Peregrinatio Etheriae

Peregrinatio Etheriae, an anonymous and incomplete account of a western European nun’s travels in the Middle East, written for her colleagues at home, near the end of the 4th century. It gives important information about religious life and the observances of the church year in the localities visited, which included the chief holy places of the Old and New Testaments in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. There is a detailed description of the daily and annual liturgical activities in Jerusalem.

Discovered in 1884 in an 11th-century Latin manuscript at Arezzo, Italy, the account was published in 1887. It was at first attributed to Silvia, a sister of Rufinus (died c. 410), a Christian priest, writer, and translator from northern Italy. Later it was determined that the author was probably a Spanish nun called Etheria (Aetheria, Egeria, Eucheria). According to internal evidence, the account was written between 363 and 540, but most scholars agree that the most likely date was the last years of the 4th century.