Given his
Anglo-Saxon name, Sæwulf likely came from mainly Anglo-Saxon heritage rather than
Norman descent. Though details of Sæwulf's life after his pilgrimage are uncertain, he is generally thought to be the Sæwulf (or Seuulfus) of
Worcester mentioned by the distinguished English historian
William of Malmesbury in his "
Gesta Pontificum Anglorum" as a merchant who in his old age became a monk in
Malmesbury Abbey in
Wiltshire, England.
Pilgrimage Sæwulf's telling of his travels on
pilgrimage to the
Holy Land start in
Apulia on 13 July 1102 with his boarding ship at
Monopoli. Three years earlier in 1099, Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders in a successful
siege, reopening the city for Christian pilgrims. Via many ports, he made landfall at
Jaffa and began a tour of
Palestine, including
Jericho and
Hebron. including the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He also visited
Bethlehem, finding it, with the exception of a
monastery, "all ruined". He noted the presence of many corpses of pilgrims abandoned on and near the road, unburied because of the rough ground and reasons of safety, as "[a]nybody who did this would dig a grave not for his fellow Christian but for himself." In 1839 Sæwulf's report was edited into French by
Armand d'Avezac and from that translated into English by
Thomas Wright who included it as the section "The Travels of Sæwulf" in his 1848 anthology "Early Travels in Palestine". ==See also==