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SIRE DE JEAN JOINVILLE (1224-1319)

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 493 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SIRE DE See also:

JEAN See also:JOINVILLE (1224-1319)  , was the second See also:great writer of See also:history in Old See also:French, and in a manner occupies the See also:interval between See also:Villehardouin and See also:Froissart . Numerous See also:minor chroniclers fill up the gaps, but no one of them has the See also:idiosyncrasy which distinguishes these three writers, who illustrate the three periods of the See also:middle ages—See also:adolescence, See also:complete manhood, and decadence . See also:Joinville was the See also:head of a See also:noble See also:family of the See also:province of See also:Champagne (see JOINVILLE, above) . The provincial See also:court of the See also:counts of Champagne had See also:long been a distinguished one, and the See also:action of See also:Thibaut the poet, together with the proximity of the See also:district to See also:Paris, made the province less rebellious than most of the great feudal divisions of See also:France to the royal authority . Joinville's first See also:appearance at the See also:king's court was in 1241, on the occasion of the knighting of See also:Louis IX.'s younger See also:brother See also:Alphonse . Seven years afterwards he took the See also:cross, thereby giving St Louis a valuable follower, and supplying himself with the occasion of an eternal memory . The crusade, in which he distinguished himself equally by See also:wisdom and prowess, taught his See also:practical spirit several lessons . He returned with the king in 1254 . But, though his reverence for the See also:personal See also:character of his See also:prince seems to have known no See also:bounds, he had probably gauged the strategic faculties of the saintly king, and he certainly had imbibed the spirit of the dictum that a See also:man's first duties are those to his own See also:house . He was in the intervals of See also:residence on his own See also:fief a See also:constant attendant on the court, but he declined to accompany the king on his last and fatal expedition . In 1282 he was one of the witnesses whose testimony was formally given at St See also:Denis in the See also:matter of the canonizatior. of Louis, and in 1298 he was See also:present at the See also:exhumation of the See also:saint's See also:body . It was not till even later that he began his See also:literary See also:work, the occasion being a See also:request from Jeanne of See also:Navarre, the wife of Philippe le See also:Bel and the See also:mother of Louis le Hutin .

The great interval between his experiences and the See also:

period of the See also:composition of his history is important for the due comprehension of the latter . Some years passed before the task was completed, on its own showing, in See also:October 1309 . Jeanne was by this See also:time dead, and Joinville presented his See also:book to her son Louis the Quarreller . This See also:original See also:manuscript is now lost, whereby hangs a See also:tale . Great as was his See also:age, Joinville had not ceased to be actively loyal, and in 1315 he complied with the royal See also:summons to See also:bear arms against the Flemings . He was at Joinville again in 1317, and on the 11th of See also:July 1319 he died at the age of ninety-five, leaving his possessions and his position as See also:seneschal of Champagne to his second son See also:Anselm . He was buried in the neighbouring See also:church of St See also:Laurent, where during the Revolution his bones underwent profanation . Besides his Histoire de Saint Louis and his Credo or " See also:Confession of Faith " written much earlier, a considerable number, relatively speaking, of letters and business documents concerning the fief of Joinville and so forth are extant . These have an importance which we shall consider further on; but Joinville owes his See also:place in See also:general estimation only to his history of his crusading experiences and of the subsequent See also:fate of St Louis . Of the famous French history books of the middle ages Joinville's bears the most vivid impress of the personal characteristics of its composer . It does not, like Villehardouin, give u; a picture of the See also:temper and habits of a whole See also:order or See also:cast of men during a heroic period of human history; it falls far See also:short of Froissart in vivid portraying of the picturesque and See also:external aspects of social See also:life; but it is a more personal book than either . The age and circumstances of the writer must not be forgotten in See also:reading it .

