SOURCE: “The Literature of the Crusades” in Aspects of the Crusades, University of Canterbury, 1962, pp. 10–16.

In the following essay, Saunders offers a brief overview of literature pertaining to the Crusades, beginning with the contemporary witness William of Tyre. Saunders discusses several other early accounts as well as later treatments of the Crusades through the twentieth century.

The Holy War seized on the imagination of Europe and called into being a wonderful literature of song and history. Almost every noble family of the West boasted crusaders among its ranks, and a large and growing public became avid for details of these deeds done beyond the seas. Nothing did more to stimulate the production of historical narratives, most of which were compiled in France. The best of the contemporary witnesses, William of Tyre, who was born in Frankish Syria, was one of the master-historians of the Middle Ages. His great...