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11 Chronicles of Revolt Galbert of Bruges’s De multro and Jean Froissart’s Chronique de Flandre goDfrieD Croenen Galbert of Bruges and Jean Froissart feature among the Low Countries ’ best-known medieval historiographers, popular with the modern undergraduate student and general reader alike, although only partly for the same reasons. Both chroniclers are generally seen as key witnesses or principal sources for important historical events—the murder of the Flemish count in Galbert’s case; the Hundred Years’ War in the case of Jean Froissart. Both use direct speech and other rhetorical devices to recreate a sense of dramatic space, thereby achieving an intense effect of directness , as if the reader were personally present at the battlefield or in the count’s hall, witnessing for himself the events described.1 Modern critics and historians—to an extent deceived by this directness of style—have often ignored, misunderstood, or played down the literary aspects of both authors’ writings.2 As a result, Galbert and Froissart have frequently been 240 I should like to thank Jeff Rider warmly for inviting me to widen my current research on Froissart by comparing his historiographical work to Galbert’s De multro. Jeff’s stimulating remarks have helped me greatly in developing further some parts of the paper given at the Leeds 2001 conference. Peter Ainsworth has given much-valued feedback on an earlier version of this essay. 1. For Galbert, see Rider, God’s Scribe, 77–111; for Froissart, see P. F. Ainsworth, “Style direct et peinture des personnages chez Froissart,” Romania 93 (1972): 498–522; idem, “Froissardian Perspectives on Late-Fourteenth-Century Society,” in Jeffrey Denton, ed., Orders and Hierarchies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe (Basingstoke/London, 1999), 61; and George T. Diller, Attitudes chevaleresques et réalités politiques chez Froissart. Microlectures du premier livre des Chroniques (Geneva, 1984), 162. 2. Compare Rider, God’s Scribe, 3–8; and Diller, Attitudes chevaleresques, 2–4, 75. The re- ChroniCles of revolT 241 seen as naive and rather uncomplicated or uncritical history-writers. But because of their supposedly uncomplicated character, they have also been singled out as excellent mirrors of the medieval mind-set or mentalités— of twelfth-century Flemish burghers and fourteenth-century aristocracy of Western Europe respectively.3 The similarities between the two historiographers, however, go beyond the modern reception of their work, as a closer inspection will show, in particular a comparison of Galbert’s narrative of the events of 1127–28 with one of Froissart’s lesser known writings, the so-called Chronique de Flandre .4 This latter text records the urban revolt in Flanders against the count in the years 1379–85, also known as the “Ghent War.” The Chronique de Flandre is best known as part of Book II of Froissart’s general Chroniques, but it was in origin probably a separate work, written around 1385–86, after Froissart had finished Book I of his Chroniques, but before he began work on the continuation of this text, what scholars now refer to as Book II; when he extended his historical narrative to 1386, Froissart must have decided to incorporate his Chronique de Flandre as one of the narrative threads in the general Chroniques.5 Like the events recorded by Galbert, the Flemish revolt of 1379–85 and Froissart’s narrative of it are closely linked with the question of good government and legitimate rulership; with the political power struggles between the large Flemish cities—Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres—and between cities and countryside; and with the issue of princely taxation versus urban privileges and liberties. The direct cause of the conflict in 1379 lay in the undertaking of the citizens of Bruges to try, with the consent of Count habilitation of Froissart’s reputation as a literary author is mainly due to Diller (Attitudes chevaleresques ), Ainsworth (Jean Froissart and the Fabric of History: Truth, Myth, and Fiction in the Chroniques [Oxford, 1990]), and Michel Zink (Froissart et le temps [Paris, 1998]). For Galbert’s literary artistry, see Rider, God’s Scribe, 77–111. 3. Hervé Martin, Mentalités médiévales XIe –XVe siècle (Paris, 1996), 57–58, 172–73, 392–393. 4. The Chronique de Flandre survives in three 15th-century manuscripts, BnF Paris, MS français 5004, BM Cambrai, MS 746 and MS 792. A scholarly edition of this text is not available but is currently being prepared by the present author. BnF Paris, MS français 5004 is the only complete manuscript...

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