A rank-and-file crusader's account that begins with the preaching of the crusade and the taking of the cross in 1199 to 1200 by the counts of Flanders, Blois and Champagne and by the Picard lords, among them Peter of Amiens, Robert's own lord, then the negotiations with Venice. It is less exact than Villehardouin on dates and councils but catches the mood of the knights and the stories told in camp, and it is fuller on Constantinople's wonders and on the Byzantine dynastic quarrels as the crusaders understood them. For 1200 itself it supplies the names of early crusaders and little else.
About this source
- Title
- Li estoires de chiaus qui conquisent Coustantinoble
- Author
- Robert de Clari, knight of Picardy
- Author's dates
- fl. 1200 to 1216
- Written
- about 1205 to 1216
- Language
- Old French (Picard)
- Covers
- 1198 to 1216
- Kind
- History
Riant's 1868 text is the free Old French. The Internet Archive copy of Hopf 1873 may be lending-only. McNeal's English is in copyright and only extracts circulate online.
Where to read it
Editions
- P. Riant (ed.), Li estoires de chiaus qui conquisent Constantinoble, de Robert de Clari en Aminois, chevalier (Paris, 1868), Old French
- C. Hopf (ed.), Chroniques greco-romanes inedites ou peu connues (Berlin, 1873), which includes Robert de Clari
- P. Lauer (ed.), Robert de Clari, La Conquete de Constantinople, Classiques francais du moyen age (Paris, 1924) (not freely online)
Translations
- E. H. McNeal, The Conquest of Constantinople (New York, 1936; reprinted 1996 and 2005), English (not freely online)