The Chronicle of the Bourbon Duke Louis II is translated here into English for the first time. It gives a striking picture of the Hundred Years' War, providing vivid first-hand descriptions of military life of the late 14th century. This record of the activities of ‘Good’ Duke Louis spans the French war against the English and other military campaigns launched by the French in the late medieval period. Duke Louis II of Bourbon was a descendant of the French King Louis IX (Saint Louis, d. 1270) and of the first Duke of Bourbon. As cousin of Kings Charles VI and Charles VII, and ruler of a key French duchy, Louis was a leader of the French in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1452); a general and a diplomat in the campaigns against the English, and later in the campaigns in the Baltic region, Muslim North Africa and the Iberian peninsula. He was considered a pious Christian who moderated the worst excesses of the French royal dukes, making him a rare figure: a leader in every aspect of a bloody war, from battlefield to high level politics, in all respects a hero. At least, that is how his friends saw it: what they thought of him is preserved in The Chronicle of the Good Duke Louis II. The Chronicle is as much a portrait of Louis' circle of friends as it is of Louis himself. It gives modern readers a striking picture of the Hundred Years' War, providing vivid descriptions of the war camps, courts, and battlefields of the late 14th century. Historian Steven Muhlberger renders his translation, the first of the Chronicle into any modern language, in crisp modern English.
