Jean Froissart

French historian and poet

• Born: 1337?
• Birthplace: Valenciennes, Hainaut, France
• Died: c. 1404
• Place of death: Chimay, Belgium

Froissart was a seminal figure in fourteenth century European historiography. In his Chronicles, he offered a vivid panorama of an age in transition that relied for its inspiration on waning codes of chivalry and a growing spirit of Humanism.

Early Life

Jean Froissart (zhahn frwah-sahr), the son of a painter of arms, received a clerical education and entered the service of Margaret of Hainaut sometime between 1350 and her death in 1356. This was the first of many court appointments that enabled him to establish a network of contacts in aristocratic circles, primarily in France and the Low Countries. In 1362, he went to England in order to serve as secretary to Queen Philippa of Hainaut, wife of Edward III. He remained in her entourage as court poet until 1369, during which time he traveled to Scotland with King David II, to France and Spain with Edward, the Black Prince, and to Italy in the bridal party of Lionel, duke of Clarence, who married Yolanda Visconti of Milan in April, 1368. It was on this trip through Italy, as he visited Ferrara, Bologna, and Rome, that Froissart apparently made the acquaintance of Geoffrey Chaucer, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Petrarch.

On his arrival in England, Froissart presented to the court a verse chronicle of the Battle of Poitiers (1356) that had been warmly praised by Robert of Namur, lord of Beaufort and nephew to Queen Philippa. Froissart’s early poetry was popular at the court, and two works in particular, Éspinette amoureuse (c. 1369) and Joli Buisson de Jonece (1373), contain allusions to his childhood. In addition to long narrative poetry, he produced short poems with fixed rhyme patterns in the tradition of Guillaume de Machaut, as well as lais, rondeaux, and ballades, before concentrating on what became his principal literary achievement the four books entitled Chroniques de France, d’Engleterre, d’Éscose, de Bretaigne, d’Espaigne, d’Italie, de Flandres et d’Alemaigne (1373-1410; The Chronycles of Englande, Fraunce, Spayne . . . , 1523-1525, better known as Chronicles).

Froissart learned the art of chronicle writing from Jean le Bel, canon of Liège, whose example he followed in relying not only on original documents but also on eyewitness accounts and interviews. Froissart was essentially interested in passing the traditions of chivalry to succeeding generations. Once his reputation was established, members of the aristocracy sought to provide him with the financial resources and protection necessary to gather research material. As a result, his writing reflects his patrons’ system of values. He was ordained sometime after leaving England and, under the patronage of Wenceslas of Luxembourg, duke of Brabant, he obtained a sinecure as rector of Les Estinnes-au-Mont, where he remained for approximately ten years.

Life’s Work

Froissart’s Chronicles was widely reproduced throughout the fifteenth century, and numerous manuscripts have been preserved. Two of them include paintings made by Froissart himself that show him presenting a copy of the work to aristocratic patrons. Even though he was a priest, Froissart was completely at ease in sophisticated society, and his writing accurately depicts the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies in speech and dress that characterize the period.

In writing Chronicles, Froissart was carrying on a French tradition of secular historiography that began with the Crusades and continued into the fifteenth century in the works of Georges Chastellain and Philippe de Commynes. The primary concern of these scholars was to preserve the memorable events of the Hundred Years’ War. Froissart classified himself as a historian, not merely a chronicler. The distinction he makes between chronicle and history is based on the amount of information supplied. Chronicles, particularly those following the thirteenth century annalist school established at the monastery of Saint-Denis, present a fairly simplified narrative account, whereas history demands depth and detailed description. (Chroniclers are also called annalists.)

Froissart’s Chronicles covers significant events in European history from 1326 until 1400. The first volume, completed before 1371, begins with the coronation of Edward III and the accession of Philip of Valois to the crown of France, thus setting the stage for the Hundred Years’ War. Book 1 was later revised considerably and its scope was extended to include events up to 1379. Because Froissart annotated book 1 throughout his life, it serves as a valuable indicator of his development as a historian and provides detailed information about his methods of composition.

Book 2, written between 1385 and 1388, recapitulates the events of the last three years of the preceding volume, adding new information, and concludes with the Treaty of Tournai (December, 1385) between Ghent and Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy. After the death of Wenceslas in 1384, Froissart became chaplain to Guy de Châtillon, count of Blois, in whose honor he wrote numerous pastoral poems. In 1388, Froissart visited the court of Gaston Phoebus, count of Foix, near the Spanish border in Béarn, in order to obtain information concerning wars in Spain and Portugal. This journey, in particular, testifies to the vigorous health that Froissart enjoyed; he had to endure numerous hardships while traveling for several months over difficult terrain. Froissart’s curiosity was relentless, and he worked late into the night recording from memory conversations with knights and dignitaries.

