ABSTRACT
Travel writers are obviously viewers. During the editing process, the writers decide whether to be a part of the story they are telling. The earlier Christian accounts, and most of the shorter Jewish ones, fall into this category. These site-specific accounts rarely offer more than a glimpse at the writer. A good number of medieval pilgrimage accounts are, in fact, anonymous documents. Jacobs's case is an extreme example of a writers reaching out to his readers for reassurance. For the most part, the relationship between the traveler and his audience is weighted to the side of the writer. John Poloner, like Fetellus, gives meanings of place-names, pointing out correctly that the 'name of Mount Sion is, being interpreted, watch-tower' and that Siloam 'signifies sent'. Benjamin of Tudela makes sure to translate Arabic phrases into Hebrew. This incidentally raises the issue of who his readers were, since Jews from Tudela retained Arabic as their spoken language even after the Christian conquest.
