon had taught us a lesson, and we wanted to get a head start on the sun. Right past the town of Calzadilla de la Cueza the Camino joined with the carretera along which we traveled to Santa María de las Tiendas. There ought be no plural in the name, for from what I could see in the early hours of the morning, this place consisted of but one store if it was one at all. The town stands by where an ancient monastery and church once belonging to the Order of Santiago stood.
There was no present glory in the place. It took great effort to imagine that at one time a pilgrim could hear the murmured orisons of the warrior monks that mingled with the clouds of incense, echoed under the stone vault, and rose unimpeded by the arched rock to the very canopy of the heavens and to the ear of God. The parasitic farmhouse has latched onto its monastic host and has robbed it of some of its stone. The church here was also robbed of its retable, which now rests—put to good use, at least it doesn’t sit in the cold of a museum—in the parish church of St. Martin in Calzadilla de la Cueza.
M
Santiago
As we passed the old monastery, the landscape changed. The flat of the meseta yielded to rolling hills. The ochre of the fields of grain gave way to the foliage of live oaks and deciduous oaks. We traveled over the río Cueza and into Ledigos, which sat along the bend in the road, and had a church dedicated to Santiago. Everything was closed and quiet.
I I I
Through Ledigos to Moratinos
On the Way: Ledigos to Sahagún
It was cool and overcast in the morning. Thick, grey and white billowing clouds covered full the sky. The sun hid, and kept its warmth to itself, and I had to don a coat. From Ledigos we walked to Terradillo del los Templarios, once part of Templar land. To add color to the otherwise drab and ochre buildings of adobe, the clay tile roofs that top them are decorated at their edges with tile painted white. But for the name of the tower, there is little trace of the Templars here, and so we intended not to tarry in Teradillo. That is, we intended not to tarry until we learned that there was a refugio in town and it served coffee and breakfast. At breakfast we were joined by Christian and James, who had been on our tail since we had left Calzadilla de la Cueza.
Lector: Enough about coffee or café con leche and breakfast. You needn’t tell me every time you’ve had coffee on your pilgrimage. For goodness’ sake, man, don’t you think that can be supposed?
Auctor: Given your reaction, I’d say it ought to be.
Lector: You don’t think I ought to complain?
Auctor: In his diaries, Samuel Pepys wrote “Up and to the office,” multiple times and no one seemed to complain.
Lector: Well, that’s another thing. His diaries have age that lend a patine of quaintness to his repetition. You have no such. And your repetitions are dreary. Can we assume from now on that you had coffee and breakfast every morning?
Auctor: I suppose so.
Lector: Fine. Get on with it.
I I I
We went onwards and crossed a series of streams, streams that bore heavenly and dreamy names: the San Juan, the Mañana, and the Presona. We walked by a cemetery, and then some family bodegas built right into the hills on our right. Where there are bodegas there are men. And so it was, for we had reached the village of Moratinos which sat comfortably on the west banks of the río Hontañón.
To San Nicolás del Real Camino
Palencia,
Castilla y León
= = = = = = =
León,
Castilla y León
Climb the Alto del Carrasco
(868 m.)
From Moratinos, we walked to San Nicolás del Real Camino, which was the last village in the province of Palencia. A hermitage is to be found there, named after the Virgin of the Way, and it is constructed in brick and in that style of Mudéjar-Romanesque, which so graces the churches here, and is the glory of Sahagún. Just beyond the town and the río Sequillo, at the alto del Carrasco, we entered the province of León. From the height of the alto de Carrasco we could make out Sahagún about three kilometers away. At the alto de Carrasco, we stopped for a rest and a snack, and were almost hit by a tractor, whose driver did not suspect to find two pilgrims here.
We went downhill into Sahagún. It was late in the afternoon. The sun was full hot in the sky, and there was not a cloud to muffle the heat. We passed by some fields planted with guisantes, or peas, as we crossed the three kilometers of moor before us. The landscape descends, by means of a very slight grade, to the banks of the río Valderaduey. On the west banks of the Valderaduey, but away from the river for its course has changed over the centuries, is the hermitage of the Virgen del Puente, ensconced in a forest of black poplar, chopos.
From the hermitage we walked to Sahagún crossing the railway tracks of the Palencia-León Ferrocarril.
At Sahagún Randi and I met up with Richard, Alyssa, and David (the couple I had met shortly before San Juan), and had a late lunch made special for pilgrims at a restaurant not far from the pilgrim albergue. After lunch I walked the town with Christian and with James.