He is a very old man telling of circumstances which occurred in his youth . He evidently thinks that the times have not changed for the better—what with the frequency with which the See also:

devil is invoked in See also:modern France, and the sinful See also:expenditure See also:common in the matter of embroidered See also:silk coats . But this laudation of times past concentrates itself almost wholly on the See also:person of the sainted king whom, while with feudal See also:independence he had declined to swear fealty to him, " because I was not his man," he evidently regarded with an unlimited reverence . His age, too, while garrulous to a degree, seems to have been See also:free from the slightest taint of boasting . No one perhaps ever took less trouble to make himself out a See also:hero than Joinville . He is constantly admitting that on such and such an occasion he was terribly afraid; he confesses without the least shame that, when one of his followers suggested See also:defiance of the See also:Saracens and voluntary See also:death, he (Joinville) paid not the least See also:attention to him; nor does he See also:attempt to See also:gloss in any way his refusal to ac-See also:company St Louis on his unlucky second crusade, or his invincible conviction that it was better to be in mortal See also:sin than to have the leprosy, or his decided preference for See also:wine as little watered as might be, or any other weakness . Yet he was a sincerely religious man, as the curious Credo, written at See also:Acre and forming a See also:kind of anticipatory appendix to the history, sufficiently shows . He presents himself as an altogether human person, brave enough in the See also:field, and, at least when See also:young, capable of extravagant devotion to an ideal, provided the ideal was fashionable, but having at bottom a sufficient respect for his own skin and a full consciousness of the See also:side on which his See also:bread is buttered . Nor can he be said to be in all respects an intelligent traveller . There were in him what may be called glimmerings of deliberate literature, but they were hardly more than glimmerings . His famous description of See also:Greek See also:fire has a most provoking mixture of circumstantial detail with See also:absence of verifying particulars . It is as matter-of-fact and See also:comparative as See also:Dante, without a See also:touch of Dante's See also:genius .

" The See also:

fashion of Greek fire was such that it came to us as great as a See also:tun of verjuice, and the fiery tail of it was as big as a mighty See also:lance; it made such See also:noise in the coming that it seemed like the See also:thunder from See also:heaven, and looked like a See also:dragon flying through the See also:air; so great a See also:light did it throw that through-out the See also:host men saw as though it were See also:day for the light it threw." Certainly the excellent seneschal has not stinted himself of comparisons here, yet they can hardly be said to be luminous . That the thing made a great See also:flame, a great noise, and struck terror into the beholder is about the sum of it all . Every now and then indeed a striking circumstance, strikingly told, occurs in Joinville, such as the famous incident of the woman who carried in one See also:hand a chafing dish of fire, in the other a phial of See also:water, that she might See also:burn heaven and quench See also:hell, lest in future any man should serve See also:God merely for See also:hope of the one or fear of the other . But in these cases the author only repeats what he has heard from others . On his own See also:account he is much more interested in small personal details than in greater things . How the Saracens, when they took him prisoner, he being See also:half dead with a complication of diseases, kindly See also:left him " un mien couverture d'ecarlate which his mother had given him, and which he put over him, having made a hole therein and See also:bound it See also:round him with a See also:cord; how when he came to Acre in a pitiable See also:condition an old servant of his house presented himself, and " brought me clean See also:white hoods and combed my See also:hair most comfortably ", how he bought a See also:hundred tuns of wine and served it—the best first, according to high authority—well-watered to his private soldiers, somewhat less watered to the squires, and to the knights neat, but with a suggestive phial of the weaker liquid to mix " si comme ils vouloient "—these are the details in which he seems to take greatest See also:pleasure, and for readers six hundred years after date perhaps they are not the least interesting details . It would, however, be a See also:mistake to imagine that Joinville's book is exclusively or even mainly a See also:chronicle of small See also:beer . If he is not a Villehardouin or a See also:Carlyle, his battlepieces are vivid and truthful, and he has occasional passages of no small episodic importance, such as that dealing with the Old Man of the See also:Mountain . But, above all, the central figure of his book redeems it from the possibility of the See also:charge of being See also:commonplace or ignoble . To St Louis Joinville is a nobler See also:Boswell; and hero-worshipper, hero, and heroic ideal all have something of the See also:sublime about them . The very pettiness of the details in which the See also:good seneschal indulges as to his own weakness only serves to enhance the sublime unworldliness of the king . Joinville is a better See also:warrior than Louis, but, while the former frankly prays for his own safety, the latter only thinks of his See also:army's when they have escaped from the hands of the aliens .

