The ‘Lost’ Autobiographical Chapter of William of Tyre’s History (Book XIX

The ‘Lost’ Autobiographical Chapter of William of Tyre’s History (Book XIX.12)

This chapter is our main, indeed almost our only, source for the early career of

Archbishop William of Tyre, the principal historian of the twelfth-century Crusader states.  It
was  omitted  from  the  copies  made  of  William’s  History  at  a  very  early  stage  of  its
transmission.  Only the chapter heading was preserved, and it was believed that its contents
had been lost.  This chapter was not therefore included in the English translation by Babcock
and  Krey,  published  in  1941.    It  was,  however,  discovered  in  a  manuscript  in  the  Vatican
Library  by  Robert  Huygens,  who  published  it  in  1962.

It had always been known that

William had spent some time at the schools in Europe before his return to the Holy Land c.
1165. But it was only with the discovery of the lost chapter that it was realised that he had
spent  almost  twenty  years  in  Europe,  and  that  he  had  attended  the  classes  of  most  of  the
leading  teachers  at  the  Schools  of  Paris  and  Bologna,  the  two  most  important  intellectual
centres  of  twelfth-century  Christendom.    This  discovery  not  only  does  much  to  clarify  his
career and intellectual formation. The text is also important evidence for higher education at
a  key  period  during  which  the  nascent  universities  were  developing,  and  gives  us  almost  a
‘Who’s  Who’  of  the  grammarians,  philosophers,  theologians  and  law  teachers  of  the  so-
called Twelfth-Century Renaissance.  Furthermore, it enables us to be clear as to which parts
of the History deal with events when William himself was present in the east, and which must
have  been  based  on  second-hand  evidence,  albeit  often  very  detailed  and  carefully
researched.

„In the same year [1165?] I, William, by God‟s patience unworthy minister of the

holy church of Tyre, author of this history, which I have compiled to leave something of the

past to those who come after, after nearly twenty years in which I had most avidly followed

in France and Italy the schools of the philosophers and the study of liberal disciplines, as well

as the improving dogmatics of the Celestial philosophy and the prudence of Canon and Civil

law, returned home to the memory of my father and to my mother – may her soul now

receive eternal rest – and was received with embraces. I was born in the holy city of

Jerusalem, beloved by God, and was brought up there by my parents. During this middle

period, in which I spent my adolescence across the sea in the [various] disciplines and

dedicated my days to the study of letters in voluntary poverty, I was taught by the following

distinguished doctors in the liberal arts, venerable men worthy of pious record, founts of

knowledge, and treasurers of the disciplines. [These were] Master Bernard the Breton, who

afterwards returned to the town where he was born and became Bishop of “Cornwall”

[Quimper];

Master Peter Helias of the Poitevin nation,

and Master Ivo from the people and

nation of Chartres. All these had for a long time been pupils of that most learned of men

R.B.C. Huygens, „Guillaume de Tyre étudiant. Un chapitre (xix.12) de son “Histoire” retrouvé‟, Latomus xxi

(1962), 811-829.

Bernard de Moëlan was Bishop of Quimper from 1159.

Peter Helias was a famous teacher of grammar, who also taught the celebrated English scholar John of

Salisbury: on him see R.W. Hunt, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies i (1943), 194 ff.

Master Theodoric the Elder. The youngest of them, Master Ivo, had also profited from the

doctrine of Master Gilbert Porée, Bishop of Poitiers, whom he had heard after master

Theodoric.

I heard these alternately, as the pressure of their duties made them available to

me or not, for about ten years. I heard others also, albeit not so assiduously, but however

more frequently and especially through the means of disputation following the distinguished

and praiseworthy Alberic de Monte,

Master Robert of Melun,

Master Mainerius, Master

Robert Amiclas and Master Adam of Petit Pont,

who seemed to me to be “the greatest

luminaries”.