I I I
By the ruins of the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Bridge by the río Valdera-duey
M
Ermita Virgen del Puente
On the Way: Sahagún
Sahagún: the name is a contraction and corruption of San Fagún (St. Facundus). St. Facundus, and his brave partners, St. Primitivus, Marcellus and his wife, Nonia, and their five sons Claudius, Victoricus, Lupercus, Vincent, and Ramiris were Christian martyrs during the Decian persecution, and their relics, or at least their memory, found sanctuary here.
The relics of the martyrs who obtained sanctuary here were not alone, for the Christians of Córdoba sought refuge here from the oppression of the Moor. The presence of these Mozarabic refugees is forever marked in the brick and architecture of the churches, which express, in a way unlike anywhere else in northern Spain, their influence. There is little old of stone here, for there was no good stone for building hereabouts, and so brick was largely used. Brick has its own beauty; what the structure loses in the appearance of stolid strength, it gains in earthy warmth. It takes a genius to bring warmth out of stone; brick naturally has it.
I I I
Sanctus Facundus, omnibus felicitati-bus affluens
On the Camino Francés de la Virgen into
Sahagún
On the Way: An Arch, A Tower, and the Ruins of a Chapel
Sahagún was once host to the greatest Benedictine monastic establishment in Spain, rivaling the power of Cluny in France. The growth and renown of the monastery at Sahagún was the work of many people, but most praise can be placed at the foot of Bernard of Aquitaine, abbot of this place, confessor to Alfonso VI, and finally to be Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of all Spain.
The monastery here had jurisdiction over ninety other monasteries and religious houses, and its income was prodigious. Most of which the monastery used for the good of the poor and the pilgrim and some of which I am sure though I do not know it—alas it is the way of the world—went to places it ought not have gone. But I am certain (for I know the spirit of St. Benedict that moved within the monastery’s walls) that more of its income went to help both the body and the soul of the poor and pilgrim than the swollen budgets of our modern states. Besides these latter, if they help at all, only help the body and often hinder the soul of the poor because they don’t believe in the soul of the poor. The poor have no spiritual souls to the modern secular state. They have only bodies . . . and votes. That is a fact. Only the Church wants the soul of the poor, for the Church knows that man does not live by bread alone, and only the Church has the food to feed the soul.
I I I
An arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel named after St. Mancio are all that remained of the once-great monastery. Monasteries, like monks, suffer the ravages of the appetite of the world. But not all to the degree of the monastery of Sahagún. The Spanish liberal government took aim at this monastery, and it lost both body and soul in the desamortización, or disentailment of the lands of the Church. In the words of the Mother Goose rhyme:
Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben
He ate more meat than fourscore men;
He ate a cow, he ate a calf,
He ate a butcher and a half,
He ate a church, he ate a steeple,
He ate the priest and all the people!
A cow and a calf,
An ox and a half,
A church and a steeple,
And all the good people,
And yet he complained
That his stomach wasn't full
Alas, it is the way of the world and the burden of men. The apogee of the world’s glory leads to the nadir of dust. The monastery sat splendid and dominant once near where the church of St. Tirso is today. Now, but an arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel remain. Cars whiz through its main portal, as if it were an abandoned bridge, whirling up memories like dust on the road. Where the brick and mortar that composed this complex once vast and rivalling Cluny have gone, I do not know, and no one I asked could answer me. Like the monks that occupied this place, they have scattered, as if they were leaves blown about by the hot Leonese zephyr. Sahagún was not to see another Bernard, but a Mendizabál and Madoz, and so its glory passed. God’s favor left this place, and it was abandoned to men’s greed that was called liberalism. All that I saw was an arch, a tower, and the ruins of a chapel named for San Mancio, and my heart grew melancholy in this place, pierced by a sword of sauceda, a melancholy, as if I had seen a friend grow old and sick, and die.
I I I
Pulvis es, et in pulverem rever-teris.
Item visitanda sunt corpora beatorum martirum Facundi scilicet et Primitivi quorum basilica Karolus fecit.
k
San Tirso
On the Way: San Tirso
After James, Christian, and I saw the remnants of the great monastery, we walked to the church of San Tirso. The Church of San Tirso is old. It dates earlier than 1123. It has three apses, and the blind arcades of Mudéjar-Romanesque in brick. The crossing tower is delicate, and the superimposed arches fine. The apse is a mixed breed of Romanesque and Mudéjar, for its bottom third is made of ashlar stone, and its upper third of brick. And so the confusion carries to its central bell tower, atop the crossing, which has three levels or arcades. The first two with columns of stone and arch of brick. The upper with columns and arch of brick.
