See Hakluyt’sVoyages; the Hakluyt Society’sThree Voyages of Frobisher; Rev. F. Jones’sLife of Frobisher(1878); Julian Corbett,Drake and the Tudor Navy(1898).
See Hakluyt’sVoyages; the Hakluyt Society’sThree Voyages of Frobisher; Rev. F. Jones’sLife of Frobisher(1878); Julian Corbett,Drake and the Tudor Navy(1898).
FROCK,originally a long, loose gown with broad sleeves, more especially that worn by members of the religious orders. The word is derived from the O. Fr.froc, of somewhat obscure origin; in medieval Lat.froccusappears also asfloccus, which, if it is the original, as Du Cange suggests (literula mutata), would connect the word with “flock” (q.v.), properly a tuft of wool. Another suggestion refers the word to the GermanRock, a coat (cf. “rochet”), which in some rare instances is found ashrock. The formal stripping off of the frock became part of the ceremony of degradation or deprivation in the case of a condemned monk; hence the expression “to unfrock” (med. Lat.defrocare, Fr.défroquer) used of the degradation of monks and of priests from holy orders. In the middle ages “frock” was also used of a long loose coat worn by men and of a coat of mail, the “frock of mail.” In something of this sense the word survived into the 19th century for a coat with long skirts, now called the “frock coat.” The word in now chiefly used in English for a child’s or young girl’s dress, of body and skirt, but is frequently used of a woman’s dress. Du Cange (Glossarium, s.v.flocus) quotes an early use of the word for a woman’s garment (Miracula S. Udalrici, ap. Mabillon,Acta Sanctorum Benedict, saec. v. p. 466). Here a woman, possessed of a devil, is cured, and sends her garments to the tomb of the saint, and a dalmatic is ordered to be made out of the flocus orfrocus. “Frock” also appears in the “smock frock,” once the typical outer garment of the English peasant. It consists of a loose shirt of linen or other material, worn over the other clothes and hanging to about the knee; its characteristic feature is the “smocking,” a puckered honeycomb stitching round the neck and shoulders.
FROEBEL, FRIEDRICH WILHELM AUGUST(1782-1852), German philosopher, philanthropist and educational reformer, was born at Oberweissbach, a village of the Thuringian forest, on the 21st of April 1782. Like Comenius, with whom he had much in common, he was neglected in his youth, and the remembrance of his own early sufferings made him in after life the more eager in promoting the happiness of children. His mother he lost in his infancy, and his father, the pastor of Oberweissbach and the surrounding district, attended to his parish but not to his family. Friedrich soon had a stepmother, and neglect was succeeded by stepmotherly attention; but a maternal uncle took pity on him, and gave him a home for some years at Stadt-Ilm. Here he went to the village school, but like many thoughtful boys he passed for a dunce. Throughout life he was always seeking for hidden connexions and an underlying unity in all things. Nothing of the kind was to be perceived in the piecemeal studies of the school, and Froebel’s mind, busy as it was for itself, would not work for the masters. His half-brother was therefore thought more worthy of a university education, and Friedrich was apprenticed for two years to a forester (1797-1799).
Left to himself in the Thuringian forest, Froebel began to study nature, and without scientific instruction he obtained a profound insight into the uniformity and essential unity of nature’s laws. Years afterwards the celebrated Jahn (the “Father Jahn” of the German gymnasts) told a Berlin student of a queer fellow he had met, who made out all sorts of wonderful things from stones and cobwebs. This queer fellow was Froebel; and the habit of making out general truths from the observation of nature, especially from plants and trees, dated from the solitary rambles in the forest. No training could have been better suited to strengthen his inborn tendency to mysticism; and when heleft the forest at the early age of seventeen, he seems to have been possessed by the main ideas which influenced him all his life. The conception which in him dominated all others was the unity of nature; and he longed to study natural sciences that he might find in them various applications of nature’s universal laws. With great difficulty he got leave to join his elder brother at the university of Jena, and there for a year he went from lecture-room to lecture-room hoping to grasp that connexion of the sciences which had for him far more attraction than any particular science in itself. But Froebel’s allowance of money was very small, and his skill in the management of money was never great, so his university career ended in an imprisonment of nine weeks for a debt of thirty shillings. He then returned home with very poor prospects, but much more intent on what he calls the course of “self-completion” (Vervollkommnung meines selbst) than on “getting on” in a worldly point of view. He was sent to learn farming, but was recalled in consequence of the failing health of his father. In 1802 the father died, and Froebel, now twenty years old, had to shift for himself. It was some time before he found his true vocation, and for the next three and a half years we find him at work now in one part of Germany now in another—sometimes land-surveying, sometimes acting as accountant, sometimes as private secretary; but in all this his “outer life was far removed from his inner life,” and in spite of his outward circumstances he became more and more conscious that a great task lay before him for the good of humanity. The nature of the task, however, was not clear to him, and it seemed determined by accident. While studying architecture in Frankfort-on-Main, he became acquainted with the director of a model school, who had caught some of the enthusiasm of Pestalozzi. This friend saw that Froebel’s true field was education, and he persuaded him to give up architecture and take a post in the model school. In this school Froebel worked for two years with remarkable success, but he then retired and undertook the education of three lads of one family. In this he could not satisfy himself, and he obtained the parents’ consent to his taking the boys to Yverdon, near Neuchâtel, and there forming with them a part of the celebrated institution of Pestalozzi. Thus from 1807 till 1809 Froebel was drinking in Pestalozzianism at the fountain-head, and qualifying himself to carry on the work which Pestalozzi had begun. For the science of education had to deduce from Pestalozzi’s experience principles which Pestalozzi himself could not deduce. And “Froebel, the pupil of Pestalozzi, and a genius like his master, completed the reformer’s system; taking the results at which Pestalozzi had arrived through the necessities of his position, Froebel developed the ideas involved in them, not by further experience but by deduction from the nature of man, and thus he attained to the conception of true human development and to the requirements of true education” (Schmidt’sGeschichte der Pädagogik).
Holding that man and nature, inasmuch as they proceed from the same source, must be governed by the same laws, Froebel longed for more knowledge of natural science. Even Pestalozzi seemed to him not to “honour science in her divinity.” He therefore determined to continue the university course which had been so rudely interrupted eleven years before, and in 1811 he began studying at Göttingen, whence he proceeded to Berlin. But again his studies were interrupted, this time by the king of Prussia’s celebrated call “to my people.” Though not a Prussian, Froebel was heart and soul a German. He therefore responded to the call, enlisted in Lützow’s corps, and went through the campaign of 1813. But his military ardour did not take his mind off education. “Everywhere,” he writes, “as far as the fatigues I underwent allowed, I carried in my thoughts my future calling as educator; yes, even in the few engagements in which I had to take part. Even in these I could gather experience for the task I proposed to myself.” Froebel’s soldiering showed him the value of discipline and united action, how the individual belongs not to himself but to the whole body, and how the whole body supports the individual.
Froebel was rewarded for his patriotism by the friendship of two men whose names will always be associated with his, Langethal and Middendorff. These young men, ten years younger than Froebel, became attached to him in the field, and were ever afterwards his devoted followers, sacrificing all their prospects in life for the sake of carrying out his ideas.
