Far from Santiago de Compostela, in the middle of Tuscany, lies the town of Pistoia. A story is recounted in letters between Atto, Diego and Robertus Rainerius, Atto’s representative in Santiago, that back in 1138 the Bishop Atto of Pistoia received the jawbone of St. James from Archbishop Diego Gelmírez of Santiago.
These letters are found in two Italian manuscripts, from twelfth and sixteenth century editions of the Codex Calixtinus, though not in any manuscripts from Santiago. So the story is historically uncertain. And yet, at the end of the thirteenth century, there was profound devotion to St. James in Pistoia, unique in Italy. He became the patron of the city of Pistoia, although the cathedral there was named for a local saint, San Zeno.
When the tomb of St. James was rediscovered in 1884, Pope Leo XIII sent representatives to compare the bones contained in it with the jawbone of Pistoia. It was at least demonstrated that the bones in Pistoia and those found in Santiago had come from the same person. Only after this had been decided were the bones found in Santiago replaced in their current place of honor under the high altar. Whether they were St. James’ or not is another story.
In 2019, the Xunta de Galicia acknowledged this connection by placing a way marker, complete with blue and gold scallop, yellow arrow and distance marker of 2505 kilometers to Santiago, in the cathedral square of Pistoia.
There is also a left hand, preserved through desiccation, understood to have been St. James’, at the Abbey of Reading. It was accompanied by its own set of miracles. That hand has its own very complicated history, but it was lost in the dissolution of the abbeys in England by Henry VIII. A hand, thought at one time to have been James’, was found buried in the foundations in 1786. It changed owners several times before making its way to St. Peter’s Church in Marlow. When carbon-dated, however, it proved, with a 95% degree of certainty, to be from between 987-1150 AD, placing it far outside of the range of dates for St. James, who was executed, at the latest, in 44 AD.