Jean de Noyal: Miroir historial: livre X par Per Förnegård (review)

This text is the tenth book of a universal chronicle composed in 1388 and originally comprising twelve books, of which only the final three survive. Its author was abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Vincent de Laon. Nineteenth-century editors such as Auguste Molinier, Joseph-Daniel Guigniaut, and Natalis de Wailly criticized what they saw as the work’s lack of originality, but today, as Förnegård points out, the Miroir historial is better described as the product of a specific compilation technique, borrowing from both vernacular and Latin texts. Since many fourteenth- and fifteenth-century universal chronicles in French remain unedited, Förnegård’s volume contributes to a broadening of the possibilities of research on compilations of this kind. His edition is remarkable for its extensive Introduction covering Jean de Noyal and his work, the manuscript, the manuscript tradition, the methods of compilation, and the principles behind the editing. The text’s rare moments of originality, its thematic digressions, breaks in chronology, limited circulation, and indirect transmission of canonical texts such as Vincent de Beauvais make it typical of such chronicles. There was never more than one complete copy of the text; in addition, scholars in the Middle Ages copied out extracts. In the seventeenth century a significant part of the text was copied by André Duchesne and Étienne Baluze (Paris, BnF, Collection Baluze, 60, fols 272^v–274^v). The three extant books of Noyal’s text are contained in Paris, BnF, f. fr. 10138. Förnegård helpfully attempts to reconstruct the text’s manuscript tradition by examining references to the Miroir historial in post-medieval library catalogues and other works, and sets out various hypotheses about the version from which Duchesne and Baluze copied. He also comments extensively on Jean de Noyal’s method of compilation, in a long chapter arranged according to the subject matter treated (for example, Franco-Flemish wars, local history), and includes some close textual analysis of parallel passages in the chronicle and its sources. The principle behind the editing is, as Förnegård explains in a relatively short chapter, largely traditionalist, which seems appropriate both to the nature of a historical chronicle and to the fact that it exists in only one manuscript; however, his division of long chapters into numbered paragraphs is a helpful editorial intervention. The critical apparatus includes useful comparisons with Jean de Noyal’s sources where these help to illuminate the syntax. The editor’s inclusion of a complete ‘Index verborum’ of all the words in the text in all their forms is intended to facilitate research on the lexicology, semantics, morphology, syntax, and style of Middle French. In addition, Förnegård includes an ‘Index nominum’, a bibliography, and an extensive table listing the direct and indirect sources of every section of the text. With its Introduction and critical apparatus, this edition will be invaluable to the scholar, but will also be of interest to the student and as a teaching aid for courses on the medieval chronicle.