Early Travels in Palestine Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, Willibald, Bernard, Sæwulf, Sigurd, Benjamin of Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, de la Brocquière, and — Text and Context

From Pilgrim to Crusader: Shifting Purposes

The earliest narratives, Arculf and Willibald, focus on locating and venerating biblical sites. Arculf describes the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with architectural specifics, while Willibald lists places like 'the place where the Lord was crucified' with minimal commentary. By contrast, Sæwulf, writing after the First Crusade, includes details about Saracen control and the logistics of pilgrimage under Frankish rule. The difference is not merely chronological but reflects changing motivations: early pilgrims sought spiritual authentication; later ones often traveled under military or political imperatives. Sigurd's saga, embedded in a Norse king's crusade, even recounts a sea battle, showing how the crusading context could transform a travel account into a martial chronicle.

Benjamin of Tudela: A Jewish Perspective in a Christian Genre

Rabbi Benjamin's travelogue (1160–1173) stands apart in the collection. Writing in Hebrew, he catalogs Jewish communities and their leaders across the Mediterranean and Middle East, noting the size of congregations and the names of rabbis. Where Christian pilgrims describe churches and relics, Benjamin records synagogues and the distances between Jewish settlements. His account thus offers a counterpoint to the dominant Christian narratives, revealing a network of diaspora communities that the other travelers largely ignore. Wright's inclusion of Benjamin broadens the volume's scope from a purely Christian pilgrimage anthology to a more diverse survey of medieval travel writing.

Sir John Maundeville: The Traveler as Fabricator

The excerpt from 'Sir John Maundeville' (c. 1356) introduces a radically different mode: the invented travelogue. Maundeville describes fantastical customs, such as a funeral where birds of prey consume the corpse and the son drinks from his father's skull. The passage is rich with ethnographic detail that is clearly fictional, yet it is presented with the same matter-of-fact tone as Arculf's measurements. This juxtaposition forces the reader to question the reliability of all the accounts. Maundeville's work, though derivative and largely plagiarized, became one of the most popular travel books of the Middle Ages, and its inclusion here highlights the genre's appetite for wonder over accuracy.

Maundrell's Measured Journey: The Advent of Scientific Travel

Henry Maundrell's 1697 journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem closes the collection with a markedly different sensibility. His narrative is precise about dates, distances, and local conditions, noting, for example, the condition of roads and the availability of water. Maundrell was a chaplain to the Levant Company, and his account reflects the empirical turn of the late seventeenth century. He describes ruins with an archaeologist's eye, measuring the dimensions of ancient structures and comparing them to biblical descriptions. This final narrative thus provides a bridge between medieval pilgrimage and modern travel writing, emphasizing observation over devotion.

Reading these nine accounts in sequence reveals not only the changing geography of the Holy Land but the evolving expectations of travel writing itself. The volume rewards a comparative approach: note how each narrator handles the same sites—Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Jordan River—and what they choose to omit. Wright's editorial notes, though occasionally dated, provide useful context for understanding the biases and gaps in each text. For a first reading, consider starting with Maundrell's account to establish a baseline of empirical description, then move backward to see how earlier pilgrims constructed their own versions of the sacred landscape.