Egeria (pilgrim)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Egeria (also called Aetheria or Etheria ) was a late antique author from northern Spain or Gaul , who traveled to the Holy Land as a pilgrim in the late 4th century, probably from 381 to 384, and wrote a travelogue about it in the form of a letter to other women ( Itinerarium Egeriae , Peregrinatio Aetheriae ).

Author's question

The name of the author has not been preserved in the text because the beginning of the report has been lost. So you have to rely on indirect information in the text and linguistic peculiarities.

Gian Francesco Gamurrini identified her in his first publication as "Sylvia of Aquitaine", a sister-in-law of the Praetorian prefect Flavius ​​Rufinus , of whose trip to Palestine Palladios reports. In 1903 Marius Férotin was able to show that it was a woman named Egeria or Aetheria, whose journey to the Holy Land was reported by the Galician monk Valerius von Bierzo in a letter around 680. This is also the reason for the assumption, which is predominantly held by research, that Egeria comes from northern Spain.

However, an origin from southwestern Gaul ( Aquitaine ) is also being considered. Your comparison of the river Rhone with the Euphrates (18.2) and various linguistic features have been interpreted as an indication of this.

The social and religious status of the author and the addressees of the text is also not exactly known. Egeria calls the recipients of her report “dear ladies sisters” ( dominae sorores venerabiles 3.8; 20.5), which initially led to the conclusion that they were nuns . Since she was also named Egeria abbatissa (" Abbess Egeria") in three medieval library catalogs from the 12th to 15th centuries from the Benedictine Abbey of St. Martial in Limoges , it cannot be ruled out that Egeria herself was a nun. But the address was also common among distinguished Christians outside of monastic communities. Her freedom and the financial means to travel are more reminiscent of a member of the wealthy Roman upper class, from whose circle women are repeatedly attested as pilgrims to the Holy Land in late antiquity, such as Melania the elder and Melania the younger .

It has been doubted whether Egeria had already received the baptism when she set out on her journey. Her report pays special attention to the rituals of baptism and the preparation for baptism, catechesis . Due to the fact that she stayed in Jerusalem for three years, it is possible that she went through her own catechumenate there and was baptized. On the other hand, your report shows a good knowledge of the biblical texts. Her report differs in one point from other pilgrimage reports written by monks from late antiquity: Although she describes several times that she was received and led by monks, she does not report the miracles they caused or the conversations she had with them has led.

The title of the work is also unknown, Itinerarium Egeriae or Peregrinatio Aetheriae are names after antiquity, according to the literary genre it is a letter report, not an itinerary in the real sense .

language

Egeria writes in simple, vernacular colored late Latin without rhetorical accents. Your travelogue is one of the most significant testimonies to the transition from late antique Latin to Vulgar Latin , which formed the basis for the gradually emerging Romanic national languages. The classical philologist Einar Löfstedt even made the Peregrinatio Aetheriae the textual basis of his groundbreaking study of the vocabulary and syntax of late Latin. Egeria usually translates Greek expressions and place names into Latin.

Contents of the itinerary

The first part (chapters 1–23) comprises the actual account of Egeria's travels in the Holy Land. The part with her travel route to the Holy Land and the description of Jerusalem and the West Bank is missing. The report received begins with her visit to Sinai (Chapters 1-6). This is followed by a description of her visit to Egypt (chapters 7–9) and, after her return to Jerusalem, the visit to Mount Nebo (chapters 10–12).

The report is of great importance because of the detailed descriptions of the Old Jerusalem liturgy in the second part (chapters 24–49). Among other things, the liturgy of the feasts of the birth of Jesus , the representation of the Lord , the customs of Lent , Holy Week and Easter are described. Egeria reported by the procession of Bethlehem to Jerusalem at the Nativity of Jesus Christ , from the procession from the Mount of Olives on Palm Sunday and the night prayer , that on the night of Holy Thursday in Gethsemane was held. She also writes about the veneration of the cross on Good Friday . The influence of returning pilgrims, including bishops and influential clergymen, soon led to the adoption of many of these liturgies in the churches of the West and the East.

