Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela as a form of condition, in the 18th century. The case of marriages

Abstract

In the 17th and 18th centuries the number of people on the move was high. The paths were full of individuals moving in search of a better life, opportunities for work, treatment of illness or business. However, many roamed the roads after committing crimes in their homelands. In this way, they escaped the punishments to which they would be subjected.

The flight and the inconsistency to which these men and women were subjected, seeing themselves forced to create facade lives to be welcomed within the communities where they wanted to establish themselves, led them, after a few years, to seek to regularize their condition. It is in this last case that we tried to focus our attention. We intend to analyze the pilgrimage as a form of absolution not only divine, but also social. Through the act of pilgrimage, men and women became able to abandon the margins of society.

 The double dimension of the pilgrimage that placed the pilgrim, until then was often connoted as a vagabond, in grace with God and with men, will be our object of study. We will try to understand the importance that pilgrimage continued to have, in the modern period, within a deeply religious society.