THE WRITINGS OF SIDNEY LANIER.
POEMS. Edited by his Wife, with a Memorial by WILLIAM HAYES WARD.
With portrait. 12mo $2.50
THE SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE 2.00
THE ENGLISH NOVEL, and the Principle
of its Development. Crown 8vo 2.00
THE BOY’S FROISSART.
Illustrated. 8vo 2.00
THE BOY’S KING ARTHUR.
Illustrated. 8vo 2.00
KNIGHTLY LEGENDS OF WALES;
or, The Boy’s Mabinogion. Illustrated 2.00
THE BOY’S PERCY.
Illustrated. 8vo 2.00
[Illustration: The Monk Sir Froissart in the Breach of the Monastery
Wall.]
THE
BOY’S FROISSART
BEING
SIR JOHN FROISSART’S CHRONICLES
OF
_Adventure Battle and Custom in
England France Spain etc._
_EDITED FOR BOYS WITH AN INTRODUCTION_
BY
SIDNEY LANIER
EDITOR OF “THE BOY’S KING ARTHUR”
_Illustrated by Alfred Kappes_
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1895
COPYRIGHT, 1879,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
INTRODUCTION.
Perhaps no boy will deny that to find the world still reading a book
which was written five hundred years ago is a very wonderful business.
For the world grows,--faster than a boy; and when you remember how it is
only about ten years since you were reading Jack the Giant-killer, and
how you are _infinitely_ beyond all that _now_,--you know,--you readily
see that it must be a very manful man indeed who can make a book so
strong and so all-time like as to go on giving delight through the ages,
spite of prodigious revolutions in customs, in governments, and in
ideas.
Now, Froissart sets the boy’s mind upon manhood and the man’s mind upon
boyhood. In reading him the young soul sifts out for itself the
splendor, the hardihood, the daring, the valor, the generosity, the
boundless conflict and unhindered action, which make up the boy’s early
ideal of the man; while a more mature reader goes at once to his
simplicity, his gayety, his passion for deeds of arms, his freedom from
consciousness and from all internal debate--in short, his boyishness.
Thus Froissart helps youth forward and age backward.
With this enchanting quality, by which he not only defies, but even
reverses, the passage of time, our fine Sir John has always had and will
long have readers, both old and young; and if it were not for some
peculiarities of his manner, growing mainly out of the habits of his
time, there would be no need of any special edition of him for boys. But
the latter sort find many halting-places and many skipping-places in
him, by reason of his long dialogues, his tranquil way of telling _all_
the particulars, and his gay habit of often relating events in chapter
fifty which happened before those in chapter forty. The first two of
these faults were virtues in Froissart’s day, when the longer a story
the better it helped to pass the time between battles; and the last one
probably arose from the manner in which he collected many of his
facts,--which was as follows.
You must know that in the year 1357 this lively young Hainaulter, being
at that time but about twenty years old, was asked by the Count Robert
de Namur to write a history of the wars of those times. The idea tickled
his fancy, and he went straightway to work.
If any of _you_ should set about writing a history, you would most
likely go up into the library, take down a great many books, pamphlets,
and manuscripts, and pore and peer and scribble, until after a while
when your back was aching and your eyes burning you would look at your
watch and say, “Bless me! it’s two o’clock in the morning,” and so to
bed; and such would be your day’s work until the history was finished.
But not so with our young Froissart. Instead of painfully burrowing
among dusty books, he saddled his horse, strapped on his portmanteau
behind, and cantered off along the road through the bright French air,
with his faithful greyhound following.[1] Presently he was pretty sure
to overtake or be overtaken by some knight or esquire: whereupon
Froissart would salute him, politely inquire his name, and ply him with
artful questions as to the battles he had fought, the lords he had
served, the negotiations he had conducted or assisted in, the events he
had witnessed or heard of; and thus the two would converse by the way,
the horses meantime embracing the opportunity to slacken pace, and the
greyhound taking his chance to nose about here and there on each side
the road. When the inn or friendly castle would be reached where
lodgment was to be had in the evening, Froissart would jot down notes of
all that he had learned from fellow-travellers during the day. Sometimes
such a journey would terminate in a long visit at the castle of a great
man,--as when he went to see the Count of Foix, referred to in the Third
Book of these Chronicles; and then in the long evenings he would learn,
either from the actors themselves or from knights or attendants about
their persons, the deeds and events with which they had been connected.
