Historians are fortunate to have a wealth of material composed by medieval Jews that has been preserved through the centuries. But since most of these writings are rabbinic commentaries, legal analyses, and philosophy, they provide little information of the kind historians are often most eager to find out. The exception is the extraordinary 12th-century travelogue of Benjamin of Tudela, whom Tamar Marvin describes as “one of the most famed . . . of all premodern travelers,” Jewish or otherwise:
His account of his travels, known as Sefer Masa’aot (“The Book of Journeys”) or, more commonly, Masa’aot Binyamin (“Benjamin’s Journeys”), has been translated into Jewish and many European languages, and serves as a source for many other premodern historiographers and chroniclers, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. His dispassionate and factually oriented recollections are of primary importance to understanding medieval Jewish communities in Europe, especially in Provence, as well as in the East, especially Constantinople, Eretz Yisrael, and Baghdad.
Departing from his home in Navarra (Navarre), a kingdom in northern Spain, Benjamin traveled overland through the south of France (Provence, in medieval Jewish parlance), then south through Italy to Naples and other southern Italian cities. He departed by sea from Otranto, the site of an old Jewish community, setting sail for Greece and then Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). He entered the Land of Israel from the north, first visiting the ancient cities of Antioch, Sidon, and Tyre before arriving in Akko (Acre).
After visiting sites around the Land of Israel, he traveled to Damascus, Aleppo, and Baghdad. Benjamin traveled extensively through the region of Iraq and seems to have also spent time in Persia. His accounts of Persia, and even more so of India, Ceylon (today’s Sri Lanka), and China, contain legendary material; he presumably did not himself reach Southeast and/or East Asia. From Persia, Benjamin evidently traveled through Arabia, probably sailing around the peninsula, and gives an account of Egypt and his journey home by sea via Palermo, Sicily.
Read more on Stories from Jewish History: https://trmarvin.substack.com/p/binyamin-of-tudela-an-extraordinary-e76