Egeria's detailed account of the various Christian celebrations in the Holy Land is one of the oldest and most important descriptions of early Christian worship . In a broad description she describes the many churches, monasteries and holy places there. Many of these rites and customs are still practiced by Palestinian Christians to this day.

Lore

The text has only survived in a codex from the 2nd half of the 11th century that was created in the Montecassino monastery and was found again in 1884 by Gian Francesco Gamurrini in a library in Arezzo in central Italy. He first published the text in 1887. The text is incomplete, especially at the beginning larger parts are missing.

Two small fragments of another manuscript of the text from around 900 from Aquitaine were identified in 2005 by Jesús Alturo in Spanish private ownership, which fill a small gap in chapter 16 in the Arezzo manuscript.

Excerpts from other authors (such as Petrus Diaconus , De Locis sanctis ) and entries in medieval library catalogs suggest that there were other copies.

Editions and translations

  • Paul Geyer: Itinera hierosolymitana saecvli IIII-VIII (= Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Volume 39). Tempsky, Vienna 1898, pp. 35-101 (text edition, digitized version ).
    • reprinted with minor improvements in Itineraria et alia geographica (= Corpus Christianorum , Series Latina Volume 175). Brepols, Turnhout 1965, pp. 29-103.
  • ML McClure, Charles Lett Feltoe: The Pilgrimage of Etheria : Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London 1919 (English translation, digitized version ).
  • The pilgrimage of Aetheria (Peregrinatio Aetheriae). Introduced and explained by Hélène Pétré, translated by Karl Vretska . Bernina, Klosterneuburg 1958.
  • Egeria's Travels. Newly translated with supporting documents and notes by John Donald Wilkinson . SPCK, London 1971, ISBN 0-281-02479-0 ; 3rd edition Aris & Phillips, Warminster 1999, Reprint with corrections Aris & Philipps, Oxford 2006, ISBN 0-85668-710-3 (English translation with commentary).
  • Herbert Donner : Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The oldest accounts of Christian pilgrims to Palestine (4th – 7th centuries) . Katholisches Bibelwerk, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-460-31841-4 , pp. 69-137 (chapters 1-23, German translation with commentary).
  • Égérie: Journal de Voyage (Itinéraire) (= Sources chrétiennes . Volume 296). Introduction, texte critique, traduction, notes, index et cartes par Pierre Maraval , Valerius du Bierzo. Lettre sur la Bse Égérie. Introduction, texte et traduction par Manuel C. Diaz y Diaz. Les Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1982, ISBN 2-204-01974-7 (text edition with French translation).
  • Egèria: Pelegrinage. Introducció, text, traducció i notes de Sebastià Janeras. 2 volumes. Fundació Bernat Metge, Barcelona 1986, ISBN 84-7225-325-2 , ISBN 84-7225-333-3 (Spanish translation, with excellent explanations on liturgical history).
  • Egeria: Itinerarium, travelogue. With excerpts from Petrus Diaconus, De locis sanctis. The holy places. Latin-German. Translated and introduced by Georg Röwekamp with the assistance of Dietmar Thönnes (= Fontes Christiani Volume 20). Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 1995; 2nd, improved edition Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 2000, ISBN 3-451-22143-8 ; New edition (= 3rd, completely revised edition) 2017 ISBN 978-3-451-38143-0 .
    • on this basis: Egeria, Itinerarium. The ancient travel guide through the Holy Land, incl. u. trans. v. Georg Röwekamp, ​​Freiburg (Br.) 2018, ISBN 978-3-451-37931-4 .
  • Aetheria / Egeria: Journey to the Holy Land. Latin / German by Kai Brodersen . ( Tusculum Collection ). De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-051811-5 .

literature

Tools

  • Marek Starowieyski: Bibliografia Egeriana . In: Augustianum Volume 19, 1979, pp. 297-318 (complete literature review up to 1977).
  • Deane R. Blackman, Gavin G. Betts: Concordantia in Itinerarium Egeriae. A Concordance to the Itinerarium Egeriae (= Alpha-Omega. Series A, Volume 96). Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim et al. 1989, ISBN 3-487-09075-9 .
  • Ana Isabel Magallón García: Concordancia lematizada de los Itinerarios de Egeria y Antonio. Departamento de Ciencias de la Antiguedad, Zaragoza 1993, ISBN 84-600-8556-2 .