Although from Hainault, he was much in England. He loved the society of
the great, and was often in it. He was at different times attached to
the households of King Edward III. of England, and of King John of
France; and became an especial favorite of his countrywoman Queen
Philippa, wife to Edward III., who made him the Clerk of her Chamber. He
had various offices and preferments, but is most commonly associated
with the Church of Chimay in France, of which he was canon. He knew how
to please his powerful friends: when he visited the Count of Foix,--who
loved dogs, and had sixteen hundred of them about him,--he carried four
greyhounds as a present to that nobleman; he bore a beautiful copy of
his love-poem “Meliador” to Richard II. of England; he presented the
earlier portions of his Chronicles to Queen Philippa, who was fond of
letters.
He was romantic and poetical. It would seem that he began his travels
early, in order to escape the torments of an unfortunate love for a
certain lady which had attacked him when a mere boy, and which endured
with more or less strength for some time. He was engaged in writing his
Chronicles from the year 1357 certainly to the year 1400, for they
include events up to the latter date. Without burdening my young
readers’ minds, there are three names of great Englishmen which I cannot
forbear begging them to associate with this period. These are, the names
of Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote the “Canterbury Tales” and many other
works; of William Langland, or Langley, who probably wrote the wonderful
“Book concerning Piers the Plowman;” and of John Wyclif, who did the
greatest service both for our religion and our language by giving forth
the first complete translation of the Bible into English. Three large
and beautiful souls; so large and beautiful, that one could scarcely
frame a finer wish for any boy than that he should make friends with
them, and live with them when he becomes a man.
Froissart did not confine himself to history: he wrote many
poems,--rondeaus, virelays, pastorals, romances. He lived a bright,
genial, active, fruitful, and happy life; and died after the year 1400.
As you read of the fair knights and the foul knights,--for Froissart
tells of both,--it cannot but occur to you that somehow it seems harder
to be a good knight nowadays than it was then. This is because we have
so many more ways of fighting now than in King Edward the Third’s time.
A good deal of what is really combat nowadays is not _called_ combat.
Many struggles, instead of taking the form of sword and armor, will
present themselves to you after a few years in the following shapes: the
strict payment of debts; the utmost delicacy of national honor; the
greatest openness of party discussion, and the most respectful courtesy
towards political opponents; the purity of the ballot-box; the sacred
and liberal guaranty of all rights to all citizens; the holiness of
marriage; the lofty contempt for what is small, knowing, and gossipy;
and the like. Nevertheless the same qualities which made a manful
fighter then make one now. To speak the very truth; to perform a promise
to the uttermost; to reverence all women; to maintain right and honesty;
to help the weak; to treat high and low with courtesy; to be constant to
one love; to be fair to a bitter foe; to despise luxury; to preserve
simplicity, modesty, and gentleness in heart and bearing: this was in
the oath of the young knight who took the stroke upon him in the
fourteenth century, and this is still the way to win love and glory in
the nineteenth.
You will find all these elements of knighthood which I have just named
particularly puzzling in many affairs connected with money. This was
always so: indeed, I cannot help somewhat sadly reminding you that as
you read along in these Chronicles of Froissart’s you will here and
there perceive how money is already creeping into the beautiful
institution of knighthood in the fourteenth century and corrupting it.
After each battle related in this book, Froissart is pretty apt to say
something about the great wealth acquired by this or that fighter
through the ransom paid him by or for such prisoners as he took. In
other words, war is becoming a trade; and in succeeding centuries of
European history the young student will quickly notice that the great
organized armies were no whit less thieves and rascals than the rogues
who composed the Free Companies about whom Froissart will presently
speak. The fair ideal of the knight-errant, as he who goes forth in the
world to help every one that may need him, and who despises wealth and
personal ease whenever they interfere with this great object--an ideal
which is presented to us in Sir Lancelot, and, less finely, in other
knights of the Round Table--grows dim.
