A Datable English Alabaster Altar-piece at Santiago de Compostela

In the year 1456 a certain English parish priest, making the pilgrimage to the great shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela, took with him an English retable of wood with panels of carved alabaster, and gave it to the cathedral containing the shrine, A document, written in Gallegan Spanish and still in being, sets forth how there appeared before its writer, with witnesses, at the high altar, on the 25th day of May, 1456, ‘a man who said that he was of the nation of the Kingdom of England, by name called Johanes Gudguar, rector of the church of Cheilinvvintour diocese ’, who, for service of God and reverence for the very holy Apostle ‘Sebedeu ’, and for the benefit of his sins, gave to the Compostelan church a retable of wood with figures of alabaster, painted with gold and blue, setting forth the history of the said holy Apostle.