Geoffroi de Villehardouin

Villehardouin was born around 1160. He was Marshal of Champagne, and joined the Crusade in 1199 during a tournament held by Count Thibaud of Champagne[?]. Thibaud named him one of the ambassadors to Venice to procure ships for the voyage, and he helped elect Boniface of Montferrat leader when Thibaud died.

Although he does not say so specifically in his own account, he probably supported diverting the Crusade first to Zara[?] and then to Constantinople. While at Constantinople he also served as ambassador to Isaac II Angelus, and was in the embassy that demanded 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 Adrianople in 1205 after Baldwin I was captured.

In 1207 he began to write his chronicle of the Crusade, De la Conquête de Constantinople. It was in French rather than Latin, making it one of the earliest works of French prose. Unfortunately, he leaves out information that may have portrayed the Crusaders negatively; for example, he does not mention why or when the Crusade was diverted. The historian Nicetas Acominatus chronicles the same events from the Byzantine perspective, and is often read alongside Villehardouin's account.

Villehardouin's nephew went on to conquer Morea[?] (the Peloponnesus) in 1210. Villehardouin himself seems to have died shortly afterwards around 1212.