At the peace of Fontainebleau (signed in May 1814) Froebel returned to Berlin, and became curator of the museum of mineralogy under Professor Weiss. In accepting this appointment from the government he seemed to turn aside from his work as educator; but if not teaching he was learning. More and more the thought possessed him that the one thing needful for man was unity of development, perfect evolution in accordance with the laws of his being, such evolution as science discovers in the other organisms of nature. He at first intended to become a teacher of natural science, but before long wider views dawned upon him. Langethal and Middendorff were in Berlin, engaged in tuition. Froebel gave them regular instruction in his theory, and at length, counting on their support, he resolved to set about realizing his own idea of “the new education.” This was in 1816. Three years before one of his brothers, a clergyman, had died of fever caught from the French prisoners. His widow was still living in the parsonage at Griesheim, a village on the Ilm. Froebel gave up his post, and set out for Griesheim on foot, spending his very last groschen on the way for bread. Here he undertook the education of his orphan niece and nephews, and also of two more nephews sent him by another brother. With these he opened a school and wrote to Middendorff and Langethal to come and help in the experiment. Middendorff came at once, Langethal a year or two later, when the school had been moved to Keilhau, another of the Thuringian villages, which became the Mecca of the new faith. In Keilhau Froebel, Langethal, Middendorff and Barop, a relation of Middendorff’s, all married and formed an educational community. Such zeal could not be fruitless, and the school gradually increased, though for many years its teachers, with Froebel at their head, were in the greatest straits for money and at times even for food. After fourteen years’ experience he determined to start other institutions to work in connexion with the parent institution at Keilhau, and being offered by a private friend the use of a castle on the Wartensee, in the canton of Lucerne, he left Keilhau under the direction of Barop, and with Langethal he opened the Swiss institution. The ground, however, was very ill chosen. The Catholic clergy resisted what they considered as a Protestant invasion, and the experiment on the Wartensee and at Willisau in the same canton, to which the institution was moved in 1833, never had a fair chance. It was in vain that Middendorff at Froebel’s call left his wife and family at Keilhau, and laboured for four years in Switzerland without once seeing them. The Swiss institution never flourished. But the Swiss government wished to turn to account the presence of the great educator; so young teachers were sent to Froebel for instruction, and finally Froebel moved to Burgdorf (a Bernese town of some importance, and famous from Pestalozzi’s labours there thirty years earlier) to undertake the establishment of a public orphanage and also to superintend a course of teaching for schoolmasters. The elementary teachers of the canton were to spend three months every alternate year at Burgdorf, and there compare experiences, and learn of distinguished men such as Froebel and Bitzius. In his conferences with these teachers Froebel found that the schools suffered from the state of the raw material brought into them. Till the school age was reached the children were entirely neglected. Froebel’s conception of harmonious development naturally led him to attach much importance to the earliest years, and his great work onThe Education of Man, published as early as 1826, deals chiefly with the child up to the age of seven. At Burgdorf his thoughts were much occupied with the proper treatment of young children, and in scheming for them a graduated course of exercises, modelled on the games in which he observed them to be most interested. In his eagerness to carry out his new plans he grew impatient of official restraints; so he returned to Keilhau, and soon afterwards opened the firstKindergartenor “Garden of Children,” in the neighbouring village of Blankenburg (1837). Firmly convinced of the importance ofthe Kindergarten for the whole human race, Froebel described his system in a weekly paper (hisSonntagsblatt) which appeared from the middle of 1837 till 1840. He also lectured in great towns; and he gave a regular course of instruction to young teachers at Blankenburg. But although the principles of the Kindergarten were gradually making their way, the first Kindergarten was failing for want of funds. It had to be given up, and Froebel, now a widower (he had lost his wife in 1839), carried on his course for teachers first at Keilhau, and from 1848, for the last four years of his life, at or near Liebenstein, in the Thuringian forest, and in the duchy of Meiningen. It is in these last years that the man Froebel will be best known to posterity, for in 1849 he attracted within the circle of his influence a woman of great intellectual power, the baroness von Marenholtz-Bülow, who has given us in herRecollections of Friedrich Froebelthe only lifelike portrait we possess.
These seemed likely to be Froebel’s most peaceful days. He married again in 1851, and having now devoted himself to the training of women as educators, he spent his time in instructing his class of young female teachers. But trouble came upon him from a quarter whence he least expected it. In the great year of revolutions (1848) Froebel had hoped to turn to account the general eagerness for improvement, and Middendorff had presented an address on Kindergartens to the German parliament. Besides this, a nephew of Froebel’s, Professor Karl Froebel of Zürich, published books which were supposed to teach socialism. True, the uncle and nephew differed so widely that the “new Froebelians” were the enemies of “the old,” but the distinction was overlooked, and Friedrich and Karl Froebel were regarded as the united advocates of some new thing. In the reaction which soon set in, Froebel found himself suspected of socialism and irreligion, and in 1851 the “cultus-minister” Von Raumer issued an edict forbidding the establishment of schools “after Friedrich and Karl Froebel’s principles” in Prussia. This was a heavy blow to the old man, who looked to the government of the “Cultus-staat” Prussia for support, and was met with denunciation. Whether from the worry of this new controversy, or from whatever cause, Froebel did not long survive the decree. His seventieth birthday was celebrated with great rejoicings in May 1852, but he died on the 21st of June, and was buried at Schweina, a village near his last abode, Marienthal, near Bad-Liebenstein.
“All education not founded on religion is unproductive.” This conviction followed naturally from Froebel’s conception of the unity of all things, a unity due to the original Unity from whom all proceed and in whom all “live, move and have their being.” As man and nature have one origin they must be subject to the same laws. Hence Froebel, like Comenius two centuries before him, looked to the course of nature for the principles of human education. This he declares to be his fundamental belief: “In the creation, in nature and the order of the material world, and in the progress of mankind, God has given us the true type (Urbild) of education.” As the cultivator creates nothing in the trees and plants, so the educator creates nothing in the children,—he merely superintends the development of inborn faculties. So far Froebel agrees with Pestalozzi; but in one respect he went beyond him. Pestalozzi said that the faculties were developed by exercise. Froebel added that the function of education was to develop the faculties by arousingvoluntary activity. Action proceeding from inner impulse (Selbsttätigkeit) was the one thing needful.
The prominence which Froebel gave to action, his doctrine that man is primarily a doer and even a creator, and that he learns only through “self-activity,” has its importance all through education. But it was to the first stage of life that Froebel paid the greatest attention. He held with Rousseau that each age has a completeness of its own, and that the perfection of the later stage can be attained only through the perfection of the earlier. If the infant is what he should be as an infant, and the child as a child, he will become what he should be as a boy, just as naturally as new shoots spring from the healthy plant. Every stage, then, must be cared for and tended in such a way that it may attain its own perfection. Impressed with the immense importance of the first stage, Froebel like Pestalozzi devoted himself to the instruction of mothers. But he would not, like Pestalozzi, leave the children entirely in the mother’s hands. Pestalozzi held that the child belonged to the family; Fichte, on the other hand, claimed it for society and the state. Froebel, whose mind delighted in harmonizing apparent contradictions, and who taught that “all progress lay through opposites to their reconciliation,” maintained that the child belonged both to the family and to society, and he would therefore have children spend some hours of the day in a common life and in well-organized common employments. These assemblies of children he would not call schools, for the children in them ought not to be old enough for schooling. So he invented the nameKindergarten, garden of children, and called the superintendents “children’s gardeners.” He laid great stress on every child cultivating its own plot of ground, but this was not his reason for the choice of the name. It was rather that he thought of these institutions as enclosures in which young human plants are nurtured. In the Kindergarten the children’s employment should beplay. But any occupation in which children delight is play to them; and Froebel invented a series of employments, which, while they are in this sense play to the children, have nevertheless, as seen from the adult point of view, a distinct educational object. This object, as Froebel himself describes it, is “to give the children employment in agreement with their whole nature, to strengthen their bodies, to exercise their senses, to engage their awakening mind, and through their senses to bring them acquainted with nature and their fellow creatures; it is especially to guide aright the heart and the affections, and to lead them to the original ground of all life, to unity with themselves.”
