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CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION

PRELIMINARIES ...... ix

VlLLEHARDOUIN ...... X

JOINVILLE ....... XXVil

EXISTING TRANSLATIONS AND GENERAL OBSER
VATIONS . .... xxxiv

VILLEHARDOUIN S CHRONICLE OF THE FOURTH CRUSADE

AND THE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE . . i

JOINVILLE S CHRONICLE OF THE CRUSADE OF ST. LEWIS . 135
INDEX * 329

INTRODUCTION

PRELIMINARIES

POWERFUL and rich as English literature is, it has little to
place in line against the superb array of French memoirs.
Englishmen enough have done great things, or taken part in
the doing of them, or seen them done ; but only a scanty few
have been moved to write even fewer to write with any
approach to style of what they had done and seen. Among
the French it has been otherwise. The French statesman, or
leader, his life s greater battle being fought, has more often
betaken himself to his pen, either to use Guizot s image
for the purpose of fighting the old fights once more, with that
weapon, in the smaller arena of letters, or simply for pure
indulgence in the pleasures of memory. Villehardouin,
Joinville I exclude Froissart, beautiful as his work is, be
cause he was a chronicler pure and simple and not an actor
in the world s affairs Commines, Sully, Retz, the " Grande
Mademoiselle," Saint-Simon, Chateaubriand, Guizot, here
is a fine list of examples.

Of these French memoirs, the Memoirs of Villehardouin and
Joinville, here reproduced in an English form, are certainly
not the least interesting. They are the first in date, those of
Villehardouin having been written, probably, in the days of
our King John, early in the thirteenth century; while those
of Joinville were completed, about a century later, in October
1309, shortly after our Edward II. had begun to reign. Both
are monuments of the French language, and of French prose,
at an early stage of development giant lispings, as one may
say. Both are written by eye-witnesses who had taken an
important part, in the case of Villehardouin a very important
part, in what they describe. Both deal with stirring episodes
in one of the most stirring chapters in human history, the
chapter that tells how, for some three centuries, Christendom
put forth its power to capture, and again recapture,
* 333 ix

x Introduction

" Those holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross. * x

and both serve to illustrate the varied motives that went to
the initiation and maintenance of that great movement.

VlLLEHARDOUIN

VILLEHARDOUIN S story opens with the closing years of the
twelfth century. In those years, as he tells, Fulk of Neuilly,
near Paris, a priest well known for his holiness and zeal,
began to preach a new Crusade; and Fulk s words, so men
thought, were confirmed by many signs and miracles; and
even apart from such supernatural aid, it is not difficult, I
think, to conjecture wherein lay the force of his appeal or to
imagine its nature. But while he was descanting on the
necessity for another attempt to recover the Holy -Land, and
setting forth the glories and spiritual advantages of the pro
posed adventure, did he ever dwell at all, one wonders, on
the story of the Crusades that had already been undertaken ?
Did he unfold for his hearers that tragic and terrible scroll
in the history of men a scroll on which are recorded in
strange, intermingled, fantastic characters, tales of saintly
heroism, and fraud, and greed, and cruelty, and wrong of
sufferings at which one sickens, and foul deeds at which one
sickens more, and acts of devotion and high courage that
have found their place among the heirlooms and glories of
mankind?

Did he tell them of the First Crusade tell them how, a
little more than a century before, the heart of Peter the
Hermit had been moved to fiery indignation at the indigni
ties offered to pilgrims at the sacred shrines, and he had made
all Christendom resound to his angry eloquence; how at the
Council of Clermont, in 1095, Pope Urban II. had re-echoed
the hermit s cry; how the nations had responded to the call
to arms in so holy a cause, the noble selling or mortgaging his
land, the labourer abandoning his plough, the woman her
hearth and distaff, the very children forsaking their play;
how a great wave of humanity had thence been set rolling
eastward a wave of such mighty volume, and so impelled
* The first part of King Henry IV., Act I. Sc. I.

Introduction xi

by fierce enthusiasm, that, notwithstanding every hindrance,
dissension within, utter disorganisation, misrul, famine,
plague, slaughter, wholesale desertions, treachery on every
side, wild fanatical hostility notwithstanding all this, it had
yet rolled right across Europe, rolled on across the deserts
and defiles of Asia Minor, and swept the infidel from Jeru
salem and the fastnesses of Judaea ? Did Fulk of Neuilly, one
wonders, tell his hearers the story of that First Crusade,
which, for all its miseries and horrors, accomplished the
mission on which it started, and placed its great and saintly
leader, Godfrey of Bouillon on the throne of Jerusalem, and
founded a Christian kingdom in the Holy Land? (1099).

Did he tell them the story of the Second Crusade? That
was the Crusade preached by one of very different mould
from Peter the Hermit, by one who was in many ways the
master-spirit of his time, St. Bernard. For to St. Bernard it
seemed a scandal and intolerable that the Christian kingdom
of Judaea, prayed for with so many prayers, purchased with
so much blood, should be dissolved. He held it as not to be
borne that the place where our Lord had been cradled in the
manger, the fields where He had taught, the hill where He
had died for men, the sepulchre in which He had lain, should
fall once more into the unholy possession of the infidel. And
yet, ere fifty years had passed since the taking of Jerusalem,
this seemed an approaching consummation, so weakened was
the new kingdom by internal dissension, so fiercely attacked
from without. Already the Moslem were prevailing on every
side. The important position of Edessa had fallen into their
hands. So St. Bernard came to the rescue. By his para
mount personal influence, he induced Lewis VII. of France,
and Conrad of Germany to take the cross. Again there was
a march across Europe; again treachery on the part of the
Greek Emperor at Constantinople; again most terrible
slaughter in Asia Minor; again unheard-of sufferings; again
folly, ineptitude, treachery. But not again the old ultimate
success. This time the great human wave, though it did
indeed reach Jerusalem, yet reached it spent and broken.
Edessa was not retaken. Damascus was besieged, only to
show the utter want of unity among the Crusaders. Conrad
returned to Germany. Lewis, a year later, returned to
France (1149); and of the Second Crusade there remained
small immediate trace., save, in France and Germany, de-

xii Introduction

populated hamlets, and homes made desolate, and bones
bleaching in the far Syrian deserts.

Could Fulk have turned, in the retrospect, with better
heart to the Third Crusade? Somewhat unquestionably.
That Third Crusade is the one in which we Englishmen have
most interest, for its central figure is our lion-hearted king,
Richard. And it is, probably, the Crusade of which the
main incidents are best known to the English reader, for they
have been evoked from the past, and made, as it were, to re-
enact themselves before us, by the magic of Sir Walter Scott.
What boy has not read the Talisman ? And so it will not be
necessary for me to dwell at length on the history of that
Crusade : the rivalries of Richard and Philip Augustus ; the
siege and surrender of Acre; the return of Philip Augustus
to France; the bitter feud with the Duke of Austria; the
superb daring and personal prowess of Richard ; the abortive
march on Jerusalem which must have been retaken save
for the insane rivalries in the Christian host; the interchange
of courtesies with the chivalrous Saladin; the abandonment
of the Crusade; the return of the English king westward,
and his imprisonment in an Austrian dungeon (1192).

Not a story of success, most certainly. Richard left the
Holy Land pretty well where he found it. His object in
going thither had been the recovery of Jerusalem, which, in
1187, after being nearly ninety years in Christian hands, had
fallen a prey to Saladin. And that object was as far as ever
from attainment. But still there rested about the Third
Crusade a glamour of courage and heroic deeds, so that when
scarce nine years after its conclusion, Fulk went about
preaching new efforts for the expulsion of the Saracens, he
may possibly have sought to raise the courage of his warlike
hearers by dwelling on the doughty deeds of Richard and his
knights.

Otherwise, if he referred to the past at all for the latest
German expedition of 1196-1197 had just come to an in
glorious close, his message can scarcely have been one of
confidence as he addressed the nobles and lesser men as
sembled at Ecri, towards the end of November 1199, to take
part in the great tournament instituted by Thibaut III.,
Count of Champagne. No, the past was against them. It
spoke little of success, and much of misery, disorganisation,
disaster; while as to the future, if Fulk and his hearers had

Introduction xiii

seen into that, one doubts if they could have been moved to
much enthusiasm. Whatever admixture of worldly motives
there may have been, the Fourth Crusade was vehemently
advocated by Pope Innocent III., proclaimed by Fulk, joined
by multitudes of devout pilgrims, for the express purpose
of recapturing Jerusalem, and driving the heathen out of
Palestine. But it never reached Palestine at all. It did far
less than nothing towards the recovery of the Holy City. It
delivered its blow with immense force and shattering effect
upon a Christian, not a Moslem, state. It contributed not a
little, in ultimate result, to break down Europe s barrier
against the Turk. Thus, from the Crusading point of view,
it was a gigantic failure; and, as such, denounced again and
yet again by the great Pope who had done so much to give it
life.

fSow did this come about? What were the real influences
that led the Fourth Crusade to change its objective from
Jerusalem to Constantinople ? The question has been many
times debated. It is, as one may almost say, one of the stock
questions of history; and I can scarcely altogether give it the
go-by here as I should like to do because in that question
is involved the more personal question of Villehardouin s own
good faith as a historian. If there were wire-pullers at work,
almost from the beginning, who laboured to deflect the
movement to their own ends; if the Venetians throughout
played a double game, 1 and betrayed the Christian cause to
the Saracens, then it is necessary, before we accept him
altogether as a witness of truth, to inquire why he makes no
mention of the Marquis of Montferrat s intrigues, or the
Republic s duplicity. Did he write in ignorance ? or did he,
while possessing full knowledge, banish ugly facts from his
narrative, and deliberately constitute himself, as has been
said, the " official apologist " of the Crusade?

For, as he tells the story, all is simplicity itself. There is
scarcely anything to explain. The Crusade has a purely
religious origin : Many took the cross because the indul
gences were so great." Villehardouin himself, and his five
brother delegates from the great lords assembled in parlia
ment at Compiegne, go to Venice, and engage a fleet to take

1 " The unchristian cupidity of the banausically-minded Republic of
St. Mark," is the quaint description given by Pope Innocent s latest
biographer. Innocent the Great, by C. H. C. Pirie-Gordon, 1907.

xiv Introduction

the host of the pilgrims "oversea" an ambiguous term
which meant Syria for the uninitiated, but " Babylon " or
Cairo for the Venetian Council " because it was in Babylon,
rather than in any other land, that the Turks could best be
destroyed." Then comes the death of Count Thibaut of
Champagne, who would have been the natural leader of the
Crusade, and the selection, in his stead, of the Marquis of
Montferrat, " a right worthy man, and one of the most
highly esteemed that were then alive." Afterwards the pil
grims begin to assemble in Venice; but owing to numerous
defections, their number is so reduced that the stipulated
passage money is not forthcoming, and the Venetians
naturally refuse to move. The blame, up to this point, lies
entirely with the pilgrims who had failed to keep their tryst.
Meanwhile, what is to be done? Some, who in their heart
of hearts wish not well to the cause, would break up the
host and return to their own land. Others, who are better
affected, would proceed at all hazards. Then the Doge pro
poses a compromise. If, says he, addressing his own people,
we insist upon our pound of flesh, we can, no doubt, claim to
keep the moneys already received, as some consideration for
our great outlay; but, so doing, we shall be greatly blamed
throughout Christendom. Let us rather agree to forego the
unpaid balance and carry out our agreement, provided the
pilgrims, on their part, will help us to recapture Zara, on the
Adriatic, of which we have been wrongfully dispossessed by
the King of Hungary. To this the Venetians consent, and
likewise the Crusaders, notwithstanding the remonstrances
of the evil-disposed party aforesaid. So the blind old Doge
assumes the cross, with great solemnity, in the Church of St.
Mark, and many Venetians assume it too, and all is got ready
for departure.

Then, and not till then, do we get any hint of an attack on
the Greek empire. " Now listen," says Villehardouin, " to
one of the greatest marvels and greatest adventures that
ever you heard tell of," and he procceeds to narrate how the
young Greek prince Alexius, having escaped from the hands
of that wicked usurper, his uncle, and being at Verona on
the way to the court of his brother-in-law, " Philip of Ger
many," makes overtures to the Crusaders, and how the latter
are not unprepared to help him to recover his father s throne,
provided he in turn will help them to re-conquer Jerusalem,

Introduction xv

Whereupon envoys are sent to accompany the youth into
Germany, for further negotiation with Philip, and the host,,
Crusaders and Venetians together, set sail for their attack on
Christian Zara.

And here for the first time Villehardouin makes mention of
the religious objection to the course that the Crusade is
taking. The inhabitants of Zara are prepared to capitulate,
but are dissuaded by the party which, according to Ville
hardouin, were anxious to break up the host, and while the
matter is under discussion, the abbot of Vaux, of the order
of the Cistercians, rises in his place and says, " Lords, on
behalf of the Apostle of Rome, I forbid you to attack this
city, for it is a Christian city, and you are pilgrims." Never
theless the Doge insists that the Crusaders shall fulfil their
contract, and Zara is besieged and taken.

While the host is waiting, after the capture, they are
joined by the envoys from Philip, and from Philip s
brother-in-law, Alexius, the son of the deposed Emperor of
Constantinople. These envoys bring definite and very ad
vantageous proposals. The Crusaders are to dispossess the
treacherous and wicked emperor, also called Alexius, and
reinstate the deposed Isaac; and in return for this great
service, Alexius the younger promises, " in the very first place/
that the Greek empire shall be brought back into obedience
to Rome, and then seeing that the pilgrims are poor that
they shall receive 200,000 marks of silver, and provisions for
small and great, and further that substantial help shall be
afforded towards the conquest of the " land of Babylon,"
oversea.

