Some of the Primary Latin Sources for the Crusades from 1095 to 1187

Eyewitness and contemporary accounts of the Crusades in the period from Pope Urban II's speech at Clermont in 1095 which launched the First Crusade, to the loss of Jerusalem in 1187, were written in many languages including Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Hebrew, Persian, Armenian, Georgian and Slavonic. The western European Crusaders themselves, and their compatriots, wrote in several languages besides Latin, most notably French, but also German and others.

In this essay I'm confining myself to a few items written in Latin, and there are many other significant Latin sources which could be named besides the ones I'll mention. To get a sense of the primary sources available for the study of the Crusades, one place to begin would be the bibliographies in the three volumes of Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades, and I repeat, that would be one place to begin. It has now been more than 65 years since Runciman published his account, and scholarship has by no means stood still in the meantime.

The Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum was written by an anonymous soldier serving under Bohemond of Taranto in the First Crusade. It begins with Pope Urban's speech in Clermont and concludes shortly after the Crusaders take Jerusalem in 1099. Some of the author's contemporaries derided him as a commoner and simpleton, which didn't stop them from using his account as a basis for their own, and seldom actually improving upon it factually.

Raymond of Aguilers became the Chaplain of Raymond of Toulouse during the First Crusade, and was also present at the taking of Jerusalem. His account, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Jerusalem, while filling out some details of the First Crusade, concentrates mostly on Raymond.

Fulcher of Chartres was the chaplain of Baldwin of Boulogne, who entered Jerusalem soon after it fell and became King Baldwin I of Jerusalem. Fulcher published the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem peregrinantium in three parts, in 1101, 1006 and 1127.

Three near-contemporary historians of the First Crusade, Ekkehard of Aura, Rudolph of Caen and Albert of Aix, did not participate in in it. Ekkehard and Rudolph arrived in the East years after Jerusalem was taken, and wrote accounts which did not add much to the record. Albert never was in the in the Holy Land. Around 1130 he published his account of the First Crusade and of the first years of the Kingdom Jerusalem, Liber Christianae expeditionis pro ereptione, emundatione, et restitutione sanctae Hierosolymitanae ecclesiae, which until the modern era was much admired for its prose style and considered authoritative. Modern scholars have found that Albert, although admirably energetic in bringing together numerous sources, was not particularly critical of them.

William of Tyre was born in the East shortly before 1130, and was Archbishop of Tyre from 1175 until his death in 1186. William relies heavily of Fulcher's account for events between 1095 and 1127; from there until it ends in 1184, his Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum is the most important Latin account of the events in the Holy Land, and -- by far -- the finest Latin work written by anyone who lived in the Crusader states. William has a breadth of vision, education and writing skill which rival those of any other Medieval Latin historian.

A brief anonymous account entitled Libellus de expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum describes how Saladin conquered Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine.