Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople

Summary

Villehardouin's chronicle is the eyewitness account of the Fourth Crusade by one of its leaders. It opens in 1198-99 with the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly and the indulgence proclaimed by Pope Innocent III, and with a tournament at Écry in Champagne where Count Thibaut of Champagne and Count Louis of Blois take the cross, soon joined by Count Baldwin of Flanders. Villehardouin is one of six envoys sent to Venice in 1201, where the aged and sightless Doge Enrico Dandolo agrees to transport 4,500 knights, 9,000 squires and 20,000 foot soldiers for 85,000 marks; the envoys kneel weeping before the people in St. Mark's, and the Venetians cry that they consent. Thibaut dies, Boniface of Montferrat is chosen leader, and in 1202 the host gathers at Venice, but many crusaders sail from other ports and those who come cannot pay. The Doge proposes that they settle the debt by helping Venice recover Zara on the Dalmatian coast, and he himself takes the cross in St. Mark's. At Zara the abbot of Vaux forbids the attack in the Pope's name because its people are Christians; the city is taken anyway in November 1202, and the host winters there. Envoys arrive from young Alexius, son of the deposed and blinded Emperor Isaac II, offering money, troops and the union of the Greek Church with Rome if the crusaders will restore his father. The host divides bitterly; Simon of Montfort and others leave for Syria or Hungary, and at Corfu the leaders fall weeping at the feet of the dissenters to keep the army together. In June 1203 the fleet sights Constantinople, whose walls, palaces and churches astonish the westerners. They seize Galata and the harbor, assault the walls by land and sea while the blind Doge leads the Venetians ashore, and Alexius III flees. Isaac is restored and his son crowned co-emperor, but the promised payments fail, fire devastates the city, and in early 1204 the courtier Mourzuphles imprisons and strangles young Alexius and takes the throne. The crusaders and Venetians agree on terms of division, storm the city on 12 April 1204, and take immense booty, some of which is hidden from the common stock. Baldwin of Flanders is elected and crowned the first Latin emperor, and Boniface receives Salonika. The last part narrates the hard years that followed: quarrels between Baldwin and Boniface, Greek risings, the war with Johannizza (Kaloyan), king of the Bulgarians and Vlachs, the disaster at Adrianople in April 1205 where Louis of Blois is killed and Baldwin captured, Villehardouin's own command of the rearguard in the retreat, Dandolo's death, the rule of Baldwin's brother Henry, and the death of Boniface in an ambush in 1207, where the chronicle breaks off. The library text is Frank T. Marzials's English translation, published by J. M. Dent in 1908.

Top Lessons

• Debts can steer a great purpose

  The crusade was contracted for an army larger than the one that came to Venice, and the shortfall in payment led first to Zara and then to Constantinople. Villehardouin blames those who sailed from other ports. Historians still debate whether the diversion was a chain of accidents or a plan, but the chronicle itself shows how a financial obligation shaped decisions at every step.

• Keeping the host together

  Villehardouin values above all the unity of the army and the keeping of oaths. He condemns those who left and praises the leaders who knelt weeping before the dissenters at Corfu. He also records that the abbot of Vaux and others left out of conscience, so the reader can weigh loyalty to companions against the call of conscience.

• Wonder and plunder

  The crusaders stare at Constantinople as the richest city in the world, and a year later Villehardouin boasts that no city ever yielded so much booty. He also writes that covetousness, the root of all evil, made some hide their spoils, and that God began to love the host less. The book records both the soldiers' pride and the narrator's sense of moral danger.

• Reading an eyewitness

  Villehardouin was in the councils he describes, so his chronicle is precious, but he writes as a leader explaining decisions he helped make. Byzantine writers such as Niketas Choniates described the same events as a catastrophe. A careful reader honors the witness while asking what each side saw.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The chronicle's medical interest lies chiefly in wounds, blindness and death in a medieval army. Doge Dandolo, whom Villehardouin describes as sightless though his eyes looked clear, from a wound to the head, leads in person; the translator notes that the cause and degree of his blindness are disputed. Blinding as a political mutilation recurs: Isaac II was blinded by his brother, and later Mourzuphles is blinded by Alexius III. Villehardouin records deaths from sickness, such as Count Thibaut's before the expedition and Isaac's after his son's fall, without medical detail, and Dandolo's death in 1205. The arrow wound beneath the shoulder from which Boniface bleeds to death in 1207 is described plainly. The carrying of all the wounded on the night retreat from Adrianople shows the practical care a crusading host could offer its own.

• The Doge and a Number of Venetians Take the Cross

  Description of Dandolo's sight lost through a wound in the head; translator's note on the uncertainty.

• Message of Alexius, the Son of Isaac

  The blinding of Emperor Isaac by his brother.

• Retreat of the Crusaders

  The host leaves Adrianople by night, taking all its wounded with it.

• Boniface Is Killed in a Battle Against the Bulgarians

  Boniface's arrow wound beneath the shoulder and his death from loss of blood.