Composed by soldiers who fought in the Holy Wars, these two famous French chronicles are

among the most important portrayals of both the dark and light side of the two hundred year
struggle for possession of Jerusalem. The first trustworthy and fully informed history of the
Crusades, Villehardouin's Conquest of Constantinople describes the era of the Fourth Crusade the period between 1199 and 1207, during which a planned battle with Moslem forces ironically
culminated in war against Eastern Christians that led to the sacking of Constantinople. The Life
of Saint Louis, by Joinville, was inspired by the author's close attachment to the pious King
Louis, and focuses on the years between 1226 and 1270. It provides a powerful, personal insight
into the brutal battles and the fascinating travels of one nobleman, fighting in the Sixth and
Seventh Crusades.

In "Chronicles of the Crusades", two stories of two very different crusades are presented to the
reader. Both are stories of great kings and nobles on their quest to save Jerusalem, but both are
told through very different means, using very different formats. Both, however, are highly
informative and representative of the journeys of Crusaders at the time of their writing.
"The Conquest of Constantinople", told by Geoffroy de Villehardouin, is the story of the Fourth
Crusade. Villehardouin, a key player in the Crusade and a key person to those making many of
the decisions during the crusade, tells the story in a very factual manner, with little personal
details, although his factual accounts often include him as a key character. Much of the story tells
of the numerous diversions presented to the army on the Crusade as their attempts to gain allies
overseas lead them away from Jerusalem and into enemy hands. However, the journey does
show the bravery of many nobles, and the constant efforts of these men to do what was right for
God and country. In "The Life of Saint Louis", Jean Joinville gives an account of the Crusade led
by King Louis, as well s an account of the life of the king himself. As a personal friend and
companion to the king, Joinville's account is much less constrained by time frame and fact, and
much more concerned with examples of the king's generosity, wisdom, and kindness. Joinville
journeys with the king overseas, and has the privilege of being in his service for over four years.
In that time, Joinville learns that King Louis does not simply believe in God and his teachings,
but follows them with complete and total faith and alters his own world to coincide with that
faith. King Louis' crusade does help the people of Jerusalem defend themselves against the Turks
and other enemies, and Louis' fortification of their castles and lands helps them to retain their
lands. Although he and his men experience many trials and tribulations, he uses those
experiences upon returning home to help transform his kingdom into a place of equality, peace,
and justice.
Although both tales are stories of the Crusade, the first appears to be focused more on what can
occur on a journey when individuals do not keep their word and when individuals are selfish and
self-serving. In this Crusade, the men not only fail in their quest, but thousands die or are looked

down upon for deserting their duties. In the second story, however, Louis, a firm believer in
selflessness and the good of mankind, shows how the world can be changed through generosity
and kindness. Both appear to be strong lessons about morality, as well as about the nature of
mankind and the impact of such nature on history.

Geoffrey of Villehardouin (in French Geoffroi de Villehardouin) (1160c.1212) was a

knight and historian who participated in and chronicled the Fourth Crusade. He was
one of the main persons of the Fourth Crusade and his full title was: "Geoffrey of
Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne and of Romania".
He was Marshal of Champagne, and joined the Crusade in 1199 during a
tournament held by Count Thibaud III of Champagne. Thibaud named him one of the
ambassadors to Venice to procure ships for the voyage, and he helped to elect
Boniface of Montferrat as the new leader of the Crusade when Thibaud died.
Although he does not say so specifically in his own account, he probably supported
the diversion of the Crusade first to Zara and then to Constantinople. While at
Constantinople he also served as an ambassador to Isaac II Angelus, and was in the
embassy that demanded that Isaac appoint Alexius IV co-emperor.
After the conquest of the Byzantine Empire in 1204 he served as a military leader,
and led the retreat from the Battle of Adrianople in 1205 after Baldwin I was
captured. In recognition of his services, Boniface of Montferrat gave to Geoffrey the
city of Messinopolis in Thrace.
In 1207 he began to write his chronicle of the Crusade, De la Conqute de
Constantinople (On the Conquest of Constantinople). It was in French rather than
Latin, making it one of the earliest works of French prose. Villehardouin's account is
generally read alongside that of Robert of Clari, a French knight of low station,
Nicetas Choniates, a high-ranking Byzantine official and historian who gives an
eyewitness account, and Gunther of Pairis, a Cistercian monk who tells the story
from the prespective of Abbot Martin who accompanied the Crusaders.
Villehardouin's nephew (also named Geoffrey) Geoffrey I Villehardouin went on to
become Prince of Achaea in Morea (the medieval name for the Peloponnesus) in
1209. Villehardouin himself seems to have died shortly afterwards, perhaps in 1212.

The Fourth Crusade (12011204), originally designed to conquer Jerusalem through

an invasion of Egypt, instead, in 1204, invaded and conquered the Eastern Orthodox
city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. It has been often described
as one of the most profitable and disgraceful sacks of a city in history.
Background
After the failure of the Third Crusade, there was little interest in Europe for another
crusade against the Muslims. Jerusalem was now controlled by the Ayyubid dynasty,
which ruled all of Syria and Egypt, except for the few cities along the coast still
controlled by the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, now centred on Acre. The Third
Crusade had also established a kingdom on Cyprus.
Pope Innocent III succeeded to the papacy in 1198, and the preaching of a new
crusade became the goal of his pontificate. His call was largely ignored by the
European monarchs: the Germans were struggling against Papal power, and
England and France were still engaged in warfare against each other. However, due
to the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly, a crusading army was finally organized at a
tournament held at cry by Count Thibaud of Champagne in 1199. Thibaud was
elected leader, but he died in 1200 and was replaced by an Italian count, Boniface
of Montferrat. Boniface and the other leaders sent envoys to Venice, Genoa, and
other city-states to negotiate a contract for transport to Egypt, the object of their
crusade; one of the envoys was the future historian Geoffrey of Villehardouin. Genoa
was uninterested but Venice agreed to transport 33,500 crusaders (as well as 4,500
horses), a very ambitious number. This agreement required a full year of
preparation on the part of the city of Venice to build numerous ships and train the
sailors that would man them, all the while curtailing the city's commercial activities.

