Jean De Venette - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

JEAN DE VENETTE (c. 1307 - c. 1370), French chronicler, was born at Venette, near Compiegne. He became prior of the Carmelite convent in the Place Maubert, Paris, in 1339, and was provincial of France from 1341 'to 1366. In 1368 he was still living, but probably died within a year or two of that date. His Latin Chronicle, covering the years 1340 to 1368, was published by Achery (Spicilegium, vol. iii.) with the continuations of the chronicle of William of Nangis, though it has every claim to be considered as an independent work. During the years 1358 and 1359 the entries were contemporary with the events recorded; the earlier portion of the work, if it was begun as early as 1340, was subjected to revision later. Jean de Venette was a child of the people, and his sympathies were entirely with the peasants. His point of view is thus directly opposed to that of Froissart. His democratic sympathies led him to support Etienne Marcel, and though he returned to his allegiance to the kings of France he remained a severe critic. Jean de Venette also wrote a long French poem, La Vie des trois Maria, about 1347.

See Lacurne de Sainte-Palaye in Memoires de l'Academie, vols. viii. and xiii.; Geraud and Deprez in Melanges de l'cote de Rome (1899), vol. xix.; and A. Molinier, Les Sources de l'histoire de France (1904), tome iv.