Liber Sancti Jacobi, Book V, Chapter VII, “The Quality of the Lands and the People along this Road,” in The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela, edited and translated by William Melczer, Italica Press, 1993, pp. 90-96.
CHAPTER VII
THE QUALITY OF THE LANDS AND THE PEOPLE ALONG THIS ROAD
On the road of the Blessed James by the route of Toulouse, having crossed the river Garonne, one enters first the land of Gascon; thereafter, having cleared the pass of Somport, one finds the country of Aragón and then, as far as the bridge on the Arga and beyond, the land of Navarra. If one takes the route of the pass of Cize, on the other hand, one finds, after Tours, the country of Poitou, a land well-managed, excellent and full of all blessing. The inhabitants of Poitou are vigorous and warlike; extraordinarily able users of bows, arrows and lances in times of war, they are daring on the battle-front, fast in running, comely in dressing, of noble features, of clever language, generous in the rewards they bestow and prodigal in the hospitality they offer. Then comes the country of Saintonge. Having crossed somehow a sea-sound and the river Garonne, one arrives to the region of the Bordelais, excellent in wine, abundant in fishes, but of rustic language. Those of Saintonge have already a rustic language, but those of Bordelais prove to have an even more rustic one. Thence one needs three more days of march, for people already tired, to traverse the Landes of the Bordelais.
This is a desolate region deprived of all good: there is here no bread, wine, meat, fish, water or springs; villages are rare here. The sandy and flat land abounds nonetheless in honey, millet, panicgrass, and wild boars. If perchance you cross it in summertime, guard your face diligently from the enormous flies that greatly abound there and which are called in the vulgar wasps or horseflies; and if you do not watch your feet carefully, you will rapidly sink up to the knees in the sea-sand copiously found all over.
Having traversed this region, one comes to the land of Gascon rich in white bread and excellent red wine, and covered by forests and meadows, streams and healthy springs. The Gascons are fast in words, loquacious, given to mockery, libidinous, drunkards, prodigal in food, ill-dressed, and rather careless in the ornaments they wear. However, they are well-trained in combat and generous in the hospitality they provide for the poor.
Seated around the fire, they have the habit of eating without a table and of drinking all of them out of one single cup. In fact, they eat and drink a lot, wear rather poor clothes, and lie down shamelessly on a thin and rotten straw litter, the servants together with the master and the mistress.
On leaving that country, to be sure on the road of St. James, there are two rivers that flow near the village of Saint-Jean-de-Sorde, one to the right and one to the left, and of which one is called brook and the other river. There is no way of crossing them without a raft. May their ferrymen be damned! Though each of the streams is indeed quite narrow, they have the habit of demanding one coin from each man, whether poor or rich, whom they ferry over, and for a horse they ignominiously extort by force four. Now, their boat is small, made of a single tree, hardly capable of holding horses. Also, when boarding it one must be most careful not to fall by chance into the water. You will do well in pulling your horse by the reins behind yourself in the water, outside the boat, and to embark but with few passengers, for if it is overloaded it will soon become endangered.
Also, many times the ferryman, having received his money, has such a large troop of pilgrims enter the boat that it capsizes and the pilgrims drown in the waves. Upan which the boatmen, having laid their hands upan the spoils of the dead, wickedly rejoice.
Then, already near the pass of Cize, one reaches the Basque country, on the seashore of which, towards the north, líes the city of Bayonne. This land, whose language is barbarous, is wooded, mountainous, devoid of bread, wine, and all sorts of food for the body, except that, in compensation, it abounds in apples, cider, and milk.
In this land, that is to say near Port-de-Cize in the town called Ostabat and in those of Saint-Jean and Saint-Michel-Pied-de-Port, there are evil toll-gatherers who will certainly be damned through and through. In point of fact, they actually advance towards the pilgrims with two or three sticks, extorting by force an unjust tribute. And if some traveler refuses to hand over the money at their request, they beat him with the sticks and snatch away the toll-money while cursing him and searching even through his breeches. These are ferocious people; and the land in which they dwell is savage, wooded and barbarous. The ferociousness of their faces and likewise of their barbarous speech scares the wits out of those who see them. Though according to the rules and regulations they should not demand a tribute from anybody but merchants, they unjustly cash in from pilgrims and all sorts of travelers. Whenever they ought to receive, according to the usage, four or six coins for a certain service, they cash in eight or twelve, that is to say, double.
