peter erhart landowner Heririch and his brother Hunfrid turned to him to have a transfer of property to the Prüm Monastery recorded in writing. Not only does this group of pilgrims slowly take shape, but also the itinerary can increasingly be reconstructed from such donations shortly before the travellers set off into the unknown. Further stops were made at the Monasteries of St Gall and Pfäfers, where they left traces in the Libri vitae in the same year 868. Uwe Ludwig could classify these entries as being made during a stop at these monasteries just a few miles distant from the main roads towards the Alpine passes.34 Such a sequence of different types of sources to reconstruct the time and itinerary of a group of pilgrims is extremely rare. This ‘tour d’horizon’ through the sparse tradition of the early Middle Ages shows that many such journeys to Rome inspired writing. The scribes, however, rarely resorted to fixed form formulary collections, as conditions could be very different. Depending on the monastery, the scribes were also sometimes overburdened, which is why the motivation for writing such a contract, which was ultimately intended to prevent inheritance disputes, is mentioned rather casually. These contracts were never referred to as wills, although some persons may have wanted to die in Rome, like probably Guntbert’s grandmother, thematronaEbertruda in 826;35 whereas many met their death already on the voyage as, for instance, Ceolfrit, Abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in Burgundy in 716.36 In the end there was no insurance, especially against accidents, illness, environmental disasters, or raids by Saracens, who made the Alpine passes still as unsafe in the 9th century as they already were by viaemalae.37 145 Conclusions 34 Ludwig 2009. 35 Guérard 1841, n. LXXXIX, pp. 162–164. 36 Angenendt 1982, p. 72. 37 Cf. the kidnapping of the Abbot of Cluny: Steiner 2014.
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