Hahnloser, Hans R. Villard de Honnecourt: Kritische Gesamtaus-
gabe des Bauhuttenbuches ms. fr. 19093 der Pariser National-
bibliothek. Vienna: Schroll, 1935; rev. ed. Graz: Akademische
Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972. [Best facsimile edition.]
Carl F. Barnes, Jr.
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 fam-
ily. 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 Constanti-
nople, 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 cru-
sade, 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 chronologi-
cal 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 fi ghting force for a real holy war. He
does not, however, hold blameless those who partici-
pated 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 manuscripts
of an abbreviation exist. Villehardouin’s work was also
incorporated in the Chronique de Baudouin d’Avesnes,
a 13th-century compilation that circulated widely.Further Reading
Villehardouin, Geoffroi de. La conquête de Constantinople,
ed. Edmond Faral. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Paris: Les Belles Lettres,
1937.
Joinville and Villehardouin. Chronicles of the Crusades, trans.
Margaret Shaw. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.
Beer, Jeanette M.A. Villehardouin, Epic Historian. Geneva:
Droz, 1968.
Dufournet, Jean. Les écrivains de la IVe croisade: Villehardouin
et Clan. 2 vols. Paris: SEDES, 1973.
Leah ShopkowVILLON, FRANÇOIS (1431–1463)
Of all the lyricists of late-medieval France, Villon is
the most celebrated among both scholars and general
readers. Students of premodern literature inside and
outside the francophone world have encountered him
in his original Middle French; and thousands of people
who have little or no French have read versions of his
poems in the major European languages.
It was not always thus. The circle of contemporaries
who knew of Villon’s literary abilities was a modest
one. He tells us in his Testament that an earlier work,
the Lais, is already in circulation and being referred to
by a title not of his choosing. On the other hand, the
number of early sources preserving his poems is small;
and his readers were in general not found among the rich
and powerful. Although some such personages come in
for mention in his verses, it is usually in the context of
appeals for money, or of distant, uneasy, or downright
irreverent allusion; Villon was not a success with well-
off patrons of literature. The fame he sought eluded him.
He seemingly hoped for a career as a court poet and
exerted himself to catch the eye of such highly placed
connoisseurs as Charles d’Orléans; but for unknown
reasons, he did not achieve more than a small gift of
money here and there. Greater success in his lifetime,
however, might well have spelled later obscurity; his
poésies de circonstance, composed, we must assume,
to curry favor, competent though they are, are by and
large forgettable. Rather than spend much of his career
in turning out pleasing offi cial verse, he was driven by
circumstance, and perhaps also by a jarring personality,
to live by expedients, know misery, refl ect on it, and
write amateur poetry of a unique stamp.
The body of Villon’s works is of moderate dimen-
sions: some 3,300 lines. It comprises independent
pieces in fi xed form (ballades and rondeaux) and two
unifi ed compositions, the Lais and the Testament. TheVILLARD DE HONNECOURT