Phoenix-squares

One of the king's knights boasts that ten thousand pieces have been " forcontes " (counted short) to the Saracens; and it is with the utmost trouble that Joinville and the See also:

rest can persuade the king that this is a joke, and that the Saracens are much more likely to have got the See also:advantage . He warns Joinville against wine-bibbing, against See also:bad See also:language, against all manner of foibles small and great; and the See also:pupil acknowledges that this physician at any See also:rate had healed himself in these respects . It is true that he is severe towards infidels; and his approval of the See also:knight who, finding a See also:Jew likely to get the better of a theological See also:argument, resorted to the baculine variety of See also:logic, does not meet the views of the loth See also:century . But Louis was not of the zoth century but of the 13th, and after his kind he certainly deserved Joinville's admiration . Side by side with his indignation at the See also:idea of See also:cheating his Saracen enemies may be mentioned his See also:answer to those who after Taillebourg complained that he had let off See also:Henry III. too easily . " He is my man now, and he was not before," said the king, a most unpractical person certainly, and in some ways a sore saint for France . But it is easy to understand the half-despairing See also:adoration with which a shrewd and somewhat prosaic person like Joinville must have regarded this See also:flower of See also:chivalry See also:born out of due time . He has had his See also:reward, for assuredly the portrait of St Louis, from the See also:early collection of anecdotes to the last hearsay See also:sketch of the woeful end at See also:Tunis, with the famous enseignement which is still the best See also:summary of the theoretical duties of a See also:Christian king in See also:medieval times, is such as to take away all charge of vulgarity or See also:mere commerage from Joinville, a charge to which otherwise he might perhaps have been exposed . The arrangement of the book is, considering its circumstances and the date of its composition, sufficiently methodical . According to its own account it is divided into three parts—the first dealing generally with the character and conduct of the hero; the second with his acts and deeds in See also:Egypt, See also:Palestine, &c., as Joinville knew them; the third with his subsequent life and death . Of these the last is very brief, the first not long; the middle constitutes the bulk of the work . The contents of the first See also:part are, as might be expected, See also:miscellaneous enough, and consist chiefly of stories chosen to show the valour of Louis, his piety, his See also:justice, his personal See also:temperance, and so forth .

The second part enters upon the history of the crusade itself, and tells how Joinville pledged all his See also:

land See also:save so much as would bring in a thousand livres a See also:year, and started with a brave See also:retinue of nine knights (two of whom besides himself wore bannerets), and shared a See also:ship with the sire d'Aspremont, leaving Joinville without raising his eyes," pour ce que le cuer ne me attendrisist du biau chastel que je lessoie et de See also:mes deux enfans "; how they could not get out of sight of a high mountainous See also:island (See also:Lampedusa or Pantellaria) till they had made a procession round the masts in See also:honour of the Virgin; how they reached first See also:Cyprus and then Egypt; how they took See also:Damietta, and then entangled themselves in the See also:Delta . Bad generalship, which is sufficiently obvious, unwholesome See also:food—it was See also:Lent, and they See also:ate the See also:Nile See also:fish which had been feasting on the carcases of the slain—and Greek fire did the rest, and personal valour was of little avail,not merely against See also:superior See also:numbers and better generals,but against See also:dysentery and a certain " mal de See also:Post " which attacked the mouth and the legs, a curious human version of a well-known bestial malady . After See also:ransom Acre was the See also:chief See also:scene of Louis's stay in the See also:East, and here Joinville lived in some See also:state, and saw not a few interesting things, See also:hearing besides much See also:gossip as to the inferior affairs of See also:Asia from ambassadors, merchants and others . At last they journeyed back again to France, not without considerable experiences of the perils of the deep, which Joinville tells with a good See also:deal of spirit . The See also:remainder of the book is very brief . Some anecdotes of the king's " justice," his favourite and distinguishing attribute during the sixteen years which intervened between the two See also:crusades, are given; then comes the See also:story of Joinville's own refusal to join the second expedition, a refusal which bluntly alleged the harm done by the king's men who stayed at See also:home to the vassals of those who went abroad as the See also:reason of Joinville's See also:resolution to remain behind . The death of the king at Tunis, his enseignement to his son, and the story of his See also:canonization complete the work . The book in which this interesting story is told has had a literary' history which less affects its matter than the vicissitudes to which Froissart has been subjected, but which is hardly less curious in its way . There is no reason for supposing that Joinville indulged in various See also:editions, such as those which have given Kervyn de Lettenhove and See also:Simeon Luce so much trouble, and which make so vast a difference between the first and the last redaction of the chronicler of the Hundred Years' See also:War . Indeed the great'age of the seneschal of Champagne, and his intimate first-hand acquaintance with his subject, made such See also:variations extremely improbable . But, whereas there is no great difficulty (though much labour) in ascertaining the original and all subsequent texts of Froissart, the original See also:text of Joinville was until recently unknown, and even now may be said to be in the state of a conjectural restoration . It has been said that the book was presented to Louis le Hutin .