Froebel’s own works are:Menschenerziehung(“Education of Man”), (1826), which has been translated into French and English;Pädagogik d. Kindergartens;Kleinere SchriftenandMutter- und Koselieder; collected editions have been edited by Wichard Lange (1862) and Friedrich Seidel (1883).A. B. Hauschmann’sFriedrich Fröbelis a lengthy and unsatisfactory biography. An unpretentious but useful little book isF. Froebel, a Biographical Sketch, by Matilda H. Kriege, New York (Steiger). A very good account of Froebel’s life and thoughts is given in Karl Schmidt’sGeschichte d. Pädagogik, vol. iv.; also in Adalbert Weber’sGeschichte d. Volksschulpäd. u. d. Kleinkindererziehung(Weber carefully gives authorities). For a less favourable account see K. Strack’sGeschichte d. deutsch. Volksschulwesens. Frau von Marenholtz-Bülow published herErinnerungen an F. Fröbel(translated by Mrs. Horace Mann, 1877). This lady, the chief interpreter of Froebel, has expounded his principles inDas Kind u. sein WesenandDie Arbeit u. die neue Erziehung. H. Courthope Bowen has written a memoir (1897) in the “Great Educators” series. In England Miss Emily A. E. Shirreff has publishedPrinciples of Froebel’s System, and a short sketch of Froebel’s life. See also Dr Henry Barnard’sPapers on Froebel’s Kindergarten(1881); R. H. Quick,Educational Reformers(1890).
Froebel’s own works are:Menschenerziehung(“Education of Man”), (1826), which has been translated into French and English;Pädagogik d. Kindergartens;Kleinere SchriftenandMutter- und Koselieder; collected editions have been edited by Wichard Lange (1862) and Friedrich Seidel (1883).
A. B. Hauschmann’sFriedrich Fröbelis a lengthy and unsatisfactory biography. An unpretentious but useful little book isF. Froebel, a Biographical Sketch, by Matilda H. Kriege, New York (Steiger). A very good account of Froebel’s life and thoughts is given in Karl Schmidt’sGeschichte d. Pädagogik, vol. iv.; also in Adalbert Weber’sGeschichte d. Volksschulpäd. u. d. Kleinkindererziehung(Weber carefully gives authorities). For a less favourable account see K. Strack’sGeschichte d. deutsch. Volksschulwesens. Frau von Marenholtz-Bülow published herErinnerungen an F. Fröbel(translated by Mrs. Horace Mann, 1877). This lady, the chief interpreter of Froebel, has expounded his principles inDas Kind u. sein WesenandDie Arbeit u. die neue Erziehung. H. Courthope Bowen has written a memoir (1897) in the “Great Educators” series. In England Miss Emily A. E. Shirreff has publishedPrinciples of Froebel’s System, and a short sketch of Froebel’s life. See also Dr Henry Barnard’sPapers on Froebel’s Kindergarten(1881); R. H. Quick,Educational Reformers(1890).
(R. H. Q.)
FROG,1a name in zoology, of somewhat wide application, strictly for an animal belonging to the familyRanidae, but also used of some other families of the orderEcaudataor the sub-class Batrachia (q.v.).
Frogs proper are typified by the common British species,Rana temporaria, and its allies, such as the edible frog,R. esculenta, and the American bull-frogR. catesbiana. The genusRanamay be defined as firmisternal Ecaudata with cylindrical transverse processes to the sacral vertebra, teeth in the upper jaw and on the vomer, a protrusible tongue which is free and forked behind, a horizontal pupil and more or less webbed toes. It includes about 200 species, distributed over the whole worldwith the exception of the greater part of South America and Australia. Some of the species are thoroughly aquatic and have fully webbed toes, others are terrestrial, except during the breeding season, others are adapted for burrowing, by means of the much-enlarged and sharp-edged tubercle at the base of the inner toe, whilst not a few have the tips of the digits dilated into disks by which they are able to climb on trees. In most of the older classifications great importance was attached to these physiological characters, and a number of genera were established which, owing to the numerous annectent forms which have since been discovered, must be abandoned. The arboreal species were thus associated with the true tree-frogs, regardless of their internal structure. We now know that such adaptations are of comparatively small importance, and cannot be utilized for establishing groups higher than genera in a natural or phylogenetic classification. The tree-frogs,Hylidae, with which the arborealRanidaewere formerly grouped, show in their anatomical structure a close resemblance to the toads,Bufonidae, and are therefore placed far away from the true frogs, however great the superficial resemblance between them.
Some frogs grow to a large size. The bull-frog of the eastern United States and Canada, reaching a length of nearly 8 in. from snout to vent, long regarded as the giant of the genus, has been surpassed by the discovery ofRana guppyi(8½ in.) in the Solomon Islands, and ofRana goliath(10 in.) in South Cameroon.
The familyRanidaeembraces a large number of genera, some of which are very remarkable. Among these may be mentioned the hairy frog of West Africa,Trichobatrachus robustus, some specimens of which have the sides of the body and of the hind limbs covered with long villosities, the function of which is unknown, and its allyGampsosteonyx batesi, in which the last phalanx of the fingers and toes is sharp, claw-like and perforates the skin. To this family also belong theRhacophorusof eastern Asia, arboreal frogs, some of which are remarkable for the extremely developed webs between the fingers and toes, which are believed to act as a parachute when the frog leaps from the branches of trees (flying-frog of A. R. Wallace), whilst others have been observed to make aerial nests between leaves overhanging water, a habit which is shared by their near allies theChiromantisof tropical Africa.Dimorphognathus, from West Africa, is the unique example of a sexual dimorphism in the dentition, the males being provided with a series of large sharp teeth in the lower jaw, which in the female, as in most other members of the family, is edentulous. The curious horned frog of the Solomon Islands,Ceratobatrachus guentheri, which can hardly be separated from theRanidae, has teeth in the lower jaw in both sexes, whilst a few forms, such asDendrobatesandCardioglossa, which on this account have been placed in a distinct family, have no teeth at all, as in toads. These facts militate strongly against the importance which was once attached to the dentition in the classification of the tailless batrachians.
1The word “frog” is in O.E.frocgaorfrox, cf. Dutchvorsch, Ger.Frosch; Skeat suggests a possible original source in the root meaning “to jump,” “to spring,” cf. Ger.froh, glad, joyful and “frolic.” The term is also applied to the following objects: the horny part in the center of a horse’s hoof; an attachment to a belt for suspending a sword, bayonet, &c.; a fastening for the front of a coat, still used in military uniforms, consisting of two buttons on opposite sides joined by ornamental looped braids; and, in railway construction, the point where two rails cross. These may be various transferred applications of the name of the animal, but the “frog” of a horse was also called “frush,” probably a corruption of the French namefourchette, lit. little fork. The ornamental braiding is also more probably due to “frock,” Lat.floccus.
1The word “frog” is in O.E.frocgaorfrox, cf. Dutchvorsch, Ger.Frosch; Skeat suggests a possible original source in the root meaning “to jump,” “to spring,” cf. Ger.froh, glad, joyful and “frolic.” The term is also applied to the following objects: the horny part in the center of a horse’s hoof; an attachment to a belt for suspending a sword, bayonet, &c.; a fastening for the front of a coat, still used in military uniforms, consisting of two buttons on opposite sides joined by ornamental looped braids; and, in railway construction, the point where two rails cross. These may be various transferred applications of the name of the animal, but the “frog” of a horse was also called “frush,” probably a corruption of the French namefourchette, lit. little fork. The ornamental braiding is also more probably due to “frock,” Lat.floccus.