The majority of the crusading army that set out from Venice in October 1202
originated from areas within France. It included men from Blois, Champagne,
Amiens, Saint-Pol, the Ile-de-France and Burgundy. Several other regions of Europe
sent substantial contingents as well, such as Flanders and Montferrat. Other notable
groups came from the Holy Roman Empire, including the men under Bishop Martin
of Pairis and Bishop Conrad of Halberstadt, together in alliance with the Venetian
soldiers and sailors led by the doge Enrico Dandolo.
Attack on Zara
Main article: Siege of Zara
Since there was no binding agreement amongst the crusaders that all should sail
from Venice, many chose to sail from other ports, particularly Flanders, Marseilles,
and Genoa. By 1201 the bulk of the crusader army was collected at Venice, though
with far fewer troops than expected. The Venetians, under their aged and possibly
blind Doge, would not let the crusaders leave without paying the full amount agreed

to, originally 85,000 silver marks. The crusaders could only pay some 51,000, and
that only by reducing themselves to extreme poverty. The Venetians barricaded
them on the island of Lido until they could decide what to do with them.
Dandolo and the Venetians succeeded in turning the crusading movement to their
own purposes. Dandolo, who made a very public show of joining the crusade during
a ceremony in the church of San Marco di Venezia, proposed that the crusaders
could pay their debts by attacking the port of Zara in Dalmatia (essentially an
independent community which recognized King Emeric of Hungary as a protector,
and which was previously ruled by Venice). The Hungarian king was Catholic and
had himself agreed to join the crusade (though this was mostly for political reasons,
and he had made no actual preparations to leave). Many of the crusaders were
opposed to this, and some, including a force led by the elder Simon de Montfort,
refused to participate altogether and returned home. While the papal representative
to the crusade, Peter Cardinal Capuano, endorsed the move as necessary to prevent
the crusade's complete failure, Pope Innocent was alarmed at this development and
wrote a letter to the crusade leadership threatening excommunication; this letter
was concealed from the bulk of the army and the attack proceeded. The citizens of
Zara made reference to the fact that they were fellow Catholics by hanging banners
marked with crosses from their windows and the walls of the city, but nevertheless
the city fell after a brief siege. Both the Venetians and the crusaders were
immediately excommunicated for this by Innocent III.
Diversion to Constantinople
Boniface, meanwhile, had left the fleet before it sailed from Venice, to visit his
cousin Philip of Swabia. The reasons for his visit are a matter of debate; he may
have realized the Venetians' plans and left to avoid excommunication, or he may
have wanted to meet with the Byzantine prince Alexius Angelus, Philip's brother-inlaw and the son of the recently deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelus. Alexius
had fled to Philip when his father was overthrown in 1195, but it is unknown
whether or not Boniface knew he was at Philip's court. In any case, if the crusaders
would sail to Constantinople and topple the reigning emperor, Alexius offered to
reunite the Byzantine church with Rome, pay the crusaders an enormous sum, and
join the crusade to Egypt with a large army. It was a tempting offer for an enterprise
that was short on funds. Greco-Latin relationships had been complex since the
Great Schism of 1054. The First and Second Crusades had caused much damage in
Constantinople on their way to the Holy Land, and the Greeks had been accused of
betraying the crusaders to the Turks. A large number of Venetian merchants were
also attacked and deported during anti-Latin riots in Constantinople in 1182.
However, the Byzantine prince's proposal involved his restoration to the throne, and
not the sack of his capital city. Boniface agreed, and Alexius returned with Boniface
to rejoin the fleet at Corfu after it had sailed from Zara. The rest of the crusade
leaders eventually accepted the plan as well, but a great many of the rank and file
wanted nothing to do with the proposal, and many deserted. The fleet arrived at

Constantinople in late June, 1203.

