Thietmar

Start of Thietmar's account in the manuscript Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Cod. Guelf. 42.3 Aug. 2° from the 15th century. The text begins Ego Thetmaro ("I, Thietmar") with the initial E in red. Thietmar or Dithmar was a German Christian pilgrim who visited the Holy Land in 1217–1218 and wrote an account of his travels, the .

According to his own account, Thietmar and a group of pilgrims set out from Germany "signed with and protected by the cross". This would seem to indicate that he was a crusader, a conclusion accepted by Jaroslav Folda, but his account indicates that he was an unarmed pilgrim.

In 1218, he set out from Acre on a second pilgrimage to Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai. His account of this trip is the most detailed description of a pilgrimage in the Sinai from the 12th or 13th century. From Acre he went south by the coastal road to Jaffa, then inland to Ramla, from where he headed directly towards Bethlehem. He avoided Jerusalem because the Muslim authorities were nervous about Christian pilgrims at that time. He and his party were arrested anyway and detained in the Asnerie, the former donkey stables of the Knights Hospitaller by the Church of Saint Stephen just outside the Jerusalem. They were released only through the intervention of some Hungarian Muslims known to one of his fellow captives. From there he continued on to Bethlehem, from where he made an excursion to Hebron before returning to Bethlehem. He visited Bethany, then Jericho, then crossed the Jordan, after which he says he visited Zoar and Ein Gedi west of the Dead Sea. Possibly he crossed the sea by boat, but more likely he was confused and in fact passed through Mount Nebo and Madaba before picking up the King's Highway. he followed this south through Heshbon, Rabba, Kerak, Shoubak, Petra, Mount Hor and the Arabah to Aqaba on the Red Sea coast. He followed the western coast passed Pharaoh's Island until coming to Saint Catherine's. Afterwards he returned to Acre, although he does not describe his return journey.

Editions J. A. Sprecher van Bernegg, ed. "Magister Thetmars Reise nach Palästina und Egypten, in Anfang des 13. Jahrhunderts". In H. M. Malten, ed. Neueste Weltkunde. Frankfurt, 1844, pp. 184–193. It reproduces only the first part of the travel report: Acre, Mt Tabor, Damascus, Mt Carmel, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Mamre, Bethany, and Jericho. T. Tobler, ed. Magistri Thetmari iter ad Terram Sanctam anno 1217. St Gall, 1851. J. de Saint-Génois, ed. "Voyages faits en Terre Sainte par Thetmar en 1217 et par Burchard de Strasbourg en 1175 au 1225." Mémoires de l'Académie royale de Belgique 26 (1851), pp. 19–58. J. C. M. Laurent, ed. Magistri Thietmari historia de dispositione terre sancte. Hamburg, 1852. A translation of Laurent's edition can be found in Denys Pringle, trans., Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291 (Ashgate, 2012), pp. 95–133.