Probably originating from Galicia in the northwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula or from Gaul in one of the provinces along the Rhone River, Egeria was a cultured and wealthy noblewoman. According to the Spanish monk Valerius of Bierzo (c. 630–c. 695 CE), she was a beatissima sanctimoniales (“blessed nun”) of an unnamed monastic community (text by Díaz y Díaz in Maraval, 1982, 336‒349). To Egeria (in some manuscripts, Aetheria, Echeria, or Etheria) is attributed a Latin text, the Itinerarium Egeriae (Travels of Egeria), in which a …