The Crusaders' initial motive was to restore Isaac II to the Byzantine throne so that
they could receive the support that they were promised. Conon of Bethune
delivered this message to the Lombard envoy who was sent by Alexius III Angelus,
who had deposed his brother Isaac. The citizens of Constantinople were not
concerned with the deposed emperor and his exiled son; usurpations were frequent
in Byzantine affairs, and this time the throne had even remained in the same family.
From the walls of the city they taunted the puzzled crusaders, who had been
promised that Prince Alexius would be welcomed. The crusaders landed, attacked
the northeastern corner of the city, and set a destructive fire, causing the citizens of
Constantinople to turn against Alexius III, who then fled. Prince Alexius was elevated
to the throne as Alexius IV along with his blind father Isaac.
Further attacks on Constantinople
The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, by Eugne Delacroix, 1840Alexius
IV realised that his promises were hard to keep, as Alexius III had managed to take a
large amount of money with him, and the empire was short on funds. At that point
he ordered the destruction and melting of valuable Byzantine and Roman icons in
order to extract their gold and silver. In the eyes of all Greeks who knew of this
decision, it was a shocking sign of desperation and weak leadership, which
deserved to be punished by God. The Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates
characterised it as "the turning point towards the decline of the Roman state". Thus
Alexius IV had to deal with the growing hatred by the citizens of Constantinople for
the "Latins" and vice versa. In fear of his life, the co-emperor asked from the
crusaders to renew their contract for another six months (until April 1204).
Nevertheless there was still fighting in the city, and the crusaders attacked a
mosque (August 1203), which was defended by a combined Muslim and Greek
opposition. On the second attempt of the Venetians to set up a wall of fire to aid
their escape, they instigated the "Great Fire", in which a large part of
Constantinople was burned down. Opposition to Alexius IV grew, and one of his
courtiers, Alexius Ducas (nicknamed 'Murtzuphlos' because of his thick eyebrows),
soon overthrew him and had him strangled to death. Alexius Ducas took the throne
himself as Alexius V; Isaac died soon afterwards, probably naturally.
The crusaders and Venetians, incensed at the murder of their supposed patron,
attacked the city once more. On the April 8, Alexius V's army put up a strong
resistance which did much to discourage the crusaders. The Greeks pushed
enormous projectiles onto the enemy siege engines, shattering many of them. A
serious hindrance to the crusaders was bad weather conditions. Wind blew from the
shore and prevented most of the ships from drawing close enough to the walls to
launch an assault. Only five of the Greek towers were actually engaged and none of
these could be secured; by mid-afternoon it was evident that the attack had failed.

The clergy discussed the situation amongst themselves and settled upon the
message they wished to spread through the demoralised army. They had to
convince the men that the events of 9 April were not God's judgement on a sinful
enterprise: the campaign, they argued, was righteous and with proper belief it
would succeed. The concept of God testing the determination of the crusaders
through temporary setbacks was a familiar means for the clergy to explain failure in
the course of a campaign. The clergy's message was designed to reassure and
encourage the crusaders. Their argument that the attack on Constantinople was
spiritual revolved around two themes. First, the Greeks were traitors and murderers
since they had killed their rightful lord, Alexius IV. The churchmen used
inflammatory language and claimed that "the Greeks were worse than the Jews",
and they invoked the authority of God and the pope to take action. Although
Innocent III had again warned them not to attack, the papal letter was suppressed
by the clergy, and the crusaders prepared for their own attack, while the Venetians
attacked from the sea; Alexius V's army stayed in the city to fight, along with the
imperial bodyguard, the Varangians, but Alexius V himself fled during the night.
Final capture of Constantinople
On the 13th of April, weather conditions finally favoured the crusaders. A strong
northern wind aided the Venetian ships to come close to the wall, and after a short
battle approximately seventy crusaders managed to enter the city. Some crusaders
were eventually able to knock holes in the walls, small enough for a few knights at a
time to crawl through; the Venetians were also successful at scaling the walls from
the sea, though there was extremely bloody fighting with the Varangians. The
crusaders captured the Blachernae section of the city in the northwest and used it
as a base to attack the rest of the city, but while attempting to defend themselves
with a wall of fire, they ended up burning down even more of the city. Eventually,
the crusaders took the city on the 13th of April. The crusaders inflicted a horrible
and savage sacking on Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient
and medieval Roman and Greek works were stolen or destroyed. Despite their oaths
and the threat of excommunication, the Crusaders ruthlessly and systematically
violated the city's holy sanctuaries, destroying, defiling, or stealing all they could lay
hands on; according to Choniates a prostitute was even set up on the Patriarchal
throne. When Innocent III heard of the conduct of his pilgrims, he was filled with
shame and strongly rebuked them.
According to a prearranged treaty, the empire was apportioned between Venice and
the crusade's leaders, and the Latin Empire of Constantinople was established.
Boniface was not elected as the new emperor, although the citizens seemed to
consider him as such; the Venetians thought he had too many connections with the
former empire because of his brother, Rainier of Montferrat, who had been married
to Maria Comnena, empress in the 1170s and 80s. Instead they placed Baldwin of
Flanders on the throne. Boniface went on to found the Kingdom of Thessalonica, a

vassal state of the new Latin Empire. The Venetians also founded the Duchy of the
Archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Meanwhile, Byzantine refugees founded their own
successor states, the most notable of these being the Empire of Nicaea under
Theodore Lascaris (a relative of Alexius III), the Empire of Trebizond, and the
Despotate of Epirus.
Outcome
Almost none of the crusaders ever made it to the Holy Land, and the unstable Latin
empire siphoned off much of Europe's crusading energy. The legacy of the Fourth
Crusade was the deep sense of betrayal the Latins had instilled in their Greek
coreligionists. With the events of 1204, the schism between the Catholic West and
Orthodox East was complete. As an epilogue to the event, Pope Innocent III, the
man who had launched the expedition, thundered against the crusaders thus: "You
vowed to liberate the Holy Land but you rashly turned away from the purity of your
vow when you took up arms not against Saracens but Christians The Greek
Church has seen in the Latins nothing other than an example of affliction and the
works of Hell, so that now it rightly detests them more than dogs".
The Latin Empire was soon faced with a great number of enemies, which the
crusaders had not taken into account. Besides the individual Byzantine Greek states
in Epirus and Nicaea, the Empire received great pressure from the Seljuk Sultanate
and the Bulgarian Empire. The Greek states were fighting for supremacy against
both Latins and each other. Almost every Greek and Latin protagonist of the event
was killed shortly after. Murtzuphlus' betrayal by Alexius III led to his capture by the
Latins and his execution at Constantinople. Not long after, Alexius III was himself
captured by Boniface and sent to exile in Southern Italy. Boniface was eventually
defeated by Ducas, the despot of Epirus and a relative of Murtzuphlus, and the
Kingdom of Thessalonica was restored to Byzantine rule in 1224. One year after the
conquest of the city, Emperor Baldwin was defeated at the Battle of Adrianople on
14th April 1205, and was tortured and executed by the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan.
Various Latin-French lordships throughout Greece in particular, the duchy of
Athens and the principality of the Morea provided cultural contacts with western
Europe and promoted the study of Greek. There was also a French impact on
Greece. Notably, a collection of laws, the Assises de Romanie (Assizes of Romania),
was produced. The Chronicle of Morea appeared in both French and Greek (and later
Italian and Aragonese) versions. Impressive remains of crusader castles and Gothic
churches can still be seen in Greece. Nevertheless, the Latin Empire always rested
on shaky foundations. The city was re-captured by the Greeks under Michael VIII
Palaeologus in 1261, and commerce with Venice was re-established.
In an ironic series of events, during the middle of the 15th century, the Latin Church
tried to organise a crusade which aimed at the restoration of the Byzantine Empire
which was gradually being torn down by the Ottoman Turks. The attempt however

failed, as the vast majority of the Byzantines refused to unite the Churches. In a
way, Greeks thought that the Byzantine civilisation which was centered at the
Orthodox faith would be more secure under Ottoman rule, and preferred to sacrifice
their political freedom in order to preserve their religion. In the late 14th and early
15th century, two kinds of crusades were finally organised by the Kingdoms of
Hungary, Poland, Wallachia and Serbia. Both of them were checked and crushed by
the mighty Ottoman Empire. During the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453, a
significant band of Venetian and Genoese knights died in the defence of the city.
Eight hundred years after the Fourth Crusade, Pope John Paul II twice expressed
sorrow for the events of the Fourth Crusade. In 2001, he wrote to Christodoulos,
Archbishop of Athens, saying "It is tragic that the assailants, who set out to secure
free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their brothers in the faith.
The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret."[1]. In 2004,
while Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, was visiting the Vatican, John Paul
II asked "How can we not share, at a distance of eight centuries, the pain and
disgust." [2] [3] In the opinion of Jonathan Phillips, this was "an extraordinary
statement an apology to the Greek Orthodox Church for the terrible slaughter
perpetrated by the warriors of the Fourth Crusade" (Phillips, The Fourth Crusade and
the Sack of Constantinople, intro., xiii).
The Fourth Crusade was one of the last of the major crusades to be directed by the
Papacy, and even the Fourth quickly fell out of Papal control. After bickering
between laymen and the papal legate led to the collapse of the Fifth Crusade, later
crusades were directed by individual monarchs, mostly directed against Egypt. Only
one subsequent crusade the Sixth, succeeded in restoring Jerusalem to Christian
rule, and only briefly

Sect. 19. The monks of the order of Cluni were not wout to supplant one another in their priories
and government either by entreaty or bribes, and although some of them have sometimes
attempted something of that sort, that however we have seen visited with condign punishment.
There was a certain venerable man elected prior of Montacute solely on account of his worth,
Josceline by name, in whom you could discern nothing but what was praiseworthy. To supplant
this so good a man there came a certain one, whose name it is not necessary to mention, one of
his false brethren, with letters, obtained by great cunning from the abbot of Cluni, by which it
was commanded that the prior should resign to the bearer of the present letters, and the
congregation receive him for their prelate. The prior by some means foreknew what commodity
the dealer had come to seek, wherefore, without awaiting the mandate, he vacated his seat in the
chapter, and the congregation being present, addressed him, "Friend, for what art thou come?"
He, having tarried long that he might appear unwillingly to receive that, which he had come to
take by violence, at length betook himself to his seat, and anon imprecated himself, saying, "O
thou, who with unalterable purpose govern est the world, whose power takes its pastime in
human affairs, who puttest down the mighty and exaltest the humble! O thou just judge Jesu
Christ, if wrongfully I here preside, without delay and manifestly do thou vouchsafe to shew"
Behold the miracle! On that same day he lost his speech; on the next, his life; on the third, being

