What follows is my attempt to chronicle and recreate a few of experiences in Spain and France this summer for those interested. Focus primarily will rest on history and religion, and in particular the history that lives in the churches and castles that line the pilgrim roads to Santiago Compostella in Spain.

The Muslim conquest of the Holy Land in the Seventh and Eighth centuries caused the traditional pilgrimage to Jerusalem to become increasingly dangerous. As the Middle Ages unfolded, the journey across the Pyrenees and into Spain to the traditional burial place of St. James became the dominant pilgrimage route. The results were dramatic. The first great wave of Christian churches in the Middle Ages sprung up along the pilgrim roads - the age of Romanesque was born. Architecture, spirituality, culture and politics would all be dramatically affected by the great mass of Medieval Christians on the road to Compostella.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

La-Charite-Sur-Loire

more pictures of the village on the Loire that we stayed on
The walls that Joan of Arc laid siege to
The village was called La Charite - The Charity - because it lay on the pilgrim road and there was a monastery that would give food and lodging to pilgrims
Here are the medieval steps that the pilgrims would ascend into town on. There are 82 still left (we didn't count, they are well known)


Isabel dips her feet in the Loire




The abbey around which the town was built is in the background
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