Historia De Expeditione Friderici Imperatoris

The ''History of the Expedition of the Emperor Frederick'' (Latin: ''Historia de expeditione Friderici imperatoris'') is an anonymous Latin account of the campaign waged by Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, as part of the Third Crusade. It covers the period 1187–1196, but is centred on the expedition of 1189–1190.

It appears to be a composite work, compiled from pieces written while the expedition was underway with a preface and an appendix added. Very early manuscript copies survive, but it is only a later 13th-century notice that first gives an author's name, Ansbert. This may be the name of the author or perhaps the compiler, but it is uncertain. The work is associated with Bavaria and Austria.

It provides a nearly day-to-day account of the expedition as it crossed the Balkans and Anatolia before the sudden death of Frederick I in a swimming accident. It is the most detailed surviving account of the expedition and it relies mainly on eyewitness reports.

Date, authorship and manuscripts

The ''History'' is a contemporary account, having attained its finished form no later than about 1200. An early draft appears to have existed before 1195. The final form cannot be earlier than the summer of 1196. Frederick's son and successor, the Emperor Henry VI, who died in September 1197, is referred to throughout as living. Parts of the work appear to have been written contemporaneously with events, as shown by references to certain persons as still living (e.g., Count Philip of Flanders, who died at the siege of Acre in 1191).

The earliest surviving copy was made around 1200 in the Benedictine abbey of Saint Lambrecht in Styria. This incomplete copy contains only a third of the text. Another very earlier surviving copy was made at the Praemonstratensian monastery of Milevsko (Mühlhausen) in Bohemia before 1221. It is also incomplete. The full text is only known from two copies commissioned in the 18th century by the Moravian antiquarian and abbot Josef Piter. These copies were not made from either of the known earlier manuscripts.

In the Milevsko manuscript, Abbot Gerlach added a notice of the work's title and authorship: "The History of the Expedition of the Emperor Frederick, written by an Austrian cleric who was present on this same". Later in the 13th century, somebody added the authors name: "called Ansbert". Since neither notice is particularly late, some scholars have taken them at face value. Others have questioned the name or even the implication of Gerlach's notice that the work was the product of a single author. The hands of multiple authors have been seen in the variations of ''cursus'' employed in different sections. It is possible, given the distribution of references to Austria, that only the last part was written by an Austrian cleric, who may also have been the compiler of the whole. The earlier parts appear to have been written in the diocese of Passau

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