Advanced search
Publication Cover
Crusades Volume 6, 2007 - Issue 1
Submit an article Journal homepage
48
Views
2
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

The French Translation of William of Tyre’s Historia: the Manuscript Tradition1Footnote

Peter EdburyCardiff University
Pages 69-105 | Published online: 17 Feb 2023

  • Willelmi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon, ed. Robert B. C. Huygens, 2 vols., CCCM 63 (Turnhout, 1986). (Henceforth: WT)
  • John H. Pryor, “The Eracles and William of Tyre: an Interim Report”, in Horns, pp. 270–93 at pp. 288–89 (arguing for a date after 1204 and before 1234).
  • I have seen all except the fire-damaged Turin Biblioteca Nazionale, ms. L. II. 17.
  • L’estoire de Eracles empereur et la conqueste de la terre d’Outremer, RHC Oc., 1 (1844); Guillaume de Tyr et ses continuateurs: text français du XIIIe siècle, ed. Paulin Paris, 2 vols. (Paris, 1879–80).
  • To simplify referring to the manuscripts I have followed the numbering in Jaroslav Folda, “Manuscripts of the History of Outremer by William of Tyre: a Handlist”, Scriptorium 27 (1973), 90–95. “F72” is thus Folda no. 72. Book and chapter numbers are given thus: 15.12.
  • La continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184–1197), ed. Margaret Ruth Morgan, Documents relatifs à l’histoire des croisades 14 (Paris, 1982).
  • Hugo Buchthal, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1957); Jaroslav Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d’Acre, 1275–1291 (Princeton, 1976). For recent work, see for example Bianca Kühnel, “The Perception of History in Thirteenth-Century Crusader Art,” in France and the Holy Land: Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades, ed. Daniel H. Weiss and Lisa Mahoney (Baltimore, 2004), pp. 161–86, at pp. 173–78; Jaroslav Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 217–18, 235–36, 345–50, 401–8, 424–27, 495–97, 525–26.
  • Margaret Ruth Morgan, The Chronicle of Ernoul and the Continuations of William of Tyre (Oxford, 1973); eadem, “The Rothelin Continuation of William of Tyre,” in Outremer, pp. 244–57; Peter W. Edbury, “The Lyon Eracles and the Old French Continuations of William of Tyre,” in Montjoie, pp. 139–53 (critical of Morgan’s 1973 monograph).
  • Pryor, “The Eracles and William of Tyre,” p. 270.
  • Bernard Hamilton, “The Old French translation of William of Tyre as an historical source,” in EC, 2, pp. 93–112.
  • RHC Oc., 1, p. xxvi. For the modern shelf marks, see Paul Riant, “Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits de l’Eracles,” AOL, 1 (1881), 247–52 at pp. 248 (nos. 1, 3), 250 (no. 32), 251 (no. 67). The editors claimed that what is now the ms. fr. 2627 is a thirteenth-century manuscript when in reality it dates to the fifteenth.
  • Louis de Mas Latrie, “Essai de classification des continuations de l’historie des croisades de Guillaume de Tyr,” in Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier (Paris, 1871), pp. 473–565 at pp. 480–88; Riant, “Inventaire sommaire,” pp. 247–52, cf. pp. 716–17.
  • Folda, see above note 6.
  • Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, ed. Louis de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1871).
  • RHC Oc., 2: 483–639.
  • RHC Oc., 2: 380–481.
  • Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, p. 212. See also the catalogue description at pp. 212–13.
  • Ibid., p. 31 and n. 27; Crusader Art in the Holy Land, pp. 217, 235–36 and n. 44 (p. 614).
  • Jaroslav Folda, “A Crusader Manuscript from Antioch,” Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Ser. 3, Rendiconti, 42 (1969–70), 283–98; Crusader Art in the Holy Land, pp. 218 n. 614 (p. 611), 347–50 and n. 877 (pp. 641–42).
  • It is possible that this apparent amalgamation in fact preserves an original feature of the translation as there is no chapter division in the Latin text at this point. Four other manuscripts, F36, F43, F44, F73, none of which is particularly close to the original, also run 13.24–25 together, but all the other seemingly “primitive” versions of the text have a division here.
  • The translator evidently used a Latin manuscript which lacked William’s autobiographical chapter (19.12) and which probably resembled most closely those in Huygens’s β group (though without the reference to Pontigny at 12.7). See the introduction to the Latin edition, pp. 3–19.
  • Allowing for the fact that F54, F55 and F65 are damaged and in each case lack the first element.
  • The idea that the central section of F34 may be derived from a manuscript from a different tradition is perhaps confirmed by the fact that in four instances chapters are divided in the same place as the β manuscripts, F31 and F35: 7.25, 7.19, 9.13, 16.21.
  • A feature of F46 is the large number of divided chapters, and it is possible that the copyist responsible for most of these divisions reintroduced divisions at 21.17–18 and 22.25–26.
  • The only exceptions are F45 and F46 (and also F77) where the folios with this passage are missing.
