SOURCE: A preface to The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville: A New English Version, E. P. Dutton, 1906, pp. vi-ix.

In the following essay, Wedgwood comments on Joinville's life and his style in Vie de Saint Louis. Wedgwood observes that while Joinville was not a skilled chronicler, his work is characterized by “directness and simplicity.”

Six hundred years ago, when the histories of Europe still lay buried among the Latin Charter Rolls of great abbeys,—before Piers Plowman had yet voiced the English conscience in the English tongue,—and when Dante was just turning to look back on half his life's journey,—John, Lord of Joinville, full of days and honours, began to write for his liege lady his recollections of her husband's grandfather, St. Louis.

Like many others of that line of great French memoir-writers which he heads,—such, for instance, as Commines, Sully, and Marbot,—Joinville...