Templar of Tyre

This article is about a 14th-century document and its author. For the 12th-century Archbishop historian, see William of Tyre

The Templar of Tyre (French: Le Templier de Tyr) is the name of a medieval historian and also of the document he wrote in the 14th century, the third and largest section of the Gestes des Chiprois. It was long believed that the document was written by a knight on the island of Cyprus, around the time that the island was the base of operations for the three major military orders, the Knights Templar, the Teutonic Order, and the Knights Hospitaller. However, the author of the document was probably an Arabic-speaking translator, a secretary and confidant of the Templar Master Guillaume de Beaujeu, although not a Templar himself.

The document provides a first-hand account of the personal experiences of the author and gives valuable insights into an important period of the Crusades, documenting the years from the early 1230s until about 1314. It covers the final days of the Christian activities in the Holy Land, as they were fighting a losing battle against the Muslim Mamluk Sultanate, and such important events as the Siege and Fall of Acre in 1291 and the dissolution of the Order of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century. Written in Old French, English translations have been published.

References

• Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars (2nd edition, University Press, Cambridge, 2001) ISBN 978-0-521-67236-8.
• Paul Crawford, Templar of Tyre: The Deeds of the Cypriots (2003) ISBN 1-84014-618-4 (English translation)

External links

• Gestes des Chiprois, at the Medieval Sourcebook
• Les gestes des Chiprois, G. Raynaud, ed., Geneva, 1887. , On Openlibrary.org