The Codex Calixtinus taken from Santiago

On the evening of Tuesday 5 July 2011, at closing time, an archivist at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in north-western Spain found that the Codex Calixtinus was gone. The dean, José María Díaz, told reporters that the book had last been seen on 30 June or 1 July. He called the police at about 22:00. Reports say no door was forced and the safe was opened with a key.

The codex is a Latin manuscript of 225 folios, compiled in the 12th century. It holds five books about Saint James, whose tomb is said to lie at Santiago, and about the pilgrim road to it. They include a pilgrim’s guide and 22 miracles. The cathedral dates it to the mid 12th century. The Spanish Ministry of Culture gives 1138 to 1173. UNESCO added it to its Memory of the World register in 2017. The dean said it had left the archive only twice, for exhibitions in 1975 and 1993. Scholars worked from a replica. ABC reports that the room had no camera.

For a year, nothing came of the search. Police checked about 30 people. In January 2012 they found a ring of keys tagged for the cathedral archive among old tools. The dean resigned as archivist in October 2011 and as dean in December 2012. He was never charged.

On Tuesday 3 July 2012, on the order of the investigating judge, police arrested four people: a freelance electrician who had worked for the cathedral for about 25 years, his wife, their son and the son’s partner. On Wednesday 4 July the codex was found in a plastic bag in a storage room in O Milladoiro, near Santiago, in the building where the electrician lived. Searches also found about 1.2 million euros in cash.

The electrician, José Manuel Fernández Castiñeiras, confessed on 5 July 2012. El País reports that he said he took the book on 4 July 2011, at about noon, as revenge for his dismissal and for 40,000 euros he said he was owed. Police found no buyer and no organisation behind him. He denied the theft when his trial opened in 2015. The court found only that it happened in the first days of July 2011.

On 18 February 2015 the Provincial Court of A Coruña convicted him of theft of the codex, continued robbery of cash and papers, and money laundering. It gave him ten years and a fine of 268,425 euros. The court found that he had taken 2.4 million euros and 30,106 dollars from the cathedral safe between 2000 and 2012. His wife, Remedios Nieto Mayo, was convicted of money laundering and received six months and the same fine. Their son was acquitted. On 3 December 2015 the Supreme Court rejected all 19 grounds of appeal and cut the term to nine years. Spanish press reports in 2019 say a later correction made it eight years and two months.

La Voz de Galicia reports that he was released on health grounds in 2019, after a stroke. El Correo Gallego dates his move to the “third degree” prison regime to 2021. The reports differ. He died in February 2024, and the cathedral’s lawyer confirmed it in October 2024. His death ended his criminal liability, so part of the debt to the cathedral stays unpaid. His wife still pays by deduction from her pension.

The codex is in the cathedral archive. It was lent to the Hospitalitas exhibition in Santiago from 13 June to 17 November 2024.