The hook was well baited. The reunion of Christendom,
gold and stores in plenty, active co-operation from the near
vantage ground of Constantinople in the dispossession of
the infidel, a splendid adventure to be achieved no wonder
the Crusaders were tempted. Villehardouin himself never
falters in his expressed conviction that the course proposed
was the right course, that he and his companions did well in
following, at this juncture, the fortunes of the younger
Alexius. Nevertheless it is clear, even from his narrative,
that a great, almost overwhelming, party in the host were
unconvinced and bitterly opposed to the deflection of the
Crusade. Hotly was the question debated. The laymen
were divided. The clergy, even of the same religious order,

xvi Introduction

were at bitter strife. When it came to the ratification of the
convention with Alexius, only twelve French lords could be
induced to swear. Thereafter came defection on defection
the deserters, as Villehardouin is always careful to note, not
without a certain complacency, coming mainly to evil ends.
" Now be it known to you, lords," says he, " that if God had
not loved that host, it could never have kept together, seeing
how many there were who wished evil to it. 3 Even the
Pope s forgiveness for the attack on Zara, and his exhorta
tion to the pilgrims to remain united, did not avail to prevent
further disintegration.

Nevertheless the host ultimately reaches Constantinople,
routs the Greeks, who have no stomach for the fight, sends
the usurping Emperor Alexius flying, reinstates the blinded
Isaac, and seats the younger Alexius, by the side of Isaac, on
the imperial throne. But naturally the position of Isaac and
Alexius is precarious, and when the latter asks the Crusaders
to delay their departure, the adverse party tries once more to
obtain an immediate descent on Syria or Egypt. They are
overborne. Soon, however, it becomes clear that Isaac and
Alexius either cannot, or will not, fulful their promises. As a
matter of fact Alexius has placed himself and his father in an
impossible position, of which death, in cruel forms, is to be
the outcome, and they become, in turn, the objects of attack,
and their empire a field of plunder. Henceforward the die is
cast. The Crusade ceases to be a Crusade, and becomes as
purely an expedition of conquest as William s descent on
England. Whatever may be their occasional qualms,
Franks and Venetians have enough to do in the Greek
Empire, without giving very much thought to Judaea.

But to all this there is another side. Thus, if we are to
believe the chronicle x compiled in 1393, by order of Heredia,
Grand Master of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, Ville
hardouin first proposed the Crusade to his lord, the Count of
Champagne, not on any specially religious grounds, but be
cause, after the peace between the kings of France and Eng-

1 Ltbro de los Fechos et Conquistas del Principado de la Morea, trans
lated from Spanish into French by Alfred Morel- Fatio, and published
at Geneva in 1885 for the Societe de V Orient Latin. See p. i. I am
bound, however, to say that this chronicle, which assigns to Ville
hardouin a very important part in the organisation of the Crusade, wa?
compiled long after date, and seems clearly apocryphal in many of its
details,

Introduction xvii

land, there were a great many idle men-at-arms about, whom
it would be desirable to employ. So also Ernoul, a contem
porary, after telling how the barons of France, who had sided
with Richard against Philip Augustus, cast off their armour
at the tournament at Ecri, and ran to take the cross, adds:
" There are certain persons who say that they thus took the
cross for fear of the King of France, and so that he might not
punish them because they had sided against him." x

This, however, is relatively unimportant. Mixed motives
may at once be conceded as probable and natural. What is
of greater significance is the attitude of the Venetians and
the question of their good faith. Villehardouin here hints no
doubt. According to him, the Republic made a bargain to
provide freight and food for an expedition to the Holy Land
or to " Babylon," and provided both amply, and it was only
on the failure of the pilgrims to carry out their side of the
bargain that the Venetians fell back on Zara. They were
prepared to take the Crusade to its original destination.
But the same Ernoul, from whom I have just quoted, tells
another story. He relates how Saphardin, the brother of the
deceased Saladin, hearing that the Crusaders had hired a
fleet in Venice, sends envoys to the Venetians, with great
gifts and promises of commercial advantage, and entreats
them to " turn away the Christians," and how the Venetians
accept the bribe, and use their influence accordingly ; 2 while
certain modern historians discover, or think they have dis
covered, that it was the Venetians who took the initiative in
this act of treachery, and that after making the treaty with
Villehardouin and his fellow delegates in 1201, they sent
envoys to Saphardin and virtually gave the Crusaders away
by a specific treaty of which, however, the date, and with
it the relevancy, has been contested.

So again, with regard to the evil influences at work within
the host itself, certain historians have endeavoured to show
that the misdirection of the Crusade was but an episode in
the long struggle between Guelf and Ghibelline. For the
Crusade was the pet child of Innocent III. It was the
dearest object of his heart. It was to crown his pontificate.
What more natural than that the Ghibelline, Philip of

1 Chronique d* Ernoul et de Bernard le Trlsorier, published by M. L. de
Mas Latrie for the Societe de Vhistoire de France. Paris, 1871. Sec
p. 337. * See ibid. pp. 345, 346, and 361, 362.

xviii Introduction

Swabia, the son of Barbarossa, himself just then lying under
a solemn excommunication, should endeavour, by all the
means in his power, to thwart the expedition, to turn it to
his own ends one of which was the conquest of Constanti
nople for on Constantinople he had pretensions. Thus,
according to this view, when Villehardouin suggested the
Marquis of Montferrat for the leadership, he was, indirectly
indeed, acting as the mouthpiece of Philip. And the Mar
quis, from the date of his election, did but become Philip s
agent, and had in view only one object an attack on the
Greek emperor. 1 All his actions and movements are to be

1 See M. Riant s articles quoted below. The curious reader who
would follow this controversy is referred to the following works among
many others, French and German. I place them, as will be seen, in
the chronological order of publication:

Histoire de I Isle de Chypre sous le Regne des Princes de la Maison de
Lusignan, par M. L. de Mas Latrie, etc. Paris, 1861, Vol. I. pp. 161-
165. Geoff roy de Villehardouin, Conquete de Constantinople, etc., par M.
Natalis de Wailly, etc. Second edition, Paris, 1874, PP- 429-439.

Up to this point only the conduct of Venice is in question. With the
following enters as protagonist Philip of Swabia, and we are asked to
consider the part which he took in deflecting the Crusade from Egypt
or the Holy Land to Constantinople, and the action taken, under his
influence, by the Marquis Boniface of Montferrat.

Innocent III., Philippe de Swabe et Boniface de Montferrat. Examen
des Causes qui modifier ent au detriment de V Empire Grec, le plan primitif
de la 46 Croisade, published in Revue des Questions Historiques, Vol.
XVII., April 1875, PP. 321-374, and Vol. XVIII., July 1875, pp. 5-75.
Signed, Comte Riant.

These two articles contain an elaborate and most learned indictment
against Philip of Swabia and the Marquis of Montferrat, and, in a minor
degree, against Villehardouin, as their accomplice and apologist.
Comte Riant is most careful in giving reference to chapter and verse to
support his conclusions, and so enable the student to verify and control,
and on occasion -to dissent.

A short note, signed M. de Wailly, on the above articles of Comte
Riant, expressing dissent. Revue des Questions Historiques, Vol. XVIII.,
October 1875, pp. 578 and 579 (not p. 576 as stated in index).

Quatrieme Croisade. La diversion sur Zara et Constantinople, par
Jules Tessier, professeur a la faculty des lettres de Caen. Paris, 1884.

In this volume, with an equal learning, M. Tessier contests the posi
tion taken up by M. Riant, and defends Philip of Swabia and Venice.

The Fall of Constantinople, by Edwin Pears. London, 1885.

The Notice, extending to 309 pages in Vol. II. of M. Emile Boucbet s
Geoffroi de Villehardouin. La Conquete de Constantinople, texte et
traduction nouvelle, avec notice, notes, et glossaire, par Emile Bouchet.
Paris, 1891.

M. Bouchet mainly accepts Comte Riant s facts and conclusions with
regard to Philip and Venice, but exonerates Villehardouin, and defends
him from the charge of having constituted himself the official apologist
of the Crusade pp. 289-297 and pp. 308, 309. M. Bouchet s manner
is rather that of the historical narrator than of the erudite dissertator,
and his notes are few. In this he differs from M. Riant and M. Tessier.

Introduction xix

explained on the grounds that he cared nothing about Jeru
salem, and very much about Constantinople.

To go at length into all the pros and cons of this contro
versy, would take, not the comparatively short space allotted
to an introduction, but a very considerable volume. And,
indeed, the latest historian who has dealt with the subject,
the very learned M. Luchaire, of the French Institute, 1
declares that, on the available data, the questions involved
are insoluble. Having placed the two views before the
reader, I shall not therefore go into the matter further here,
beyond saying that after a great deal of reading, and re
search, I have come to the conclusion, Firstly, that the Vene
tians were not as bad as they have been painted. They were
a commercial people, and they had made a bargain, and they
kept to it. The Crusaders did not. To expect the Vene
tians, for the good of the cause, to forego repayment for the
large sums expended on a superb fleet and what must have
been, temporarily at least, a great disturbance of their com
merce, is absurd. Why should the main expense of the ex
pedition fall on them? As to the treacherous arrangements
with the Saracens, they seem to me not proven. Therefore
I hold myself justified in asking the reader to look, without a
smile of sarcasm and incredulity, at the great scene in which
Dandolo, the grand old Doge, blind and bearing gallantly his
ninety years, goes up into the reading-desk of St. Mark, and
there, before all the people who wept seeing him places
the sign of the cross in his bonnet. Surely his bearing in
council, and afterwards in battle, was not that of a vulpine
old impostor.

Secondly, I own to very great doubts as to the elaborate
Machiavellian schemes of Philip of Swabia, and the Marquis
of Montferrat, and the after-participation therein, to a
greater or less degree, of the leaders of the Crusade. Web-
spinning so successful would imply gifts of foresight verging
on prophesy. Let us look at things more simply," as M.
Luchaire says. And disbelieving, to a very great extent, in

M. Luchaire, as I have noted in the text (1907) declares the questions
raised to be insoluble on the available data.

The matter is referred to, but with no additional evidence or further
discussion, in Sir Rennell Rodd s The Principalities of A chaia and the
Chronicles of Morea, 1907, Chap. I, and Mr. Pirie- Gordon s Innocent

the Great, an Essay on his Life and Times, 1907, Chap. IV.
1 Innocent III.: La Question d Orient. 1907. See pp. 85, 86, 91,

and 97

xx Introduction

the plot, I am bound to exonerate Villehardouin from the
charge of endeavouring to disguise its existence. Nay, I go
further. What we see as the past was to Villehardouin the
present and the future. We know that the Crusade came to
nothing, ultimately fizzled out," as one may say. But
Villehardouin, looking forward from day to day, may quite
honestly have believed that the course he consistently advo
cated was the course best calculated, all the circumstances
being given, to ensure success. Shut up in the island of St.
Nicholas, near Venice, without the necessary means for
advance or retreat, or even for the provision of daily subsis
tence, the Crusading host was in helpless case. The advance
on Zara had no alternative. Afterwards, leaders and men
were without the sinews of war. When Alexius came with
his definite proposals, one cannot wonder that men of strong
political instinct, like our hero, should have thought that the
best coign of vantage for an attack on Jerusalem, was Con
stantinople. The ignorant commonalty were for a direct
descent on the Holy Land. The wiser chiefs would have
preferred to first break the power of the Saracens in Egypt.
The politicians of still larger outlook might naturally hold
that with the Greek empire at their back, and with coffers full
of Greek gold, they had the best chance of re-establishing the
Christian kingdom of Jerusalem.

Nay, shall I go further still? The Franks defeated the
Greeks with ease, defeated them as Pizarro and Cortes de
feated the Peruvians and Mexicans, as Clive defeated the
armies of India. What if they had not only conquered
Roumania, but had also revivified the Greek empire ; if, in
stead of giving themselves to the greed, and rapine, and
unstatesmanlike oppression, which Villehardouin deplored,
and so losing within sixty years (1261) what they had held
unworthily what if, instead of this, they had administered
wisely and well, had mingled in blood and interest with the
conquered, had breathed with the breath of a new life over
the dry bones of that dead race and nationality, had created
a virile state at this specially important point of the world s
surface, and so barred the way against the entrance of the
Turk into Europe? When the Frank fleet set sail from
Venice, these things were on the knees of the gods. Should
we have been misdoubting Villehardouin if they had come to
pass?

Introduction xxi

And having said so much for Villehardouin s good faith
and essential political honesty, one is the more free to
admire the force and effectiveness of the man. What was his
exact age at the date of the tournament at Ecri (November
1199), is not known. Probably he was then about forty, and
in the fulness of his strength, and, as one may fairly con
jecture, well-knit, and possessing a frame fitted to endure
hardship and fatigue. Even if we regard as doubtful the
statement of Heredia s chronicler, that it was he who first
proposed the Crusade to Count Thibaut, 1 yet it is clear that,
from the very beginning, he took a leading part in the enter
prise, and that, as one may conclude, on purely personal
grounds, for the Villehardouins were of no imposing noblesse.
Thus he is chosen by the assembled chiefs as one of the six
envoys sent to Venice to negotiate for the transport of the
host; and it is he who stands forth as spokesman for the
Crusaders in the first memorable assembly at St. Mark s.
When Count Thibaut dies, he seems to take the most active
part in the choice of a successor, and proposes the leader
ultimately nominated. When, afterwards, the pilgrims
begin to avoid Venice, and travel eastwards by other routes,
he is one of the two delegates despatched to bring them to a
better mind, succeeding, to some extent, by comfort and
prayers. 3 To him is entrusted the task of explaining to the
restored Emperor Isaac what are the conditions on which the
Crusaders have consented to come to his help at Constanti
nople. Again he is selected for the perilous office of bearing
to the Emperors Isaac and Alexius, in full court, the haughty
defiance of the host. He is selected once more for the parti
cularly delicate mission of reconciling the Marquis of Mont-
ferrat with the Emperor Baldwin, and he is afterwards
deputed to bring the Marquis to Constantinople. Thus we
see him taking a prominent part wherever there is a task of
difficulty or danger to be undertaken; and finally, in one of
the darkest, direst hours of the expedition, he stands forth
heroically, and masters circumstance. The Crusaders, con
trary to all preconcerted plans, have left their ranks and
followed the lightly-armed Comans into the field, whereupon
the Comans attack in turn, and cut the Crusaders to pieces,
killing Count Lewis of Blois, and taking the Emperor Bald
win prisoner. A broken remnant of the host comes flying.

