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FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION. REPRINTED

March 1906

June 1906; November 1908;

April 1911

EDITOR'S NOTE

FROISSART was born at Valenciennes about 1337, and after some practice in romance and poetry, began to write history, describing the French wars, at the age of twenty. We first hear of him in England as the secretary of Philippa of Hainault; and he was, on his own showing, introduced to the court of David II. of Scotland in 1364. He attended the Black Prince in 1366, and in 1368 was present at the nuptials of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. A copy of his Chronicle, intended for a son of Edward III., was intercepted by the Duke of Anjou. Previous to 1384, he became an attendant at the court of the Duke of Brabant, whom he assisted in composing the romance of Meliador, or The Knight of the Golden Sun. He finished the second volume of the Chronicles in 1388; and in 1390 seems to have recommenced, in Flanders, the writing of his history. He revisited England in the late summer of 1394; and five years later had to mourn the death of his benefactor, Richard II., which provided the theme of his latest labours. It is uncertain how long Froissart survived the death of Richard and the conclusion of his Chronicle. He was then about sixty years old, and died shortly after the French biographers speak of him as "mort à Chimay vers 1410"; although some accounts prolong his life as late as 1420.

Sir Walter Scott, who was much indebted to this best of all the romantic chroniclers, has admirably characterized his writings for us.

"Whoever has taken up the chronicle of Froissart," says Scott, "must have been dull indeed if he did not find himself transported back to the days of Cressy and Poictiers. In truth, his history has less the air of a narrative than of a dramatic representation. The figures live and move before us; we not only know what they did, but learn the mode and process of the action, and the very words with which it was accompanied. This sort of colloquial history is 824719

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of all others the most interesting. The simple fact, that a great battle was won or lost, makes little impression on our mind, as it occurs in the dry pages of an annalist, while our imagination and attention are alike excited by the detailed description of a much more trifling event. In Froissart, we hear the gallant knights, of whom he wrote, arrange the terms of combat and the manner of the onset; we hear their soldiers cry their war-cries; we see them strike their horses with the spur; and the liveliness of the narration hurries us along with them into the whirlwind of battle. We have no hesitation to say, that a skirmish before a petty fortress, thus told, interests us more than the general information that twenty thousand Frenchmen bled on the field of Cressy. This must ever be the case, while we prefer a knowledge of mankind to a mere acquaintance with their actions; and so long also must we account Froissart the most entertaining, and perhaps the most valuable historian of the middle ages."

The following is a condensed version of Froissart, intended to be ranged with historical romances like Ivanhoe and Cressy and Poictiers which owe much to his pages; and to be read by the younger readers of our history. The chief English translations are those of Sir J. Bourchier, published in 1523–5, and of Thomas Johnes of Hafod, in 1803-10. The present text, based upon Johnes's version, was adapted by H. P. Dunster in 1853.

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