(ca. 1150-before 1218). Author of the Conquête de Constantinople, one of the earliest historical works written in French prose, and one of two eyewitness accounts of the Fourth Crusade. Villehardouin was born into a noble Champenois family. He served the count of Champagne, Thibaut III, as marshal after 1185. In this capacity, Villehardouin developed the mediating abilities that would serve him so well. We know of three disputes he mediated, one involving the count himself.
Count Thibaut III of Champagne (d. 1202) was one of the organizers of the Fourth Crusade, so Villehardouin was at the heart of the planning. He was one of the six ambassadors sent to Venice in 1201 to negotiate passage in Venetian ships. In 1203, he was sent to Isaac II, whom the crusaders had restored to the throne of Constantinople, to see that the Latins would be paid as agreed. He carried out negotiations between the emperor Baudouin and Boniface of Montferrat, the new leader of the crusade, when the two fell out. Because of his outstanding services, Villehardouin was made marshal of Romania in 1205. The rest of his life is obscure. He last appears in the records in 1212 and was certainly dead by 1218, when his son arranged a memorial for him.
The Conquête, which begins with the preaching of the crusade by Foulques de Neuilly and ends suddenly in 1207, was composed after the events it relates, although Villehardouin probably made notes and certainly used documentary sources. The prose is straightforward and unrhetorical. The story is told in excellent chronological order.
Villehardouin seems to have intended his work as a defense of the crusade against critics who pointed out that the crusaders attacked only the Christian cities of Zara and Constantinople and never got to Jerusalem at all. Villehardouin lays chief blame for these unfortunate facts on those who failed to join the crusade at Venice and help pay for passage, forcing the crusaders to repay Venice by attacking Zara, and those who deserted later, leaving too small a fighting force for a real holy war. He does not, however, hold blameless those who participated or remained; their sins, particularly their greed, caused further disasters and offended God.
Villehardouin’s narrative was more widely read than Robert de Clari’s, the other eyewitness account of the Fourth Crusade. Six manuscripts of the Conquête are extant, and two more were used in early editions before they disappeared. In addition, two manuscripts of an abbreviation exist. Villehardouin’s work was also incorporated in the Chronique de Baudouin d’Avesnes, a 13th-century compilation that circulated widely.