1 See ante, p. xvi.

xxii Introduction

into the camp. " When he sees this, Geoffry, the Marshal of
Champagne, who is keeping guard before one of the gates of
the city, issues forth from the camp as quickly as he can, and
with all his men, and sends word to Manasses of the Isle, who
is keeping another gate, to follow." One can almost see it
all, as he tells the story : the advance in serried ranks, rapid
but in strict order, and with all the pomp of war a grande
allure , and the long line of mailed riders forming across the
plain; the fugitives in full flight, for the most part too panic-
stricken to stop short of the camp itself, but those of better
heart staying to strengthen the immovable breakwater of
men. Towards that breakwater, but still keeping a re
spectful distance, surges the scattered host of Comans, Wal-
lachians, Greeks, who do such mischief as they can with
bows and arrows. It was between nones and vespers, as
Villehardouin tells us, that the rout was stayed. It is not till
nightfall that the enemy retire. Then, under cover of night,
and in council with the Doge, he leads off the beaten remnant
of the host, leaving, as he records with just pride, not one
wounded man behind and effects a masterly retreat to the
sea and safety.

A man, evidently like Scott s William of Deloraine, " good
at need " a man trusted of all and trustworthy honoured
by the Doge, honoured by the Emperor Baldwin, honoured
and beloved by the Marquis of Montferrat. Nor should it be
imagined, because this is the impression left by a study of the
chronicle, that Villehardouin s method of telling the story of
the Crusade has in it anything of personal boastfulness or
vainglory. When he speaks of himself, in the course of his
narrative, he does so quite simply, and just as he speaks of
others. There is no attempt to magnify his own deeds or in
fluence. If he has taken part in any adventure or delibera
tion, he mentions the fact without false modesty, but does
not dwell upon it unduly. And, indeed, as I read the man s
character, a certain honourable straightforwardness seems to
me one of its most important traits. He is a religious man,
no doubt. The purely religious side of the Crusade has its
influence upon him. He is not unaffected by the greatness
of the pardon offered by the Pope. He believes that the
expedition is righteous, and that God approves of it. He
holds that God looks with a favouring eye upon all who are
doing their best for its furtherance. " Listen/ he cries after

Introduction xxiii

some great deliverance, " how great are the miracles of our
Lord whenever it is his pleasure to perform them. . . .
Well may we say that no man can harm those whom God
favours." And he stands in no manner of doubt that the
Divine justice will deal in a very exemplary manner with
those who separate themselves from the host, and pursue
their own paths to Palestine. But if he is a religious man, he
is in no sense an enthusiast. He stands in marked contrast
to such Crusaders as Godfrey of Bouillon and St. Lewis. The
worldly side of the whole thing its policy and business, and
fighting and conquests these are very habitually present to
his thoughts. And withal, as I have said and notwith
standing the doubts referred to in the earlier pages of this
introduction there is a ring about him of honesty and sin
cerity. His utterances are such as may be counted honour
able to all time. He never forbears to inveigh against
dishonesty, double-dealing, covetousness. It is not only as
a politician, but as an upright man that he denounces the
rapacious mishandling to which the Greeks are subjected.

Of such a man, as I repeat, one hesitates to believe that he
lent himself to a long course of intrigue, and afterwards con
stituted himself the " official apologist " of what he knew to
be indefensible.

And as the man is, so is his book. When judging that
book, it has to be borne in mind that it is the first work of
importance and sustained dignity written in the French
tongue. At the time that he dictated it, therefore, Ville-
hardouin had no precedents to go by, no models to imitate.
He was in all respects language, narrator s art, style a
pioneer. And this being so, it marks him as a born writer,
and a writer of a very high order, that his narration should be
so lucid and distinct. He marshals his facts well, proceeds
from point to point with order and method, brings important
matters into due prominence, keeps accessories properly in
the background. Nor, notwithstanding the usual sobriety
of his method, is he incapable, on due occasion, of rendering
the moral aspect of a scene, or even the physical aspect of
what has passed before his eyes. In proof of this I may refer
to the two great scenes in St. Mark s, 1 to the account of the
attack on Constantinople, 1 to the story of the battle in which
Baldwin was taken prisoner. 1

1 See pp. 7-8, 16-17, 37-44, and 94-96.

xxiv Introduction

Still I admit that as a word-painter his powers are em
bryonic rather than fully developed a fact which Sainte-
Beuve, the great critic, accounts for by saying that " the
descriptive style had not yet been invented." But here, I
venture to think, Sainte-Beuve was nodding. For if Ville-
hardouin himself depicts soberly, yet he had a contemporary
and fellow-Crusader, Robert of Clan by name, who also wrote
a chronicle, and Robert of Clan has left a description of the
scene when the Crusading fleet set sail from Venice on the
feast of St. Remigius, 1202, which is not wanting in pic-
turesqueness and colour: " The Doge," he says, " had with
him fifty galleys, all at his own charges. The galley in which
he himself sailed was all vermilion, and there was a pavilion
of red satin stretched above his head. And there were before
him four trumpets of silver that trumpeted, and cymbals
that made joy and merriment. And all the men of note, as
well clerks as lay, and whether of small condition or great,
made such joy at our departure, that never before had such
joy been made, or so fine a fleet been seen. And then the
pilgrims caused all the priests and clerks there present to get
up into the castles of the ships, and sing the Veni Creator
Spiritus, and all, both the great and the small folk, wept for
great joy and happiness. ... It seemed as if the whole sea
swarmed with ants, and the ships burned on the water, and
the water itself were aflame with the great joy that they
had." !

It was in colours like these that Turner saw Venice suffused
when he painted such pictures as the Sun of Venice going
out to sea. It was in terms almost identical that Shake
speare described Cleopatra s barge " burning " upon the Nile.
Surely when Robert of Clari, a writer not otherwise compar
able with Villehardouin, mixed such hues upon his palette, it
cannot be said that the descriptive style was unborn. Aiid
if Villehardouin makes use of it but soberly, the reason is
rather, I conceive, to be found in this, that his interest was
but little concerned with the outward shows of things. He
was a politician and soldier who had played an important
part in the drama of history. What he cared to remember,
in after days, was the deeds of the men who had played their
parts with him, their passions and objects. Their dress, the

1 The reader may compare this passage with Villehardouin s descrip
tion of the same event, p. 19, or of the departure from Corfu., p. 29.

Introduction xxv

pomp and circumstance by which they were surrounded, the
look of the stage, and appearance of the side-scenes, all this
had, comparatively, faded from his memory. His chronicle
is that of a statesman, like the chronicle in which, some two
centuries and a half later, Philippe de Commines enthroned,
or gibbeted, the craft of his master Lewis XI.

As to his style, why style is the man s own self, according
to Buffon s oft-quoted saying, and Villehardouin s style is
simple, strong, and direct like himself, and like his narra
tion. Now and again, but very seldom, it bears a blossom,
" puts forth a flower," as the French say when some bright
image, some smiling fancy, breaks like a crocus or snowdrop
through the cold aridity of prose. Thus, when the fleet is
leaving Abydos these vessels in full sail seem wonderfully
to have stirred the hearts of the pilgrim host he says that
the Straits of St. George were " in flower " with ships. But
expressions like this, which suffuse with imagination the
plain statement of a fact, are rare with him. Usually he is
sober in his use of image, as in his descriptions. He says
what he has to say, and no more; and he says it in a short,
plainly-constructed sentence which can be " construed," as a
schoolboy would say, without difficulty. Compared with the
sentence of most English and French writers of the fifteenth
or sixteenth centuries, or even of most German writers of
to-day, his sentence is simplicity itself.

" The modern literature of the West they might justly
despise," says Gibbon, speaking of the Greeks of Ville-
hardouin s time. Is that quite true? In Villehardouin we
have a literature of the quite early spring vigorous, full of
sap, unforced, spontaneous, unsophisticated. Take, by way
of contrast, and as illustrating the literature of autumn and
decay, such a passage as the following from his contemporary,
the Greek historian Nicetas: " What shall I say of the statue
of Helen, of the perfection of her form, the alabaster of her
arms and of her breast, of her perfect limbs ? of that Helen
who brought all Greece beneath the walls of Troy? Had
she not softened the savage inhabitants of Laconia? All
seemed possible to her whose looks enchained every heart.
Her vesture was without artifice, but so ingeniously disposed
that the greedy eye could see all the freshness of her charms
scarce hidden by her light tunic, her veil, her crown, and the
tresses of her hair. Her hair, bound only to her neck, floated

xxvi Introduction

according to the fancy of the winds, and fell to her feet in
waving tresses; her mouth, half-opened like the calix of a
young flower, seemed to offer a passage to the tender accents
of her voice, and the sweet smile of her lips filled the soul
of the spectator with delicious feeling. Never will it be
possible to express, and posterity will seek vainly to feel or
depict, the grace overspreading this divine statue. But, O
daughter of Tyndareus, masterpiece of love, O rival of Venus,
where is the omnipotence of thy charms? Why didst thou
not exercise them to subdue those barbarians as thou didst
exercise them amiably of yore ? Has Fate condemned thee
to burn in the same fire with which thou wert wont to con
sume all hearts ? Did the descendants of ./Eneas wish to con
demn thee to the same flames that thou didst light erewhile in
Ilion ? " x Was Nicetas, the author of this artificial rhetoric,
really in a position to " despise Villehardouin ? In this
matter, and with all due respect for Gibbon, one may say
that the Frank represents the twilight of dawn, and the Greek
the twilight of night.

And what became of Villehardouin at last? How and
when did he die ? All here is obscurity. We know, as I have
said, next to nothing about his birth and earlier years. We
know next to nothing about his later life and end. He
emerges into the half-light of history with the beginning of
his chronicle. He passes back into the darkness of the years
with its close. Of what happened to him after the date in
1207, when, as he tells us it is his latest record, as if his pen
had faltered at that point how the Marquis of Montferrat had
been miserably slain of what, I say, happened to him after
that year we are almost ignorant. He had left his wife, his
daughters, his two sons, to follow the cross. There is na
evidence to suggest that he ever rejoined them in his native
Champagne. M. Bouchet conjectures 2 that, replete with
honour and rewards, weary of life s battle, saddened by the
loss of so many of his old companions in arms, he retired to
end his days in his castle of Messinopolis on the enemy s
marches, and there composed his history; but much of this
can be no more than conjecture. That the man lived to any

1 1 am translating from a French version which I happen to have
before me Bibliothtque des Croisades, by M. Michaud, third part

1829, p. 428.

* La Conqu&e de Constantinople, texte et traduction nouvelle, 1891, Volv

II., pp. 286 and following.

Introduction xxvii

great age is improbable, and indeed the year 1213 has usually
been assigned as the year of his death. That he wrote, or
rather dictated, his Chronicles when the hand of time lay
heavy upon him seems to me, from the internal evidence of
style and spirit, to be quite unlikely. Rather do I fancy that
he composed them, in the halls of Messinopolis indeed,
but with spirit unsubdued, and during some brief lull in the
great strife between the Greeks and their Frank conquerors.

JOINVILLE

WITH Joinville we pass into a different atmosphere. Join-
ville was born, it is believed, in 1224. He embarked with St.
Lewis for the Crusade on the 28th August 1248; he returned
to France in the July of 1254. His Memoirs, as he himself
tells us, were written, i.e. concluded, in the month of October^
1309, that is to say, when he was eighty-five years of age, and
more than half a century after the events he had set himself
to narrate. Thus while Villehardouin writes as a middle-
aged soldier, succinctly, soberly, with eye intent on important
events, and only casually alive to the passing show of things,
Joinville writes as an old man looking lovingly, lingeringly, at
the past garrulous, discursive, glad of a listener. Nothing
is beneath his attention. He lingers here, lingers there, picks
up an anecdote as he goes along, tells how people looked,
and what they wore, describes the manners and customs of
the outlandish folk with whom he is brought into contact;
has his innocent superstitions, his suspicions of spiritualistic
influence, stops to tell you about a tumbler s tricks, about a
strange fossil that has struck his fancy ; illustrates, discusses,
moralises; reports at length his conversations, especially
with the king ; and would have a tendency to repeat himself
in any case, even if he had not adopted, to begin with, a
defective plan of narration, that involved much repetition.
And with such a charm in it all ! The man is so simple, so
honest, so lovable. Fine fellow as he undoubtedly is, he
makes claim to no heroic sentiments tells you how he was
afraid to turn his eyes towards his castle as he went away,
leaving wife and children behind him how he trembled,
partly with fear, when he fell into the hands of the enemy.
And his judgments upon his fellows are so essentially the

xxviii Introduction

judgments of a gentleman. Then he has the graphic gift:
we see what he sees, and we know the people that he brings
before us. All that world of the Crusade lives in his pages.
Not even in Chaucer s immortal " Prologue " do we get so
near to the life of the Middle Ages.

