William of Tyre

William of Tyre was born in Jerusalem around 1130 CE, spent about 20 years studying in Western Europe, and returned to Jerusalem in 1165 CE (Edbury and Rowe, 1991:13). Sometime later, he became the archdeacon of Tyre and for much of his career he was involved in diplomacy (Edbury and Rowe, 1991:16). He also tutored King Baldwin IV (Guidoboni and Comastri, 2005:909). From 1169 until sometime before the end of 1170 CE, William was back in Europe (Edbury and Rowe, 1991:16-17). In addition to his official duties, William was also a historian. His only surviving work was written in Latin between 1170 and 1184 CE and is variously known as Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum (History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea), Historia Ierosolymitana (History of Jerusalem) or frequently by its shortened title Historia (Edbury and Rowe, 1991:24-26). An anonymous translation and continuation of Historia into Vulgar French was made between 1220 and 1277 CE into a new text variously known as History of Heraclius (Estoire d'Eracles), L'estorie de Eracles empereur et la conqueste de la terre d'Outremer, or Livre du conquest (Guidoboni and Comastri, 2005 and Helen Nicholson in Murray, 2006: v. 2, p. 405). William is said to have understood Greek and Arabic (Guidoboni and Comastri, 2005:909) although this assumption has been challenged (Edbury and Rowe, 1991:45 n.2). In his prologue to Historia, William stated that he had no access to Greek or Arabic written sources (Edbury and Rowe, 1991:44) however since he wrote a book on Islamic History (which did not survive), he may have, in fact, used some Arabic materials. He died sometime before 1186 CE (Edbury and Rowe, 1991:22).