Chronicles

Chivalry was an international code of conduct and cultural ideal shared between the nobility of Europe in the Middle Ages. Among other morals, it promoted courage in battle, courtesy, kindness, and the defense of women and the Church. As Geoffrey Brereton describes it, “the savagery of fourteenth-century Europe was tempered and sometimes controlled by a tradition of order and culture” but still the upholder of chivalry “on occasion massacred its prisoners and tortured its enemies in public” (19).

“The Church” generally refers to the Catholic Church, the only recognized religious institution in medieval Europe. Led by the pope in Rome, the Church served a variety of functions in the Middle Ages, such as providing social welfare to the populace and mediating peace between governments. It also controlled its own lands and territories, most significantly Rome and lands around central Italy. At the time of Froissart’s Chronicles, the pope was located in Avignon, a city in what is now southeastern France but at the time was part of the papacy’s territories.

The Great Schism is a term given to the period from 1378 to 1417 when the Church was split between two popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon. The various monarchs and republics of Europe were divided between the two popes.

The Hundred Years War is the term given by modern historians to a series of wars between France and England from 1337 to 1453. It began when King Edward III contested King Philip VI’s inheritance of the French crown, claiming France for himself.