Yes, as one reads the chronicle, it is impossible not to love
the chronicler. If a snob be, according to Thackeray s defini
tion, one who meanly admires mean things, then surely one
who grandly admires heroic things may be pronounced a
hero. /And Joinville had before him in St. Lewis a high ideal
of Christian manhood, and all his heart went out in love and
veneration for the friend, long dead when he wrote, who had
been to him king and sainty He looks back with pride at
that great figure which had loomed so large in his earlier
manhood. He sees him once more as he rode in the field
among his knights, flashing in arms, overtopping them all,
the goodliest presence there. 1 He dwells upon his old chief s
fearlessness, his courage before the enemy, his undaunted
fortitude under the combined assault of disaster, defeat,
and sickness unto death. He marks his refusal to selfishly
abandon the people God had committed to his charge and
secure his own safety. He notes that neither the prospect of
death, nor torture, has power to move him one hair s -breadth
from what he holds to be right, and notes also how, in his
unswerving rectitude, he will keep to his word, even though
that word has been given to the infidel, and though the in
fidel are far from keeping a reciprocal faith. Then, in more
peaceful times, in the ordinary course of justice, he shows the
king s determination that right shall be done, with no respect
of persons, between man and man, and as between monarch
and subject, and his passionate desire for a pure adminis
tration. And when, finally, St. Lewis is canonised when
Rome sets its seal and mark upon him for all time then the
loyal, loving servant seems to utter a kind of Nunc dimittis.
Joinville feels that he himself may now depart in peace.

Not that there is any Boswellism about him. All that St.

1 Joinville is here quite lyrical. He brings to mind Sir Richard
Yemen s speech on the royal army, in the first part of King Henry

l\7 .

,* w .

" I saw young Harry with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm d,
Rise from the ground like feather d Mercury," etc.

Introduction . xxix

Lewis does is not of necessity good in Joinville s eyes. The
servant keeps his own judgment quite clear even when judg
ing of his master s acts, and is unduly swayed neither by love
nor reverence. Thus, when the Abbot of Cluny gives the
king two costly palfreys as a preliminary to a discussion on
certain business matters pending between them, Joinville
does not hesitate to ask the king whether the gift had in
clined him to listen with greater favour to what the abbot
had to say, and to push home the obvious moral a moral,
be it said, in view of certain municipal facts, which the
twentieth century might lay to heart with the same advan
tages as the contemporaries of St. Lewis.

Again, when some fifteen years after the return from
Palestine, St. Lewis, prematurely old and broken in health,
determines to turn Crusader once again (1270), Joinville not
only refuses to accompany him, but evidently does all he can
to dissuade his master from a policy so disastrous. " I
thought that those committed a mortal sin who advised him
to undertake that journey," says the upright counsellor, who
was no parasite ; and he thanks God he had no part or lot in
that expedition.

And so too Joinville is not satisfied of the king s " good
manners " in his relations with the queen. The queen, after
being brought to bed of my lady Blanche, journeys by sea
from Jaffa to rejoin the king at Sayette. Joinville goes to
the shore to meet her there is nothing to show why the king
did not lovingly perform this office himself and brings her
up to the castle, reporting her arrival to the king, who is in
his chapel. The king knew where Joinville was going, and
has delayed the sermon till his return, and asks whether his
wife and children are in good health. " And I bring these
things to your notice," says Joinville, : because I had been
in his company five years, and never yet had he spoken a
word to me about the queen, or about his children nor to
any one else, so far as I ever heard. And, so it seems to me,"
adds the good chronicler, " there was some want of good
manners (mores in the Latin sense, I take it), " in being
thus a stranger to one s wife and children."

To this the reader will, no doubt, be inclined to subscribe.
Indeed, the want of more obviously cordial relations between
the king and queen which may almost be inferred from Join-
ville s book, affords matter for surprise, seeing who and what

xxx Introduction

that king and queen both were. For if Lewis was a hero and
a saint, Margaret of Provence, the " falcon-hearted dove " of
Mrs. Hemans poem, was a heroine, and not all unfit, as men
and women go, for canonisation. When she figures in Join-
ville s narrative it is as a woman altogether brave and lovable,
and possessing a sense of humour withal. There are few
more striking scenes in history than those in which she
appears as a queen, about to become a mother, her husband
and his host prisoners, the city in which she is, beleaguered
and likely to fall and kneels before the good old knight,
and asks him to strike off her head or ever she falls into the
enemy s hands; or that second scene, on the day after the
birth of the child Tristram they called him for sorrow
when she summons round her bed those who would basely
surrender the city, and appealing to the babe s weakness and
her own womanhood, seeks to inspire them with her own
courage.

One might have thought, primd facie, that there would be
some record of the meeting between king and queen after
scenes like these, some written word to show how the queen
greeted the king when he came out of captivity and sore peril,
and how the king acknowledged her proud bearing in ex
treme danger. But the chronicler, who loved them both, is
silent. And yet he stays to give us the picture of an earlier
time, and not so much earlier, when the relations between
the royal couple had been more loverlike. He tells how
Blanche, the queen-mother, had tyrannised over them, as the
maitresse-femme, the woman accustomed to authority, will
tyrannise in all stations of life, and how, to secure some
privacy of intercourse, they had arranged a meeting-place on
a hidden stairway, each scuttling back like a rabbit at the
approach of the maternal enemy. And he tells of the
younger woman s passionate appeal one of those appeals
that are so human that they ring through the ages, like the
appeal of Marie Antoinette to her motherhood tells how
Margaret lay after child-birth, as all thought dying, and the
king hung over her, and the queen-mother ordered him away,
and the wife cried: " Alas! whether dead or alive, you will
not suffer me to see my lord ! " Whereupon she fainted,
and they thought she was dead, and the king, who thought
she was dying, came back." l

1 Should one smile or sigh ? The same Margaret, in after years, tried

Introduction xxxi

It has been conjectured that politics came, to some extent,
between the king and queen, and that the king wished to be
unfettered by her influence in state affairs. 1 For Margaret
was no lay-figure. She played a not unimportant part in the
world s affairs. Failing the arbitration of Lewis himself,
Henry III. and the English barons agreed to refer their
differences to her. That arbitration proving abortive, she
sided throughout and very actively with Henry, whose wife
Eleanor was her younger sister. All her life long she passion
ately maintained her claims on Provence as against the king s
brother. Possibly, therefore, St. Lewis may, while agreeing
to allow her a certain independence of action, have preferred
to remain outside the sphere of her activities. One cannot
tell. The heart-relations between two human beings are
always difficult to unraveloften too tangled to be unravelled
even by the two persons most interested. At the same time,
as I said, one cannot but agree with Joinville, that the king s
" good manners " in relation to the queen are somewhat open
to question. For myself I confess that I should have thought
it better " manners," if, when the ship struck on the sand
bank, and death seemed imminent, he had gone to encourage
his wife and children, instead of prostrating himself " cross
wise, on the deck of the vessel . . . before the body of our
Lord."

To a man of St. Lewis s temperament, the cloister must
have offered attractions wellnigh irresistible; and it is re
corded that, on one occasion at least, he expressed a deter
mination to seek its retirement, when the queen effectually
combated his resolution by silently fetching his children, and
placing them before him. Had such monkish ideals any
thing to do with his attitude towards his wife? Had he a
kind of feeling that marriage acted as a restraint, not cer
tainly on his passions, but on his piety ? Was he swayed, in
marriage, voluntarily or involuntarily, towards the celibate
life ? I scarcely think so. For the man, with all his religious
fervour, was essentially sane of heart and head. His ethics

to exercise her influence most unduly over her own son Philip, and in
duced him to swear that he would remain subject to her authority till
he had attained the age of thirty with other like stipulations. See
p. 422, Revue des Questions Historiques, 1867, Vol. III.

1 See the extremely interesting article entitled Marguerite de Provence,
son caractere, son role politique, in the Revue des Questions Historiques,
Vol. III., 1867, pp. 417-458.

xxxii Introduction

were those of a saint, but they were also those of a supremely
honest and upright man. Nor was he in the least priest-
ridden. When the assembled bishops of France came to
him, and proposed a course which his own conscience did not
approve,, he unhesitatingly refused to acquiesce, and give
them powers they might misuse. He offers the example,
rare at all times, and under every form of governmnet,
whether monarchic, aristocratic, or democratic, of a ruler
bent en ruling according to the moral law alone.

With such a guiding spirit, with pure religious zeal and
honesty at the helm, there can be no question as to the
aims and objects of the Crusade, nor any necessity, or
indeed excuse, for such a disquisition as that with which I
introduced Villehardouin s chronicle. Dandolo, Montferrat,
Baldwin, even Henry, nearly all the leading actors on Ville-
hardouin s stage, may have been swayed this way and that,
by motives not all avowable. St. Lewis had but one motive,
and that open as the day, from the time when, in his sore
sickness, and being then some thirty years of age (1244), he
vowed to take the cross. Broadly, the condition of affairs in
the Holy Land remained at that date pretty much what
they had been when Montferrat s host embarked at Venice
forty -two years before (1202). True, the intervening years
had been crowded with action. Apart from the constantly-
recurring local episodes of battle and siege, bloodshed and
famine, and slaughter, there had been a descent into Egypt,
with siege and sack of Damietta (1219), and a disastrous
advance on Cairo, an expedition curiously similar in its in
cidents to that which St. Lewis was about to undertake.
There had been the expedition to the Holy Land of the bril
liant and cultured Frederick II. of Germany, who by treaty
had obtained possession of Jerusalem (1229) curiously
enough he was at the time under ban of excommunication
and had been crowned there as king. There had been, also for
a time, a recrudescence of Christian power and influence. But
this had passed away. The tide had set against the West
and against the Cross. A few strongholds on the shore of
Judaea alone remained in Frank hands. As in 1202, so in
1248, when St. Lewis sailed from Aigues-Mortes, the task of
reconquering Jerusalem still remained to be accomplished.
That was the task to which St. Lewis set himself with all
singleness of heart and aim, and he failed. His general-

Introduction . xxxiii

ship was clearly not on a level with his personal courage or
self-devotion. Jerusalem had finally passed into Moslem
hands. But the man himself, the story of him, the record of
his loving follower and friend these live for all time.

As to Joinville s style, why, I fear I have done him some
wrong in speaking of his age and garrulity. No doubt he was
eighty-five when he finished his book, and like most old men,
he liked to hear himself talk. But those whom the gods
love die young, and they die young not because their span of
life is short, but because they carry into extreme age, nay to
the very grave itself, the fresh youth of their spirit. And, in
this sense, Joinville was young at four score years and five.
With all his garrulity, his readiness to turn aside and be be
guiled from the forward path by incident or episode, his love
for going over the past lingeringly with all this, his outlook
is as keen, as full of interest, as blithe, as the outlook of a boy.
He sees clearly, he describes well, and his touch is light
and bright not perhaps, to speak with perfect accuracy, the
touch of a writer in the French tradition, because the French
tradition was scarcely formed, but of a writer who occupies
his due place in the formation of that tradition. Here again
" the style is the man himself."

" And what good came of it at last? the reader may per
haps be tempted to ask, like the little Peterkin of Southey s
verse. What advantage has the world reaped from the seed
sown by the Crusades? Has anything commensurate been
gained by the blood spilt in that great contest between the
West and East? Did the good in it all, contemporary and
prospective, outweigh the evil? As to this the judgments of
posterity have been very varied. The eighteenth century,
which was an age of not very profound reason, and possessed
but little of the historic sense, regarded the whole movement
mainly as an outbreak of fanaticism. The nineteenth cen
tury, the present century, with their deeper feeling for the
complexities of human life, are more tolerant. Here, for
instance, is what that sober historian, Bishop Stubbs, says:
" The Crusades are not, in my mind, either the popular
delusions that our cheap literature has determined them to
be, nor papal conspiracies against kings and peoples, as they
appear to the Protestant controversialist, nor the savage out
breaks of expiring barbarism thirsting for blood and plunder,

B 333

xxxiv Introduction

nor volcanic explosions of religious intolerance. I believe
them to have been, in their deep sources, and in the minds of
their best champions, and in the main tendency of their
results, capable of ample justification. They were the first
great effort of mediaeval life to go beyond the pursuit of
selfish and isolated ambitions ; they were the trial-feat of the
young world, essaying to use, to the glory of God and the
benefit of man, the arms of its new knighthood. That they
failed in their direct object is only what may be alleged
against almost every design which the Great Disposer of
events has moulded to help the world s progress; for the
world has grown wise by the experience of failure, rather
than by the winnings of high aims. That the good they did
was largely leavened with evil may be said of every war that
has ever been waged ; that bad men rose by them while good
men fell, is and must be true wherever and whenever the
race is to the swift and the battle to the strong. But that,
in the end, they were a benefit to the world no one who reads
can doubt; and that in their course they brought out a love
for all that is heroic in human nature the love of freedom, the
honour of prowess, sympathy with sorrow, perseverance to
the last, and patient endurance without hope the chronicles
of the age abundantly prove; proving, moreover, that it
was by the experience of those times that the former of those
virtues were realised, and presented to posterity. . . . The
history of the Crusades has always had for me an interest that
quite rivals all the interest I could take in the history of the
Greeks and Romans." These are wise and sober words, and
I quote them, partly because they carry weight, as coming
from such an authority as Bishop Stubbs, and partly because
they will, I think, provide the reader, as it were, with an
atmosphere in which to study these fine old Chronicles of
Villehardouin and Joinville.