Now we have a See also:

catalogue of Louis le Hutin's library, and, See also:strange to say, Joinville does not figure in it . His book seems to have undergone very much the same fate as that which befell the originals of the first two volumes of the Fasten Letters which See also:Sir See also:John Fenn presented to See also:George the Third . Several royal library catalogues of the 14th century are known, but in none of these does the Histoire de St Louis appear . It does appear in that of See also:Charles V . (1411), but apparently no copy even of this survives . As everybody knows, however, books could be and were multiplied by the See also:process of copying tolerably freely, and a copy at first or second hand which belonged to the fiddler king Rene of See also:Provence in the 15th century was used for the first printed edition in 1547 . Other editions were printed from other versions, all evidently posterior to the original . But in 1741 the well-known medievalist La Curne de St Palaye found at See also:Lucca a manuscript of the 16th century, evidently representing an older text than any yet printed . Three years later a 14th-century copy was found at See also:Brussels, and this is the See also:standard manuscript authority for the text of Joinville . Those who prefer to rest on MS. authority will probably hold to this text, which appears in the well-known collection of See also:Michaud and Poujoulat as well as that of See also:Buchon, and in a careful and useful See also:separate edition by Francisque See also:Michel . The modern See also:science of See also:critical editing, however, which applies to medieval texts the principles long recognized in editing the See also:classics, has discovered in the 16th-century manuscript, and still more in the original miscellaneous See also:works of Joinville, the letters, deeds, &c., already alluded to, the materials for what we have already called a conjectural restoration, which is not without its See also:interest, though perhaps it is possible for that interest to be exaggerated . For merely general readers Buchon's or Michaud's editions of Joinville will amply suffice .

Both include See also:

translations into modern French, which, however, are hardly necessary, for the language is very easy . Natalis de See also:Wailly's editions of 1868 and particularly 1874 are critical editions, embodying the modern See also:research connected with the text, the value of which is considerable, but contestable . They are accompanied by ample annotations and appendices, with illustrations of great merit and value . Much valuable See also:information appeared for the first time in the edition of F . Michel (1859) . To these may be added A . F . See also:Didot's Etudes sur Joinville (1870) and H . F . See also:Delaborde's See also:Jean de Joinville (1894) . A good sketch of the whole subject will be found in Aubertin's Histoire de la langue et de la litterature francaises au moyen dge, ii . 196–211; see also Gaston Paris, Litt. franeaise an moyen dge (1893), and A .

Debidour, See also:

Les Chroniqueurs (1888) . There are See also:English translations by T . Johnes (1807), J . See also:Hutton (1868), Ethel See also:Wedgwood (1906), and (more liter-ally) Sir F . T . Marzials (" Everyman's Library," 1908) . (G .

End of Article: SIRE DE JEAN JOINVILLE (1224-1319)
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