Ambrose dâĂvreux
Ambrose dâĂvreux (flourished c. 1190) was a 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 Ăvreux and was a noncombatant making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His account of the Crusade is preserved in the Estoire de la guerre sainte (âHistory of the Holy Warâ), a poem of over 12,000 lines extant in an Anglo-Norman manuscript, but the Estoire is only an adaptation of Ambroseâs work. The original poem was used by Richard, a canon of Holy Trinity, London, as the source for his Itinerarium Regis Ricardi (âConcerning the Expedition of King Richardâ). The Estoire has little literary merit, but it is a valuable historical source.