EXISTING TRANSLATIONS AND GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

IT is scarcely necessary that I should enter here into a dis
quisition on the MSS. of Villehardouin and Joinville, and the
various French editions of their chronicles. Suffice it to
say, that with regard to Villehardouin I have used, for the

1 Seventeen Lectures on the study of Mediceval and Modern History, etc.,
by William Stubbs. Oxford, 1874, PP- 157-158-

Introduction xxxv

present translation, the learned and admirable editions of
M. Natalis de Wailly x and the equally excellent edition of
M. Emile Bouchet. 2 Both these editions contain an excel
lent text that of M. de Wailly containing also notes of the
various readings in the leading MSS., while M. Bouchet s
second volume embraces an elaborate and very valuable dis
sertation on the Crusade. With regard to Joinville, I have
similarly used the edition of M. Natalis de Wailly, which is
similar in form and character and excellence to that of his
Villehardouin?

As to English versions, a word more is necessary. Ville-
hardouin s book has only, so far as I know, been once trans
lated into English, and that was by a certain T. Smith, not
otherwise known to me, whose version was published in 1829,
by Pickering. 4 The book is comparatively rare, so that I
think I may assume to be the first to place Villehardouin s
Chronicle before the English reader in a popular form. T.
Smith, whoever he may have been, was a scholar, and his
work, subject to a slight criticism I shall have to make here
after, was well done.

Joinville s Chronicle has, so far as I know, been translated
three times. It was translated, in the early part of last
century, by Johnes of Hafod. 5 Now Johnes of Hafod,
though not an inspired translator, is a translator by no means
to be despised. His version of Froissart has not the six
teenth-century charm, the old-world power and picturesque-
ness of Lord Berner s version, published in 1523-25; it is
perforce less near to Froissart in language and spirit; but still

1 Geoffroi de Villehardouin, Conqutte de Constantinople, avec la Con
tinuation de Henri de Valenciennes, texte original, accompagne d une
traduclion, par M. Natalis de Wailly, Membre de 1 Institut. Seconde
Edition, Paris, 1874.

a Geoffroi de Villehardouin. La Conquete de Constantinople. Texte
ft traductionnouvelle, avec notes, notice, et glossaire, two vols. Paris, 1891.

3 Jean, Sire de Joinyille. Histoire de Saint Louis, Credo, et Lettre a
Louis X. Texte original accompagne d une traduction, par M. Natalis
de Wailly, Membre de 1 Institut. Paris, 1874. The Credo and Letter
to Louis X. I have not translated. They are beautiful in their own
way, but scarcely of general interest.

4 The Chronicle of Geoffry de Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne
and Roumania, concerning the conquest of Constantinople by the French
and Venetians, anno MCCIV., translated by T. Smith. London,
William Pickering, 1829.

6 Memoirs of John, Lord de Joinville, Grand Mareschal of Champagne,
written by himself, etc., the whole translated by Thomas Johnes, at the
Hafod Press of James Henderson, 1807.

xxxvi Introduction

it is a good translation. When, however, he came to deal
with Joinville, he was seriously handicapped. For the French
version, on which he relied, 1 was that of Du Cange, published
in 1668, which itself was founded on an earlier version, that of
Menard Du Cange expressly regretting that he had had
access to no MSS., and observing, with perfect candour, that
he " finds a difficulty in believing that the Sire de Joinville
liad written in such polished language as that which
M6nard attributes to him. In other words Johnes trans
lation which is that adopted in Bonn s series is based on
an edited and corrupt translation into modern French, and
has, strictly, scant historical value.

For the translations published by James Hutton 2 in 1868,
and Ethel Wedgwood 3 in 1906, 1 have no desire to speak with
anything but civility. Both, however, possess what I cannot
but regard as a defect, viz., that they do not reproduce Join-
ville s book as he wrote it. In both there is abridgment, and,
in Miss Wedgwood s book at least, rearrangement. Now I
am not denying that for " editing of this kind there is, in
Joinville s case, considerable excuse. Joinville, as I have
already said, was garrulous; he dictated largely, freely,
probably at intervals, as a great lord would; he divided his
book into two parts, dealing, one, with the king s religious
life and the other with the king s secular life a division that
even in more practised literary hands would have involved
repetition, and he repeats himself without scruple. He had
clearly never studied the art of composition in any polite
academy. The most ordinary magazine writer of to-day
could put him up to certain " tricks of the trade " of which
he knew nothing. But and here is the real point all this
garrulity, literary nonchalance, naivete", simplicity, absence
of the author s pose all this goes to make up the real Join
ville, who was an old man with a boy s heart, and a grand
seigneur, and a gentleman, and a Christian, and a very fine

1 Though a far better version, for this purpose, was even then avail
able, viz., the version, founded on MSS. texts, published by Capperon-
nier, in 1761. Any one comparing the first parts, for instance, of
Johnes translation with that here published will see how seriously the
original Joinville has been played with.

a Saint Lewis, King of France, by the Sire de Joinville, translated by
James Hutton. Sampson Low, Marston and Co. The sixth edition
published in 1892 is before me.

4 The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, a new English version, by
Ethel Wedgwood, 1906. John Murray.

Introduction xxxvii

fellow. Even apart from the strict historical respect for a
text, we lose by trying to improve upon the work of a man
of this individuality and force. So I make no apology, nay,
I claim credit, for presenting Joinville s Chronicle to the
English reader, for the first time, as Joinville dictated it, 1 so far
as the differences between the English and French languages
will allow.

And this brings me to the question of translation. Now
the translator, I take it, should endeavour to place himself,
as it were, inside the author s mind, and reproduce the
author s work in the same form which the author himself
would use if he were writing in the language of the transla
tion. But when the translator attempts to carry out this
principle in dealing with such works as the chronicles of
Villehardouin or Joinville, he is at once confronted with a
great difficulty. Villehardouin writes at the beginning of
the thirteenth century, and Joinville at the beginning of
the fourteenth, and to translate their old French into the
language spoken in these islands circa 1209 and 1309, would
even if I could claim the ability for such a task, and this I
am far indeed from doing be a work of at least doubtful
utility. The English reader of to-day would thank me very
little for plunging him into a vernacular very much more
archaic than that of Chaucer. (Canterbury Tales circa 1383.)
What, then, is the alternative? To frankly adopt the quite
modern English in use among our contemporaries ?

I do not think so. But in order to explain why I think
otherwise, it will be necessary to go somewhat farther afield,
and make an excursus into a question of literary sesthetics.

Why do we read such books as the chronicles in question ?
For the facts recorded? Certainly, in a measure. Both
Villehardouin and Joinville were eye and ear witnesses of
much that they recorded, and in a general history of the

1 This, however, must be said with just a little qualification. Scribes
in the days anterior to printing, and editors in the days after printing
was invented, have rejuvenated and restored Joinville s text much as
a succession of over- zealous rectors have dealt with some of our old
parish churches. The first MSS. of the Chronicles, made at Joinville s
own dictation, cannot be found. The earliest MSS. that can be found
are not contemporary, and have been clearly doctored, so far as the
language is concerned. The text on which the present translation is
based is that of M. de Wailly, itself based on a careful comparison
of the available sources. As regards all this question of MSS. and
editions, I cannot do better than refer to the elaborate introduction to
his edition of the Chronicle.

xxxviii Introduction

great events they helped to fashion, they have a claim to be
heard and considered. But they did not know all that took
place. No contemporary ever knows that. He sees what
he sees, the strand, more or less slender, that he holds in his
own hand, or that comes within his purview not the other
strands that the future will gather together and fashion into
the great fabric of history. Villehardouin and Joinville
were, in a sense, only the special war correspondents-
though specially well-informed no doubt of their own time.
If we want a full account of the attack on the Greek empire,
or St. Lewis s Crusade, and want no more, we shall do better
to go to one of the histories in which the whole story has been
quintessentiated from all the chronicles and contemporary
records.

Why, then, again, do we read such books as those of Ville
hardouin and Joinville? Partly, as I have said, for the
facts, but much more for the spirit. These books take us
back, and take us back delightfully, among " old forgotten
far-off things;" and they take us back, not as a history,
however graphic, takes us back, consciously, by effort, with
inevitable modern sidelights, to-day perforce throwing some
of its gleams and shadows back upon yesterday but simply,
naturally, by placing us in the company of the men who
lived of old time, and enabling us, for the nonce, to see with
their eyes and hear with their ears. The very imperfection
of those older writers has a charm. They repeat the same
forms of expression freely. Their vocabulary is simple, often
to monotony. Of adjectives they possess but a small pro
vision. The literary tricks now performed quite freely by
any tyro in journalism they have not acquired. They are
essentially of their time a lisping time but the lisping
time of giants. And to take their speech, their large and
simple utterance, and mould it afresh into the language of
modernity, dispels an illusion, jars us, brings us back too
suddenly, like a diver rashly and over hastily coming out of
the deep sea, into " the light of common day."

Let me briefly illustrate. Villehardouin returns from
Venice, and gives an account of his mission to Thibaut of
Champagne. These are his words, which I translate quite
literally: " So rode Geoffry the Marshal, day by day, that he
came to Troyes in Champagne, and found his lord, the Count
Thibaut, sick and languishing; and he (Count Thibaut) was

Introduction xxxix

greatly rejoiced at his coming. And when he (Geoffry) told
him the news how they had fared, he was so rejoiced that he
said he would mount horse, which he had not done of a long
time; and he arose and rode forth. Alas! how great the
pity ! For never more did he mount horse, save that once."
Now this is how T. Smith, for whom, I repeat, I have every
respect, translates the passage into the English of his genera
tion: " Geoffry the Marshal continued his journey until he
arrived at Troyes in Champagne, where he found his lord,
Count Thibaut sick and dispirited, but notwithstanding
greatly rejoiced at his return. And when the count under
stood the good success of his embassy, he was so elated that
he called for his horse to ride forth which for a long time past
he had not done. He arose from his bed and mounted his
horse for the last time." Here we have, no doubt, the sub
stance. T. Smith tells us, practically, what Villehardouin
tells us. But he gives us no more than dry bones. The soul,
the thirteenth-century spirit, the feudatory s burst of sorrow
over his beloved feudal lord, the predestined chief of a great
expedition in which they were both to take part, the stern
soldier s "Alas!" for the "great pity" of it- all this has
vanished. We are not with Villehardouin in the thirteenth
century at all. We are, a very different thing for the present
purpose, in the year 1829.

So the alternative is, unless I greatly deceive myself, a
version that shall follow the old French idiom as closely as
possible without ceasing to be genuinely English, and the use,
in that version, of turns of speech, and a vocabulary, that
are either archaic, or suggest archaism, and that in any case
seek to avoid a too modern ring.

Whereupon I imagine that some

" Brisk little somebody,
Critic and whippersnapper, in a rage
To set things right, *

such an one as animadverted on Balaustion s recitation will
object, " such language as you suggest was not in use during
the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, nor has it ever been in
use since. It is Wardour Street English " that was, if I
remember right, the term applied to William Morris s prose
romances, " it is a sham, or at best a convention."

A sham no. There is not any pretence about it. A con
vention yes. But then how essentially convention underlies

xl Introduction

all art ! We say of Shakespeare that he is natural. And so
he is, if you will accept the convention that human beings
speak in blank verse, and possess the imperial sway over
language that he, the great word-monarch, attributes to his
characters. Leonardo da Vinci s Last Supper, now fading on
the old wall in Milan, touches the highest truth, the supreme
of nature, in the faces and forms of Christ and the Apostles.
But is it to be supposed that our Lord and His Apostles sat
at their meal in that superb rhythmic order, which is almost
suggestive of music? Did they even sit with as much
arrangement as in M. Dagnan-Bouveret s fine picture of the
same subject? If we possessed a photograph of the scene, as
it actually took place in the upper chamber at Jerusalem,
that photograph would have inestimable value historically
and, maybe, devotionally. But its artistic value would
probably be none at all. Or take again another art: M.
Coquelin is, to my mind, the most " natural " great actor
living. But M. Coquelin, quite obviously, would not speak
off the stage as he does on the stage he would not speak so
loud, nor with the same elaborateness of elocution; nor
would his gestures possess the same point and emphasis. As
an actor he adopts perforce the stage conventions, and suc
ceeds, not because he is really natural which would entail
failure but because he produces the illusion of nature.

And so I contend that the translator of such old chronicles
as those of Villehardouin and Joinville should aim at produc
ing, in a similar way, an illusion of the past. He should
place his readers in a congenial atmosphere a conventional
atmosphere, if you like, but one in which, if his work has been
well done, there is nothing to jar and distract no obtrusion
of the winds and zephyrs, nay, possibly the fogs and miasma,
of to-day.

While if precedents be wanted, are they not to hand?
Rightly understood, is not Spenser s Shepherd s Calendar
a series of poems in which the poet has reproduced, not the
past, but its simulacrum ? Kingsley s admirable Greek
Heroes come exactly within my meaning. 1 So do William
Morris s prose romances, and very large portions of his verse.

1 It is interesting from the point of view under discussion to compare
Kingsley s book with Hawthorne s Tanglcwood Tales. Hawthorne was
a man of genius, no doubt, but the modern note injures his book. It
will not stand beside Kingsley s.

Introduction xli

So does Lady Gregory s Cuchulain of Muirthemne. So, to
pass to another literature, does Balzac s Contes Drolatiques,
very foolishly attacked, from the linguistic side, by certain
pedants of his generation. Nay, Esmond itself fully as
Thackeray, by study, by the character of his own genius, had
identified himself with the days of Queen Anne, so that he
was all but the contemporary of Addison, and Steele, and
Swift are there not parts of Esmond itself when the modern
speaks a speech that is not really that of the Augustinian age,
but only I am far from complaining give us its illusion?
Or, going further still, that monument of the English tongue,
the authorised version of the Bible let every Englishman
salute at the mention of it ! does it represent the language
as spoken and written in Great Britain when James I. was
king ? No doubt it approaches nearer to that language than
it approaches to ours. But even then, with Tyndale at the
back of it, it had, more or less, an archaic form. It obtained
force and solemnity by being somewhat out of date. It was,
if you like to call it so, written in the English of " War dour
Street," or of whatever street it was that displayed objects
of doubtful antiquity in King James s London !

