Customer Reviews

Chronicles

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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Jean Froissart (1337-1410) was a contemporary of Chaucer's (it is likely that they met on several occasions, but there is no evidence they were friends. Chaucer is often cited as the leading poet of the 14th Century and Froissart its ranking historian. Geoffry Brereton does an excellent job of rendering an abridged translation of Froissart's multi-volume work. Using the same method employed in the one-volume Penguin edition of Gibbon , many sections of the original text, covering relatively minor events and battles, are rendered in precis form. What we get therefor, is essentially "the best" of Froissart. Brereton also does a good job of providing just the right amount of footnotes and warns the reader when Froissart's account veers from more reliable sources. Froissart was gathering most of his information second-hand, primarily from noblemen of the era who were witnesses to the events, but whose viewpoints may have been colored to some degree by natural biases, and were sometimes themselves reporting information from what they had heard, not necessarily what they had seen.

Froissart delivers a marvelous panorama of a fascinating era. He tells his story from the perspective of the nobility, to whose households he attached himself. He traveled from castle to castle, through several regions of France, Flanders and England, adding to his chronicles as he went. This was a turbulent period, covering a large stretch of the Hundred Year War (between France and England primarily). It begins with the deposition of Edward the II (unforgettably dramatized by Marlowe) and ends with the deposition of Richard II (likewise, by Shakespeare). Sandwiched between these bookends are some of the most unforgettable scenes in written history. Froissart infuses his descriptions of major battles (Poitiers, Roosebeke, Otterburn, etc), great tournaments (Saint-Inglevert) and feasts (the entry of Queen Isabella into Paris) with great color and panache. What makes the Chronicles so moving, however, is his treatment of incidents in which humanity is limned in a much dimmer light. The siege of Calais, for instance, is rendered quite graphically and one can readily see how the event inspired Rodin's monumental bronze, "The Burghers of Calais," depicting the town fathers being led out of the gates with iron collars fastened around their necks. Edward III, whom Froissart generally reveres, is cast in a none-too-heroic mold, both during and immediately after the siege. The Black Prince's desire for revenge is seen as undeservedly implacable. Finally he is brought around to reason by the supplications of his Queen.

Equally moving is Froissart's account of the Count of Foix' ill-fated relationship with his son and sole heir.

The trouble starts when the King of Navarre, brother-in-law to the Count of Foix, renigs on a ransom promise. The Count sends his wife (the King's sister)to Navarre to collect his money. The King refuses and she is afraid to return home without it, so she stays on at her brother's court for several years. When the Count's son, Gaston, is about 15, he decides to visit his mother. He asks her to return home, but when Gaston tells her it's his request, not the Count's, she remains where she is, still earful of her husband . Gaston, before returning home, stops to pay his respects to the King of Navarre. Before Gaston leaves, the King gives him several gifts to take home with him, the last of which turns out to be a locket containing poison. After Gaston returns home, the locket is eventually discovered around his neck and the Count imagines that Gaston meant to poison him. He has him imprisoned in a tower, where Gaston wastes away and dies. The story is rendered quite simply and movingly and comes as close to Greek Tragedy as any account in medieval literature, calling to mind the curse upon the House of Atreus.

Also noteworthy are Froissart's depictions of the two great Peasant Revolts of the era, that of the Jacquerie, in France and "Wat Tyler's" in England. Of the two, the Jacquerie created a great deal more damage and put the gentry in mortal fear of their lives. The English revolt is the result of a much more spontaneous event, a sudden conflagration ignited by the proletarian preaching of "a crack-brained priest of Kent, John Ball. Ball was a firebrand who liked to end his sermons by exhorting the commons to take what was rightfully theirs. Eventually, the peasants do haphazardly organize and march into London, where they make demands on Richard II. They cause a degree of mayhem, but eventually reach a settlement with Richard, where after they disperse to their homes and their leaders, John Ball, Jack Straw and Wat Tyler end up with their heads displayed atop pikes on London Bridge.

Froissart covers a great deal of ground in his Chronicles, and again, the Penguin edition offers a fine sampling of the much larger work. If you are at all interested in medieval literature or history, this is a "must" read. One cautionary note. Froissart does go on at some length when it comes to lists of personages who were at a particular event. It's apparent he doesn't want to offend anyone by leaving them out (not forgetting that many of the people he was writing about were still alive at the time). The roll-calls themselves, however, have a certain charm and poetic quality to them. All in all, there's very little in this book not to recommend. Besides being colorful and informative, it's a grand read.

Froissart's Chronicles is probably one of the best works of medieval literature available to the reading public. He recounts numerous events, some of which he witnessed firsthand. Also in his chronicles are stories and legends that he learned of in his many travels through Europe. His writing style is concise and clear, although historians have found that his sources of information are not always the most accurate. Nevertheless, his stories are engaging and insightful and more or less true (he got a lot of information from knights and other people who were eager to be recorded in his chronicles as heroes, and thus gave him bias information). His works include eyewitness information on medieval towns, battle tactics, arms, castles, dress, food, social activities, customs, geography, languages, and science. For anyone who wants to know what the Middle Ages were really like, this book is absolutely necessary to have!

A great book, and invaluale source for not only the Hundred Years War, but: Spain, Flanders, Medieval life ....

BUT ! Some of the best chapters from Frossiart's work have been left out of this edition. Admitedly, the orginal work is to long for a penguin classic, but leaving out the chapters on the Turks, Moors, Muslim pirates, Spain.....

It left me annoyed at the editing rather than Frossiart.

As for Frossiart, a Chronicler of the finest calibre.

