Froissart, Jean (1338–1401)

An illustration from a 14th-century manuscript of French historian Jean Froissart's Chronicles. The picture shows Richard II of England as a prisoner in the Tower of London, England. The king is relinquishing his crown and sceptre to Henry, Duke of Lancaster, who subsequently became king as Henry IV.

Charles IV, king of France, receiving envoys from England. He reigned from 1322 to 1328, and was known as ‘the Fair’. The picture is dated 1400 and comes from the Chroniques of Jean Froissart, the 14th-century French historian. These chronicles were written between 1369 and c. 1400, and cover European events during the years 1325 to 1400. Early sections tended to favour the English, probably because Froissart was secretary to the English queen between 1361 and 1369.

French historian and poet. He was secretary to Queen Philippa, wife of Edward III of England. He travelled in Scotland and Brittany, went with Edward the Black Prince to Aquitaine, and in 1368 was in Milan at the same time as the writers Chaucer and Petrarch. He recorded in his Chroniques/Chronicles events of 1326–1400, often at first hand. Later he entered the church and in 1385 became a canon at Chimay (in what is now southern Belgium), where he died.

His Chronicles are one of the most important sources of information about the Hundred Years' War and recount events in France, England (including the Peasants' Revolt of 1381), Scotland, Spain, the Low Countries, and elsewhere. The early part of the Chronicles is drawn largely, sometimes almost word for word, from the chronicle of Jean le Bel. Froissart's own work begins with the Battle of Poitiers (1356). He draws widely on his own experiences and on the accounts of eyewitnesses. He twice revised the text of the first of his four books, the later versions being less pro-English than the earliest.

Froissart also wrote a long verse romance, Méliador, and much other poetry of no great literary value.