Editing Jean Froissart

{{short description|14th-century French writer and historian}}
{{Redirect|Froissart|Elgar Overture|Froissart Overture (Elgar)}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Jean Froissart
| image         = Jean-Froissart.jpg
| alt           = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software -->
| caption       = Posthumous portrait in the ''[[Recueil d'Arras]]'' (16th century)
| birth_date    = {{circa|{{birth year|1337}}}}
| birth_place   = [[Valenciennes]], [[County of Hainaut]], [[Holy Roman Empire]]
| death_date    = {{circa|{{death year and age|1405|1337}}}}
| death_place   = [[Chimay]], Hainaut
| resting_place = 
| resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline}} -->
| occupation    = Historian and poet
| years_active  = 
| works         = ''[[Froissart's Chronicles]]''
| spouse        = <!-- Use article title or common name -->
| children      = 
| parents       = <!-- overrides mother and father parameters -->
| relatives     = 
}}

'''Jean Froissart''' ([[Old French|Old]] and [[Middle French]]: ''[[wikt:Jehan|Jehan]]''; sometimes known as '''John Froissart''' in English; {{circa|lk=no|1337}} – {{circa|lk=no|1405}}) was a French-speaking medieval author and court [[historian]] from the [[Low Countries]] who wrote several works, including ''Chronicles'' and ''Meliador'', a long Arthurian romance, and a large body of [[poetry]], both short lyrical forms as well as longer narrative poems. For centuries, [[Froissart's Chronicles|Froissart's ''Chronicles'']] have been recognised as the chief expression of the [[chivalry|chivalric]] revival of the 14th-century kingdoms of [[Kingdom of England|England]], [[Kingdom of France|France]] and [[Kingdom of Scotland|Scotland]]. His history is also an important source for the first half of the [[Hundred Years' War]].<ref>Walter Besant (1911). "[[wikisource:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Froissart, Jean|Froissart, Jean]]". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. '''11''' (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press. pp. 242-246.</ref><ref name=":0">Michael Jones (2004). "[https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-50195 Froissart, Jean (1337? – c. 1404)]". ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''.</ref>

==Life==
[[File:Froissart.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Froissart's statue in the [[Louvre]]]]
What little is known of Froissart's life comes mainly from his historical writings and from archival sources which mention him in the service of aristocrats or receiving gifts from them. Although his poems have also been used in the past to reconstruct aspects of his biography, this approach is in fact flawed, as the 'I' persona which appears in many of the poems should not be construed as a reliable reference to the historical author. This is why de Looze has characterised these works as 'pseudo-autobiographical'.<ref>Laurence de Looze, ''Pseudo-Autobiography in the Fourteenth Century: Juan Ruiz, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and Geoffrey Chaucer'' (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997).</ref>

Froissart came from [[Valenciennes]] in the [[County of Hainaut]], situated in the western tip of the [[Holy Roman Empire]], bordering France. Earlier scholars have suggested that his father was a painter of [[heraldry|armorial bearing]]s, but there is actually little evidence for this. Other suggestions include that he began working as a [[merchant]] but soon gave that up to become a cleric. For this conclusion there is also no real evidence, as the poems which have been cited to support these interpretations are not really autobiographical.

By about age 24, Froissart left Hainault and entered the service of [[Philippa of Hainault]], queen consort of [[Edward III of England]], in 1361 or 1362. This service, which would have lasted until the queen's death in 1369, has often been presented as including a position of court poet and/or official historiographer. Based on surviving archives of the English court, Croenen has concluded instead that this service did not entail an official position at court, and probably was more a literary construction, in which a courtly poet dedicated poems to his 'lady' and in return received occasional gifts as remuneration.<ref>Godfried Croenen, 'Froissart et ses mécènes: quelques problèmes biographiques', in Odile Bombarde (ed.), ''Froissart dans sa forge. Colloque réuni à Paris, du 4 au 6 novembre 2004, par M. Michel Zink, professeur au Collège de France, membre de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres'' (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2006), 9-32.</ref>

Froissart took a serious approach to his work. He traveled in [[Kingdom of England|England]], [[Kingdom of Scotland|Scotland]], [[Wales]], France, [[Flanders]] and Spain gathering material and first-hand accounts for his ''Chronicles''. He traveled with [[Lionel, Duke of Clarence]], to [[Milan]] to attend and chronicle the duke's wedding to [[Violante Visconti|Violante]], the daughter of [[Galeazzo II Visconti|Galeazzo Visconti]]. At this wedding, two other significant writers of the Middle Ages were present, [[Chaucer]] and [[Petrarch]].

