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Testament of Pere Clergue from 1218

Date
1218
Archive
County Archive of Alt Urgell
Document type
Textual
Reference code
CAT-ACAU-1010-000006
Link to the archive
Description

It is the document with the most European and international significance in the context of the pilgrimage to Sant Jaume (Santiago de Compostela). Thus, on January 21, 1218, Pere Clergue, rector of the parish of Sant Martí de Bescaran – a temple located a few kilometers from the border with Andorra – wrote a will with the aim of guaranteeing the salvation of his soul. To carry this out, he made a series of pious donations in France, specifically to the cathedral Notre-Dame du Puy-en-Velay (Auvergne) and the sanctuary Notre-Dame de Rocamadour (Dordogne) as well as, in Spain, to the cathedral of the Savior in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, the Holy Iglesia Basílica Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador de Oviedo and the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

In this way, the bequests profile some of the main spiritual reference points of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela which, through main and secondary routes, extended from the depths of the European continent. In this case, the document identifies one of the main itineraries that started in France, that of the via Podiensis, which had its starting point in Le-Pui-en-Velay – a regrouping center, in turn, for pilgrims coming from Germany and Italy via the via Gebennensis. The Via Podiensis passed through Rocamadour – one of the most prominent landmarks – crossed the Pyrenees via Roncesvalles and led to the so-called Camino Francés in Puente la Reina (Navarre), the main route of the Camino a la Península that crossed, among others, the town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada. Finally, the text mentions another location, the cathedral of Sant Salvador in Oviedo, which was reached from the Camino Francés through the interconnection of the route of San Salvador with the so-called, nowadays, Camino Primitivo and crosses the inland orography of Galicia ending at one of the three most important pilgrimage centers of medieval Christianity together with Rome and Jerusalem: Santiago de Compostela.

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