Medievalism, peregrination and tourism: The twenty-first-century case of El passo honroso in Hospital del Órbigo, León

Abstract

This article examines how the interaction between El Camino de Santiago and a late medieval re-enactment in the Castilian village of Hospital del Órbigo motivates a new and promising touristic panorama in current and future Spain. While massive tourism to the Mediterranean coast was a productive tool for the regeneration of the country during Francoism, El Camino de Santiago and its discursive power resulted in the proliferation of lesser-known cultural practices that simultaneously enabled a space to refashion autonomic-local identities. The annual celebration of the legacy of the medieval knight Suero de Quiñones nurtures a neomedieval spectacle in this Leonese region: a look at historical memory and a congregation of multiple postmodern medieval remediations. Ultimately, these neomedieval spectacles in Spain are a valuable instrument to recuperate regional-territorial sentiments within national borders that have been historically neglected, particularly during the Francoist era, yet in present times embodied in the incidence of political conservatism and the emergence of ultra-authoritarian legislators.