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VILLEHARDOUIN, GEOFFROY DE (c. 116o-c...

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 79 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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VILLEHARDOUIN, See also:GEOFFROY DE (c. 116o-c. 1213) , the first See also:vernacular historian of See also:France, and perhaps of See also:modern See also:Europe, who possesses See also:literary merit, is rather supposed than known to have been See also:born at the See also:chateau from which he took his name, near See also:Troyes, in See also:Champagne, about the See also:year 1160. Not merely his literary and See also:historical importance, but almost all that is known about him, comes from his See also:chronicle of the See also:fourth crusade, or Conqueete de See also:Constantinople. Nothing is positively known of his ancestry, for the supposition (originating with Du Cange) that a certain See also:William, See also:marshal of Champagne between 1163 and 1179, was his See also:father appears to be erroneous. Villehardouin himself, however, undoubtedly held this dignity, and certain See also:minute and perhaps not very trustworthy indications, chiefly of an heraldic See also:character, have led his most See also:recent biographers to See also:lay it down that he was not born earlier than 1150 or later than 1164. He introduces himself to us with a certain abruptness, merely specifying his own name as one of a See also:list of knights of Champagne who with their See also:count, Thibault, took the See also:cross at a See also:tournament held at Escry-sur-See also:Aisne in See also:Advent 1199, the crusade in contemplation having been started by the See also:preaching of See also:Fulk de Neuilly, who was commissioned thereto by See also:Pope See also:Innocent III. The next year six deputies, two appointed by each of the three allied See also:counts of See also:Flanders, Champagne and See also:Blois, were despatched to See also:Venice to negotiate for See also:ships. Of these deputies Villehardouin was one and Quesnes de See also:Bethune, the poet, another. They concluded a bargain with the seigniory for transport and provisions at a fixed See also:price. Villehardouin had hardly returned when Thibault See also:fell sick and died; .but this did not prevent, though it somewhat delayed, the enterprise of the crusaders. The management of that enterprise, however, was a difficult one, and cost Villehardouin another See also:embassy into See also:Italy to prevent if possible some of his See also:fellow-pilgrims from breaking the treaty with the Venetians by embarking at other ports and employing other See also:convoy.

He was only in See also:

part successful, and there was See also:great difficulty in raising the See also:charter-See also:money among those who had actually assembled (in 1202) at Venice, the sum collected falling far See also:short of the stipulated amount. It is necessary to remember this when the somewhat erratic and irregular character of the operations which followed is judged. The See also:defence that the crusaders were See also:bound to pay their passage-money to the See also:Holy See also:Land, in one See also:form or other, to the Venetians, is perhaps a weak one in any See also:case for the attack on two See also:Christian cities, See also:Zara and Constantinople; it becomes weaker still when it is found that the expedition never went or attempted to go to the Holy Land at all. But the See also:desire to See also:discharge obligations incurred is no doubt respectable in itself, and Villehardouin, as one of the actual negotiators of the bargain, must have See also:felt it with See also:peculiar strength. The crusaders set See also:sail at last, and Zara, which the Venetians coveted, was taken without much trouble. The question then arose whither the See also:host should go next. Villehardouin does not tell us of any See also:direct part taken by himself in the debates on the question of interfering or not in the disputed See also:succession to the See also:empire of the See also:East—debates in which the See also:chief ecclesiastics See also:present strongly protested against the diversion of the enterprise from its proper See also:goal. It is quite clear, however, that the marshal of Champagne, who was one of the leaders and inner counsellors of the expedition throughout, sympathized with the See also:majority,' and it is See also:fair to point out that the temptation of chivalrous 'See also:adventure was probably as great as that of gain. He narrates spiritedly enough the dissensions and discussions in the See also:winter See also:camp of Zara and at See also:Corfu, but is evidently much more at ease when the voyage was again resumed, and, after a fair passage See also:round See also:Greece, the crusaders at last saw before them the great See also:city of Constantinople which they had it in mind to attack. When the See also:assault was decided upon, Villehardouin himself was in the fifth " See also:battle," the See also:leader of which was Mathieu de See also:Montmorency. But, though his See also:account of the See also:siege is full of See also:personal touches, and contains one reference to the number, of witnesses whose testimony he took for a certain wonderful fact, he does not tell us anything of his own prowess. After. the See also:flight of the usurper Alexius, and when the See also:blind See also:Isaac, whose claims the crusaders were defending, had been taken by the Greeks from See also:prison and placed on the See also:throne; Villehardouin, with Montmorency and two Venetians, formed the embassy sent to arrange terms.

