The Online Froissart
Project Team
- PI: Peter Ainsworth, The University of Sheffield
- CI: Godfried Croenen, University of Liverpool
- Keira Borrill, The University of Sheffield
- Valentina Mazzei, The University of Sheffield
- Hartley Miller, University of Liverpool
- Katariina Närä, The University of Sheffield
- Natasha Romanova, University of Liverpool
- Rob Sanderson, University of Liverpool
- The Humanities Research Institute (HRI), The University of Sheffield
Project Description
Froissart´s Chronicles of the Hundred Years´ War are one of the most influential works of late medieval French literature, and remain a prime source for historians of society, politics, culture and narrative. Over 150 manuscripts of their four Books survive, representing different versions some of which are still not available in scholarly editions. During our HRB Institutional Fellowship new editions of some of these texts were produced, notably of Book III, first recension (Besançon ms. 865, ed. Ainsworth) and of the Chronique de Flandre (Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 5004, ed. Croenen).
Our print editions of the Chroniques and Chronique de Flandre represent a significant contribution to the knowledge base for scholarship in Froissart Studies and late medieval French prose historiography and culture. However, the printed format imposes firm limits on the scope for including variant readings and querying the textual data interactively across different witnesses. The scope for conveying non-textual (eg, palaeographical, codicological and art-historical) information present on the manuscript page is similarly constrained. Our electronic transcriptions of parallel manuscripts are currently only available to ourselves and our close associates. The digital surrogates of the Besançon, Stonyhurst and Toulouse manuscripts have been used internally for editing, but their huge potential as described below is as yet largely untapped. An image viewer allowing fast internet access to the manuscript images has been developed, but at this stage it does not include the tools needed for linking up to the textual resource.
Our electronic archives provide an unprecedented opportunity for integrated presentation of a series of complete, key witnesses for Books I-III, as digital images and transcriptions. At the core of our proposal are Besançon mss. 864-865, a complete `set´, most of which has already been transcribed and which contains an early and important text for the first three Books of Froissart´s Chronicles. Together with the other surrogates (Stonyhurst ms. 1, Toulouse ms. 511, and Brussels mss. II 88 and IV 251) they belong to a group copied and decorated in Paris ca 1408-1418 under the direction of librarius Pierre de Liffol. They are amongst the earliest, most reliable and most beautifully decorated manuscripts of Books I-III.
The proposed enhancement brings a holistic, dynamic approach to the manuscripts. Combining (for each folio) marked-up searchable text plus matching, full-colour searchable images, the resource will offer scholars worldwide a freely available online tool for textual, palaeographical and iconographic research on Froissart´s Chronicles. Scholars will be able to conduct detailed, context-specific searches of texts and variants across several manuscripts, engage with images of manuscripts whose originals are held in separate libraries, and explore relationships between texts and images across witnesses. The textual data will be a rich resource for scholars of historiography and narrative, and for students of Middle French language. The images offer rich material for students of iconography and art historians. New translations into modern English will provide historians with improved access to sections that are amongst the most important narrative sources for the Hundred Years War period.
The project will not only unlock access to the electronic resources currently available; it will establish a platform for hosting new electronic transcriptions and digital images beyond the project´s funded period.
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