Jehan Froissart

Jehan Froissart (?1337- ?1404). Poet and chronicler from Valenciennes in the county of Hainault. Author of four Books of Chroniques, of an Arthurian romance (Meliador), and of a considerable body of lyric and crypto-autobiographical and dream poetry inspired in part by the Roman de la Rose and the works of Guillaume de Machaut.

France

The kingdom of France, populated up until the Black Death of 1348-9 by 12-16 millions souls and including up to the Treaty of Brétigny (1360) the Ile-de-France together with the apanages of Normandy, Anjou, Bourbon, Champagne, Valois, Auvergne and Languedoc, plus a number of important fiefs such as the counties of Blois, Nevers and Foix, and (from 1349) Montpellier and the Dauphiné; diminished from 1354 by the growing activity and influence in the Cotentin and other parts of Normandy of the king of Navarre, Charles of Evreux, and by English conquests resulting in an enlarged duchy of Guyenne (essentially Gascony; will become the principality of Aquitaine) stretching from the borders of the great and at times pro-English duchy of Brittany to the Pyrenees (save for the neutral county of Béarn) and eastwards to embrace the Poitou, Limousin and Rouergue (on the border with the Languedoc); Ponthieu and Guines are also in English hands. The French re-conquest under Charles V and Du Guesclin progressively drives the English from the realm, leaving them (by 1370-80) the ports of Calais, Cherbourg, Brest, Bordeaux and Bayonne, and a much-reduced Aquitaine. Brittany returns to French allegiance from 1365 onwards (Treaty of Guérande).

Kingdoms of Castile and Portugal

This refers to the kingdoms of Castile and Portugal.

Gascony

Rouergue

France, Midi-Pyrénées; corresponds approximately to the modern department of Aveyron; traversed from east to west by the River Aveyron which flows through Rodez, the major city; bounded to the north by Viadene and Auvergne; the west by the Causses de Gramat and Limogne, and by Quercy; the south by Languedoc and the east by Gévaudan and the Causses du Larzac; to the north-east by the Causse de Sauveterre; (ceded to the English in 1360 under the treaty of Brétigny; held by them until early 1369).

Quercy

France, Aquitanian Basin, modern Midi-Pyrénées region; covering approximately the modern departments of Lot and Tarn-et-Garonne; bounded to the north by Limousin, the west by Périgord and Agenais, the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and to the east by Rouergue and Auvergne; limestone plateaux and deep valleys; upper Quercy extends northwards from the diocesan city of Cahors as far as Souillac, Rocamadour, Martel, Bretenoux and Castelnau; lower Quercy (ceded to the English by the 1259 treaty of Paris) to the south as far as Moissac and Montauban. Held by the English from 1360 (treaty of Brétigny) until late 1369.

Auvergne

France, central region at the heart of the Massif Central covering approximately the modern departments of Cantal, Puy-de-Dôme and (parts of) Haute-Loire; bounded to the north by the duchy of Bourbon, the west by Limousin, the south by Viadene, the south-east by Gévaudan and the south-west by Quercy. Major towns: Clermont, Montferrand and Riom.

Limousin

France, centre (modern departments of Corrèze, Creuse and Haute-Vienne); bounded to the north-east by La Marche, the east by Auvergne, the north-west by Poitou, the west by Périgord and Angoumois, and the south by Quercy. Principal city: Limoges, many of whose surrounding fortresses (including Chalusset, Rochechouart, Isle, Châlus, etc) were occupied by routier garrisons during the early 1370s.

Toulousain

Bigorre

France, south-west; occupied most of the modern Hautes-Pyrénées; capital: Tarbes; other towns: Lourdes, Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Tournay, Lannemezan; confiscated by Philip IV of France in 1292; ceded to the English crown in 1360 under the treaty of Brétigny; recaptured by the French with the aid of the count of Foix after 1370.

Jehan Froissart

Jehan Froissart (?1337- ?1404). Poet and chronicler from Valenciennes in the county of Hainault. Author of four Books of Chroniques, of an Arthurian romance (Meliador), and of a considerable body of lyric and crypto-autobiographical and dream poetry inspired in part by the Roman de la Rose and the works of Guillaume de Machaut.

Guy II, count of Blois (d. 1397)

Guy II of Châtillon, count of Blois. He was the youngest son of Louis I of Châtillon and Jeanne of Hainault. On the death of his elder brother John in 1381 he succeded to the lordships of Schoonhoven and Gouda and the counties of Blois and Soissons. He married Marie of Namur in 1372. Their son and heir Louis died in 1391, before his parents. In that same year Guy sold the counties of Blois, Soissons and Dunois to Louis of Orléans, who became count after Guy’s death on 22 December 1397. Guy was buried in the Francisan convent in Valenciennes. He was an important patron of Froissart.

Picardy

A historical province of France.

Flanders

County of Flanders, a historical region in the Low Countries.

Gaston III ‘Fébus’, count of Foix (d. 1391)

Gaston III, count of Foix, known as Fébus (1331 - 1391), son of Gaston II of Foix and Aliénor de Comminges, whose court the chronicler visited in 1388. Gaston was born in 1331 and succeeded his father in 1343. On 4th August 1348 he married Agnès de Navarre, the daughter of Philippe, count of Évreux and of Jeanne, queen of Navarre, who herself was the daughter of Louis X of France known as the Quarreller, the Headstrong or the Stubborn. Gaston died in 1391. He was the author of a celebrated treatise on hunting entitled Livre de chasse, or the Book of the hunt.

Guy II, count of Blois (d. 1397)

Guy II of Châtillon, count of Blois. He was the youngest son of Louis I of Châtillon and Jeanne of Hainault. On the death of his elder brother John in 1381 he succeded to the lordships of Schoonhoven and Gouda and the counties of Blois and Soissons. He married Marie of Namur in 1372. Their son and heir Louis died in 1391, before his parents. In that same year Guy sold the counties of Blois, Soissons and Dunois to Louis of Orléans, who became count after Guy’s death on 22 December 1397. Guy was buried in the Francisan convent in Valenciennes. He was an important patron of Froissart.

For more on Froissart’s prologues see Christiane Marchello-Nizia, ‘L’historien et son prologue: forme littéraire et strategies discursives’, in La Chronique et l'histoire au moyen âge. Colloque des 24 et 25 mai 1982, ed. Daniel Poirion. Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris, 1986), pp. 13-25, as well as L. Harf-Lancner, ‘De la prouesse du chevalier à la gloire du clerc: les prologues des Chroniques de Froissart’, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, coll. “Seuils de l’œuvre dans le texte medieval”, études recueillies par E. Baumgartner et L. Harf-Lancner (Paris, 2003), pp. 147-175.

Christiane Marchello-Nizia, ‘L’historien et son prologue: forme littéraire et strategies discursives’, in La Chronique et l'histoire au moyen âge. Colloque des 24 et 25 mai 1982, ed. Daniel Poirion. Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris, 1986), pp. 13-25 L. Harf-Lancner, ‘De la prouesse du chevalier à la gloire du clerc: les prologues des Chroniques de Froissart’, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, coll. “Seuils de l’œuvre dans le texte medieval”, études recueillies par E. Baumgartner et L. Harf-Lancner (Paris, 2003), pp. 147-175

At the opening of Book Three, Froissart firmly establishes himself in the role of the narrator, assuming responsibility over his history. In this way, he soon becomes the main protagonist.

Besançon MS ed. Ainsworth, vol. 1, p. 103

Lettres gothiques, vol. 2, p. 89