And here I could do no better service to the American boy of the present
day than by calling his attention to a certain curious and interesting
connection between these present Chronicles of Froissart and Sir Thomas
Malory’s History of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table,
which was written in the following century and which must some day come
to be known more widely than now as one of the sweetest and strongest
books in our language.
The connection I mean is this: that Froissart’s Chronicle is, in a grave
and important sense, a sort of continuation of Malory’s novel. For
Malory’s book is, at bottom, a picture of knighthood in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries; while Froissart’s is a picture of knighthood in
the fourteenth century. It is true that Malory’s King Arthur is a
personage, if not fabulous, at least unhistorical, while Froissart’s
Edward III. is actual flesh and blood, and is almost in sight; it is
true that Froissart gives us real events occurring in definite
localities during the last three-quarters of the fourteenth century,
while Malory drags Joseph of Arimathea alongside of Merlin the Magician,
and sets Briton, Saxon, Roman, Frenchman, Scotchman, Irishman, Welshman,
and Saracen face to face in scenes which often defy place and time: yet
it is no less true that Froissart’s work is a continuation of Malory’s,
since what Malory gives us is substantially a view of life in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which Froissart follows with a view of
life in the fourteenth century. A boy who reflects that Sir Thomas
Malory wrote a hundred years later than Froissart will be puzzled to
know how he comes to give a picture of chivalry a hundred years earlier,
until certain facts appear which show in what manner Sir Thomas Malory’s
book was made, and what were the habits of the writers whom he followed.
About the year 1147 all England was delighted with a narration which was
published by Geoffrey of Monmouth, concerning the deeds of a glorious
man whom Geoffrey declared to have been an old king of that country, and
whose name he gave as Arthur. Geoffrey, who was a Welsh priest living in
England at that time, declared that he had found this account of King
Arthur in a Welsh book, and gave it as true history. Whether history or
fable,--upon this modern opinion is divided,--his story of the great
knight Arthur so charmed the people that the poets and prose-writers,
not only of England, but of France, straightway took hold of it, turned
it into verse, amplified it, added to it, retold it in long prose tales,
and in various ways spread it abroad, until there came to be what is
called a cycle--that is, a connected ring--of Arthurian romances. In
this cycle all the prominent characters of the modern story made their
appearance: besides King Arthur, the fascinated world read of Sir
Lancelot du Lake, of Queen Guenever, of Sir Tristram, of Queen Isolde,
of Merlin, of Sir Gawaine, of the Lady of the Lake, of Sir Galahad, and
of the wonderful search for the Holy Cup called the “Saint Graal,” which
was said to have received the blood that flowed from the wounds of our
Saviour when he hung on the cross.
I hope that every boy will hereafter become acquainted with the names of
many of these old writers who contributed to the collection of romances
that make up the Arthurian cycle; but for the present, without
perplexing young minds with a long list, I wish to impress four of these
names upon your memories. They are _Wace_, _Layamon_, _De Borron_, and
_Walter Map_. I should wish particularly that my young readers would
remember the name of Layamon, because he wrote his account of King
Arthur in English, and is therefore to be reverenced as the sturdy poet
who made a great stand for our native tongue after William the Conqueror
had imposed his French dialect upon us.
But now to come to Sir Thomas Malory. These stories of King Arthur, and
Sir Lancelot, and Sir Tristram, and Merlin, written by Wace, and
Layamon, and Map, and others, were, as I said, carried about and read
with great delight through England and France during the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries; and the important point to remember here is that
the writers who developed them from the original stock furnished by
Geoffrey of Monmouth, although professing to tell of things which
happened in the early centuries of our era, really did nothing more than
present a picture of their own times--that is, of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries--in which nothing was ancient but the names of the
figures. This was a notable custom of all the middle-age artists, not
only of the artists in words--the poets and prose tale-tellers--but even
of the later artists who drew and painted actual pictures. Just as an
old picture-maker would represent King Solomon in a costume of the ninth
century; or as the old writer of Arthurian romances speaks of the
Biblical Joshua as _Duke_ Joshua, thus bringing the old Jew before us
with a title some thousands of years younger than his name: so these
twelfth and thirteenth century writers merely took the characters of
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s story and clothed them as mediæval knights and
ladies, while they re-arranged the events similarly into such relations
as accorded with their own times. Now, in the fifteenth century, Sir
Thomas Malory re-arranged this series of stories about King Arthur, Sir
Lancelot, Sir Tristram, the Round Table, and the Holy Cup, which had
been written in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and which were
really pictures of life in those centuries, though grouped about
legendary figures; while Sir John Froissart wrote chronicles which
present us pictures of life grouped about the historic characters of his
own fourteenth century.
