It relates events up to 1369, 1372, or 1377 depending
on redactions. After this book, Froissart wrote the
independent Chronique de Flandre, which relates the
disorders occurring in that country between 1378 and
- This chronicle was later incorporated into Book
2, which ends with events in 1387; there are two redac-
tions of Book 2. The last two books exist in only one
redaction. The third relates events to ca. 1390 and the
fourth to ca. 1400.
Froissart’s Chroniques, an important monument of an
elegant and effi cient French prose, enjoyed an instant,
wide, and lasting success. They were particularly appre-
ciated in England, not only for their pro-English stance
(inherited, so to speak, from Jean le Bel), but also for
their archaizing, chivalric outlook. The Chroniques are
a priceless source for the history of the 14th century,
especially for the reader who understands the aristocratic
vantage point from which Froissart viewed it. One
should not expect to fi nd either penetrating explana-
tions of political history or subtle social commentary.
Froissart’s views were limited by those of his patrons:
he never understood the aspirations and growing power
of the bourgeoisie. He had nothing but contempt for
the peasant revolt of the French Jacquerie of 1358, or
for its English counterpart led by Wat Tyler in 1381.
His Chroniques give us a vivid mirror of the epoch,
the distortions of which can be more easily understood
through the ideology informing his poetry.
Froissart wrote lyric verse, narrative-didactic poetry,
and a long, rhymed Arthurian romance. His lyrical out-
put is considerable: thirteen lais, six chansons royaux,
forty ballades, thirteen virelais, 107 rondeaux, and
twenty pastourelles. They come to us in the two manu-
scripts carefully copied under his supervision (B.N. fr.
830 and 831), which also contain his narrative-didactic
poetry. He also wrote several serventois in honor of the
Virgin. Otherwise, all his lyrical poems, most of which
were composed before 1372, celebrate courtly love. In
lyrical as well as narrative-didactic poems, his unavowed
model was Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300–77), but
Froissart, as far as we know, composed no music.
Of special historical interest because of their histori-
cal realia are Froissart’s pastourelles. The lovestruck
shepherds sometimes make historical allusions, and
under the easily penetrated fi ctional cover, six of these
pastourelles celebrate public events, such as the arrival
in Paris of Queen Isabeau (1385), or the marriage of the
elderly John, duke of Berry, to the very young Jeanne de
Boulogne (1389). The pastourelles present real affi nities
between Froissart’s lyric poetry and his Chroniques.
Much of Froissart’s lyric poetry exists in two “redac-
tions,” for many of the poems were not only grouped
according to their genre, but also inserted (sometimes
slightly modifi ed) in narrative dits (called also dittiés
or trettiés). The oldest of them is the Paradis d’Amour
(1,724 lines with fi ve lyric insertions), an allegorical
dream vision (in the manner of the fi rst part of the Ro-
man de la Rose) in which the poet-lover encounters in
the Garden (Paradise) of Love such traditional fi gures
of the God of Love, Plaisance, Hope, Pity, and Sweet
Looks. The protagonist tells the story of his love to the
God of Love, recites his poems, and meets his ladylove,
who makes him a wreath of daisies. To reward her, the
poet recites his ballade Sur toutes fl ours j’aimme la
margerite. Her touch wakes him from his delightful
dream. What is important in this dit is Froissart’s explicit
connection between the love-dream and the ability and
capacity for composing lyric poetry.
The Orloge amoureus is the only dit written in
decasyllabic couplets (unlike the others composed in
octosyllables). Its 1,174 verses describe the workings
of the clock, then a relatively new invention. In all prob-
ability, it was the real Parisian clock in the tower of the
Palais Royal on the Île de la Cité that Froissart exam-
ined in 1368 during his return trip from Italy. The poet
systematically compares his love-fi lled heart with the
“subtlety” of the workings of the clock. Thus, the foliot
or bar-balance is Fear, the main weight is Beauty, the
mother wheel is Desire, the ‘scape wheel is Moderation,
the striking wheel is Sweet Talk, and so on. Each part of
the mechanism corresponds thus to a “well-working,”
allegorical system of courtly love. The presentation of
the workings of the clock is so detailed and exact that
the Orloge amoureus was cited and partially translated
by an English historian of horology. This dit is, like the
Chroniques, a monument to Froissart’s unquenchable
curiosity concerning the things of this world.
The Espinette amoureuse (4,198 verses with fourteen
lyric insertions) offers fi rst a long pseudo-autobiographi-
cal introduction describing his childhood and stressing
the precocity of his love inclination. Then the poet
presents a dream vision in which he encounters Juno,
Pallas Athene, Mercury, and Venus. Venus makes him a
gift of a “[c]œur gai, joli et amoureus” (l. 547). The rest
of the dit is quite similar to the Paradis. The poet-lover
encounters his ladylove, they exchange poems, they
dance, but after a while the lady must leave because
she is to marry someone else. The poet becomes ill and
alternates between hope and despair.
The Prison amoureuse (3,895 lines with sixteen
inserted poems and twelve letters in prose) tells, under
the usual allegorical cover, the real story of Wenceslas
of Luxemburg, captured in the Battle of Baesweiler
in 1371 and awaiting the ransom money to be paid by
his brother, the emperor Charles IV. The seven letters
written by Rose (=Wenceslas) and fi ve by Flos (=Frois-
sart) present the backbone of the dit. They discuss the
subtleties of courtly love. We know that the combina-
tion of letters and verse-narration was made popular by
Machaut in his Voir dit (ca. 1362), but whereas MachautJEAN FROISSART