SOURCE: “Le Conquette de Constantinople—Its Style and Language” in Villehardouin: Epic Historian, Librarie Droz, 1968, pp. 67-81.

In the following essay, Beer examines the two stylistic traits for which Villehardouin's work is most commonly praised: its clarity and brevity. Beer also investigates the way in which Villehardouin uses such devices as repetition and antitheses.

The qualities most frequently praised in La Conquête de Constantinople are its clarity and its brevity.¹ Villehardouin's clarity could no doubt be unmeditated—the result solely of a simple, orderly, perhaps even unimaginative conception of events. Nevertheless, a number of Villehardouin's stylistic devices suggest that he is taking pains to reinforce this particular tendency. His frequent exploitation of the epic habit of recapitulation in the form of a brief, summarizing résumé (“Ensi fu dessiegie Andrenople” [287]; “Et ensi cele chace fu recovree com vos avez oï [363]) is didactically useful, as are the attention-seeking...