The Chronicles of Fernão Lopes

Book excerpt: Volume IV of the first complete English translation of the chronicles of Fernão Lopes chronicles the Battle of Aljubarrota (1385), which secured the throne for João I, his marriage to Philippa of Lancaster, and his reign up to 1411. Until now, the chronicles of Fernão Lopes (c.1380-c.1460) have only been available in critical editions or in partial translations. Comparable to the works of Froissart in France or López de Ayala in Spain, the chronicles provide a wealth of detail on late fourteenth-century politics, diplomacy, warfare and economic matters, courtly society, queenship and noble women, as well as more mundane concerns such as food, health and the purchasing power of a fluctuating currency. Lopes had a keen eye for detail and a perspective especially attuned to the common people, and his chronicles provide an invaluable source for the history of Western Europe in the later Middle Ages.