He was again similarly distinguished when it became necessary to remonstrate with Alexius, the blind See also:

man's son and virtual successor, on the non-keeping of the terms. Indeed Villehardouin's talents ae a diplomatist seem to have been held in very high esteem, for later, when the Latin empire had become a fact, he was charged with the delicate business of mediating between the See also:emperor See also:Baldwin and See also:Boniface, See also:marquis of See also:Montferrat, in which task he had at least partial success. He was also appointed marshal of " Romanie "—a See also:term very vaguely used, but apparently signifying the mainland of the See also:Balkan See also:Peninsula, while his See also:nephew and namesake, afterwards See also:prince of Achaia, took a great part in the Latin See also:conquest of See also:Peloponnesus. Villehardouin himself before See also:long received an important command against the Bulgarians. He was See also:left to maintain the siege of See also:Adrianople when Baldwin advanced to attack the relieving force, and with See also:Dandolo had much to do in saving the defeated crusaders from utter destruction, and conducting the See also:retreat, in which he commanded the rearguard, and brought his troops in safety to the See also:sea of See also:Rodosto, and thence to the See also:capital. As he occupied the See also:post of See also:honour in this disaster, so he had that (the command of the vanguard) in the expedition which the See also:regent See also:Henry made shortly afterwards to revenge his See also:brother Baldwin's defeat and See also:capture. And, when Henry had succeeded to the See also:crown on the announcement of Baldwin's See also:death, it was Villehardouin who fetched See also:home his See also:bride See also:Agnes of Montferrat, and shortly afterwards commanded under him in a See also:naval battle with the ships of See also:Theodore See also:Lascaris at the fortress of Cibotus. In the See also:settlement of the Latin empire after the truce with Lascaris, Villehardouin received the See also:fief of Messinople (supposed to be Mosynopolis, a little inland from the modern Gulf of See also:Lagos, and not far from the See also:ancient See also:Abdera) from Boniface of Montferrat, with the See also:record of whose death the chronicle abruptly closes. In the foregoing account only those particulars which See also:bear directly on Villehardouin himself have been detailed; but the chronicle is as far as possible from being an autobiography, and the displays of the writer's See also:personality, numerous as they are, are quite involuntary, and consist merely in his way of handling the subject, not in the references (as brief as his functions as chronicler will admit) to his own proceedings.. The chronicle of Villehardouin is justly held to be the very best presentation we possess of the spirit of See also:chivalry—not the designedly exalted and poetized chivalry of the romances, not the self-conscious and deliberate chivalry of the 14th See also:century, but the unsophisticated mode of thinking and acting which brought about the See also:crusades, stimulated the vast literary development of the 12th and 13th centuries, and sent knights-errant, principally though not wholly of See also:French See also:blood, to establish principalities and kingdoms throughout Europe and the nearer East. On the whole, no doubt, it is the more masculine and See also:practical See also:side of this enthusiastic See also:state of mind which Villehardouin shows. No woman makes any but the briefest See also:appearance in his pages, though in reference to this it must of course be remembered that he was certainly a man past See also:middle See also:life when the events occurred, and perhaps a man approaching old See also:age when he set them down.

