History
A circular letter dated March 15, 1950 laid the foundations for the Société des Amis De Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle. The letter was signed by Jean Babelon on July 20, 1950. The curator of the Bibliothèque Nationale’s Cabinet des Médailles presented himself as president of the provisional committee, pending a constitutive general meeting.
This letter, reproduced below, is accompanied by the composition of this committee: six honorary members and twelve active members, whose titles and functions are in line with the new institution’s ambition to act as a learned society. The preceding paragraph clarifies the intentions of the committee, which the Society’s statutes will take up word for word in their object.
The first pilgrimage organization of the modern era was born, and the pilgrimage to Compostela was reborn.
Friends of Santiago de Compostela” society
Provisional head office:
87 rue Vieille du Temple
PARIS IIIe
Paris, July 20, 1950
The response from a wide variety of quarters to our circular of March 15, 1950, announcing the founding of a society of Friends of Santiago de Compostela, gives us the assurance that our initiative is being followed with the keenest interest. Numerous personalities from the world of letters and the arts have already sent us their support in principle, and their number can only increase as soon as our program becomes known.
We ask you to join us in this work of propaganda by reminding us of the exceptional richness of this theme of thought and scholarly research offered to us by the age-old Galician pilgrimage. Simple tourism, as well as the most exact science – history or archaeology – and the highest spirituality, are all equally engaged on the paths opened and followed by French travellers since Bishop Godescalc, a thousand years ago.
A provisional committee has already been set up, comprising the names listed here. Next October, a Constituent Assembly will be called to definitively establish the foundations of our Society and to determine more precisely its program of action in all its parts.
We hope that you will not only lend us your support and advice, but that you will also enlist the support of many devotees of Santiago de Compostela and unite them in a common cause.
The Chairman of the Provisional Committee,
Jean Babelon
The Société des Amis de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, founded in July 1950, aims tostudy the artistic, historical, literary and religious movements sparked by devotion to Saint James the Greater, particularly as manifested by the pilgrimage to Compostela, and to pursue this study in common by joining forces with existing French and foreign societies, thus coordinating and developing investigations on the subject.
Committee membership
Chairman
- Mr Jean BABELON, Curator of the Cabinet des Médailles at the Bibliothèque Nationale
Honorary members
- Mr Marcel AUBERT, Member of the Institute
- Mr Paul GUIGNARD, Director of the French Institute in Madrid
- Mr Maurice LEGENDRE, Director of Casa Velasquez
- Mgr MARTIN, Archbishop of Rouen
- Mr Louis BEAU, Member of the Institute
- Mr Jena VERRIER, General Inspector of Historic Monuments
Active members
- Mr André ARTONNE, Honorary Librarian at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Mr Louis BOURBON, Conservateur des Antiquités et Objets d’art de l’Ardèche
- Mr. Jean BRAUNWALD, President of the Casa Velasquez Association
- Mr Paul DESCHAMPS, Member of the Institute
- Mr Jacques FONTAINE, Professor, Faculty of Letters, Caen
- Mr Georges GAILLARD, Professor, Lille Faculty of Literature
- Mgr JORIT, Professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris
- Mr Elie LAMBERT, Professor at the Sorbonne
- Ms Régine PERNOUD, Curator of the French History Museum at the Archives Nationales
- Mr Charles Pichon, Director of the Saint-Louis and Saint-Ferdinand Association
- Mr Jacques ROEDERER, Architect
- Miss VIELLIARD, Director, Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes