The Oriental History was written by Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre, between 1218 and 1220, at the time of the capture of Damietta. Conceived as a three-volume work, it was intended to cover the history and sacred geography of the Holy Land, the exploits and defeats of the Latin Kingdom, the various Eastern peoples with their "divergent" forms of Christianity or their Muslim faith, and finally, the mirabilia (miraculous phenomena), with the aim of discovering their true meaning, far removed from mere curiosity. An entire book was devoted to the Orders of the West. This vast project could not be completed. We have Book I, which depicts the Eastern Lands and takes us to the dawn of the Fifth Crusade; Book II, Western History; and a disparate collection of varied pieces that were undoubtedly intended to form Book III but remained unfinished. This edition, based on the Latin texts previously edited by Moschus, Bongars and Martène-Durand, is a new annotated translation of Books I and III. It should allow easier access to a work whose importance remains certainly crucial for the study of the mentalities of the crusaders or that of the historian's method. - [Publisher]

Language: French

Locators: ISBN: 978-2-7453-1249-5