Wherefore we admonish and entreat that these toll-gatherers as well as the king of Aragón and the other powers that be who receive from them the tribute money, as well as all those who are in agreement with them, that is to say, Raymond de Soule, Vivien d’ Aigremont, and the viscount of Saint-Michel with all their future progeny, together with the said ferrymen as well as Arnaud de la Guigne with all his future progeny, no less than the other lords of the said streams who unjustly cash in from the ferrymen the toll-money for the crossing, and also the priests who, knowingly, confer upon them the penitence and the Eucharist and celebrate for them the divine office or admit them into the church – all these, until such a time that they expiate their sins through a long and public penance, and further introduce moderation in their tributes, be they diligently excommunicated not merely in the episcopal sees of their lands but also in the basílica of St. James in the presence of pilgrims. And if a prelate, no matter who, would wish, out of charity or interest, to pardon them, may he be stricken with the sword of anathema.
It ought to be known that these toll-gatherers should by no means collect tribute from pilgrims, and that the said ferrymen should demand for the crossing of two men, provided they are rich, but one obolum,1a monetary unit of small value and for a horse, according to the regulations, one coin only. But from the poor they should ask nothing at all. And furthermore, they must have large enough boats in which men and mounts can easily fit in.
In the Basque country there is on the road of St. James a very high mountain, which is called Port-de-Cize, either because that is the gate of Spain, or because it is by that mountain that the necessary goods are transported from one country to the other. Its ascent is eight miles long, and its descent, equally eight. In fact, its height is such that it seems to touch the sky: to him who climbs it, it seems as if he was able to touch the sky with his hand. From its summit one can see the sea of Bretagne and that of the west, as well as the boundaries of three regions, that is to say, Castilla, Aragón, and France. On the summit of this mountain there is a place called the Cross of Charles, because it was here that Charles, setting out with his armies for Spain, opened up once a passageway with axes, hatchets, pickaxes and other implements, and that he first erected the sign of the cross of the Lord and, falling on his knees and turning towards Galicia, addressed a prayer to God and St. James. Wherefore the pilgrims, falling on their knees and turning towards the land of St. James, used to offer there a prayer while each planted his own cross of the Lord like a standard. Indeed, one can find there up to a thousand crosses; and that is why that place is the first station of prayer of St. James.
On that mountain, before Christianity had spread out on Spanish lands, the impious Navarrese and the Basques used not merely to rob the pilgrims going to St. James, but also to ride them as if they were asses and before long to slay them. Near this mountain, to be sure, towards the north, there is a valley called Valcarlos where Charles himself encamped together with his armies after his warriors had been slain at Roncesvalles. Many pilgrims proceeding to Santiago who do not want to climb the mountain go that way.
Afterwards, in descending from the summit, one finds the hospice and the church with the rock that Roland, the formidable hero, split with his sword in the middle, from top to bottom, in a triple stroke. Next, one comes to Roncesvalles, the site where, to be sure, once took place the big battle in which King Marsile, Roland, Olivier as well as forty thousand Christian and Saracen soldiers were slain.
After this valley lies the land of the Navarrese which abounds in bread, wine, milk, and livestock. The Navarrese and the Basques are very similar and show much the same characteristics in their food, garments, and language, though the Basques are easily recognized by their complexion, which is whiter than that of the Navarrese. The Navarrese wear black and short garments, only knee long, in the Scottish fashion, and use a footwear which they call lavarcas made of uncured, hairy leather, attached around the foot with leather straps, which cover the bottom of the foot only, leaving the rest bare. They wear dark, elbow-long, wool cloaks, fringed in the manner of a cape and which they call sayas. They dress most poorly and eat and drink disgustingly. The whole household of a Navarrese, to be sure, the servant no less than the master, the maid no less than the mistress, eat from a single dish all the food mixed together; and they eat not with spoons but with their own hands and furthermore drink from a single cup. If you saw them eating, you would take them for dogs or pigs in the very act of devouring; if you heard them speaking, you would be reminded of the barking of dogs. Their language is, in fact, completely barbarous. They call God Urcia; the Mother of God, Andrea Maria; bread, orgui; wine, ardum; meat, aragui; fish, araign; house, ecllea; the master of the house, iaona; the mistress, andrea; the church, elicera; the priest, belaterra, which means beautiful land; grain, gari; water, uric; king, ereguia; St. James, laona domne Jacue.
