Barnes, Carl F., Jr. “Le ‘problème’ Villard de Honnecourt.” In Les batisseurs des cathédrales
gothiques, ed. Roland Recht. Strasbourg: Éditions les Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg, 1989,
pp. 209–23.
——. Villard de Honnecourt: The Artist and His Drawings, A Critical Bibliography. Boston: Hall,
1982.
——, and Lon R.Shelby. “The Codicology of the Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt (Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale, MS fr. 19093).” Scriptorium 40(1988):20–48.
Hahnloser, Hans R. Villard de Honnecourt: Kritische Gesamtausgabe des Bauhuttenbuches ms. fr.
19093 der Pariser Nationalbibliothek. Vienna: Schroll, 1935; rev. ed. Graz: Akademische
Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972. [Best facsimile edition.]
VILLEHARDOUIN, GEOFFROI DE
(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
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