A popular pilgrimage both in the Middle Ages and today follows the "Camino de Santiago", or the Pilgrim Way to Santiago, which extends across the North of Spain from Pamplona in the Basque country of Navarre by way of Burgos, the capital city of the former kingdom of Castile, and Leon, the other capital of the older kingdom of Leon, to the holy city of Santiago de Compostela in the region of Galicia. The pilgrims were not only Spanish but also French, Germans and English, and the pilgrimage began to flourish in the 13th century, in the architectural period of Romanesque, with many churches built in that style. At the same time, by bringing together the Christian kingdoms of the North, the pilgrim way provided a means of uniting those kingdoms in the task of reconquest, or Reconquista, of the formerly Christian country of Spain against the Moors, whose strongholds were in the South. That was a task eventually achieved with the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon in the North and the conquest of the last Moorish stronghold of Granada in the South in 1492.
Peter Milward was born in London on October 12, 1925, and educated at Wimbledon College (a Jesuit high school). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1943, and after various studies he went on to specialize in the Classics and English at Oxford University. He came to Japan in 1954 and after further studies was ordained priest in 1960. From 1962 onwards he has taught English literature at Sophia University in Tokyo. In addition to founding the Renaissance Institute, the Hopkins Society of Japan and the Chesterton Society of Japan, he has published some 400 books, mostly as textbooks for Japanese students, many of them translated into Japanese, but now most of them out of print. Several of his books, especially those on the drama of Shakespeare and the poetry of Hopkins, have been published in England and America. Even in retirement he is still teaching and writing, as he enters his 88th year (or beiju).
