Geoffroy of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne by Theodore Evergates traces the remarkable life of Geoffroy of Villehardouin (c. 1148–c. 1217) from his earliest years in Champagne through his last years in Greece after the crusade. The fourth son of a knight, Geoffroy became marshal of Champagne, principal negotiator in organizing the Fourth Crusade, chief of staff of the expedition to and conquest of Constantinople, garrison commander of Constantinople and, in his late fifties, field commander defending the Latin settlement in the Byzantine empire against invading Bulgarian armies and revolting Greek cities. Known for his diplomatic skills and rectitude, he served as the chief military advisor to Count Thibaut III of Champagne and later to Emperor Henry of Constantinople. Geoffroy is remarkable as well for dictating the earliest war memoir in medieval Europe, which is also the earliest prose narrative in Old French. Addressed to a home audience in Champagne, he described what he did, what he saw, and what he heard during his eight years on crusade and especially during the fraught period after the conquest of Constantinople. His memoir, The Book of the Conquest of Constantinople, furnishes a commander's retrospective account of the main events and inner workings of the crusade—the innumerable meetings and speeches, the conduct (not always commendable) of the barons, and the persistent discontent within the army—as well as a celebration of his own deeds as a diplomat and a military commander.

Theodore Evergates provides the first systematic analysis of the aristocracy in the county of Champagne under the independent counts. He argues that three factors—the rise of the comital state, fiefholding, and the conjugal family—were critical to shaping a loose assortment of baronial and knightly families into an aristocracy with shared customs, institutions, and identity. Evergates mines the rich, varied, and in some respects unique collection of source materials from Champagne to provide a dynamic picture of a medieval aristocracy and its evolving symbiotic relationship with the counts. Count Henry the Liberal (1152-81) began the process of transforming a quasi-independent baronage accustomed to collegial governance into an elite of landholding families subordinate to the count and his officials. By the time Countess Jeanne married the future King Philip IV of France in 1284, the fiefholding families of Champagne had become a distinct provincial nobility. Throughout, it was the conjugal community, rather than primogeniture or patrilineage, that remained the core familial institution determining the customs regarding community property, dowry, dower, and partible inheritance. Those customs guaranteed that every lineage would survive, but frequently through a younger son or daughter. The life courses of women and men, influenced not only by social norms but also by individual choice and circumstance, were equally unpredictable. Evergates concludes that imposed models of "the aristocratic family" fail to capture the diversity of individual lives and lineages within one of the more vibrant principalities of medieval France.

New insights into interpretive problems in the history of England and Europe between the eighth and thirteenth centuries.

Numerous Byzantine and Western sources describing the events of the Fourth Crusade have now been translated into English. However, the same is not true for material on Frankish Greece, despite this region’s importance to late medieval crusading. The Chronicle of Morea is the key source for the history of the Frankish states established in Greece after the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 and their relations with the reviving Byzantine Empire during the 13th century. It is also an important source for the growth of the Venetian maritime empire. Most of the action centers on the Peloponnesus, then called Achaia or Morea, where crusaders William of Champlitte and Geoffrey of Villehardouin (nephew of the famous chronicler) established a principality and the Villehardouins a dynasty. Preserved in a unique fourteenth-century manuscript, the Old French version of the Chronicle of Morea is a contemporary account of Frankish feudal life transposed onto foreign soil. It describes clashes, conquests, and ransoms between the Franks and Byzantines, as well as their alliances and arranged marriages. A rich source, the Chronicle of Morea brims with anecdotes giving insight into the operation of feudal justice, the role of noble women in feudal society, the practice of chivalry, and the conduct of warfare. Versions of the Chronicle exist in Aragonese, Greek, and Italian, as well as in Old French. However, this is the first translation into English or any other modern language of the Old French text, thus opening its content to a wider audience.

Featuring twenty major works of European poetry over a period of a thousand years, this collection charts the development of verse from the fall of the Roman Empire to the birth of the Renaissance. Contrary to popular belief, the poetry of the Dark Ages enjoyed a pioneering development, exploring new metres and complex imagery. Throughout the Middle Ages, poetry adopted numerous forms across the continent, from the epic greatness of the ‘chanson de geste’ to the sublime lyrical qualities of love poetry. This eBook provides a rich sample of medieval poetry; from the earliest dawn of English literature to the unparalleled brilliance of Dante; from the courtly adventures of Arthurian legend to the stirring lays of the Vikings; from the Eastern magic of Georgia to the ribald genius of Chaucer; this collection will immerse you in the perilous, amusing and tantalising world of the Middle Ages. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to the poets’ lives and works * Concise introductions to the works * Most of the poems appear with their original medieval texts, as well as an English translation — ideal for students * Images of how the original manuscripts first appeared, giving your eReader a taste of the medieval texts * Excellent formatting of the poems * Easily locate the sections you want to read * Features three critical works on the development of medieval literature * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to see our wide range of poet titles CONTENTS: Medieval Poetry Hymn by Cædmon (7th century) Christ II by Cynewulf (8th century) (Tr. Raymond Wilson Chambers) Beowulf (c.1000) (Tr. William Morris) The Song of Roland (c. 1050) (Tr. C. K. Moncreiff) The Poem of the Cid (c. 1140) (Tr. Robert Southey) Chronicle of the Norman Conquest from ‘Roman de Rou’ by Wace (c. 1170) (Tr. Edgar Taylor) Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes (c. 1180) (Tr. William Wistar Comfort) Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1210) (Tr. Jessie Weston) The Troubadours (1100-1350) by H. J. Chaytor The Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Shota Rustaveli (c. 1190) (Tr. Marjory Wardrop) The Song of the Nibelungs (c. 1200) (Tr. Daniel Bussier Shumway) Lays of Marie de France (c. 1210) (Tr. Eugene Mason) The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris [PARTIAL TRANSLATION] (c. 1230) (Tr. Geoffrey Chaucer) Poetic Edda (c. 13th century) (Tr. Benjamin Thorpe) Wine, Women and Song: Mediæval Latin Students’ Songs (c. 13th century) (Tr. John Addington Symonds) The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1320) (Tr. H. F. Cary) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1375) (Tr. Jessie Weston) Sonnets by Francesco Petrarca (c. 1374) (Tr. Thomas Campbell) Piers Plowman by William Langland (c. 1380) Edited by Thomas Wright The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1400) The Criticism The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory by George Saintsbury Medieval English Literature by W. P. Ker Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature by W. P. Ker Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of poetry titles or buy the entire Delphi Poets Series as a Super Set

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.