Balian of Ibelin
Balian of Ibelin (; ), also known as Barisan the Younger, was a Crusades, crusader noble of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century. He was Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem#Lordship of Ibelin, Lord of Ibelin from 1170 to 1193. As the ...
who wrote an eyewitness account of the fall of Jerusalem in 1187. This was later incorporated into an
Old French
Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th Crusader Palestine now known as the ''Chronicle of Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer'' (), often abbreviated ''Ernoul-Bernard''. The chronicle covers the years from 1100 until 1228. A few manuscripts copied for Bernard, treasurer of Corbie Abbey, extend the narrative down to 1232.
Authorship
Ernoul himself is mentioned only once in history, and only in his own chronicle. He was a squire of
Balian of Ibelin
Balian of Ibelin (; ), also known as Barisan the Younger, was a Crusades, crusader noble of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century. He was Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem#Lordship of Ibelin, Lord of Ibelin from 1170 to 1193. As the ...
, an important crusader noble in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
, and accompanied his lord on an embassy from King Guy of Jerusalem to Count
Raymond III of Tripoli
Raymond III (1140 – September/October 1187) was count of Tripoli from 1152 to 1187. He was a minor when Nizari Assassins murdered his father, Count Raymond II of Tripoli. His cousin, King Baldwin III of Jerusalem, who was staying ...
in 1187. Balian and his retinue remained behind for a day at
Nablus
Nablus ( ; , ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 156,906. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a ...
during the voyage to Tripoli; the rest were ambushed at the
Battle of Cresson
The Battle of Cresson was a small battle between Frankish and Ayyubid forces on 1 May 1187 at the "Spring of the Cresson." While the exact location of the spring is unknown, it is located in the environs of Nazareth. The conflict was a prelude ...
on May 1. It was Ernoul who investigated the almost-empty
Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a military order of the Catholic faith, and one of the most important military orders in Western Christianity. They were founded in 11 ...
castle of La Fève before news of the battle reached Balian. No other mention is made of Ernoul. However, it is clear that he was at the
Battle of Hattin
The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between the Crusader states of the Levant and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the shape of the nearby extinct volcano of ...
on July 4, as his chronicle gives an account from the rearguard, which was commanded by his master Balian.
According to M. R. Morgan, the squire Ernoul was the same man as Arneis of Gibelet, who was an important noble in the crusader
Kingdom of Cyprus
The Kingdom of Cyprus (; ) was a medieval kingdom of the Crusader states that existed between 1192 and 1489. Initially ruled as an independent Christian kingdom, it was established by the French House of Lusignan after the Third Crusade. I ...
in the first half of the 13th century, and must have been connected to the Ibelins, who were also important there; the Gibelets had strong ties to the Ibelins throughout the 12th and 13th centuries in both Jerusalem and Cyprus. This identification is rejected by Peter Edbury, who suggests that Arneis lived too late to be Ernoul, and also that their names are too dissimilar.
Chronicle
The ''Chronicle of Ernoul'' is found in a number of separate but similar manuscripts, stemming from an original source that does not survive but assumed to have been written by Ernoul himself. The basis of these is a 13th-century
translation of the Latin chronicle of William of Tyre, who wrote in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the mid- to late-12th century. This French translation came to be known as the ''Estoire d'Eracles'', because William of Tyre began his chronicle with the reign of
Byzantine emperor
The foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, which Fall of Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as legitimate rulers and exercised s ...
Heraclius
Heraclius (; 11 February 641) was Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the Exarch of Africa, led a revolt against the unpopular emperor Phocas.
Heraclius's reign was ...
.
One of the more important manuscripts is known as the ''Lyon Eracles'', which is the basis of modern editions. It was edited by Morgan as ''La Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1183–1197)''. This manuscript continues until 1248, and the section containing the years 1184–1197 is not found in any other manuscript. The 19th century '' Recueil des historiens des croisades'', a collection of crusade texts compiled by the
Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres
The () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the . The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres).
History ...
, used a different version of the ''Eracles'' known as the Colbert-Fontainebleau ''Eracles''. There is also a shorter manuscript known as the ''abrégé'', and a ''Florentine Eracles'' from the
Laurentian Library
The Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana or BML) is a historic library in Florence, Italy, containing more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books. Built in a cloister of the Medicean Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze u ...
in
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
which has a unique section from 1191 to 1197 and continues until 1277.
The text known as ''The Chronicle of Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer'', edited by L. de Mas Latrie in the 19th century, has a separate manuscript tradition. It is essentially the same as the ''abrégé'', and appears to have been produced from the French translation of William of Tyre, which was then mostly removed except for a few sections. It carries on until 1227 or 1231, depending on the manuscript.
The surviving texts were written in their final form from the 1230s to the 1250s. Ernoul himself may have written only a small part, covering the years 1186 and 1187, in which Balian and the Ibelin family feature prominently.
Internet Medieval Sourcebook
The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the Fordham University History Department and Center for Medieval Studies. It is a web site with modern, medieval and ancient primary source documents, maps, secondary sources, bibliographies, ...
Alexis Paulin Paris
Alexis Paulin Paris (25 March 180013 February 1881) was a French scholar and author.
Life
Paris was born at Avenay ( Marne). He studied classics in Reims and law in Paris. He published in 1824 an ''Apologie pour l'école romantique'' (''In D ...