The Harmony of Staff and Sword: How Medieval Thinkers Saw Santiago Peregrino & Matamoros

Abstract

THE HARMONY OF STAFF AND SWORD: HOW MEDIEVAL THINKERS SAW SANTIAGO PEREGRINO & MATAMOROS Stephen B. Raulston Sewanee: The University ofthe South The iconographie tradition ofSantiago combines the Byzantine tradition ofrepresenting James as a member ofthe fellowship of apostles (Melczer 63) with innovative medieval images of the saint as Santiago Peregrino clad in the appurtenances ofhis own followers, and as a mounted warrior, Santiago Matamoros, engaged in battle against a Muslim enemy. In the Byzantine tradition, representations of Santiago as apostle or evangelist bear no distinguishing features, apart from context, to differentiate James from other apostles. The trumeau statue of Santiago in the Pórtico de la Gloria, in which a seated James, with nimbus, holds a scroll in one hand and a Tau-shaped staff in the other, is one medieval heir of this older tradition. So are numerous sculptures of James as witness to the Transfiguration, like the one which the Pilgrim's Guide describes as My thanks to Tom Spaccarelli and Taran Johnston, whose conversation and generous insights have guided the thoughts expressed in this article. La corónica 36.2 (Spring 2008): 345-67 346Stephen B. RaulstonLa corónica 36.2, 2008 adorning the west front of the Cathedral at Compostela in the early twelfth century, and as participant in the Last Supper (Melczer 125, 63). The developmentfromlate-classical images ofJames through the early Middle Ages follows the relatively consistent and traceable trajectory that one might expect, but the Peninsular creations ofSantiago Peregrino and Santiago Matamoros that emerged after the rise ofthe Jacobean cult in the ninth century have discomfited scholars and a modern public alike. This is, on the one hand, because these images are unique in the iconography of saints -no other saint appropriates the guise and activities of his own devotees as Santiago Peregrino does (Melczer 67)- and, on the other, because the two images strike the modern sensibility as antithetical and incompatible: the one, self-effacing, humble, contemplative, associated with the physical act of pilgrimage; the other, aggressive, bellicose and associated with political and military goals. Spaccarelli's groundbreaking study of Escorial Ms h.1.13, the Libro de los huéspedes, expresses just such an antithetical view of Matamoros and Peregrino, juxtaposing the two images, respectively, as warlike/peaceful; monolithic/multicultural; exclusive/inclusive; militant/ communal; patriarchal/maternal; hierarchical/egalitarian, etc. Melczer also sees the image of Santiago Matamoros, little known outside the Peninsula, as "developing along national lines ... rooted in the historical necessity of the Reconquista", while Santiago Peregrino is "eminently international in character, scope, and diffusion", arising "directly from the early pilgrimage folklore of the eleventh and twelfth centuries" (65-66). The apparent incongruity between Peregrino and Matamoros is among the elements that led Americo Castro to posit that there were, in the beginning, two Santiagos, that the cult of St. James in Spain had its origins in the Roman twin cult of Castor and Pollux, and that the predecessor of Santiago Matamoros was the figure of Castor who, mounted on a white horse, was said to aid the Romans in battle against their enemies (107-40). The antithetical juxtaposition ofthe two medieval images of Santiago andaclearpreferenceforSantiago Peregrino are alsopartofcontemporary popular sentiment in Spain. In 1983 Rodriguez Bordallo and Ríos-Graña reported that the parish church of Santiago in Llerena in the province of Badajoz had recently removed the statue of Santiago Matamoros from its The Harmony ofStaffand Sword347 sanctuary and replaced it with a more acceptable sculpture of Santiago Peregrino. Matamoros is now consigned to the church sacristy, where it remains covered by a black cloth formerly used in funeral masses. In other Spanish cities, when effigies of Santiago Matamoros are carried through the streets in procession on the saint's feast day, the severed heads and pleading figures of the Muslim victims beneath his charger's feet are covered with cloths or tapestries (Rodriguez Bordallo and RíosGra ña 219). Yet numerous medieval examples of images of Santiago in their original context lead one to conclude that the intellectuals who conceived and controlled the iconographie programs of medieval churches and monasteries perceived no such incompatibility between the two most common portrayals ofSpain's patron saint. The fifteenth...