Geffroy de Villehardouin and Jean de Joinville use first hand accounts, translated from Old French by Caroline Smith, in the Chronicles of the Crusades to show what happened on two different crusades. As always with two different authors, the writing styles are very different yet effective in their own way. One author focuses on facts and descriptions about his crusade; the other focuses on the sanctity of the king with whom he went on his crusade. Villehardouin’s account of the fourth crusade puts a strong emphasis on the facts to the point of seemingly detaching himself from the people. Whereas, Joinville’s account of the seventh crusade perhaps focuses too much on the people with whom he fights, specifically the king, to the point of
…show more content…
If Villehardouin’s account can be considered, for the sake of this paper, a typical “historical account” in the way that it focuses its attention on specific details of events, then Joinville’s account could be described as a “social commentary.” Joinville very clearly in his dedication writes that the purpose of his account first and foremost is writing for the queen of the pious nature of her son, King Louis IX. As such, the primary focus of the account is Joinville’s interpretation of the king’s actions and how everything goes back to God. Furthermore, a weakness of Joinville’s depiction of the seventh crusade is the fact that it seems to be simply the background events. While the King’s story takes place in that time and the readers do get a good understanding of what actually happened, it appears that Joinville is more interested in talking about King Louis IX’s piety than the war. This becomes extremely apparent in contrast to Villehardouin’s account. Villehardouin’s account follows a strict structure, which makes it easy to follow both chronologically and logically. Joinville’s, however, lacks a specific structure and seems to be disorganized, which can make the reader lose focus and miss some important details about the
If Villehardouin’s account can be considered, for the sake of this paper, a typical “historical account” in the way that it focuses its attention on specific details of events, then Joinville’s account could be described as a “social commentary.” Joinville very clearly in his dedication writes that the purpose of his account first and foremost is writing for the queen of the pious nature of her son, King Louis IX. As such, the primary focus of the account is Joinville’s interpretation of the king’s actions and how everything goes back to God. Furthermore, a weakness of Joinville’s depiction of the seventh crusade is the fact that it seems to be simply the background events. While the King’s story takes place in that time and the readers do get a good understanding of what actually happened, it appears that Joinville is more interested in talking about King Louis IX’s piety than the war. This becomes extremely apparent in contrast to Villehardouin’s account. Villehardouin’s account follows a strict structure, which makes it easy to follow both chronologically and logically. Joinville’s, however, lacks a specific structure and seems to be disorganized, which can make the reader lose focus and miss some important details about the