Itinerarium Burdigalense

Page of Itinerarium Burdigalense
Mapped route of the journey described by an unnamed Christian pilgrim, who travelled from Gallia Aquitania (Southern France) to the Holy Land in the fourth century.

Itinerarium Burdigalense ("Bordeaux Itinerary"), also known as Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum ("Jerusalem Itinerary"), is the oldest known Christian itinerarium. It was written by the "Pilgrim of Bordeaux", an anonymous pilgrim from the city of Burdigala (now Bordeaux, France) in the Roman province of Gallia Aquitania.[1]

It recounts the writer's journey throughout the Roman Empire to the Holy Land in 333 and 334[2] as he travelled by land through northern Italy and the Danube valley to Constantinople; then through the provinces of Asia and Syria to Jerusalem in the province of Syria-Palaestina; and then back by way of Macedonia, Otranto, Rome, and Milan.

  1. ^ The basic edition is that edited by P. Geyer and O. Kuntz, Brepols, 1965; general context of early Christian pilgrimage is provided by E.D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Late Roman Empire AD 312–460 1982.
  2. ^ "We travelled in the Consulate of Dalmatius and Zenophilus, leaving Chalcedonia on 30 May and returned to Constantinople on 26 December in the same Consulate." Quoted in Jaś Elsner, "The Itinerarium Burdigalense: Politics and Salvation in the Geography of Constantine's Empire", The Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000:181–195) p. 183. On the return journey, the pilgrim took another route to see Rome. The return trip from Milan to Bordeaux is not repeated.

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