FROG-BIT,in botany, the English name for a small floating herb known botanically asHydrocharis Morsus-Ranae, a member of the order Hydrocharideae, a family of Monocotyledons. The plant has rosettes of roundish floating leaves, and multiplies like the strawberry plant by means of runners, at the end of which new leaf-rosettes develop. Staminate and pistillate flowers are borne on different plants; they have three small green sepals and three broadly ovate white membranous petals. The fruit, which is fleshy, is not found in Britain. The plant occurs in ponds and ditches in England and is rare in Ireland.
FROGMORE,a mansion within the royal demesne of Windsor, England, in the Home Park, 1 m. S.E. of Windsor Castle. It was occupied by George III.’s queen, Charlotte, and later by the duchess of Kent, mother of Queen Victoria, who died here in 1861. The mansion, a plain building facing a small lake, has in its grounds the mausoleum of the duchess of Kent and the royal mausoleum. The first is a circular building surrounded with Ionic columns and rising in a dome, a lower chamber within containing the tomb, while in the upper chamber is a statue of the duchess. There is also a bust of Princess Hohenlohe-Langenberg, half-sister of Queen Victoria; and before the entrance is a memorial erected by the queen to Lady Augusta Stanley (d. 1876), wife of Dean Stanley. The royal mausoleum, a cruciform building with a central octagonal lantern, richly adorned within with marbles and mosaics, was erected (1862-1870) by Queen Victoria over the tomb of Albert, prince consort, by whose side the queen herself was buried in 1901. There are also memorials to Princess Alice and Prince Leopold in the mausoleum. To the south of the mansion are the royal gardens and dairy.
FRÖHLICH, ABRAHAM EMANUEL(1796-1865), Swiss poet, was born on the 1st of February 1796 at Brugg in the canton of Aargau, where his father was a teacher. After studying theology at Zürich he became a pastor in 1817 and returned as teacher to his native town, where he lived for ten years. He was then appointed professor of the German language and literature in the cantonal school at Aarau, which post he lost, however, in the political quarrels of 1830. He afterwards obtained the post of teacher and rector of the cantonal college, and was also appointed assistant minister at the parish church. He died at Baden in Aargau on the 1st of December 1865. His works are—170 Fabeln(1825);Schweizerlieder(1827);Das Evangelium St Johannis, in Liedern(1830);Elegien an Wieg’ und Sarg(1835);Die Epopöen; Ulrich Zwingli(1840);Ulrich von Hutten(1845);Auserlesene Psalmen und geistliche Lieder für die Evangelisch-reformirte Kirche des Cantons Aargau(1844);Über den Kirchengesang der Protestanten(1846);Trostlieder(1852);Der Junge Deutsch-Michel(1846);Reimsprüche aus Staat, Schule, und Kirche(1820). An edition of his collected works, in 5 vols., was published at Frauenfeld in 1853. Fröhlich is best known for his two heroic poems,Ulrich ZwingliandUlrich von Hutten, and especially for his fables, which have been ranked with those of Hagedorn, Lessing and Gellert.
See theLifeby R. Fäsi (Zürich, 1907).
See theLifeby R. Fäsi (Zürich, 1907).
FROHSCHAMMER, JAKOB(1821-1893), German theologian and philosopher, was born at Illkofen, near Regensburg, on the 6th of January 1821. Destined by his parents for the Roman Catholic priesthood, he studied theology at Munich, but felt an ever-growing attraction to philosophy. Nevertheless, after much hesitation, he took what he himself calls the most mistaken step of his life, and in 1847 entered the priesthood. His keenly logical intellect, and his impatience of authority where it clashed with his own convictions, quite unfitted him for that unquestioning obedience which the Church demanded. It was only after open defiance of the bishop of Regensburg that he obtained permission to continue his studies at Munich. He at first devoted himself more especially to the study of the history of dogma, and in 1850 published hisBeiträge zur Kirchengeschichte, which was placed on the Index Expurgatorius. But he felt that his real vocation was philosophy, and after holding for a short time an extraordinary professorship of theology, he became professor of philosophy in 1855. This appointment he owed chiefly to his work,Über den Ursprung der menschlichen Seelen(1854), in which he maintained that the human soul was not implanted by a special creative act in each case, but was the result of a secondary creative act on the part of the parents: that soul as well as body, therefore, was subject to the laws of heredity. This was supplemented in 1855 by the controversialMenschenseele und Physiologie. Undeterred by the offence which these works gave to his ecclesiastical superiors, he published in 1858 theEinleitung in die Philosophie und Grundriss der Metaphysik, in which he assailed the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, that philosophy was the handmaid of theology. In 1861 appearedÜber die Aufgabe der Naturphilosophie und ihr Verhältnis zur Naturwissenschaft, which was, he declared, directed against the purely mechanical conception of the universe, and affirmed the necessity of a creative Power. In the same year he publishedÜber die Freiheit der Wissenschaft, in which he maintained the independence of science, whose goal was truth, against authority, and reproached the excessive respect for the latter in the Roman Church with the insignificant part played by the German Catholics in literature and philosophy. He was denounced by the pope himself in an apostolic brief of the 11th of December 1862, and students of theology were forbidden to attend his lectures.Public opinion was now keenly excited; he received an ovation from the Munich students, and the king, to whom he owed his appointment, supported him warmly. A conference of Catholicsavants, held in 1863 under the presidency of Döllinger, decided that authority must be supreme in the Church. When, however, Döllinger and his school in their turn started the Old Catholic movement, Frohschammer refused to associate himself with their cause, holding that they did not go far enough, and that their declaration of 1863 had cut the ground from under their feet. Meanwhile he had, in 1862, founded theAthenäumas the organ of Liberal Catholicism. For this he wrote the first adequate account in German of the Darwinian theory of natural selection, which drew a warm letter of appreciation from Darwin himself. Excommunicated in 1871, he replied with three articles, which were reproduced in thousands as pamphlets in the chief European languages:Der Fels Petri in Rom(1873),Der Primat Petri und des Papstes(1875), andDas Christenthum Christi und das Christenthum des Papstes(1876). InDas neue Wissen und der neue Glaube(1873) he showed himself as vigorous an opponent of the materialism of Strauss as of the doctrine of papal infallibility. His later years were occupied with a series of philosophical works, of which the most important were:Die Phantasie als Grundprincip des Weltprocesses(1877),Über die Genesis der Menschheit und deren geistige Entwicklung in Religion, Sittlichkeit und Sprache(1883), andÜber die Organisation und Cultur der menschlichen Gesellschaft(1885). His system is based on the unifying principle of imagination (Phantasie), which he extends to the objective creative force of Nature, as well as to the subjective mental phenomena to which the term is usually confined. He died at Bad Kreuth in the Bavarian Highlands on the 14th of June 1893.
In addition to other treatises on theological subjects, Frohschammer was also the author ofMonaden und WeltphantasieandÜber die Bedeutung der Einbildungskraft in der Philosophie Kants und Spinozas(1879);Über die Principien der Aristotelischen Philosophie und die Bedeutung der Phantasie in derselben(1881);Die Philosophie als Idealwissenschaft und System(1884);Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino kritisch gewürdigt(1889);Über das Mysterium Magnum des Daseins(1891);System der Philosophie im Umriss, pt. i. (1892). His autobiography was published in A. Hinrichsen’sDeutsche Denker(1888). See also F. Kirchner,Über das Grundprincip des Weltprocesses(1882), with special reference to F.; E. Reich,Weltanschauung und Menschenleben; Betrachtungen über die Philosophie J. Frohschammers(1894); B. Münz,J. Frohschammer, der Philosoph der Weltphantasie(1894) andBriefe von und über J. Frohschammer(1897); J. Friedrich,Jakob Frohschammer(1896) andSystematische und kritische Darstellung der Psychologie J. Frohschammers(1899); A. Attensperger,J. Frohschammers philosophisches System im Grundriss(1899).
