Chronicles of the Crusades by Geffroy Villehardouin

Author:Geffroy Villehardouin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1963-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER2

Preparations for a Crusade

1244-8

A YEAR or two after the events I have just recorded it happened by God’s will, that King Louis, who was then in Paris, was taken very seriously ill, and came at last so near to dying that one of the two ladies who were tending him wanted to draw the sheet over his face, maintaining that he was dead. But another lady, who was on the opposite side of his bed, would not allow it, and said she was sure his soul was still in his body.

As the king lay listening to the dispute between the two ladies our Lord worked within him, and quickly brought him back to such a state of health that although up till then he had not been able to utter a word he now recovered his speech. As soon as he was able to speak he asked for the cross to be given him; and this was promptly done. When the queen mother heard that the power of speech had come back to him she was as full of joy as it is possible to be. But on learning that he had taken the cross – which she heard from his own lips – she mourned as much as if she had seen him lying dead.

After the king had taken the cross his example was followed by his three brothers, Robert, Comte d’Artois, Alfonse, Comte de Poitiers, and Charles, Comte d’Anjou, who later became King of Sicily. To these we must add Hugues, Duc de Bourgogne, and Guillaume, Comte de Flandre, the brother of the lately deceased Comte Guy de Flandre, the good Comte Hugues de Saint-Pol and his nephew Gautier. The last-named bore himself gallantly oversea, and would have proved his worth still more if he had lived longer.

I must also include among those who took the cross the Comte de la Marche and his son Hugues le Brun, as well as two cousins of mine, the Comte de Sarrebruck and his brother Gobert d’Apremont. In virtue of our relationship, I, Jean, Lord of Joinville, later made the voyage oversea in their company, in a ship we hired together. At that time we made up a party of twenty knights, nine of whom were the Comte de Sarrebruck’s men and nine belonged to me.

At Easter, in the year of our Lord 1248, I summoned my men, and all who held fiefs from me, to Joinville. On Easter Eve, when all the people I had summoned had arrived, my son, Jean, Lord of Ancerville, was born to me by my first wife, who was the Comte de Grandpré’s sister. We feasted and danced the whole of that week. My brother, the Lord of Vaucouleurs, and other men of wealth and standing who were present, each provided a banquet one after the other, on Easter Monday and the three following days.

On the Friday I said to them: ‘My friends, I’m soon going oversea, and I don’t know whether I shall ever return.

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