he made free use of the older narrative as far as it could serve him; afterwards relying for information on the personal recollections of knights, squires, and men-at-arms who had witnessed or had taken part in the invasions, wars, battles, skirmishes, treaties, tournaments, and feasts which made up the stirring tale of fourteenth-century life. To gain this knowledge, he traveled far and wide, attaching himself to one court and one patron after another, and indefatigably seeking those soldiers of distinction who had served in many lands, and could tell him the valorous deeds of which he so ardently loved to hear. In long, leisurely journeys, in lonely castles and populous cities, in summer days and winter nights, he gathered and fitted together—loosely enough—the motley fabric of his tale.
This open-air method of collecting material can hardly be expected to commend itself to modern historians; and it is surely not necessary for Mr. Green or any other careful scholar to tell us seriously that Froissart is inaccurate. Of course he is inaccurate. How could history passed, ballad fashion, from man to man be anything but inaccurate? And how could it
