The Chronicle of the First Crusade is an extract from Gesta Francorum Jherusalem peregrinantium, written in three parts, 1101, 1106 and 1124-1127, by Fulcher de Chartres, a French chaplain and chronicler of the First Crusade. Born around 1059 and trained for the priesthood in Chartres, in what is now France, Fulcher attended the Council of Clermont, accompanying his overlord, Stephen of Blois, to southern Italy, Bulgaria and Constantinople in 1096, following the call to action. at the instigation of Pope Urban II in response to a request for help from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I. In June 1097, Fulcher became chaplain to Baldwin of Flanders, with whom he remained, traveling with him to Jerusalem in the winter of 1099. Fulcher, who remained in Jerusalem for the rest of his life, dying there around 1127, provided, as as an eyewitness to the events, the Christian perspective of the siege of Jerusalem. Ibn al-Athīr, in full Izz al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan Ali ibn al-Athīr, born May 12, 1160 in what is now Turkey, was an influential Arab historian whose main work was a history of the world, al -Kāmil fī al-tārīkh (“The Complete History”), beginning with world history. creation of Adam. He also wrote a work entitled al-Bāhir, a history of the former officers of the Seljuk army, called atabegs, who founded dynasties, drawn from his own experience and that of his father, who served under the Zangids of Mosul. Ibn al-Athīr spent a scholarly life in Mosul, but often visited Baghdad and was, for a time, with Saladin's army in Syria, later living in Aleppo and Damascus, dying in Mosul, in Iraq in 1233. Ibn al-Athīr, writing many years after the events he describes, and long after the city of Jerusalem and middle of paper ...... y within its borders, although that the practitioners of Christianity were not entitled to the same civil and political privileges granted to the Muslim inhabitants of the empire. The account provided by Fulcher of Chartres, although illustrating an extremely brutal, indifferent, merciless and unflattering portrayal of the Christian crusaders, seemingly provides an impartial and objective chronicle of the siege of Jerusalem. February 18, 2012, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/221763/Fulcher-of-ChartresEncyclopædia Britannica Online, sv “Ibn al-Athīr”, accessed February 18, 2012, http://www.britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/280690/Ibn-al-AthirJackson J. Spielvogel, Western Civilization: Volume I: To 1715, 8th edition, (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012), 301.Ibid.Ibid.