Codex Calixtinus
The collection includes sermons, reports of miracles and liturgical texts associated with Saint James, and a set of polyphonic musical pieces.
[4] While the individual texts have a complex history, and each of the five books was probably in existence before their compilation in a single "encyclopedia for the pilgrimage and cult of St. James", Codex Calixtinus is the archetype manuscript for the composite Liber sancti Jacobi.
Codex Calixtinus was long held in the archives of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and was rediscovered there by the Jesuit scholar Padre Fidel Fita in 1886.
[3] The first edition of the text was prepared in 1932 by Walter Muir Whitehill, and published in 1944 by Spain's Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, together with a musicological study by Silos's Dom Germán Prado O.S.B., and another on the miniature illustrations by Jesús Carro García.
The former cathedral employee was convicted of the theft of the codex and of EUR 2.4 million from collection boxes, and was sentenced to ten years in prison in February 2015.
[11] The author, who claims to be Calixtus II, tells how he collected many testimonies on the good deeds of Saint James, "traversing the cruel grounds and provinces for fourteen years".
Book I (Anthologia liturgica) accounts for almost half of all the codex and contains sermons and homilies concerning Saint James, two descriptions of his martyrdom and official liturgies for his veneration.
[13] The hagiographic Book II (De miraculis sancti Jacobi) is an account of twenty-two miracles[14] across Europe attributed to Saint James, both during his life and after his death.
[16] Book III also describes the journey of Theodore and Athanasius,[17] the disciples of Saint James, as they moved his body from Padrón in a cart pulled by oxen to the Libredón forest (previously Liberum Donum), where he was buried.
Book IV (Historia Caroli Magni et Rotholandi) is attributed to Archbishop Turpin of Reims and commonly referred to as Pseudo-Turpin, although it is the work of an anonymous writer of the 12th century.
[20] It relates how Saint James then appeared in a dream to Charlemagne, urging him to liberate his tomb from the Moors and showing him the direction to follow by the route of the Milky Way.
James the Moorslayer' is considered by scholars to be an early example of propaganda by the Catholic Church to drum up recruits for the military Order of Santiago.
[25] In 1993, UNESCO placed the Spanish section of the pilgrimage on the World Heritage List, describing it as "a testimony to the power of the Christian faith among people of all social classes".
[26] The French section joined the list in 1998 when UNESCO declared the cultural and historical importance of the World Heritage Sites of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.
