Jean de Wavrin

Jehan (or Jean) de Waurin (or Wavrin), lord of Le Forestier (Born near 1398, died near 1474) was a Burgundian soldier, politician, chronicler and compiler, also a bibliophile. He belonged to a noble family of Artois, and witnessed the battle of Agincourt from the French side, but later fought on the Anglo-Burgundian side in the later stages of the Hundred Years' War. As a historian he put together the first chronicle intended as a complete history of England, very extensive but largely undigested and uncritical. Written in French, in its second version it extends from 688 to 1471, though the added later period covering the Wars of the Roses shows strong bias towards Burgundy's Yorkist allies. Strictly his subject is Great Britain, but essentially only England is covered, with a good deal on French and Burgundian events as well.

He was illegitimate, the son of Robert de Waurin, Lord of Wavrin, which is now (just) in France on the Belgian border, and Michielle de Croix. His father was hereditary seneschal of Flanders and "conseiller-chambellan" of the Duke of Burgundy. Wavrin was legitimated in 1437 by Philip the Good and knighted five years later. He fought for the Burgundians at the battle of Verneuil and elsewhere, and then occupying a high position at the court of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, was sent as ambassador to Rome in 1463. His first documented visit to England was in 1467, long after he produced the first version of his work, when he was present at the famous tournament between Anthony, bastard of Burgundy, and Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers.

Jehan compiled the Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne ("Account of the chronicles and old histories of Great Britain"), a collection of the sources of English history from the earliest times to 1471. For this work he borrowed from Froissart, Monstrelet and others; but for the period between 1444 and 1471 the Recueil is original and valuable, although somewhat untrustworthy with regard to affairs in England itself. It also includes an off-topic contemporary chronicle relating to the Crusade of Varna. He gives a valuable account of the impulsive love marriage of Edward IV to Elizabeth Woodville, and the horrified reaction of the Privy Council who told the King with great frankness that " he must know she was no wife for a prince such as himself".

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