AMBROSE D'VREUX

flourished c. 1190 Norman poet and chronicler who accompanied Richard I of England as a minstrel on the Third Crusade. Nothing more is known of him than that he was probably a native of vreux and was a noncombatant making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His account of the Crusade is preserved in the Estoire de la guerre sainte (History of the Holy War), a poem of over 12,000 lines extant in an Anglo-Norman manuscript; but the Estoire is only an adaptation of Ambrose's work. The original poem was used by Richard, a canon of Holy Trinity, London, as the source for his Itinerarium Regis Ricardi (Concerning the Expedition of King Richard). The Estoire has not much literary merit, but it is a valuable historical source.