Statue Jehan Froissart - Chimay

A stone statue in Chimay's main square pays tribute to Froissart.

The statue of Froissart stands on a very high stone base, consisting of several levels, on the ground surrounded by a small fence.

This poet, historian and chronicler, born in Valenciennes around 1337, died in Chimay at the beginning of the 15th century (between 1404 and 1410). Born into a family of merchants who had lived in Hainaut for generations, Jean or Jehan Froissart had a serious education and a gift for playing with words, both written and spoken. He was a frequent visitor to the social circles of his day, telling stories, anecdotes and more serious events . Traveling from one court to another, the Walloon trouvère became a storyteller and chronicler, who consciously or unconsciously described a certain feudal decadence .

From 1370 to 1400 he wrote Chroniques de France, d'Angleterre et des païs voisins (Chronicles of France, England and neighboring countries) in Middle Dutch, which he continuously updated. In the 1370s he converted to the faith and found a patron in Guy II de Châtillon, Count of Blois, who enabled him to become canon of Chimay and enjoy the benefits of the office (1384-1391). According to tradition, he was buried in the chapel of Sainte-Anne in the church of Chimay . A prolific chronicler of the Middle Ages, Froissart has survived the centuries as a point of reference for the qualities of his many facets.

As a result, Froissart quickly came to be regarded as one of the most important historical figures of the young Belgian state born in 1830, and was included in the pantheon of that state. He was one of the first personalities to receive a statue. In 1845, the artist Jean-Joseph Jaquet (1822-1898) presented a model of the Froissart monument to be erected in Chimay at the Brussels Salon

Willem Vandenameele