I I I
k
Santuario de la Peregrina
From the church of San Tirso we traveled to the Church of the Peregrina, atop a hill at the west edge of town. It is also Mudéjar. The complex that once accompanied the church to house and service the needs of the friars has been dismantled. The church has a disheveled, ruined look, not helped by the incongruous bell-cotes atop its roof, one of which supports a solitary bell and one of which is blank of bell.
The church was closed. As we tried the doors, a man, who had been talking to a group at the edge of the hill, came up to us. He introduced himself as the parish priest of the town of Burgo Ranero. He was not dressed as a cleric, but I had no reason to disbelieve him. His town bears an unusual name, and he told us of its origins.
“There are two theories of how the town of Burgo Ranero got its name,” he started. “The first theory relates to the Monastery of Sahagún, which owned all the land hereabouts. The monks grew grain on the land, and, after harvesting, it required storage. The grain would be stored in graneros or silos that dotted the landscape. One of these was in our town, and so the town was called Burgo Granero. Eventually, the initial G was dropped of and we got the name of the town.”
“The other theory,” he related, “stems from the lake that is by our town. It is full of ranas or frogs, and they fill the air with their croaking at night. So the town was called Burgo Ranero, or Town of the Frogs.”
With that he wished us well, a Buen Camino, and he returned to his group.
I I I
k
San Lorenzo
James, Christian, and I went to Mass at the church of San Lorenzo. A funeral was taking place for a woman of the town, whose name I heard but forgot, and the Mass was a Requiem Mass.
The church of San Lorenzo is also of Mudéjar brickwork; it has blind arches with horseshoe shape. It is well known for its square bell tower of brick, again Mudéjar in style. In dimension the tower is massive relative to the church, but it is pierced all through with arches, so much so that it is impossible to tell whether there is more space than brick, more brick than space, or the space and brick are equal.
The church and the regular pews were full, so we sat with some townsmen in the choir, and sat in the choir stalls that at one time were occupied only by monks. And while we stood during the liturgy, I leaned backwards and rested my hindparts on the misericords. Although any monk is used to it, it was the first time I had gone to the liturgy and rested on a misericord. Leaning against the misericord, and feeling rather monkish, I prayed for the soul of the woman whose body rested in the bier.
I I I
On the Way: Evening in Sahagún and the Sleep of a Free Man
The evening at the albergue was hot; nay, it was stifling, for there was no wind, and the windows few in any event. The albergue was full and noisy, and it was clear there would be no rest. When it grew dark, I decided to leave the albergue, and I went to a small park nearby.
There in the park, in the middle of the city of Sahagún, under the flapping of a the yellow and red of a Spanish flag that waved on a flag pole up above, I slept a pilgrim’s sleep. That is to say, I slept fitfully, for I had traded the sounds of the albergue for the sounds of the city. I did not hear the sounds of a country night. Between the voices of arguing Spaniards, the horns of passing trains, the rumbling of the diesel engines of commercial trucks, and the whooping cough of an old man chronically ill across the street, I slept. But it was cool, very cool; and the stars shone down on me to the extent that they were not drowned out by the city lights.
I thought as I lay undisturbed in the middle of the park, that had I done this in any American town, I’d have been tagged a loiterer, a nuisance, a vagrant, and a ne’er do well. I would likely have been harangued and mugged by the wicked of the night or collared by the police and thrown out of town or thrown into jail. But in Spain, they recognized me as a pilgrim. To the Spaniards I was holy, set apart from the standards of the world, and free of everyday convention. I have never felt as free from the supervision of men, and I doubt I ever will be as free, as the night I slept in the park at Sahagún.
I I I
When the city noises ceased, and the air grew still, I was visited by a sucubus, a bastard daughter of Πορνεία. She tried to enter my sleeping bag. But I was tired, had neither time nor strength to tackle with a demon, so I shoved her away with a quick prayer to Mary and to Her Son. And the sucubus left me without more, probably to find a gilt or a sow, where it made the farmer very happy for the piglets she would farrow in 114 days or thereabouts.
Q Waning gibbous moon
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[i] Geoffrey Chaucer, “Good Counseil of Chaucer,” quoted in Martin Robinson, Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths: An Anthology of Pilgrimage. London: Harper Collins. 1997, p. 142.
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