William of Tyre

William of Tyre
William of Tyre writing his history, from a 13th century Old French translation, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS 2631, f.1r
Born	1130 Jerusalem
Died	September 29, 1185 Tyre
Occupation	Archbishop, chancellor
Known for	Medieval chronicler
Predecessor	Frederick de la Roche
Successor	Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre
Religious beliefs	Roman Catholicism

William of Tyre (c. 1130 – September 29, 1185) was archbishop of Tyre and a chronicler of the Crusades and the Middle Ages. He is also known as William II to distinguish him from William of Malines, the first archbishop of Tyre by that name.

He grew up in Jerusalem during the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which had been established a generation prior to his birth after the First Crusade in 1099. He received an extensive education in Europe and upon his return he became Archbishop of Tyre, chancellor of Jerusalem, and tutor to the heir of the Kingdom, and was thus involved in the highest functions of both church and state. His importance waned, however, when a rival faction gained control of royal affairs, and he was passed over for the prestigious Patriarchate of Jerusalem. He died in obscurity, probably in 1185. Nevertheless he is well-known as the author of a history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which continues to be a source of prime importance for modern historians.

Early life

Jerusalem had been conquered in 1099 at the end of the First Crusade, and under its first three rulers, Godfrey of Bouillon, his brother Baldwin I, and their cousin Baldwin II, the kingdom's borders were expanded and secured. During the first few decades of the kingdom's existence, the population swelled with pilgrims who could now safely visit the holiest sites of Christendom, and with merchants from the Mediterranean city-states of Italy and France who were eager to exploit the rich trade markets of the east.^[1] William was born in Jerusalem around 1130, to parents were probably among the French or Italian merchants who had settled in the kingdom, although it is unknown whether they participated in the First Crusade or if they arrived later. He had at least one brother, named Ralph, who was one of the burgesses of Jerusalem. Nothing more is known about his family, except that his mother had died before 1165.^[2] His parents were "apparently well-to-do"^[3], and as a child he was educated in Jerusalem, at the cathedral school in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The scholaster there was John the Pisan, who taught William and other young students to read and write, and first introduced them to Latin.^[4] From William's chronicle it is clear that he also knew French and possibly Italian, but there is not enough evidence to determine if he learned Greek, Persian, and Arabic, as is sometimes claimed.^[5]

Around 1145 William went to Europe to continue his education. He studied liberal arts and theology in Paris and Orleans for about ten years, with professors who had been students of Thierry of Chartres and Gilbert de la Porrée; he also spent time studying under Robert of Melun and Adam de Parvo Ponte, among others. He also studied the classics with Hilary of Orleans, and mathematics ("especially Euclid") with William of Soissons. For six years, he studied theology with Peter Lombard and Maurice de Sully. Afterwards, he studied civil law and canon law in Bologna, with the "Four Doctors", Hugolinus de Porta Ravennate, Bulgarus, Martinus Gosia, and Jacob de Boraigne.^[6] As Graham Loud and J. W. Cox say, William's list "gives us almost a 'Who's Who' of the grammarians, philosophers, theologians and law teachers of the so-called Twelfth-Century Renaissance", and shows that he was as well-educated as any European cleric, such as his contemporary John of Salisbury, who had many of the same teachers.^[7]

Religious and political life in Jerusalem

Baldwin of Boulogne receiving the hommage of the Armenians. "Histoires", William of Tyre.

After his return to the Holy Land in 1165 he was well-suited to rise through the ranks of the ecclesiastical and political worlds in Jerusalem. He became canon of the cathedral at Acre, and in 1167 was appointed archdeacon of the cathedral of Tyre by Frederick de la Roche, archbishop of Tyre, with the support of King Amalric I.^[8]

In 1168 Amalric sent William on a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, to finalize the treaty made between the two rulers for a joint campaign against Egypt. Amalric had recently married Manuel's grandniece Maria Comnena, and the expedition into Egypt, Amalric's fourth, was the first with support from the Byzantine navy. Amalric, however, did not wait for the fleet to arrive, and although he captured Damietta, a few years later he was expelled from Egypt by Saladin, who would later become the Kingdom's greatest threat. In 1169 William visited Rome, possibly to answer accusations made against him by Archbishop Frederick, although if so, the charge is unknown; alternately, while Frederick was away on a diplomatic mission in Europe, there may have been a dispute in the archdiocese for which William required his assistance.^[9]

