The Emperor Henry and the host of the French encamped before the city;
and the foraging parties overran the land and captured oxen, and cows,
and beeves in great plenty and other beasts. And those from Adrianople,
who had brought their chariots with them, and were poor and
illfurnished with food, loaded their chariots with corn and other
grain; and they found also provisions in plenty and loaded with them,
in great quantities, the other chariots that they had captured. So the
host sojourned there for three days; and every day the foraging parties
went foraging throughout the land; but the land was full of mountains,
and strong defiles, and the host lost many foragers, who adventured
themselves madly.
In the end, the Emperor Henry sent Anscau of Cayeux to guard the
foragers, and Eustace his brother, and Thierri of Flanders, his nephew,
and Walter of Escomai, and John Bliaud. Their four battalions went to
guard the foragers, and entered into a land rough and mountainous. And
when their people had overrun the land, and wished to return, they
found the defiles very well guarded. For the Wallachians of the country
had assembled, and fought against them, and did them great hurt, both
to men and horses. Hardly were our men put to it to escape
discomfiture; and the knights had, of necessity, to dismount and go on
foot. But by God’s help they returned to the camp, though not without
great loss and damage.
On the morrow the Emperor Henry, and the host of the French departed
thence, and marched day by day till they came to Adrianople; and they
stored therein the corn and other provisions that they brought with
them. The emperor sojourned in the field before the city some fifteen
days.
HOMAGE RENDERED BY BONIFACE TO THE EMPEROR, AND BY GEOFFRY OF
VILLEHARDOUIN TO BONIFACE
At that time Boniface, the Marquis of Montferrat, who was at Seres,
which he had fortified, rode forth as far as Messinopolis, and all the
land surrendered to his will. Then he took messengers, and sent them to
the Emperor Henry, and told him that he would right willingly speak
with him by the river that runs below Cypsela. Now they two had never
been able to speak together face to face since the conquest of the
land, for so many enemies lay between them that the one had never been
able to come to the other. And when the emperor and those of his
council heard that the marquis Boniface was at Messinopolis, they
rejoiced greatly; and the emperor sent back word by the messengers that
he would speak with the marquis on the day appointed.
So the emperor went thitherward, and he left Conon of Bethune to guard
the land near Adrianople, with one hundred knights. And they came on
the set day to the place of meeting in a very fair field, near the city
of Cypsela. The emperor came from one side, and the marquis from the
other, and they met with very great joy; nor is that to be wondered at,
seeing they had not, of a long time, beheld one another. And the
marquis asked the emperor for tidings of his daughter Agnes; and the
emperor told him she was with child, and the marquis was glad thereof
and rejoiced. Then did the marquis become liegeman to the emperor, and
held from him his land, as he had done from the Emperor Baldwin, his
brother. And the marquis gave to Geoffry of Villehardouin, Marshal of
Roumania and Champagne, the city of Messinopolis, and all its
appurtenances, or else that of Seres, whichever he liked best; and the
Marshal became his liegeman, save in so far as he owed fealty to the
emperor of Constantinople.
They sojourned thus in that field for two days, in great joy, and said
that, as God had granted that they should come together, so might they
yet again defeat their enemies. And they made agreement to meet at the
end of the summer, in the month of October, with all their forces, in
the meadow before the city of Adrianople, and make war against the King
of Wallachia. So they separated joyous and well content. The marquis
went to Messinopolis, and the Emperor Henry towards Constantinople.