  • Folda, ‘Manuscripts’, p. 94; cf Crusader Manuscript Illumination, p. 146 n. 129.
  • Private communication.
  • It is not entirely clear whether F04 has the two chapter divisions in 1.2, as the folio is largely illegible.
  • 4.18: “bobans” or “bouban” for “feste;” 4.21: “ou que .iiii.” for “ou que .iii. .”
  • Cf WT, p. 901.
  • Respectively Chronique d’Ernoul, pp. 25–31, 35–41, 114.
  • Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, p. 32 n. 33. The miniature is reproduced in Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and his Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 2000), p. 251.
  • Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, pp. 146–51. See also the catalogue descriptions at pp. 205–11.
  • WT, p. 1002. In F35 the latter part of the interpolation is lost due to a missing folio.
  • WT, p. 267.
  • Ibid., p. 577 at line 49. The chapter divisions in the Latin and French versions do not coincide here.
  • F01 shares this reading with F78 and F36.
  • F68 and F69 end with the events of 1275. F67 seems to have lost the last folio or folios and breaks off in 1274.
  • Between fol. 276v and fol. 277r. This loss explains the aberrant six-folio signature (no. 35) noted by Folda in his catalogue description of this manuscript. See Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, p. 185.
  • This version of the continuation is published as the principal version of the continuation in RHC Oc. 2, pp. 1–379 with the text adapted from the Chronique d’Ernoul noted as variants or provided in small print at the foot of the page. It would appear to have been a product of the 1230s or 1240s.
  • For the unique nature of the continuation in F57 (= ms. A), see Morgan, “The Rothelin Continuation,” pp. 245, 252–53.
  • Catalogue description in Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, p. 175.
  • Description in Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, pp. 639–40.
  • Catalogue description in Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, pp. 176–78.
  • Ibid., pp. 175–76; Crusader Art in the Holy Land, p. 407 and note 370 (p. 657).
  • Otherwise known as the “Hospitaller Master.” He is known to have accepted a commission from the Hospitaller Guillielmo di S. Stephano.
  • Catalogue description in Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, pp. 182–84.
  • Ibid., pp. 184–87.
  • Description in Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, pp. 663–64.
  • Catalogue description in Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, pp. 199–200.
  • Ibid., pp. 200–204.
  • Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, p. 403.
  • Der Bericht des Marsilio Zorzi: Codex Querini-Stampalia IV3 (1064), ed. Oliver Berggötz (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), pp. 102–8, 116–34.
  • Der Bericht des Marsilio Zorzi, pp. 103, 107, 119 note u, 125, 133.
  • Edited by Ruth Morgan. See above note 7.
  • F35, the other manuscript associated with F03 and F31 shares the division at 10.5 but not 15.1.
  • For example, F74 is the only manuscript to omit the first sentence in 2.1 in common with F69 (plus the derivative F67 and F68) and F78.
  • 21.14–15 is also merged in F74.
  • Similarly F49, F71, F78 and F69 all split 20.24.
  • F49 and F77 lack the folios containing this chapter. The same pattern is discernible at the end of 13.28 where all the Acre manuscripts plus F01 and F52 lack the word “clers” in the final phrase.
  • WT, p. 519.
  • These figures ignore the two divisions in 1.2 which are a defining characteristic of the β group.
  • The only other manuscripts to share this reading (recte 27 April) are the α group F31 and F35. Morgan (“The Rothelin Continuation,” p. 246) identified four of these five manuscripts as having a closely related text of the Rothelin continuation, and her research showed that the Rothelin text appended to F52 also belongs with this group. The exception is F62.
  • For the use of “deca mer,” there contrasted with “la terre de crestiens,” see 12.7.
  • The Acre group of α manuscripts also suppress the word “outremer,” though without using the phrase employed in F06.
  • Since completing the present paper I have edited two sample chapters (12:7 and 20:30): “The Old French William of Tyre and the Origins of the Templars,” in Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the History of the Crusades and the Knights Templar presented to Malcolm Barber, ed. Norman Housley (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 151–64; “The Old French William of Tyre, the Templars and the Assassin Envoy,” in The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe from the Crusades to the Ottomans, ed. Karl Borchardt, Nikolas Jaspert and Helen Nicholson (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 25–37.
  • Pryor, “The Eracles and William of Tyre,” pp. 276–77, 284, 288, 293 et passim; Hamilton, “The Old French translation of William of Tyre,” pp. 93–94.
  • WT, p. 565.

