List of sources for the Crusades

The relevant medieval historiography of the period is edited in Recueil des historiens des croisades (RHC, 1841–1906). The RHC is divided into five series:
 * 1. Lois ("Laws", i.e. the Assizes of Jerusalem),
 * 2. Historiens occidentaux ("Western historians", i.e. texts in Latin and Old French),
 * 3. Historiens orientaux ("Eastern historians", i.e. Arabic texts),
 * 4. Historiens grecs ("Greek historians")
 * 5. Historiens arméniens ("Armenian historians")

Western historians
Important western histories include the Gesta Francorum, William of Tyre's Historia Ierosolimitana, Peter Tudebode, Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartes, Gesta Tancredi, Robert the Monk, Baldric of Dol,  Albert of Aachen, Ekkehard of Aura, Caffaro di Rustico da Caschifellone, Walter the Chancellor, Benedetto Accolti the Elder.

Greek historians
Greek Orthodox historians: Michael Psellos, Anna Komnene, John Kinnamos, Niketas Choniates, Nicephorus Gregoras, George Acropolites. The Eastern Orthodox view of the Crusades is dominated by the sack of Constantinople and the establishment of the Frankokratia in the Fourth Crusade in 1204. While the First Crusade was declared upon the request of the Byzantine Emperor, and concluded in triumphal success, the Crusades as a whole resulted in the terminal decline of the Byzantine Empire. Although the Byzantine Emperors were restored in 1260, the empire could never fully recover until eventually, weakened by civil wars, it fell to the Ottomans in 1453.

Eastern historians
Relevant eastern (Muslim) historiographies include works by Ali ibn al-Athir (d. 1233), Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad (d. 1234), Abd al-Latif (d. 1231), Ibn Jubayr (d. 1217), Ibn Khallikan (d. 1282), Abu al-Feda (d. 1331). Contemporary Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the "Frankish Wars" (حروب الفرنجة). The term used in modern Arabic, حملات صليبية ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya, lit. "campaigns of the cross" is a loan translation of the term crusade as used in Western historiography. Later Muslim historiography did not focus on the Crusades as a single or coherent event. One main reason for this is that the Crusades in retrospect figure as more of a marginal issue compared to the final collapse of the Caliphate under the Mongol invasions and the eventual replacement of Arab rule by the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which suppressed Arab nationalism for the following seven centuries. The end of the "Islamic Golden Age" was thus only partially due to the Crusades, and more so to the Turkic and Mongol expansions. According to modern historians of Islamic history such as Murphy (1976) and Mansfield (2003), the collapse of the Caliphate led to the development of "intellectual barriers" and "isolationist policies" in the Muslim world.

Notable contemporary accounts by Jewish authors include the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle (c. 1140), the chronicle of Eliezer bar Nathan (d. 1170), the Mainz Anonymous, and the works of Ephraim of Bonn (d. 1200).

Armenian historians
Armenian historians: Matthew of Edessa (d. 1144),  Nerses Shnorhali (d. 1173), Michael the Syrian (d. 1199), Kirakos Gandzaketsi (d. 1271),   Nerses of Lambron (d. 1198), Sempad the Constable (d. 1276), Hayton of Corycus (fl. 1307).

Literature
Crusade cycle, Old French cycle of chansons de geste concerning the First Crusade and its aftermath: