Authority, reputation, and the roles of Jeanne de Penthièvre in Book I of Froissart’s Chroniques (original) (raw)

Journal of Medieval History, 2019

Abstract

This article examines how a medieval noblewoman’s positive reputation could be framed through different aspects of seigneurial power, using a case study of Jeanne de Penthièvre and her war for the duchy of Brittany. Froissart wrote about Jeanne in the three main redactions of the first book of his Chroniques. However, he focused in the Amiens manuscript on her position as an heiress and the object of her followers’ loyalty, while the B text largely reduced her prominence but planted the seeds for the active military role Jeanne assumed in the Rome redaction. Such changes did not move strictly between more or less accurate reports, but engaged with different tropes that had also featured in the official portrayals of Jeanne during her lifetime. These parallel constructions of reputation reveal a plasticity to models of lordly authority even in rhetorical contexts more usually associated with formulaic and conventional representations of elite society.

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