On his return from Rome in 1170 he became the tutor of Amalric's son and heir, Baldwin IV. When Baldwin was thirteen years old, William saw him playing with some other children, and noticed that when they scratched each other's arms, Baldwin felt no pain. William recognized this as a possible symptom of leprosy, which was confirmed as Baldwin grew older.^[10] Amalric died prematurely in 1174, and Baldwin IV succeeded as king. Raymond III of Tripoli, regent for the young king, named William chancellor of Jerusalem, as well as archdeacon of Nazareth, and on June 6, 1175, William was elected archbishop of Tyre.^[11] William was also close to Baldwin, and admired his strength in the face of debilitating leprosy, a disease which in the Middle Ages was considered divine punishment for sin. The nobles and monarchs of Europe were cautious to send help to a kingdom apparently in divine disfavour, and William has been called "an apologist for the dynasty and paticular for Baldwin IV."^[12] William's duties as chancellor probably did not take up too much of his time; the scribes and officials in the chancery drafted documents and it may not have even been necessary for him to be present to sign them. Instead he focused on his duties as archbishop. In 1177 he performed the funeral services for William of Montferrat, Baldwin IV's brother-in-law, when the Patriarch of Jerusalem was too sick to attend.^[13]

William of Tyre discovers Baldwin's first symptoms of leprosy (MS of L'Estoire d'Eracles (French translation of William of Tyre's Historia), painted in France, 1250s. British Library, London.)

In 1179, William was one of the delegates from Outremer sent to the Third Council of the Lateran; among the others was Heraclius, archbishop of Caesarea, Joscius, bishop of Acre and William's future successor in Tyre, the bishops of Sebastea, Bethlehem, Tripoli, and Jabala, and the abbot of Mount Sion. The Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch were unable to attend, and the William and the other bishops were not of sufficient weight to persuade Pope Alexander III of the need for a new crusade.^[14] William was, however, sent by Alexander as an ambassador to Emperor Manuel, and Manuel then sent him on a mission to the Principality of Antioch. William himself does not mention exactly what happened during these embassies, but he probably discussed the Byzantine alliance with Jerusalem, and Manuel's protectorate over Antioch, where due to pressure from Rome and Jerusalem the emperor was forced to give up his attempts to restore a Greek Patriarch. William was absent from Jerusalem for two years, returning home in 1180.^[15]

The patriarchal election of 1180

During his absence a crisis had developed in the royal court. King Baldwin had reached the age of majority in 1176 and Raymond III had been removed from the regency, but as a leper Baldwin could have no children and could not be expected to rule much longer. After the death of William of Montferrat in 1177, King Baldwin's widowed sister Sibylla required a new husband. Hugh III of Burgundy was expected to come to Jerusalem and marry her, but Hugh was unable to come to the east due to the political unrest in France in 1179-1180.

The subsequent events have often been interpreted as a struggle between two opposing factions, the "court party", made up of Baldwin's mother, Amalric's first wife Agnes of Courtenay, her immediate family, and recent arrivals from Europe who were inexperienced in the affairs of the kingdom; and the "noble party", led by Raymond III of Tripoli and the lesser nobility of the kingdom. This, however, stems from the accounts of William himself, who must be considered extremely partisan as he was naturally allied with his benefactor Raymond, as well as of the thirteenth-century authors who continued William's chronicle in French, who were allied to Raymond's supporters in the Ibelin family. The general consensus among recent historians, however, is that although there was a dynastic struggle, "the division was not between native barons and newcomers from the West, but between the king's maternal and paternal kin."^[16] The division occurred when, at Easter in 1180, Raymond and his cousin Bohemond III of Antioch attempted to force Sibylla to marry Baldwin of Ibelin. Raymond and Bohemond were King Baldwin's nearest male relatives in the paternal line, and could have claimed the throne if the king died without an heir or a suitable replacement. Before Raymond and Bohemond arrived, however, Agnes and King Baldwin arranged for Sibylla to be married to a Poitevin newcomer, Guy of Lusignan, whose older brother Amalric of Lusignan was already an established figure at court.^[17]

