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Villehardouin, Geoffroi de, 1150-1213

"Memoirs or Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople"

And he brought with him as many people as he had, and
these were quite as many as the Emperor Baldwin and Count Louis had
brought, and he encamped before one of the gates. On the morrow they
were joined by a troop of mounted sergeants, but these might well have
been better men than they proved themselves to be. And the host [note:
meaning here a little obscure. I think, however, the intention of the
origin'd is to state that the host, and not only the sergeants, lacked
supplies] had small store of provisions, because the merchants could
not come with them; nor could they go foraginc, because of the many
Greeks that were spread throughout the land.
Johannizza, King of Wallachia, was coming to succour Adrianople with a
very great host; for he brought with him Wallachians and Bulgarians,
and full fourteen thousand Comans who had never been baptised.
Now because of the dearth of provisions, Count Louis of Blois and
Chartres went foraging on Palm Sunday. With him went Stephen of
Perche, brother of Count Geoffry of Perche, and Renaud of Montmirail,
who was brother of Count Herv?e of Nevers, and Gervais of Ch?tel, and
more than half of the host. They went to a castle called Peutace, and
found it well garrisoned with Greeks, and assailed it with great force
and fury; but they were able to achieve nothing, and so retreated
without taking anv spoils. Thus they remained during the week of the
two'Easters (Palm Sunday to Easter Day), and fashioned engines of
divers sorts, and set such miners as they had to work underground and
so undermine the wall.


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