The Venetian Version of the Fourth Crusade: Memory and the Conquest of Constantinople in Medieval Venice By Thomas F. Madden On a busy day in October 1202, Walframo of Gemona, a resident of Venice living in the parish of San Stae, made his will. Although still a young man, he was anxious to put his affairs in order because, as he put it, “preparing to go in the service of the Lord and his Holy Sepulcher, I am mindful of the day of my death.” 1 Walframo was apparently a man of some wealth. In his will he left his wife, Palmera, her dowry of seventy Venetian lire as well as three houses and four household slaves that Walframo had given to her as a morning gift after their nuptials. He also directed her to spend three hundred Venetian lire for the benefit of his soul. Days later, Walframo boarded one of the hundreds of vessels that made up the great fleet of the Fourth Crusade and sailed out of the Venetian lagoon. 2 Whether he ever returned home is unknown. But if he did, he must have had quite a story to tell—one that is largely lost to us today. Modern historians know a great deal about the events of the Fourth Crusade, yet very little about the thousands of Venetians and other Italians who joined it or about the experiences that they brought back with them. The Fourth Crusade was, by any measure, an unusual expedition. For most Venetians it be- gan in April 1201, when envoys from the crusade leaders, Thibaut of Champagne, Baldwin of Flanders, and Hugh of St. Pol, concluded a treaty with Venice. 3 In it, the Venetians agreed to provide provisions and a fleet to carry 33,500 crusaders Research for this study was funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Mellon Faculty Development Fund. 1 “… paratus essem ire in servicio domini et sancti eius sepulcri cepi cogitare de die mortis mee”: Venice, Archivio di Stato, S. Lorenzo di Venezia, B. 21. That the notary, Venerando Marin, was a priest at the church of San Marco was unusual for a private document at this time. Given the date and the fact that a priest from San Stae witnessed the will, it is possible that this was one of many wills made in the Piazza San Marco as the crusaders prepared for departure. 2 Venetian legal documents at this time bore only the month, year, and indiction. Because this will is dated October 1202 and the crusade fleet departed during the first week of October (the octave of St. Remi, October 2–8, according to Geoffrey de Villehardouin), only a few days could have elapsed between the execution of the document and the departure of the crusade. See Geoffrey de Villehardouin, La conquête de Constantinople, ed. and trans. Edmond Faral, Les classiques de l’histoire de France au Moyen Âge 18–19, 2 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1938–39), 1:76; Alfred J. Andrea, “The Devastatio Constantinopolitana, a Special Perspective on the Fourth Crusade: An Analysis, New Edition, and Translation,” Historical Reflections 19 (1993): 107–49, at 132; and Gesta epis- coporum Halberstadensium, ed. Ludwig Weiland, MGH SS 23 (Hannover: MGH, 1874), 73–123, at 117. 3 For a complete description of the Fourth Crusade see Donald E. Queller and Thomas F. Madden, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). Speculum 87.2 (April 2012) doi:10.1017/S0038713412001017 311