Virgen del Camino

Camino Francés

LeónCastilla y León

16th-century Marian dedication linked to a miraculous apparition: in 1505, the Virgin appeared to the Leonese shepherd Alvar Simón and asked him to build a sanctuary where the stone she threw fell. Where it fell, the village took her name.

It is one of the youngest hagionymic toponyms of the Camino, and one with complete documentary attestation. In July 1505, the Leonese shepherd Alvar Simón Fernández de Velilla, born in nearby Velilla de la Reina, received —⁠according to the act of canonical investigation opened by the bishop of León in 1506⁠— the apparition of the Virgin, who asked him to erect a sanctuary where the sling she threw at him fell. The act describes the episode with witnesses' details. The devotion took hold: the original chapel (1517) was replaced by the present Sanctuary of the Virgen del Camino, the work of the modernist architect Francisco Coello de Portugal and the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs (1957-1961), one of the most relevant contemporary religious buildings in Spain. The hamlet has taken the name of the dedication.

Evolution of the name

  1. Virgen del Camino Castilian from the 16th century

Reflections, to the letter

Inside the sanctuary stands the Humilladero, the chapel marking the exact spot where, by the 1505 tradition, the stone fell that the shepherd Alvar Simón slung at the Virgin's bidding: there she ordered the church raised. That patch of ground is the source of the village's name. Every 2 July the hamlet holds its romería in memory of the apparition.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Apparitionism
A religious episode in which a saint or the Virgin appears to a believer, normally humble, with a specific request (to build a sanctuary, spread devotion). Many modern hagiotoponyms —⁠Guadalupe, Fátima, Virgen del Camino⁠— have apparitionist origins.
Hagiotoponym
A place name formed from a saint's name or religious dedication. Frequent from the medieval Christian repopulation to modern apparitionisms: Sansol, Santiago, Virgen del Camino, Guadalupe.

Sources

  • Santuario de la Virgen del Camino · documentación canónica (virgendelcamino.org)
  • Ayuntamiento de Valverde de la Virgen · sección de patrimonio
  • Coello de Portugal, F. — El santuario de la Virgen del Camino (Madrid: Edarcón, 1962)

If you have a correction or an observation about this information,
please write to us through the form at the foot of the site.
We will grow more precise thanks to your contribution.

Camino Francés

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Santibáñez de Valdeiglesias
  3. Villares de Órbigo
  4. Hospital de Órbigo
  5. Villar de Mazarife
  6. San Martín del Camino
  7. Villadangos del Páramo
  8. Virgen del Camino
  9. León
  10. Puente Villarente
  11. Reliegos
  12. Mansilla de las Mulas
  13. El Burgo Ranero
  14. Bercianos del Real Camino
  15. ··· toward the start