Jehan Froissart

Jehan Froissart (?1337- ?1404). Poet and chronicler from Valenciennes in the county of Hainault. Author of four Books of Chroniques, of an Arthurian romance (Meliador), and of a considerable body of lyric and crypto-autobiographical and dream poetry inspired in part by the Roman de la Rose and the works of Guillaume de Machaut.

France

The kingdom of France, populated up until the Black Death of 1348-9 by 12-16 millions souls and including up to the Treaty of Brétigny (1360) the Ile de France together with the apanages of Normandy, Anjou, Bourbon, Champagne, Valois, Auvergne and Languedoc, plus a number of important fiefs such as the counties of Blois, Nevers and Foix, and (from 1349) Montpellier and the Dauphiné; diminished from 1354 by the growing activity and influence in the Cotentin and other parts of Normandy of the king of Navarre, Charles of Evreux, and by English conquests resulting in an enlarged duchy of Guyenne (essentially Gascony; will become the principality of Aquitaine) stretching from the borders of the great and at times pro-English duchy of Brittany to the Pyrenees (save for the neutral county of Béarn) and eastwards to embrace the Poitou, Limousin and Rouergue (on the border with the Languedoc); Ponthieu and Guines are also in English hands. The French re-conquest under Charles V and Du Guesclin progressively drives the English from the realm, leaving them (by 1370-80) the ports of Calais, Cherbourg, Brest, Bordeaux and Bayonne, and a much-reduced Aquitaine. Brittany returns to French allegiance from 1365 onwards (Treaty of Guérande).

England

Island kingdom bounded to the west by the Marcher lordships and the (still contested) principality of Wales conquered by Edward I; English lordships included parts of modern south Wales (from southern Pembrokeshire through Swansea, Cardiff and on towards Gloucester in England); bounded to the north by the kingdom of Scotland, to the east by the North Sea and to the south by the Channel; included Somerset, Devon and Cornwall to the south-west. Population up to the Black Death of 1348-9 approximately 4 million souls.

Scotland

Spain

Brittany

The duchy of Brittany, to the northwest of France.

France

The kingdom of France, populated up until the Black Death of 1348-9 by 12-16 millions souls and including up to the Treaty of Brétigny (1360) the Ile de France together with the apanages of Normandy, Anjou, Bourbon, Champagne, Valois, Auvergne and Languedoc, plus a number of important fiefs such as the counties of Blois, Nevers and Foix, and (from 1349) Montpellier and the Dauphiné; diminished from 1354 by the growing activity and influence in the Cotentin and other parts of Normandy of the king of Navarre, Charles of Evreux, and by English conquests resulting in an enlarged duchy of Guyenne (essentially Gascony; will become the principality of Aquitaine) stretching from the borders of the great and at times pro-English duchy of Brittany to the Pyrenees (save for the neutral county of Béarn) and eastwards to embrace the Poitou, Limousin and Rouergue (on the border with the Languedoc); Ponthieu and Guines are also in English hands. The French re-conquest under Charles V and Du Guesclin progressively drives the English from the realm, leaving them (by 1370-80) the ports of Calais, Cherbourg, Brest, Bordeaux and Bayonne, and a much-reduced Aquitaine. Brittany returns to French allegiance from 1365 onwards (Treaty of Guérande).

England

Island kingdom bounded to the west by the Marcher lordships and the (still contested) principality of Wales conquered by Edward I; English lordships included parts of modern south Wales (from southern Pembrokeshire through Swansea, Cardiff and on towards Gloucester in England); bounded to the north by the kingdom of Scotland, to the east by the North Sea and to the south by the Channel; included Somerset, Devon and Cornwall to the south-west. Population up to the Black Death of 1348-9 approximately 4 million souls.

• A king of England, most plausibly Richard II, receives the chronicler who kneels before him, his canon’s almuce (a short fur cape) around his shoulders, accompanied by a page. The Plantagenet leopards (royal lions) are shown reversed so that they appear to stare at the chronicler. Two counsellors stand behind the throne, one of them recognisable as the chancellor on account of his wand of office. The scene calls to mind Froissart’s final visit to England in 1395, related in Book IV of the Chronicles, during which he met king Richard and presented him with a luxurious bound manuscript book containing his collected love poetry (though what is represented here is a volume perhaps intended to represent the Chronicles).
• Charles IV of France, accompanied by courtiers, welcomes to his court in 1325 queen Isabella of England, his sister, who wears a robe bearing the arms of France and England dimidiated (divided per pale, i.e. vertically), and his nephew the future king Edward III. Once again, the English leopards look towards the French. The young prince, holding his hat in his right hand, raises the other to greet his uncle of France. A figure standing to Charles’ immediate left is wearing a sleeveless tunic like a tabard, called in French an huque, a detail found in at least one other Book I manuscript’s presentation page miniature for this scene (Toulouse Mun. Libr., ms. 511, f. 8).
• Queen Isabella, crowned, and prince Edward, wearing a red hat, accompanied by soldiers of their expeditionary force in kettle hats and carrying spears for war, make landfall in 1325 outside a fortified town with crenellated battlements and corner towers. The scene most plausibly depicts Isabella’s landing at Orwell near Harwich in Essex. Two men in court costume and carrying their hats step forward from the doorway of a town (possibly Bury St Edmunds) to greet the queen and her son.
• The queen of England and her army lay siege to the city of Bristol where her husband king Edward II has taken refuge along with his counsellors and favourites, the Despensers.