The History of the Holy War: Ambroise's Estoire de la Guerre Sainte (review)

Ambroise's Estoire de la Guerre Sainte is one of the most important primary sources for the Third Crusade (1189-1192). It recounts the events of the crusade from the point of view of the Anglo-Norman contingent. Its hero is King Richard the Lionheart—Ambroise being one of the earliest authors to give him this title (line 2306 and vol. 2, p. 65). This is an exciting tale of war, victory, and defeat, but although told in the same style as the epic chansons de geste it is a serious and accurate historical source. It is also one of the earliest works of history in French, holding an important place in the development of vernacular historiography. Scholars and students of the crusades, medieval warfare, and the reign of Richard the Lionheart will be indebted to Marianne Ailes and Malcolm Barber for this modern edition of Ambroise's work, with its readable translation and thorough introduction and notes.

This work is in two volumes. The first contains a short introduction describing the manuscript and editorial principles, a new edition of the text, and an index. The second contains an historical introduction considering the author and date of the text and describing the crusade and other contemporary accounts (Christian and Muslim) with maps and a chronology of the crusade, a translation of Ambroise's text with detailed explanatory notes, and a bibliography and index.

The importance of this edition is the greater because there is at present no book-length scholarly study of the Third Crusade. Students studying the crusade must refer to modern biographies of individuals such as Malcolm Lyons and David Jackson's study of Saladin or John Gillingham's studies of Richard the Lionheart, to various short studies of aspects of the crusade such as David Jacoby's study of Conrad of Montferrat, to short accounts of the crusade in wider studies of crusades such as Sidney Painter's account of the Third Crusade in Kenneth M. Setton's A History of the Crusades, and to translations of the primary sources. Recent translations have included my translation of the Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta Regis Ricardi (1997), itself closely related to Ambroise's Estoire, and D. S. Richards' translation of the work of Baha' al-Din ibn Shaddad (2001), but Ambroise's work stands alone in its immediacy, its narrative strength, and its careful use of technical military and naval terms.

Ambroise himself is a mysterious figure. Ailes and Barber note that references in the text point to a Norman origin, and make the plausible suggestion that he was the same clerk Ambroise who sang at the coronation of King John and his queen Isabella in 1199 (vol. 2, p. 2). The fact that he writes as an eyewitness and his narrative skill may too easily mislead the reader into thinking that Ambroise's account tells us all that we need to know about the Third Crusade. In fact, his account on its own is misleading. He tells us little about the crusade before the arrival of King Richard in the East in June, 1191. The role of Conrad of Montferrat in saving Tyre and the roles of the Italians and the Germans are almost overlooked. It is not clear from Ambroise's work why King Richard regarded Conrad as such a dangerous rival nor why Conrad acted as he did in opposition to Richard. Ambroise does not emphasize Richard's family connection with the ruling family of the kingdom of Jerusalem, so that we may believe that Richard's prominence in the crusade was due solely to his piety and military skill, and not that the crusade was also Richard's family concern. Ambroise gives his...