Marian Devotion on the Camino de Santiago during the Middle Ages

Abstract

This article presents the theological basis of Marian devotion on the medieval Camino de Santiago and its manifestation in the form of Marian advocacies (Virgen Peregrina, Virgen del Camino). The presence of the cult of the Virgin Mary on the pilgrimage route to Compostela, closely linked to the Jacobean tradition from the very beginning, grows out of the main Mariological trend in the Middle Ages, expressed in the synthesis of Thomas Aquinas. However, a special relationship must be sought in the Mariology of the Hispanic–Mozarabic rite, which created the spiritual climate for the Compostela pilgrimages in the first centuries of their existence.