In addition to other treatises on theological subjects, Frohschammer was also the author ofMonaden und WeltphantasieandÜber die Bedeutung der Einbildungskraft in der Philosophie Kants und Spinozas(1879);Über die Principien der Aristotelischen Philosophie und die Bedeutung der Phantasie in derselben(1881);Die Philosophie als Idealwissenschaft und System(1884);Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino kritisch gewürdigt(1889);Über das Mysterium Magnum des Daseins(1891);System der Philosophie im Umriss, pt. i. (1892). His autobiography was published in A. Hinrichsen’sDeutsche Denker(1888). See also F. Kirchner,Über das Grundprincip des Weltprocesses(1882), with special reference to F.; E. Reich,Weltanschauung und Menschenleben; Betrachtungen über die Philosophie J. Frohschammers(1894); B. Münz,J. Frohschammer, der Philosoph der Weltphantasie(1894) andBriefe von und über J. Frohschammer(1897); J. Friedrich,Jakob Frohschammer(1896) andSystematische und kritische Darstellung der Psychologie J. Frohschammers(1899); A. Attensperger,J. Frohschammers philosophisches System im Grundriss(1899).
FROISSART, JEAN(1338-1410?), French chronicler and raconteur, historian of his own times. The personal history of Froissart, the circumstances of his birth and education, the incidents of his life, must all be sought in his own verses and chronicles. He possessed in his own lifetime no such fame as that which attended the steps of Petrarch; when he died it did not occur to his successors that a chapter might well be added to hisChroniclesetting forth what manner of man he was who wrote it. The village of Lestines, where he was curé, has long forgotten that a great writer ever lived there. They cannot point to any house in Valenciennes as the lodging in which he put together his notes and made history out of personal reminiscences. It is not certain when or where he died, or where he was buried. One church, it is true, doubtfully claims the honour of holding his bones. It is that of St Monegunda of Chimay.
“Gallorum sublimis honos et fama tuorum,Hic Froissarde, jaces, si modo forte jaces.”
“Gallorum sublimis honos et fama tuorum,
Hic Froissarde, jaces, si modo forte jaces.”
It is fortunate, therefore, that the scattered statements in his writings may be so pieced together as to afford a tolerably connected history of his life year after year. The personality of the man, independently of his adventures, may be arrived at by the same process. It will be found that Froissart, without meaning it, has portrayed himself in clear and well-defined outline. His forefathers werejurés(aldermen) of the little town of Beaumont, lying near the river Sambre, to the west of the forest of Ardennes. Early in the 14th century the castle and seigneurie of Beaumont fell into the hands of Jean, younger son of the count of Hainaut. With this Jean, sire de Beaumont, lived a certain canon of Liège called Jean le Bel, who fortunately was not content simply to enjoy life. Instigated by his seigneur he set himself to write contemporary history, to tell “la pure veriteit de tout li fait entièrement al manire de chroniques.” With this view, he compiled two books of chronicles. And the chronicles of Jean le Bel were not the only literary monuments belonging to the castle of Beaumont. A hundred years before him Baldwin d’Avernes, the then seigneur, had caused to be written a book of chronicles or rather genealogies. It must therefore be remembered that when Froissart undertook his own chronicles he was not conceiving a new idea, but only following along familiar lines.
Some 20 m. from Beaumont stood the prosperous city of Valenciennes, possessed in the 14th century of important privileges and a flourishing trade, second only to places like Bruges or Ghent in influence, population and wealth. Beaumont, once her rival, now regarded Valenciennes as a place where the ambitious might seek for wealth or advancement, and among those who migrated thither was the father of Foissart. He appears from a single passage in his son’s verses to have been a painter of armorial bearings. There was, it may be noted, already what may be called a school of painters at Valenciennes. Among them were Jean and Colin de Valenciennes and Andrè Beau-Neveu, of whom Froissart says that he had not his equal in any country.
The date generally adopted for his birth is 1338. In after years Froissart pleased himself by recalling in verse the scenes and pursuits of his childhood. These are presented in vague generalities. There is nothing to show that he was unlike any other boys, and, unfortunately, it did not occur to him that a photograph of a schoolboy’s life amid bourgeois surroundings would be to posterity quite as interesting as that faithful portraiture of courts and knights which he has drawn up in hisChronicle. As it is, we learn that he loved games of dexterity and skill rather than the sedentary amusements of chess and draughts, that he was beaten when he did not know his lessons, that with his companions he played at tournaments, and that he was always conscious—a statement which must be accepted with suspicion—that he was born
“Loer Dieu et servir le monde.”
In any case he was born in a place, as well as at a time, singularly adapted to fill the brain of an imaginative boy. Valenciennes was then a city extremely rich in romantic associations. Not far from its walls was the western fringe of the great forest of Ardennes, sacred to the memory of Pepin, Charlemagne, Roland and Ogier. Along the banks of the Scheldt stood, one after the other, not then in ruins, but bright with banners, the gleam of armour, and the liveries of the men at arms, castles whose seigneurs, now forgotten, were famous in their day for many a gallant feat of arms. The castle of Valenciennes itself was illustrious in the romance ofPerceforest. There was born that most glorious and most luckless hero, Baldwin, first emperor of Constantinople. All the splendour of medieval life was to be seen in Froissart’s native city: on the walls of the Salle le Comte glittered—perhaps painted by his father—the arms and scutcheons beneath the banners and helmets of Luxembourg, Hainaut and Avesnes; the streets were crowded with knights and soldiers, priests, artisans and merchants; the churches were rich with stained glass, delicate tracery and precious carving; there were libraries full of richly illuminated manuscripts on which the boy could gaze with delight; every year there was thefêteof thepuy d’Amour de Valenciennes, at which he would hear the verses of the competing poets; there were festivals, masques, mummeries and moralities. And, whatever there might be elsewhere, in this happy city there was only the pomp, and not the misery, of war; the fields without were tilled, and the harvests reaped, in security; the workman within plied his craft unmolested for good wage. But the eyes of the boy were turned upon the castle and not upon the town; it was the splendour of the knights which dazzled him, insomuch that heregarded and continued ever afterwards to regard a prince gallant in the field, glittering of apparel, lavish of largesse, as almost a god.
The moon, he says, rules the first four years of life; Mercury the next ten; Venus follows. He was fourteen when the last goddess appeared to him in person, as he tells us, after the manner of his time, and informed him that he was to love a lady, “belle, jone, et gente.” Awaiting this happy event, he began to consider how best to earn his livelihood. They first placed him in some commercial position—impossible now to say of what kind—which he simply calls “la marchandise.” This undoubtedly means some kind of buying and selling, not a handicraft at all. He very soon abandoned merchandise—“car vaut mieux science qu’argens”—and resolved on becoming a learned clerk. He then naturally began to make verses, like every other learned clerk. Quite as naturally, and still in the character of a learned clerk, he fulfilled the prophecy of Venus and fell in love. He found one day a demoiselle reading a book of romances. He did not know who she was, but stealing gently towards her, he asked her what book she was reading. It was the romance ofCleomades. He remarks the singular beauty of her blue eyes and fair hair, while she reads a page or two, and then—one would almost suspect a reminiscence of Dante—
“Adont laissames nous le lire.”
He was thus provided with that essential for soldier, knight or poet, a mistress—one for whom he could write verses. She was rich and he was poor; she was nobly born and he obscure; it was long before she would accept the devotion, even of the conventional kind which Froissart offered her, and which would in no way interfere with the practical business of her life. And in this hopeless way, the passion of the young poet remaining the same, and the coldness of the lady being unaltered, the course of this passion ran on for some time. Nor was it until the day of Froissart’s departure from his native town that she gave him an interview and spoke kindly to him, even promising, with tears in her eyes, that “Doulce Pensée” would assure him that she would have no joyous day until she should see him again.
