This new version of the late fourth-century diary of journeys in and around the Holy Land known as the Itinerarium Egeriae provides a more literal translation of the Latin text than earlier English renderings, with the aim of revealing more of the female traveler’s personality. The substantial introduction to the book covers both early pilgrimage as a whole, especially travel by women, and the many liturgical rites of Jerusalem that Egeria describes. Both this and the verse-by-verse commentary alongside the translated text draw on the most recent scholarship, making this essential reading for pilgrims, students, and scholars seeking insight into life and piety during one of Christianity’s most formative periods.

Written in the first part of the fifth century, this work is a charming record of the observations of a Christian woman on a lengthy pilgrimage to the Holy Lands. Her firsthand account is a work of major significance for the fields of archaeology, church history, philology, and comparative liturgy. +

Pilgrimage inspired and shaped the distinct experiences of commoners and nobles, men and women, clergy and laity for over a thousand years. Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: A Reader is a rich collection of primary sources for the history of Christian pilgrimage in Europe and the Mediterranean world from the fourth through the sixteenth centuries. The collection illustrates the far-reaching significance and consequences of pilgrimage for the culture, society, economics, politics, and spirituality of the Middle Ages. Brett Edward Whalen focuses on sites within Europe and beyond its borders, including the holy places of Jerusalem, and provides documents that shed light upon Eastern Christian, Jewish, and Islamic pilgrimages. The result is an innovative sourcebook that offers a window into broader trends, shifts, and transformations in the Middle Ages.

Since the publication of the first edition of The Crusades: A Reader, interest in the Crusades has increased dramatically, fueled in part by current global interactions between the Muslim world and Western nations. The second edition features an intriguing new chapter on perceptions of the Crusades in the modern period, from David Hume and William Wordsworth to World War I political cartoons and crusading rhetoric circulating after 9/11. Islamic accounts of the treatment of prisoners have been added, as well as sources detailing the homecoming of those who had ventured to the Holy Land—including a newly translated reading on a woman crusader, Margaret of Beverly. The book contains sixteen images, study questions for each reading, and an index.

Includes extracts from diaries, logs and letters, this volume covers 16 centuries of women travellers, starting with Abbess Etheria's 4th-century account of the difficulties of mountaineering on Mount Sinai.

The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions includes authoritative yet accessible studies on a wide variety of topics dealing comparatively with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as with the interactions between the adherents of these religions throughout history. The comparativestudy of the Abrahamic Religions has been undertaken for many centuries. More often than not, these studies reflected a polemical rather than an ecumenical approach to the topic. Since the nineteenth century, the comparative study of the Abrahamic Religions has not been pursued either intensively orsystematically, and it is only recently that the comparative study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam has received more serious attention. This volume contributes to the emergence and development of the comparative study of the Abrahamic religions, a discipline which is now in its formative stages.This Handbook includes both critical and supportive perspectives on the very concept of the Abrahamic religions and discussions on the role of the figure of Abraham in these religions. It features 32 essays, by the foremost scholars in the field, on the historical interactions between Abrahamiccommunities; on Holy Scriptures and their interpretation; on conceptions of religious history; on various topics and strands of religious thought, such as monotheism and mysticism; on rituals of prayer, purity, and sainthood, on love in the three religions and on fundamentalism. The volume concludeswith three epilogues written by three influential figures in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities, to provide a broader perspective on the comparative study of the Abrahamic religions. This ground-breaking work introduces readers to the challenges and rewards of studying these threereligions together.