Joseph of Exeter was a twelfth century Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 poet from Exeter

Exeter

Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Around 1180, he left to study at Gueldres, where he began his lifelong friendship with Guibert, who later became Abbot of Florennes

Florennes

Florennes is a Walloon municipality located in Belgium in the province of Namur. On January 1, 2006 Florennes had a total population of 10,754...

. Some of their correspondence still survives.

His most famous poem is De bello Troiano

De bello Troiano

Daretis Phrygii Ilias De bello Troiano is an epic poem in Latin, written around 1183 by the English poet Joseph of Exeter. It tells the story of the ten year Trojan War as it was known in medieval western Europe...

("On the Trojan War") in six books, most of which was written before 1183, but which was finished after 1184. When his friend Baldwin

Baldwin of Exeter

Baldwin of Forde was Archbishop of Canterbury between 1185 and 1190. Son of a clergyman, he studied both canon law and theology at Bologna and was tutor to Pope Eugene III's nephew before returning to England to serve successive bishops of Exeter...

, Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

, set off to the Holy Land

Holy Land

The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

 on the Third Crusade

Third Crusade

The Third Crusade , also known as the Kings' Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin...

, he persuaded Joseph to accompany him. After Baldwin's death in 1190, Joseph returned home. He immortalized the crusade in his poem Antiocheis, of which only fragments survive. Several other poems, now lost, have been attributed to him, but there is no way of knowing if they were actually his work.