William of Tyre Sources
Edbury and Rowe (1991:44-45) supplied the following about Williams's sources
In the Prologue William had something to say about how he set about gathering information. He stated that he had had access to no Greek or Arabic written sources and, excepting the few things he had witnessed in person, he had been informed solely by traditions ('solis traditionibus instructi').2 What in fact he had were his own experiences, the memories of others, oral traditions passed on from one generation to another, a certain amount of formal documentation preserved in the archives, the writings of those earlier Christian or pagan authors referred to in the previous chapter, and some earlier narrative histories of the Crusade. At first sight it may seem strange that he should either leave these earlier Crusade histories out of the reckoning or should lump them together with the oral sources of information as traditions. But it is important to see these remarks in context. William had just been describing his Oriental History and had made it clear that he had relied largely on the work of Sa'id ibn Batrik. We may surmise that, in the absence of other information on the course of Muslim history, he had followed this author closely and had regarded his work as authoritative. In contrast, when he wrote the Historia he not only used no Greek or Arabic text, he lacked any work he could treat as an authority. It is true he used older narrative materials, but he did not feel obliged to accept their every detail: they were traditions which happened to be in written form, not definitive statements to be regarded as the inviolable truth. In consequence the Historia is not a compendium of information consisting of a received body of material from the periods before William's own generation and then his account of his own day. Instead it is in its entirety a work of critical perception. William could handle the events of the present generation to his own satisfaction; as for the events of earlier generations, he had to use his historical acumen as best he might to gain his understanding from the traditions at his disposal.3Edbury and Rowe (1991:53-57) supplied the following discussion about Williams's sources during his own times
If William is to be believed, it was with something of a sigh of relief that he could move from his description of past events to an account of his own times. His preamble to Book xvi continues:But what follows from now on is in part what we have observed as an eyewitness and in part what has been passed on to us by the trustworthy account of those who were present at the events. And so, relying on this two-fold support, with the aid of God, we shall set down what remains for future reading more easily and more faithfully. For the memory normally recalls recent times more accurately, and the impression that things seen make on the mind is not so easily forgotten as things learnt of solely by word of mouth.33But the problem still remains of the extent to which he himself was an eyewitness. In the Prologue he spoke of the 'few things which we ourselves have beheld with our own eyes',34 and it is likely that this is not just an example of false modesty. From the mid-1140s until 1165 William was in the West, and so, except for childhood reminiscences such as his sighting of Patriarch Ralph of Antioch, he was totally dependent on hearsay until his return.35 But even for the years of his public life in the Latin kingdom as described in Books XIXto XXIII he may not have observed many events at first hand.36 For example, he never to our knowledge actually participated in a military campaign or carried the relic of the Cross into war.37 Yet these books are full of accounts of military activity. What we have, therefore, are his informants' reports leavened by his own insight and imagination. It may also be wondered whether he spent as much time at the court of King Baldwin IV as is commonly supposed. As we have seen, there is reason to believe that, even although he held the office of chancellor, he was not in regular attendance on the king.38 But the difficulty lies partly in the manner in which he reported events. Thus it is only the fact that three days later he was appointed archdeacon of Tyre that leads us to suspect that he had been present at the marriage of King Amaury and Maria Comnena: otherwise, except possibly for his remarks about Amaury's attire at the wedding, there is nothing to indicate that he was an eyewitness.39
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William related a certain amount about his own activities, but only so much. The result is that the historian cannot always be certain whether his impersonal account of a particular event means that he only knew of it at second hand or that he was directly involved but was reticent about pushing himself to the forefront of his narrative.
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So if William was not strictly speaking as an eyewitness of most of what he recorded, how did he gather his information? Of the failure of the Second Crusade to capture Damascus, he wrote:I recall that I frequently enquired of the more generally prudent men and of those whose memory of that time was still quite fresh, so that by taking the greatest care to find out the facts I might set down in the present history the reason behind so great an evil and the identities of the authors of so great a crime....
What we cannot know, once William's literary sources are behind us, is how carefully he walked that invisible line between legitimate imagination and serious distortion. This problem becomes acute when we consider his reliance on information gathered at second or third hand and the role of rumour and hearsay in the construction of the Historia. That he recorded things he understood simply as rumour is unquestioned.
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Except where he himself was an eyewitness, William was dependent on the written or oral information he had been able to acquire. But in assessing this information he relied on his own expertise and education, and it was only after he had brought his own critical scrutiny to bear upon it that, suitably refashioned, it could pass into writing. Significantly, there are few miracle stories in the Historia and few incidents, such as the circumstances of the death of Baldwin III, which not only arouse disbelief but also leave us wondering how he could have allowed himself to present his material so unconvincingly. Not much that is miraculous or selfevidently fictitious has got through William's grid. His intellect, insight and training in rhetoric combined to set criteria by which he could evaluate his data. The problem, as he himself perceived, was that the reliability of his information varied considerably. Inevitably this carried over into the Historia itself, with the result that not all his statements are of equal authority. So, before accepting his information and standpoint on any particular incident, historians have to be on their guard and consider carefully the nature and reliability of his own sources. It is dangerous to cite him indiscriminately and out of context. What William had set out to do was to divine the truth from his sources and his own experience.