Emoções, devoções e culto às relíquias do Apóstolo Santiago na Idade Média

Abstract

The cult of relics occupied a central position in medieval Christian religiosity, articulating devotional practices, emotional experiences, and symbolic constructions of the sacred. This article analyzes the cult of the relics of the apostle James the Greater, emphasizing the relationship between religious emotions, popular devotion, and the consolidation of the sanctuary of Compostela as one of the main pilgrimage centers of Western Christendom. From a historical and cultural approach, it examines how emotions were socially mobilized through pilgrimage, the veneration of relics and the narratives found in Book V of the Codex Calixtinus, contributing to the formation of collective identities and to the political and religious legitimation of the Jacobean cult. It is argued that devotion to Saint James reveals the importance of emotions as a structuring element of medieval religious experience.