The Eracles or Estoire d’Eracles was an Old French translation and continuation of the history of William of Tyre by anonymous authors. The Eracles of the title refers to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (610-641), with whose recapture of Jerusalem in 630 William of Tyre’s history begins.
The continuation recounts in detail the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 and the subsequent history of Outremer, some manuscripts continuing the narrative as far as 1277. Forty-nine manuscripts of the translation with the continuation survive, but there is no critical edition. Two versions of the translation of William of Tyre have been published: the so-called Colbert-Fontainebleau Eracles (in the series Recueil des Historiens des Croisades) and one by Paulin Paris. The translator (possibly working in the West between 1205 and 1234) and the composers of later versions made important adjustments and additions to William’s text, and there are significant differences between the various manuscripts. The continuations that follow the translation were assembled between 1220 and 1277 and added on to the translation.
Forty-four of the manuscripts of the continuation for 1185-1229 record a version of events similar to that preserved in the Chronique d’Ernoul. The other five manuscripts, including the Colbert-Fontainebleau manuscripts, preserve different versions of events. All these continuations seem to reflect the political views of part of the Frankish nobility of Outremer. For the period 1229-1261, a variant version of Eracles exists in twelve manuscripts, known as the Rothelin Continuation, which was apparently composed in the West and reflects a Western viewpoint.