Jean Froissart
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JEAN FROISSART “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Jean Froissart HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART 1326 November 24, Monday (Old Style): Sir Hugh Le Despenser the Younger, Lord of Glamorgan, 1st Lord Despenser was inventively executed at the age of 39 or 40. Dragged to his place of execution by four horses, this bad boy was stripped naked and Bible verses denouncing arrogance and evil were inscribed upon his body. Since he was adjudged to be a thief as well as a traitor, he was first hanged (the punishment for theft), but then was cut down before he could choke into unconsciousness. They tied him to a ladder to facilitate his slow evisceration. After the other entrails they pulled out his heart to cast into the flames (Jean Froissart, who would provide us with the illustration on a following screen, would contribute a detail not mentioned elsewhere, that as the entrails were being slowly pulled out he watched his external genitals get slashed off and thrown into the flames). Sir Roger Mortimer (who would from 1327 to 1330 be the ruler of England) and Queen Isabella his wife feasted as they overlooked these proceedings. It would be reported that at some point Sir Hugh let out a “ghastly inhuman howl.” The pulling out of the heart was not the final act of the drama for after unconsciousness, in order to fulfil other requirements of the treason law the corpse would need to be quartered so the body parts and the head could be displayed over various gates of London. When the widow would ask for something she might bury at the family’s estate, she would receive the head, a thighbone, and some vertebra (the remainder of the body parts, it seems, would wind up being neatly interred at Hulton Abbey in Staffordshire). DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Jean Froissart “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART 1337 At about this point Jean Froissart of Valenciennes, Hainaut was born. The German Dominican Johannes Nider’s FORMICARIUS OR ANT HILL. WITCHCRAFT HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Jean Froissart “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART 1340 June 24, Saturday (Old Style): At the inlet between West Flanders and Zeeland, a sea battle took place between a French fleet of something between 190 and 213 vessels under the command of Admiral Hugues Quiéret and financeer Nicolas Béhuchet that was being prepared for an invasion of England, and an English fleet of something between 160 and 250 vessels. The English forces destroyed so many French vessels that for the remainder of the Hundred Years’ War, England would be able to feel secure of any invasion from the sea.1 LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. 1. The struggle would create a joke (illustrated above by Jean Froissart), that French knights must be far more venturesome than English ones — for no English knight wearing full armor would dare leap into the sea. HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART 1346 August 26, Saturday (Old Style): King Edward III’s English army of invasion defeated a French army outside Crécy. This is the manner in which Jean Froissart would depict the engagement: In exaggeration, the slaughter has been attributed to the ability of Welsh longbows to outrange Italian crossbows, but this was only one factor as neither of these projectile weapons were of much use against armored knights at ranges greater than 40 yards max (bear in mind that this battle also constituted one of the first uses of firearms). This said, the French defeat at Crécy would induce the Italians to develop weather- resistant steel crossbows so powerful they could only get off one shot per minute because they had to be cocked by the use of a crank, ratchet, or windlass. Such “arbalists” would weigh in at 15 or 16 pounds each, would have sights for proper aiming, and would be able to propel a three-ounce yew quarrel fairly accurately for up to 200 yards, while enabling unaimed saturation coverage at ranges up to 400 yards. Such new weapons would not be going into service, however, until around 1370. HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART October 17, Tuesday (Old Style): Patrick, 9th earl of Dunbar and 10th earl of March, had married Agnes Randolph, daughter of the earl of Moray. When both her brother and her father died in a battle that took place on this day to the west of Durham, a battle between the defending English under William Zouche, Archbishop of York and an invading Scots army under King David II of Scotland, she would inherit Moray, thus transforming her husband Patrick as of this date into “the earl of Dunbar, March, and Moray” (it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good). Here is the battle as it would be depicted by Jean Froissart: DUNBAR FAMILY Patrick and Agnes would have no children, so the title would pass to her sister Isabella, whose husband was Patrick’s cousin, Patrick of Wester Spott. Their first son George would become the 10th earl of Dunbar and 11th earl of March, while their third son John Dunbar would become the 5th earl of Moray. John would pass his title to his son Thomas Dunbar the 6th earl of Moray, who would pass it to his son Thomas Dunbar the 7th HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART earl of Moray who would pass it to James Dunbar the 8th earl of Moray. James would marry Isabella Innes, his cousin. She would die before a Papal dispensation could be granted for the marriage, and thus the title of earl of Moray would pass to its current holder. Their son Alexander Dunbar would become the 1st baron of Westfield, a title which is held in our contemporary era by Sir Archibald Dunbar of Westfield. George, 10th earl of Dunbar and March, would pass his title to his son Sir George Dunbar of Kilconquhar, who would become 11th earl of Dunbar and March. King James I, concerned about the threat posed by having such a rich man at the border of his Kingdom, would dispossess this 11th earl, confiscating his title and lands. The dispossessed George Dunbar of Kilconquhar would die in 1457. George’s son Patrick would become the 1st baron of Mochrum in Galloway, which is the title Sir James Michael Dunbar holds as the 14th baron, in the Year of our Lord 1999. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Jean Froissart HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART 1356 April 5, Tuesday (Old Style): King John II “the Good” led a group that burst in upon the Dauphin’s castle at Rouen and removed King Charles II “the Bad” of Navarre under custody to Paris. The scene would be depicted by Jean Froissart. WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Jean Froissart “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART September 19, Monday (Old Style): The English defeated the French near Poitiers. This would be depicted by Jean Froissart: THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Jean Froissart HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART 1358 June 10, Sunday (Old Style): The Jacquerie centering in the Oise valley to the north of Paris, the 1st notable European peasant revolt, had been going on under the leadership of Guillaume Cale for some 2 months. Brigands had so plundered the region to the north of Paris (destroying unprotected villages and isolated homesteads, taking loot and food and leaving in their wake death, carnage, ruined homes, destroyed stores, trampled fields, and uprooted vines) that peasant farmers had been neglecting to replant for fear of further loss, and in desperation peasant countrymen had come together, initially in desperate rebellion against these deplorable conditions, but soon in retaliation. Here was the critical day near Mello as depicted by Jean Froissart: Though this was quickly quelled, and other movements would also be summarily dealt with, revolts stemming from brigandry, manorialism, and feudalism would be occurring throughout Europe for centuries (most notably in England in 1381 and in Germany in 1525). These revolts would continue to expand in scope and relocate in epicenter leading toward a couple of popular uprisings that would experience considerably greater “success”: the French revolution of 1779 and the Russian one of 1918. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Jean Froissart “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART July 31, Tuesday (Old Style): This is how an entirely unsympathetic Jean Froissart would portray the completion of the political careers of Étienne Marcel by Jean Maillard, after the raid by the Jacques (the name of this movement, “the Jacques,” was short for “Jacques Bonhomme,” name of a stereotypical French peasant — sort of like “Joe Sixpack” as the name of a stereotypical American Tea Party grassroots guy) on the palace of February 22, Thursday (1357, Old Style) and after an attempt to open the gates of the city of Paris to the peasant multitudes from the countryside: HDT WHAT? INDEX JEAN FROISSART JEAN FROISSART 1361 Jean Froissart became a court poet for Philippa of Hainault, queen consort of King Edward III of England.