Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean World, A.D. 300–800 (review)

Maribel Dietz's book uncovers the extent to which travel was an integral part of early monastic spirituality. In effect, she retells the story of early monasticism from the perspective of the gyrovague. No longer the undisciplined, idiosyncratic, and unusual figure familiar to readers of the Benedictine Rule and its predecessor, the Rule of the Master, the spiritual itinerant emerges as normative and theologically grounded. Much of the book consists of the careful compiling of evidence for this way of life. While the format can sometimes degenerate into a catalogue, the cumulative effect urges a reconsideration of the characteristic form of earliest monasticism and thus also of the impact of the Benedictine Rule.

Despite its broad subtitle, this study is focused on Western ascetics. Dominant eastern expressions of itinerant spirituality are not addressed: we hear nothing, for example, of "the grazers" of Syria or the "walkabout" tradition of Palestinian monasticism. A controlling interest in women provides another filter: from John of Ephesus's huge work, only the lives of Mary and Euphemia are culled.

Chapter one details the logistics of travel and discusses the different motivations that spurred people to take to the road (24–27). The central insight of this chapter, that "movement existed at the heart of the Roman Empire" (12), acknowledges the ground-breaking study of Horden and Purcell—The Corrupting Sea (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). Evidence for maps, vehicles, and rates of travel is clearly presented, though the analysis remains deliberately practical, even functionalist. The purpose of maps and itineraries, for example, is "to aid other travelers" (10, 18); no mention is made of their undoubtedly ideological function. Dietz appropriately underscores the impact of the movement of Germanic tribes and the emergence of a new type of traveler, namely the refugee (22). It was this widespread experience of dislocation, she argues, that "created the opportunity for infusing travel with religious significance" (23).

The second task of this initial chapter is the disruption of the scholarly tendency to label all early travelers as "pilgrims." Peregrinatio, Dietz insists, should be translated more neutrally as "journey"; it was not until the seventh century that the more specialized connotation began to appear (27–28). By avoiding this mistranslation, we can begin to appreciate the "uniquely monastic and ascetic impulse to travel" (35).

Chapter two focuses on two contemporary, presumably Iberian, travelers: Egeria and Orosios. Accepting the traditional identification of Egeria as a nun, Dietz makes the novel argument that we should understood her as an ascetic wanderer interested in movement itself rather than in any particular destination, including Jerusalem (48–54). Similarly, she contends that Orosius should be seen as "practicing a form of monasticism based on itinerancy," despite his relic-gathering trip to the Holy Land (61–64).

Chapter three turns to the attacks on wandering monks in the Rule of the Master and the Rule of Saint Benedict. Prompting these proscriptions, Dietz argues, was a perception of widespread "unsupervised monastic wandering" (78). Both Jerome and Augustine fulminate against hypocritical monks, whose dress, deportment and, above all, itinerancy, gave the lie to their monastic profession (90–91). The need to discern true monks from false was sharpened both by the obligation to provide hospitality (94–97), and by the common practice of monastic travel (97–99). The authors of the Rules responded by emphasizing stability and submission, and by codifying the proper dress and tonsure of monks (100–04).

Chapter four complies a list of Western women travelers to Jerusalem. Most of these names are familiar: the empress Helena (109–120), Mary and Euphemia (121–22), Melania the Elder and Younger (122–26), Paula and Eustochium (126–33), and the empress Eudocia (136). Their interest in patronage and the exchange of gifts enriched the urban fabric of Jerusalem (138–46), and, in turn, shaped the perception of Jerusalem back home as a place to venerate and to...