Xacobeo Year: Spiritual and musical pilgrimage

A year and a half ago the news broke. The Pope Francis decided to extend the Jacobean holy year from 2021 to 2022 due to the pandemic. With this measure, exceptional and which only has one precedent in history, that of the 1937-38 biennium, the Galician tourism sector rubbed its hands and has managed to avoid the coronavirus crisis so that this spiritual, cultural and economic event could have taken place. develop without restrictions and with all guarantees.

The avalanche of tourists and pilgrims is expected to be historic and everything indicates that the number of visitors from the previous edition, held in 2010, will be exceeded. The Camino de Santiago is also a lucrative business for many Galicians. On that occasion, and according to the Pilgrim’s Office, a total of 272,417 devotees arrived at their destination. To this we must add hundreds of thousands of people who did not go through the official channels, but who did not want to miss the holy year. The number of visitors was overwhelming.

More than 10 years have passed since the previous Xacobeo year. Tradition establishes that the saint’s day, July 25, must fall on a Sunday. AceIt has been since 1122 thanks to Pope Calixto and since then there have been 120 holy years. The cultural commitment, and especially musical, around the Jacobean festivity has been one of its main dishes and usual hallmark. Between May and November 2022 alone, musical performances by Marc Anthony, Rufus Wainright, Imagine Dragons and Placebo take place, among a hundred artists. On September 17, the Our Fest Xacobeo 2022 festival will bring together in Ourense three great names of international indie from just 30 euros: Primal Scream, Metronomy and Belle and Sebastian.

On the feasts of the apostle of 2004 brought together Iggy Pop, The Cure, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Echo and The Bunnymen and The Chemical Brothers in an impressive line-up that they pompously called ‘Concerts of the new millennium’. It was the musical heyday before the crisis. What does the Xacobeo consist of? How did your modern editions develop? According to the Xacopedia, the first virtual encyclopedia of the Camino de Santiago that compiles more than three thousand entries on the Jacobean culture, it all started in the early 90s of the last century.

The Xunta de Galicia decided to promote the Xacobeo brand to create “an ambitious promotional, cultural and tourist program to revitalize the Camino de Santiago, taking advantage of the religious celebration of the holy years of Compostela, every 6, 5, 6 and 11 years”. The authorities threw the house out the window at the inaugural Xacobeo 93 with the hiring of a fan of stars made up of Julio Iglesias, Bruce Springsteen, Prince and BB King. Monte de Gozo in the capital of Compostela has witnessed mammoth concerts since then, with groups of the stature of the Rolling Stones, Arcade Fire or Red Hot Chilli Peppers, in addition to those already mentioned.

The Camino signage guides walkers.


economic impact

The Galician Government estimor in 1999 that the event had had an impact on the GDP of the community of almost 10%. This means that, according to their calculations, there were more than five million visits. The Xacobeo years have been those of the pilgrim hatching of our days. In 2004 there were more than six million visitors, a number that continues to increase with the tourism boom.

Xacopedia assures that in the Jubilee of 2010 “there were no significant developments”. The programming then designed by the Galician government in collaboration with other autonomous communities through which the road passes and the central government focused on four aspects: nature, spirituality, culture and gastronomy.

The route of the famous

They have paraded along the Camino de Santiagoor illustrious characters practically since its inception. Asturian monarchs, French and German abbots and monks they were the first to arrive in Santiago at the end of the 9th century. Once the cathedral was completed in 1211, it was the turn of kings, writers and all kinds of personalities of the time: William X Duke of Aquitaine, Louis VII of France and Saint Francis of Assisi, among many others, joined to the pilgrims who crossed Europe on foot, on horseback or by boat to set foot on the peninsula. In the Middle Ages, the pilgrim was not one more. He was sent from Heaven: he had to be considered and treated as if he were Jesus Christ himself.

The peregrine fever reaches our days, especially after the speech of Pope John Paul II goes around the world. These years the Jacobean route has attracted people as well known asor the writer Paulo Coelho, the actors Martin Sheen and Anthony Queen, the scientist Stephen Hawking, the cyclist Miguel Indurainthe actor Jon Kortajarena and politicians of all kinds and conditions: Angela Merkel, Esperanza Aguirre, Pedro Sanchez.

Xacobeo Year: Spiritual and musical pilgrimage