Home > Crusades > Unforeseen Consequences

Excerpt from Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople (1207)
Originally written by Geoffrey de Villehardouin; Translated by Frank T. Marzials; Published in 1908

Excerpt from Chronica Regiae Coloniensis (1213)
Reprinted in The Crusades: A Documentary History; Translated by James Brundage; Published in 1962

Numerous small Crusades took place throughout the twelfth and into the thirteenth centuries. Quickly after the First Crusade (1095–99), a smaller one was begun in 1101 to bring more troops to the Crusader states established in Palestine, on the narrow seacoast of the eastern Mediterranean Sea. This effort failed, as did several other attempts to send men. But the Crusaders were successful initially because of the internal rivalries among the Muslims. The world of...