For my first blog entry, I
will be focusing on the existing account of Etheria’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem
and how she shared it with others. This information was acquired from an
outside source book called Pilgrimage in
the Middle Ages. In the late fourth century, Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem
to visit the holy places where Jesus had begun to be immensely popular.
Particularly I will talk about one account of a pilgrimage that a Spanish
abbess recorded. Etheria was a Spanish abbess, which meant she was the head of
an abbey of nuns. In her account, she tells of the charm of these holy places
to many people traveling. Christians would travel from among the Roman world to
go on these pilgrimages to the holy sites. Etheria visited Edessa, Tarsus, and
Constantinople among many other cities while on her pilgrimage. She wrote many
letters back to her sisters in which she would try to cultivate and capture
what it felt like to be there and experience those close connections to a
sacred place. She focused especially on shrines, monasteries, and churches
around the East coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Her account is written in first
person, making it easier for those who read the recovered articles to feel a
personal connection with the sacred journey or site itself. When Etheria
returned, she told everyone of her journey for she believed everyone should
experience something that connected so spiritually to them as it did for her.
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