Wessex after 1053, ruled the south; Tostig, after 1055
earl of Northumbria, ruled the north; Queen Edith ruled
the court. The Welsh and the Scots were dominated,
good laws prevailed, and the king and queen refounded
monasteries as their mausoleums. But in 1065 some of
Tostig’s vassals rebelled against his harsh rule, Harold
would not save his brother from exile, and Edward’s
mortifi cation was such that he suffered a fatal stroke.
He died on 5 January 1066, just after the dedica-
tion of his new church at Westminster (pictured on the
Bayeux Tapestry). His achievement was to have held his
unstable kingdom together for 24 years and bequeath
it intact to his brother-in-law Harold. No wonder that
in the following centuries the “Laws of King Edward”
became the symbol of a Golden Age.
See also Cnut; Harold Godwinson; William I
Further Reading
Primary Sources
Barlow, Frank, ed. and trans. The Life of King Edward Who
Rests at Westminster [Vita Aedwardi regis]. 2d ed. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1992.
Whitelock, Dorothy, ed., with David C. Douglas and Susie I.
Tucker. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Revised Translation.
London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1961.
Secondary Sources
Barlow, Frank. Edward the Confessor. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1970 [the only modern biography].
Loyn, H.R. Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest.
London: Longmans, 1962.
Frank Barlow
EGERIA
Egeria, whose Peregrinatio is the fi rst travel book pro-
duced in the Christian West, is the most famous medieval
woman writer from the Iberian Peninsula. Curiously, she
is much better known beyond the borders of the penin-
sula, perhaps because for many years scholars believed
her to be from France (and some still do).
Very little is known about her. Most scholars think
that her name was Egeria, not Aetheria or Sylvia, and
that she was a rich woman from Gallaecia (Gallcia)
province who traveled to the Holy Land and wrote her
work overseas in the late fourth century. However, some
favor a French origin and an early fi fth-century date.
The name Egeria is unusual, but it has been found in a
document from Oviedo, so the author of the Peregrinatio
was not the only one with that name. Theories that she
was a member of the nobility or an abbess have not been
substantiated, nor has the theory that she was a middle-
class laywoman. The consensus at present seems to be
that, whatever her origin, Egeria was a nun or at least a
member of a religious community. Her work obviously
is addressed to a congregation of pious women to which
she has strong emotional ties.
The Peregrinatio is a long letter to Egeria’s fellow
nuns that relates her activities and travel, over more than
three years, in and around the Holy Land. Although Ege-
ria based her work primarily on her own observations,
she also used literary sources. Most of her quotations
appear to be from the Bible and the Onomasticon of
Eusebius of Caesarea. The text, which survives in one
manuscript found in the nineteenth century in the library
of the Brotherhood of St. Mary at Arezzo by Giovanni
Gamurrini, is missing both the beginning and the end.
Through later references to her work by other authors,
it is possible tentatively to reconstruct Egeria’s trip. It
apparently included an initial exploration of Jerusalem,
and visits to Alexandria, the Thebaid, and Galilee, before
her journey to Mount Sinai, as well as a visit to St. John
of Ephesus after her arrival in Constantinople. The fi rst
twenty-three chapters narrate Egeria’s ascent of Mount
Sinai and her retracing of the route of the Exodus, a
visit to the tomb of Job at Carneas, and the return trip
to Constantinople, including a detour to the tomb of St.
Thomas the Apostle at Edessa (modern Urfa) and the
house of Abraham in Carrhae (modern Harrae), and
another to the shrines of St. Thecla in Seleucia and St.
Euphemia in Chalcedon. The last twenty-six chapters
describe daily and weekly ceremonies, and the cer-
emonies of the major holidays from Epiphany through
Pentecost and the feast of the dedication of the Basilica
of the Holy Sepulchre.
Although there is a very extensive bibliography about
Egeria’s Peregrinatio (over three hundred titles), most
studies deal with linguistic and liturgical issues. She
is well known among students of Romance philology
and church history because her work is an interesting
example of Vulgar Latin and contains detailed informa-
tion about Jerusalem rituals not found elsewhere. Her
work has been studied as literature by only a few crit-
ics, who think the Peregrinatio is impersonal because
it limits itself to describing the places visited from the
point of view of whether or not they match the places
in the Bible. These critics believe Egeria behaves like
a Christian speaking to all Christians. Such a view has
been questioned by critics who see Egeria’s Peregrinatio
as the work of a woman who writes for other women.
Egeria was not the fi rst person to write about the Holy
Land. Many others, before and after her, wrote itinerar-
ies (lists of places visited) giving the distance between
places and describing each one in greater or lesser detail.
The purpose of these itineraries was primarily to serve as
guides for future pilgrims. They are written in the third
person and contain little or no information about their
authors or their experiences. Egeria’s Peregrinatio, writ-
ten in the fi rst person, is a chronicle of her trip. Egeria
could not write an itinerary because she was a woman,EGERIA