that the adoption of St. James as the patron saint of the Christians in Spain must be attributed to the eighth century and to the Holy War, and must have been the work of Alfonso or perhaps of Pelayo himself.
Unfortunately we have no contemporary chronicles of this period from which to gather information as to the doings of this small Christian community, and we have to fall back on conjecture. The struggle was essentially a religious war between the adherents of Christianity and Islam. The Mohammedan forces were fighting for the advancement of their religion, and used as a rallying cry their famous article of belief, "There is no deity but God, and Mohammed is only his prophet." The Christians needed a similar war-cry, and it is reasonable to suppose that they desired to use Christ and one of His Apostles as names to conjure with, but had to determine which of the latter they would select.
The following reason is usually given for the choice of James. Christ had been asked by their mother that James and John should sit "one on His right hand and the other on his left," and though no promise had been given in response to this request, it seems to have been assumed that these positions had been granted. Christ, in the person of His Vicar, was ruling at Rome, and St. John was worshipped at Ephesus; it was natural then that if St. John were seated in the east of the Mediterranean world, St. James should dominate the west. This was the explanation given in later times, but it seems to assume more subtle reasoning and a greater appreciation of geography than was likely to have existed among the poor Christian outcasts in north-west Spain. In this, I think, we must recognise, not so much the reason that led to the selection of James as the Patron Saint of Spain, as a much later attempt to explain a phenomenon which had by that time become a mystery.
As we have seen, contemporary chronicles there are
