Walking the Camino

by Tony Kevin

  Zamora figures prominently in the life of Spain’s greatest medieval hero-warrior, El Cid (from the old Arabic el seid, meaning ‘the chief’ or ‘the lord’). I have never forgotten seeing at the impressionable age of eighteen the 1961 epic Hollywood movie, superbly cast with Charlton Heston as the warrior-knight and Sophia Loren as the love of his life, the breathtakingly beautiful Lady Ximena, niece of King Alfonso VI. Many people think this was the best epic film ever made by Hollywood; and, having recently seen again a remastered DVD version, I think they’re right. Interestingly, Ridley Scott was inspired to make his Crusades film, Kingdom of Heaven, when he watched El Cid again. There are affinities between the two films.

  El Cid was a real historical figure. His birth name was Rodrigo Diaz; he was born in Burgos in 1040 and died in Valencia in 1099. A commoner who rose to greatness by his own valour, his bloodline through his two daughters by Ximena entered into the royal families of Europe. One of the greatest epic poems of medieval Europe, ‘The Lay of the Cid’, was based on his life. He was a brilliant military general, a soldier–mercenary who fought for both Christian and Moorish kings. Initially he fought for Ferdinand I ‘the Great’, King of León, a key figure in the Christian reconquest who greatly expanded his original kingdom of León, in his lifetime capturing from the Moors most of Galicia and Castile. Ferdinand died peacefully in 1065, rather naively dividing his kingdom among all his five children and directing them to live at peace with one another. Ferdinand’s eldest son, Sancho, was left newly conquered Castile; his favourite, second son, Alfonso, got the home kingdom of León; Garcia got Galicia; and his two daughters, Elvira and Urraca, received the city-state dukedoms of Toro and Zamora respectively. But Sancho believed he should have inherited it all. (Was he already thinking of the national interest, I wonder, or was it just the personal greed of an eldest son wanting to have it all?) He made war on his younger siblings.

  It fell to Rodrigo Diaz to command Sancho’s army. Alfonso was initially defeated and fled for protection to Castile’s newly conquered tributary Muslim city-state, Toledo. Elvira and Garcia conceded to Sancho, but Urraca held firm in her well-fortified city of Zamora. Sancho laid unsuccessful siege to the city for seven months, and was assassinated before the walls by a pretended Zamoran traitor who had offered to show him a secret way into the city. With Sancho out of the way, Alfonso came back from Toledo as king in 1072. He inherited all that Sancho had sought — Ferdinand’s inheritance. He became Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the second king of expanding, Christian, imperial Spain. Huge further southwards reconquests of Moorish lands were made during his long reign. Alfonso crowned himself Emperor of all Spain in 1077, and died in 1109.

  The legend goes that the suspicious and angry Rodrigo Diaz humiliated Alfonso at his coronation in 1072 by making him swear repeatedly on the Bible that he had had nothing to do with plotting his brother’s murder, for it was widely rumoured that Urraca and Alfonso had planned the murder together. A vengeful Alfonso soon banished Rodrigo, who spent the rest of his life as a soldier of fortune in the patchwork of states that was then Spain, fighting alternately for Moorish and Christian kings, and earning the love and admiration of all for his bravery and chivalry as ‘El Cid’. He later conquered Valencia from a Moorish ruler and became its ruler. According to the legend, El Cid’s last battle was there, where he put an invading Moorish army from Morocco to flight by riding out to battle as a dead man strapped onto his horse. It is one of many unforgettable scenes in the movie.

  The Catholic Encyclopedia offers this assessment of El Cid:

  Tradition and legend have cast a deep shadow over the history of this brave knight, to such an extent that his very existence has been questioned; there is however, no reason to doubt his existence. We must, at the same time, regard him as a dual personality, and distinguish between the historical Cid and the legendary Cid. History paints him as a freebooter, an unprincipled adventurer, who battled with equal vigour against Christians and Moors … who plundered and slew as much for his own gain as from any patriotic motives. It must be born in mind, however, that the facts which discredit him have reached us through hostile Arab historians, and that to do him full justice he should be judged according to the standard of his country in his day. Vastly different indeed is the Cid of romance, legend, and ballad, wherein he is pictured as the tender, loving husband and father; the gentle, courageous soldier; the noble, generous conqueror, unswervingly loyal to his country and his king; the man whose name has been an ever-present inspiration to Spanish patriotism. But whatever may have been the real adventures of El Cid Campeador, his name has come down to us in modern times in connection with a long series of heroic achievements in which he stands out as the central figure of the long struggle of Christian Spain against the Moslem hosts.

