Jean Froissart and the Fabric of History: Truth, Myth, and Fiction in the Chroniques

Froissart's Chroniques still find enthusiastic readers 600 years after they were written. This fresh reading demonstrates 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. Ainsworth explores the literary qualities of the work and considers the range of reader responses to the text: the relative openness, ambivalence, or predictability of the writing; the relationship between narrative, ideology, and gloss; and Froissart's rewriting. The study concludes with an examination of the value and status of his final Book I in the context of the development of the whole work over forty to fifty years of literary and historical activity.