Les figures de l’édifice ecclésial d’après le Guide du pèlerin de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle

Abstract

Images of the Ecclesiastical Building in The Pilgrim Guide to Santiago de Compostella. Chapter 9 of the so-called Pilgrim ’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela presents a detailed description of the church of Saint James and of its ornamentation. The well-known text has often been used to reconstruct the partly-vanished Romanesque building, generally by translating twelfth-century words into contemporary architectural vocabulary. Such an approach, however, neglects the broader analysis of the narrative’s semantic field. This study resituates the description of the building within the sole context that gives it meaning, the Jacobus codex or Codex Calixtinus -composed in honour of Compostela and of the apostle of Galicia in the middle of the twelfth century -and positions the text within the frame of monumental and iconographical exegesis in the Gregorian age. Rather than being haphazard or imprecise, the vocabulary used in the description was instead a means of signifying the figurative process communicated by the building, in order to showcase, beyond what was directly perceptible, the accomplishments of the Ecclesia. mentation. The well-known text has often been used to reconstruct the partly-vanished Romanesque building, generally by translating twelfth-century words into contemporary architectural vocabulary. Such an approach, however, neglects the broader analysis of the narrative’s semantic field. This study resituates the description of the building within the sole context that gives it meaning, the Jacobus codex or Codex Calixtinus -composed in honour of Compostela and of the apostle of Galicia in the middle of the twelfth century -and positions the text within the frame of monumental and iconographical exegesis in the Gregorian age. Rather than being haphazard or imprecise, the vocabulary used in the description was instead a means of signifying the figurative process communicated by the building, in order to showcase, beyond what was directly perceptible, the accomplishments of the Ecclesia.