(fl late 4th century ce). Pilgrim nun of Spain or Gaul. Her diary, containing a detailed description of ancient Jerusalem liturgy, survives in a single 11th-century manuscript copy, which was discovered at Arezzo by G.F. Gamurrini in 1884. He attributed the work to one St Silvia, sister of the Roman prefect, Rufinus – hence its earlier title ‘Peregrinatio Silviae’ – but it is now thought to be by a Spanish or Gallican nun, Egeria (the preferred spelling), mentioned by the 7th-century abbot Valerius. From references in the text to contemporary persons and events, liturgical historians have come to date the time of Egeria's pilgrimage to between 381 and 384.
The diary begins with remarks about Egeria's visits to eastern ecclesiastical centres such as Mount Sinai, Alexandria and Constantinople, but the bulk of the text consists in a description of the liturgy at Jerusalem. First the daily and weekly Offices are depicted in great detail, providing our best knowledge of the composite monastic and ‘cathedral’ Offices of the late 4th century. There follows, after a break in the manuscript, an account of special services throughout the liturgical year, beginning with the Epiphany and including the feast of the Presentation, Lent, Holy Week, Easter and its octave and Pentecost and its octave. The document breaks off during a description of the octave of Encaenia, that is, the dedication feast (13 September) of the buildings at Golgotha. Throughout the diary the stational character of the liturgy at Jerusalem is made clear by Egeria's consistent mention of the various sites at which the different services were observed. Of particular musical interest is her persistent use of terms such as ‘psalms’, ‘hymns’ and ‘antiphons’, although these are not employed in such a way as to clarify their precise meaning. Whatever the limitations of the document, it must rank as one of the single most important sources for the study of early Christian liturgy.
L. Duchesne: Origines du culte chrétien: étude sur la liturgie latine avant Charlemagne (Paris, 1889, 5/1920; Eng. trans., 1927/R), 541–71
A. Franceschini and R.Weber, eds.: ‘Itinerarium Egeriae’, Itineraria et alia geographica, i (Turnhout, 1965), 29–102
G.E. Gingras, ed.: Egeria: Diary of a Pilgrimage (New York, 1970)
J. Wilkinson, ed.: Egeria's Travels (London, 1971, 2/1981)
J. McKinnon: Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge, 1987), 111–17
J.F. Baldovin: The Urban Character of Christian Worship (Rome, 1987), 55–64
JAMES W. McKINNON