Despite the strong and graphic touches here and there, exhibiting the impression which the beauty of sea and land, the splendour of Constantinople, the magnitude• of the effete but still imposing See also:

Greek See also:power, made on him, there is not only an entire See also:absence of dilation on such. subjects as a modern would have dilated on (that was to he expected), but an absence likewise of the elaborate and painful description of detail in which contemporary trouveres would have indulged. It is curious, for instance, to compare the scanty references to the material marvels of Constantinople which Villehardouin saw in their See also:glory, which perished by See also:sack and See also:fire under his very eyes, and which live chiefly in the See also:melancholy pages of his Greek contemporary Nicetas, with the elaborate descriptions of the scarcely greater wonders of fabulous courts at Constantinople itself, at See also:Babylon, and elsewhere, to be found in his other contemporaries, the later chanson de geste writers and the earlier embroiderers of the Arthurian romances and See also:romans d'etentures. And this later contrast is all the more striking that Villehardouin agrees with, and not impossibly borrows from, these very writers in many points of See also:style and phraseology. The brief chapters of his See also:work have been justly compared to the laisses or tirades of a chanson in what may be called the vignetting of the subject of each, in the absence of any See also:attempt to run on the narrative, in the stock forms, and in the poetical rather than prosaic word-See also:order of the sentences. Undoubtedly this See also:half-poetic style (animated as it is and redeemed from any See also:charge of bastardy by the freshness and vigour which pervade it) adds not a little to the See also:charm of the See also:book. Its succession of word pictures, conventional and yet vigorous as the illuminations of a See also:medieval See also:manuscript, and in their very conventionality See also:free from all thought of literary presentation, must charm all readers. The sober lists of names with which it opens; the account of the embassy, so business-like in its estimates of See also:costs and terms, and suddenly breaking into a fervent description of how the six deputies, " prostrating them-selves on the See also:earth and weeping warm tears, begged the See also:doge and See also:people of Venice to have pity on See also:Jerusalem "; the See also:story immediately following, how the See also:young count Thibault of Champagne, raising himself from a sickbed in his joy at the successful return of his ambassadors, " leva See also:sus et chevaucha, et laz! com See also:grant domages, See also:car onques puis ne chevaucha See also:clue cele foiz," compose a, most striking See also:overture. Then the See also:history relapses into the business vein and tells of the debates which took See also:place as to the best means of carrying out the See also:vow after the count's decease, the See also:rendezvous, too See also:ill kept at Venice, the plausible See also:suggestion of the Venetians that the See also:balance due to them should be made up by a See also:joint attack on their enemy, the See also:king of See also:Hungary. Villehardouin joint not in the least conceal the fact that the pope (" l'apostoilles de See also:Rome," as he calls him, in the very phrase of the chansons) was very angry with this; for his own part he seems to think of little or nothing but the reparation due to the See also:republic, which had loyally kept its bargain and been defrauded of the price, of the See also:infamy of breaking See also:company on the part of members of a joint association, and perhaps of the unknightliness of not taking up an adventure whenever it presents itself. For here again the restoration of the disinherited prince of Constantinople supplied an excuse quite as plausible as the See also:liquidation of the See also:debt to Venice. A famous passage, and one short enough to quote, is that describing the old blind doge Dandolo, who had " Grant ochoison de remanoir (See also:reason for staying at home), car viels See also:horn ere, et si avoit See also:les yaulx en la teste biaus et n'en veoit gote (goutte)," and yet was the foremost in fight. It would be out of place to attempt any further See also:analysis of the Conquete here.

But it is not impertinent, and is at the same See also:

