on the prophet Jonas which is probably as early. In the 10th
century there are some charters and muniments in the vernacular;
of the 11th the laws of William the Conqueror are the
most important document; while the Assises de Jérusalem of
Godfrey of Bouillon date, though not in the form in which we now
possess them, from the same age. The 12th century gives us
certain translations of the Scriptures, and the remarkable
Arthurian romances already alluded to; and thenceforward
French prose, though long less favoured than verse, begins to
grow in importance. History, as is natural, was the first subject
which gave it a really satisfactory opportunity of developing its
powers. For a time the French chroniclers contented themselves
with Latin prose or with French verse, after the fashion of Wace
and the Belgian, Philippe Mouskés (1215–1283). These, after a
fashion universal in medieval times, began from fabulous or
merely literary origins, and just as Wyntoun later carries back
the history of Scotland to the terrestrial paradise, so does
Mouskés start that of France from the rape of Helen. But soon
prose chronicles, first translated, then original, became common;
the earliest of all is said to have been that of the pseudo-Turpin,
which thus recovered in prose the language which had originally
clothed it in verse, and which, to gain a false appearance of
authenticity, it had exchanged still earlier for Latin. Then came
French selections and versions from the great series of historical
compositions undertaken by the monks of St Denys, the so-called
Grandes Chroniques de France from the date of 1274, when they
first took form in the hands of a monk styled Primat, to the reign
of Charles V., when they assumed the title just given. But the
first really remarkable author who used French prose as a vehicle
of historical expression is Geoffroi de Villehardouin, marshal of
Champagne, who was born rather after the middle of the 12th Villehardouin.
century, and died in Greece in 1212. Under the title of Conquête
de Constantinoble Villehardouin has left us a history
of the fourth crusade, which has been accepted by all
competent judges as the best picture extant of feudal
chivalry in its prime. The Conquête de Constantinoble has been
well called a chanson de geste in prose, and indeed in the surprising
nature of the feats it celebrates, in the abundance of detail,
and in the vivid and picturesque poetry of the narration, it
equals the very best of the chansons. Even the repetition of
the same phrases which is characteristic of epic poetry repeats
itself in this epic prose; and as in the chansons so in Villehardouin,
few motives appear but religious fervour and the love of fighting,
though neither of these excludes a lively appetite for booty and
a constant tendency to disunion and disorder. Villehardouin
was continued by Henri de Valenciennes, whose work is less
remarkable, and has more the appearance of a rhymed chronicle
thrown into prose, a process which is known to have been
actually applied in some cases. Nor is the transition from
Villehardouin to Jean de Joinville (considerable in point of time,
for Joinville was not born till ten years after Villehardouin’s
death) in point of literary history immediate. The rhymed
chronicles of Philippe Mouskés and Guillaume Guiart belong to
this interval; and in prose the most remarkable works are the
Chronique de Reims, a well-written history, having the interesting
characteristics of taking the lay and popular side, and the great
compilation edited (in the modern sense) by Baudouin d’Avesnes Joinville.
(1213–1289). Joinville (? 1224–1317), whose special
subject is the Life of St Louis, is far more modern than
even the half-century which separates him from Villehardouin
would lead us to suppose. There is nothing of the knight-errant
about him personally, notwithstanding his devotion to his
hero. Our Lady of the Broken Lances is far from being his
favourite saint. He is an admirable writer, but far less simple
than Villehardouin; the good King Louis tries in vain to make
him share his own rather high-flown devotion. Joinville is shrewd,
practical, there is even a touch of the Voltairean about him;
but he, unlike his predecessor, has political ideas and antiquarian
curiosity, and his descriptions are often very creditable pieces of
deliberate literature.
It is very remarkable that each of the three last centuries of feudalism should have had one specially and extraordinarily gifted chronicler to describe it. What Villehardouin is to the 12th and Joinville to the 13th century, that Jean Froissart (1337–1410) is to the 14th. His picture is the most Froissart. famous as it is the most varied of the three, but it has special drawbacks as well as special merits. French critics have indeed been scarcely fair to Froissart, because of his early partiality to our own nation in the great quarrel of the time, forgetting that there was really no reason why he as a Hainaulter should take the French side. But there is no doubt that if the duty of an historian is to take in all the political problems of his time, Froissart certainly comes short of it. Although the feudal state in which knights and churchmen were alone of estimation was at the point of death, and though new orders of society were becoming important, though the distress and confusion of a transition state were evident to all, Froissart takes no notice of them. Society is still to him all knights and ladies, tournaments, skirmishes and feasts. He depicts these, not like Joinville, still less like Villehardouin, as a sharer in them, but with the facile and picturesque pen of a sympathizing literary onlooker. As the comparison of the Conquête de Constantinoble with a chanson de geste is inevitable, so is that of Froissart’s Chronique with a roman d’aventures.
For Provençal Literature see the separate article under that heading.
15th Century.—The 15th century holds a peculiar and somewhat disputed position in the history of French literature, as, indeed, it does in the history of the literature of all Europe, except Italy. It has sometimes been regarded as the final stage of the medieval period, sometimes as the earliest of the modern, the influence of the Renaissance in Italy already filtering through. Others again have taken the easy step of marking it as an age of transition. There is as usual truth in all these views. Feudality died with Froissart and Eustache Deschamps. The modern spirit can hardly be said to arise before Rabelais and Ronsard. Yet the 15th century, from the point of view of French literature, is much more remarkable than its historians have been wont to confess. It has not the strongly marked and compact originality of some periods, and it furnishes only one name of the highest order of literary interest; but it abounds in names of the second rank, and the very difference which exists between their styles and characters testifies to the existence of a large number of separate forces working in their different manners on different persons. Its theatre we have already treated by anticipation, and to it we shall afterwards recur. It was the palmy time of the early French stage, and all the dramatic styles which we have enumerated then came to perfection. Of no other kind of literature can the same be said. The century which witnessed the invention of printing naturally devoted itself at first more to the spreading of old literature than to the production of new. Yet as it perfected the early drama, so it produced the prose tale. Nor, as regards individual and single names, can the century of Charles d’Orléans, of Alain Chartier, of Christine de Pisan, of Coquillart, of Comines, and, above all, of Villon, be said to lack illustrations.
First among the poets of the period falls to be mentioned the
shadowy personality of Olivier Basselin. Modern criticism
has attacked the identity of the jovial miller, who
was once supposed to have written and perhaps
invented the songs called vaux de vire, and to haveChristine
de Pisan.
also carried on a patriotic warfare against the English. But
though Jean le Houx may have written the poems published
under Basselin’s name two centuries later, it is taken as certain
that an actual Olivier wrote actual vaux de vire at the beginning
of the 15th century. About Christine de Pisan (1363–1430) and
Alain Chartier (1392–c. 1430) there is no such doubt. Christine
was the daughter of an Italian astrologer who was patronized by
Charles V. She was born in Italy but brought up in France, and
she enriched the literature of her adopted country Alain
Chartier.
with much learning, good sense and patriotism. She
wrote history, devotional works and poetry; and
though her literary merit is not of the highest, it is very far from
despicable. Alain Chartier, best known to modern readers by
