Way of Saint James UNESCO World Heritage Sites in France
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How it came to be
In 950 or 951 Godescalc, bishop of Le Puy-en-Velay, set off for Santiago de Compostela with a large company, the first pilgrim from beyond the Iberian peninsula known to have made the journey. In the 12th century a guide for pilgrims was compiled in the Codex Calixtinus, most likely by the French scholar Aymeric Picaud, and it describes four routes to Santiago.
The four routes start from Paris, Vézelay, Le Puy and Arles, cross France and climb over the Pyrenees. Churches, hospitals and bridges for pilgrims grew up along them, and some great sanctuaries, such as Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, are named in the Codex. UNESCO describes the buildings as witnesses to the pilgrimage between the 11th and 15th centuries.
In 1998, 71 buildings along the routes and seven sections of the Le Puy path, nearly 160 km in all, were inscribed as a World Heritage site. They include the Tour Saint-Jacques in Paris, Mont-Saint-Michel, the abbey church at Conques, the Valentré bridge at Cahors, the Saint-Jacques gate at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Amiens Cathedral.
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