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| Froissart's Chronicles | |
|---|---|
| Name | Froissart's Chronicles |
| Author | Jean Froissart |
| Language | Middle French |
| Subject | Hundred Years' War; chivalry; courts of Europe |
| Publication date | c. 1370–1400 |
| Genre | Chronique; historiography; narrative history |
Froissart's Chronicles is a medieval vernacular narrative composed by Jean Froissart that recounts episodes of the Hundred Years' War, courts of England, France, and other European realms during the late 14th century. The work interweaves accounts of battles, sieges, tournaments, and diplomacy involving figures such as Edward III of England, Richard II of England, Edward, the Black Prince, and Charles V of France, and it shaped later perceptions of chivalry, knighthood, and princely conduct across Burgundy, Castile, and Flanders. Froissart's combination of eyewitness reportage, courtly patronage, and literary artifice made the Chronicles a primary source for chroniclers, historians, and antiquarians from Polydore Vergil to Henri de La Chambre and influenced early modern print editions by Caxton.
Froissart wrote in a milieu defined by patrons such as Philippe de Namur, Robert de Namur, and Jean le Clerc, and he composed his work amid travels to courts in England, Scotland, France, Brittany, Flanders, and Genoa, encountering figures like John of Gaunt, Dauphin Charles (Charles V), Philip the Bold, and Louis I, Duke of Anjou. His narrative grew from commissioned chronicles and verse into a multi-book composition reflecting events from the reign of Edward III of England through the crises of Richard II of England and the turmoil after Charles V of France; later continuations handled episodes involving Charles VI of France and leaders such as Bertrand du Guesclin. Composition likely spanned the 1360s to the 1390s, influenced by patronage from magnates tied to the courts of Cambrai, Bruges, and Arras and by diplomatic contacts with envoys like Enguerrand de Coucy and merchants of Ghent.
The Chronicles are organized into books and sections narrating campaigns, sieges, tournaments, and courtly events, balancing episodes such as the Battle of Crécy, the Siege of Calais (1346–1347), the Battle of Poitiers (1356), the Chevauchée of 1355, and the Castilian Civil War with portraits of rulers including Pope Urban V, Antipope Clement VII, and princes like Louis II of Anjou. Froissart arranges material around year-by-year annals and episodic set-pieces—ranging from the naval actions of Dieppe to diplomatic missions to Avignon—presenting near-contemporary narrations of incidents involving Edward Balliol, John Hawkwood, Rutebeuf-era poets, and municipal elites in Lille and Ypres. The work alternates military narrative with courtly description, chronicling tournaments at Angers and processions in Paris and detailing interactions among nobles such as Aymer de Valence and William of Wykeham.
Froissart drew on eyewitness observation, oral testimony from participants including soldiers, mercenaries, and envoys, written letters, and earlier chronicles such as works associated with Matthieu Paris and the annals circulating in Picardy and Hainaut. He used court documents delivered by patrons from Bruges and Lille, reports from naval captains at Harwich, and communications from commanders like Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster and Jean de Vienne. Froissart’s method combined gathering testimonies from household clerks, envoys, and veterans, consulting monastic archives in Saint-Denis and municipal records in Ghent, and synthesizing troubadour and trouvère chansons concerning figures such as Bertrand de Born and dynastic genealogies of houses like Plantagenet, Valois, Burgundy, and Anjou.
The Chronicles survive in numerous illuminated manuscripts produced in centers such as Bruges, Ghent, Paris, and Rouen, often commissioned by patrons including John of Gaunt and Jean, Duke of Berry. Notable codices contain miniatures depicting the Battle of Poitiers, the Siege of Limoges, and courtly tournaments, executed by ateliers associated with artists who worked for houses like Burgundy and patrons such as Philip the Bold and Isabella of Bavaria. Manuscripts were copied by clerks in scriptoria of monasteries at Saint-Maur and by urban workshops in Arras, producing variant readings reflected in manuscripts now housed in institutions like the British Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Bodleian Library, and the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique. Illustrated cycles show heraldry of families such as FitzAlan, Beaufort, and Clifford and scenes featuring commanders like Sir John Chandos and Walter Mauny.
From the 15th century, the Chronicles informed antiquaries such as Polydore Vergil and Jean Froissart’s own successors, influenced renaissance historians at Oxford and Padua, and shaped chivalric revivalists including Geoffrey Chaucer’s milieu and the courtly culture of Margaret of Anjou and Isabella of York. Printers and translators—most notably William Caxton—disseminated versions that impacted perceptions of the Hundred Years' War in Tudor England, while Burgundian and French dukes used the narrative for dynastic legitimation during conflicts involving Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. Antiquarian citation by scholars such as Edward Gibbon and use by later historians like Thomas Carlyle and J.R. Green attest to its long legacy, even as critical historiography from Leopold von Ranke to modern medievalists reevaluated Froissart’s reliability.
Major redactions and printed editions appeared from the incunabula period onward, with influential editions by editors linked to William Caxton, later scholarly editions in the 18th and 19th centuries by printers in Paris and Brussels, and critical modern editions and translations produced by university presses in Oxford, Cambridge, and Geneva. English translations and abridgements commissioned in the 18th and 19th centuries made the Chronicles accessible to readers of Samuel Pepys’s era, while nineteenth-century philologists in Germany and Belgium produced annotated scholarly texts that influenced work in medieval studies programs at Heidelberg and Leuven. Contemporary critical editions consult manuscripts in the British Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the Vatican Library.
Froissart’s prose blends vernacular narrative ornamentation with courtly rhetoric, dramatizing episodes of heroism involving actors such as Edward the Black Prince, Bertrand du Guesclin, and John Chandos while reflecting themes of honor, loyalty, vengeance, and the vicissitudes of fortune found in courtly literature circulated among houses like Plantagenet and Valois. His emphasis on tournaments, heraldry, and pageantry aligns with the tastes of patrons such as Jean de Berry and Philip the Bold, and his portrayals of sieges and pitched battles influenced chivalric literature collected alongside the works of Chrétien de Troyes, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Jean de Joinville. The Chronicles’ narrative voice alternates admiration and critique toward rulers like Richard II of England and Charles VI of France, producing a text that functioned as history, propaganda, and literature for medieval courts and later national historiographies.
Category:14th-century books Category:Medieval chronicles Category:Hundred Years' War