Joinville, Jean De - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, p. 377

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

JOINVILLE, JEAN de. – French statesman and historian, b. in 1224, d. 11 July 1319. Scion of a noble family of Champagne and invested with the title of seneschal of that county, he spent his youth at the court of the count of Champagne, Tibaldo IV, poet and king of Navarre, and of the kings of France. He took part in the Sixth Crusade (1248–50), sharing with s. Luigi IX (v.) the hardships of war and captivity. After his ransom (1251), he advised s. Luigi to remain in

Article illustration — JOINVILLE, JEAN de. – J. offers Luigi X his history of s. Luigi. Fourteenth-century miniature – Paris, National Library, mss. français 13568, f. 1.
(from C. Coudrec, Les enluminures des manuscrits du moyen des. Paris 1887, inv. 38)

the East, and returned with him to France in 1254, continuing to assist him in affairs of government. Entrusted by the successor of s. Luigi, Filippo III, with the administration of the county of Champagne (ruled by Giovanna I of Navarre, later queen of France through her marriage to Filippo IV), he retained this office until a very advanced age.

At the request of Giovanna I herself, he composed (1305–1309) the Histoire de saint Louis. Because of this chronicle, one of the most celebrated of its time, he is considered the second of the great historians of the French Middle Ages, after Villehardouin and before Froissart. In it he draws upon his own memories as the King’s companion and as a witness (1282) at the process for his canonization, as well as upon documents from the archives of St-Denis and other written and oral recollections, fashioning all this with an exceptionally fresh and sincere vein, attentive to every detail of life and to every nuance of the chivalric and religious sentiments of his age; for this reason, the Histoire remains a first-rate document.

BIBL.: Works: the Histoire de St Louis was first published at Poitiers in 1457, and critically edited by N. de Wailly in Paris in 1868 and 1874. Studies: A. F. Didot, Etudes sur la vie et les travaux de J. de J., there 1870; H. F. Delaborde, J. de J. et les seigneurs de Joinville, there 1894; G. Paris, J. de J., in Histoire littéraire de la France, XXXII, Paris 1898, pp. 291–454. Enzo Bottasso