A
layman and a
soldier, Geoffrey was appointed marshal of Champagne from 1185 and joined the
Fourth Crusade in 1199 during a tournament held by Count
Theobald III of Champagne. Thibaud named him one of the
ambassadors to
Venice to procure ships for the voyage, and he helped to elect Marquis
Boniface I of Montferrat as the new leader of the Crusade when Theobald died. Although Geoffrey does not say so specifically in his own account, he probably supported the diversion of the crusade first to
Zara and then to
Constantinople. While at Constantinople he also served as an ambassador to Emperor
Isaac II Angelus, and was in the
embassy that demanded that 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 the
Battle of Adrianople in 1205 after
Baldwin I was captured by the forces of the
Second Bulgarian Empire. In recognition of his services, Boniface of Montferrat gave to Geoffrey the city of
Messinopolis in
Thrace. After the crusade, he was named Marshal of the
Latin Empire. In 1207, Geoffrey began to write his chronicle of the Crusade,
On the Conquest of Constantinople. It was in French rather than
Latin, making it one of the earliest works of French
prose. Villehardouin's account is generally read alongside that of
Robert of Clari, a French knight of low station,
Niketas Choniates, a high-ranking Byzantine official and historian who gives an eyewitness account, and
Gunther of Pairis, a
Cistercian monk who tells the story from the perspective of Abbot Martin who accompanied the crusaders. Villehardouin's nephew
Geoffrey I of Villehardouin went on to become
prince of Achaea in
Morea (the medieval name for the
Peloponnese) in 1209. Villehardouin himself seems to have died shortly afterwards. His son Erard had taken the title of
seigneur de Villehardouin in 1213. There is evidence of his children raising memorials for him in 1218, suggesting he died around this time. ==See also==