Somewhere around the year 830 AD, according to legend, a priest in the northwest corner of Spain was told about strange noises and lights in the hills near his church. He climbed the hill to investigate and found a grave. He declared that grave to contain the remains of St. James (Sant Iago in Spanish), one of the 12 apostles of Jesus. So the priest built a shrine. The shrine became a church. The church would eventually grow into into a cathedral and city known as Santiago de Compostela.
People from all over the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) started to visit to see this shrine. Then in the year 950 AD, the word had spread so far that a bishop from Le Puy, France walked to the shrine to see if for himself. By doing so, he became the first international pilgrim (peregrino in Spanish) recorded to walk the way to St. James (Camino de Santiago).
More peregrines came after that. Then in 1140 AD, a book called the Codex Calixtinus came out in Latin. It was mostly about the miracles of St. James (Santiago), but it also included a section specifically to share information about how to travel on the Camino de Santiago. It is considered to be the earliest travel guide published in the west. It even made the first mention of travelers buying souvenirs.
The book encouraged people from all over Europe to walk the Camino de Santiago to Santiago de Compostela. English pilgrims started arriving in the twelfth century. Pilgrims from France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and Poland soon followed over the next few centuries. The Camino became a network of trails from all over Europe and Iberia all ending in the same place – the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela.
We do not have complete statistics of how many pilgrims walked the Camino from its peak from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. We do have a few records from hostals along the way that make us think there were tens of thousands of pilgrims every year during that time.
Interest in the trail started to decrease after the Protestant Reformation. It never stopped completely though. Even through all the plagues, wars, dictatorships and more in European history over the last 1,000 years, pilgrims still walked the camino. By 1979, though, the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela recorded only 70 pilgrims.
Then in 1985 another book about the Camino de Santiago appeared. It was written by a priest who lived along the Camino. It renewed interest. More pilgrims came. Some also wrote books. Some made films. The word spread. By 2019, over 340,000 people from all over the world finished the Camino – meaning they walked at least the last 100 km of the trail (or for a few, biked the last 200 km).
That year, I was one of many peregrinos who walked the Camino as well but was not counted in that total. I walked two weeks from St. Jean Pied de Port, France to Burgos, Spain on the French route, but I didn’t finish in Santiago de Compostela. It was my fifth walk on Camino de Santiago routes. I have finished three other walks on the Camino in Santiago de Compostela and received a Compostela certificate. Now I focus more on the experience than the ending.