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LEBEL, JEAN (d. 1370)

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 350 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LEBEL, See also:JEAN (d. 1370) , Belgian chronicler, was See also:born near the end of the 13th See also:century. His See also:father, Gilles le Beal See also:des Changes, was an See also:alderman of See also:Liege. Jean entered the See also:church and became a See also:canon of the See also:cathedral church, but he and his See also:brother See also:Henri followed Jean de See also:Beaumont to See also:England in 1327, and took See also:part in the border warfare against the Scots. His will is dated 1369, and his See also:epitaph gives the date of his See also:death as 1370. Nothing more is known of his See also:life, but Jacques de Hemricourt, author of the Miroir des nobles de Hesbaye, has See also:left a eulogy of his See also:character, and a description of the magnificence of his attire, his See also:retinue and his hospitality. Hemricourt asserts that he was eighty years old or more when he died. For a See also:long See also:time Jean Lebel (or le See also:Bel) was only known as a chronicler through a reference by See also:Froissart, who quotes him in the See also:prologue of his first See also:book as one of his authorities. A fragment of his See also:work. in the MS. of Jean d'Outremeuse's Mireur des istores, was discovered in 1847; and the whole of his See also:chronicle, preserved in the library of Chalons-sur-See also:Marne, was edited in 1863 by L. Polain. Jean Lebel gives as his See also:reason for See also:writing a See also:desire to replace a certain misleading rhymed chronicle of the See also:wars of See also:Edward III. by a true relation of his enterprises down to the beginning of the See also:Hundred Years' See also:War.

In the See also:

matter of See also:style Lebel has been placed by some critics on the level of Froissart. His See also:chief merit is his refusal to narrate events unless either he himself or his informant had witnessed them. This scrupulousness in the See also:acceptance of See also:evidence must be set against his limitations. He takes on the whole a similar point of view to Froissart's; he has no concern with See also:national movements or politics; and, writing for the public of See also:chivalry, he preserves no See also:general notion of a See also:campaign, which resolves itself in his narrative into a See also:series of exploits on the part of his heroes. Froissart was considerably indebted to him, and seems to have borrowed from him some of his best-known episodes, such as the death of See also:Robert the See also:Bruce, Edward III. and the countess of See also:Salisbury, and the devotion of the burghers of See also:Calais. The songs and virelais, in the See also:art of writing which he was, according to Hemricourt, an See also:expert, have not come to See also:light. See L. Polain, See also:Les Vraies Chroniques de messire Jehan le Bel (1863) ; Kervyn de Lettenhove, Bulletin de la sociele d'emulation de See also:Bruges, series ii. vols. vii. and ix.; and H. Pirenne in Biographie nationale de Belgique.

End of Article: LEBEL, JEAN (d. 1370)

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