A Medieval Pilgrim's Companion

In this book Thomas Spaccarelli argues that the Escorial codex usually published and studied as nine separate saints' lives and romances is in fact a unified and organized whole. He shows how the codex is intimately related to the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and to the religious literary and artistic traditions associated with it. The <i>Libro</i> was produced by a team of compilers who chose and translated specific French works with the goal of providing edification and encouragement to Spanish-speaking pilgrims. Spaccarelli elucidates the <i>Libro</i>'s ideology of pilgrimage which includes such concepts as guest/host theology egalitarianism and the matter of <i>imitatio Christi</i>. In addition he proposes a series of structural elements operative in the <i>Libro</i> that bind the nine works into a whole.