But here my precedents are clearly overwhelming. Who
am I to stand in such company? And if the reader says,
" Your arguments are sound, your principles cannot be im
peached, your intentions are excellent, but your version is
deplorable," I can only reply, " Don t visit my shortcomings
on Villehardouin and Joinville. They are worthy of any
reader s regard."

FRANK T. MAJRZIALS,

LONDON, February 1908*

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

GEOFFROY DE VILLEHARDOUIN, b. (uncertain) cir. 1160-1165; d.
(uncertain) cir. 1212-18. De la Conqueste de Constantinople par les
Barons Franpois associez aux Venitiens, Tan 1204, first edition, 1585;
ed. with translation into modern French and continuation by Henr
de Valenciennes; by N. de Wailly, 1872, 1874; Texte et traduction
nouvelle, by E. Bouchet, 1891.

English Translation. T. Smith, 1829.

Life. A. Debidour, " Les Chroniqueurs," with analysis of his work,
1888, etc. See also editions of N. de Wailly and Bouchet quoted above,
and works quoted in Introduction.

JEAN, SIRE DE JOINVILLE, b. cir. 1224; d. 1317-18. Credo: A
Manual of Faith, composed 1250, and revised by author nearly forty
years later; ed. facsimile, with translation into modern French,
Melanges de la Societe des Bibliophiles francais, 1837; M6moires, ou
Histoire et Chronique du tres Chretien roi Saint-Louis, 1309; first
published edition, 1547.

The other extant work is a letter from the historian to Louis X., 1315.

Works. Ed. F. Michel, 1859; by N. de Wailly, with translation
into modern French, 1874.

English Translation of Memoirs. By Johnes, 1807, reproduced in
Bohn s Antiquarian Library; by J. Hutton, 1868; by Ethel Wedg
wood, 1906.

Life. A. F. Didot, " Etudes sur la vie et les travaux de Jean, Sieur
de Joinville, 1870; A. Debidour, " Les Chroniqueurs," with anatysis
of his Memoires, 1888, etc; H. F. Delaborde, 1894.

There are cheap editions in French of both Villehardouin and
Joinville.

MEMOIRS OF THE CRUSADES

VILLEHARDOUIN S CHRONICLE OF THE
FOURTH CRUSADE AND THE CON
QUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE

THE FIRST PREACHING OF THE CRUSADE 1

BE it known to you that eleven hundred and ninety-seven
years after the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the
time of Innocent Pope of Rome, and Philip King of France,
and Richard King of England, there was in France a holy
man named Fulk of Neuilly which Neuilly is between Lagni-
sur-Mame and Paris and he was a priest and held the cure
of the village. And this said Fulk began to speak of God
throughout the Isle of France, and the other countries round
about; and you must know that by him the Lord wrought
many miracles.

Be it known to you further, that the fame of this holy man
so spread, that it reached the Pope of Rome, Innocent; 2 and
the Pope sent to France, and ordered the right worthy man
to preach the cross (the Crusade) by his authority. And
afterwards the Pope sent a cardinal of his, Master Peter of
Capua, who himself had taken the cross, to proclaim the In
dulgence of which I now tell you, viz., that all who should take
the cross and serve in the host for one year, would be de-

1 In these divisions and headings I mainly follow, but not slavishly,
M. N. de Waffly.

1 Elected Pope on the 8th January 1198, at the early age of thirty-
seven, Innocent III. was one of the leading spirits of his time in every
sense a strong man and great Pope. From the beginning of his ponti
ficate he turned his thoughts and policy to the recovery of Jerusalem.
M. Achille Luchaire has recently published four volumes dealing re
spectively with Innocent in his relations to Rome and Italy, The
Crusade against the Albigenses, The Papacy and the Empire, The Eastern
Question. Mr. Pine-Gordon has also just published a volume entitled
Innocent the Great, an Essay on his Life and Times.

2 Memoirs of the Crusades

livered from all the sins they had committed, and acknow
ledged in confession. And because this indulgence was so
great, the hearts of men were much moved, and many took
the cross for the greatness of the pardon.

OF THOSE WHO TOOK THE CROSS

The other year after that right worthy man Fulk had so
spoken of God, there was held a tourney in Champagne, at a
castle called Ecri, and by God s grace it so happened that
Thibaut, Count of Champagne and Brie, took the cross, and
the Count Lewis of Blois and Chartres likewise; and this was
at the beginning of Advent (28th November 1199). Now
you must know that this Count Thibaut was but a young
man, and not more than twenty-two years of age, and the
Count Lewis not more than twenty-seven. These two counts
were nephews and cousins-german to the King of France,
and, on the other part, nephews to the King of England.

With these two counts there took the cross two very high
and puissant barons of France, Simon of Montfort, 1 and
Renaud of Montmirail. Great was the fame thereof through
out the land when these two high and puissant men took the
cross.

In the land of Count Thibaut of Champagne took the cross
Gamier, Bishop of Troyes, Count Walter of Brienne, Geoffry
of Joinville, 2 who was seneschal of the land, Robert his
brother, Walter of Vignory, Walter of Montbliart, Eustace
of Confians, Guy of Plessis his brother, Henry of Arzillieres,
Oger of Saint-Cheron, Villain of Neuilly, Geoffry of Villehar-
douin, Marshal of Champagne, Geoffry his nephew, William
of Nully, Walter of Fuligny, Everard of Montigny T M^nasses
of Tlsle, Macaire of Sainte-Menehould, Miles the Brebant, Guy
of Chappes, Clerembaud his nephew, Reginald of Dampierre,
John Foisnous, and many other right worthy men whom this
book does not here mention by name.

With Count Lewis took the cross Gervais of Chatel, Hervee
his son, John of Virsin, Oliver of Rochefort, Henry of Mont-

1 This was the Simon de Montfort who afterwards ruthlessly crushed
the Albigenses. It was his son who led the barons against Henry III.
defeated the royal army at Lewes, and was killed at Evesham (1265).

2 This Tvas the father of the Joinville whose Chronicle forms the
second portion of this volume.

Villehardouin s Chronicle 3

reuil, Payen of Orleans, Peter of Bracieux, Hugh his brother,
William of Sains, John of Friaize, Walter of Gaudonville,
Hugh of Cormeray, GeofTry his brother, Hervee of Beauvoir,
Robert of Frouville, Peter his brother, Orri of 1 Isle, Robert
of the Quartier, and many more whom this book does not
here mention by name.

In the Isle of France took the cross Nevelon, Bishop of
Soissons, Matthew of Montmorency, Guy the Castellan of
Coucy, his nephew, Robert of Ronsoi, Ferri of Yerres, John
his brother, Walter of Saint-Denis, Henry his brother,
William of Aunoi, Robert Manvoisin, Dreux of Cressonsacq,
Bernard of Moreuil, Enguerrand of Boves, Robert his brother,
and many more right worthy men with regard to whose
names this book is here silent.

At the beginning of the following Lent, on the day when
folk are marked with ashes (23rd February 1200), the cross
was taken at Bruges by Count Baldwin of Flanders and
Hainault, and by the Countess Mary his wife, who was sister
to the Count Thibaut of Champagne. Afterwards took the
cross, Henry his brother, Thierri his nephew, who was the son
of Count Philip of Flanders, William the advocate of Bethune,
Conon his brother, John of Nele Castellan of Bruges,
Reginald of Trit, Reginald his son, Matthew of Wallincourt,
James of Avesnes, Baldwin of Beauvoir, Hugh of Beaumetz,
Girard of Mancicourt, Odo of Ham, William of Gommegnies,
Dreux of Beaurain, Roger of Marck, Eustace of Sobruic,
Francis of Colemi, Walter of Bousies, Reginald of Mons,
Walter of the Tombes, Bernard of Somergen, and many more
right worthy men in great number, with regard to whom this
book does not speak further.

Afterwards took the cross, Count Hugh of St. Paul. With
him took the cross, Peter of Amiens his nephew, Eustace of
Canteleu, Nicholas of Mailly, Anseau of Cayeaux, Guy of
Houdain, Walter of Nele, Peter his brother, and many other
men who are unknown to us.

Directly afterwards took the cross Geoffry of the Perche,
Stephen his brother, Rotrou of Montfort, Ives of la Jaille,
Aimery of Villeroi, Geoffry of Beaumont, and many others
whose names I do not know.

Memoirs of the Crusades

THE CRUSADERS SEND SIX ENVOYS TO VENICE

Afterwards the barons held a parliament at Soissons, to
settle when they should start, and whither they should wend.
But they could come to no agreement, because it did not seem
to them that enough people had taken the cross. So during
all that year (1200) no two months passed without assem
blings in parliament at Compiegne. There met all the counts
and barons who had taken the cross. Many were the opinions
given and considered; but in the end it was agreed that
envoys should be sent, the best that could be found, with full
powers, as if they were the lords in person, to settle such
matters as needed settlement.

Of these envoys, Thibaut, Count of Champagne and Brie,
sent two; Baldwin, Count of Flanders and Hainault, two;
and Lewis, Count of Blois and Chartes, two. The envoys
of the Count Thibaut were Geoffry of Villehardouin, Marshal
of Champagne, and Miles the Brebant; the envoys of Count
Baldwin were Conon of Bethune, and Alard Maquereau, and
the envoys of Count Lewis were John of Friaise, and Walter
of Gaudonville.

To these six envoys the business in hand was fully com
mitted, all the barons delivering to them valid charters, with
seals attached, to the effect that they would undertake to
maintain and carry out whatever conventions and agree
ments the envoys might enter into, in all sea ports, and
whithersoever else the envoys might fare.

Thus were the six envoys despatched, as you have been
told ; and they took counsel among themselves, and this was
their conclusion: that in Venice they might expect to find a
greater number of vessels than in any other port. So they
journeyed day by day, till they came thither in the first week
of Lent (February 1201).

THE ENVOYS ARRIVE IN VENICE, AND PROFFER THEIR

REQUEST

The Doge of Venice, whose name was Henry Dandolo, 1 and

1 That Henry Dandolo was a very old man is certain, but there is
doubt as to his precise age, as also as to the cause of his blindness.
According to one account he had been blinded, or all but blinded, by

Villehardouin s Chronicle c

^

who was very wise and very valiant, did them great honour,
both he and the other folk, and entertained them right will
ingly, marvelling, however, when the envoys had delivered
their letters, what might be the matter of import that had
brought them to that country. For the letters were letters
of credence only, and declared no more than that the bearers
were to be accredited as if they were the counts in person,
and tliat the said counts would make good whatever the
six envoys should undertake.

So the Doge replied: " Signers, I have seen your letters;
well do we know that of men uncrowned your lords are the
greatest, and they advise us to put faith in what you tell
us, and that they will maintain whatsoever you undertake.
Now, therefore, speak, and let us know what is your pleasure/

And the envoys answered: "Sire, we would that you
should assemble your council; and before your council we
will declare the wishes of our lords; and let this be to
morrow, if it so pleases you." And the Doge replied asking
for respite till the fourth day, when he would assemble his
council, so that the envoys might state their requirements.

The envoys waited then till the fourth day, as had been
appointed them, and entered the palace, which was passing
rich and beautiful; and found the Doge and his council in a
chamber. There they delivered their message after this
manner: " Sire, we come to thee on the part of the high
barons of France, who have taken the sign of the cross to
avenge the shame done to Jesus Christ, and to reconquer
Jerusalem, if so be that God will suffer it. And because they
know that no people have such great power to help them as
you and your people, therefore we pray you by God that you
take pity on the land oversea, and the shame of Christ, and
use diligence that our lords have ships for transport and
battle."

"And after what manner should we use diligence? 3

the Greeks, and in a treacherous manner, when sent, at an earlier date,
on an embassage to Constantinople whence his bitter hostility to the
Greek Empire. I agree, however, with Sir Rennell Rodd that, if this
had been so, Villehardouin would scarcely have refrained from men
tioning such an act of perfidy on the part of the wicked Greeks. (See
p. 41 of Vol. I. of Sir Rennell Rodd s Princes of Achaia.) It is hardly
to be imagined that he would keep the matter dark because, if he men
tioned it, people would think Dandolo acted throughout from motives
of personal vengeance. This would be to regard Villehardouin as a
very astute controversial historian indeed.

6 Memoirs of the Crusades

said the Doge. " After all manners that you may advise and
propose/ rejoined the envoys, in so far as what you pro
pose may be within our means." " Certes," said the Doge,
" it is a great thing that your lords require of us, and well it
seems that they have in view a high enterprise. We will
give you our answer eight days from to-day. And marvel
not if the term be long, for it is meet that so great a matter
be fully pondered."

CONDITIONS PROPOSED BY THE DOGE

When the term appointed by the Doge was ended, the
envoys returned to the palace. Many were the words then
spoken which I cannot now rehearse. But this was the con
clusion of that parliament: " Signers/ said the Doge, " we
will tell you the conclusions at which we have arrived, if so be
that we can induce our great council and the commons of the
land to allow of them; and you, on your part, must consult
and see if you can accept them and carry them through.

We will build transports l to carry four thousand five
hundred horses, and nine thousand squires, and ships for
four thousand five hundred knights, and twenty thousand
sergeants of foot. And we will agree also to purvey food for
these horses and people during nine months. This is what
we undertake to do at the least, on condition that you pay
us for each horse four marks, and for each man two marks.

" And the covenants we are now explaining to you, we
undertake to keep, wheresoever we may be, for a year,
reckoning from the day on which we sail from the port of
Venice in the service of God and of Christendom. Now the
sum total of the expenses above named amounts to 85,000
marks.

