Geoffrey of Villehardouin (c. 1150 – c. 1213) was a French

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

who participated in and chronicled the Fourth Crusade. He is considered one of the most important historians of the time period,Smalley, p. 131 best known for writing the eyewitness account '' De la Conquête de Constantinople'' (''On the Conquest of Constantinople''), about the battle for Constantinople between the Christians of the West and the Christians of the East on 13 April 1204. The ''Conquest'' is the earliest French historical prose narrative that has survived to modern times. Ηis full title was: "Geoffroi of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne and of

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

Biography

layman In religious organizations, the laity () consists of all members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious orders, e.g. a nun or a lay brother. In both religious and wider secular usage, a layper ...

and a

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

,Smalley, p. 141 Geoffroi was appointed Marshal of Champagne from 1185 and joined the Crusade in 1199 during a tournament held by Count Thibaud III of Champagne. Thibaud named him one of the ambassadors to

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

to procure ships for the voyage, and he helped to elect

Boniface of Montferrat Boniface I, usually known as Boniface of Montferrat ( it, Bonifacio del Monferrato, link=no; el, Βονιφάτιος Μομφερρατικός, ''Vonifatios Momferratikos'') (c. 1150 – 4 September 1207), was the ninth Marquis of Montferrat ( ...

as the new leader of the Crusade when Thibaud died. Although Geoffroi does not say so specifically in his own account, he probably supported the diversion of the Crusade first to Zara and then to

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

. While at Constantinople he also served as an ambassador to Isaac II Angelus, and was in the

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually den ...

that demanded that Isaac appoint Alexius IV co-emperor. After the conquest of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

in 1204 he served as a military leader, and led the retreat from the

Battle of Adrianople The Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between an Eastern Roman army led by the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels (largely Thervings as well as Greutungs, non-Gothic A ...

in 1205 after Baldwin I was captured by the forces of the Second Bulgarian Empire. In recognition of his services,

gave to Geoffroi the city of Messinopolis in

Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...

. After the Crusade, he was named Marshal of the Latin Empire. In 1207, Geoffroi began to write his chronicle of the Crusade, ''On the Conquest of Constantinople''. It was in French rather than

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

, making it one of the earliest works of French

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the ...

. Villehardouin's account is generally read alongside that of Robert of Clari, a French knight of low station, Niketas Choniates, a high-ranking Byzantine official and historian who gives an eyewitness account, and Gunther of Pairis, a Cistercian monk who tells the story from the perspective of Abbot Martin who accompanied the Crusaders. Villehardouin's nephew Geoffroi I of Villehardouin went on to become Prince of Achaea in

Morea The Morea ( el, Μορέας or ) was the name of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The name was used for the Byzantine province known as the Despotate of the Morea, by the Ottom ...

(the medieval name for the

Peloponnesus The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridge whi ...

) in 1209. Villehardouin himself seems to have died shortly afterwards. His son Erard had taken the title of ''seigneur de Villehardouin'' in 1213. There is evidence of his children raising memorials for him in 1218, suggesting he died around this time.

Notes

References

* This article focuses on a critical review of ''De la Conquête de Constantinople''. *''Chronicles of the Crusades'' (Villehardouin and

Jean de Joinville Jean de Joinville (, c. 1 May 1224 – 24 December 1317) was one of the great chroniclers of medieval France. He is most famous for writing the ''Life of Saint Louis'', a biography of Louis IX of France that chronicled the Seventh Crusade.''V ...

), translated by Margaret R. B. Shaw (Penguin). *Colin Morris, "Geoffroy de Villehardouin and the Conquest of Constantinople", ''History'' 53 (February 1968): 24-34 * * Cristian Bratu, « Je, auteur de ce livre »: L’affirmation de soi chez les historiens, de l’Antiquité à la fin du Moyen Âge. Later Medieval Europe Series (vol. 20). Leiden: Brill, 2019 (). * Cristian Bratu, “''Je, aucteur de ce livre'': Authorial Persona and Authority in French Medieval Histories and Chronicles.” In ''Authorities in the Middle Ages. Influence, Legitimacy and Power in Medieval Society''. Sini Kangas, Mia Korpiola, and Tuija Ainonen, eds. (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2013): 183–204. * Cristian Bratu, “''Clerc, Chevalier, Aucteur'': The Authorial Personae of French Medieval Historians from the 12th to the 15th centuries.” In ''Authority and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles''. Juliana Dresvina and Nicholas Sparks, eds. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012): 231–259.

External links

Villehardouin's chronicle
translated by T. Marzial (1908), at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook website * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Geoffrey Of Villehardouin 1150s births 1213 deaths 13th-century French historians Villehardouin French chroniclers Villehardouin family 12th-century French people Marshals of the Latin Empire French male non-fiction writers Christians of the Third Crusade Christians of the Fourth Crusade French memoirists

Biography

See also

Notes

References

External links