Geoffroi de Villehardouin

Burgundian historian and military leader

• Born: c. 1150
• Birthplace: Near Bar-sur-Aube, Burgundy (now in France)
• Died: c. 1213
• Place of death: Possibly Greece

Villehardouin wrote an original history of the Fourth Crusade, La Conquěte de Constantinople, the first known prose history on any topic in French, and also played a significant role in organizing and conducting the Crusade.

Early Life

Geoffroi de Villehardouin (zhaw-frwah deh vee-luh-ahr-dwahn), who was in all likelihood the son of Villain I de Villehardouin, was born to a family whose earlier history is virtually unknown. While little information exists about Villehardouin’s youth, it seems that by 1172, the year that his name was entered on a list of the vassals of the count of Champagne, he was already married and had children. The surviving records suggest that Villehardouin married twice and that he had, in all, five children.

In 1185, Villehardouin became marshal of Champagne, which means that he assumed specific domestic and military responsibilities at a high level. In addition to overseeing the care of all the horses of his suzerain, Count Henry II of Champagne, Villehardouin’s charge included the supervision of the military service and remuneration of the count’s vassals. In time of war, Villehardouin’s duty as marshal was to follow his overlord into battle, in the forefront of the army. Villehardouin may have done just that in 1190, when Henry left for the Holy Land to join in the Third Crusade, but there is no historical evidence establishing this as fact. While versed in Latin, theology, and music, Henry had little interest in works of literature written in the vernacular. It is quite possible, therefore, that Villehardouin’s lack of enthusiasm for the courtly ideal, as later reflected in the generally sober style of his historical writing, was conditioned by the count’s literary tastes.

Life’s Work

Villehardouin achieved distinction both as a leader and as a historian of the Fourth Crusade. Unhappily, this dual distinction was to a certain degree tarnished by the abortive outcome of the Crusade itself, which, setting out to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims, was diverted to the assaulting, capturing, and looting of Christian cities, such as Zadar on the Dalmatian coast and Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Furthermore, Villehardouin’s largely positive account of the expedition fueled the suspicion that he was primarily concerned with justifying his decisions and those of his fellow commanders rather than exposing the errors and the dubious motivations. In the final analysis, however, Villehardouin’s achievement both as a participant in and as a chronicler of the Fourth Crusade proved to be outstanding.

Along with his new suzerain, Count Thibaut III of Champagne, Villehardouin became a Crusader in November, 1199, responding to the appeal launched the previous year by Pope Innocent III. From the outset, Villehardouin’s role in the Fourth Crusade was prominent. He and Conon de Béthune, the celebrated poet, were among six envoys who went to Venice in February, 1201, in order to negotiate for the transportation of the Crusaders to the Holy Land. Subsequently, on the death on May 24, 1201, of Thibaut, it was again Villehardouin who assumed an active role in the search for Thibaut’s replacement. Indeed, at the Council of Soissons in June, 1201, Villehardouin argued in favor of Boniface of Montferrat as the new commander in chief of the Crusaders and saw his personal choice ratified.

After the Crusaders had captured Constantinople on July 17, 1203, and restored Emperor Isaac II Angelus, who had been deposed by his brother, Alexius III Angelus, Villehardouin was designated the spokesperson among the four representatives sent to meet with the emperor. Villehardouin was charged with reminding the latter of the political and financial obligations that the emperor’s son, young Alexius, had assumed when he had asked for the Crusaders’ help for his father. Villehardouin’s mission proved successful, and on August 1, 1203, the young Alexius was crowned coemperor, becoming Alexius IV. Later, however, because their fraternization with a Latin army of Crusaders had angered their Greek constituents, Isaac II Angelus and Alexius IV no longer seemed disposed to respect the agreement to provide monetary assistance to the Crusaders. In November, 1203, Villehardouin was again among envoys dispatched to the coemperors to convince them to honor their commitments.

Following the second conquest of Constantinople on April 13, 1204 in the course of which the Crusaders put to flight the usurper Alexius Ducas Murtzuphlus, who had strangled Alexius IV and seized power as Alexius V (Isaac II Angelus having died shortly before his son, apparently from a stroke) an opportunity was afforded Villehardouin to display his skills as a conciliator. A dispute having arisen between the new emperor of Constantinople, Count Baldwin of Flanders, and Boniface of Montferrat over the kingdom of Thessalonica, Villehardouin brought about a face-saving truce by blaming the dispute on the bungling of the disputants’ advisers. Emperor Baldwin then agreed to give Thessalonica to Boniface.

In 1205, with the Greeks in open revolt and the Bulgars and Vlachs invading the Crusaders’ strongholds, circumstances developed that permitted Villehardouin to display his military prowess. After Baldwin had laid siege to Adrianople and had in turn been attacked by King Ioannitsa of the Vlacho-Bulgarian state, Count Louis of Blois was killed, on April 14, 1205, when he unwisely left the main detachment of the Crusaders to pursue the enemy’s Cuman archers. Baldwin himself was captured in this engagement, having followed Louis. Villehardouin halted the disorderly retreat of the Crusaders, reassembled them into a fighting unit despite the constant harassment of the Bulgars and effected an orderly withdrawal. Yet Villehardouin could not single-handedly stem the tide of military reverses. On September 4, 1207, Boniface was killed in an ambush by the Bulgars, thus dramatically marking, at least as far as Villehardouin was concerned, the official and tragic conclusion of the ill-fated Fourth Crusade.