  The encyclopedia comments on the poem ‘The Lay of the Cid’:

  The exploits of El Cid form the subject of what is generally considered the oldest monument of Spanish literature. This is an epic poem of a little over 3700 lines as it has reached us (several hundred lines being missing), the author of which, as is not uncommon with works of those days, is unknown … The poem deserves to be read for its faithful pictures of the manners and customs of the day it represents. It is written with Homeric simplicity and in the language of the day, the language the Cid himself used, which was slowly divorcing itself from the Latin, but was still only half developed.

  I marveled at Zamora’s fiercely contested history. It was a city that had lived dangerously on the Muslim–Christian front line, at the northern limits of the Muslim advance, for 300 years: it changed hands between Moors and Christians no less than six times. The armies of al-Andalus first occupied the city in the late eighth century, not long after they conquered the south. We don’t know the date of the first Christian re-occupation, but we know that the Moors took it again in 813 A.D. King Alfonso III of Castile then captured it eighty years later in 893. In a great battle in 901 — the date is still celebrated in Zamora — a Moorish army failed to retake the city. But in 981 they succeeded, completely destroying the city, then later rebuilding it and repopulating it with Muslims. Ferdinand I finally reconquered Zamora in 1062, quite possibly with El Cid, then twenty-two, already leading his army.

  There followed a century of rebuilding the city, with Zamora’s magnificently romantic Romanesque cathedral built between 1149 and 1174. Zamora’s historical importance pretty well peters out after that date. As Spain’s royal court and capital moved south, first to Toledo and finally to Seville, Zamora’s military significance faded. It was left behind as a forgotten backwater. This is perhaps why this twelfth-century city — built solidly to withstand all future invaders, although, as it happened, the multiple invasions were finally over — survives so well. Walking through old Zamora is like being back in the Middle Ages in a world of knights and jousting and fair maidens and wars with the Saracens. The cathedral is an amazing building, quite different from the grand, late-Gothic cathedrals I saw in Plasencia and Salamanca. Zamora’s cathedral looks more like a mosque, with its huge dome, four small flanking towers, and a central tower; or like some fanciful Byzantine cathedral, a fairytale building out of Camelot. Its architecture suggests how Spanish culture at that time was still Muslim-dominated, even though the military tide had started to turn in favour of the Christian kingdom.

  Near the cathedral in the old town precinct, I was thrilled to find a large, walled, stone house with a plaque saying ‘This was the house of El Cid’. The whole old-town area is very beautiful, running along the crest of a long promontory ridge overlooking the river, which bends in a serpentine around its base. There is little car traffic here, with many small parks and open plazas around the dozens of palaces, including the palace of the Lady Urraca (who never married, and was rumoured to have shared an lifelong incestuous love with her brother Alfonso), and many churches and convents. Further east is the modern city, which contains many charming late-ninet
eenth century to early-twentieth century Art Nouveau buildings from a time when Zamora began to prosper again.

  Why did Zamora so capture my imagination, perhaps more than any other Spanish city I saw? Partly because I have always loved the Middle Ages, the age of chivalry and romance. But also perhaps because Zamora represents the crucial hinge in Spanish history, the moment at which Spain might have stayed Muslim — as Turkey, the contested borderland at the other end of Europe, stayed Muslim. Muslim al-Andalus was still the most powerful military and cultural force in Spain in the eleventh century, despite the unraveling of the Córdoba caliphate that started in 1031. Al-Andalus might still have recovered its unity and vigour, had it not been for the historical accident of two strong and resolutely expansionist Castilian kings in succession, Ferdinand and Alfonso (with not a little help from El Cid), in launching the Christian imperial project of reconquest from their weak northern borderlands — a project that continued to gather strength and momentum over the next two centuries — at the very same time as fundamentalist Almohads and Almoravids were invading from Morocco, fatally undermining the civilisation of al-Andalus from within.

