SOURCE: Wilkinson, John. Introduction to Egeria's Travels to the Holy Land, 3rd edition, translated by John Wilkinson, pp. 1-5. Warminster, Eng.: Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1999.

In the following excerpt, Wilkinson documents what is known of Egeria and remarks on the style and textual history of the Itinerarium Egeriae.

The text of Egeria's Travels was lost for seven hundred years. And when, in the late nineteenth century in Italy, a manuscript was found, the only part left was the middle of the book. Either at the beginning or at the end the name of the pilgrim might have appeared, but it was lost. The guesses which scholars made about what she was called are now replaced by what seems solid evidence for the name Egeria.¹ She visited the Levant between a.d. 381 and 384.²

I have called her book the Travels, since the title is also missing. It describes her pilgrimage...