On the Road in the Hundred Years War -- stories of 14th century warfare from Froissart

From Steve Muhlberger and Stonebunny Press

A New book in a new series:
On the Road in the Hundred Years War -- stories of 14th century warfare from the chivalric historian Jean Froissart.

Would you like to hear what the knights of the Hundred Years War had to say about their personal experiences of the conflict? Jean Froissart, the era's greatest fan of chivalry, devoted his life to interviewing the knights who participated in the war and to create his vast, vivid Chronicle. On the Road in the Hundred Years War shows us Froissart in his natural environment, crossing war-torn France, and talking with the warriors who knew the history of the country they passed through and the men who had fought there. On the Road (volume 1 of the new series Tales from Froissart) brings to life the military camps, the princely courts and the inns where those who followed the wars gathered and talked of their way of life. This volume is available in Kindle format and in paperback. The print version is very reasonably priced and the Kindle version is much, much cheaper. Both are illustrated (print interior is black and white, other illustrations are in color). Available in print: https://www.amazon.ca/Road-Hundred-Years-War/dp/0994755651 or http://www.amazon.com/Road-Hundred-Years-Tales-Froissart/dp/0994755651? ie=UTF8&qid=1462548915&ref_=tmm_pap_swatch_0&sr=8-1 Available in Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Road-Hundred-Years-Tales-Froissart- ebook/dp/B01F5LNDIE?ie=UTF8&keywords=froissart%20on%20the%20road%20steve %20muhlberger&qid=1462548456&ref_=sr_1_fkmr0_1&sr=8-1-fkmr0 or https://www.amazon.ca/Road-Hundred-Years-Tales-Froissart-ebook/dp/B01F5LNDIE

One of the best things I've written

Those allergic to even the slightest touch of braggadocio should stop reading now.

Last night and this morning I reread something I wrote a while back that I think is really very good, in its conception,  its analysis, and in its expression as an effective piece of writing.

It wasn't "Democracy's Place in World History," which I wrote back in 1991 with Phil Paine; I hope that article did some good in the world, and I think it did. No, not that.

It wasn't my first book, the Fifth-century Chroniclers, a solid piece of work on how contemporaries understood what we think of as the fall of the Roman Empire. I got some good compliments on that, and I know it's one of those specialized studies that has a long scholarly half-life, maybe a century or so.

What gave me such satisfaction?

It was the chapter called "Will a Frenchman fight?" In my book Deeds of Arms. In what could almost stand as an article by itself, I tackled what for me is perhaps the most important passage in Froissart, the one which discusses the deeds of arms done at Vannes in 1381. Some of you will remember them – French and English champions fighting on foot, climaxing with an Englishman thrusting his lance  into an off–target area of his opponent and disgracing himself. To understand what was going on in this passage, I had to read all of Froissart's Chronicles (and much more) to see the big picture, what Froissart and his audience thought was chivalric and what they did not. I had to  be able to explain not just these deeds of arms, but many more depicted by Froissart and other way medieval writers.

And I think I succeeded. It's a good feeling.

Some readers may know that I am the editor of the Deeds of Arms series that Freelance Academy Press is putting out.  (Volume 1, Royal jousts at the end of the 14th century is already in print. )    I hope in ayear or so to make a book called Will a Frenchman fight? available in that series. It won't be a duplicate of the analytical chapter I have just been talking about: instead, it will be a collection of the original accounts of those famous deeds of arms and the campaign through France that they were part of, introduced by yours truly.

In the meantime, the volume on the Combat of the Thirty should be out very soon, including a full modern translation of the best account, plus much more. Stay tuned.               

A valet who didn't play by the rules

My research on deeds of arms and the law of arms has tended to emphasize that legitimate war was supposed to be the monopoly of "men at arms,"  i.e. gentlemen, squires, knights and lords of higher rank, the kind of people who had adequate horses and armor.  A scenario written by Geoffroi de Charny around 1350 certainly implies that a lesser man should not be able to capture a gentleman/man at arms for ransom.  But did these theoretical strictures really constrain battlefield behavior?

