selves naturally in two
classes; those who undertake more or less of a general history of the
country during their time, and those who devote themselves to special
persons as biographers, or to the recital of the events which more
particularly concern a single city or district. The first class,
moreover, is more conveniently subdivided according to the side which
the chroniclers took on the great political duel of their period, the
struggle between Burgundy and France.

The Burgundian side was particularly rich in annalists. The study and
practice of historical writing had, as a consequence of the Chronicle of
Baudouin, and the success of Lebel and Froissart, taken deep root in the
cities of Flanders which were subject to the Duke of Burgundy, while the
magnificence and opulence of the ducal court and establishments
naturally attracted men of letters. Froissart's immediate successor,
Enguerrand de Monstrelet, belongs to this party. Monstrelet[137], who
wrote a chronicle covering the years 1400-1444, is not remarkable for
elegance or picturesqueness of style, but takes particular pains to copy
exactly official reports of speeches, treaties, letters, etc. Another
important chronicle of the same side is that of George Chastellain[138],
a busy man of letters, who was historiographer to the Duke of Burgundy,
and wrote a history of the years 1419-1470. Chastellain was a man of
learning and talent, but was somewhat imbued with the heavy and pedantic
style which both in poetry and prose was becoming fashionable. The
memoirs of Olivier de la Marche extend from 1435 to 1489, and are also
somewhat heavy, but less pedantic than those of Chastellain. Dealing
with the same period, and also written in the Burgundian interest, are
the memoirs of Jacques du Clerq, 1448-1467, and of Lefevre de Saint
Remy, 1407-1436; as also the Chronicle of Jehan de Wavrin, beginning at
the earliest times and coming down to 1472. Wavrin's subject is
nominally England, but the later part of his work of necessity concerns
France also.

The writers on the royalist side are of less importance and less
numerous, though individually perhaps of equal value. The chief of them
are Mathieu de Coucy, who continued the work of Monstrelet in a
different political spirit from 1444 to 1461; Pierre de Fenin, who wrote
a history of part of the reign of Charles VI; and Jean Juvenal des
Ursins[139], a statesman and ecclesiastic, who has dealt more at length
with the whol