Froissart began writing Book I possibly at the request of
Robert de Namur, to whom the earliest version is dedicated. In the prologue of this version of the prose text, Froissart justified his new enterprise by his desire to improve on his first attempts to write a historical account of the early years of the Hundred Years' War. In particular he denounced his earlier rhyming chronicle, whose accuracy, he admitted, had not always been as good as such important matters as war and knightly prowess require. In order to improve the quality and historical accuracy of his work, Froissart declared his intention to follow now as his main source the
Vrayes Chroniques of
Jean Le Bel, who had expressed fierce criticism on verse as a suitable vehicle for serious history writing. Froissart also used other texts, such as the
Life of the Black Prince by
Chandos Herald, in particular for the
Black Prince's campaign in Spain in 1366–1367. He furthermore inserted some official documents into his text, including the act of
hommage by
King Edward III to the French King
Philip VI (1331) and the English version of the
Peace Treaty of Calais (1360). kills his predecessor as
King of Castile and León,
Peter the Cruel, in an early illustration taken from Besançon, BM, MS 864 (ca. 1410-1420) Le Bel had written his chronicle for
Jean, lord of Beaumont, uncle of
Philippa of Hainault, who had been a supporter of
Queen Isabella and the
rebellion which led to the deposition of Edward II in 1326. Jean of Hainault had also taken part in several of the early battles of the
Hundred Years' War, first on the English side, then on the French. His grandson,
Guy II, Count of Blois later became the main patron of Froissart's
Chronicles. Jean Le Bel himself, throughout his work expressed great admiration for Edward III, in whose 1327
Weardale campaign against the Scots he had fought. For all these reasons Froissart must have highly valued Le Bel's chronicle as a source for reliable information about the events which led to the outbreak of the war between France and England and about the early phases of the Hundred Years' War. Comparison of Froissart's Book I with Le Bel's work shows that for the early parts of the
Chronicles (up to c.1360) Froissart often directly copied and developed very large parts of Le Bel's text. Froissart seems to have written several new drafts or versions of Book I, which covers the period up to 1378/1379, at different points in time. Several of these variant versions are now known to scholars by the unique manuscripts which have transmitted their texts, such as the 'Amiens' (Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 486), 'Valenciennes' (Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 638), and 'Rome' versions of Book I, so named after manuscripts kept in the municipal libraries of Amiens and Valenciennes and in the
Vatican Library. The so-called 'Rome' version of Book I (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. Lat. 869) has only partly survived and now only covers the period up to c.1350. The order of the authorial versions of Book I has been discussed extensively by scholars in the last century and a half and there have been many fundamental disagreements. French scholars have often followed Siméon Luce, the French 19th-century editor of the
Chronicles, who thought that the 'Amiens' version was a more recent version that must have followed the 'A' and 'B' versions in the chronology. But research by
Godfried Croenen has now firmly established that these earlier views are no longer tenable. Croenen has demonstrated that the so-called 'A' version that Luce had identified, is in fact a hybrid version composed by medieval scribes who put together the very beginning and end of the authorial 'A' version, combining it with a much larger part of the so-called 'B' version, and a fragment of the
Grandes Chroniques de France covering the years 1350–1356. The authorial 'A' version, which is now largely lost except for the fragments from the beginning and end, is the first version of Book I written by Froissart and was probably composed by him between June and December 1381. The 'Amiens' and 'Valenciennes' versions are both earlier than the so-called 'B' redaction. The 'B' redaction is the version of Book I that was edited by S. Luce for the Société d'Histoire de France and that represents what is often seen as the 'standard' version of Book I. Luce himself was convinced that the 'B' version represented the earliest completed state of Book I and that it was therefore earlier than the 'Amiens' text. The evidence from the text, however, argues strongly for a date of composition in or shortly after 1391, so certainly later than the 'Amiens' version, and before 1399. The 'B' version was followed by the 'C' version of Book I, written sometime between 1395 and 1399, which was long considered lost; the 'C' version actually survives in a single manuscript now in the
Newberry Library in Chicago. The 'Rome' version was written towards the end of Froissart's life, at the earliest in late 1404 and probably sometime before 1415. , 1346, from the
Gruuthuse manuscript. A first version of the second book of Froissart's
Chronicles, which in the author's mind never seems to have been a separate book but rather a continuation covering the period 1378–1385, was probably completed in the late 1380s. It does not seem to have been based on other pre-existing chronicles and is therefore entirely Froissart's own work. Book II, however, includes an extended account of the Flemish revolt against the count in the years 1379–1385, which Froissart had earlier composed as a separate text and which is known as his
Chronicle of Flanders. Froissart inserted several official documents into his
Chronicle of Flanders, which were also kept in Book II of the
Chronicles, including the text of
Treaty of Tournai (1385) that re-established peace between the Flemish cities and their count. As with Book I, Froissart also seems to have rewritten the later books of his
Chronicles. Apart from the
Chronicle of Flanders, at least four authorial versions of Book II survive. Most manuscripts of Book II contain one of the two earlier versions, which have an almost identical text, except for a small number of chapters in which there are substantial differences. The manuscripts of these two earlier versions have provided the basis for all the modern editions. The two later authorial versions were only identified in this century and remain unedited. The first later version of Book II dates from after 1395 and survives only in the Newberry manuscript that also contains the 'C' version of Book I. The Newberry version of Book II is substantially different from the other known versions and is undoubtedly the result of an extensive authorial reworking of the text, which included the addition of important material that does not appear in the other versions. The Newberry text has not yet been fully edited but it has been partly transcribed for the Online Froissart . The second later version of Book II has been partially transmitted in the manuscript Bruges, Archief van het Grootseminarie, MS 468, which lacks § 1-101 but also contains the text of Book III. The Bruges text seems to be a reworking of the Newberry text, but it has not been edited and has been barely studied. It is codicologically connected to the 'Rome' manuscript of Book I, and it may have formed part of a final revision of the whole Chronicles which Froissart would have undertaken towards the end of his life. A first version of Book III, which covers the years 1385 to 1390, but which also includes extensive flashback to the earlier periods, was possibly completed in 1390 or 1391 and is the one found in nearly all the surviving manuscripts. A second version exists in a two manuscripts (Bruges, Archief van het Grootseminarie, MS 468 and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 2650). This second version is probably a later reworking by Froissart himself: it follows the pattern that can be seen in the different authorial versions of Book II, with many chapters remaining the same and some chapters having been extensively rewritten. There are some differences between the Bruges and Paris manuscripts which indicate that the latter may be a slightly later authorial revision in which the author was experimenting with the textual order. Book IV, whose text goes up to the year 1400, remains incomplete and was probably, like the 'Rome' version of Book I, written after 1404. It is likely that the abrupt ending of Book IV is to be explained by Froissart's death, which may have occurred while he was writing this part of the
Chronicles. at the
Battle of La Roche-Derrien, 1347 Book IV has been transmitted in 21 manuscripts, all representing a single authorial version. The text shows traces of having been worked over by a 'copy editor', who was not the author but someone who seems to have prepared a text, possibly autograph, for reproduction. Unlike the other three books of the
Chronicles, Book IV seems to have remained unknown for a long time, until it was discovered in the second half of the 15th century, when the first manuscript copies of the text were made and the text started to circulate in the court circles of the
Dukes of Burgundy. ==Illuminated manuscripts==