Secondary literature

  • Hagith Sivan: Who Was Egeria? Piety and Pilgrimage in the Age of Gratian . In: The Harvard Theological Review Volume 81, 1988, pp. 59-72 (little received in research).
  • Hagith Sivan: Holy Land Pilgrimage and Western Audiences: Some Reflections on Egeria and Her Circle. In: The Classical Quarterly New Series Volume 38, 1988, pp. 528-535 (little received in research).
  • Elisabeth Enss: Egeria . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 3 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995, Sp. 464 .
  • Georg Röwekamp : Egeria . In: Lexicon of ancient Christian literature . 2nd Edition. Herder, Freiburg 1999, ISBN 3-451-23786-5 , pp. 185-186.
  • Heinzgerd Brakmann : Standing at the place of joy. Jerusalem, Egeria and an early church cult order. In: Laetare Jerusalem. Festschrift for the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Benedictine monks on Jerusalem's Mount Zion (= Jerusalem Theological Forum. Volume 10). Aschendorff, Münster 2006, ISBN 978-3-402-07509-8 , pp. 175-185.
  • Daniel Groß: Egeria. In: Christine Walde (Ed.): The reception of ancient literature. Kulturhistorisches Werklexikon (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 7). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02034-5 , Sp. 271-276. ( Digitized version ).
  • Konstantin Klein: familiar strangeness - exquisite landscape. Work on presence in the travelogue of Egeria. In: Helge Baumann, Michael Weise et al. (Eds.): Have you already flown tired? Travel and homecoming as cultural anthropological phenomena. Tectum, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8288-2184-2 , pp. 159-174.
  • Boris Hogenmüller:  Egeria. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 34, Bautz, Nordhausen 2013, ISBN 978-3-88309-766-4 , Sp. 260-262.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the dating see Paul Devas: La date du voyage d'Égerie. In: Annalecta Bollandiana. Volume 85, 1967, pp. 165-194.
  2. ↑ Palladios: Historia Lausiaca 55, 1.
  3. ↑ Marius Férotin: Le véritable auteur de la Peregrinatio silviae la vierge espagnole Etheria . In: Revue des questions historiques Volume 74 = NS 30, 1903, pp. 367–397 ( digitized version ).
  4. ↑ In the various manuscripts the names Egeria, Ecberia, Etheria ("the heavenly"), Heteria, Aetheria, Eiheria can be found.
  5. ^ Karl Vretska (translator): Letter in praise of the most blessed Aetheria, addressed by Valerius to his brothers, the monks of Vierzo. In: Hélène Pétré (ed.): The pilgrimage of the Aetheria (Peregrinatio Aetheriae). Bernina, Klosterneuburg 1958, pp. 262-271; Manuel C. Diaz y Diaz: Valerius du Bierzo. Lettre sur la Bienheureuse Égérie . In: Égérie: Journal de Voyage (Itinéraire) (= Sources chrétiennes . Volume 296). Les Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1982, ISBN 2-204-01974-7 , pp. 321-349.
  6. ↑ In addition with all the arguments and literature for and against this thesis Jesús Alturo: Deux nouveaux fragments de l '"Itinerarium Egeriae" du IXe – Xe siècle . In: Revue Bénédictine 115, 2005, p. 249 with notes 19-20.
  7. ↑ Also dominae sorores "ladies sisters" (46,1.4), in addition simply dominae venerabiles "honored ladies" (12,7) and dominae animae meae "ladies of my soul" (19,19).
  8. ↑ Marius Férotin: Le véritable auteur de la Peregrinatio silviae la vierge espagnole Etheria. In: Revue des questions historiques. Volume 74 = NS 30, 1903, pp. 367–397, here p. 397 ( digitized version ), the library catalogs name the work itinerarium Egerie abbatisse .