" And this will we do moreover. For the love of God, we
will add to the fleet fifty armed galleys on condition that, so
long as we act in company, of all conquests in land or money,
whether at sea or on dry ground, we shall have the half, and
you the other half. Now consult together to see if you, on
your parts, can accept and fulfil these covenants/ 3

1 The old French term is Vuissiers, and denotes a kind of vessel,
flat-bottomed, with large ports, specially constructed for the trans
port of horses. T. Smith translates palanders," but I don t know
that " palander " conveys any very clear idea to the English reader.

Villehardouin s Chronicle 7

The envoys then departed, and said that they would con
sult together and give their answer on the morrow. They
consulted, and talked together that night, and agreed to
accept the terms offered. So the next day they appeared
befoie the Doge, and said: " Sire, we are ready to ratify this
covenant." The Doge thereon said he would speak of the
matter to his people, and, as he found them affected, so would
he let the envoys know the issue.

On the morning of the third day, the Doge, who was very
wise and valiant, assembled his great council, and the
council was of forty men of the wisest that were in the land.
And the Doge, by his wisdom and wit, that were very clear
and very good, brought them to agreement and approval.
Thus he wrought with them; and then with a hundred
others, then two hundred, then a thousand, so that at last
all consented and approved. Then he assembled well ten
thousand of the people in the chapel of St. Mark, the most
beautiful chapel that there is, and bade them hear a mass of
the Holy Ghost, and pray to God for counsel on the request
and messages that had been addressed to them. And the
people did so right willingly.

CONCLUSION OF THE TREATY, AND RETURN OF THE

ENVOYS

When mass had been said, the Doge desired the envoys to
humbly ask the people to assent to the proposed covenant.
The envoys came into the church. Curiously were they
looked upon by many who had not before had sight of them.

Geoffry of Villehardouin, the Marshal of Champagne, by
will and consent of the other envoys, acted as spokesman
and said unto them: Lords, the barons of France, most
high and puissant, have sent us to you ; and they cry to you
for mercy, that you take pity on Jerusalem, which is in
bondage to the Turks, and that, for God s sake, you help to
avenge the shame of Christ Jesus. And for this end they
have elected to come to you, because they know full well that
there is none other people having so great power on the seas,
as you and your people. And they commanded us to fall at
your feet, and not to rise till you consent to take pity on the
Holy Land which is beyond the seas."

8 Memoirs of the Crusades

Then the six envoys knelt at the feet of the people, weeping
many tears. And the Doge and all the others burst into
tears of pity and compassion, and cried with one voice, and
lifted up their hands, saying: " We consent, we consent! "
Then was there so great a noise and tumult that it seemed as
if the earth itself were falling to pieces.

And when this great tumult and passion of pity greater
did never any man see were appeased, the good Doge of
Venice, who was very wise and valiant, went up into the
reading-desk, and spoke to the people, and said to them :
Signers, behold the honour that God has done you ; for the
best people in the world have set aside all other people, and
chosen you to join them in so high an enterprise as the
deliverance of our Lord !

All the good and beautiful words that the Doge then spoke,
I cannot repeat to you. But the end of the matter was, that
the covenants were to be made on the following day; and
made they were, and devised accordingly. When they were
concluded, it was notified to the council that we should go to
Babylon (Cairo), because the Turks could better be destroyed
in Babylon than in any other land ; but to the folk at large
it was only told that we were bound to go overseas. We
were then in Lent (March 1201), and by St. John s Day, in
the following year which would be twelve hundred and two
years after the Incarnation of Jesus Christ the barons and
pilgrims were to be in Venice, and the ships ready against
their coming.

When the treaties were duly indited and sealed, they were
brought to the Doge in the grand palace, where had been
assembled the great and the little council. And when the
Doge delivered the treaties to the envoys, he knelt greatly
weeping, and swore on holy relics faithfully to observe the
conditions thereof, and so did all his council, which numbered
fifty-six persons. And the envoys, on their side, swore to
observe the treaties, and in all good faith to maintain their
oaths and the oaths of their lords; and be it known to you
that for great pity many a tear was there shed. And forth
with were messengers sent to Rome, to the Pope Innocent,
that he might confirm this covenant the which he did right
willingly.

Then did the envoys borrow five thousand marks of silver,
and gave them to the Doge so that the building of the ships

Villehardouin s Chronicle 9

might be begun. And taking leave to return to their own
land, they journeyed day by day till they came to Placentia
in Lombardy. There they parted. Geoffry, the Marshal of
Champagne and Alard Maquereau went straight to France,
and the others went to Genoa and Pisa to learn what help
might there be had for the land oversea.

When Geoffry, the Marshal of Champagne, passed over
Mont Cenis, he came in with Walter of Brienne, going into
Apulia, to conquer the land of his wife, whom he had married
since he took the cross, and who was the daughter of King
Tancred. With him went Walter of Montbeliard, and
Eustace of Conflans, Robert of Joinville, and a great part of
the people of worth in Champagne who had taken the cross.

And when he told them the news how the envoys had fared,
great was their joy, and much did they prize the arrange
ments made. And they said, " We are already on our way;
and when you come, you will find us ready." But events
fall out as God wills, and never had they power to join the
host. This was much to our loss; for they were of great
prowess and valiant. And thus they parted, and each went
on his way.

So rode Geoffry the Marshal, day by day, that he came
to Troyes in Champagne, and found his lord the Count
Thibaut sick and languishing, and right glad was the count
of his coming. And when he had told the count how he had
fared, the count was so rejoiced that he said he would mount
horse, a thing he had not done of a long time. So he rose
from his bed and rode forth. But alas, how great the pity !
For never again did he bestride horse but that once.

His sickness waxed and grew worse, so that at the last he
made his will and testament, and divided the money which
he would have taken with him on pilgrimage among his
followers and companions, of whom he had many that were
very good men and true no one at that time had more. And
he ordered that each one, on receiving his money, should
swear on holy relics, to join the host at Venice, according
as he had promised. Many there were who kept that oath
badly, and so incurred great blame. The count ordered that
another portion of his treasure should be retained, and taken
to the host, and there expended as might seem best.

Thus died the count; and no man in tras world made a
better end. And there were present at that time a very

i o Memoirs of the Crusades

great assemblage of men of his lineage and of his vassals,
But of the mourning and funeral pomp it is unmeet that I
should here speak. Never was more honour paid to any man.
And right well that it was so, for never was man of his age
more beloved by his own men, nor by other folk. Buried he
was beside his father in the church of our lord St. Stephen at
Troyes. He left behind him the Countess, his wife, whose
name was Blanche, very fair, very good, the daughter of the
King of Navarre. She had borne him a little daughter, and
was then about to bear a son.

THE CRUSADERS LOOK FOR ANOTHER CHIEF

When the Count was buried, Matthew of Montmorency,
Simon of Montfort, Geoflry of Joinville who was seneschal,
and Geoflry the Marshal, went to Odo, Duke of Burgundy,
and said to him, " Sire, your cousin is dead. You see what
evil has befallen the land oversea. We pray you by God
that you take the cross, and succour the land oversea in his
stead. And we will cause you to have all his treasure, and
will swear on holy relics, and make the others swear also, to
serve you in all good faith, even as we should have served
him."

Such was his pleasure that he refused. And be it known
to you that he might have done much better. The envoys
charged Geoflry of Joinville to make the self-same offer to
the Count of Bar-le-Duc, Thibaut, who was cousin to the
dead count, and he refused also.

Very great was the discomfort of the pilgrims, and of all
who were about to go on God s service, at the death of Count
Thibaut of Champagne; and they held a parliament, at the
beginning of the month, at Soissons, to determine what they
should do. There were present Count Baldwin of Flanders
and Hainault, the Count Lewis of Blois and Chartres, the
Count Geoflry of Perche, the Count Hugh of Saint-Paul, and
many other men of worth.

Geoflry the Marshal spake to them and told them of the
offer made to the Duke of Burgundy, and to the Count of
Bar-le-Duc, and how they had refused it. " My lords/ 5
said he, " listen, I will advise you of somewhat if you will

Villehardouin s Chronicle 1 1

consent thereto. The Marquis of Montferrat 1 is very worthy
and valiant, and one of the most highly prized of living men.
If you asked him to come here, and take the sign of the cross,
and put himself in place of the Count of Champagne, and you
gave him the lordship of the host, full soon would he accept
-thereof,"

Many were the words spoken for and against; but in the
end all agreed, both small and great. So were letters written,
and envoys chosen, and the marquis was sent for. And he
came, on the day appointed, through Champagne and the
Isle-de-France, where he received much honour, and specially
from the King of France, who was his cousin.

BONIFACE, MARQUIS OF MONTFERRAT, BECOMES CHIEF OF THE
CRUSADE NEW CRUSADERS DEATH OF GEOFFRY COUNT
OF PERCHE

So he came to a parliament assembled at Soissons; and
the main part of the counts and barons and of the other
Crusaders were there assembled. When they heard that the
marquis was coming, they went out to meet him, and did him
much honour. In the morning the parliament was held in
an orchard belonging to the abbey of our Lady of Soissons.
There they besought the marquis to do as they had desired
of him, and prayed him, for the love of God, to take the cross,
and accept the leadership of the host, and stand in the place
of Thibaut Count of Champagne, and accept of his money

1 Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, was one of the most accomplished
men of the time, and an approved soldier. His little court at Mont
ferrat was the resort of artist and troubadour. His family was a family
of Crusaders. The father, William of Montferrat, had gone oversea,
and fought valiantly against the infidel. Boniface s eldest brother,
William of the Long Sword, married a daughter of the titular King of
Jerusalem, and their son became titular king in turn. Another brother,
Conrad, starting for the Holy Land, stopped at Constantinople, and
did there such good service that the Greek emperor gave his sister to
him in marriage; but afterwards, fearing the perfidy of his brother-in-
law, Conrad fled to Syria, and there battled against Saladin. Yet another
brother, Renier, also served in the Greek Empire, married an Emperor s
daughter, and received for guerdon of his deeds the kingdom of Salonica.
Boniface himself had fought valiantly against Saladin, been made
prisoner, and afterwards liberated on exchange. It was no mean and
nameless knight that Villehardouin was proposing as chief to the as
sembled Crusaders, but a princely noble, the patron of poets, versed in
state affairs, and possessing personal experience of Eastern warfare. I
extract these details from M. Bouchet s Notice.

i 2 Memoirs of the Crusades

and of his men. And they fell at his feet, with many tears;
and he, on his part, fell at their feet, and said he would do it
right willingly.

Thus did the marquis consent to their prayers, and receive
the lordship of the host. Whereupon the Bishop of Soissons,
and Master Fulk, the holy man, and two white monks whom
the marquis had brought with him from his own land, led
him into the Church of Notre Dame, and attached the cross
to his shoulder. Thus ended this parliament, and the next
day he took leave to return to his own land and settle his own
affairs telling them all to settle their own affairs likewise,
for that he would meet them at Venice.

Thence did the marquis go to attend the Chapter at
Citeaux, which is held on Holy Cross Day in September
(i4th September 1041). There he found a great number of
abbots, barons and other people of Burgundy; and Master
Fulk went thither to preach the Crusade. And at that place
took the cross Odo the Champenois of Champlitte, and William
his brother, Richard of Dampierre, Odo his brother, Guy of
Pesmes, Edmund his brother, Guy of Conflans, and many
other good men of Burgundy, whose names are not recorded.
Afterwards took the cross the Bishop of Autun, Guignes
Count of Forez, Hugh of Bergi (father and son), Hugh of
Colemi. Further on in Provence took the cross Peter
Bromont, and many others whose names are unknown to us.

Thus did the pilgrims make ready in all lands. Alas! a
great mischance befell them in the following Lent (March
1202) before they had started, for the Count Geoffry of
Perche fell sick, and made his will in such fashion that he
directed that Stephen, his brother, should have his goods,
and lead his men in the host. Of this exchange the pilgrims
would willingly have been quit, had God so ordered. Thus
did the count make an end and die ; and much evil ensued,
for he was a baron high and honoured, and a good knight.
Greatly was he mourned throughout all his lands.

FIRST STARTING OF THE PILGRIMS FOR VENICE, AND OF
SOME WHO WENT NOT THITHER

After Easter and towards Whitsuntide (June 1202) began
the pilgrims to leave their own country. And you must
know that at their departure many were the tears shed for

Villehardouin s Chronicle i 3

pity and sorrow, by their own people and by their friends.
So they journeyed through Burgundy, and by the mountains
of Mont-Joux (? Jura) by Mont Cenis, and through Lom-
bardy, and began to assemble at Venice, where they were
lodged on an island which is called St. Nicholas in the port.

At that time started from Flanders a fleet that carried a
great number of good men-at-arms. Of this fleet were
Captains John of Nele, Castellan of Bruges, Thierri, who was
the son of Count Philip of Flanders, and Nicholas of Mailly.
And these promised Count Baldwin, and swore on holy
relics, that they would go through the straits of Morocco,
and join themselves to him, and to the host of Venice, at
whatsoever place they might hear that the count was faring.
And for this reason the Count of Flanders and Henry his
brother had confided to them certain ships loaded with
cloth and food and other wares.

Very fair was this fleet, and rich, and great was the reliance
that the Count of Flanders and the pilgrims placed upon it,
because very many of their good sergeants were journeying
therein. But ill did these keep the faith they had sworn to
the count, they and others like them, because they and such
others of the same sort became fearful of the great perils
that the host of Venice had undertaken.

