The French historian and soldier Geffroi de Villehardouin (ca. 1150-1213) was the first French chronicler who wrote in the vernacular and whose writings deserve literary recognition.

Geffroi de Villehardouin was born in the château of Villehardouin near Troyes, Champagne. Marshal of Champagne after 1185, he had close political connections with Count Thibaut III of Champagne. Villehardouin was sent with the Canon de Béthune and four others to Venice to negotiate for ships for the Fourth Crusade. Shortly after their return Thibaut died. But Villehardouin, an excellent diplomat, persuasive orator, and prudent negotiator, continued his labors, and soon Boniface de Montferrat was appointed supreme commander of the crusade. Throughout the crusade Villehardouin was an eyewitness to the events he recorded. After the fall of Constantinople in 1204, he stayed in the East, receiving the title of Marshal of Romania (name then given to Thrace). The title passed to his son in 1213, presumably at the time of Villehardouin's death.

De la conquête de Constantinople (The Conquest of Constantinople) is Villehardouin's only known work. Written in clear prose, it stresses the overall campaigns of the Fourth Crusade rather than individual exploits. The author never knowingly lied in his chronicle, but he attempted to justify the crusade's deviations from its original objectives in Egypt and Jerusalem.

The first of its nine books explains the origins of the crusade, and the second relates the negotiations at Venice. The third part reveals worries about insufficient funds, bargaining, the initial propositions of Prince Alexis of Constantinople, and the embarkation of the Franco Venetian army in August 1202. The fourth tells of the taking of Zara and of the displeasure of Pope Innocent III, who was deeply involved in the crusade. The fifth gives an account of a side mission in Greece. The sixth book, which contains some of the chronicle's finest pages, describes the arrival of the crusaders at Constantinople. After a siege of only seven days, the city capitulated on July 18, 1203, and the usurper Alexis II fled. Alexis IV was crowned on August 1. The last three books tell of the rupture of the crusaders with Alexis IV and of the second taking of the city; the systematic, rankwise distribution of the booty; the coronation of Baldwin of Flanders; and the conquest of surrounding territories. The long narration, sometimes stimulating, sometimes disgusting, is told with a candid simplicity rarely equaled by later historians.

Further Reading

A literal translation of Villehardouin's work is Memoirs of the Crusades by Villehardouin and De Joinville, translated by Sir Frank T. Marzials (1908; many later editions). Villehardouin's narrative is critically examined in Kenneth M. Setton, ed., A History of the Crusades (vol. 1, 1969). Also useful for background is Edwin Pears, Destruction of the Greek Empire (1903).

Villehardouin, Geoffroi de (c.1150-c.1216). Chronicler. Born to a noble family in Champagne, he became a devoted servant of the counts of Champagne and their families, was made marshal in 1185, and in 1187 accompanied Count Henry II on the Third Crusade, where he was captured at the siege of Acre. After his release from a Saracen gaol, and after Henry's coronation as king of Jerusalem, Geoffroi returned to Champagne in 1194 to assist the regent, Countess Marie, and then her son Thibaud III. He was present at the tournament in 1199 at which the Fourth Crusade was first mooted, and remained committed to it after the death of Thibaud in early 1201. With representatives from the counts of Flanders and Blois, he negotiated the treaty with the Venetians that arranged shipping for the expedition; and he was instrumental in securing Count Boniface of Montferrat as its leader in 1202. He then left France. After the conquest of Constantinople he helped to defend the newly acquired Latin empire.

Geoffroi's chief claim to fame was his La Conquête de Constantinople, written after 1207 in the Latin empire, but intended for circulation in France. This account of the Fourth Crusade and its aftermath, distinguished as the first major work in French prose, has excited controversy over the generations. According to Villehardouin, the expedition's diversion, first to capture Zara for the Venetians, and then to conquer Constantinople, arose from a series of accidents which were the workings of the divine will. Those who criticized the leaders and left the army were motivated by malice. The conquest of Constantinople was an achievement on so heroic a scale that all doubts as to its morality were proved unfounded. And the subsequent troubles that befell the crusaders, culminating in Boniface's death, were a deplorable witness to the West's failure to comprehend what had happened and to assist the warriors of God. This attitude has been variously interpreted as a military man's honest summary of events or as a subtle politician's half-truths. The echoes of epic formulae when Geoffroi describes his allies the Doge of Venice and Boniface of Montferrat add to the difficulty of determining his intentions. But despite its ambiguity, his work remains both an exciting venture in French prose and an invaluable source for the Fourth Crusade.

[Jean Dunbabin]

Bibliography

• J. Beer, Villehardouin: Epic Historian (1986)

c.1160–c.1212, French historian and Crusader. As marshal of Champagne, he was a leader of the Fourth Crusade (see Crusades), which resulted in the conquest (1204) of Constantinople and the creation of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Villehardouin, in his De la conquête de Constantinople (first pub. 1585; available in several English editions), described the Crusade and the subsequent struggles of the Latin nobles against their Greek and Bulgarian neighbors, from 1198 to 1207, with vivid detail and disarming frankness. Reliable as a historical source, Villehardouin's account stands as an early masterpiece of French prose. For his services in the Crusade he received the title of marshal of Romania (the name then given to Thrace) and a rich fief in Thrace. His nephew, Geoffroi I de Villehardouin, founded the Villehardouin dynasty in the Peloponnesus.