This is a barbarous nation, distinct from all other nations in habits and way of being, full of all kind of malice, and of black color. Their face is ugly, and they are debauched, perverse, perfidious, disloyal and corrupt, libidinous, drunkard, given to all kind of violence, ferocious and savage, impudent and false, impious and uncouth, cruel and quarrelsome, incapable of anything virtuous, well-informed of all vices and iniquities.
In malice they resemble the Getae and the Saracens, and are in everything inimical to our Gallic nation. If they could, the Navarrese or the Basque would kill a Frenchman for no more than a coin. In certain of their regions, namely in Vizcaya and Alava, when the Navarrese warm up, the man shows to the woman and the woman to the man their respective shame. The Navarrese also make use of animals for incestuous fornication. It is told that the Navarrese affixes a lock to the behind of his mule or horse, so that no one else but he may have access to them. Also, he kisses lasciviously the vulva of women and mules.
That is the reason why the Navarrese are rebuked by all who are prudent. Notwithstanding the above, they are valorous on the battlefield, inept in the assault of fortresses, reliable in the payment of the tithe, and assiduous in making offerings on the altar. Every day, in effect, when the Navarrese goes to church, he makes an offering to God of bread or wine or wheat or some other substance.
Wherever the Navarrese or the Basque may go, he shows a horn hanging from his neck, as hunters do, and he carries in his hands, as customary, two or three javelins which he calls auconas. And when he enters his house or returns to it, he whistles with his mouth as a kite; and when in secret places or hidden in solitude on the look-out he wishes to call his companions while remaining undetected, either he sings in the manner of an owl or he howls as a wolf.
It is usually told that they descend from the race of the Scots, because they resemble them in their habits and general countenance. Julius Caesar, as it is told, sent to Spain three nations, namely the Nubians, the Scots, and the tailed ones from Cornwall, in order to wage war on the Spanish people, for these refused to pay him tribute. He ordered them to pass all males by the sword, sparing only the life of women. Having entered that land from the sea and having destroyed their ships, the invaders devastated everything by sword and fire, from the city of Barcelona to Zaragoza and from the city of Bayonne as far as the mountains of Oca. They could not however proceed beyond these limits because the Castilians, assembled together, took them by storm and threw them out of their territories. While escaping thus, they reached the maritime mountains which lie between Najera, Pamplona and Bayonne, that is to say, towards the sea, in the land of Vizcaya and Alava. Having settled down there, they built many fortresses and, having slain all males, seized their wives by force. With these they begot children who subsequently were called Navarrese by their successors.
Whence, Navarrese should be glossed as non verus, that is to say, not generated from a true lineage or a legitimate stock. Furthermore, the Navarrese first took their name from a certain city called Naddaver, which is in the lands from which they came at the beginning. To be sure, the Blessed Matthew, apostle and evangelist, by means of his preaching, in early times converted this city to the Lord.
After this land, one traverses the forest of Oca, to be sure in the direction of Burgos. There follows the land of the Spaniards, that is to say, Castilla and Campos. This country is full of treasures, of gold and silver; it abounds in fodder and in vigorous horses, and it has plenty of bread, wine, meat, fish, milk, and honey. On the other hand, it is poor in wood and full of evil and vicious people.
Thence, having crossed the territory of León and cleared the passes of Mount Irago and Mount Cebrero, one arrives to the land of the Galicians. This country is wooded, provided with excellent rivers, meadows and orchards, and with plenty of good fruits and clear springs; on the other hand, it is poor in cities, towns, and cultivated fields. Bread, wheat, and wine are scarce, but rye bread and cider abound, as do livestock and beasts of burden, milk, and honey. The sea fish is either enormously large or small. The land abounds in gold and silver, fabrics, the fur of wild animals and many other goods, as well as in Saracen treasures.
The Galicians, ahead of the other uncouth nations of Spain, are those who best agree in their habits with our French people; but they are irascible and contentious.