HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

266 PETER AINSWORTHat Les Estinnes-au-Mont given to him by Guy de Châtillon, countof Blois. This enabled him to make progress with his narrative until1378. In the opinion of Siméon Luce, the resultant text should beseen as the “first redaction revised”, but in 1376 the count of Bloishad already commissioned another version of Book I, also concludedca. 1377–78 (the Amiens MS version, called by Luce the “secondredaction”) and containing some material of which there is no tracein the ‘previous’ version or redaction. It is practically certain, however,that much of this new version is actually older than its socalledpredecessor, the “first redaction revised”. Whatever the case,these two prose editions of Book I offer us a lively account of theorigins of the great dynastic conflict between the kings of Englandand France. They contain Froissart’s account (obtained from eyewitnesses)of chevauchées, sieges, skirmishes, and pillaging, punctuatedby several pitched battles in which, during this period at least, theknights of Edward III—led by excellent commanders and backedup by archers from Wales or Cheshire—were generally victorious(battles of Sluys, 1340; Crécy, 1346; and Poitiers, 1356).Between the first and second Books of the Chroniques there is noobvious break in continuity. A large part of Book II, written between1378 and 1385, provides an account of the conflict between thecount of Flanders and his subjects of Ghent, as well as of the disagreementsbetween this town and its rival, Bruges. There is also,however, an account of riots and popular insurrection in France andin England (the Maillotins in France and the Great Revolt of 1381in England). Froissart was himself a witness to certain of these events.We know that he accompanied Guy de Blois during Charles VI ofFrance’s campaign against the Flemish in 1382. Although he was anative of Hainault and not a Fleming, the troubles of the count andcounty of Flanders must have affected Froissart deeply. Certainepisodes of Book II betray, if not a sympathy for the rebels (in hiseyes guilty of having tried to overturn a social order instituted byGod), at least a measure of understanding, in a narrative contextwhere the excesses of the masters, as well as their failure to arrestthe disturbances, are also vividly evoked.A new journey undertaken in 1388 with the encouragement andsupport of Guy de Blois allowed Froissart to visit the court of GastonPhébus, count of Foix-Béarn at Orthez, where he gathered informationabout the conflict that had just finished in Spain and whichfeatures as the primary subject-matter of his third Book (1389). In