James the Great

James the Great (d. 44), apostle and martyr. Described in the Gospels as the son of Zebedee and the brother of John, James was one of the three witnesses of the Transfiguration of Christ and his agony in the garden of Gethsemane. He was also the first apostle to die for the Christian faith, being put to the sword at Jerusalem by King Herod Agrippa (Acts 12: 2). The word Boanerges, used by the evangelists to describe James and John, means ‘sons of thunder’, indicating impetuous character and fiery temper.

No early documents claim either that James preached the Gospel in Spain or that he was buried there. Of the two claims the former is the earlier (7th century), the latter (9th century) the less unlikely; neither nowadays commands much credence outside Spain. The heyday of Santiago de Compostela was from the 12th to the 15th century: the cult was fostered by kings, popes, and bishops and flourished on the concept of James as the powerful defender of Christianity against the Moors, as testified by many miracle stories of varying degrees of antiquity and credibility. This military aspect of James's posthumous reputation coincided with the more general Crusading Movement and does not, it seems, antedate it. However that may be, the pilgrimage to Compostela, was one of the most important of medieval Christendom: Cluniac and Augustinian monasteries were built along the roads especially in northern Spain, to provide hospitality for the pilgrims. These came from most countries in western Europe: Cluny was prominent in support of the pilgrimage, while Reading Abbey, to which the Empress Matilda gave the hand-relic of James, enjoyed several privileges connected with the cult and the pilgrimage.

Although in its fullest form the James Legend is unconvincing, it has none the less certain authentic elements. The shrine of Compostela is on the site of an early Christian cemetery, where a martyrium testifies to the cult of a saint of early patristic times: his identity is, however, unknown. A conjectural claim has been made to identify him with Priscillian. The earliest documentary evidence for the translation of James's relics from Jerusalem to Spain occurs in the Martyrology of Usuard (865). This is subsequent to the existence of the local cult a century earlier. But St. Mary's church at Merida possessed relics of James and other apostles and early martyrs before the Islamic conquest and perhaps as early as 627. The cults and relics moved north-wards to Compostela; the Asturian kings Alphonso II and especially III (866–910) fostered the cult of James, which was flourishing in Spain before the Crusades brought further developments.

The pilgrimage to Compostela was so popular and important that it eventually transformed the iconography of James. His own emblems became the pilgrim's hat and the scallop-shell associated with Compostela. In recent times Compostela and the roads which lead to it have enjoyed a notable revival of this pilgrimage with EU patronage and funding. In England over 400 churches are dedicated to him. Feast: 25 July.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• AA.SS. Iul. VI (1729), 5–124; T. D. Kendrick, St. James in Spain (1960); L. Duchesne, ‘Saint Jacques en Galice’, Annales du Midi, xii (1900), 145–79; B. de Gaiffier, ‘Le Breviarium Apostolorum: tradition manuscrite et œuvres apparentées’, Anal. Boll., lxxxi (1963), 89–116; Y.Bottineau, Les Chemins de Saint-Jacques (1964); E. Mollins, The Pilgrimage to Santiago (1974). R. A. Fletcher, St. James' Catapult (1985)