Beyond being a trusted ambassador, an adroit conciliator, and an effective, courageous military commander, Villehardouin was also a chronicler of the momentous events of the Crusade. The portrait of Villehardouin the historian, however, is far more complex than that of Villehardouin the Crusader.

Villehardouin’s work, written after 1207, was entitled, in full, L’Histoire de Geoffroy de Villehardouyn, mareschal de Champagne et de Roménie: De la conqueste de Constantinople par les barons Français associez aux Vénitiens, l’an 1204 (1584; The Chronicle of Geoffry de Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne and Romania, Concerning the Conquest of Constantinople, by the French and Venetians, Anno MCCIV, 1829; also known as Memoirs of the Crusades, 1908). More commonly known by the modernized French title La Conquěte de Constantinople , Villehardouin’s account seems at first glance designed not only to chronicle the deflection of the Fourth Crusade from its intended objective but also to justify that deflection. Thus the historian notes that the decision on the part of the Crusaders to help the Venetians invest Zadar which was taken on November 24, 1202 in return for the transportation of the crusading army to the Holy Land was inevitable: The defection of so many Crusaders had made it impossible to pay the Venetians as originally agreed, and the Zadar diversion was a way of removing the debt. Villehardouin does not reveal, however, that he and other leaders of the Crusade had erred in their estimate of the number of Crusaders needing transportation and had thus contracted for an excessive quantity of ships. Because, of the estimated 33,500 men, only one-third actually appeared in Venice, even without the defections the error of calculation would still have loomed large.

At the same time, Villehardouin appears overly bent on justifying his choice of Boniface of Montferrat as leader of the Crusade on the basis of the latter’s having possessed the chivalric qualities of nobility, piety, generosity, loyalty, and courage. Villehardouin does not indicate that Boniface had a definite familial and political stake in the Crusade. His brother Conrad had kept Saladin out of Tyre in 1187; married Isabel, heiress to the kingdom of Jerusalem; and thought of himself as king to the end of his life, when he was assassinated in 1192. Another brother, Renier, had married Maria, the daughter of Emperor Manuel I Comnenus of Constantinople, in 1180, and had been given Thessalonica. When, after the second conquest of Constantinople, Boniface demanded the kingdom of Thessalonica, it was therefore much more than a sudden whim. Indeed, another medieval French historian of the Fourth Crusade took stern and critical note of Boniface’s private motives: In 1216, Robert de Clari accused the commander in chief of opportunism and hypocrisy in his book Li Estoire de chiaus qui conquisent Coustantinoble de Robert de Clari, en Aminois, chevalier (1868; The Conquest of Constantinople, 1936).

As for the initial conquest of Constantinople, Villehardouin again seems to have wanted to put the best possible construction on this additional attack on a Christian city. He maintains that the capture of Constantinople not only brought to an end the cruel reign of Alexius III Angelus and allowed the restoration to power of the dispossessed Isaac II Angelus and the future Alexius IV but also guaranteed that the new imperial authority would pledge fidelity to Rome and also support the Crusade. Villehardouin does not report that, beyond Boniface’s personal stake in the matter as noted above, there was the special interest of the Venetians themselves. Having pressed for the move against Zadar because it had been a Venetian vassal state until lured away by King Béla III of Hungary in 1186, Venice encouraged the assault on Constantinople because that city had long persecuted Venetian residents. Moreover, Constantinople had favored the Genoese and the Pisans, commercial competitors of the Venetians, in part by levying huge taxes on the latter. Finally, if the doge (duke, or chief magistrate) of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, was half blind, it may have been because of the barbarity of his Greek “hosts.”

Nevertheless, one must recognize that Villehardouin’s failure to discuss the whole range of motives behind the diversion of the Fourth Crusade was neither demonstrably intentional nor substantially distortive. He appears genuinely to have believed that the leaders of the Crusade had no choice but to divert it from its original destination, given the circumstances. Villehardouin might be faulted for having overestimated the number of ships needed to transport the Crusaders. On the other hand, the majority of his actions seem to have been based on much more than narrowly partisan considerations. For example, the choice of Boniface as commander in chief, whatever his vested interest, was sound: He was widely recognized as one of the most accomplished men of his time, being a proven warrior who had fought against Saladin and a patron of the arts who encouraged troubadours at his court. Moreover, before deciding on him, Villehardouin and others had approached two other candidates, the duke of Burgundy and the count of Bar-le-Duc.

As for the involvement of the Venetians, it had become common practice to seek maritime transportation to the Holy Land, in the light of the extended and complicated overland route. Although the Venetians were not exactly enamored of Byzantium, there is no evidence that, beyond seeking a fair financial return for their services, they actually conspired to steer the Crusaders away from the announced objective. Villehardouin’s obvious respect for their organizational acumen, nautical skill, and courage did not appear suspect at a time when Venice was at the height of its prestige as a great maritime and commercial power. Even the portrait of the doge, admittedly epic, was not incompatible with the fame and glory of the aged but admired Dandolo.

