by Villehardouin,
the work of Henri de Valenciennes, is a prose redaction of what had
originally formed a _chanson de geste_.

The versified chronicle or history in the thirteenth century declined
among Anglo-Norman writers, but was continued in Flanders and in
France. Prose translations and adaptations of Latin chronicles,
ancient and modern, were numerous, but the literary value of many
of these is slight. In the Abbey of Saint-Denis a corpus of national
history in Latin had for a long while been in process of formation.
Utilising this corpus and the works from which it was constructed,
one of the monks of the Abbey--perhaps a certain Primat--compiled,
in the second half of the century, a History of France in the
vernacular--the _Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denis_--with which
later additions were from time to time incorporated, until under
Charles V. the _Grandes Chroniques de France_ attained their
definitive form.[2] Far more interesting as a literary composition
is the little work known as _Recits d'un Menestrel de Reims_ (1260),
a lively, graceful, and often dramatic collection of traditions,
anecdotes, dialogues, made rather for the purposes of popular
entertainment than of formal instruction, and expressing the ideas
of the middle classes on men and things. Forgotten during several
centuries, it remains to us as one of the happiest records of the
mediaeval spirit.

[Footnote 2: The _Chroniques_ were continued by lay writers to the
accession of Louis XI.]

But among the prose narratives to which the thirteenth century gave
birth, the _Histoire de Saint Louis_, by JEAN DE JOINVILLE, stands
pre-eminent. Joinville, born about 1224, possessed of such literary
culture as could be gained at the Court of Thibaut IV. of Champagne,
became a favoured companion of the chivalric and saintly Louis during
his six years' Crusade from 1248 to 1254. The memory of the King
remained the most precious possession of his follower's elder years.
It is probable that soon after 1272 Joinville prepared an
autobiographic fragment, dealing with that period of his youth which
had been his age of adventure. When he was nearly eighty, Jeanne of
Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel, invited the old seneschal to put
on record the holy words and good deeds of Saint Louis. Joinville
willingly acceded to the request, and incorporating the fragment of
autobiography, in which the writer appeared in close connection with
his King, he had probably alm