William of Tyre (; 29 September 1186) was a medieval prelate and chronicler. As archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from his predecessor, William I, the Englishman, a former prior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, who was Archbishop of Tyre from 1127 to 1135.In his history, William of Tyre writes, "in the fourth year after Tyre had been [captured] (that is, in 1127/28), the king, patriarch, and other leading men elected (as archbishop of Tyre) William, the venerable prior of the church of the Sepulchre of the Lord", adding that this William was "an Englishman by birth, and a man of most exemplary life and character". A few chapters later, William reports that when the Patriarch Stephen died (in 1130), "he was succeeded by William, prior of the church of the Sepulchre of the Lord...He was Flemish by birth, a native of Mesines." Two Williams were prior of the Holy Sepulchre at an early time then, with William of Mesines (Flanders) probably directly succeeding William the Englishman as Prior of the Holy Sepulchre. This also means that William of Mesines could only have been prior from 1127 (the year of the election of William the Englishman to the archbishopric of Tyre) to 1130, the year of his own election as Patriarch. See William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea", Vol. 1, trans. Emily Babcock and A.C. Krey, Bk. XIII, Ch. 23 and Bk. XIII, Ch. 26. He grew up in Jerusalem at the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which had been established in 1099 after the First Crusade, and he spent twenty years studying the liberal arts and canon law in the universities of Europe.
Following William's return to Jerusalem in 1165, King Amalric made him an ambassador to the Byzantine Empire. William became tutor to the king's son, the future King Baldwin IV, whom William discovered to be a leper. After Amalric's death, William became chancellor and archbishop of Tyre, two of the highest offices in the kingdom, and in 1179 William led the eastern delegation to the Third Council of the Lateran. As he was involved in the dynastic struggle that developed during Baldwin IV's reign, his importance waned when a rival faction gained control of royal affairs. He was passed over for the prestigious Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and died in obscurity, probably in 1186.
William wrote an account of the Lateran Council and a history of the Islamic states from the time of Muhammad, neither of which survives. He is famous today as the author of a historical chronicle of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. William composed his chronicle in excellent Latin for his time, with numerous quotations from classical literature. The chronicle is sometimes given the title Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum ("History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea") or Historia Ierosolimitana ("History of Jerusalem"), or the Historia for short. It was translated into French soon after his death, and thereafter into numerous other languages. Because it is the only source for the history of twelfth-century Jerusalem written by a native, historians have often assumed that William's statements could be taken at face value. However, more recent historians have shown that William's involvement in the kingdom's political disputes resulted in detectable biases in his account. Despite this, he is considered the greatest chronicler of the crusades, and one of the best authors of the Middle Ages.
Early life
The Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded in 1099 at the end of the First Crusade. It was the third of four Christian territories to be established by the crusaders, following the County of Edessa and the Principality of Antioch, and followed by the County of Tripoli. Jerusalem's first three rulers, Godfrey of Bouillon (1099–1100), his brother Baldwin I (1100–1118), and their cousin Baldwin II (1118–1131), expanded and secured the kingdom's borders, which encompassed roughly the same territory as modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. During the kingdom's early decades, the population was swelled by pilgrims visiting the holiest sites of Christendom. Merchants from the Mediterranean city-states of Italy and France were eager to exploit the rich trade markets of the east.The most up-to-date works about the First Crusade are Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford: 2004) and Christopher Tyerman, God's War: A New History of the Crusades (Penguin: 2006).
William's family probably originated in either France or Italy, since he was very familiar with both countries.Emily Atwater Babcock and August C. Krey, trans., introduction to William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea (Columbia University Press, 1943), vol. 1, p. 7. His parents were likely merchants who had settled in the kingdom and were "apparently well-to-do",R. B. C. Huygens, "Editing William of Tyre", Sacris Erudiri 27 (1984), p. 462. although it is unknown whether they participated in the First Crusade or arrived later. William was born in Jerusalem around 1130. He had at least one brother, Ralph, who was one of the city's burgesses, a non-noble leader of the merchant community. Nothing more is known about his family, except that his mother died before 1165.Peter W. Edbury and John G. Rowe, William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 14.
As a child William was educated in Jerusalem, at the cathedral school in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The scholaster, or school-master, John the Pisan, taught William to read and write, and first introduced him to Latin.Hans E. Mayer, "Guillaume de Tyr à l'école" (Mémoires de l'Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon 117, 1985–86), p. 264; repr. Kings and Lords in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Aldershot: Ashgate, Variorum Collected Series Studies, 1994). John later became cardinal priest of SS. Silvestri e Martino, and supported Antipope Victor IV over Pope Alexander III. From the Historia it is clear that he also knew French and possibly Italian, but there is not enough evidence to determine whether he learned Greek, Persian, and Arabic, as is sometimes claimed.R. B. C. Huygens, ed., introduction to Willemi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis, vol. 38 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), p. 2.
