SOURCE: Thiébaux, Marcelle. “A Pilgrim to the Holy Land: Egeria of Spain (381-384).” In The Writings of Medieval Women: An Anthology, edited by Marcelle Thiébaux, pp. 23-48. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994.

In the following essay, Thiébaux presents the historical background to Egeria's pilgrimage, discusses Egeria's manner of describing her travel experiences, and translates several illustrative passages from the Itinerarium Egeriae.

The last groans of Christian martyrs had scarcely died away, the last recorded execution in Palestine carried out in 310, when the great age of pilgrimage and relic hunting began. Late in the fourth century, an energetic woman of rank and leisure traveled from northwest Spain to Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt. She left a record of her three-year journey in a simple Latin that is striking for its spontaneity and colloquial directness. At the same time it conveys a commonsense piety and an abundance of...