ABSTRACT
What impressions of the Peninsula did the intending pilgrim to Compostela have as he and she set out in the mid-twelfth century (that is, at a time when the great enterprise was becoming most popular) from homes in France, Britain, Germany, Italy, and from many more remote areas? We cannot know with any precision, but by informed and careful conjecture something approaching the mental map typical of the time can be built up. The key text is obviously the Liber Sancti Jacobi as known to us in its prime surviving version, the Codex Calixtinus of the Cathedral of Compostela. That this was intended to be copied, in whole or in parts, and its contents publicly divulged and diffused in all sorts of ways throughout the western Christian world cannot be doubted, as is shown both by the plainly propagandistic pleas and statements scattered about in its text and by the very large quantity of diverse surviving manuscripts that derive from it (or in certain cases from texts that antedate their entry into the CC, on which see below).