In theology, I diligently heard for the space of six years a man unrivalled in

that field whose surviving work the chorus of the prudent welcome with veneration and study

with reverence, a man commendable for his sound doctrine in everything, Master Peter

Lombard, afterwards Bishop of Paris.

I heard most frequently [too] Master Maurice, who

later succeeded him in the same bishopric.

In Civil Law at Bologna I had as teachers don

Ugolino di Porta Ravennate and don Bulgarus, jurists and men of supreme authority.

I also

often saw, and went to the lectures of, their contemporaries don Martino and don Giacomo,

men most learned in law; these four seemed as if columns on solid foundations in the Temple

of Justice, placed there to sustain it. I also had as a teacher in the exposition of [classical]

authors Hilary of Orleans,

and in geometry, and especially Euclid, Master William of

Soissons, a man of halting speech, but of sharp mind and subtle ingenuity. Memory of all

these lives up to the present, and record remains perpetual. Those who elucidate knowledge

and make it multiply to those travelling [in search of it], those who teach righteousness to

many, shall live in perpetuity and not suffer the waste of oblivion. Their light shall be as of

the stars, as in the sermon of Daniel. “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be

increased”, and also, “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament;

Ivo, Dean of Chartres cathedral, attested the orthodoxy of Bishop Gilbert Porée of Poitiers (bishop 1142-54)

when the latter was accused of heresy at the council of Rheims in 1148. See Beryl Smalley, „Master Ivo of
Chartres‟, English Historical Review l (1935), 680-6.

Those named in the next part of the list, Alberic de Monte (Mont-Sainte-Génévieve) etc. were all teachers in

the Schools of Paris.

Robert of Melun, despite his name, was an Englishman, who was Bishop of Hereford 1163-7.

Adam, also known as Adam of Balsham, was another Englishman who taught logic in Paris from 1132

onwards, although his teaching was criticised for its complexity by John of Salisbury.

Cf. Genesis, i.16.

Peter Lombard‟s Sentences (written c. 1150) became the fundamental medieval theology textbook. He was

Bishop of Paris 1158-60.

Maurice de Sully was Bishop of Paris from the autumn of 1160 until his death on 11

September 1196.

Ugolino, also known as Ugo Alberici, (d. 1168) was famed for his „Disputations‟. Master Bulgarus wrote

glosses (commentaries) on the Corpus Iuris Civilis of Justinian. Both were also active as judges, including at the
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa‟s Diet of Roncaglia in 1158.

Hilary was yet another Englishman, who taught grammar at Orleans and Angers, and at Paris from c. 1145. A

number of his letters and poems have also survived. See N.M. Häring, „Hilary of Orleans and his letter
collection, Studi Medievali, Ser III.xiv (1973), 1088-1122.

and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever”.

May the clement

and merciful God remember all of them in the reward of the just. Let all of those who

mercifully brought me from ignorance to the light of knowledge and righteousness, and who,

even to a small extent, raised me by their erudition, deserve eternal reward.

After I returned home by the will of God, lord William, Bishop of Acre,

of pious

memory, of the nation of the Lombards, a careful and discreet man, who had been translated

to that church from the archdeaconate of Tyre, immediately after my arrival and with the

generosity of true charity, and with the consent of all his chapter, gave me a benefice, known

as a prebend, in his church. Furthermore King Amalric, whose deeds I describe in the present

work, seemed to receive my arrival quite welcomingly. Had not a certain person, moved by

envy, presented objection to me and turned the royal mind somewhat against me, he would

have immediately assigned a whole benefice (as it is called) to me. However, he did not cease

to show solicitude for me, and sought an opportunity to direct his prayers among the bishops

for a benefice to be promised to me (although I was ignorant of this). He much enjoyed our

conversations; and it was at his suggestion, which I freely embraced, that I wrote the volume

showing the deeds which happened in the kingdom from [the time of] its liberation from the

hand of the enemy. But let us now return to our story.‟

Daniel xii.3-4.

Bishop of Acre c. 1165-72.