of the Iliensian[1] see to this place, which is called Compostella."[2]
In this account we must recognise a description of one of those pious frauds so commonly practised in the early Middle Ages, and the most charitable construction to be placed upon the deed is that the Bishop of Iria arranged it to dissociate the cult of the patron saint from the worship of the megalithic Patronon. It must be admitted, however, that there is just the possibility that some of the inhabitants of Compostella were desirous of benefitting from the pilgrimages, which had already become popular.
What led to the selection of the new site is also uncertain. We are told that a Roman town, known as Liberum donum, had stood on the spot, and tradition later asserted that the body of the apostle had been brought hither from Iria for burial. Liberum donum is not mentioned by any classical writer of repute, and Strabo is silent about it. so we cannot tell what claims it had to be the centre of this cult; but the fact that it stood almost equidistant from a number of ports in the north-west corner of Spain suggests that it might, even in prehistoric days, have been a great junction of roads leading to them, and so, like Canterbury and St. David's, which are similarly situated, have become at an early date a sacred site both for pagan and Christian worship.[3]
The date of the Invention of St. James—if I may use a term hallowed by sacred usage yet singularly applicable to the event that has been described—is variously given by different writers. Archbishop Gelmirez tells us it was during the reign of Alfonso the Chaste, Vasaeus, in his chronicle of Spain, says 798, while Nicolai gives the date as 812; we have no means of dating it more closely.
- ↑ This must be a mistake for Iriensian; Iliensian could only refer to Sardinia, which the context forbids.
- ↑ Florez, op. cit. xx. 8.
- ↑ Fleure (H. J.), op. cit. 38, 91.
