Impressive testimonial of the pilgrimages of the first centuries as well as one of the principal sources for the study of Vulgar Latin, the late fourth century Itinerarium Egeriae has almost exclusively been examined and discussed from the viewpoint of linguistic and early Christian history. To conclude from this that the literary aspects of the account are of little or no interest would, however, be hasty. In a sense, the critical tradition of the
Itinerarium, since the discovery of its manuscript in 1884, may even be considered as having been implicitly concerned with the unanswered question of the typological determination of the text. The aim of this article is, in its first part, to trace the major traditional positions that may prove relevant in more precisely circumscribing the text. Rather than merely reflecting a conflicting terminology, its various designations seem to indicate the necessity of redescribing a text which apparently defies our conventional categories.