‘However this may be, it is certain that he was resident in Cambray, when he composed his history, and passed there the remainder of his life. He was indeed fixed there, as I shall hereafter state, by different important employments, each of which required the residence of him who enjoyed them. From his living in Cambray, La Croix du Maine has concluded, without further examination, that he was born there, and this mistake has been copied by other writers.
‘Monstrelet was married to Jeanne de Valbuon, or Valhuon, and had several children by her, although only two of them were known,—a daughter called Bona, married to Martin de Beulaincourt, a gentleman of that country, surnamed the Bold, and a son of the name of Pierre. It is probable, that Bona was married, or of age, prior to the year 1438,—for in the register of the officiality of Cambray, towards the end of that year, is an entry, that Enguerrand de Monstrelet was appointed guardian to his young son Pierre, without any mention of his daughter Bona. It follows, therefore, that Monstrelet was a widower at that period.
‘In the year 1436, Monstrelet was nominated to the office of Lieutenant du Gavènier of the Cambresis, conjointly with Le Bon de Saveuses, master of the horse to the duke of Burgundy, as appears from the letters patent to this effect, addressed by the duke to his nephew the count d’Estampes, of the date of the 13th May in this year, and which are preserved in the chartulary of the church of Cambray.
‘It is even supposed that Monstrelet had for some time enjoyed this office,—for it is therein declared, that he shall continue in the receipt of the Gavène, as he has heretofore done, until this present time. ‘Gave,’ or ‘Gavène,’ (I speak from the papers I have just quoted,) signifies in Flemish, a gift, or a present. It was an annual due payable to the duke of Burgundy, by the subjects of the churches in the Cambresis, for his protection of them as earl of Flanders. From the name of the tribute was formed that of Gavènier, which was often given to the duke of Burgundy, and the nobleman he appointed his deputy was styled Lieutenant du Gavènier. I have said ‘the nobleman whom he appointed,’ because in the list of those lieutenants, which the historian of Cambray has published, there is not one who has not shown sufficient proofs of nobility. Such was, therefore, the employment with which Monstrelet was invested; and shortly after, another office was added to it, that of Bailiff to the chapter of Cambray, for which he took the oaths on the 20th of June, 1436, and entered that day on its duties. He kept this place until the beginning of January, in the year 1440, when another was appointed.
‘I have mentioned Pierre de Monstrelet, his son; and it is probable that he is the person who was made a knight of St John of Jerusalem in the month of July, in 1444, although the acts of the chapter of Cambray do not confirm this opinion, nor specify the Christian name of the new knight by that of Pierre. It is only declared in the register, that the canons, as an especial favour, on the 6th of July, permitted Enguerrand de Monstrelet, esquire, to have his son invested with the order of St John of Jerusalem, on Sunday the 19th of the same month, in the choir of their church.
‘The respect and consideration which he had now acquired, gained him the dignity of governor of Cambray, for which he took the usual oath on the 9th of November; and on the 12th of March, in the following year, he was nominated bailiff of Wallaincourt. He retained both of these places until his death, which happened about the middle of July, in the year 1453. This date cannot be disputed: it was discovered in the 17th century by John le Carpentier, who has inserted it in his history of the Cambresis. But in consequence of little attention being paid to this work, or because the common opinion has been blindly followed, that Monstrelet had continued his history to the death of the duke of Burgundy in 1467, this date was not considered as true until the publication of an extract from the register of the Cordeliers in Cambray, where he was buried.[[3]] Although this extract fully establishes the year and month when Monstrelet died, I shall insert here what relates to it from the ‘Memoriaux’ of John le Robert, before mentioned, because they contain some circumstances that are not to be found in the register of the Cordeliers. When several years of his history are to be retrenched from an historian of such credit, authorities for so doing cannot be too much multiplied. This is the text of the abbot of St Aubert, and I have put in italics the words that are not in the register:
“The 20th day of July, in the year 1453, that honourable and noble man Enguerrand de Monstrelet, esquire, governor of Cambray, and bailiff of Wallaincourt, departed this life, and was buried at the Cordeliers of Cambray, according to his desire. He was carried thither on a bier covered with a mat, clothed in the frock of a cordelier friar, his face uncovered: six flambeaux and three chirons, each weighing three quarters of a pound, were around the bier, whereon was a sheet thrown over the cordelier frock. Il fut nez de bas, and was a very honourable and peaceable man. He chronicled the wars which took place in his time in France, Artois, Picardy, England, Flanders, and those of the Gantois against their lord duke Philip. He died fifteen or sixteen days before peace was concluded, which took place toward the end of July, in the year 1453.”
‘I shall observe, by the way, that the person who drew up this register assigns two different dates for the death of Monstrelet, and in this he has been followed by John le Robert. Both of them say, that Monstrelet died on the 20th of July,—and, a few lines farther, add, that he died about sixteen days before peace was concluded between duke Philip and Ghent, which was signed about the end of the month: it was, in fact, concluded on the 31st: now, from twenty to thirty-one, we can only reckon eleven days,—and I therefore think, that one of these dates must mean the day of his death, and the other that of his funeral,—namely, that Monstrelet died on the 15th and was buried on the 20th. The precise date of his death is, however, of little importance: it is enough for us to be assured, that it took place in the month of July, in 1453, and consequently that the thirteen last years of his history, printed under his name, cannot have been written by him. I shall examine this first continuation of his history, and endeavour to ascertain the time when Monstrelet ceased to write,—and likewise attempt to discover whether, during the years immediately preceding his death, some things have not been inserted that do not belong to him.
‘Before I enter upon this discussion of his work, I shall conclude what I have to say of him personally, according to what the writer of the register of the Cordeliers and the abbot of St Aubert testify of him. He was, says each of them, ‘a very honourable and peaceable man;’ expressions that appear simple at first sight, but which contain a real eulogium, if we consider the troublesome times in which Monstrelet lived, the places he held, the interest he must have had sometimes to betray the truth in favour of one of the factions which then divided France, and caused the revolutions the history of which he has published during the life of the principal actors. I have had more than one occasion to ascertain that the two above-mentioned writers, in thus painting his character, have not flattered him.
‘The Chronicles of Monstrelet commence on Easter-day,[[4]] in the year 1400, when those of Froissart end, and extend to the death of the duke of Burgundy in the year 1467. I have before stated, that the thirteen last years of his chronicle were written by an unknown author,—and this matter I shall discuss at the end of this essay. In the printed as well as in the manuscript copies, the chronicle is divided into three volumes, and each volume into chapters. The first of these divisions is evidently by the author: his prologues at the head of the first and second volumes, in which he marks the extent of each conformable to the number of years therein contained, leave no room to doubt of it.