Here's a passage that Will McLean has taken from Froissart that suggests otherwise:

They fought hand to hand, and Ernauton de Sainte Colombe, an excellent man at arms, was on the point of being killed by a squire of the country called Guillonet de Salenges, who had pushed him so hard that he was quite out of breath, when I will tell you what happened: Ernauton de Sainte Colombe had a servant (un varlet) who was a spectator of the battle, neither attacking nor attacked by any one; but, seeing his master thus distressed, he ran to him, and, wresting the battle-axe from his hands, said, 'Ernauton, go and sit down: recover yourself: you cannot longer continue the battle.' With this battle-axe he advanced upon the squire, and gave him such a blow on the helmet as made him stagger and almost fall down. Guillonet, smarting from the blow, was very wroth, and made for the servant to strike him with his axe on the head; but the varlet avoided it, and grappling with the squire, who was much fatigued, turned him round, and flung him to the ground under him, when he said, 'I will put you to death, if you do not surrender yourself to my master.' 'And who is thy master?' 'Ernauton de Sainte Colombe, with whom you have been so long engaged.' The squire, finding he had not the advantage, being under the servant, who had his dagger ready to strike, surrendered on condition to deliver himself prisoner within fifteen days, at the castle of Lourde, whether rescued or not. Of such service was this servant to his master; and, I must say, sir John, that there was a superabundance of feats of arms that day performed, and many companions were sworn to surrender themselves at Tarbes and at Lourde.

I wonder if Guillonet showed up at Lourde?

Image:  part of the war band, but not men at arms.

A wonderful new resource -- The Online Froissart

I am currently at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo. "Kalamazoo," as many people call it, is my favorite academic conference, big, sprawling, varied, on the informal side. Sometimes the weather is even springlike, rather than wintry or summery! (But you can't count on anything, weatherwise!)

Today I had the pleasure of being introduced to a new scholarly resource by its designers, who put it through its paces, to our growing appreciation. It is the Online Froissart, an electronic edition and translation of the famous 14th century chronicler.

About a decade ago, I started typing Tales from Froissart out of my copy of Johnes' early 19th century translation and onto the Web. I am in a good position to appreciate how much of an advance this is. This is huge, since it allows you to browse transcripts of lots of manuscripts, collate (compare) them with each other, examine images, etc., etc. One example: if you click on a word in the French text, the program takes you immediately to a definition at the ATIFL Middle French dictionary. This kind of generosity reminds me of undeserved divine grace.

Although there are still improvements to come, especially in the use of more dynamic instruction,please have a look at it now. Poke around and get beyond that bland exterior. It's time to rock 'n' roll Froissart!

And if you've got an ms. of your own that you want to study, know that the most useful parts of this program are open source.

The Chronicle of the Good Duke and "modern times"

For some fans medieval history and some medieval reenactors in particular,the 14th century is "The One True Century." It certainly is flashy, but there are times I find it difficult to think of this period as a medieval one. Here's just one point: they had guns, and throughout the period that Froissart, (who was wildly popular as the historian of chivalry) wrote about, 1330-1400, they used them more and more routinely.

What follows is a rough translation of a passage in The Chronicle the Good Duke, written in the 15th century about events of the previous one. The ostensible hero of this book, Duke Louis of Bourbon, is taking part in an expedition to retake Normandy from the King of Navarre, Charles the Bad:

The Duke of Bourbon, the Constable and the Admiral went with their people to Gavre', the finest castle in Normandy, and they set up their siege, and opposed to them was Ferrandon, who had left Evreux, inside the castle; it happened one day that he went to check out powder for the cannons and artillery in one tower and when he was checking a candle fell on the power, which burned Ferrandon's whole face, of which he died and two others with him.

Image: a manuscript picture of a gun from 1400.

Froissart lives!

Will McLean says:

Eric Jager's The Last Duel (New York, 2004) is written in the spirit of Froissart. And I don't mean it in a good way. I mean that just like Froissart, Jager likes to present a vivid and compelling narrative full of convincing detail, and he doesn't mind making stuff up to do it.

And then Will goes on, correctly, to critique Jager's account of "the big fight scene" as a modern, uninformed fantasy.

Now I thought the book was OK in general, but I think that representatives of the (major) publisher had a lot of input into its shape. Note the long list of such reps at the head of the book. It's a simple enough story that I don't think it needed so much massaging by people with no particular historical expertise.

Hoppaquin Hay (Quinn)

Hoppaquin Hay is a man-at-arms mentioned in Froissart's Chronicles. I like to think of him as "the famous singing cowboy of the 14th century." I threw out that name as a possibility when we got the horse, and soon enough he was known as (the Mighty) Quinn.