  • Folda, “Manuscripts”, pp. 90–95.
  • Mas Latrie, “Essai de classification”, pp. 480–88; Riant, “Inventaire sommaire”, pp. 247–52, 716–17.
  • Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum … Amplissima Collectio, ed. Edmond Martène and Ursin Durand, 5 (Paris, 1729), 581–752.
  • Folda says southern France, but the writing is clearly an example of English Court or Business Hand of the period.
  • For the date, see Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, pp. 217, 235–36.
  • For the date, ibid., pp. 218, 347–50.
  • For the place of production and the date, see Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, p. 208.
  • For the date, see ibid., p. 33 n. 38.
  • For the place of production and the date, see ibid., p. 205.
  • Folda says ca. 1475, but the Tudor rose incorporated into the design of fol. 1r might suggest a post-1485 date.
  • For the date, see Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, p. 33 n.36.
  • Ibid.
  • For the date, ibid., p. 175.
  • Ibid.
  • For the date, ibid., p. 33 n.36.
  • For the place of production and the date, ibid., p. 212.
  • Ibid., p. 198.
  • Ibid., p. 204.
  • Ibid., p. 213.
  • Ibid.
  • For the date, see ibid., p. 184.
  • For the date, see Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, pp. 218 n. 608, 403–5.
  • For the date, see Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, p. 199.
  • Ibid., p. 182.
  • In the Recueil edition this is true of 10.17–18, 11.28–31, 12.5–6, 12.24–25, 13.9–10, 16.7–8 and 21.9–10, and in the Paris edition of all these except 10.17–18 plus 14.11–12.
  • 1.14, 2.9, 5.19, 7.16, 9.22, 11.27, 13.3, 15.14, 18.32, 20.9.
  • But note that in two instances, at 3.1–2 and 10.8, Huygens’ division of chapters in his Latin edition coincides with those in the French version and differs from the Recueil.
  • For the remainder of book 11, the chapter divisions in the French and Latin texts diverge.
  • A series of misprints in RHC Oc (pp. 995–1000) wrongly numbers the chapters 20.29–20.31 as 20.31–20.33.
  • Not seen.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Order Reprints Request Corporate Permissions

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

Request Academic Permissions

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.

Related research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.