Bal Des Ardents - Chronicles

Chronicles

The death of four members of the nobility was sufficiently important to ensure that the event was recorded in contemporary chronicles, most notably by Froissart and the Monk of St Denis, and subsequently illustrated in a number of copies of illuminated manuscripts. While the two main chroniclers agree on essential points of the evening—the dancers were dressed as wild men, the king survived, one man fell into a vat, and four of the dancers died—there are discrepancies in the details. Froissart wrote that the dancers were chained together, which is not mentioned in the Monk's account. Furthermore, the two chroniclers are at odds regarding the purpose of the dance. According to the historian Susan Crane, the Monk describes the event as a wild charivari with the audience participating in the dance, whereas Froissart's description suggests a theatrical performance without audience participation.

Froissart wrote about the event in Book IV of his Chronicles (covering the years 1389 to 1440), an account described by scholar Katerina Nara as full of "a sense of pessimism", as Froissart "did not approve of all he recorded". Froissart blamed Orléans for the tragedy, and the Monk blamed the instigator, de Guisay, whose reputation for treating low-born servants like animals earned him such universal hatred that "the Nobles rejoiced at his agonizing death".

The Monk wrote of the event in the Histoire de Charles VI (History of Charles VI), covering about 25 years of the king's reign. He seemed to disapprove on the grounds that the event broke social mores and the king's conduct was unbecoming, whereas Froissart described it as a celebratory event.

Scholars are unsure whether either chronicler was present that evening. According to Crane, Froissart wrote of the event about five years later, and the Monk about ten. Veenstra speculates that the Monk may have been an eyewitness (as he was for much of Charles VI's reign) and that his account is the more accurate of the two. The Monk's chronicle is generally accepted as essential for understanding the king's court, however his neutrality may have been affected by his pro-Burgundian and anti-Orléanist stance, causing him to depict the royal couple in a negative manner. A third account was written in the mid-15th century by Jean Juvenal des Ursins in his biography of Charles, L'Histoire de Charles VI: roy de France, not published until 1614.

The Froissart manuscript dating from between 1470 and 1472 from the Harleian Collection held at the British Library includes a miniature depicting the event, titled "Dance of the Wodewoses", attributed to an unknown painter referred to as the Master of the Harley Froissart. A slightly later edition of Froissart's Chronicles, dated to around 1480, contains a miniature of the event, "Fire at a Masked Dance", also attributed to an unidentified early Netherlandish painter known as the Master of the Getty Froissart. The 15th-century Gruuthuse manuscript of Froissart's Chronicles, held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, has a miniature of the event. Another edition of Froissart's Chronicles published in Paris around 1508 may have been made expressly for Maria of Cleves. The edition has 25 miniatures in the margins; the single full-page illustration is of the Bal des Ardents.