HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

CONTEMPORARY AND ‘EYEWITNESS’ HISTORY 261excitement and pathos of his story of Overseas. A flash of easternmagic lights up his descriptions of a caliph’s palace as it was describedto him. He gives a first-hand and pathetic account of how he discoveredthat his pupil, the young heir to the kingdom, had contractedleprosy. 36William disapproved of campaigning bishops and was relatively pooron military history. He also resented the growing independence fromdiocesan control of the military orders, especially the Knights Templar, 37but as Beryl Smalley has emphasized, his greatest achievement hasto do with his percipience regarding causes and causality. Rejectingthe classic explanation for the decline of the Kingdom post 1174,namely sinfulness and accidia, William looked beyond the moral tothe political sphere:The first crusaders were expert soldiers, attacking a country whosenatives had grown accustomed to peace and had forgotten how todefend themselves. Their enemies were disunited politically. The Muslimprinces fought one another instead of obeying a superior. Almost everycity had its own lord. Hence these isolated strongholds fell easily tothe crusaders. Now, on the contrary, the Muslims were united underone ruler. The sultan had plenty of money, thanks to his conquests,and could pay his troops. Recruits were at hand in quantity, giventhe means to hire them. The present generation of Franks Overseasfaced much greater odds than their forbears.William realized that political unity and a full treasury will decidea conflict between two states. Modern historians of the Latin kingdomstill subscribe to William’s analysis of the causes of its fall. 38Villehardouin and the Fourth CrusadeWhen, shortly after 1207, Geoffroi de Villehardouin, Marshal ofChampagne, began writing his Conquête de Constantinople, it may wellhave been because he felt the need to act as apologist for an army36Smalley (1974), 140.37It is worth mentioning at this juncture the recent publication of a later workthat deals with the fortunes of the Knights Templar and with the reasons for thedecline and fall of the Latin kingdom: the Cronaca del Templare di Tiro (1243–1314),ed. L. Minervini (Naples, 2000). We should also note, in the context of this essay,the editor’s own sub-title for the work: ‘La caduta degli Stati Crociati nel raccontodi un testimone oculare’.38Smalley (1974), 141.