If a more balanced view of the political and military realities of Villehardouin’s time shows his history to be a worthy achievement in substantive terms, so a fair analysis of the work’s place in the formal evolution of French historiography shows it to be a worthy achievement in stylistic terms. It is clear that Villehardouin’s work owes much to the epic tradition of narration, as evidenced not only by the use of conventional techniques of anticipation, recapitulation, and transition, but also, and more fundamentally, by the attribution of legendary traits to the heroes of his narrative. In a manner reminiscent of the portrait of Charlemagne in the famous twelfth century medieval epic Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland, 1880), the doge of Venice is characterized as preuz (valiant), sages (wise), and vigueros (vigorous) despite his years; his feats in the first Battle of Constantinople are attended by miraculous occurrences, as when the defenders of the city fled before this fearless brandisher of the standard of Saint Mark. Similarly, by its heroic loneliness, the death of Boniface with which, significantly, Villehardouin chose to end his work recalled that of Roland in the Song of Roland, without the subsequent redress of the situation featured in the medieval epic.

Yet in spite of being clearly indebted to the epic style, La Conquěte de Constantinople broke new historical ground. Though primarily interested in the grand lines of strategy and combat, the historian, in dealing with specific events, often strove for the factual accuracy characteristic of the best Latin historical tradition, availing himself of eyewitness accounts when his own perspective generally that of a direct participant was inadequate. More significant still, Villehardouin chose to write his history in French prose, not in poetry. His work would be, in fact, the first known prose history in French. The nature of Villehardouin’s prose, moreover, is itself remarkable for its straightforwardness, sobriety, and simplicity qualities highlighted by a third-person narrative judiciously combined with moments of direct speech and marked by a more systematic use of the past tense than was typical of the epic style. In short, however great the temptation to be thoroughly partisan, Villehardouin appears, more often than not, to have made a real effort to move from fact to fact without rhetorical digressions much in the manner of the modern historian.

If it is known that Villehardouin wrote La Conquěte de Constantinople after 1207, that is practically all that is known about his last years. He is thought to have died between 1212 and 1218, at a site unknown.

Significance

Villehardouin’s skill in negotiating with the Venetians, his success in getting his personal choice approved as commander in chief of the Fourth Crusade, and his actions to avert total disaster after the failure of the siege of Adrianople testify amply both to the importance of his role in the organization of the Crusade and to the extent of his influence in determining its orientation and outcome. As a historian, however, Villehardouin’s impact was perhaps even more impressive. With no known model to guide him, he composed a history in French prose that represented such a high standard of achievement that it would be matched only on rare occasions before the seventeenth century.

Bibliography

Andrea, Alfred J, ed. Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade. Boston: Brill, 2000. Explores the varied sources that documented the Crusade, including Innocent III and the Soissons council. Includes a bibliography and an index.

Bartlett, W. B. An Ungodly War: The Sack of Constantinople and the Fourth Crusade. Stroud, Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 2000. Surveys the Crusade, its “misguided idealism,” the massive physical destruction of Constantinople, and the killing of thousands of its people. Includes maps and other illustrations, a bibliography, and index.

Beer, Jeanette M. A. Villehardouin: Epic Historian. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1968. An insightful study of Villehardouin’s stylistic technique, with particular attention given to his antecedents, the role in his work of biblical references, the influence on him of the Latin historical tradition, and his employment of devices drawn from the medieval French epic. Includes vocabulary appendices and a bibliography.

Godfrey, John. 1204: The Unholy Crusade. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. The author places the Crusade within the broader framework of relations existing at the time between Constantinople and Western Europe, on the one hand, and Constantinople and Islam, on the other. Intended primarily for the general reader.

Kooper, Erik, ed. The Medieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle. Atlanta: Rodopi, 1999. Includes an essay comparing Villehardouin’s and others’ historiographical approaches to chronicling the Fourth Crusade.

Mango, Cyril, ed. The Oxford History of Byzantium. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. A detailed history of Byzantium, including the period of the Crusades. Also contains appendices on “hierarchies, pilgrimage, commerce, and monasticism.”

Morris, Colin. “Geoffroy de Villehardouin and the Conquest of Constantinople.” History 53 (1968): 24-34. The author systematically and informatively compares what is known about the Fourth Crusade with Villehardouin’s account.

Queller, Donald E., and Thomas F. Madden. The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 1201-1204. 2d ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. Adopts a Western European rather than Byzantine perspective on the Crusade. Includes maps, an extensive bibliography, and an index.

Villehardouin, Geoffroi de, and Jean de Joinville. Memoirs of the Crusades. Translated by Sir Frank Marzials. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. This work contains English translations of the chronicles of Villehardouin and Jean, sire of Joinville, preceded by an introduction that discusses the chronicles from the standpoint of their political and literary importance. In the section on Villehardouin, the translator also provides a helpful summary of the earlier Crusades.