Ambroise, sometimes Ambroise of Normandy,This form appeared first in (flourished ) was a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

poet and chronicler of the Third Crusade, author of a work called ', which describes in rhyming Old French verse the adventures of as a

crusade The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were i ...

r. The poem is known to us only through one Vatican manuscript, and long escaped the notice of historians. The credit for detecting its value belongs to Gaston Paris, although his edition (1897) was partially anticipated by the editors of the ', who published some selections in the twenty-seventh volume of their Scriptores (1885). Ambroise followed Richard I as a

noncombatant Non-combatant is a term of art in the law of war and international humanitarian law to refer to civilians who are not taking a direct part in hostilities; persons, such as combat medics and military chaplains, who are members of the belligerent a ...

, and not improbably as a court- minstrel. He speaks as an eyewitness of the king's doings at

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

, in Cyprus, at the siege of Acre, and in the abortive campaign which followed the capture of that city. Ambroise is surprisingly accurate in his chronology; though he did not complete his work before 1195, it is evidently founded upon notes which he had taken in the course of his pilgrimage. He shows no greater political insight than we should expect from his position; but relates what he had seen and heard with a naïve vivacity which compels attention. He is by no means an impartial source: he is prejudiced against the

Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century Germany in the Middle Ages, German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings, to refer ...

, against the French, and against all the rivals or enemies of his master, including the ''Polein'' party which supported Conrad of Montferrat against Guy of Lusignan. He is rather to be treated as a biographer than as a historian of the Crusade in its broader aspects. Nonetheless he is an interesting primary source for the events of the years 1190–1192 in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Books 2–6 of the '' Itinerarium Regis Ricardi'', a Latin prose narrative of the same events apparently compiled by Richard, a canon of Holy Trinity, London, are closely related to Ambroise's poem. They were formerly sometimes regarded as the first-hand narrative on which Ambroise based his work, but that can no longer be maintained.

Published edition

* Ambroise, ''L´Estoire de la guerre sainte''. Paris, 1897: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6517331f.r * Ambroise, ''Itinerarium regis Ricardi''. London, 1920: https://archive.org/details/itinerariumregis00richuoft * Ambroise, ''The History of the Holy War'', translated by Marianne Ailes, Boydell Press, 2003.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ambroise 12th-century deaths Anglo-Norman literature Crusade literature Year of birth unknown 12th-century French poets Christians of the Third Crusade

Published edition

See also

Notes