In the 11th and 12th centuries, when the so-called ‘Cult of Saints’ was at its peak, the idea of a physical journey towards a spiritual goal was extremely popular, and the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in north-western Spain, was one of the three most important Christian pilgrimage sites of the medieval period, after Jerusalem and Rome.

However the pilgrimage was also an early form of mass tourism. The ‘camino’, or pilgrimage road across northern Spain thus became one of the most widely-used of medieval times, dotted with Romanesque and Gothic churches and monasteries, designed to incorporate the veneration of saints into sumptuous architecture, replete with religious sculptures and elaborate reliquaries, and thus to attract the many pilgrims and their money. This lecture explores the evolution of the architecture and sculpture along the route, and the related pilgrimage 'business', with its focus on the relics and miracles that the pilgrims sought.