Whether the _botafumeiro_, which may still be seen to swing in Santiago Cathedral is the original one which was in use there in the thirteenth century, is not known. Señor Villa-Amil was not able for many years to find any earlier allusion to this one than a passage discovered by Zepedano in Oscea’s _Historia del glorioso Apostol Santiago_ (1615), which says that in 1602 an order was given for the old beams from which the great incense-burner was suspended to be replaced by new ones, and new pulleys to be provided from the Biscay iron-works. The censer is described as resembling a great silver cauldron, into which were put from four to six pounds of perfume, and which, suspended by a long rope, was swung to and fro by five or six men during the principal festivals so as to fumigate the entire edifice. Recently, with the help of Señor Lopez Ferreiro, a passage dating from the fourteenth century has been found, in the Codex of Calixtus II., where the great annual festival in honour of St. James is described. It runs thus: “Nunc decoretur cum Capite beati Jacobi alphei mire magnitudinis in testis argenti deaurati cum multis et magnis lapidibus pretiosis in testis et maxime cum magno turibulo argenteo, a sumitate ecclesie et funibus suspensum per rotas currendo a portale septentrionali usque a portali meridiano pleno carbonibus incensis cum ture feriendo in utraque parte sumitatis ecclesie, estante antistite in pontificale cum tota procesine ut supra.” With regard to the form of the incense-burner here mentioned, Villa-Amil says that it was fashioned like a turret, because in a Bull of Nicholas V., which was dispatched from Rome on September 27, 1447, there is promulgated a sentence of excommunication against the person who should steal from the Cathedral of Santiago “_quoddam jocale argenteum in modum bastitie artificis ingenio fabricatum, valoris mille ducatorum vel circa_.”