The paper comprises two sections. The first discusses the transmission of three versions of an anonymous eyewitness account of the first crusade. The account in question was written within a few years of the final events of the first crusade in 1099, as were its three versions studied here. The best known of the three is Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum (GF). The second version, Peregrinatio Antiochie per Vrbanum papam facta (PA), derives from Cambridge, St Catharine’s College, MS 3, a new manuscript, which this essay presents and examines. This version has so far been thought to be lost and was previously known only fragmentarily through the editio princeps of Gesta Francorum. The third version is Peter Tudebode’s reworking of the account (PT). Two stemmata are proposed as preliminary solutions to the question of how these three are interrelated. For, owing to the current research situation, as yet it is not certain whether Gesta Francorum or Peregrinatio Antiochie represents the earliest surviving stage of the work’s transmission. The stemmata are elaborated in an appendix, which extends them with a fourth, slightly later text, Hystoria de uia et recuperatione Antiochiae atque Ierusolymarum (HAI). The second section of the article argues that, with respect to its title, contents, and literary fabric, earlier scholarship on Gesta Francorum and Peter Tudebode has apprehended the work somewhat insufficiently and even incorrectly. These shortcomings ensue primarily from inaccurate assessments of the relevant manuscript evidence by the modern editors of Gesta Francorum and Tudebode. As regards the title, the paper asserts that the name “Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum” was composed by a person other than the anonymous author. A better candidate for the authorial title is “Itinerarium Hierosolimitanorum”. This conclusion suggests that, contrary to the modern opinion, a description of holy places in and around Jerusalem that follows the studied account of the crusade in almost all manuscripts is an integral part of the work. The evidence from manuscripts verifies this inference. Finally, the paper demonstrates that as a literary piece, the work is a hybrid, combining elements of the genres of itinerary, gesta or historiography, and hagiography. For students of the crusade and medieval literature, the most fascinating of the work’s literary layers is the hagiographic one.

EXPLOR_STEP=$WICRI_ROOT/ChansonRoland/explor/ChansonRolandV7/Data/Istex/Corpus

HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_STEP/biblio.hfd -nk 001976 | SxmlIndent | more

HfdSelect -h $EXPLOR_AREA/Data/Istex/Corpus/biblio.hfd -nk 001976 | SxmlIndent | more

{{Explor lien
   |wiki=    ChansonRoland
   |area=    ChansonRolandV7
   |flux=    Istex
   |étape=   Corpus
   |type=    RBID
   |clé=     ISTEX:3E82AEF21285FA9925842186D44F214886D8CB33
   |texte=   The origins of the Gesta Francorum and two related texts: their textual and literary character
}}