Albert of Aachen

Also known as Albertus Aquensis, Albert of Aix

German cleric of Aachen whose Historia Ierosolimitana, compiled from the testimony of returning pilgrims, preserves the fullest surviving account of the People's Crusade and the eastern campaign of 1097–99.

Albert was a canon of the cathedral of Aachen who, by his own admission, never set foot in the East. He worked his Historia Ierosolimitana up between roughly 1125 and 1150 from the spoken accounts of returning Crusaders and from now-lost written sources, and he writes with the unguarded enthusiasm of a man who envied the men he interviewed.

What makes the Historia indispensable is its coverage. Where Fulcher of Chartres and Raymond of Aguilers each follow a single contingent, Albert pulls in material from across the whole expedition — most importantly the disastrous People's Crusade led by Peter the Hermit, for which he is the principal source, and the long siege of Antioch, where his details often correct or supplement the eyewitness chronicles.

Modern scholarship has rehabilitated Albert from the dismissive judgement of nineteenth-century editors, who treated him as a fabulist; he is now read as a careful compiler whose Latin is plain, whose chronology is mostly sound, and whose preservation of otherwise lost oral tradition makes him a foundational text for any account of the First Crusade.

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