Jean Froissart and the Fabric of History Truth, Myth, and Fiction in the Chroniques

Why do Froissart's Chroniques still find enthusiastic readers six hundred years after they were written? In this fresh reading Peter Ainsworth shows that their strength lies as much in their textual richness and complexity as in their appealing subject matter: the exploits of French and English noblemen during the Hundred Years War. A record of international chivalry that pretends to the title of `history', the Chroniques are in fact neither history nor romance, though they partake a little of both and are still valued by scholars as a historical source. Rather they constitute a variegated and enthralling narrative of vast proportions, veering from the historical to the outrageously fictional, from the journalistic travelogue to the moral tale, from self-effacement in the service of impartiality to unshamed self-celebration.

Abbreviations; Introduction; Part I: Representations - Froissart and the discourse of history: Telling the truth: the discourse of history; Chronicle, history, romance; Of verse and prose . . . The 'lost' chronicle; History and ideology in fourteenth-century France; Knight, Magnate, King and Clerk: Froissart's vision of aristocratic and military society; War and chivalry; Kings, barons, clerks, and peasants; Part II: Transgrassions - L'estoire and its fortunes: Bending the truth: "Ceci n'est pas un conte" - Froissart, Mérigot Marchès, and the well-ordered narrative; Anecdote, tale, and nouvelle; Black, white, and grey - a tomb embellished; The quest for truth: "Je, sire Jehan Froissart, fay narracion . . ." -Froissart-Scriptor and the metaphor of the journey; Knife, key, bear, and book: poisoned metonymies and the problem of translatio; The transmission of truth: the theme of translatio in the later Chroniques; 'Jones et à venir': promise or folly in the young king; Magnates, Marmousets, and marmousets; Translatio militii; Part III: Image-building - The rewriting (and re-reading) of Book I: Re-writing the past: dramatic 'landscape' in the Rome Manuscript; The Orwell 'landscape' and the invasion of 1325; Sources, significance, tradition; Meliador and the Isle of Man; Creating an image: Edward III in the Rome Manuscript; A changing ethos; The apprentice king; "A tout le mains faites asambler vous hommes et vostre consel": Edward III and his counsellors; Confiance, vaillance . . . et sagesse? Li senglers de Windesore; Lessons and trials: Edward the wise; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index