2. We extend this right by the present law to the secular electoral princes, the count palatine of the Rhine; the duke of Saxony, and the margrave of Brandenburg, and to their heirs, successors, and subjects forever.
XII. 1. It has been decided in the general diet held at Nürnberg[563] with the electoral princes, ecclesiastical and secular, and other princes and magnates, by their advice and with their consent, that in the future, the electoral princes shall meet every The electors to meet annually year in some city of the Empire four weeks after Easter. This year they are to meet at that date in the imperial city of Metz.[564] On that occasion, and on every meeting thereafter, the place of assembling for the following year shall be fixed by us, with the advice and consent of the princes. This ordinance shall remain in force as long as it shall be pleasing to us and to the princes; and as long as it is in effect, we shall furnish the princes with safe-conduct for that assembly, going, staying, and returning.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR
Our chief contemporary source of information on the history of the Hundred Years' War is Jean Froissart's Chronicles of England, France, and the Adjoining Countries, from the Latter Part of the Reign of Edward II. to the Coronation of Henry IV.,[565] and it is from this important work that all of the extracts (except texts of treaties) which are included in this chapter have been selected. Froissart was a French poet and historian, born at Beaumont, near Valenciennes in Hainault, in 1337, when the Hundred Years' War was just beginning. He lived until the early part of the fifteenth century, 1410 being one of the conjectural dates of his death. He was a man of keen mental faculties and had enjoyed the advantages of an unusually thorough education during boyhood. This native ability and training, together with his active public life and admirable opportunities for observation, constituted his special qualification for the writing of a history of his times. Froissart represents a type of mediæval chronicler which was quite rare, in that he was not a monk living in seclusion but a practical man of affairs, accustomed to travel and intercourse with leading men in all the important countries of western Europe. He lived for five years at the English court as clerk of the Queen's Chamber; many times he was sent by the French king on diplomatic missions to Scotland, Italy, and other countries; and he made several private trips to various parts of Europe for the sole purpose of acquiring information. Always and everywhere he was observant and quick to take advantage of opportunities to ascertain facts which he could use, and we are told that after it came to be generally known that he was preparing to write an extended history of his times not a few kings and princes took pains to send him details regarding events which they desired to have recorded. The writing of the Chronicles was a life work. When only twenty years of age Froissart submitted to Isabella, wife of King Edward III. of England, an account of the battle of Poitiers, in which the queen's son, the famous Black Prince, had won distinction in the previous year. Thereafter the larger history was published book by book, until by 1373 it was complete to date. Subsequently it was extended to the year 1400 (it had begun with the events of 1326), while the earlier portions were rewritten and considerably revised. And, in deed, when death came to the author he was still working at his arduous but congenial task. "As long as I live," he wrote upon one occasion, "by the grace of God I shall continue it; for the more I follow it and labor thereon, the more it pleases me. Even as a gentle knight or esquire who loves arms, while persevering and continuing develops himself therein, thus do I, laboring and striving with this matter, improve and delight myself."
The Chronicles as they have come down to us are written in a lively and pleasing style. It need hardly be said that they are not wholly accurate; indeed, on the whole, they are quite inaccurate, measured even by mediæval standards. Froissart was obliged to rely for a large portion of his information upon older chronicles and especially upon conversations and interviews with people in various parts of Europe. Such sources are never wholly trustworthy and it must be admitted that our author was not as careful to sift error from truth as he should have been. His credulity betrayed him often into accepting what a little investigation would have shown to be false, and only very rarely did he make any attempt, as a modern historian would do, to increase and verify his knowledge by a study of documents. Still, the Chronicles constitute an invaluable history of the period they cover. The facts they record, the events they explain, the vivid descriptions they contain, and the side-lights they throw upon the life and manners of an interesting age unite to give them a place of peculiar importance among works of their kind. And, wholly aside from their historical value, they constitute one of the monuments of mediæval French literature.
73. An Occasion of War between the Kings of England and France
The causes, general and specific, of the Hundred Years' War were numerous. The most important were: (1) The long-standing bad feeling between the French and English regarding the possession of Normandy and Guienne. England had lost the former to France and she had never ceased to hope for its recovery; on the other hand, the French were resolved upon the eventual conquest of the remaining English continental possession of Guienne and were constantly asserting themselves there in a fashion highly irritating to the English; (2) the assistance and general encouragement given the rebellious Scots by the French; (3) the pressure brought to bear upon the English crown by the popular party in Flanders to claim the French throne and to resort to war to obtain it. The Flemish wool trade was a very important item in England's economic prosperity and it was felt to be essential at all hazards to prevent the extension of French influence in Flanders, which would inevitably mean the checking, if not the ruin, of the commercial relations of the Flemish and the English; and (4) the claim to the throne of France which Edward III., king of England, set up and prepared to defend. It is this last occasion of war that Froissart describes in the passage below.
Source—Text in Siméon Luce (ed.), Chroniques de Jean Froissart [published for the Société de l'Histoire de France], Paris, 1869, Chap. I. Translated in Thomas Johnes, Froissart's Chronicles (London, 1803), Vol. I., pp. 6-7.
History tells us that Philip, king of France, surnamed the Fair,[566] had three sons, besides his beautiful daughter Isabella, married to the king of England.[567] These three sons were very handsome. The eldest, Louis, king of Navarre, during the lifetime of his father, was called Louis Hutin; the second was named Philip the Great, or the Long; and the third, Charles. All these were kings of France, after their father Philip, by legitimate succession, one after the other, without having by marriage any male heirs.[568] Yet on the death of the last king, Charles, the twelve peers and barons of France[569] did not give the kingdom to Isabella, the sister, who was queen of England, because they said and maintained, and still insist, that the kingdom of The succession to the French throne in 1328 France is so noble that it ought not to go to a woman; consequently neither to Isabella nor to her son, the king of England; for they held that the son of a woman cannot claim any right of succession where that woman has none herself.[570] For these reasons the twelve peers and barons of France unanimously gave the kingdom of France to the lord Philip of Valois, nephew of King Philip,[571] and thus put aside the queen of England (who was sister to Charles, the late king of France) and her son. Thus, as it seemed to many people, the succession went out of the right line, which has been the occasion of the most destructive wars and devastations of countries, as well in France as elsewhere, as you will learn hereafter; the real object of this history being to relate the great enterprises and deeds of arms achieved in these wars, for from the time of good Charlemagne, king of France, never were such feats performed.