  Zamora was where the reconquest began, but the turn of the tide towards the Christian side was by no means inevitable. Had Ferdinand’s self-indulgent plan (for he loved all his children) to divide his kingdom succeeded, the aggressively expansionist states of Castile and León that became imperial Spain might never have come into being, and Muslim states might have recovered their balance and continued to rule much of Spain. The world’s history, America’s history, would have been entirely different. It is all around you here in Zamora — in the history of Sancho and Alfonso, and their loyal hero-warrior, El Cid.

  chapter eleven

  From Zamora to the Galician Border

  Richard and I had a pleasant Saturday resting in Zamora. We had found a good family restaurant in the northern residential area of the city for a farewell dinner with Aldo the night before. With mixed feelings of anticipation and regret, he was going home to his family in Italy, having walked for three weeks from Seville to here; he planned to complete the second half of his camino from Zamora to Santiago in 2007. That night, we discovered why our three-bedded room in the Hostal la Reina, overlooking the main city square, the Plaza Mayor, was cheap: from about 11.00 pm onwards, the plaza became the scene of a raucous street party that went on till dawn. The next day, wearily asking the hotel staff what had been the occasion, they told me it was like this every weekend night in the plaza. For our second night in Zamora, Richard and I prudently moved to a quieter, two-bedded room in the back of the hotel, where we slept much better.

  We headed out of Zamora on Sunday morning, refreshed from the day’s break in walking. I was now on my third and last Michelin Orange Series regional maps, of the Galicia region. I had already, with a great sense of pride, airmailed home to my family the Michelin maps of Andalucia and Extremadura, with my completed line of route proudly blazed across them in luminous red highlighter pen. Santiago now seemed much closer, a mere 414 kilometres. Two-thirds of the camino was behind me already.

  In good spirits, we headed north again, into more of the familiar dry meseta country — did all of Spain look like this? But we knew the landscape was soon to change, because forty kilometres north of here, at Granja de Moreruela, we would leave the Vía de la Plata, our long northwards route since Mérida, and strike off west-northwest on a different route towards the passes of Sanabria, through the high mountains of León into Galicia. This was a thrilling prospect now, for though I had grown to love the Castilian meseta in all its subtle moods, I was ready for a new landscape, for the green hills and valleys of Galicia, for the Celtic-tinged culture of this very different region of Spain. Zamora was my last Castilian city. My final pilgrimage cities, Ourense and Santiago itself, would both be definitely Galician.

  We had an easy, short walk that day to Montemarta. We could not walk far, because the next village with a listed refugio, Granja de Moreruela, was another twenty-three kilometres on, and neither of us felt like a long walk that day. More importantly, Australia’s second World Cup game, against the favourites, Brazil, was playing at 3.00 pm, and we did not want to miss that game. In Montemarta, we found a hospitable family-run inn on the N630 highway, the Fonda El Asturiano and, after a quick shower in our rooms (single rooms were cheap here), settled into the bar to watch the game. I didn’t expect my Australians to win, going up against Brazilian football gods like Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, but they did very well, going down to an honourable 2–0 defeat after keeping Brazil on the back foot for much of the game. My team’s standing immediately soared in Richard’s eyes. Australia’s earlier win over Japan might not have not signified much to him, as he knew little about either team. But our close-shave defeat by the famous Brazilians was a different matter, putting us up there as a serious contender for the Cup. Australia was still in the running to go through to the next round, and so it was a cheerful celebration at the inn that night.

  The next day was easy: we halted early, six kilometres short of Granja in the preceding village, Riego del Camino. On the way there, we passed another big reservoir, on the Río Esla, and then an impressive crumbling ruined castle, Castrotarafe. This medieval castle had been a major command post of the Knights of Santiago, protecting this section of the Vía de la Plata. The Knights, an order of warrior-monks set up in León and Castile around 1170, had the twin duties of helping pilgrims to Santiago (the hospitaller function) and of protecting pilgrim routes from attack by Moors or brigands (the military function). Their emblem, a red Cross on a white background with fleur-de-lys upper points and a swordblade pointing downwards as the shaft of the Cross, is a familiar waymarking motif on the caminos, and is imprinted on the pastry crust of the famous Tarta de Santiago, the traditional, rich, butter-and-almond celebration tart eaten by pilgrims arriving in Santiago. (I took home two for my family and friends to taste.)

