Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia in northwestern Spain, is the shrine where the apostle Saint James the Great is said to be buried. Tradition holds that in 814 the hermit Pelagius saw strange lights above the Libredon forest; Bishop Theodomirus identified the spot as the apostle's tomb, King Alfonso II of Asturias built a chapel and came as its first pilgrim, and churches followed in 829 and 899.

In 997 the Cordoban commander Al-Mansur burned the church, though he left the tomb itself untouched and carried its gates and bells to Córdoba, from where Ferdinand III returned them after taking the city in 1236.

The present Romanesque cathedral was begun in 1075, and was consecrated in 1211; Master Mateo completed its sculpted Pórtico da Gloria in 1188. In 1492 Pope Alexander VI ranked Compostela among the three great pilgrimages of Christendom with Rome and Jerusalem.