Thus did the Bishop of Autun fail us, and Guignes the
Count of Forez, and Peter Bromont, and many people
besides, who were greatly blamed therein; and of little
worth were the exploits they performed there where they did
go. And of the French failed us Bernard of Moreuil, Hugh
of Chaumont, Henry of Araines, John of Villers, Walter of
Saint-Denis, Hugh his brother, and many others, who
avoided the passage to Venice because of the danger, and
went instead to Marseilles whereof they received shame,
and much were they blamed and great were the mishaps
that afterwards befell them.

OF THE PILGRIMS WHO CAME TO VENICE, AND OF
THOSE WHO WENT TO APULIA

Now let us for this present speak of them no further, but
speak of the pilgrims, of whom a great part had already come
to Venice. Count Baldwin of Flanders had already arrived
there, and many others, and thither were tidings brought to

1 4 Memoirs of the Crusades

them that many of the pilgrims were travelling by other
ways, and from other ports. This troubled them greatly,
because they would thus be unable to fulfil the promise made
to the Venetians, and find the moneys that were due.

So they took counsel together, and agreed to send good
envoys to meet the pilgrims, and to meet Count Lewis of
Blois and Chartres, who had not yet arrived, and to put them
in good heart, and beseech them to have pity of the Holy
Land beyond the sea, and show them that no other passage,
save that from Venice, could be of profit.

For this embassage they made choice of Count Hugh of
Saint-Paul and Geoffry the Marshal of Champagne, and
these rode till they came to Pavia in Lombardy. There they
found Count Lewis with a great many knights and men of
note and worth; and by encouragements and prayers pre
vailed on many to proceed to Venice who would otherwise
have fared from other ports, and by other ways.

Nevertheless from Placentia many men of note proceeded
by other ways to Apulia. Among them were Villain of
Neuilly, who was one of the best knights in the world, Henry
of Arzillieres, Renaud of Dampierre, Henry of Longchamp,
and Giles of Trasegnies, liegeman to Count Baldwin of
Flanders and Hainault, who had given him, out of his
own purse, five hundred livres to accompany him on this
journey. With these went a great company of knights and
sergeants, whose names are not recorded.

Thus was the host of those who went by Venice greatly
weakened ; and much evil befell them therefrom, as you shall
shortly hear.

THE PILGRIMS LACK MONEY WHEREWITH TO PAY

THE VENETIANS

Thus did Count Lewis and the other barons wend their
way to Venice; and they were there received with feasting
and joyfully, and took lodging in the Island of St. Nicholas
with those who had come before. Goodly was the host,
and right worthy were the men. Never did man see goodlier
or worthier. And the Venetians held a market, rich and
abundant, of all things needful for horses and men. And the
fleet they had got ready was so goodly and fine that never
did Christian man see one goodlier or finer; as well galleys

Villehardouin s Chronicle 15

as transports, and sufficient for at least three times as many
men as were in the host.

Ah! the grievous harm and loss when those who should
have come thither sailed instead from other ports! Right
well,, if they had kept their tryst, would Christendom have
been exalted, and the land of the Turks abased ! The Vene
tians had fulfilled all their undertakings, and above measure,
and they now summoned the barons and counts to fulfil
theirs and make payment, since they were ready to start.

The cost of each man s passage was now levied throughout
the host; and there were people enough who said they could
not pay for their passage, and the barons took from them
such moneys as they had. So each man paid what he could.
When the barons had thus claimed the cost of the passages,
and when the payments had been collected, the moneys
came to less than the sum due yea, by more than one half.

Then the barons met together and said: "Lords, the
Venetians have well fulfilled all their undertakings, and
above measure. But we cannot fulfil ours in paying for our
passages, seeing we are too few in number; and this is the
fault of those who have journeyed by other ports. For God s
sake therefore let each contribute all that he has, so that we
may fulfil our covenant; for better is it that we should give
all that we have, than lose what we have already paid, and
prove false to our covenants; for if this host remains here,
the rescue of the land oversea comes to naught."

Great was then the dissension among the main part of the
barons and the other folk, and they said: " We have paid
for our passages, and if they will take us, we shall go willingly ;
but if not, we shall inquire and look for other means of
passage." And they spoke thus because they wished that
the host should fall to pieces and each return to his own land.
But the other party said, " Much rather would we give all
that we have and go penniless with the host, than that the
host should fall to pieces and fail; for God will doubtless
repay us when it so pleases Him."

Then the Count of Flanders began to give all that he had
and all that he could borrow, and so did Count Lewis, and
the Marquis, and the Count of Saint-Paul, and those who
were of their party. Then might you have seen many a fine
vessel of gold and silver borne in payment to the palace of
the Doge. And when all had been brought together, there

1 6 Memoirs of the Crusades

was still wanting, of the sum required, 34,000 marks of
silver. Then those who had kept back their possessions and
not brought them into the common stock, were right glad,
for they thought now surely the host must fail and go to
pieces. But God, who advises those who have been ill-
advised, would not so suffer it.

THE CRUSADERS OBTAIN A RESPITE BY PROMISING TO
HELP THE VENETIANS AGAINST ZARA

Then the Doge spoke to his people, and said unto them:
" Signors, these people cannot pay more; and in so far as
they have paid at all, we have benefited by an agreement
which they cannot now fulfil. But our right to keep this
money would not everywhere be acknowledged; and if we
so kept it we should be greatly blamed, both us and our land.
Let us therefore offer them terms.

" The King of Hungary has taken from us Zara in
Sclavonia, which is one of the strongest places in the world;
and never shall we recover it with all the power that we
possess, save with the help of these people. Let us therefore
ask them to help us to reconquer it, and we will remit the
payment of the debt of 34,000 marks of silver, until such
time as it shall please God to allow us to gain the moneys
by conquest, we and they together." Thus was agreement
made. Much was it contested by those who wished that the
host should be broken up. Nevertheless the agreement was
accepted and ratified.

THE DOGE AND A NUMBER OF VENETIANS TAKE

THE CROSS

Then, on a Sunday, was assemblage held in the Church of
St. Mark. It was a very high festival, and the people of the
land were there, and the most part of the barons and pilgrims.

Before the beginning of High Mass, the Doge of Venice,
who bore the name of Henry Dandolo, went up into the
reading-desk, and spoke to the people, and said to them:
" Signors, you are associated with the most worthy people in
the world, and for the highest enterprise ever undertaken;
and I am a man old and feeble, who should have need of rest,
and I am sick in body; but I see that no one could command

Villehardouin s Chronicle 17

and lead you like myself, who am your lord. If you will
consent that I take the sign of the cross to guard and direct
you, and that my son remain in my place to guard the land,
then shall I go to live or die with you and with the pilgrims."

And when they had heard him, they cried with one voice :
" We pray you by God that you consent, and do it, and that
you come with us !

Very great was then the pity and compassion on the part
of the people of the land and of the pilgrims ; and many were
the tears shed, because that worthy and good man would
have had so much reason to remain behind, for he was an old
man, and albeit his eyes were unclouded, yet he saw naught,
having lost his sight through a wound in the head. He was
of a great heart. Ah! how little like him were those who
had gone to other ports to escape the danger.

Thus he came down from the reading-desk, and went
before the altar, and knelt upon his knees greatly weeping.
And they sewed the cross on to a great cotton hat, which he
wore, in front, because he wished that all men should see it,
And the Venetians began to take the cross in great numbers,
a great multitude, for up to that day very few had taken the
cross. Our pilgrims had much joy in the cross that the Doge
took, and were greatly moved, because of the wisdom and
the valour that were in him.

Thus did the Doge take the cross, as you have heard.
Then the Venetians began to deliver the ships, the galleys,
and the transports to the barons, for departure; but so much
time had already been spent since the appointed term, that
September drew near (1202).

MESSAGE OF ALEXIUS, THE SON OF ISAAC, THE DETHRONED
EMPEROR OF CONSTANTINOPLE ^DEATH OF FULK OF
NEUILLY ARRIVAL OF THE GERMANS

Now give ear to one of the greatest marvels, and most
wonderful adventures that you have ever heard tell of. At
that time there was an emperor in Constantinople, whose
name was Isaac, and he had a brother, Alexius by name, whom
he had ransomed from captivity among the Turks. This
Alexius took his brother the emperor, tore the eyes out
of his head, and made himself emperor by the aforesaid

1 8 Memoirs of the Crusades

treachery. He kept Isaac a long time in prison, together
with a son whose name was Alexius. This son escaped from
prison, and fled in a ship to a city on the sea, which is called
Ancona. Thence he departed to go to King Philip of Ger
many, who had his sister for wife; and he came to Verona in
Lombardy, and lodged in the town, and found there a number
of pilgrims and other people who were on their way to join
the host.

And those who had helped him to escape, and were with
him, said : Sire, here is an army in Venice, quite near to us,
the best and most valiant people and knights that are in the
world, and they are going oversea. Cry to them therefore
for mercy, that they have pity on thee and on thy father, who
have been so wrongfully dispossessed. And if they be
willing to help thee, thou shalt be guided by them. Per
chance they will take pity on thy estate." And Alexius said
he would do this right willingly, and that the advice was good.

Thus he appointed envoys, and sent them to the Marquis
Boniface of Montferrat, who was chief of the host, and to the
other barons. And when the barons saw them, they mar
velled greatly, and said to the envoys : " We understand
right well what you tell us. We will send an envoy with the
prince to King Philip, whither he is going. If the prince
will help to recover the land oversea, we will help him to re
cover his own land, for we know that it has been wrested from
him and from his father wrongfully." So were envoys sent
into Germany, both to the heir of Constantinople and to
King Philip of Germany.

Before this happened, of which I have just told you, there
came news to the host which greatly saddened the barons and
the other folk, viz., that Fulk, the good man, the holy man,
who first preached the Crusade, had made an end and was
dead.

And after this adventure, there came to the host a com
pany of very good and worthy people from the empire of
Germany, of whose arrival they of the host were full fain.
There came the Bishop of Halberstadt, Count Bertrand of
Katzenelenbogen, Gamier of Borland, Thierri of Loos,
Henry of Orme, Thierri of Diest, Roger of Suitre, Alexander
of Villers, Ulric of Tone, and many other good folk, whose
names are not recorded in this book.

Villehardouin s Chronicle 19

THE CRUSADERS LEAVE VENICE TO BESIEGE ZARA

Then were the ships and transports apportioned by the
barons. Ah, God! what fine war-horses were put therein.
And when the ships were fulfilled with arms and provisions,
and knights and sergeants, the shields were ranged round the
bulwarks and castles of the ships, and the banners displayed,
many and fair.

And be it known to you that the vessels carried more than
three hundred petraries and mangonels, and all such engines
as are needed for the taking of cities, in great plenty. Never
did finer fleet sail from any port. And this was in the octave
of the Feast of St. Remigius (October) in the year of the In
carnation of Jesus Christ twelve hundred and two. Thus
did they sail from the port of Venice, as you have been told.

On the Eve of St. Martin (loth November) they came
before Zara in Sclavonia, and beheld the city enclosed by
high walls and high towers; and vainly would you have
sought for a fairer city, or one of greater strength, or richer.
And when the pilgrims saw it, they marvelled greatly, and
said one to another, How could such a city be taken by
force, save by the help of God himself?

The first ships that came before the city cast anchor, and
waited for the others ; and in the morning the day was very
fine and very clear, and all the galleys came up with the
transports, and the other ships which were behind; and they
took the port by force, and broke the chain that defended it
and was very strong and well-wrought; and they landed in
such sort that the port was between them and the town.
Then might you have seen many a knight and many a ser
geant swarming out of the ships, and taking from the trans
ports many a good war-horse, and many a rich tent and
many a pavilion. Thus did the host encamp. And Zara
was besieged on St. Martin s Day (nth November 1202).

At this time all the barons had not yet arrived. Thus the
Marquis of Montferrat had remained behind for some business
that detained him. And Stephen of the Pe?che had re
mained at Venice sick, and Matthew of Montmorency.
When they were healed of their sickness Matthew of Mont
morency came to rejoin the host at Zara; but Stephen of the
Perche dealt less worthily, for he abandoned the host, and

2o Memoirs of the Crusades

went to sojourn in Apulia. With him went Rotrou of Mont*
fort and Ives of the Jaille, and many others, who were much
blamed therein; and they journeyed to Syria in the follow
ing spring. 1

THE INHABITANTS OF ZARA OFFER TO CAPITULATE,
AND THEN DRAW BACK ZARA IS TAKEN

On the day following the feast of St. Martin, certain of the
people of Zara came forth, and spoke to the Doge of Venice,
who was in his pavilion, and said to him that they would
yield up the city and all their goods their lives being
spared to his mercy. And the Doge replied that he would
not accept these conditions, nor any conditions, save by con
sent of the counts and barons, with whom he would go and
confer.

While he went to confer with the counts and barons, that
party, of whom you have already heard, who wished to dis
perse the host, spoke to the envoys and said, " Why should
you surrender your city? The pilgrims will not attack you
-have no care of them. If you can defend yourselves
against the Venetians, you will be safe enough." And they
chose one of themselves, whose name was Robert of Boves,
who went to the walls of the city, and spoke the same words.
Therefore the envoys returned to the city, and the negotia
tions were broken off.

The Doge of Venice, when he came to the counts and
barons, said to them: " Signers, the people who are therein
desire to yield the city to my mercy, on condition only that
their lives are spared. But I will enter into no agreement
with them neither this nor any other save with your con
sent." And the barons answered: Sire, we advise you to
accept these conditions, and we even beg of you so to do."
He said he would do so; and they all returned together to
the pavilion of the Doge to make the agreement, and found
that the envoys had gone away by the advice of those who
wished to disperse the host.

Then rose the abbot of Vaux, of the order of the Cister
cians, and said to them: " Lords, I forbid you, on the part
of the Pope of Rome, to attack this city; for those within it

1 Literally, " in the passage of March," i.e. among the pilgrims who
periodically sta