The ''Itinerarium Regis Ricardi'' (in full, ''Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi'') is a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

prose narrative of the

Third Crusade The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt by three European monarchs of Western Christianity (Philip II of France, Richard I of England and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor) to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by ...

, 1189-1192. The first part of the book concentrates on

Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...

's conquests and the early stages of the crusade, with a long description of the expedition of the Emperor

Frederick Barbarossa Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (german: link=no, Friedrich I, it, Federico I), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death 35 years later. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt on ...

. The rest of the book describes King

Richard I of England Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was ...

's participation in the crusade. The ''Itinerarium '' was formerly attributed to

Geoffrey de Vinsauf Geoffrey of Vinsauf ( fl. 1200) is a representative of the early medieval grammarian movement, termed ''preceptive grammar'' for its interest in teaching '' ars poetria''. ''Ars poetria'' is a subdivision of the grammatical art (''ars grammatica ...

, and was said to be a first-hand narrative. In fact, it was apparently compiled by Richard de Templo, a canon of Holy Trinity, London, in the early 1220s, on the basis of at least two lost contemporary memoirs. The first part is similar to the so-called ''Latin Continuation of William of Tyre'', which seems to be a reworked version of the ''Itinerarium ''. The second part, in particular, is closely related to an

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 *Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature *Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 1066 ...

poem on the same subject,

Ambroise Ambroise, sometimes Ambroise of Normandy,This form appeared first in (flourished ) was a Norman poet and chronicler of the Third Crusade, author of a work called ', which describes in rhyming Old French verse the adventures of as a crusader. The ...

's ''L'Estoire de la Guerre Sainte''. It is not clear whether or not Richard de Templo went on the Third Crusade, but some of the differences between his text and Ambroise's '' Estoire '' indicate that he was writing from first-hand knowledge. William Stubbs's edition of the ''Itinerarium'' ( Rolls Series, 1864) appeared before the manuscript of Ambroise's poem was discovered. Hans E. Mayer published an edition of an earlier version of the text in 1962, and Helen J. Nicholson translated Stubbs's edition in 1997.

Editions

*William Stubbs (ed.), ''Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi'' (1864), available a
Google Books
*Hans E. Mayer, ''Das ''Itinerarium Peregrinorum''. Eine zeitgenössische englische Chronik zum dritten Kreuzzug in ursprünglicher Gestalt''. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1962. *Helen J. Nicholson, ''The Chronicle of the Third Crusade: The Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi''. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997. *Anon. translation,
Itinerary of Richard I and others to the Holy Land
' (Cambridge, Ontario, 2001) (pdf) Latin prose texts Crusade literature 13th-century Latin books {{MEast-hist-book-stub