consigned to the earth, he learnt by experience, and taught by example, that sordid plunder is
never followed by prosperous results.
A certain monk of Glastonbury, in hopes of promotion, courted Earl John with many presents;
but just as he should have come to receive it, a certain beam having suddenly given way, fell in
his face, so that, bruised and wholly disfigured, he lost both his eggs (gy. expectations) and his
money together.
Sect. 20. The ships which the king found already prepared on the shore were one hundred in
number, and fourteen busses, vessels of great magnitude and admirable swiftness, strong vessels
and very sound, whereof this was the equipage and appointment. The first of the ships had three
spare rudders, thirteen anchors, thirty oars, two sails, three sets of ropes of all kinds, and besides
these double whatever a ship can want, except the mast and the ship's boat. There is appointed to
the ship's command a most experienced steersman, and fourteen subordinate attendants picked
for the service are assigned him. The ship is freighted with forty horses of value, trained to arms,
and with arms of all kinds for as many horsemen, and forty foot, and fifteen sailors, and with an
entire year's provisions for as many men and horses. There was one appointment for all the ships,
but each of the busses received a double appointment and freight. The king's treasure, which was
very great and inestirnable, was divided amongst the ships and busses, that if one part should
experience danger, the rest might be saved. All things being thus arranged, the king himself, with
a small household, and the chief men of his army, with his attendants, having quitted the shore,
advanced before the fleet in galleys, and being daily entertained by the maritime towns, taking
along with them the larger ships and busses of that sea, arrived prosperously at Messina[1] So
great was the splendour of the approaching armament, such the clashing and brilliancy of their
arms, so noble the sound of the trumpets and clarions, that the city quaked and was greatly
astounded, and there came to meet the king a multitude of all ages, people without number,
wondering and proclaiming with what exceeding glory and magnificence that king had arrived,
surpassing the king of France, who with his forces had arrived seven days before. And forasmueh
as the king of France had been already received into the palace of Tancred, king of Sicily, within
the walls, the king of England pitched his camp without the city. The same day the king of
France, knowing of the arrival of his comrade and brother, flies to his reception, nor could their
gestures suficiently express in embraces and kisses how much each of them rejoiced in the other.
The armies cheered one another with mutual applause and intercourse, as if so many thousand
men had been all of one heart and one mind. In such pastimes is the holiday spent until the
evening, and the weary kings departing, although not satiated, return every one to his own
quarters. On the next day the king of England presently caused gibbets to be erected without the
camp to hang thereon thieves and robbers. The judges delegated spared neither sex nor age; the
cause of the stranger and the native found the like law and the like punishment. The king of
France, whatever transgression his people committed, or whatever offence was committed
against them, took no notice and held his peace; the king of England esteeming the country of
those implicated in guilt as a matter of no consequence, considered every man his own, and left
no transgression unpunished, wherefore the one was called a Lamb by the Griffones, the other
obtained the name of a Lion.
1.

He arrives at Messina. Sent. 23.

Sect. 21. The king of England sent his messengers to the king of Sicily, demanding Johanna his
sister, formerly queen of Sicily, and her dowry, with a golden seat and the whole legacy which
King William had bequeathed to his father, King Henry, namely, a golden table of twelve feet in
length, a silk tent, a hundred of the best galleys with all their necessaries for two years, sixty
thousand silinas of wheat, sixty thousand of barley, sixty thousand of wine, four and twenty
golden cups, and four and twenty golden dishes. The king of Sicily, setting little by the demands
of the king of the English, and still less considering his own exigencies, sent him back his sister
with the ordinary furniture of her bed, having given her, however, with royal consideration, a
thousand thousand terrini for her expenses. On the third day following, the king of England,
having passed over the great river Del Far, which separates Calabria from Sicily, entered
Calabria in arms, and took therein the well-fortified town which is called La Banniere, and
having expelled the Griffones, established his sister there, and secured the place with an armed
garrison. Again the king took a very strong castle, which is called the Griffones' Monastery, on
the same river Del Far, situated between La Banniere and Messina, and fortified it when taken;
and having without mercy despatched by various tortures the Griffones who had resisted, caused
them to be exhibited as a gazing-stock to their friends. Wido, king of Jerusalem, sent word to
Philip, king of the French, and Richard, king of the English, whilst wintering in Sicily, that the
residue of the Christians who lay before Acre would, on account of their weakness and the
violence of the pagans, either be obliged to depart or perish, unless very shortly sustained. To aid
whom, the kings sent forward Henry, count of Champagne, and Baldwin, archbishop of
Canterbury, and Hubert, bishop of Salisbury, and Ralph de Glenville, with a strong army; of
whom Archbishop Baldwin and Ralph de Glanville d1ed at the siege of the city, which the Latins
call Acre and the Jews Accaron, while the kings still remained in Sicil .
Sect. 22. The Griffones, before King Richard's arrival in Sicily, were more powerful than all the
mighty of that region, and having moreover always hated the people beyond the Alps, and now
irritated by recent occurrences more inveterate than ever, kept the peace with all who claimed the
king of France for their master, but sought to wreak the entire vengeance of their wrongs on the
king of the English and his tailed[1] followers, for the Greeks and Sicilians followed that king
about and called them tailed English. Thereupon all intercourse with the country is denied the
English by proclamation; they are murdered both day and night by forties and fifties, wherever
they are found unarmed. The slaughter was daily multiplied, and it was madly purposed to go on
until they should either destroy or put them all to flight. The king of England, excited by these
disorders, raged like the fiercest lion, and vented his anger in a manner worthy that noble beast.
His fury astounded his nearest friends, and his whole court, the famous princes of his army sat
around his throne, each according to his rank, and if any one might dare to raise his eyes to look
him in the face, it would be very easy to read in the ruler's countenance what he silently
considered in his mind. After a long and deep silence, the king disburdened his indignant lips as
follows.
Sect. 23. "O, my soldiers! my kingdom's strength and crown! who have endured with me a
thousand perils, you, who by might have subdued before me so many tyrants and cities, do you
now see how a cowardly rabble insults us? Shall we vanquish Turks and Arabs? shall we be a
terror to nations the most invincible? shall our right hand make us a way even to the ends of the
world for the cross cf Christ? shall we restore the kingdom to Israel, when we have turned our
backs before vile and effeminate Griffones? Shall we, subdued here in the confines of our own

country, proceed further, that the sloth of the English may become a by-word to the ends of the
earth? Am I not right, then, O my friends, in regarding this as a new cause of sorrow? Truly,
methinks I see you deliberately spare your pains, that perchance you may the better contend with
Saladin hereafter. I, your lord and king, love you; I am solicitous for your honour; I tell you, I
warn you again and again, if now you depart thus unrevenged, the mention of this base flight will
both precede and accompany you. Old women and children will be raised up against you, and
assurance will yield a double energy to every enemy against the runaways. I know that he who
saves any one by constraint, does the same as kill him; the king will retain no man against his
will. I am unwilling to compel any one of you to stay with me, lest the fear of one should shake
another's confidence in the battle. Let every one follow what he may have chosen, but I will
either die here or will revenge these wrongs common to me and you. If hence I depart alive,
Saladin will see me only a conqueror; will you depart, and leave me, your king, alone to meet the
conflict?"
1.