The dispute also may have affected William, since he had been appointed chancellor by Raymond and may have been in disfavour after Raymond had been removed from the regency. When the Patriarch of Jerusalem died on October 6, 1180, the two most obvious choices for his successor were William and Heraclius of Caesarea. They were fairly evenly matched in background and education, but politically they were allied with opposite parties, as Heraclius was one of Agnes' supporters. It seems that the canons of the Holy Sepulchre were unable to decide, and asked the king for advice; due to Agnes' influence, Heraclius was elected. There were rumours that Agnes and Heraclius were lovers, but this information comes from the partisan thirteenth-century continuations of William's chronicle, and there is no other evidence that such rumours are true. William himself says almost nothing about the election and Heraclius' character or his subsequent patriarchate, which likely reflects his disappointment at the outcome.^[18]

Death

William remained archbishop of Tyre and chancellor of the kingdom, and the king and Raymond were reconciled. The thirteenth-century continuators claim that Heraclius excommunicated William in 1183, but it is unknown why this would have happened. The story goes on to say that William appealed to the Pope in Rome, where Heraclius then had him poisoned. Peter Edbury and John Rowe suggest that if there is any truth to the story, then William must have been very powerful when his supporters were in control of the kingdom; but they also argue that the obscurity of William's life during these years shows that he did not play a large political role, but concentrated on church affairs and the writing of his history. The story of his excommunication, and the unlikely detail that he was poisoned, were probably an invention of the thirteenth-century French continuators of his chronicle.^[19] In any case his importance had dwindled with the victory of Agnes and her supporters, and by the accession of Baldwin V in 1185, he was probably in failing health. The date of William's death was later recorded as September 29, but the year is unknown; there was a new chancellor in May of 1185 and a new archbishop of Tyre by October 21, 1186, so 1185 seems to be the most reasonable date.^[20]

According to Roger of Wendover, William was present at Gisors in 1188 when Henry II of England and Philip II of France agreed to go on crusade: "Thereupon the king of the English first took the sign of the cross at the hands of the archbishop of Rheims and William of Tyre, the latter of whom had been entrusted by our lord the pope with the office of legate in the affairs of the crusade in the western part of Europe."^[21] However, Roger probably meant William's successor Joscius.

Works

William himself reports that he wrote an account of the Lateran Council which he attended, which does not survive. He also wrote a Historia or Gesta orientalium principum dealing with the history of the Holy Land from time of Muhammad until 1184. This work seems to have been known in Europe in the thirteenth century but it also does not survive.^[22]

Latin chronicle

His great work is a Latin chronicle, written between 1170 and 1184.^[23] It contains twenty-three unfinished books, although the final book may have been completed and the pages may be lost. The twenty-third book deals with the events of 1183 and the beginning of 1184, but it was still being revised when he stopped writing. The chronicle begins with the conquest of Syria by Umar, but most of it deals with the advent of the First Crusade and the subsequent political history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It is arranged, but was not written, chronologically; the first sections to be written were probably the chapters dealing with the invasion of Egypt in 1167, which are extremely detailed and were likely composed before the Fatimid dynasty was overthrown in 1171. Much of the chronicle was finished before he left to attend the Lateran Council, but new additions and corrections were made after his return in 1180, perhaps because he now realized that European readers would also be interested in the history of the kingdom. In 1184 he wrote the Prologue and the beginning of the twenty-third book, but he did not have an opportunity to write any further.^[24]

William had access to the chronicles of the First Crusade, including Fulcher of Chartres, Albert of Aix, Raymond of Aguilers, Baldric of Dol, and the Gesta Francorum, as well as other documents located in ecclesiastical archives. He also used Walter the Chancellor and other now-lost works for the history of the Principality of Antioch. From the end of Fulcher's chronicle in 1127, William is the only source of information from an author living in Jerusalem. For events that happened in William's own lifetime, he interviewed older people who had witnessed the events about which he was writing, and draws on his own personal experiences.^[25]

William's classical education allowed him to use numerous ancient and early Christian authors, either for quotations or as inspiration for the framework and organization of the chronicle.^[26] His vocabulary is almost entirely classical, with only a few medieval constructions such as "loricator" (someone who makes armour, a calque of the Arabic "zarra") and "assellare" (to empty one's bowels). He was capable of clever word-play and advanced rhetorical devices, but he was prone to repetition of a number of words and phrases. His writing also shows peculiar phrasing (such as confusion between reflexive and possessive pronouns, and confusion over the use of the accusative and ablative cases after certain prepositions) and spelling (such as "michi" for "mihi", and doubled "s", for example in the adjectival ending which he often spells "-enssis"), although this is typical for all medieval Latin authors.^[27]

