“People and nature are equally capricious,” I said, trying to start a conversation. “We build beautiful bridges, and then Mother Nature changes the course of the rivers they cross.”
It’s the drought,” he said. “Finish your sandwich, because we have to move along.”
I decided to ask him why we were in such a hurry. “We have been on the Road to Santiago for a long time. I have already told you that I left a lot of things unattended in Italy, and I have got to get back.”
I wasn’t convinced. What he was saying might well be true, but it wasn’t the only issue. When I started to question what he had said, he changed the subject.
“What do you know about this bridge?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “But even with the drought, it’s too big. I think the river must have changed its course.” “As far as that goes, I have no idea,” he said. “But it is known along the Road to Santiago as the ‘honorable passage.’ These fields around us were the site of some bloody battles between the Suevians and the Visigoths, and later between Alphonse III’s soldiers and the Moors. Maybe the bridge is oversize to allow all that blood to run past without flooding the city.”
He was making an attempt at macabre humor. I didn’t laugh, and he was put off for a moment, but then he continued, “However, it wasn’t the Visigoth hordes or the triumphant cries of Alphonse III that gave this bridge its name. It was another story of love and death.
“During the first centuries of the Road to Santiago, pilgrims, priests, nobles and even kings came from all over Europe to pay homage to the saint. Because of this, there was also an influx of assailants and robbers. History has recorded innumerable cases of robbery of entire caravans of pilgrims and of horrible crimes committed against lone travelers.”
Just like today, I thought.
“Because of the crimes, some of the nobility decided to provide protection for the pilgrims, and each of the nobles involved took responsibility for protecting one segment of the Road. But just as rivers change their course, people’s ideals are subject to alteration. In addition to frightening the malefactors, the knights began to compete with each other to determine who was the strongest and most courageous on the Road. It wasn’t long before they bagan to do battle with each other, and the bandits returned to the Road with impunity.
“This developed over a long period of time until, in 1434, a noble from the city of Leon fell in love with a woman. The man was Don Suero de Quinones; he was powerful and rich, and he did everything in his power to win his lady’s hand in marriage. But this woman–history has forgotten her name–did not even want to know about his grand passion and rejected his request.”
I was dying of curiosity to know what an unrequited love had to do with battles among the knights. Petrus saw that I was interested and said that he would relate the rest of the story only if I finished my sandwich and we began to move along.
“You are just like my mother when I was a child,” I said. But I gulped down the last morsel of bread, picked up my knapsack and we began to make our way through the sleepy city.
Petrus continued, “Our gentleman whose pride had been offended, resolved to do what all men do when they feel themselves to have been rejected: he began a private war. He promised himself that he was going to perform such an important feat that the woman would never forget his name. For months he sought a noble idea that would consecrate his spurned love. And then he heard of the crimes and the battles along the Road to Santiago. That gave him an idea.
“He called together ten of his friends, and they set themselves up in the small city we are passing through right now. He spread the word by means of the pilgrims that he was prepared to remain there for thirty days–and break thirty lances–in order to prove that he was the strongest and boldest of all the knights of the Road. He established himself with his banners, his standards, his pages and servants, and waited for challengers.”
I could imagine what a picnic that must have been: roast boar, endless supplies of wine, music, stories, and battles. A lively picture came to my mind as Petrus related the rest of the story.
“The bouts began on the tenth of July with the arrival of the first challengers. Quinones and his companions fought during the day and held huge feasts every night. The contests were always held on the bridge so that no one could flee. During one period, so many challengers came that fires were built along the entire length of the bridge so that the bouts could go on until dawn. All of the vanquished knights were required to swear that they would never again do battle with the others and that from then on, their only mission would be to protect the pilgrims going to Compostela.
On the ninth of August, the combat ended, and Don Suero de Quinones was recognized as the bravest and most valiant of all the knights of the Road to Santiago. From that day forward, no on dared to issue challenges of bravery, and the nobles returned to their battle against the only enemy in common, the bandits who assaulted the pilgrims. This epic was later to give rise to the Military Order of Santiago of the Sword.”
We had crossed the small city. I wanted to go back and take another look at the “honorable passage,” the bridge on which all of that had taken place. But Petrus said that we had to move on.
“And what happened to Don Quinones?” I asked.
“He went to Santiago de Compostela and placed a golden necklace at San Tiago’s shrine; even today it adorns the bust of San Tiago the Lesser.”
I was asking whether he wound up marrying the lady.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Petrus answered. “In those days, history was written only by men. With such a battlefield close at hand, who was going to be interested in a love story?”
