The Middle Dutch Translation of Froissart’s Chronicle ( c. 1450)

Gerard Potter’s Middle Dutch version of Froissart’s chronicle (c. 1450) has received little scholarly attention. For various reasons, the translation has been situated in the surroundings of the illegitimate offspring of John and Guy of Blois (Muller) or during ‘the waning of Holland’s courtly age’ (Van Oostrom). In this essay, I argue that Potter wrote for an audience of regional administrators after the incorporation of Holland in the Burgundian lands (1425–6). These functionaries may have been interested in the text as an introduction to the continuing Anglo-French conflict or as a collection of examples of both good and bad governmental practice. For this, evidence is adduced from the provenance of the translation’s exemplar, the translator’s biography, his linguistic identity, and translation technique

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