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Chronicle of a Bourgeois of Valenciennes
Récits d’un bourgeois de Valenciennes aka The Chronicle of a Bourgeois of Valenciennes is a vivid 14th-century vernacular chronicle written by an anonymous urban chronicler from Valenciennes in the County of Hainaut. It survives in a manuscript that describes local and regional history from about 1253 to 1366, blending chronology, narrative episodes, and eyewitness-style accounts of political, military, and social events in medieval France, Flanders, and the Low Countries. The work begins with a chronological framework of events affecting Valenciennes and its region under rulers such as King Philip VI of France and the shifting allegiances of local nobility. It includes accounts of conflicts, sieges, diplomatic manoeuvres, and the impact of broader struggles like the Hundred Years’ War on urban life in Hainaut. Written from the perspective of a burgher (bourgeois) rather than a monastery or royal court, the chronicle offers a rare lay viewpoint on high politics and warfare, reflecting how merchants, townspeople, and civic institutions experienced the turbulence of the 13th and 14th centuries. Its narrative style combines straightforward reporting of events with moral and civic observations, making it a valuable source for readers interested in medieval urban society, regional politics, and the lived experience of war and governance in pre-modern Europe.
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Surtees is in Surtees.
Whitehorse Hill.
Oct. 3, 1758. My daughter [Anna] Fairchild having been in Barkshire, gave me an account of Whitehorse-hill, and the places thereabouts; the remains of a round temple23 of the Druids called Wayland Smith [Map]. Here the country people have a notion of an invisible smith living there; and if a traveller's horse happens to lose a shoe, leave him there, and a penny, and your horse shall be well shooed. I have often taken notice of these magic notions affixed to Druid temples. The figure of the horse24 on the side of the hill is poorly dravi'n, though of an immense bulk: but, she says, very much in the scheme of the Brittish horses on the reverse of their coins. They found a quantity of gold Brittish coins near there lately, hollow, and like of Cunobeline. Near the white horse, upon the hill, is a large tumulus, which they call pendragon. I believe this hill was one of their places of horse and chariot races at the midsummer sacrifice in the times of the Brittish kings, like that of black Hameldon in Yorkshire, it being a fine down. — Diary, vol. xviii., 12.
Note 23. A chambered round barrow, with formerly a ring of stones at the base of the mound. The chamber is cruciform in plan.
Note 24. Near Uffington Castle, a rude figure of a horse, formed by cutting away the turf upon the side of the chalk hill, of great antiquity; supposed by some to have been a work of the Britons, and by others to be a memorial of Alfred's victory over the Danes. Just under whitehorse-hill is a round hill called dragon-hill, but whether artificial or not. is held to be doubtful. The ancient figure of the horse gives its name to the adjoining vale. — Lysons' Magn. Brit, vol. i.. 215,301.