Egeria (pilgrim)

Egeria,[1] Etheria, or Aetheria was a Hispano-Roman Christian woman, widely regarded to be the author of a detailed account of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land about 381/2–384.

The middle part of Egeria's writing survived and was copied in the Codex Aretinus, which was written at Monte Cassino in the 11th century, while the beginning and end are lost.

[4] In 1903, Marius Férotin claimed the author is one Aetheria or Egeria, known from a letter written by the seventh century Galician monk Valerio of Bierzo.

Meister argues that her language shows no evidence of Iberian Romance but rather suggests that she may have been from one of the well-known religious houses of sixth century Gallia Narbonensis; according to this theory, her pilgrimage took place in the first half of the reign of Justinian I (r. 527–565).

Egeria's ability to make a long and expensive journey by herself, her numerous acquaintances and attentive guides in the places she visited, and her education indicate her middle or upper class wealthy background.

[6] The text is a narrative apparently written at the end of Egeria's journey from notes she took en route, and addressed to her 'dear ladies': the women of her spiritual community back home.

Staying for three years in Jerusalem, she made excursions to Mount Nebo and to the tomb of Job in ancient Carneas or Karnaia[9] (modern Al-Shaykh Saad, Syria).

Similarly, the use of ipsam in a phrase such as "per mediam vallem ipsam" (classical Latin "through [the] middle of [the] valley itself") anticipates the definite article ("péri su mesu de sa bàdde") found in Sardinian ("sa limba sarda") and in some dialects of Catalan, namely Balearic Catalan, along the Costa Brava (Catalonia), and in the Valencian municipalities of Tàrbena and La Vall de Gallinera.