Authorship

This is an extract from a letter by Jehan Lefèvre de Saint-Remy – otherwise known as ‘Golden-Fleece’, King of Arms of the Burgundian order of chivalry, the Order of the Toison d’Or – written to Jacques's father following the young knight's dramatic death, of which more anon. It is a letter of surprising length, full of heartfelt admiration – and, one senses, affection – for Jacques, and contains detailed, eyewitness accounts of many of his most memorable exploits. Given Lefèvre's status and reputation for integrity, it leaves little reason to doubt that Jacques de Lalaing was a genuinely exceptional knight, fit to be memorialised as an object of outstanding pride for Burgundy, and indeed a model of ideal knighthood. Moreover, the letter gives such clear indications of how The Book of the Deeds of Jacques de Lalaing came to be written that it is more than a little strange that there should have been for a long while doubts and confusion about its authorship.

In short, the first (17th-century) edition attributed The Book of the Deeds to the Burgundian chronicler Georges Chastellain, on the flimsiest of bases that the writer's name which appears at the very end – in the last line of the verse epitaph for Jacques – is ‘Jorge’.