Ernoul

According to the Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le tre-sorier, Ernoul was a squire employed by Balian, lord of Ibelin, and an eyewitness to the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187. The Old French chronicle attributed to him, which survives in ten manuscripts, tells the history of Outremer from 1100 to 1228; some manuscripts continue the chronicle to 1232 and state that it was copied for Bernard, treasurer of Corbie Abbey.

Apart from the single reference to Ernoul the squire, little is known of the author(s) of this chronicle. Margaret Morgan’s theory that Ernoul was Arneis of Gibelet, a Cypriot lawyer active in the 1220s, has not been accepted by scholars. The content of the chronicle indicates only that the author or compiler was a native of Outremer and supported the policies of the Ibelin family; it is therefore valuable because it preserves the views of part of the Frankish nobility of Outremer. Like the Eracles (the Old French translation of William of Tyre’s Historia), it recounts many attractive anecdotes, which may not be reliable but which make readable history.

Composed after 1187, the first part of the Chronique concentrates on the history of the kingdom of Jerusalem from 1163 and the rise of Saladin, although it also includes a unique and valuable account of the foundation of the Templars. The second section, from 1185 to 1228/1232, is similar to the majority of the continuations of the Eracles. Peter Edbury and John Gillingham consider that only the material covering 1187 originated with Ernoul the squire, the rest being a later compilation. Edbury has demonstrated that the Lyons Eracles (MS Lyons, Bibliotheque de la Ville, 828), which Morgan had suggested was directly based on Ernoul’s original chronicle (now lost), was in fact assembled in the 1240s.

-Helen Nicholson

See also: Jerusalem, (Latin) Kingdom of

Bibliography

Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le tresorier, ed. Louis de Mas Latrie (Paris: Renouard, 1871).

Edbury, Peter W., “The Lyon Eracles and the Old French Continuations of William of Tyre,” in Montjoie: Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Riley-Smith, and Rudolf Hiestand (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1997), pp. 139-153.

Gillingham, John B., “Roger of Howden on Crusade,” in Medieval Historical Writing in the Christian and Islamic Worlds, ed. D. O. Morgan (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1982), pp. 60-75.

Morgan, Margaret Ruth, The Chronicle of Ernoul and the Continuations of William of Tyre (London: Oxford University Press, 1973).