Christian History Home > Issue 49 > An Inkeeper's Faith
An Inkeeper's Faith
Christianity in one Spanish village—a historical re-creation.
Glenn Olsen is professor of history at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and an advisory editor of "The Catholic Historical Review." | posted 1/01/1996 12:00AM
In a blustery May night in the early thirteenth century, an old priest registered as a guest at Juan de la Cruz’s inn in Castile. Juan wasn’t surprised at the priest’s age—a large number of pilgrims who came through Silos were elderly. But he was surprised with this priest’s curiosity.
The priest, Pierre, had traveled enough to know that different areas of Christendom had different customs, and he always inquired about such wherever he went. Pierre had heard that, because of centuries of Moorish occupation, the Spains (Spain was not yet spoken of in the singular) had many eccentric religious practices.
Holy Village
The year was 1225 (though Juan did not know this; anno Domini was a system of dating unknown to him). Juan was the third in his family to run the inn at Santo Domingo de Silos. Juan’s ancestors had worked as day-laborers in the monks’ fields and as “carters,” transporting agricultural products, mostly wine, to Silos and elsewhere. Over time the village became economically diverse ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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