Hermann Künig He undertook a journey along the extreme northwestern route of Spain in order to visit the apostle Santiago in the 15th century. The journey taken by that monk from the order of the Servants of Mary of Vacha (Germany) ended up, over time, taking the form of a publication.
«Künig published the first pilgrim guide of the Camino de Santiago», explained this Wednesday the president of the Association of Friends of the Künig Trail, Tomás Álvarez: "It came from central Germany, crossed all of Switzerland, the south of France and Spain and returned through the area of Bayonne, Tours, Paris and Flanders to Cologne." The German then embarked on "the two main routes of the European pilgrimage", cultivating at that time the first known work to indicate the possible routes, the distances to travel and the attention to the pilgrim in each place.
That guide –“a 'best-seller' at the beginning of the 16th century», in the words of Álvarez –, was largely relegated to oblivion during the Protestant Reformation in Spain because it was a «very Germanic, so to speak» text. The latest edition of the same dates from 1594 and the province has a lot of presence among its pages. And it is that that medieval pilgrim develops in them the three possible itineraries through León, recommending above all of them the route of Santa Marina del Rey. Route known today as Via or Camino de Künig.
FOUNTAIN: THE NEW SPAIN
