Description
The Memoirs of Villehardouin and Joinville, here reproduced in an English form, are the first in date, those of Villehardouin having been written probably in the days of our King John, early in the thirteenth century; while those of Joinville were completed about a century later, in October 1309, shortly after our Edward II had begun to reign. Both are monuments of the French language, and of French prose, at an early stage of development. Both are written by eye-witnesses who had taken an important part, in the case of Villehardouin a very important part, in what they describe. Both deal with stirring episodes in one of the most stirring chapters in human history, the chapter that tells how, for some three centuries, Christendom put forth its power to capture, and again recapture, "those holy fields over whose acres walked those blessed feet which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed, for our advantage, on the bitter cross," and both serve to illustrate the varied motives that went to the initiation and maintenance of that great movement. - Introduction.