Légende ou histoire ? Les assassins dans l'Estoire de guerre sainte d'Ambroise et dans la Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier

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Legend or History ? The Assassins in Ambroise’s Estoire de guerre sainte and in the Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier The legend of the Assassins held fascination throughout the Middle Ages. Originally started by Arab lampoonists to denounce the heretical sect of the Ishmaelites, it was fed by the fanciful vision of European writers who added their own legends. Ambroise, in the Estoire de la guerre sainte, which tells the story of the Third Crusade from an English perspective, and Ernoul in the Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier in the opposite camp come face to face with this legend on the death of Conrad of Montferrat, titular King of Jerusalem, from the blows of two followers of the sect led by the Old Man of the Mountain. One writer reports the incident stressing its tragic dimension, while adding a succinct explanatory passage on the customs of the Assassins ; the other only provides the details of the murder. This divergence in methodology, which raises the question of procedure in the writing of history and its political and religious agenda, makes it possible to define two different historians. It also reveals an imaginary Other created by an image of the self.