Like his later rival William of Tyre he studied law at the University of Bologna: his contemporaries and friends included Stephen of Tournai and Gratian.
He lived openly with a draper's widow from Nablus, Pasque de Riveri, who was referred to as "Madame la Patriarchesse", by whom he had at least one daughter.
The claim in the Old French Continuation that he excommunicated William in 1183, forcing him to leave the kingdom to seek the Pope's help in Rome, and arranged for him to be poisoned there, is demonstrably false.
Here they had several meetings with Henry II initially at Reading, afterwards at London (consecrating the church at the new Hospitallers' priory and headquarters at Clerkenwell).
The king then accompanied the mission to France, where a further meeting was held in early May 1185 with Philip II and it was agreed to send both men and money to the Holy Land.
Ralph claimed that Heraclius's enormous retinue and opulent dress offended the sensibilities of many westerners, who felt they were not befitting a patriarch; surely if the east was so wealthy, no help was needed from the west.
The heir was his mother Sibylla, but her husband, Guy of Lusignan, a relative newcomer to the kingdom, was widely disliked by the nobility.
He ordered the stripping of the silver from the edicule in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to strike coins with which to pay the city's defenders.
It was Heraclius who advised Balian to come to terms rather than fight to the death, which, he argued, would condemn the city's women and children to slavery and forced conversion.
[citation needed] Saladin's secretary Imad al-Din al-Isfahani claimed that Heraclius stripped the gold reliquaries from the churches on the Temple Mount, and carried away cartloads of treasure with him.
To date, the fictional representations of Heraclius are all derived from the negative portrayal in the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre: see Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan der Weise, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka's Król trędowaty (The Leper King), Manuel Mujica Láinez's El unicornio (The Wandering Unicorn), Graham Shelby's Knights of Dark Renown and Jan Guillou's The Knight Templar.