Jean Froissart is, probably, the most significant writer of the 14th century. Certainly if you're studying England in the 14th century nobody else comes close. This is not to grant chronicle sources primacy over any others - my own loyalties lie with the archives (because where else will you find the trivia of who was granted the revenues of all the silver mines in England during the 1420s?*) - but Froissart is a big deal.
You cannot read him.
This is hyperbole: you can read some of Froissart. If you were to go searching bookshops what you would most likely get your hands on is a selected translation of Froissart from 1967 by Geoffrey Bereton which runs about 470 pages (give or take), which I have as the Penguin Classics edition. The older, full, translation runs to about 1500 total pages (give or take). To my knowledge, no fuller translation has been attempted in the intervening years between Bereton's and now.
So; "the whole of Froissart has been translated twice" (Bereton's words). Who by? The first translation is a Tudor (1525) edition by Lord Berners in (obviously) archaic English. This edition is not very helpful to most readers of Froissart though doubtless very valuable if you're studying the transmission of Froissart or the literary and translation culture of Tudor England. The other full version is a translation (published 1805) by Thomas Johnes, who Bereton praises for having the "endurance" to do the whole chronicle but criticises for an inclination to "the false archaic and the over-genteel and is flat by both fourteenth-century and modern standards".
This strikes me as overly harsh and I was personally very happy to see Johnes name as I quested for a more complete edition of Froissart in English. I thought I'd sketched out a brief biography of Johnes elsewhere but I can't find any such piece of writing anywhere in my archives. Possibly I did for my thesis and then cut it due to strict space requirements; but that would be in my archives as is all the material that didn't make it into the final version. I distinctly remember writing something about how we can tie Johnes' translations of medieval chronicles that detail the Great English Victories** of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt to the then contemporary Napoleonic wars. Anyway, Johnes falls into an easy to imagine character type of the late 18th/early 19th century English gentlemen and if you would like to read some words about how he developed his country estate he has a Wikipedia article. As a translator, his work as no more flat than Bereton's and having produced very readable and complete editions of several important medieval chronicles is a far more impressive legacy than a partial edition of just one, I have to say (I have never liked Bereton's Froissart).
Anyway, I was familiar with Johnes because, in 1810, he put out an English translation of the 15th century chronicle Enguerrand de Monstrelet, which was written as a direct continuation of Froissart. Johnes' translation remains a very accessible (stylistically) read despite its age.*** Monstrelet himself "was a nobleman from Picardy, and thus shows a particular interest in his home region throughout his chronicle. Beyond his interest in Picardy, Monstrelet is generally considered to provide a pro-Burgundian perspective, serving John de Luxemburg. Monstrelet’s sources are likely oral, rather than written, drawing on his own experiences or those of eye-witnesses. This is a double edged sword – eye witness testimony is incredibly valuable, even coming second hand, but it must be kept in mind that memory is not necessarily reliable, always being coloured by later experience. His reliance on memory and oral sources could explain explain some notable silences within his work, such as his vague accounts of English military activity in the first few years of the 1430s – without the experience or connections to write truly detailed accounts, Monstrelet becomes frustratingly brief [on certain topics]" (quotation taken from my own thesis)***.
Monstrelet himself generally gets written off as an inferior appendage to Froissart, which I've always found deeply unfair. The much talked about gulf between them stylistically is negligible (perhaps I just have bad taste in Middle French prose) and overall I find him to be a rigorous and humane author. Monstrelet lamented the brutality of the Hundred Years War, in ways that I've always found to be poignant. Quoting myself again:
"Enguerrand de Monstrelet makes much of the "very many mischiefs. . .done to the poor countrymen by English, French, and Burgundians". The most remarkable passage of Monstrelet in this theme concerns a truce between the dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon, made years after Henry V's death:
A knight of Burgundy, observing this, said aloud, 'We are very foolish to risk our bodies and souls at the will of princes and great lords, who, when they please, make up their quarrels, while we oftentimes remain poor and in distress.' This speech was noticed by many on each side for there was much truth in it, - and thus it very frequently happened.
For the Agincourt campaign specifically, Monstrelet makes special mention of the fact that the condition the inhabitants of Harfleur were reduced to was "such a piteous thing"."
Translations, naturally enough, taken from Johnes edition. Notably, when Monstrelet says "a knight of Burgundy" that looks very much like a description of himself, his own class, his own political geography. It could of course be a genuine anonymous quote from an anonymous guy. I suspect it is Monstrelet inventing a guy to include his views in the text in the most authentic way he can.
So. You still cannot read Froissart. This may shock you at this juncture as I just spent several paragraphs establishing the existence of acceptable at a pinch 19th century editions of Froissart and Monstrelet. But that these things exist does not mean you can read them. If you have access to a university library perhaps you can; I can't. My access was rescinded some time in the first half of 2019 when they realised I'd graduated months ago. Nobody is publishing proper editions of these works (you can find paperback amalgams of PDFs ripped from the internet, which aren't in my opinion worth the money). The only place, really, to get them is the Internet Archive.
I am preaching to the choir here when I extol the virtues of the Internet Archive. It is a truly wonderful resource. But I doubt many people have considered its value in preserving the history of the 14th and 15th centuries. This is perhaps not its most important function, but it matters. I have studied the Medieval period because I believe the practice of history is a moral imperative; the continued thriving of the Internet Archive is a moral imperative.
Anyway, if you're curious, go to the Internet Archive and search for 'Froissart Thomas Johnes'. Or don't and search for Monstrelet instead, because I think he's much more interesting. Either way, the results you'll get in this world that is happy to let unprofitable knowledge wither, are a miracle.
*John, Duke of Bedford.
**Eye rolls please.
***We are in desperate need of new, complete translations of these chronicles.
**** Further paragraphs mostly talk about how good Monstrelet is at describing 15th century artillery - not very pertinent here.