After the death of Queen Philippa, he enjoyed the patronage of [[Joanna, Duchess of Brabant]] among various others. He received rewards – including the [[benefice]] of [[Estinnes]], a village near [[Binche]], and later a canonry of [[Chimay]] – sufficient to finance further travels, which provided additional material for his work. He returned to England in 1395 but seemed disappointed by changes that he viewed as the end of [[chivalry]]. The date and circumstances of his death are unknown but St. Monegunda of Chimay in [[Hainaut Province|Hainaut]] might be the final resting place for his remains, although still unverified.

==Legacy==
[[File:Chimay PlJPG.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Statue of Froissart in [[Chimay]], [[Belgium]]]]
Much more than his poetry, Froissart's fame is due to his ''Chronicles''. The text of his ''Chronicles'' is preserved in more than 100 [[illuminated manuscript]]s, illustrated by a variety of miniaturists. One of the most lavishly illuminated copies was commissioned by [[Louis de Gruuthuse]], a Flemish nobleman, in the 1470s. The four volumes of [[Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse (BnF Fr 2643-6)|this copy]] ([[Bibliothèque nationale de France|BNF]], Fr 2643; BNF, Fr 2644; BNF, Fr 2645; BNF, Fr 2646) contain 112 miniatures painted by well-known [[Bruges|Brugeois]] artists of the day, among them [[Loiset Lyédet]], to whom the miniatures in the first two volumes are attributed. Froissart is thought to have been one of the first to mention the use of the verge and [[Foliot (timepiece)|foliot]], or [[verge escapement]] in European clockworks, by 1368.<ref name=":0"/><ref>Ainsworth, Peter, "[https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-the-medieval-chronicle/froissart-jean-SIM_01039?s.num=28&s.start=20 Froissart, Jean]", in: Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, Edited by: Graeme Dunphy, Cristian Bratu.</ref>

The English composer [[Edward Elgar]] wrote an overture titled ''[[Froissart Overture (Elgar)|Froissart]]'', inspired by the ''Chronicles''.

==Works==
*[[Froissart's Chronicles|''Chronicles'']]
*''L'Horloge amoureux''
*''Méliador''

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Peter Ainsworth, "Froissart, Jean", in Graeme Dunphy, ''Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle'', Leiden, Brill, 2010, pp.&nbsp;642–645 ({{ISBN|90-04-18464-3}}).
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Froissart, Jean|volume=11|pages=242–246|author=Walter Besant|author-link=Walter Besant}}. This contains a lengthy discussion of Froissart's life and works as understood at the time, and may contain material that could be added to this article.
* Cristian Bratu, « Je, auteur de ce livre »: L’affirmation de soi chez les historiens, de l’Antiquité à la fin du Moyen Âge. Later Medieval Europe Series (vol. 20). Leiden: Brill, 2019 ({{ISBN|978-90-04-39807-8}}).
* Cristian Bratu, "''Je, aucteur de ce livre'': Authorial Persona and Authority in French Medieval Histories and Chronicles." In ''Authorities in the Middle Ages. Influence, Legitimacy and Power in Medieval Society''. Sini Kangas, Mia Korpiola, and Tuija Ainonen, eds. (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2013): 183–204.
* Cristian Bratu, "De la grande Histoire à l’histoire personnelle: l’émergence de l’écriture autobiographique chez les historiens français du Moyen Age (XIIIe-XVe siècles)." ''Mediävistik'' 25 (2012): 85-117.
* {{cite ODNB |last=Jones |date=2004 |first=Michael |title=Froissart, Jean (1337?–c. 1404), historian and poet |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/50195 |type=online |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/50195 |author-link=Michael Jones (historian) }}

==External links==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author}}
*{{Gutenberg author |id=5170| name=Jean Froissart}}
*{{Internet Archive author |sname=Jean Froissart}}
*[https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL257152A Works] at [https://openlibrary.org Open Library]
*[http://www.liv.ac.uk/~gcroenen/biblio.htm Bibliography Jean Froissart], compiled by Dr. Godfried Croenen, University of Liverpool.
*[http://www.bartleby.com/35/1/ The Chronicles of Froissart], from Harvard Classics.
*[http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/onlinefroissart The Online Froissart Project] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110182029/http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/onlinefroissart/ |date=2013-11-10 }}, by the University of Sheffield and the University of Liverpool.
*[http://www.medievalist.globalfolio.net/eng/f/index.php The Chronicles of Froissart Full 12 Volumes Edition online]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Froissart, Jean}}
[[Category:1330s births]]
[[Category:1400s deaths]]
[[Category:Dutch heraldists]]
[[Category:14th-century French historians]]
[[Category:People from Valenciennes]]
[[Category:14th-century historians from the Holy Roman Empire]]