He was eighteen years of age; he had learned all that he wanted to learn; he possessed the mechanical art of verse; he had read the slender stock of classical literature accessible; he longed to see the world. He must already have acquired some distinction, because, on setting out for the court of England, he was able to take with him letters of recommendation from the king of Bohemia and the count of Hainaut to Queen Philippa, niece of the latter. He was well received by the queen, always ready to welcome her own countrymen; he wrote ballades and virelays for her and her ladies. But after a year he began to pine for another sight of “la très douce, simple, et quoie,” whom he loved loyally. Good Queen Philippa, perceiving his altered looks and guessing the cause, made him confess that he was in love and longed to see his mistress. She gave him hiscongéon the condition that he was to return. It is clear that the young clerk had already learned to ingratiate himself with princes.
The conclusion of his single love adventure is simply and unaffectedly told in hisTrettie de l’espinette amoureuse. It was a passion conducted on the well-known lines of conventional love; the pair exchanged violets and roses, the lady accepted ballads; Froissart became either openly or in secret her recognized lover, a mere title of honour, which conferred distinction on her who bestowed it, as well as upon him who received it. But the progress of the amour was rudely interrupted by the arts of “Malebouche,” or Calumny. The story, whatever it was, that Malebouche whispered in the ear of the lady led to a complete rupture. Thedamoisellenot only scornfully refused to speak to her lover or acknowledge him, but even seized him by the hair and pulled out a handful. Nor would she ever be reconciled to him again. Years afterwards, when Froissart writes the story of his one love passage, he shows that he still takes delight in the remembrance of her, loves to draw her portrait, and lingers with fondness over the thought of what she once was to him.
Perhaps to get healed of his sorrow, Froissart began those wanderings in which the best part of his life was to be consumed. He first visited Avignon, perhaps to ask for a benefice, perhaps as the bearer of a message from the bishop of Cambray to pope or cardinal. It was in the year 1360, and in the pontificate of Innocent VI. From the papal city he seems to have gone to Paris, perhaps charged with a diplomatic mission. In 1361 he returned to England after an absence of five years. He certainly interpreted his leave of absence in a liberal spirit, and it may have been with a view of averting the displeasure of his kind-hearted protector that he brought with him as a present a book of rhymed chronicles written by himself. He says that notwithstanding his youth, he took upon himself the task “à rimer et à dicter”—which can only mean to “turn into verse”—an account of the wars of his own time, which he carried over to England in a book “tout compilé,”—complete to date,—and presented to his noble mistress Philippa of Hainaut, who joyfully and gently received it of him. Such a rhymed chronicle was no new thing. One Colin had already turned the battle of Crécy into verse. The queen made young Froissart one of her secretaries, and he began to serve her with “beaux dittiés et traités amoureux.”
Froissart would probably have been content to go on living at ease in this congenial atmosphere of flattery, praise and caresses, pouring out his virelays and chansons according to demand with facile monotony, but for the instigation of Queen Philippa, who seems to have suggested to him the propriety of travelling in order to get information for more rhymed chronicles. It was at her charges that Froissart made his first serious journey. He seems to have travelled a great part of the way alone, or accompanied only by his servants, for he was fain to beguile the journey by composing an imaginary conversation in verse between his horse and his hound. This may be found among his published poems, but it does not repay perusal. In Scotland he met with a favourable reception, not only from King David but from William of Douglas, and from the earls of Fife, Mar, March and others. The souvenirs of this journey are found scattered about in the chronicles. He was evidently much impressed with the Scots; he speaks of the valour of the Douglas, the Campbell, the Ramsay and the Graham; he describes the hospitality and rude life of the Highlanders; he admires the great castles of Stirling and Roxburgh and the famous abbey of Melrose. His travels in Scotland lasted for six months. Returning southwards he rode along the whole course of the Roman wall, a thing alone sufficient to show that he possessed the true spirit of an archaeologist; he thought that Carlisle was Carlyon, and congratulated himself on having found King Arthur’s capital; he calls Westmorland, where the common people still spoke the ancient British tongue, North Wales; he rode down the banks of the Severn, and returned to London by way of Oxford—“l’escole d’Asque-Suffort.”
In London Froissart entered into the service of King John of France as secretary, and grew daily more courtly, more in favour with princes and great ladies. He probably acquired at this period that art, in which he has probably never been surpassed, of making people tell him all they knew. No newspaper correspondent, no American interviewer, has ever equalled this medieval collector of intelligence. From Queen Philippa, who confided to him the tender story of her youthful and lasting love for her great husband, down to the simplest knight—Froissart conversed with none beneath the rank of gentlemen—all united in telling this man what he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything: he liked the story of a battle from both sides and from many points of view; he wanted the details of every little cavalry skirmish, every capture of a castle, every gallant action and brave deed. And what was more remarkable, he forgot nothing. “I had,” he says, “thanks to God, sense, memory, good remembrance of everything, and an intellect clear and keen to seize upon the acts which I could learn.” But as yet he had not begun to write in prose.
At the age of twenty-nine, in 1366, Froissart once more left England. This time he repaired first to Brussels, whither were gathered together a great concourse of minstrels from all parts,from the courts of the kings of Denmark, Navarre and Aragon, from those of the dukes of Lancaster, Bavaria and Brunswick. Hither came all who could “rimer et dicter.” What distinction Froissart gained is not stated; but he received a gift of money, as appears from the accounts: “uni Fritsardo, dictori, qui est cum regina Angliae, dicto die,VI.mottones.”
After this congress of versifiers, he made his way to Brittany, where he heard from eye-witnesses and knights who had actually fought there details of the battles of Cocherel and Auray, the Great Day of the Thirty and the heroism of Jeanne de Montfort. Windsor Herald told him something about Auray, and a French knight, one Antoine de Beaujeu, gave him the details of Cocherel. From Brittany he went southwards to Nantes, La Rochelle and Bordeaux, where he arrived a few days before the visit of Richard, afterwards second of that name. He accompanied the Black Prince to Dax, and hoped to go on with him into Spain, but was despatched to England on a mission. He next formed part of the expedition which escorted Lionel duke of Clarence to Milan, to marry the daughter of Galeazzo Visconti. Chaucer was also one of the prince’s suite. At the wedding banquet Petrarch was a guest sitting among the princes.
From Milan Froissart, accepting gratefully acotte hardiewith 20 florins of gold, set out upon his travels in Italy. At Bologna, then in decadence, he met Peter king of Cyprus, from whose follower and minister, Eustache de Conflans, he learned many interesting particulars of the king’s exploits. He accompanied Peter as far as Venice, where he left him after receiving a gift of 40 ducats. With them and hiscotte hardie, still lined we may hope with the 20 florins, Froissart betook himself to Rome. The city was then at its lowest point: the churches were roofless; there was no pope; there were no pilgrims; there was no splendour; and yet, says Froissart sadly,
“Ce furent jadis en RomeLi plus preu et li plus sage homme,Car par sens tons les arts passèrent.”
“Ce furent jadis en Rome
Li plus preu et li plus sage homme,
Car par sens tons les arts passèrent.”
It was at Rome that he learned of the death of his friend King Peter of Cyprus, and, worse still, an irreparable loss to him, that of the good Queen Philippa, of whom he writes, in grateful remembrance—
“Propices li soit Diex à l’âme!J’en suis bien tenus de pryerEt ses larghesces escuyer,Car elle me fist et créa.”
“Propices li soit Diex à l’âme!
