John Bourchier was born about 1467, and succeeded to the title in 1474. Even as a child he seems to have lived at the Court, and was knighted in 1477; but, according to the growing custom of the day which no longer countenanced the complete separation of arms from letters, he was sent to Oxford, where, according to Anthony Wood, he belonged to Balliol College. After his stay at the University he travelled abroad, returning to England when the Earl of Richmond became Henry VII., with the Bourchier family amongst his chief supporters. It was a member of that family, Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, who placed the crown on Henry’s head. In the following years Lord Berners distinguished himself in military service, and he continued as high in favour with Henry VIII. as with his father. He served under Lord Surrey in Scotland, and was employed on embassies of high importance. About 1520 he seems to have been appointed Governor of Calais, and there he spent his last years, employed at Henry’s command, upon the translation of Froissart’s “Chronicles” from the French. He died in 1532.
Froissart’s Chronicles
In imitating the style of his original, Lord Berners’s translation becomes peculiarly valuable to an English reader. His version is faithful, but not servile; and he imitates the spirit and simplicity of the original, without allowing us to discover, from any deficiency in either of these particulars, that his own work is a translation.
A soldier, a statesman, and a scholar, this nobleman was singularly well adapted for the task which he undertook. Indeed, considering the period of its completion, it was a sort of literary miracle.
The most important English work of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, whether as a philological monument, or as a production which could not have failed to exert an influence on the tone of English literature…. The first really important work printed in the English language, relating to modern history…. The extraordinary literary merit and the popular character of the work eminently fitted it, both to initiate Englishmen into a knowledge of some of the principal epochs of their own national life, and to promote a taste for historical reading and composition. It must, therefore, independently of its philological worth, be considered as a work of great importance in English literary history, because it undoubtedly contributed essentially to give direction to literary pursuits in England, and thus to lay the foundation of an entire and very prominent branch of native literature…. The translation is executed with great skill; for while it is faithful to the text, it adheres so closely to the English idiom that it has altogether the air of an original work, and, with the exception of here and there a single phrase, it would not be easy to find a passage which exhibits decisive internal evidence of having been first composed in a foreign tongue.
It is one of the best translations ever made.
It is the best contemporary picture of feudalism and feudal manners in existence, and Lord Berners’s translation retains, after the lapse of nearly four centuries, all its original interest and value. The quaintness of the English employed by the translator preserves to the reader of our own time the pleasing impression of the old-fashioned French in which the book was first written.
Although Col. Johnes’s translation of Froissart (1803–5) has now very generally superseded that of Berners, the later version is wanting in the literary flavour which still gives Berners’s book an important place in English literature.
Though a translation, was a masterpiece of idiomatic English prose. Lord Berners was inspired, no doubt, by the liveliness of his original in style and matter, but he so translated as to give his Froissart a lasting place among the classics of the English language.
Berners was an industrious reader, and his chivalrous temperament was mainly attracted by historical works, whether true or fictitious, by accounts of great men, descriptions of battles, heroic deeds, and remarkable adventures. His acquaintance with the French language, together, perhaps, with some knowledge of Spanish, opened up to him many literary sources which were sealed to the majority of his countrymen, and it was his wish to make at least some of these works accessible to the English barons and knights. That his choice should have first fallen upon Froissart, whose vivacious account centres finally upon the differences between England and France, was natural enough in a Governor of Calais. In translating the old Chronicler, Berners was at the same time complying with the wishes—nay, with the commands—of the King, whose policy had meanwhile taken a direction antagonistic to France. Froissart’s work was well adapted to stir up in the English people the old feelings of rivalry with France; and, by reminding them of their lost possessions there, and the glorious deeds of the Black Prince and other national heroes, aroused the English love of warfare.
