Geoffrey de Villehardouin

   Major participant and chief Latin historian of the Fourth Crusade (q.v.). Marshal of Champagne prior to the Fourth Crusade, his Conquest of Constantinople is a kind of official history of the Crusade, written from the point of view of someone who helped negotiate with Venice (q.v.) for the transport of the Crusade, and who subsequently participated in the important decisions that diverted the Fourth Crusade to Zara (q.v.) and then to Constantinople (q.v.). His bias clearly favors those who worked to keep the army together, including doge Enrico Dandalo of Venice (qq.v.), who is pictured as a wise and unselfish leader, contrary to Byzantine sources. Above all, Villehardouin values loyalty, living up to one's word, and fulfilling contractual obligations. Thus, he disdains those Latin knights who promised to sail from Venice but failed to show, and those who left the army as it made its way eastward. In a similar way, the failure of Alexios IV Angelos (q.v.) to fulfill his promises to the Crusaders, and the perfidy of Alexios V Doukas (q.v.) become a perfect rationale for the conquest of Constantinople, and destruction of Byzantium (q.v.), in 1204. After the conquest he was made Marshal of Romania, in Thrace (q.v.). He died around 1212.