ABSTRACT
At the Military Orders Conference held in London in 2005, Malcolm Barber read a characteristically robust essay entitled "The Reputation of Gerard of Ridefort". In it he surveyed what can be known of Gerard's career from the surviving sources, pointing out inter alia how historians have had to come to terms with the contentious evidence presented by the various surviving versions of the narrative that came originally from the pen of Ernoul, a squire of Balian of Ibelin. Ernoul's original narrative described the collapse of the kingdom of Jerusalem while at the same time extolling the reputation of his master, Balian of Ibelin, together with that of Balian's brother, Baldwin of Ramla. This chapter examines how the texts, or, rather, how some of them, constructed the events surrounding the Battle of Le Cresson, and, in particular, how they present the role of Gerard of Ridefort.