But though, as I said, the ideal of knighthood begins to be lowered in
Froissart by the temptations of ransom-money, there are still many
beautiful features of it which come out with perfect colors in these
following chronicles. The kingliness of Edward III.; the stem lessons of
hardihood, of self-help, and of perseverance unto the end, which he
teaches his son Edward in refusing to send him re-enforcements when he
is so dreadfully bested before Crecy; the beautiful courtesy and modesty
with which this same young Edward attends upon King John of France at
supper in his own tent on the night after he had taken the king prisoner
and routed his army at Poictiers; the pious reverence with which Sir
Walter Manny seeks out the grave of his father; the energy with which
the stout abbot of Hennecourt hews, whacks, and pulls the blooded
knights about; the frequent expostulations of generous gentlemen against
the harsh treatment of prisoners; the prayer of the queen in favor of
the citizens of Calais, and King Edward’s knightly concession to her
ladyhood; the splendor and liberality of the Count de Foix; the
unconquerable loyalty of Sir Robert Salle, who prefers a brave death at
the hands of Wat Tyler’s rebels, to the leadership of their army; the
dash and gallantry of the young Saracen Agadinquor Oliferne, who flies
about like a meteor before the besieging crusaders round about the town
of Africa: these, and many fine things of like sort, will not fail to
strike the most inexperienced eyes.
My main task in editing this book for you has been to choose connected
stories which would show you as many of the historic figures in
Froissart as possible; though I have tried to preserve at the same time
the charm which lies in his very rambling manner. I have not altered his
language at all. Every word in this book is Froissart’s; except of
course that he wrote in French, and his words are here translated into
English. A very noble translation was made in the time of King Henry the
Eighth, by Lord Berners, whose name I hope you will remember. I should
have greatly preferred to give you his Froissart for the present
edition: it is beautiful English, and infinitely stronger, brighter, and
more picturesque, than the translation here used; but it would have been
difficult for you to read. Yet, in order that you might see what the
English of King Henry the Eighth’s time looks like, I have given a
chapter of Lord Berners’, on the battle of Crecy, without alteration;
and, believing that many of my young readers who may be studying French
might be curious to read a little of that language in one of its earlier
stages, I have added the same chapter in French from the manuscripts
printed by Buchon. For similar reasons, at the chapter describing the
battle of Neville’s Cross, I have added an old English ballad upon the
same fight, giving it unaltered from Messrs. Hales and Furnivall’s
edition of Bishop Percy’s Manuscript.
Again, when the Chronicle reaches King Richard II., I have embraced the
opportunity to show you the kind of English which was spoken in
Froissart’s time, by adding to one of the chapters the robust “Ballad
sent to King Richard” by Geoffrey Chaucer,--begging you to believe that
our time cries out to every young American man, as Chaucer to his
prince, to
“Do law, love truth and worthiness,
And wed thy folk again to steadfastness.”
Finally, do not think that to read this book is to exhaust Froissart.
Only about one-ninth of his Chronicle could be got into the space here
assigned; and you have the comfort of knowing that there is a great deal
more.
To him, then; and I envy every one of you!
“For herein,”--as old William Caxton, the first English printer, says in
his Prologue to Sir Thomas Malory’s history of King Arthur,--“for herein
may be seen chyvalrye, curtosye, humanyte, frendlynesse, hardynesse,
love, frendshyp, cowardyse, murdre, hate, vertue, synne. Doo after the
good, and leve the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and
renommee.”
SIDNEY LANIER
BALTIMORE, MD., 1879.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE OCCASION OF THE WARS BETWEEN THE KINGS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND 1