has recently been translated and published.[1] Its great circulation, probably by the Cluniac monks, who had many branch houses throughout western Europe, ended in making the pilgrimages to Compostella exceedingly popular. It has been noticed, too, that its popularity was greatest among the inhabitants of Brittany, Wales and Ireland the very areas in which megalithic monuments are found most abundantly.[2]
Various other references to the cult are to be found in writings of the twelfth and subsequent centuries, which give accounts of St. James and the finding of his body; all are substantially the same as those already cited, each, however, having added small details of their own. In an old codex of the monks of Marchia we find that the body of St. James "was seized by Hermogenes and Philetus and other disciples, and was placed in a ship to be taken to another place and there by the goodness of the Lord to be honourably buried. Having entered the ship they fell asleep, and waking next morning found themselves in Spain, where long ago he had preached. So carrying ashore the body they laid it upon a stone, and soon saw it sink like a liquid into the stone."[3] Another MS. History of Compostella, composed early in the twelfth century, gives a similar account, but states that the body was buried beneath a marble slab.
Juan de Marina, the Spanish historian, writing about 1592, says that in a breviary of Toledo St. James is stated to have been buried "in arca marmorica."[4] There has been much discussion on the adjective marmorica, and many emendations have been made, such as marmorea
- ↑ Williams (R.), The History of Charlemagne, a translation of Ystorya de Carolo Magna (Cymmrodorion Society), 1907.
- ↑ Hartwell Jones (G.), Celtic Britain and the Pilgrim Movement (Y Cyminrodor), xxiii. 244 et seq.
- ↑ Acta Sanctorum, vi. Julii. De S. Jacobo Majori, 12.
- ↑ Acta Sanctorum, vi. Julii. De S. Jacobo Majori, 14.