Despite his quotations from Christian authors and from the Bible, he did not place too much emphasis on the miraculous intervention of God in human affairs, but was more concerned with the political and military actions of the crusaders, which results in a somewhat "secular" history.^[28] Nevertheless, he included much information that is clearly legendary, especially when referring to the First Crusade, which even in his own day was already considered a heroic age of great Christian heroes. Expanding on the accounts of Albert of Aix, Peter the Hermit is given prominence in the preaching of the First Crusade, to the point that it was he, not Pope Urban II, who originally conceived the crusade.^[29] Similarly, as in Albert, Godfrey of Bouillon becomes the overall leader of the crusade, destined to conquer Jerusalem and become its first monarch, who performed legendary feats of strength during the journey.^[30]

An often-noted flaw in the chronicle is William's poor memory for dates. "Chronology is sometimes confused, and dates are given wrongly", even for basic information such as the regnal dates of the kings of Jerusalem.^[31]

After William's death the chronicle was copied and circulated in the crusader states and was eventually brought to Europe. In the thirteenth century, James of Vitry had access to a copy while he was Bishop of Acre, and it was used by Guy of Bazoches, Matthew Paris, and Roger of Wendover in their own chronicles. However, there are only ten known manuscripts that contain the Latin chronicle, all of which come from France and England, so William's work may not have been very widely read in its original form. ^[32]

It is unknown what title William himself gave it, although one group of manuscripts uses Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum and another uses Historia Ierosolimitana.^[33] The Latin text was printed for the first time in Basel in 1549 by Nicholas Brylinger; it was also published in the Gesta Dei per Francos by Jacques Bongars in 1611 and the Recueil des historiens des croisades by Auguste-Arthur Beugnot in 1844, and Bongars' text was reprinted in the Patrologia Latina by Jacques Paul Migne in 1855. The now-standard Latin critical edition, based on six of the surviving manuscripts, was published as Willelmi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon in the Corpus Christianorum in 1986, by R. B. C. Huygens.^[34] The RHC edition was translated into English by Emily A. Babcock and August C. Krey in 1943 as "A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea," although the translation is sometimes incomplete or inexact.^[35]

Biases

As mentioned above, William was biased against Agnes of Courtenay, Patriarch Heraclius, and their supporters; aside from this, he was also famously biased against the Knights Templar, whom he believed to be arrogant and disrespectful of both secular and ecclesiastical hierarchies, as they were not required to pay tithes and were legally not directly accountable to the local bishop or secular lord. His account of the foundation of the Templars is the earliest description, although it was written decades later; he was generally favourable of them in their early days, but resented the power and influence they held in his own day.^[36] William accused them of hindering the Siege of Ascalon in 1153; of poorly defending a cave-fortress in 1165, for which twelve Templars were hanged by King Amalric; of sabotaging the invasion of Egypt in 1168; and of murdering ambassadors from the Hashshashin in 1173.^[37]

William was close to Amalric but in his chronicle he was often very critical of him; Amalric was a good military commander but could not stop the increasing threat from the Muslim states surrounding Jerusalem. On a personal level, William noted Amalric's obesity, and was shocked when the king questioned the resurrection of the dead. Clearly, William and his chronicle were independent of the man who had been responsible for his quick rise in the kingdom's affairs.^[38]

Modern assessment

Huygens notes that "depuis toujours, Guillaume de Tyr a été considéré comme l'un des meilleurs écrivains du moyen âge."^[39] Christopher Tyerman calls him "the historian's historian"^[40] and "the greatest crusade historian of all."^[41], and Bernard Hamilton says he "is justly considered one of the finest historians of the Middle Ages".^[42]According to the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, "William's achievements in assembling and evaluating sources, and in writing in excellent and original Latin a critical and judicious (if chronologically faulty) narrative, make him an outstanding historian, superior by medieval, and not inferior by modern, standards of scholarship."^[43]

Old French translation

A translation of the chronicle into Old French, made around 1223, was particularly well-circulated and had many anonymous additions made to it in the 13th century. In contrast to the surviving Latin manuscripts, there are "at least fifty-nine manuscripts or fragments of manuscripts" containing the Old French translation. There are also independent French continuations attributed to Ernoul and Bernard le Trésorier. The translation was sometimes called the Livre dou conqueste, and it was known throughout Europe as well as in the crusader Kingdom of Cyprus and in Cilician Armenia, and Marino Sanuto the Elder had a copy of it. The French was further translated into Spanish, as the Gran Conquista de Ultramar, during the reign of Alfonso the Wise of Castile. The French version was so widespread that the Renaissance author Francesco Pipino translated it back into Latin, unaware that a Latin original already existed. A Middle English translation of French was made by William Caxton in the 15th century.^[44]

