Jean de Wavrin

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Jean de Wavrin (* around 1400; † after 1471 ) was a historian from Flanders .

Life

Jean de Wavrin was the illegitimate child of a respected aristocratic family in the Walloon part of Flanders , whose members were able to occupy important positions at the Burgundian court in the 15th century. On October 25, 1415 Wavrin was an eyewitness to the events of the Battle of Azincourt , in which his father Robert VII. De Wavrin and his half-brother died in battle.

For the next twenty years, Wavrin was almost continuously in the service of the Duke of Burgundy or his English allies in the wars in France . Wavrin served in the Burgundian army and fought the Hussites in 1427 . After marrying Marguerite de Hangouart in the patriciate of the city of Lille in 1437, he settled there and was able to sustainably expand his overall social and financial situation. After he had already become a knight and lord of Forestel in 1422 , he was able to call himself chamberlain in 1462 and councilor (conseiller) of the Duke of Burgundy three years later . He performed various services for the dukes and was sent to Rome with an embassy in 1463 . Jean de Wavrin died in one of the years after 1471 while he was writing his chronicle of the history of England .

Chronicle: Recueil des croniques et anciennes istoires de la Grant Bretaigne

Illumination in a manuscript from Wavrin's historical work made around 1470. It depicts a scene from the legend of King Diodicias of Syria, whose daughter Albine is said to have been the first Queen of England: the king's daughters kill their husbands on their wedding night. Vienna, Austrian National Library , Cod. 2534, fol. 23r

Wavrin's historical work, the Recueil des croniques et anciennes istoires de la Grant Bretaigne , is based on his interest in the history and chivalry of England, on whose side he had fought for years. The cultural contacts between the English and Burgundian courts where he frequented certainly served his purpose. He found supporters like Charles the Bold , who in 1469 gave Wavrin permission to visit the Count of Warwick, Richard Neville , to solicit material for his work. In the prologue of his chronicle Wavrin mentions his nephew Waleran de Wavrin (approx. 1418 - after 1480) at whose suggestion Wavrin decided to write a history of the Kingdom of England.

His chronicle of the history of England begins with the mythical Trojan beginnings and ends in 1471. The Recueil des croniques et anciennes istoires de la Grant Bretaigne is a compilation of other historiographical works. Numerous different sources were used for the first four of his six-volume chronicle, but above all the listoire de Brust , the adaptation of Geoffreys of Monmouth, and the Chronicle of Froissart. In depicting the period after 1400, the author mainly used the Enguerrand de Monstrelets chronicle . So he copied most of his story from it up to 1443. Nevertheless, he partially shortened the original and incorporated his own information and interpretations. There are also relationships between Wavrin and Jean le Fèvre de St. Remy, whose work is also based on Monstreet's representations.

Editions

  • Jehan de Wavrin: Anchiennes cronicques d'Engleterre. I. (1re-5e parties: des temps fabuleux à 1444.) par Jehan de Wavrin. Choix de chapitres inédits annotés et publiés par Melle Dupont J. Renouard (Paris), 1858. ( digitized version )

literature

  • Michael Zingel: France, the Empire and Burgundy in the judgment of the Burgundian historiography of the 15th century . Sigmaringen 1995. (= lectures and research, Konstanz working group for medieval history: special volume; 40) digitized
  • J. Richard: Article: Wavrin, Jean de . In: Lexikon des Mittelalters, VIII, Sp. 2080–81

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wavrin, Jean de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Flemish historian
DATE OF BIRTH around 1400
DATE OF DEATH after 1471