History
The history of the Way of St. James begins approximately in the year 813, eight years after the death of St. James the Apostle. It was in this year when, according to the legend, a hermit named Pelayo saw some lights in the forest. He then told this to the town's bishop, who went to the forest and found the mausoleum and identify it as the tomb of St. James.
Alfonso II the Caste, King of Asturias, traveled there with his court, becoming then the first pilgrim in history. The news spread quickly throughout Santiago and in this way the story of the Way of St. James began.
The amount of pilgrims rose highly since the X century, when the European population started a series of contacts and relations that, in the religious field made the journey a more spread out form of devotion.
Since then, there have been a great number of routes for Jacobian pilgrimage that throughout the centuries have been created in Spain. The most known one is the one that passes through Astorga, and is known as the French Way.