The origin of this joke is unknown.

Amazon

These two accounts are highly readable, and it is wonderful to have them packaged
together like this. Geoffrey's chronicle of the 4th Crusade (the one that sacked
Constantinople) is an awesome perspective on an often-maligned event. Jean's
account of the 7th Crusade and the life of St. Louis is even better. With Jean we
catch a rare glimpse of a sensitive warrior fully capable of expressing a wide range
of moods and emotions. Both chronicles are well worth reading and will provide the
historian and the non-historian alike with hours of enjoyment.
originally I skimmed through this book almost a decade ago in preparation for my
Senior History Oral Exam and only focused on the overall theme questions listed in
my study guide at the time. However this past week while actually reading
Chronicles of the Crusades and found thanks to the excellent translation, a easy
read and very informative on its subject matters. Of the two chroniclers, I found
Jean de Joinville the easier to read because of his style of writing. Most likely the
spread and evolution of romantic literature influenced Joinville's style of being more
down-to-earth and slightly easier to read when compared to Geoffrey of
Villehardouin, who was more matter-of-fact and somewhat "stiff." However, just
because Geoffrey's style is a little "stiffer" doesn't mean it's not easy to read nor
informative about the establish and early years of the Latin Empire of
Constantinople. If you're interested about first-hand accounts of the Crusades,
specifically the 4th and 7th, this is the book for you.
Got this at goodwill. This is an incredible account of the crusades by 2 individuals
who were there. Jean De Joinville joined the 7th crusade, & Geoffroy De

Villehardouin joined the 4th crusade. The accounts are very easy to read & follow. A
lot of coverage in the account of the 4th crusade is about the conquest of
Constantinople, who by the way had asked for help in the orginal crusade. The
account of the 7th crusade goes more direct to the holy land than the 4th one did. I
love it. Fantastic accounts about a bloody time in history that still plagues us to this
day.
This book includes two chronicles about the crusades translated by Margaret Shaw.
Geoffrey of Villehardouin's chronicle The Conquest of Constantinople covers the
period of 1199 to 1207 from the planning on the "fourth crusade" to death of
Boniface the Marquis de Montferrat. Jean of Joinville's chronicle Life of Saint Louis is
about King Louis IX of France. It tells the tale of how King Louis ascended to the
throne and Jean of Joinville's firsthand account of their adventures during the
seventh crusade. The style and content of the chronicles is very different.
Villehardouin at the beginning of The Conquest of Constantinople was the Marshall
of Champagne under Thibault the Count of Champagne who took the cross initiating
the Fourth Crusade along with a couple of his cousins Louis the Count of Blois and
Baldwin (Baudouin) Count of Flanders and Hainault. Villehardouin was one of the
principal players in the "fourth crusade" often representing the crusaders in
negotiations (including negotiating transport of the crusaders with the Venetians)
and participated in numerous battles. He was definitely in a position to provide a
complete history of the crusade and its aftermath. Indeed Villehardouin's account
often is referenced and cited by modern historians.
Yet in reading Villehardouin's chronicle I often found that he was distorting the
politics and affixing blame on others to deflect the immorality of his actions and the
other leaders of the crusaders. His chronicle often protects the characters of
Boniface the Marquis de Montferrat and Enrico Dandolo the Doge of Venice. The
Marquis at the end of Villehardouin's chronicle offers a grant of land to Villehardouin
and it was Villehardouin who recommended the Marquis to lead the crusade after
Thibault's death. Villehardouin also treats the Doge of Venice well in his chronicle
reporting Dandolo's directives as "recommendations" and portraying them in the
best light. What in fact happened is Dandolo blackmailed the crusaders on threat of
starvation and dishonor into sacking Zara, a Christian city that revolted from Venice.
Venice had recently signed treaties with Egypt and had no intention of taking the
crusaders there and jeopardize their trade agreements. Dandolo then leads them to
Constantinople under a pretense of restoring the son of the deposed Emperor of
Byzantium in order to exact unreasonable booty and ultimately sack Constantinople
and take control of the Byzantium Empire. Villehardouin's chronicle tells us that the
crusaders believed the Emperor to be would be able to fulfill the unrealistic
agreement. Maybe the crusader leaders were that foolish or just manipulated by the
Doge of Venice who wanted nothing less than the control of Byzantium's trading
lanes, but I think their greed got the better of them and they are equally complicit in