The Chronicles is an excellent and fun read. The 14th Century is the most amazing century for medieval Western European history. The plague, the hundred years war, the free companies, the papal schism, wow! If you aren't familiar with the century, I would suggest you first read Barbara Tuchmans "A Distant Mirror", as she gives a really fun overview of the century. Then what Froissart wrote has much more meaning.

To me, history is not just about places, dates and names, but rather is about how those who lived past events, are just like us. The more human they are, the more valuable the history (to me). If we can connect to those in the past, in this emotional way, the past has more meaning, and actually in a way, can become (in your mind) your own past.

What I most enjoyed about Froissart was the personal element that he interjected, telling about conversations he had, personal impressions, and his own moral judgements of events. It made the history seem more connected to our own era, as you see the characters are just people like us.

What I really did not like is that these guys who edit and translate decide for us what is interesting and what is not. As a result, much interesting material (at least to me) was summarized rather than presented. If you are reading Froissart, in my opinion, you are not an ordinary reader who needs it "short and interesting". I read Froissart to see what someone who has been there has to say about events.

So now, I have to go and find a translation that was not abridged. I don't like this. If there is such a translation, I suggest you read that one instead of this one.

I bought this for my son. He now tells me that it has only 1/3 of the original work. The cover nowhere states that this has been abridged, edited or selected. My son says it is like abridging Herodotus - not a good idea, and best left to the original reader to decide what is interesting and what isn't.

Right. So, this Penguin Classics version of Froissart, the great French historian, is heavily abridged, selectively abridged, I should say, so that it concentrates almost exclusively on France and England during what is now called the Hundred Years War during the Fourteenth Century. I'm with most of the other reviewers here in wishing that it were not abridged, but if one is going to abridge it and to translate it for an English-reading audience, as Geoffrey Brereton has so masterfully done here, this is the way to do it.

The first thing that will probably strike the modern reader of The Chronicles is the aristocratic tone of it and the long lists of - mostly forgettable - nobles who appear in each battle and the disregard, indeed, distrust and fear of the masses. It may seem to the modern ear like sycophancy, but the reader would do well to remember the old adage that, "The past is a different country. They do things differently there." Further, Froissart has a point, when he recounts in horror of the uprising of the Jacquerie that, "When they were asked why they did these things, they replied that they did not know; it was because they saw others doing them and they copied them. They thought that by such means they could destroy all the nobles and gentry in the world, so that there would be no more of them..." Most of the Western World now would sympathise with the Jacquerie, just as it sympathises with the "Arab Spring" which is ongoing as I write this, but it is worth one's while to consider the other side of the coin and to try viewing these current uprisings as Froissart would have. We don't know, and probably shan't for some time, how these things will come round in the end.

It is worth noting that, towards the end of this edition, in covering the internecine strife in England under Richard II, most famous to English readers through Shakespeare's play, that Froissart unequivocally notes that beneath all the regality and nobility so prominently on display in the wars and grand events, that, "the citizens of London, who are rich and powerful, and draw their living chiefly from merchandise sent over land and sea, which enables them to live in great prosperity, are the real leaders of the kingdom, without whom the rest of the country would neither dare nor be able to do anything."

But the overarching theme of Froissart is that of any historian who has studied and lived through human affairs and reflected deeply upon them: The passing nature of all that is deemed glorious by men in this world. As he reflects on the fortunes of the corrupt official Betisac and the Fate which quickly turned upon him:

"But it must be supposed that Fortune played him this trick, so that when he thought himself most securely seated on top of her wheel, she spun him down into the mud - as she has done to thousands of others since the world began."

And as she will do, he might have added, to thousands of others yet to be born.

The Penguin edition of Froissart's Chronicles translated from the French by Brereton in 1967 is the best modern English version of this history of the 100 Years' War I have found. It is condensed to apx. 500 pp. and some important passages are left out or paraphrased. There is heavy emphasis and detail on events in England, somewhat neglecting events in France and the continent. Froissart devoted attention in the original to both sides. The Penguin I ordered was new and reasonable priced.

The Chronicles as presented by Penguin is nothing but a selection, something that cant be implied from the title. To make things worse, there appears to be no methodology for the selection of parts included, except the fact that the translator found them to be the most interesting.

Froissart's work, as translated into the modern English by Geoffrey Brereton, provides a glimpse into the history, culture and intrigues of the 100 Years War period from 1322-1400. The abridged work presented here is accessible for any reader. While there are significant abridgements as noted by other reviewers, the work itself is well put together and flows reasonably well, with the abridged pieces described by the editor in italics throughout the book. The translation into the modern English makes the book eminently readable for non-scholars, and the insights into culture, warfare, court life and historical events are both interesting and poignant.

Jean Froissart was a historian, writer and poet who chronicled some of the events of medieval Europe. That his work survives and is widely read to this day is remarkable in itself since Froissart's original books are more than 600 years old. Froissart's importance as a historian, strangely enough, is not because of his primary focus on European conflicts or the chivalrous nobility and in fact, Froissart has been shown to be inaccurate in some areas. The true value of Froissart's perspectives lie in the combination of subjects and the details of his accounts. Froissart wrote contemporary history that was meant to be read and appreciated in his own time. Even if Froissart might be a bit off on the details of a certain battle, we can be sure he related how battles in general were viewed. The same is true for tournaments, dress, food, etiquette, opinions and class perceptions. In a general sense, Froissart gives us much on excellent authority because his contemporary audience would have demanded realism in the particulars of daily life. Froissart presents us with a window into medieval society.

Chronicles is a very enjoyable read as either history or literature. Froissart's chapters are bite-sized and easy to digest. Even those who like medieval style fanatasy may warm to Froissart's realistic descriptions of battle, noble knights and elegant ladies.