J’en suis bien tenus de pryer
Et ses larghesces escuyer,
Car elle me fist et créa.”
Philippa dead, Froissart looked around for a new patron. Then he hastened back to his own country and presented himself, with a new book in French, to the duchess of Brabant, from whom he received the sum of 16 francs, given in the accounts as paiduni Frissardo dictatori. The use of the wordunidoes not imply any meanness of position, but is simply an equivalent to the modern Frenchsieur. Froissart may also have found a patron in Yolande de Bar, grandmother of King René of Anjou. In any case he received a substantial gift from some one in the shape of the benefice of Lestines, a village some three or four miles from the town of Binche. Also, in addition to his cure, he got placed upon the duke of Brabant’s pension list, and was entitled to a yearly grant of grain and wine, with some small sum in money.
It is clear, from Froissart’s own account of himself, that he was by no means a man who would at the age of four or five and thirty be contented to sit down at ease to discharge the duties of parish priest, to say mass, to bury the dead, to marry the villagers and to baptize the young. In those days, and in that country, it does not seem that other duties were expected. Preaching was not required, godliness of life, piety, good works, and the graces of a modern ecclesiastic were not looked for. Therefore, when Froissart complains to himself that the taverns of Lestines got 500 francs of his money, we need not at once set him down as either a bad priest or exceptionally given to drink. The people of the place were greatly addicted to wine; thetaverniers de Lestinesproverbially sold good wine; the Flemings were proverbially of a joyous disposition—
“Ceux de Hainaut chantent à pleines gorges.”
Froissart, the parish priest of courtly manners, no doubt drank with the rest, and listened if they sang his own, not the coarse country songs. Mostly he preferred the society of Gerard d’Obies, provost of Binche, and the little circle of knights within that town. Or—for it was not incumbent on him to be always in residence—he repaired to the court of Coudenberg, and became “moult frère et accointé” with the duke of Brabant. And then came Gui de Blois, one of King John’s hostages in London in the old days. He had been fighting in Prussia with the Teutonic knights, and now, a little tired of war, proposed to settle down for a time in his castle of Beaumont. This prince was a member of the great house of Chatillon. He was count of Blois, of Soissons and of Chimay. He had now, about the year 1374, an excellent reputation as a good captain. In him Froissart, who hastened to resume acquaintance, found a new patron. More than that, it was this sire de Beaumont, in emulation of his grandfather, the patron of Jean le Bel, who advised Froissart seriously to take in hand the history of his own time. Froissart was then in his thirty-sixth year. For twenty years he had been rhyming, for eighteen he had been making verses for queens and ladies. Yet during all this time he had been accumulating in his retentive brain the materials for his future work.
He began by editing, so to speak, that is, by rewriting with additions, the work of Jean le Bel; Gui de Blois, among others, supplied him with additional information. His own notes, taken from information obtained in his travels, gave him more details, and when in 1374 Gui married Marie de Namur, Froissart found in the bride’s father, Robert de Namur, one who had himself largely shared in the events which he had to relate. He, for instance, is the authority for the story of the siege of Calais and the six burgesses. Provided with these materials, Froissart remained at Lestines, or at Beaumont, arranging and writing his chronicles. During this period, too, he composed hisEspinette amoureuse, and theJoli Buisson de jonesce, and his romance ofMéliador. He also became chaplain to the count of Blois, and obtained a canonry of Chimay. After this appointment we hear nothing more of Lestines, which he probably resigned.
In these quiet pursuits he passed twelve years, years of which we hear nothing, probably because there was nothing to tell. In 1386 his travels began again, when he accompanied Gui to his castle at Blois, in order to celebrate the marriage of his son Louis de Dunois with Marie de Berry. He wrote apastourellein honour of the event. Then he attached himself for a few days to the duke of Berry, from whom he learned certain particulars of current events, and then, becoming aware of what promised to be the most mighty feat of arms of his time, he hastened to Sluys in order to be on the spot. At this port the French were collecting an enormous fleet, and making preparations of the greatest magnitude in order to repeat the invasion of William the Conqueror. They were tired of being invaded by the English and wished to turn the tables. The talk was all of conquering the country and dividing it among the knights, as had been done by the Normans. It is not clear whether Froissart intended to go over with the invaders; but as his sympathies are ever with the side where he happens to be, he exhausts himself in admiration of this grand gathering of ships and men. “Any one,” he says, “who had a fever would have been cured of his malady merely by going to look at the fleet.” But the delays of the duke of Berry, and the arrival of bad weather, spoiled everything. There was no invasion of England. In Flanders Froissart met many knights who had fought at Rosebeque, and could tell him of the troubles which in a few years desolated that country, once so prosperous. He set himself to ascertain the history with as much accuracy as the comparison of various accounts by eye-witnesses and actors would allow. He stayed at Ghent, among those ruined merchants and mechanics, for whom, as one of the same class, he felt a sympathy never extended to English or French, perhaps quite as unfortunate, and he devotes no fewer than 300 chapters to the Flemish troubles, an amount out of all proportion to the comparative importance of the events. This portion of the chronicle was written at Valenciennes. During this residence in his birthplace his verses were crowned at the “puys d’amour” of Valenciennes and Tournay.
This part of his work finished, he considered what to do next. There was small chance of anything important happening in Picardy or Hainault, and he determined on making a journey to the south of France in order to learn something new. He was then fifty-one years of age, and being still, as he tells us, in his prime, “of an age, strength, and limbs able to bear fatigue,” he set out as eager to see new places as when, 33 years before, he rode through Scotland and marvelled at the bravery of the Douglas. What he had, in addition to strength, good memory and good spirits, was a manner singularly pleasing and great personal force of character. This he does not tell us, but it comes out abundantly in his writings; and, which he does tell us, he took a singular delight in his book. “The more I work at it,” he says, “the better am I pleased with it.”
On this occasion he rode first to Blois; on the way he fell in with two knights who told him of the disasters of the English army in Spain; one of them also informed him of the splendid hospitalities and generosity of Gaston Phoebus, count of Foix, on hearing of which Froissart resolved to seek him out. He avoided the English provinces of Poitou and Guienne, and rode southwards through Berry, Auvergne and Languedoc. Arrived at Foix he discovered that the count was at Orthez, whither he proceeded in company with a knight named Espaing de Lyon, who, Froissart found, had not only fought, but could describe.
The account of those few days’ ride with Espaing de Lyon is the most charming, the most graphic, and the most vivid chapter in the whole of Froissart. Every turn of the road brings with it the sight of a ruined castle, about which this knight of many memories has a tale or a reminiscence. The whole country teems with fighting stories. Froissart never tires of listening nor the good knight of telling. “Sainte Marie!” cries Froissart in mere rapture. “How pleasant are your tales, and how much do they profit me while you relate them! And you shall not lose your trouble, for they shall all be set down in memory and remembrance in the history which I am writing.” Arrived at length at Orthez, Froissart lost no time in presenting his credentials to the count of Foix. Gaston Phoebus was at this time fifty-nine years of age. His wife, from whom he was separated, was that princess, sister of Charles of Navarre, with whom Guillaume de Machault carried on his innocent and poetical amour. The story of the miserable death of his son is well known, and may be read in Froissart. But that was already a tale of the past, and the state which the count kept up was that of a monarch. To such a prince such a visitor as Froissart would be in every way welcome. Mindful no doubt of those paid clerks who were always writing verses, Froissart introduced himself as a chronicler. He could, of course, rhyme, and in proof he brought with him his romance ofMéliador; but he did not present himself as a wandering poet. The count received him graciously, speedily discovered the good qualities of his guest, and often invited him to read hisMéliadoraloud in the evening, during which time, says Froissart, “nobody dared to say a word, because he wished me to be heard, such great delight did he take in listening.” Very soon Froissart, from reader of a romance, became raconteur of the things he had seen and heard; the next step was that the count himself began to talk of affairs, so that the notebook was again in requisition. There was a good deal, too, to be learned of people about the court. One knight recently returned from the East told about the Genoese occupation of Famagosta; two more had been in the fray of Otterbourne; others had been in the Spanish wars.