this crime against Christendom. Once the crusaders start to discuss the occupation
of Byzantium, they forget the purpose of their crusade completely.
For the footsoldiers and many of the knights, the attach of Christian lands at Zara
are too much and from then on many attempts are made to change the course of
crusade back to the Holy Land. Villehardouin dismisses this as cowardice and desire
to break up the army. I guess the point of this long criticism is that while there is
historical merit to the story, the reader should be cautious in accepting
Villehardouin's reasoning due to his obvious bias perspective. In the introduction,
Shaw defends Villehardouin's portrayal of the story. She excuses his handling of the
story as result of his beliefs of strict military discipline and knightly honor over his
oath, and their desire to recover Jerusalem. I don't buy her story, Villehardouin's
portrayal of the Venetians is as a man who is an accomplice, not someone who is
being dragged into something he is not willing to do.
I enjoyed Jean of Joinville's Life of Saint Louis far more. As indicated by the title this
is not just a story of the seventh crusade. It the story King Louis IX. Jean the Lord of
Joinville was the Seneschal of Champagne and followed the seventh crusade with
two of his cousins. He did not have any personal interaction with King Louis prior to
the crusade, later during the crusade he became very close friends with the king.
Before the story starts, Jean gives a dedication where he explains why he wrote his
chronicle. He then gives some examples King Louis's pious actions and beliefs as
well as his just handling of his administration. The story continues with the king
ascending to the throne and the civil war that erupts in France as the king's
authority is challenged in his minority. Next the chronicle continues the origin of the
seventh crusade. The voyage to Cyprus and then Egypt is described followed by the
battles and defeat of King Louis in Egypt. The story then shifts to King Louis's
journey and activities in Acre after paying ransom for his release. Jean then tells of
returning home and King Louis's adminastration of his realm after the crusade. He
finishes by telling of King Louis's death during eighth crusade and his canonization
as a saint. Jean did not join the eighth crusade due to illness so he limits his
discussion of this.
Jean's chronicle of the crusade itself is less of a history and more of his firsthand
accounts. His work is not clouded by the political bias that Villehardouin suffers
from. Jean tells what happened based on what he saw and heard during the conflict.
It is a very human account and the description of the king and Jean during captivity
is memorable. Jean also mixes up the chronicle with tidbits about the customs and
strange things he witnessed while on his travels.
I recommend this collection as they are firsthand accounts. You can read newer
more complete histories, but it always important to see what was said by the people
who were actually there. I would recommend The Dream and the Tomb: A History of
the Crusades and The Crusades Through Arab Eyes as companions if you have

interests in the crusades and A Short History of Byzantium if you have interest in
Byzantium and how the "fourth crusade" fits into the destruction of the empire or
disintegration of the Latin rule over Constantinople
Chronicles of the Crusades is a chronicle of the Crusades from two of the senior
participants who took part in two of the Crusades. The book covers the descriptions
of the fourth and the seventh crusades as seen through the eyes of Geoffroy De
Villehardouin (who took part in the fourth crusade) and Jean De Joinville (who took
part in the seventh crusade). The two chronicles were translated for this book by
Margaret Shaw. The book was published in 1963 around the time of her death. The
two chronicles give us a look into the two crusades as chronicled through the eyes
of two important noblemen of their time. This in itself will taint the purity of the
chronicle. Chronicles such as these lay out the justifications for the crusades and
tend to gloss over the blemishes. These two are no different. They were written to
glorify the Crusaders and surely the writers would not put on ink anything that
would later detract from their names. These chronicles do an excellent job of
showing how the two chroniclers thought and how they wanted these two crusades
remembered. When this book is read this should be kept in mind. The average
crusader was a mixture of those driven by greed and religious extremists. The
crusaders were allowed to plunder the lands they conquered. In today's terms they
were allowed to take war trophies, thus stealing from the inhabitants of the land.
They were barbaric in their means of taking the land and the raping of women was
allowed, if the women were not of the Christian faith. The fourth crusade received
condemnation on its behavior when the Christian city of Constantinople was sacked.
This was due to the crusaders raping of the women. This of course is not pointed out
by Villehardouin. The chroniclers mention a little of the plunder, but do not mention
anything else. Though the chroniclers are quick to point out the cruelty of the
Saracens. Margaret Shaw refers to these two chronicles as being the most reliable
accounts of the crusades written in French. I would have to disagree that these
chronicles should be taken as completely accurate. Joinville refers to Prestor John as
if he was a person who actually existed, thus showing that his accounts are not
strictly cemented in fact. The chronicles give an overview of the crusades and do
not go into much detail on the equipment used and the everyday life of the average
crusader. This book is a good book to show the chroniclers thoughts and
perspectives but if you are trying to get an accurate picture of what happened
during these crusades I would look into other books as well. Such books that
describe the opposing views as seen from the Muslim side and other books that can
give specifics on how the crusaders lived and their equipment could help in
understanding these crusades better. I am giving this book 5 stars because it does
accurately convey it's title. It does cover the Chronicles of the Crusades.

Chronicles of the Crusades by Joinville and Villehardouin

It took a significant exertion of willpower to commit to writing OUTREMER. The main

reason for this was the truly daunting quantity of research I knew I needed to do,
since I'd never before studied the Crusades in any depth. As it turns out, while there
was definitely a hump to get over--a time when I felt I was drowning in facts and
figures--I've actually begun to enjoy myself hugely.
And when you're having to read someone as charming and informative as John de
Joinville, well, difficulty doesn't enter into it.
Chronicles of the Crusades is a Penguin Classics book collecting two medieval
chronicles. The first is Geoffroy de Villehardouin's Conquest of Constantinople, a
major source on the disastrous Fourth Crusade that, despite the best of intentions,
went badly astray and wound up sacking Constantinople in 1204. The second is John
de Joinville's Life of Saint Louis, which takes us on the Seventh Crusade in 1248
under Louis IX. Though neither of these are events I cover in my novel, I was in the
market for details on thirteenth-century Outremer, and this book had been sitting
on our shelves for years. I dug in.
The Life of Saint Louis
John of Joinville shares little in common with Villehardouin beyond noble rank and
physical courage. Turning the page to his chronicle was like being buttonholed by a
garrulous but witty conversationalist. In theory, Joinville wants to give you an
inspiring and edifying hagiography of a man he clearly knew, loved, and deeply
revered--but he keeps getting sidetracked, mostly with artlessly self-satisfied
reminiscences of that time he sent the Empress of Byzantium a new dress when she
hadn't a thing else to wear, so that all the other nobles said he'd outdone them in
courtesy, or that time he bravely leapt from his ship into the surf to attack an
Egyptian beach, or that time King Louis took his advice instead of everyone else's,
or the advice he used to give to young knights, or the way he defended the bridge
near Damietta, or the pranks played on him in camp.

