The Conquest of Constantinople by Geoffrey de Villehardouin
This is a chronicle of he 4th crusade, which was an epic failure. The chronicler was an actual eyewitness and also a player in the whole crusade that went extremely off course. Pope Innocent called for another crusade to the holy land, and all was set in motion. THe gang showed up in Venice without the proper amount of travel fare so they had to pay their way by taking Zara, a Christian town. Then they were about to go do some holy land crusading when they took a detour to Byzantium and sacked one of the most wonderful cities of the time. Does it need to be mentioned that the Eastern church was also Christian? Not a single crusader from the 4th crusade sets foot in the holy land. So how does the writer not consider this crusade a total and complete failure? Even though the original goals were not met, the updated goals of bringing the eastern church more in line with the western church were met. This seems vaguely like the Iraq war and how the goals were always changing.
I remember hearing only a brief history of this crusade, but it really helps to actually know the whole reason for the crusade and how it became so sidetracked. I feel a little more enlightened having learned of this rather stupid episode in history.
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