La version latine et l'adaptation française de l'Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum de Guillaume de Tyr

A comparison of the twelfth-century Latin chronicle of the Crusades by William of Tyre, the Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, with its anonymous thirteenth-century French version, the Estoire de Eracles, reveals a number of major differences between the two. These, operating at every level of the translation - of syntax, lexis, or theme - show the difficulties the translator faced in adapting to his own and his first readers’ interests the complex historiography of William of Tyre. The conclusions which they allow us to draw confirm an understanding of translation closer to the idea of adaptation than to any conventional modern understanding of the term.