William of Tyre
Categories: Crusade literature | Medieval historians | 1130 births | 1185 deaths
William of Tyre (c. 1130 - 1185) was archbishop of Tyre and an historian of the Crusades and the Middle Ages.
Contents |
Early life
William was born in Jerusalem around 1130, one of the second generation of children born to the children of the original European Crusaders in the new Kingdom of Jerusalem. His parents were probably French or Italian in origin, possibly Normans from Sicily. He had a brother named Ralph who was probably a merchant in the kingdom, and the family was certainly non-noble. As a child he was educated in Jerusalem, especially in Latin but also perhaps in Greek and Arabic, and it is possible that one of his fellow pupils was the future king Baldwin III. He entered the church at an early age, and around 1146 went to Europe to continue his studies. He studied liberal arts and theology in Paris and Orleans, and civil law and perhaps canon law in Bologna. In Paris he may have been taught by William of St. Amour.
Religious and political life in Jerusalem
After his return to the Holy Land in 1165 he became canon of the cathedral at Acre, and in 1167 was appointed archdeacon of the cathedral of Tyre by King Amalric I. In 1168 he was sent on a diplomatic mission for Amalric to the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus, to finalize the treaty made between the two rulers for a joint campaign against Egypt. In 1169 he visited Rome to answer accusations made against him by Frederick, the archbishop of Tyre; the charge is unknown but was perhaps related to William’s rather large income as archdeacon.
On his return from Rome in 1170 he became the tutor of Amalric's son and heir, Baldwin IV. It was William who discovered that Baldwin suffered from leprosy. Around this time he also began writing his history of the kingdom, under the patronage of Amalric. Unfortunately 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. On June 6, 1175, William became archbishop of Tyre, gaining control over the most important matters of both Church and State. 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. Due to his high position in the kingdom and his constant appearance in the royal court, all signs pointed to William succeeding as the next patriarch.
In 1179, again in place of the ailing patriarch, William attended the Third Council of the Lateran and was recruited by Pope Alexander III to engage in diplomatic matters with Emperor Manuel. He returned home in 1180, and was considered an obvious choice for the patriarchate when the old patriarch finally died, but in his absence the royal court had become bitterly divided into two factions. The so-called “court party”, led by Baldwin’s sister Sibylla, her new husband Guy of Lusignan, and Baldwin’s step-mother Agnes of Courtenay, were opposed to the “nobles’ party”, composed of the older families descended from the original crusaders, who did not trust newcomers like Guy. All was dependent on who would act as regent for the leprous Baldwin IV; William, as a friend of Baldwin’s father Amalric and also of the leader of the nobles’ party, Raymond III of Tripoli, was a firm supporter of their faction. Agnes, however, was a friend Heraclius, archbishop of Caesarea, and as Agnes by this point had far more influence on the king than any of the nobles’ party, Heraclius was chosen instead. William remained archbishop of Tyre and chancellor of the kingdom, but no longer had any influence at court as long as Agnes remained there. Heraclius possibly excommunicated him in 1183, but this is likely an invention of the 13th century writer who first claimed it. In any case his importance ceased with the accession of Baldwin V in 1185. The date of William’s death was given 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 of 1186, so 1185 seems to be the most reasonable date.
Works
William himself reports that he wrote an account of the Lateran Council which he attended, as well as a Historia or Gesta orientalium principum dealing with the history of the Holy Land from time of Muhammad until 1184. However, neither of these works have survived.
His great work is a chronicle of twenty-three unfinished books. The work begins with the conquest of Syria by Omar, but most of it deals with the advent of the First Crusade and the subsequent political history of the Kingdom of Jeursalem. Although he used older, unnamed sources, the work is also valuable as a primary source itself. It was widely translated and circulated throughout Europe after William's death. It is unknown what title William himself gave it, but the most usual title given to it in recent history is Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. This was translated as History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea in the standard English edition by Babcock and Krey, published in 1943. The Latin original was published in various places including the Patrologia Latina and the Receuil des historiens des croisades, but the now standard Latin version was published as Willelmi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon in 1986, edited by R. B. C. Huygens. The work was translated into Old French and had many anonymous additions made to it in the 13th century, including the so-called chronicle of Ernoul.
Sources
- A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. E.A. Babcock and A.C. Krey. Columbia University Press, 1943
- Willemi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon, ed. R. B. C. Huygens. Turnholt, 1986.
- Peter W. Edbury and John G. Rowe, William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East. Cambridge University Press, 1988.