  9. ↑ This view was common in the past; see for example Martin Schanz , Carl Hosius : History of Roman Literature up to the Legislative Work of Emperor Justinian (= Handbook of Classical Studies. Volume 8). Volume 4.1. Third edition. CH Beck, Munich 1914, pp. 399-403. here: p. 399. 402 ( digitized version ); also Agustín Arce: Itinerario de la Virgen Egeria (381-384) (= Biblioteca des Autores Cristianos. Volume 416). 2nd Edition. Madrid 2010, alludes to this position in the title.
  10. ↑ For a discussion of this question see Sebastià Janeras: Egèria. Pelegrinatge. Volume 1. Fundació Bernat Metge, Barcelona 1986, pp. 21-24; Daniel Groß: Egeria. In: Christine Walde (Ed.): The reception of ancient literature. Kulturhistorisches Werklexikon (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 7). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02034-5 , Sp. 271.
  11. ↑ a b Hagith Sivan: Holy Land Pilgrimage and Western Audiences: Some Reflections on Egeria and Her Circle. In: The Classical Quarterly. New Series, Vol. 38, 1988, p. 531.
  12. ↑ Ingrid Baumgärtner: Biblical, Mythical and Strange Women: On the Construction of Femininity in Text and Images on Medieval World Maps . In: Xenja von Ertzdorff, Gerhard Giesemann (Hrsg.): Exploration and description of the world. On the poetics of travel and country reports. Lectures at an interdisciplinary symposium from June 19 to 24, 2000 at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen . Rodopi, Amsterdam 2003, ISBN 90-420-0994-2 , pp. 31-86, here p. 59.
  13. ↑ Einar Löfstedt: Philological commentary on the Peregrinatio Aetheriae. Studies on the history of the Latin language . Almqvist & Wiksell, Uppsala / Haupt, Leipzig 1911 ( digitized version ); several reprints: Almqvist & Wiksell, Uppsala / Harrassowitz, Leipzig / Blackwell, Oxford 1936, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1968 and 1970. See now also Veikko Väänänen: Le Journal-Epitre d'Égérie (Itinerarium Egeriae). Étude linguistique (= Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae. Humaniora Volume 230). Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki 1987, ISBN 951-41-0497-8 .
  14. ↑ Arezzo, Biblioteca della Fraternita dei Laici, Codex Aretinus VI 3, today Arezzo, Biblioteca Città di Arezzo, Manoscritti 405; Description of the codex .
  15. ↑ Gian Francesco Gamurrini: S. hilarii Tractatus de mysteriis et Hymni et s. Silviae Aquitanae Peregrinatio ad loca sancta, quae inedita ex codice arretino depropmpsit Ioh. Franciscus Gamurrini. Accedit Petri Diaconi liber de locis sanctis (= Biblioteca dell'Accademia storico-giuridica Volume 4). Rome 1887; then Gian Francesco Gamurrini: S. Silviae Aquitanae peregrinatio ad loca sancta . In: Studi e documenti di storia e diritto Volume 9, 1888, pp. 97–174 ( digitized version ).
  16. ↑ Jesús Alturo: Deux nouveaux fragments de l ' "itinerary Egeriae" you IXe-Xe siècle . In: Revue Bénédictine Volume 115, 2005, pp. 241-250.
personal data
SURNAME Egeria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Echeria; Etheria; Heteria; Aetheria; Aegeria; Eiheria; Eucheria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Northern Spanish or Gallic author of a report on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land
DATE OF BIRTH at 350
DATE OF DEATH around 400