Book 3, finished in 1392, relates events that had occurred since 1382, but it gives a fuller account of them. This work ends in 1389 with a three-year truce concluded between France and England, and it anticipates the entry into Paris of Isabella of Bavaria as queen of France. In his study of the political events in Portugal between 1383 and 1385 that led to the invasion by John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, Froissart made considerable use of Portuguese narrative sources and anecdotal information provided by Gascon knights at Orthez who had served under Edmund Cambridge, duke of York.

The first fifty chapters of book 4 follow closely on the material of book 3 as Froissart reexamined the political machinery of France under Charles VI. In 1392, a series of truces between France and England was announced and Froissart took advantage of this opportunity to visit England for three months, under the patronage of William, count of Ostrevant, cousin to Richard II. Froissart was well received by the English king, but he felt uncomfortable in what he sensed was a highly unstable environment. Book 4 recounts the confusion in England leading to the deposition of Richard, who despite his tragic ineffectiveness had maintained an uneasy peace between England and France. Chronicles concludes with the death of Richard and the succession of Henry IV, the first of the Lancastrian Dynasty, to the English throne. Internal evidence suggests that Froissart composed the account of his journey to England in the months before his death in 1404, while serving as treasurer and canon of the church at Chimay.

Even though Froissart was a historian of chivalry, his Chronicles does not constitute a formal history of the aristocracy. In his attempt to demonstrate the relative superiority of the nobility, he used a process of selection; in this way, he was able to isolate significant aspects of gallantry and heroism. Hence he overlooked issues that attracted the attention of other chroniclers: administration of estates, enactment of laws, and tax collection. Nevertheless, Froissart commented openly on French policy during the reign of Charles V, on the relationship between the French monarchy and the vassals of Brittany and Flanders, and on the acute political intrigue found in all governments.

Chronicles was not written as a personal memoir a form popular with other compilers. Nevertheless, Froissart did include numerous authorial injunctions in his narration. In these usually brief personal entries, he often shared his judgment of the events under discussion, thus creating a bond between chronicler and reader rarely achieved in medieval French prose. In addition, these interventions reveal the techniques of composition that resulted in the independent redactions found in the variant manuscripts of the first two volumes. The mobility evident in these texts is most likely the result of his collaboration with scribes, who may have played a major role in the elaboration of certain episodes. The Chronicles’ form is derivative of the Arthurian romances, which also include superimposed accounts.

Froissart was an insightful observer of military warfare. One of his intentions was to give a faithful account of the ways in which castles and towns were attacked. He commanded a wide military vocabulary, and his description of siege warfare and pitched battles is graphically detailed in the light of the fact that fourteenth century combat was undergoing a significant change. The religious zeal of the early Crusades and the tradition of feudal loyalty had lost their vitality. Warriors were primarily motivated by personal honor or monetary gain through ransom. One-to-one encounters on horseback no longer had the advantage over the use of well-disciplined soldiers equipped with crossbows, longbows, and knives. Froissart’s saga of military exploits naturally stresses individual action, yet his accounts make it clear that in large engagements the victor was usually the side that managed some degree of coordinated tactics. Froissart’s astute analysis of tactical warfare and individual heroics lends extraordinary depth to the narrations of the most famous battles of the fourteenth century: Poitiers, Crécy-en-Ponthieu, and Nicopolis.

Significance

Froissart’s Chronicles benefited greatly from the advent of the printing press. From 1495 to 1520, the work went through at least ten editions. The appearance of Johannes Sleidanus’s Latin abridgment in 1537 which was, in turn, translated into English, French, and Dutch made the work available to Humanist scholars and aristocratic readers across Europe, who considered it prestigious to own a copy. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Froissart’s Chronicles dominated all narratives of the first half of the Hundred Years’ War. The vogue for Froissart reached its peak in 1850, when a statue in his honor was erected in Valenciennes.

Froissart’s writing adumbrated the decline of chivalry as the concept of courtesy degenerated into greed and meaningless pageantry. His description of the tournament held at Smithfield in 1390 under the aegis of Richard II implies that courtesy had become a code of etiquette observed by members of the upper class in dealing with one another; it was no longer associated with the protection of the weak by the strong.

Froissart continually reminded his audience that his purpose in compiling the chronicles was to illustrate “les grans merveilles et les beaux faits d’armes” (heroic exploits and military prowess). He accomplished this aim with astonishing regularity despite errors in topology (regional history) and inconsistencies in dating. Causality is not a significant feature except insofar as the causes of events are personalized. Chronicles does not attempt to suggest the operation of historical principles that guide the course of events. Moreover, a certain cohesion is gained from this restriction. This emphasis on human factors, along with Froissart’s objectivity, political acumen, variety, and poetic effects, gives Chronicles a cosmopolitan flavor that makes the full-blown phenomenon seem less austere and more circumscribed than that produced by clerical chroniclers.

