SOURCE: Sivan, Hagith. “Holy Land Pilgrimage and Western Audiences: Some Reflections on Egeria and Her Circle.” Classical Quarterly n.s. 38, no. 2 (1988): 528-35.

In the following essay, Sivan examines internal evidence in the Itinerarium Egeriae in order to suggest that Egeria may not have been a member of any particular monastic order but rather part of a circle of unmarried women principally devoted to religious experience.

In the vast literature centering on the Itinerarium Egeriae (IE) there is a serious lacuna.¹ No attempt has been made to analyse the circle of readers to whom this remarkable document was addressed and for whose sake Egeria recorded so faithfully every detail of her journey. Yet if a full understanding of the IE is to be achieved, some definition of the circle of Egeria and of its relations with the pilgrim is essential. In other words, who in the West at that...