References

Sources and further reading

Latin chronicle and translations

• L'Estoire d'Eracles empereur et la conqueste de la terre d'Outremer, in Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux, vols. I-II (1844, 1859).
• La Gran Conquista de Ultramar, ed. Pascalis de Goyganos. Madrid, 1858.
• La Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, ed. Louis de Mas-Latrie. Paris, 1871.
• Guillaume de Tyr et ses continuateurs, ed. Alexis Paulin Paris. Paris, 1879-1880.
• William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. E.A. Babcock and A.C. Krey. Columbia University Press, 1943.
• Margaret Ruth Morgan, La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184-1197). Paris, 1982.
• Willemi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon, ed. R. B. C. Huygens. Turnholt, 1986.
• Margaret A. Jubb, A Critical Edition of the Estoires d'Outremer et de la naissance Salehadin. London, 1990.
• Janet Shirley, Crusader Syria in the Thirteenth Century: The Rothelin Continuation of the History of William of Tyre with part of the Eracles or Acre text. Ashgate, 1999.

Secondary sources

• Carl Buchsenschutz, Die Setzung des Personalpronomens als Subjekt in der altfranzösischen Übersetzung des Wilhelm von Tyrus. Halle a.S., Kaemmerer, 1907.
• Mary Noyes Colvin, ed., Godeffroy of Boloyne; or, The Siege and Conqueste of Jerusalem, by William, Archbishop of Tyre; translated from the French by William Caxton and printed by him in 1481. London: Early English Text Society, Oxford University Press, 1893.
• Dana Cushing, ed. A Middle English chronicle of the First Crusade: the Caxton Eracles. Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen Press, 2001.
• R. H. C. Davis, "William of Tyre." Relations between East and West in the Middle Ages, ed. Derek Baker (Edinburgh, 1973), pp. 64–76.
• Matthew A. Doyle, The Career and Students of Peter Lombard. University of Toronto, 2006.
• Peter W. Edbury and John G. Rowe, "William of Tyre and the Patriarchal election of 1180." The English Historical Review 93 (1978), repr. in Kingdoms of the Crusaders: From Jerusalem to Cyprus (Aldershot: Ashgate, Variorum Collected Series Studies, 1999), pp. 1–25.
• Peter W. Edbury and John G. Rowe, William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
• Peter W. Edbury, "Propaganda and faction in the Kingdom of Jerusalem: the background to Hattin." Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. Maya Shatzmiller (Leiden: Brill, 1993), repr. in Kingdoms of the Crusaders: From Jerusalem to Cyprus (Aldershot: Ashgate, Variorum Collected Series Studies, 1999), pp. 173–189.
• Peter W. Edbury, "The Lyon Eracles and the Old French continuations of William of Tyre." Montjoie: Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer, eds. Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Riley-Smith, and Rudolf Hiestand, Ashgate, 1997.
• Peter W. Edbury, "The French translation of William of Tyre's Historia: the manuscript tradition." Crusades 6 (2007).
• Peter W. Edbury, "The Old French William of Tyre and the origins of the Templars." Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the History of the Crusades and the Knights Templar, Presented to Malcolm Barber, ed. Norman Housley, Ashgate, 2007.
• Jaroslav Folda, "Manuscripts of the History of Outremer by William of Tyre: a Handlist." Scriptorium 27 (1973), pp. 90–95.
• W. Giese, "Stadt- und Herrscherbeschreibungen bei Wilhelm von Tyrus." Deutsches Archiv 34 (1978), pp. 381–409.
• Rene Grousset, "Sur un passage obscur de Guillaume de Tyr." Mélanges syriens offerts à M. René Dussaud, vol. 2 (Paris, 1939), pp. 60–75.
• Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and his Heirs, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Bernard Hamilton, "The Old French translation of William of Tyre as an historical source." The Experience of Crusading, vol. 2, eds. Peter W. Edbury and Jonathan Phillips, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Mona Hammad, Latin and Muslim Historiography of the Crusades: A Comparative Study of William of Tyre and 'Izz ad-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr." Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1988.
