GEOFFROY DE VILLEHARDOUIN. — Marshal of Champagne by hereditary right, born no later than 1152, he took part with his lord, Count Thibaut III, in the Fourth Crusade and wrote its history; died in the East no earlier than 1212.
Having taken the cross (at the tournament of Écry-sur-Aisne, 28 November 1199), he was sent to Venice to negotiate the conditions for the overseas transport of an army of 20,000 men, which then embarked in October 1202 to seize Zara and Constantinople (1203–1204) and to establish the Latin Empire of the East in Greece. He certainly played a notable part in this diversion and in the election of Boniface of Montferrat to lead the expedition after the death of Thibaut III; he obtained the title of marshal of Romania and distinguished himself in the ill-fated expedition against the Bulgarians, ending in the defeat at Adrianople (14 April 1205). He later took part in the war against Theodore Lascaris and occupied Morrea, though recognizing Venetian sovereignty there; he received from Emperor Henry of Flanders the fief of Messinopoli in Thrace.
Around 1207 he began to compose *La conquête de Constantinople*, inspired by the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly, who had prepared the Crusade after the death of Boniface of Montferrat: “memoirs” intended to attest to Villehardouin’s own role in directing the enterprise and, at the same time, to vindicate its purity of intention, conducted always with an eye to the service of God, in contrast to the widespread public opinion of the day, traces of which remain in the chronicles of Gunther and Ernoul. With firmness and narrative skill, Villehardouin develops a full theory of “providential causes”; the substantial truthfulness and relative completeness of his work have been demonstrated by his recent scholar, Edmond Faral.