ABSTRACT
There is a consensus in current historiography that the origins of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela rest on the joint and harmonious efforts of the bishops of Iria-Santiago and the kings of Asturias. But, still in the first decades of twelfth century the memory of Bishop Adaulfo was alive among his former flock. Saint James became the common banner for the new United Kingdom of Asturian and Galician, the first real independent state in Northern Christian Spain. Rome had Saints Peter and Paul and the militant inhabitants of Northern Spain, fighting against Moslems, got Saint James, one of the first followers of Jesus Christ and the first martyr among the Apostles. Hence, the cult of Saint James became an ideological instrument in the hands of the Kingship and the pilgrimage to the Holy Place of Santiago de Compostela a vehicle for royal propaganda.
