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By the twelfth century, the shrine of Saint James the Major at Santiago de Compostela was the third largest pilgrimage site in the medieval world, after Jerusalem and Rome. The Codex Calixtinus, a twelfth-century illuminated manuscript attributed to Pope Calixtus II and housed in the archives of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, sought to codify the legend of Saint James and the practices of his medieval cult. In this thesis, I examine the way in which the collection of twenty-two miracles performed by Saint James contained in Book II of the Codex Calixtinus contributes to this codification, particularly drawing together the complex variety of characteristics possessed by Saint James during the height of his fame: fisherman and soldier, pilgrim and liberator, distinctly Galician and broadly universal. In order to accomplish this, I situate the miracles within their proper historical and codicological contexts and provide an in-depth analysis of the architecture of Book II.
About the author
Jennifer Atwood earned her BA in Museum Studies and Great Texts of the Western Intellectual Tradition from Baylor University in 2011. She is currently pursuing her Master of Studies degree in Medieval Studies from the University of Oxford, where she explores the connections between text and image in manuscripts from the twelfth century.
