Arculf

Arculf was a Frankish churchman who toured the Holy Land around 670. Bede claimed he was a bishop from Gaul (Galliarum episcopus). According to Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (V, 15), Arculf was shipwrecked on the shore of Iona on his return from his pilgrimage. He was hospitably received by Adomnán, the abbot of the island monastery from 679 to 704, to whom he gave a detailed narrative of his travels. Adomnán, with aid from some further sources, was able to produce De Locis Sanctis ("on the sacred places"), a descriptive work in three books dealing with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, other sites in the Holy Land, and briefly with Alexandria and Constantinople. Many details about Arculf's journeys can be inferred from this text.

Further reading

• Meehan, D (ed.) Adomnan's 'De Locis Sanctis' (Dublin, 1958).
• Woods, D. ‘Arculf's Luggage: The Sources for Adomnán's De Locis Sanctis’, Ériu 52 (2002), 25-52.

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