SOURCE: An introduction to Memoirs of the Crusaders by Villehardouin and de Joinville, translated by Frank Marzials, E. P. Dutton, 1908, pp. xxvii-xxxiii.

In the following essay, Marzials provides a brief biographical discussion of Joinville, followed by an overview of the style of Vie de Saint Louis. Marzials also analyzes Joinville's characterization of King Louis.

… Joinville was born, it is believed, in 1224. He embarked with St. Lewis for the Crusade on the 28th August 1248; he returned to France in the July of 1254. His Memoirs, as he himself tells us, were written, i.e. concluded, in the month of October, 1309, that is to say, when he was eighty-five years of age, and more than half a century after the events he had set himself to narrate. Thus while Villehardouin writes as a middle-aged soldier, succinctly, soberly, with eye intent on important events, and only casually alive to the passing show...