Around 1145 William went to Europe to continue his education in the schools of France and Italy, especially in those of Paris and Bologna, "the two most important intellectual centers of twelfth-century Christendom."G. A. Loud and J. W. Cox, "The 'Lost' Autobiographical Chapter of William of Tyre's Chronicle (Book XIX.12)", The Crusades: An Encyclopedia, ed. Alan V. Murray (ABC-Clio, 2006), vol. 4, Appendix: Texts and Documents #4, p. 1306. These schools were not yet the official universities that they would become in the 13th century, but by the end of the 11th century both had numerous schools for the arts and sciences. They were separate from the cathedral schools, and were established by independent professors who were masters of their field of study. Students from all over Europe gathered there to hear lectures from these masters.Jacques Verger, "The birth of the universities". A History of the University in Europe, vol. 1: Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. Hilde de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 47–50. William studied liberal arts and theology in Paris and Orléans 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. In Orléans, one of the pre-eminent centres of classical studies,Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Harvard University Press, 1927; repr. Meridian Books, 1966), p. 103. he read ancient Roman literature (known simply as "the Authors") with Hilary of Orléans, and learned 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", Hugo de Porta Ravennate, Bulgarus, Martinus Gosia, and Jacobus de Boragine.The chapter of the Historia detailing his education in Europe was lost until Robert Huygens discovered it 1961, in a manuscript in the Vatican Library (ms. Vaticanus latinus 2002); Huygens, "Guillaume de Tyr étudiant: un chapître (XIX, 12) de son Histoire retrouvé" (Latomus 21, 1962), p. 813. It is unknown why no other manuscript has this chapter, but Huygens suggests an early copyist considered it out of place within the rest of book nineteen and excised it, and thus all subsequent copies also lacked it (ibid., p. 820). It was included in Huygen's critical edition of the Historia (book 19, chapter 12, pp. 879–881.) As the chapter had not yet been discovered, it is not included in the 1943 English translation by Babcock and Krey. William's list of professors "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. His contemporary John of Salisbury had many of the same teachers.Loud and Cox, p. 1306. Loud and Cox also give an English translation of the chapter. It has also been translated online by Paul R. Hyams, "William of Tyre's Education, 1145/65 ".
Religious and political life in Jerusalem The highest religious and political offices in Jerusalem were usually held by Europeans who had arrived on pilgrimage or crusade. William was one of the few natives with a European education, and he quickly rose through the ranks.Alan V. Murray, "William of Tyre". The Crusades: An Encyclopedia, vol. 4, p. 1281. After his return to the Holy Land in 1165, he became canon of the cathedral at Acre. In 1167 he was appointed archdeacon of the cathedral of Tyre by Frederick de la Roche, archbishop of Tyre, with the support of King Amalric.Edbury and Rowe, 1988, pp. 15–16.
Amalric had come to power in 1164 and had made it his goal to conquer Egypt. Egypt had been invaded by King Baldwin I fifty years earlier, and the weak Fatimid Caliphate was forced to pay yearly tribute to Jerusalem. Amalric turned towards Egypt because Muslim territory to the east of Jerusalem had fallen under the control of the powerful Zengid sultan Nur ad-Din. Nur ad-Din had taken control of Damascus in 1154, six years after the disastrous siege of Damascus by the Second Crusade in 1148. Jerusalem could now expand only to the southwest, towards Egypt, and in 1153 Ascalon, the last Fatimid outpost in Palestine, fell to the crusaders. Nur ad-Din, however, also wished to acquire Egypt, and sent his army to hinder Amalric's plans. This was the situation in the east when William returned from Europe. In 1167 Amalric married Maria Comnena, grand-niece of Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, and in 1168 the king sent William to finalize a treaty for a joint Byzantine-crusader campaign against Egypt. The expedition, Amalric's fourth, was the first with support from the Byzantine navy. Amalric, however, did not wait for the fleet to arrive. He managed to capture Damietta, but within a few years he was expelled from Egypt by one of Nur ad-Din's generals, Saladin, who would later become Jerusalem's greatest threat.Hans E. Mayer, The Crusades, 2nd ed., trans. John Gillingham (Oxford: 1988), pp. 119–120.
Meanwhile, William continued his advancement in the kingdom. In 1169 he visited Rome, possibly to answer accusations made against him by Archbishop Frederick, although if so, the charge is unknown. It is also possible that while Frederick was away on a diplomatic mission in Europe, a problem within the diocese forced William to seek the archbishop's assistance.Edbury and Rowe, 1988, pp. 16–17.