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recordings of political events are very one-sided, but to us who, likc him, delight in deeds of arms, hc is incomparable, for he wrote about what hc understood, what was going on all around him all the time, and what he was told by the men and women who had actually done the deeds he tells of. So in that respect, to the aficionado of medieval combat, his work is indeed reliable. So I shall have no hesitation, but great pleasure, in quoting him to describe the way in which these splendid swords of the second half of the fourteenth century were used.

To end with, I shall describe an extraordinary event to which Froissart gave only (incred-ibly) the passing mention of fourteen words, but which has been described in much detail by sonie of his contemporaries, so strange and notable a fight was it, in ballad and story.

J

This took place in the middle of the 10-year period between the great English victories of Grecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356). The French, having been pulverised at Grecy, there were periods of uneasy truce between the principal antagonists; but all the while, a sort of side show war, morę of a guerilla affair, was going on in Brittany, where two great noble houses were contending for the Dukedom of the semi-independent land. One side was backed by France, the other by England, so the two "super powers" were able to go on fighting each other, on the side, in spite of the truce. In 1351 the two opponents

Figurc 111. A fine XVII, once in my own collection, now in the National Museum, Copenhagen, c. 1370.