  The Knights of Santiago order flourished, perhaps because its celibacy rule was initially quite relaxed. The order comprised canons, allowed to administer the sacraments; canonesses, occupied with the service of pilgrims; religious knights living in celibate communities; and married knights. The right to marry, which other military orders of monks only obtained at the end of the Middle Ages, was granted to the Knights of Santiago from the beginning, under the authority of the king, subject only to an obligation to remain chaste during Advent, Lent, and during certain other religious festivals, which they spent at their monasteries in retreat. It is an interesting precedent to look back on now, as the Catholic Church continues to debate the pros and cons of priestly celibacy.

  The Knights of Santiago had a smoother history than the tragic order of the Templars. At their height, the Knights were almost a state within Spain, controlling 83 command posts, two cities, 178 villages, 200 parishes, five hospitals, five convents, and one college at Salamanca. The number of knights was then 400, and they could muster more than 1000 armed men. They had properties in Portugal, France, Italy, Hungary, and Palestine. They played significant military roles in the Christian reconquest, sometimes fighting on their own account and sometimes as part of imperial Spanish armies.

  After completion of the reconquest, the need for the Knights’ military protection of the pilgrim routes fell away, and the order declined in importance. After 1499, their assets were brought under the authority of the King of Spain. But they were still functioning in the eighteenth century, with obligatory service of six months a year in Spanish Mediterranean galleys. They still exist today in Portugal, as a state-recognised Order of Chivalry. The nuns in Granada who gave me my first sello obviously have some historical connection with the Knights, but I was never able to find out if they descended from the original Knights of Santiago order of canonesses.

  ***

  On the path that day I met a charming and robust lady, powering along while carrying over her arm a heavy basket of veget
ables that she had bought in the next town’s market and was taking home to her village, Riego del Camino. She was walking a good deal faster than me, but kindly slowed for long enough to chat and to invite us to stay in the new pilgrim refugio in Riego — much nicer and less crowded, she assured us, than the one in Granja. We took her advice, and indeed it was a very comfortable little place, a converted house, and we were its only guests. She popped in later for a cup of tea and a chat with us. It turned out that she was the local mayor, proud of the new pilgrim refugio she had just organised. Riego was a village that seemed to be struggling a bit: we saw many empty and dilapidated houses, and not much economic activity. I hope this energetic and charming lady mayor finds more ways to revive Riego’s fortunes.

  The next day was a testing marathon: thirty-six kilometres of challenging walking. We were leaving the Vía de la Plata, which continues due north until it joins the Vía Frances at Astorga. We had chosen instead to take an alternative pilgrimage route, north-west to Ourense in Galicia and then on to Santiago. We would not meet the Vía Frances at all before Santiago. We were also, at last, leaving the N630.

  We walked in a westerly direction, along winding country lanes that at times seemed to be leading us nowhere, skirting the estate of a beautiful and remote ruined Cistercian convent, the Convento de Moreruela. I wish I had had time to go in and see it. Finally, we reached a more significant motor road running downhill to a bridge over a northerly reach of the very large reservoir we had passed the day before. Then we faced an untypical few kilometres of Australian-style cross-country bush-bashing, scrambling up and down rocky cliff-slope paths along the edge of the reservoir that would have challenged horses, and were certainly too steep and rocky for mountain bikes. Then it was mile upon mile of shadeless back roads, walking under a hot, afternoon sun. Castile saved its fiercest heat for the last. The day seemed endless — and we walked for eleven hours that long day, all in hot, dry meseta country. But at least we were now travelling due westwards, and the blue mountains of León and the passes over to Galicia were beginning to loom on the far horizon ahead. Towards seven, we stumbled wearily into a highway hotel in Tabara, a largeish village on the main motor highway from Zamora into Galicia, the N631.