Ansbert

Frederick Barbarossa's Crusade has been related by four contemporaries, all of whom took part in the expedition. Of Ansbert nothing is known except that he appears to have been a priest, and certainly accompanied the emperor's army on its march all the way from the borders of Hungary to the banks of the Cydnus. Ansbert's "Historia de Expeditione Frederici Imperatoris" was discovered in the year 1824 by Joseph Dietrich, in later life the director of the Catholic School at Leipzig.

In the course of the preceding century it had been stolen or lost from the library to which it belonged and had fallen into the hands of certain Jews, who sold it to a surgeon at Postelberg in Bohemia. This surgeon had already begun to destroy the MS., when Dietrich heard of its existence and communicated his discovery to Joseph Dobrowsky. Dobrowsky recognised the MS. from his friend's description, secured it from destruction, and published it at Prague in 1827. The MS. in question appears to date from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century.


Bibliography:

Wolff (R. L.), "The Crusades of Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI", in Setton, A History of the Crusades, volume, II, University of Wisconsin Press, 1969, pp. 86-122.

Freed (J.), Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth, Yale University Press, 2016.

Bohadin (1145-1234)

Bohadin or Beha-ed-Din (بهاء الدين بن شداد) (Beha-ed-Din Abu'l-Mehasen ibn Sheddad) was born at Mosul 6 March, 1145, and died at Aleppo 8 Nov., 1234. He devoted himself to the study of the Koran at an early age, and was still quite young when he knew the sacred volume by heart. He has left us an interesting account of the teachers under whom he studied. By 30 June, 1 165 he had been authorized to teach. Some years later he went to Bagdad, but in 569 A.H. (12 Aug. 1 1 73-1 Aug. 1 1 74) returned to Mosul as professor. In 583 (13 Mch 1188-1 Mch. 1188) he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and on his way back was summoned to Saladin's presence. A little later he presented himself before Saladin at the siege of the Castle of Curds with a treatise on the Holy Wat. Saladin dissuaded him from carrying out his intention of retiring from the world, and received him into his service Jom. 1, 584 a.h. (June- July, 1188.) He was appointed cadi at Jerusalem. After Saladin's death he was employed as an intermediary between the Sultan's sons.

At first he refused Ad -Daher's offer to make him cadi of Aleppo, but accepted the office a little later. At Aleppo he was occupied in establishing a legal school and, having no children, he was able to spend his considerable wealth in buildings for the study of Mohammedan law. In the latter years of his life he received his future biographer Ibn Khallican "ابن خلكان" among his pupils ; but he was at this time too old to do more than exercise a general supervision. Ibn Khallican draws a pleasing picture of tbe aged man "feeble as a fallen bird" and so weak that he had to keep the same seat in winter and summer alike. In winter a brazier of burning coal was always at his side ; but even thus he could not drive away the cold. "When we were near him", says Ibn Khallican, "the heat used to inconvenience us much, but he did not perceive it, so chilled was his body with age. It was only after great efforts that he could rise up to pray, and even then he had much trouble to keep himself upright. Once I noticed his legs while he was at prayer; they were so fleshless that they looked like rods." He died 8 Nov., 1234.


Bibliography:

Behâ ed-Dîn, C. R. Conder, ed. The Life of Saladin. London, 1897.

Lyons (M. C.) and Jackson (D. P.), Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War. Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Chronicle of Ernoul

The monumental Historia de rebus transmarinis in which William of Tyre traces the history of the Latin Kingdom of the East from the days of the first Crusade, breaks of abruptly at the end of 1183, three years and a half before the battle of Hittin. William's great work, the historical masterpiece of medieval literature, was written in Latin; but the theme was of such surpassing interest that before forty years had passed away it was continued by a certain Ernoul, who, in his early life, had been squire to the great Palestine Lord, Balian of Ibelin. Under the direction of this Ernoul, who had shared in the romantic adventures of his liege before the battle of Nazareth (May, 1 187), the story of the Kingdom was carried on from the point where William ceases to about the year 1228.

This continuation is written in French and, thus, is the first attempt at telling the story of one of the great kingdoms of Latin Christendom in its own tongue without the aid of rhyme. Of Ernoul nothing more is known ; but his histoiy, though full of a most romantic charm, such as attaches to no other historical work of the time, is strictly speaking the work of a contemporary, and, in its French sympathies, is a priceless reflection of the anti-English sentiment that seems to have actuated most of the warriors of the third ciusade.

References:

Morgan(M. R.), The Chronicle of Ernoul and the Continuations of William of Tyre, Oxford University Press, 1973.

Pringle (D.), Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291, New York, 2012.

The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre (Estoire d'Eracles)

It is uncertain whether William of Tyre's history has been turned into French before the composition of Ernoul, continuation ; but the probability is in favor of this hypothesis; otherwise it is difficult to see why the latter work was not at least translated into Latin at the time of its first appearance. This difficulty is removed if we imagine Ernoul's Chronicle to have been written for the purpose of carrying down to the year 1228 a narrative of the history of the Holy Land, that had already been turned from Latin into old French. Otherwise we must suppose Ernoul to have written independently, in which case some third person may have conceived the idea ot prefixing to his chronicle a Romance version of William's great work.

The French translation of William of Tyre with its continuations by Ernoul, Bernard the Treasurer, and other anonymous writers towards the middle or end of the thirteenth century, were often regarded as one work. In this form they are the Chronique d'Outremer quoted by Jouville. They are also known under the title of the Estoire d'Eracles, from the opening words of the French translation of William of Tyre, ' Les ancients Estoires dient que Eracles.'

It has seemed desirable in the selections made for this volume from the Chronique d'Outremer to distinguish the contemporary authority of Ernoul from the more legendary form his narrative has assumed in certain * remaniements ' of the Chronique d'Outremer. Accordingly, whatever is taken from Ernoul without alteration is assigned to him ; whereas the later accretions are headed Estoire d'Eracles to mark that they are by no means to be regarded as absolutely historical.

As a whole the Chronique d'Outremer (excluding the translation from William of Tyre) is one of the most charming works in the French language. Its delicious simplicity, its delight in action, the innocent credulity with which it will give two versions of the same story almost in the same page, even its undisguised partisanship all impress the reader as a far more serious history would fail to do. That perhaps which marks it out from almost all other historical literature of the century is that it is the work, not of a clerk, but of a layman. Ernoul, in this respect, if in no other, ranks with Joinville and Villehardouin and Henry of Valenciennes.


References:

Shatzmiller (M.), Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, Netherlands, 1993.

Phillips (J.), Holy Warriors, New York, 2009.