William of Tyre's "Histoire d'Outre Mer"

Description This manuscript, completed in the later part of the thirteenth century, contains William of Tyre's Estoire d'Eracles (to 1229), Les Faits des Romains (continuation, Tiberius to Julian), and a letter of Prester John. While the origin of the manuscript is debatable between Acre and Paris, Jaroslav Folda suggests a strong connection with Epinal 45, a manuscript known to have been created in Paris during this same time. Versions of William of Tyre's work were particularly popular in France during the latter part of the thirteenth century. The volume of William de Tyre's history of the Crusades housed at the Walters Art Museum features eighteen historiated initials, completed by four different artists' hands, of varying competence. What sets this particular manuscript apart from its contemporaries is the two unusual appended texts and its selective pictorial style.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
12/31/1969	Loan Consideration	examined for loan
10/02/2013	Treatment	binding stabilized; examined for digitization; media consolidation; splits mended
8/19/2016	Treatment	binding stabilized; examined for loan; repaired; splits mended

Exhibitions

• Tales in the Telling: Secular Narrative Illustration in the Medieval Book. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1991.
• The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library's Medieval Picture Bible. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Academy Art Museum, Easton; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton; The Mitchell Gallery, Annapolis; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown. 2002.
• Checkmate! Medieval People at Play. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2010.
• Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 2016-2017.

Provenance Gordon of Buthlaw, mid 19th century; Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham, London, 1861, no. CLIV; Sale, Sotheby's, London, March 16, 1903, lot 689; purchased by Léon Gruel, Paris, March 16, 1903 [1]; puchased by Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1903; by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 1931. [1] Gruel and Engelmann bookplate 'No 138'

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1903