time an excuse for what has been already said, to repeat that Villehardouin's book, brief as it is, is in reality one of the capital books of literature, not merely for its merit, but because it is the most See also:authentic and the most striking embodiment in contemporary literature of the sentiments which determined the See also:action of a great and important See also:period of history. There are but very few books which hold this position, and Villehardouin's is one of them. If every other contemporary record of the crusades perished, we should still he able by aid of this to understand and realize what the See also:mental attitude of crusaders, of 'See also:Teutonic knights, and the See also:rest was, and without this we should lack the earliest, the most undoubtedly genuine. and the most characteristic of all such records. The very inconsistency with which Villehardouin is chargeable, the absence of compunction with which he relates the changing of a sacred religious See also:pilgrimage into something by no means unlike a See also:mere filibustering See also:raid on the great See also:scale, add a charm to the book. For, religious as it is, it is entirely free from the very slightest See also:touch of See also:hypocrisy or indeed of self-consciousness of any See also:kind. The famous description of the crusades, gesta Dei per Frances, was evidently to Villehardouin a See also:plain See also:matter-of-fact description, and it no more occurred to him to doubt the divine favour being extended to the expeditions against Alexius or Theodore than to doubt that it was shown to expeditions against See also:Saracens and See also:Turks. The See also:person of Villehardouin reappears for us once, but once only, in the chronicle of his continuator, See also:Henri de See also:Valenciennes. There is a great See also:gap in style, though none in subject, between the really poetical See also:prose of the first historian of the fifth crusade and the Latin empire and the awkward mannerism (so awkward that it has been taken to represent a " disrhymed " See also:verse chronicle) of his follower. But the much greater length at which Villehardouin appears on this one occasion shows us the See also:restraint which he must have exercised in the passages which See also:deal with himself in his own work. He again led the vanguardin the emperor; Henry's eltpedition against Burilas the Bulgarian, and he is represented by the Valenciennes See also:scribe as encouraging his See also:sovereign to the attack in a long speech. Then he disappears altogether, with the exception of some brief and chiefly See also:diplomatic mentions. Du Cange discovered and quoted a See also:deed of donation by him dated 1207, by which certain properties were devised to the churches of Notre See also:Dame de Foissy and Notre Dame de Troyes, with the See also:reservation of life interests to his daughters Alix and Damerones, and his sisters Emmeline and Hoye, all of whom appear to have embraced a monastic life.

A See also:

letter addressed from the East to See also:Blanche of Champagne is cited, and a papal record of 1212 styles him still " marshal of Romania. " The next year this See also:title passed to his son See also:Erard; and 1213 is accordingly given as the date of his death, which, as there is no record or hint of his having returned to France, may be supposed to have happened at Messinople, where also he must have written the Conquete. The book appears to have been known in the ages -immediately succeeding his own; and, though there is no contemporary manuscript in existence, there are some half-dozen which appear to date from the end of the 13th or the course of the 14th century, while one at least appears to be a copy made from his own work in that spirit of unintelligent faithfulness which is much more valuable to posterity than more pragmatical editing. The first printed edition of the book, by a certain Blaise de Vigenere, See also:dates from 1585, is dedicated to the seigniory of Venice (Villehardouin, it should be said, has been accused of a rather unfair predilection for the Venetians), and speaks of either a part or the whole of the See also:memoirs as having been printed twelve years earlier. Of this earlier copy nothing seems to be known. A better edition, founded on a Netherlandish MS., appeared at See also:Lyons in 1601. But both these were completely antiquated by the great edition of Du Cange in 1657, wherein that learned writer employed all his knowledge, never since equalled, of the subject, but added a See also:translation, or rather See also:paraphrase, into modern French which is scarcely worthy either of himself or his author. Dom Brial gave a new edition from different MS. See also:sources in 1823, and the book figures with different degrees- of dependence on Du Cange and Brial in the collections of See also:Petitot, See also:Buchon, and See also:Michaud and Poujoulat. All these, however, have been superseded for the modern student by the See also:editions of Natalia de See also:Wailly (1872 and 1874), in which the See also:text is critically edited from all the available See also:MSS. and a new translation added, while there is a still later and rather handier one by E. Bouchet (2 vols., See also:Paris, 1891), which, however, rests mainly on N. de Wailly for text. The charm of Villehardouin can See also:escape no reader; but few readers will fail to derive some additional See also:pleasure from the two essays which Sainte-Beuve devoted to him, reprinted in the ninth See also:volume of the Causeries du lundi. See also A.

Debidour, Les Chroniqueurs (1888). There are See also:

English See also:translations by T. See also:Smith (1829), and (more literally) See also:Sir F. T. Marzials (Everyman's Library, 1908). (G.

End of Article: VILLEHARDOUIN, GEOFFROY DE (c. 116o-c. 1213)

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