Leaving Gaston at length, Froissart assisted at the wedding of the old duke of Berry with the youthful Jeanne de Bourbon, and was present at the grand reception given to Isabeau of Bavaria by the Parisians. He then returned to Valenciennes, and sat down to write his fourth book. A journey undertaken at this time is characteristic of the thorough and conscientious spirit in which he composed his work; it illustrates also his restless and curious spirit. While engaged in the events of the year 1385 he became aware that his notes taken at Orthez and elsewhere on the affairs of Castile and Portugal were wanting in completeness. He left Valenciennes and hastened to Bruges, where, he felt certain, he should find some one who would help him. There was, in fact, at this great commercial centre, a colony of Portuguese. From them he learned that a certain Portuguese knight, Dom Juan Fernand Pacheco, was at the moment in Middelburg on the point of starting for Prussia. He instantly embarked at Sluys, reached Middelburg in time to catch this knight, introduced himself, and conversed with him uninterruptedly for the space of six days, getting his information on the promise of due acknowledgment. During the next two years we learn little of his movements. He seems, however, to have had trouble with his seigneur Gui de Blois, and even to have resigned his chaplaincy. Froissart is tender with Gui’s reputation, mindful of past favours and remembering how great a lord he is. Yet the truth is clear that in his declining years the once gallant Gui de Blois became a glutton and a drunkard, and allowed his affairs to fall into the greatest disorder. So much was he crippled with debt that he was obliged to sell his castle and county of Blois to the king of France. Froissart lays all the blame on evil counsellors. “He was my lord and master,” he says simply, “an honourable lord and of great reputation; but he trusted too easily in those who looked for neither his welfare nor his honour.” Although canon of Chimay and perhaps curé of Lestines as well, it would seem as if Froissart was not able to live without a patron. He next calls Robert de Namur his seigneur, and dedicates to him, in a general introduction, the whole of his chronicles. We then find him at Abbeville, trying to learn all about the negotiations pending between Charles VI. and the English. He was unsuccessful, either because he could not get at those who knew what was going on, or because the secret was too well kept. He next made his last visit to England, where, after forty years’ absence, he naturally found no one who remembered him. Here he gave King Richard a copy of his “traités amoureux,” and got favour at court. He stayed in England some months, seeking information on all points from his friends Henry Chrystead and Richard Stury, from the dukes of York and Gloucester, and from Robert the Hermit.
On his return to France, he found preparations going on for that unlucky crusade, the end of which he describes in hisChronicle. It was headed by the count of Nevers. After him floated many a banner of knights, descendants of the crusaders, who bore the proud titles of duke of Athens, duke of Thebes, sire de Sidon, sire de Jericho. They were going to invade the sultan’s empire by way of Hungary; they were going to march south; they would reconquer the holy places. And presently we read how it all came to nothing, and how the slaughtered knights lay dead outside the city of Nikopoli. In almost the concluding words of theChroniclethe murder of Richard II. of England is described. His death ends the long and crowdedChronicle, though the pen of the writer struggles through a few more unfinished sentences.
The rest is vague tradition. He is said to have died at Chimay; it is further said that he died in poverty so great that his relations could not even afford to carve his name upon the headstone of his tomb; not one of his friends, not even Eustache Deschamps, writes a line of regret in remembrance; the greatest historian of his age had a reputation so limited that his death was no more regarded than that of any common monk or obscure priest. We would willingly place the date of his death, where hisChroniclestops, in the year 1400; but tradition assigns the date of 1410. What date more fitting than the close of the century for one who has made that century illustrious for ever?
Among his friends were Guillaume de Machault, Eustache Deschamps, the most vigorous poet of this age of decadence, and Cuvelier, a follower of Bertrand du Guesclin. These alliances are certain. It is probable that he knew Chaucer, with whom Deschamps maintained a poetical correspondence; there is nothing to show that he ever made the acquaintance of Christine de Pisan. Froissart was more proud of his poetry than his prose. Posterity has reversed this opinion, and though a selection of his verse has been published, it would be difficult to find an admirer, or even a reader, of his poems. The selection published by Buchon in 1829 consists of theDit dou florin, half of which is a description of the power of money; theDébat dou chevalet dou lévrier, written during his journey in Scotland; theDittie de la flour de la Margherite; aDittie d’amourcalledL’Orlose amoureus, in which he compares himself, the imaginary lover, with a clock; theEspinette amoureuse, which contains a sketch of his early life, freely and pleasantly drawn, accompanied by rondeaux and virelays; theBuisson de jonesce, in which he returns to the recollections of his own youth; and various smaller pieces. The verses are monotonous; the thoughts are not without poetical grace, but they are expressed at tedious length. It would be, however, absurd to expect in Froissart the vigour and verve possessed by none of his predecessors. The time was gone when Marie de France, Rutebœuf and Thibaut de Champagne made the 13th-century language a medium for verse of which any literature might be proud. Briefly, Froissart’s poetry, unless the unpublished portion be better than that before us, is monotonous and mechanical. The chief merit it possesses is in simplicity of diction. This not infrequently produces a pleasing effect.
As for the character of hisChronicle, little need be said. There has never been any difference of opinion on the distinctive merits of this great work. It presents a vivid and faithful drawing of the things done in the 14th century. No more graphic account exists of any age. No historian has drawn so many and such faithful portraits. They are, it is true, portraits of men as they seemed to the writer, not of men as they were. Froissart was uncritical; he accepted princes by their appearance. Who, for instance, would recognize in his portrait of Gaston Phoebus de Foix the cruel voluptuary, stained with the blood of his own son, which we know him to have been? Froissart, again, had no sense of historical responsibility; he was no judge to inquire into motives and condemn actions; he was simply a chronicler. He has been accused by French authors of lacking patriotism. Yet it must be remembered that he was neither a Frenchman nor an Englishman, but a Fleming. He has been accused of insensibility to suffering. Indignation against oppression was not, however, common in the 14th century; why demand of Froissart a quality which is rare enough even in our own time? Yet there are moments when, as in describing the massacre of Limoges, he speaks with tears in his voice.
Let him be judged by his own aims. “Before I commence this book,” he says, “I pray the Saviour of all the world, who created every thing out of nothing, that He will also create and put in me sense and understanding of so much worth, that this book, which I have begun, I may continue and persevere in, so that all those who shall read, see, and hear it may find in it delight and pleasance.” To give delight and pleasure, then, was his sole design.
As regards his personal character, Froissart depicts it himself for us. Such as he was in youth, he tells us, so he remained in more advanced life; rejoicing mightily in dances and carols, in hearing minstrels and poems; inclined to love all those who love dogs and hawks; pricking up his ears at the uncorking of bottles,—“Car au voire prens grand plaisir”; pleased with good cheer, gorgeous apparel and joyous society, but no commonplace reveller or greedy voluptuary,—everything in Froissart was ruled by the good manners which he set before all else; and always eager to listen to tales of war and battle. As we have said above, he shows, not only by his success at courts, but also by the whole tone of his writings, that he possessed a singularly winning manner and strong personal character. He lived wholly in the present, and had no thought of the coming changes. Born when chivalrous ideas were most widely spread, but the spirit of chivalry itself, as inculcated by the best writers, in its decadence, he is penetrated with the sense of knightly honour, and ascribes to all his heroes alike those qualities which only the ideal knight possessed.