William of Tyre was archbishop of Tyre.
He wrote a significant history of the Crusades
and the Middle Ages.
He was born in Jerusalem c. 1128; died at Tyre between
Oct. 17 and 21, 1186.
His earlier education was
received in Jerusalem; but when he was thirty years
of age or older he studied in France (probably) and
very likely in Paris, then the seat of learning in the
West (see WILLIAM OF ST. AMOUR).
After his return to the Holy Land in 1163 he became leading
cleric in the cathedral at Tyre, and in 1167 was
archdeacon. In 1168 he went on a diplomatic mission
for King Amalric to the Emperor Manuel, and the
next year was in Rome. On his return he had charge
of the education of Amalric's son and heir, who
succeeded his father in 1173, and the next year made
William his chancellor, while in 1175 William became
archbishop of Tyre, thus being in charge of the
weightiest matters in Church and State.
In 1179 he
attended the Lateran Council and was then engaged
in diplomatic matters with the emperor, returning
home in 1180. His importance ceased with the
accession of Baldwin IV in 1185.
William himself reports that he wrote an account
of the Lateran Council which he attended, also a
Historia or
Gesta orientalium principum dealing with
the times after Mohammed till 1184; both these are
lost.
His great work is a Historia rerum in partibus
transmarinis gestarum in twenty-three books
(editions published at Basel, 1564, 1583; in Bongar,
Gesta Dei per Francos, i. 625-1046, Hanover, 1611;
and in Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens
occidentaux, vol. i., Paris, 1844), but of the last book
he finished only the first chapter, coming down to
1184; indeed he had not completed all of the
preceding books.
The work begins with the conquest
of Syria by Omar, but passes in eleven chapters
of the first books to the events which brought about
the first crusade. The first fifteen books rest upon
Latin sources which the author does not name; the
other books have considerable value as a source.
The work gained great repute, and was widely
diffused through an early French translation, of which
various continuations were made, partly anonymous
and partly under the name of Ernoul, and of others.
A part circulated also in Latin translation.