Benjamin of Tudela, as his name suggests, was born in Tudela Spain.(2) Tudela is located in the northeast of Spain near the border of Spain and France. Tudela at that time was at the far edge of the declining Abbasid Empire. Benjamin of Tudela died in 1173 and was born around the year 1135, but no one knows the precise date.(1,2) Benjamin of Tudela, also known as Benjamin MiTudelo, traveled all around the Mediterranean for ten years, taking notes and making detailed observations of everywhere he went (and quite possibly a few places he did not go to as well).(2) Despite knowing so much about the places he traveled, very little besides where Benjamin grew up is known about him.(2) He put all of the detailed observations he made into a tome entitled the Book of Travels.(2) This book is one of the few reliable sources about the areas surrounding the Mediterranean and the Middle East that is around today.(2) Without a doubt the greatest accomplishment of Benjamin of Tudela’s life was sitting down at a desk and scribbling black ink on wood pulp (writing the Book of Travels).

     

     The Book of Travels was an amazing historical document. Most of it is reliable and “has been a god-send for historians”.(2) Historians have been able to confirm most parts of the Book of Travels are accurate by comparing the detailed descriptions of places, like Baghdad, in this book to other descriptions from that time by people like Abdullah al Idrisi.(2) In Benjamin of Tudela’s book, he notes the distances between each place he visits and because of this is very important to historians because this enables them to better understand the geography of the Mediterranean area in the late 1100’s.(3)

     In addition to having notes about the geography of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, Benjamin of Tudela writes about the cities he traveled to like Rome, Jerusalem, and Damascus. This is important because it gives you a sense of how these medieval cities operated. In Rome you can tell Benjamin is in awe of the massive structures, like palaces and churches and columns, he finds there. When Benjamin of Tudela traveled to Jerusalem, he wrote about how old the things he saw were. He also noted various things about the daily life of people there like the fact they drank mostly rainwater they collected in their homes. While he was in Damascus, Benjamin of Tudela spent a long time describing the geography of the city and surrounding area. He notes a mountain and a river that carries water to people in the city. The richer inhabitants have the water from the rivers go into their homes with a system of pipes.(3)

     While in all of these cities Benjamin of Tudela takes censuses of the Jews and writes in great detail about their occupations. For example, in Jerusalem, he talks about how some of the Jews rent a dyeing house from the King for a year. Apparently it is an exclusive privilege to be able to do so. He gives insight into the lives of Jews all over that area of the globe, which is extremely helpful for historians, and people who want to get a sense of how the world worked then.(3)

     The simple fact that Benjamin of Tudela survived his ten-year journey through dangerous areas is incredible, but that alone is not the most amazing thing he did. Nor is the fact he traveled to China as well and was one of the first people to name China “China” his greatest accomplishment.(1) This is mainly due to the fact there is no real evidence that he actually traveled there, and that his descriptions were slightly outlandish.(2)

     Other than the date, 1173, nothing is known of Benjamin of Tudela’s death.(2) His book, the Book of Travels, however contains lots of details and amazingly descriptive accounts of the geography, the people, and the places of the Mediterranean and Middle East in the 1100’s. These accounts all together in his book serve as a great resource for people and are Benjamin’s greatest accomplishment.