I must tell you here of some amusing tricks the Comte d'Eu played on us. I had
made a sort of house for myself in which my knights and I used to eat, sitting so as
to get the light from the door, which, as it happened, faced the Comte d'Eu's
quarters. The count, who was a very ingenious fellow, had rigged up a miniature
ballistic machine with which he could throw stones into my tent. He would watch us
as we were having our meal, adjust his machine to suit the length of our table, and
then let fly at us, breaking our pots and glasses.
Joinville, in other words, is immense fun to read, and since he constantly runs off on
tangents and anecdotes, he provides awealth of invaluable historical detail to the
starving novelist (squirrel fur, he sent the Empress).
While it deals with various aspects of Louis IX's rule at home, the bulk of Joinville's
book is taken up by his eyewitness account of the Seventh Crusade. Following the
loss of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187, Christendom had been galvanised into action
in the Third Crusade, which was dominated by the personality of Richard I of
England. Richard's participation in the Third Crusade passed into legend, not just in
England but also in Outremer itself. One of the greatest generals of his age (it took
some skill to stop Saladin), Richard had started a march to recover Jerusalem, but
turned back in sorrow when he realised the inland city could not practically be
defended from the Franks' limited holdings on the coast. Like Jerusalem's King
Amalric thirty years before him, Richard realised that the holy city would only be
secure once Egypt was in Christian hands.
From that time on it was an axiom of crusading that you focused on Egypt. Egypt
had been the intended destination of the Fourth Crusade, and the theatre of the
Fifth. The Sixth wasn't much, succeeding in little more than sparking off a civil war
between the Holy Roman Emperor and a faction of Outremer noblemen. The
Seventh tried again, but like the Fifth, ultimately fell afoul of the Nile's unpredictable
habit of playing with the landscape. It ended with the ignominious capture of the
whole Christian army; nevertheless, its leader, Saint Louis, was so revered both as a
knight and as a Christian that when he had arranged his ransom and arrived in Acre,
he was able to remain for several years, fortifying various strongholds and more or
less ruling Outremer by simple merit.
All of this history is brought to life in Joinville's book. Though he never misses an
opportunity to describe his own feats of arms, Joinville is no more a romantic or a
propagandist than Villehardouin. He is telling war stories, and he has a raconteur's
taste for humour and drama, but he emerges from his own stories as a very
ordinary man, anxious to please, devout when it occurs to him, and no more
immune to fear than he is to conceit: as witness this episode from the time of his
captivity by the Saracens:

A good thirty of the Saracens now boarded our ship, with drawn swords in their
hands, and Danish axes hanging at their necks. I asked Baudouin d'Ibelin, who was
well acquainted with their language, what these men were saying. He told me they
were saying that they had come to cut off our heads. At once a great number of
people crowded round to confess their sins to a monk of the Holy Trinity...
So I crossed myself, and as I knelt at the feet of one of the Saracens who was
holding a Danish axe such as carpenters use, I said to myself 'thus Saint Agnes
died.' Guy d'Ibelin, Constable of Cyprus, knelt down beside me, and confessed
himself to me. 'I absolve you,' I said to him, 'with such power as God has granted
me.' However, when I rose to my feet, I could not remember a word of what he had
told me.
The whole period of the crusaders' captivity was intensely interesting to me.
Actually, one of the entertaining things about the Crusades as a whole was how
shocked the Saracens always were by the freedom and authority enjoyed by
Frankish women. There's a minor example of this when the Saracens come to ask
King Louis how much he will pay for his ransom:
The king had replied that if the sultan was willing to accept a reasonable sum he
would send and advise the queen to pay that amount for their ransom. 'How is it,'
they had asked, 'that you won't tell us definitely whether you'll do this?' The king
had answered that he did not know whether or not the queen would consent, since,
as his consort, she was mistress of her actions.
It's a common misconception these days that rights for women sprang fully-formed
from Gloria Steinem's forehead sometime in the 1960s, and it's equally commonly
assumed that the entire period of world history up till then had Victorian-style
gender roles or worse. This results in popular stories set in the medieval era which
assume noblewomen had nothing to do with their lives but embroider. I happen to
believe textile work is highly underrated, but the fact is that when medieval
noblewomen weren't creating cultural masterpieces with their needles, they were
usually enjoying significant privileges and discharging significant responsibilities,
which could include but were not limited to diplomacy, building projects, and siege
warfare.
All this aside, have I mentioned yet what fun Joinville's chronicle is to read? One
almost wonders why anyone bothers with modern history books when the originals
are so much more interesting--and give you so much better an idea of the people
and personalities of the times. Original sources are undoubtedly the most colourful,
helpful, and entertaining resources I use; and Chronicles of the Crusades was a
favourite.