AMBROSE (c. IIgo), Norman poet, chronicler of the third crusade and author of a work called L'Estoire de la guerre sainte, which describes in rhyming French verse the adventures of Richard Coeur de Lion as a crusader. The poem is known to us only through one Vatican ms., and the credit for detecting its value belongs to Gaston Paris, although his edition (1897) was partially anticipated by the editors of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, who published some selections in the 27th volume of their Scriptores (1885).
Ambrose followed Richard I. as a non-combatant, and not improbably as a court minstrel. He is surprisingly accurate in his chronology; though he did not complete his work before 1 195, it is evidently founded upon notes which he had taken in the course of his pilgrimage. He is rather to be treated as a biographer than as 'a historian of the crusade in its broader aspects. None the less he is the chief authority for the events of the years 11 9o-9 2, so far as these are connected with the Holy Land. The Itinerarium Regis Ricardi (formerly attributed to Geoffrey Vinsauf, but in reality the work of Richard, a canon of Holy Trinity, London) is little more than a free paraphrase of Ambrose. Stubbs's edition of the Itinerarium (Rolls series, 1864) in which it is treated as an independent work, appeared before Gaston Paris published his discovery.
See the edition of L'Estoire de la guerre sainte by Gaston Paris in the Collection des documents inedits sur l'histoire de France (1897) ; the editor discusses in his introduction the biography of Ambrose, the value of the poem as a historical source, and its relation to the Itinerarium. R. Pauli's remarks (in Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores, xxvii.) also deserve attention. (H. W. C. D.) AMBROSE (ANDREY SERTIS-KAMENSKIY) (I 708-17 7 I ), archbishop of Moscow from 1 761 to 1771, was famous for his interest in schemes for the alleviation of poverty in Moscow and as the founder of new churches and monasteries. A terrible out break of plague occurred in Moscow in 17 71, and the populace began to throng round an image of the Virgin to which they attributed supernatural healing power. Ambrose, seeing that the crowding together spread the contagion, had the image secretly removed. The mob, suspecting that he was responsible for its removal, attacked a monastery to which he had retired, dragged him away from the sanctuary, and, having given him time to receive the sacrament, strangled him. Ambrose's works include a liturgy and translations from the Fathers.