• Rudolf Hiestand, "Zum Leben und Laufbahn Wilhelms von Tyrus", Deutsches Archiv 34 (1978), pp. 345–380.
• R. B. C. Huygens, "Guillaume de Tyr étudiant: un chapître (XIX, 12) de son Histoire retrouvé", Latomus 21 (1962), pp. 811–829.
• R. B. C. Huygens, "La tradition manuscrite de Guillaume de Tyr." Studi Medievali 5 (1964), pp. 281–373.
• R. B. C. Huygens, "Pontigny et l'Histoire de Guillaume de Tyr." Latomus 25 (1966), pp. 139–142.
• R. B. C. Huygens, "Editing William of Tyre." Sacris Erudiri 27 (1984), pp. 461–473.
• Conor Kostick, "William of Tyre, Livy, and the Vocabulary of Class." Journal of the History of Ideas 65, No. 3 (July 2004), pp. 353–368.
• A. C. Krey, "William of Tyre: the making of an historian in the Middle Ages." Speculum 16 (1941).
• B. Lacroix, "Guillaume de Tyr: Unité et diversité dans la tradition latin." Études d'histoire littéraire et doctrinale 4 (1968), pp. 201–215.
• G. A. Loud and J. W. Cox, "The 'lost' autobiographical chapter of William of Tyre's history (book XIX.12)", The Crusades: An Encyclopedia, ed. Alan V. Murray (ABC-Clio, 2006).
• Friedrich Lundgreen, Wilhelm von Tyrus und der Templerorden, Berlin, 1911.
• Hans Mayer, "Guillaume de Tyr à l’école." Mémoires de l'Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon 117 (1985-86), repr. in Kings and Lords in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Aldershot: Ashgate, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 1994), pp. 257–265.
• Hans Mayer, "Zum Tode Wilhelms von Tyrus", Archiv für Diplomatik 5-6 (1959-1960), pp. 182–201.
• H. Möhring, "Zu der Geschichte der orientalischen Herrscher des Wilhelms von Tyrus." Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 19 (1984), pp. 170–183.
• Margaret Ruth Morgan, The Chronicle of Ernoul and the Continuations of William of Tyre. Oxford University Press, 1973.
• Alan V. Murray, "William of Tyre and the origins of the Turks: observations on possible sources of the Gesta orientalium principium", in Dei gesta per Francos, ed. Michel Balard (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 217-229.
• H. Propst, "Die geographischen Verhältnisse Syriens und Palästinas nach Wilhelm von Tyrus, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge." Das Land der Bible 4 (1927), pp. 1–83.
• Hans Prutz, "Studien über Wilhelm von Tyrus." Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 8 (1883), pp. 91–132.
• Thomas Rödig, Zur politischen Ideenwelt Wilhelms von Tyrus. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990.
• R. C. Schwinges, "Kreuzzugsideologie und Toleranz im Denken Wilhelms von Tyrus." Saeculum 25 (1974), pp. 367–385.
• R. C. Schwinges, Kreuzzugsideologie und Toleranz. Studien zu Wilhelm von Tyrus." Stuttgart, 1977.
• R. C. Schwinges, "William of Tyre, the Muslim enemy, and the problem of tolerance." Tolerance and Intolerance. Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades, ed. Michael Gervers and James M. Powell, Syracuse University Press, 2001.
• Jerry Lynn Skains, A Comparison of the Four Latin Eyewitness Accounts of the First Crusade with William of Tyre's Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1984.
• Miriam Tessera, "Prudentes homines… qui sensus habebant magis exercitatos: a preliminary enquiry into William of Tyre's vocabulary of power." Crusades 1 (2002).
• D. W. T. C. Vessey, "William of Tyre and the art of historiography." Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973), pp. 433–455.
• D. W. T. C. Vessey, "William of Tyre: apology and apocalypse." Hommages à André Bellamy, ed. G. Cambier (Brussels, 1976), pp. 390–403.
• H. Van Werwerke, Filips van de Elzas en Willem van Tyrus. Brussels, 1971.

External links

• Excerpts from the Historia from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
• Fiasco at Damascus 1148 from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
• Latin version from the Patrologia Latina
• Latin version from The Latin Library
• Latin version from Crusades-Encyclopedia.com
• Latin version with concordance from Intertext.com
• Old French translation and continuation from Internet Medieval Sourcebook