Jean Froissart and the Fabric of History

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.