[21] Ay,—yea.
[22] Feod,—one who owes fealty.
[23] The narrative has advanced five years since the last chapter. King John keeps his oath: he “sets out after” the prince, and in a short time brings on the great battle of Poitiers.—Ed.
[24] Some say it was composed of sulphur, naphtha, pitch, gum, and bitumen; others, that the ingredients are not now known. It was invented by Callinicus of Heliopolis, in the seventh century, to destroy the ships of the Saracens.—Ed.
[25] It was Arnaut (i.e., Arnold) de Cervolle who was surnamed the Archpriest.—Ed.
[26] After the battle of Poitiers the wretched land of France was tormented by all the ills of lawlessness. This chapter, and the next three, particularly those describing the Jacquerie, will show every boy the frenzies to which a people may be driven when the law is weak. In this case the arm of the law—King John—was wholly lacking in France.—Ed.
[27] Of Normandy.—Ed.
[28] That is, Jack Goodman.—Ed.
[29] Froissart’s Chronicles having been composed in four volumes, the peculiar nature of his work makes it well to preserve this division, aside from the general advantage of giving in unaltered form, so far as possible, the parts presented.—Ed.
[30] This is King Charles the Sixth of France, called “the Maniac.” The narrative has here advanced twenty-four years since we left King John in England, a prisoner, after the battle of Poitiers. John has died, and been succeeded by Charles V.,—“the Wise,”—who has reigned sixteen years, and died. We now go on to see how his successor, young Charles the Sixth, fares in his wars with Philip von Artaveld to recover the rights of the Earl of Flanders. I have chosen these special chapters because they give us lively pictures of manners and customs among a different people from those illustrated by the selections of the first book. The insurrection of Wat Tyler, of which Froissart gives such a lively account in this book, ought really to begin these first chapters, since it occurred in 1378,—two years before the coronation of King Charles,—in the reign of Richard II. of England. The period covered by my extracts from this second book is therefore from 1378 to 1382, when the battle of Rosbecq was fought.—Ed.