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Artist
Egeria
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about
Egeria or Aetheria (often called Sylvia) was a Gallaeci or Gallic woman who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land about 381–384. She wrote an account of her journey in a long letter to a circle of women at home which survives in fragmentary form in a later copy. This may have been the first formal writing by a woman in Western European Culture. Much of the surviving information about Egeria comes from a letter written by the 7th century Galician monk Valerio of Bierzo. He praises Egeria and identifies her as a nun, perhaps because she addresses her account to her "sorores" (Latin for "sisters") at home. However, others (including Hagith Sivan, 1988) have pointed out that during Egeria's time it was common to address fellow lay Christians as "sisters" and "brothers." Valerio may also have believed her to be a nun because she went on such a pilgrimage, although lay women of the time are known to have engaged in such religious tourism. Those who suggest that Egeria was not a monastic claim that there is much to suggest that she was not a nun, including: her freedom to make such a long pilgrimage and to change plans as it suited her, the high cost of her pilgrimage, her level of education, and her subject matter which focused on the sights and not miracles like letters we have by monks at that time. Realistically, however, considering social constraints on women at the time, these points make it equally likely that she was a nun, since such social freedoms were not as available to
