Jean Le Bel

Who was Jean Le Bel?

Jean Le Bel was a Flemish chronicler. His father, Gilles le Beal des Changes, was an alderman of Liege, where Jean himself was active.

Jean was one of the first chroniclers to write in French instead of Latin. He was a soldier and companion of Jean, Count de Beaumont and travelled with him to England and Scotland in 1327. At the request of the duke, he wrote Vrayes Chroniques, which recorded the events of the reign of Edward III. He is believed to be the first person to use interviews to confirm and supplement his facts. Jean gives as his reason for writing a desire to replace a certain misleading rhymed chronicle of the wars of Edward III by a true relation of his enterprises down to the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. Jean Froissart was greatly influenced by him and borrowed from his texts. Jean entered the church and became a canon of the cathedral church, but he and his brother Henri followed Jean de Beaumont to England in 1327 and took part in the border warfare against the Scots. His will is dated 1369, and his epitaph gives the date of his death as 1370. Nothing more is known of his life, but Jacques de Hemricourt, author of the Miroir des nobles de Hesbaye, has left a eulogy of his character, and a description of the magnificence of his attire, his retinue and his hospitality.