Froissart rarely took sides in the conflicts of knights, although in the evolution of Chronicles there are signs of a shift in sympathy from the English to the French and, in book 4, to the Burgundian. He consistently chose to accentuate moderation as an ideal, exemplified by the conduct of Philip the Bold. Even though Edward, the Black Prince, was the hero of the Battle of Poitiers, Froissart criticized the brutality of his treatment of the burghers of Calais and the massacre of civilians at Limoges. In general, Froissart was concerned with deeds and actions, not with biography. Because of his accomplished literary talent, the portraits of the protagonists of Chronicles are imbued with a legendary quality.

Froissart often invoked Providence to justify the outcome of events. His philosophical observations reveal a conception of social order based on the controls exerted by a just prince who watches over the commonweal. His accounts of the Jacquerie movement (a peasant’s revolt) in France (1358) and the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 clearly indicate that, in his opinion, urban disintegration was a threat to national stability. Nevertheless, his portrayal of John Ball, the vagrant priest who incited the Peasants’ Revolt, conveys a well-balanced appraisal of lower-class misery.

This objectivity is also noted in Froissart’s attitude toward the Papal schism, which he treated as a political issue the failure of diplomacy on the part of Charles V, who sided with the French cardinals. Froissart’s ability to synthesize epic conflicts, like the struggle for hegemony in Western Europe between the Plantagenet and Valois Dynasties, gives Chronicles its distinctive pedigree. The comparison of the last Crusade, which ended in the defeat of the French at Nicopolis, to the twelfth century French epic Chanson de Roland (Song of Roland, 1880) implies that Froissart understood that the history of Europe was irrevocably determined. The scope and dynamism of Froissart’s observations and his effort to re-create a mental and social tableau of fourteenth century life have contributed to the endurance of his reputation as a narrative historian.

Major Works by Jean Froissart

Date

• Work

c. 1369

• Éspinette amoureuse

1372-1373

• Prison amoureuse (The Prison of Love)

1373

• Joli Buisson de Jonece

1373-1410

• Chroniques de France, d Engleterre, d Éscose, de Bretaigne, d’Espaigne, d’Italie, de Flandres et d’Alemaigne (Chronicles)

1388

• Méliador

Bibliography

Ainsworth, Peter F. Jean Froissart and the Fabric of History: Truth, Myth, and Fiction in the “Chroniques.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. An impressive, comprehensive account of Froissart’s ability to weave an intricate narrative out of diverse strands of information.

Archambault, Paul. Seven French Chroniclers: Witnesses to History. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1974. This work contains an instructive essay on Froissart that places him within the context of the French annalist tradition and delineates the trajectory of French chronicle writing from 1200 to 1500, demonstrating that Froissart’s emergence coincided with a transitional phase in secular historiography.

Coulton, George Gordon. The Chroniclers of European Chivalry. Reprint. Philadelphia: Richard West, 1978. A compelling analysis of Froissart’s keen interest in the history of the Low Countries.

Dahmus, Joseph. Seven Medieval Historians. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1982. A well-researched, fairly comprehensive study of the way in which Froissart conceived of history as a conflict of interests among individuals of prominent rank and prestige. The chapter on Froissart includes generous extracts from Chronicles.

De Looze, Laurence. Pseudo-autobiography in the Fourteenth Century: Juan Ruiz, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and Geoffrey Chaucer. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. Looks at Froissart’s work in the context of other autobiographical writings of the Middle Ages.

Figg, Kristen M., trans. and ed. Jean Froissart: An Anthology of Narrative and Lyric Poetry. New York: Routledge, 2001. Translated selections of Froissart’s poetry and prose writings.

Fowler, Kenneth. The Age of Plantagenet and Valois: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1328-1498. New York: Putnam, 1967. An attempt to explain the numerous complexities of war neurosis during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Also includes an informative discussion of the social and artistic life of France, England, and Burgundy.

Huot, Sylvia. “Reading Across Genres: Froissart’s Joli Buisson de Jonece and Machaut’s motets.” French Studies 57, no. 1 (January, 2003). A scholarly study of parallels between Froissart’s poem and three of Machaut’s motets.

Shears, Frederick S. Froissart: Chronicler and Poet. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1930. A definitive biography and a sympathetic defense of Froissart’s proficiency as a historian. Explores the connection between Froissart’s fourteen-thousand-line poetic masterpiece of 1370, Méliador, and the literary style of the Chronicles.