K. Haebler, Strasburg, 1899.

The Compostella pilgrimage was popular for many reasons, and no doubt
began long before St. James had ousted St. Vincent from being
patron-saint of Spain. The spot was remote, literally then at the end
of the earth, 'beyond which', as another pilgrim says, 'there is no
land any more, only water'. There was a great stone, too, in which
later piety found the boat that had borne the saint's body from
Jerusalem. And there were islands to be visited, one a St. Michael's
Mount, round the shores of which should be gathered the cockle shells
that were the emblems of pilgrimage duly performed: though the less
active bought them at stalls high-heaped outside the cathedral doors,
and the rich had them copied in silver and gold.

To the 'end of the earth' Northern Europe went most easily by sea,
all others by land. Convoys gathered in Dartmouth in the lengthening
days of spring, and crept along Slapton sands and round the unlighted
Start, until there was no land any more, and summoning their courage
they must steer out into the Bay of Biscay. This way went John of
Gaunt to St. James in 1386, to be crowned King of Castile in the great
Romanesque cathedral; and so, too, Chaucer must have pictured the Wyf
of Bath visiting 'Galice'.

But Kunig's route lay overland: from Einsiedeln to Romans and Valence;
over the Rhone by the famed bridge of the Holy Spirit, which even
kings must cross on foot, to Uzes, Nimes and Beziers; and then
westwards into the sandy scant-populated lands where the track was
scarcely to be found, except for the pilgrims' graves, often nameless,
sometimes perhaps marked with such simple inscriptions as may still be
seen on trees and crosses among the forests of the Alps. A Pyrenean
pass led him to Roncesvalles; at Logrono the ancient bridge brought
him over the Ebro, and so by Burgos and Leon to his journey's end,
blessing the patrons--Kings of France and England and Navarre, Dukes
of Burgundy--who had raised shelters for poor pilgrims on the way, and
above all the Catholic Kings whose munificence had built a huge serai
to welcome them in Santiago itself.

For Jerusalem the usual point of departure was Venice. Pilgrims
congregated there from all parts of Western and Central Europe, and
there were regular services of ships, sailing mostly in the summer
months. The competition between shipmasters, or 'patrons', to secure
custom was very keen. Thus Torkington records: 'On 3 May the p