Two other historical poems of the same school and of analogous character to the _Ligurinus_ are the _Alexandreis_[475] of Walter of Châtillon (also known as Walter of Lille), written about 1180, and the _Philippis_ of William the Breton, published about 1225.[476] These are Latin hexameter epics modeled on Virgil and Lucan; full of allusions to Latin literature and mythology, they also show originality and a power of accurate description of scenes and country.[477] The _Alexandreis_ sings the deeds of Alexander the Great; the _Philippis_ the exploits of Philip Augustus of France. HISTORIANS AND HISTORIES OF THE CRUSADES Our period was the age of the reopening of the Levant and the regions of the Black Sea to Western knowledge through the Crusades and through the expansion of commerce that came in their train. The historians of the Crusades, consequently, furnish us with geographical notices of a kind differing from the stereotyped and secondhand geography of the encyclopedias. The items in the Crusaders’ records are often the results of actual experience. They give us an impression of freshness lacking in the pages of dry compilations like the _De imagine mundi_. But the Crusaders were not geographers and were without any true geographical instinct. They rarely felt an interest in anything besides the immediate events they were undertaking to describe or in matters not purely practical or utilitarian.[478] The most important work, from this point of view, is the _Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum_ of William of Tyre (born 1130).[479] This covers events in Palestine and in the Crusaders’ states during the years between 1095 and 1185 and abounds in observations on the products and appearance of the country, on the habits of the Arabs—whose language William had probably learned[480]—and on other peoples of the East. The _Gesta regis Ricardi_, which has sometimes been erroneously ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough,[481] records the voyage of Richard Coeur-de-Lion to the Holy Land in 1190. In the description of the routes to and from Palestine[482] we find a wealth of detail about the countries, isles, and seas traversed. The distinctly nautical style and content in places make it seem not at all improbable that a part of the book at least was derived from some sailing manual. Roger of Hoveden in his _Chronica_[483] (to the year 1201) made use of the same sources as those on which the author of the _Gesta regis Ricardi_ drew, though Roger’s account is fuller and more detailed, especially regarding Spain. Another source for the Crusade of Richard Coeur-de-Lion is the _Estoire de la guerre sainte_ by Ambroise,[484] a professional writer, who took part on the expedition and who described the Holy Land with less understanding than William of Tyre almost exclusively from the point of view of the sufferings and hardships experienced by the Crusaders.