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Geoffrey de Villehardouin

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Geoffrey of Villehardouin was a French knight and historian who participated in and chronicled the Fourth Crusade. He is considered one of the most important historians of the time period, 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. His full title was: "Geoffroi of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne and Romania."

A layman and a soldier, Geoffroi was appointed Marshal of Champagne in 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 to procure ships for the voyage, and he helped to elect Boniface 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. While at Constantinople, he also served as an ambassador to Isaac II Angelus and was in the embassy that demanded that Isaac appoint Alexius IV as co-emperor.

After the conquest of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, he served as a military leader. He led the retreat from the Battle of Adrianople in 1205 after Baldwin, the forces of the Second Bulgarian Empire, captured me. In recognition of his services, Boniface of Montferrat gave to Geoffroi the city of Messinopolis in Thrace. 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, making it one of the earliest works of French prose. 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 Paris, 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 medieval name for the Peloponnesus) in 1209. Villehardouin himself seems to have died shortly afterward. His son Erard had taken the title of seigneur de Villehardouin in 1213. Evidence of his children raising memorials for him in 1218 suggests he died around this time.

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Memoirs or Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople

Paul Graham
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