ABSTRACT
The life, preaching, death and burial of St James resulted in a large amount of literature from the early Middle Ages, and this was subsequently added to over the following centuries. Both the canonical and apocryphal gospels provided the first references to the family, vocation and character of the Apostle St James, Son of Zebedee, with the Acts of the Apostles informing the manner of his death. The legends surrounding St James's preaching in Galicia even refer to the founding of several churches. The calling of St James was represented in a series of reliefs throughout the cathedral in Compostela which can be dated to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Virgin Mary supposedly appeared before the apostle St James during his mission in Hispania several times and in different locations, although only one account, which occurred on the banks of the River Ebro in Zaragoza has survived the passage of time.
