Jean Joinville, sire de, a French chronicler, born in the chateau of Joinville, Champagne, about 1224, died about 1319. He was of an illustrious family, and early became seneschal to Thibaut IV., king of Navarre. In 1248 he joined the crusade of Louis IX. with 700 men-at-arms, and a strong friendship sprang up between them. He fought bravely, was taken prisoner and liberated with the king, spent four years with him in Palestine, returning to France in 1254, and afterward remained his intimate friend and counsellor. But when, in 1270, Louis summoned his barons to another crusade, Joinville declined to go, in consequence of an ominous dream, though he excused himself on the ground of duty to his people. He bore witness to the king's virtues during the inquest preparatory to canonization, and he gladly assented when Queen Jeanne of Navarre requested him to write the deeds and good sayings of her husband's grandfather. To this request we owe his Memoires, which are invaluable as a chronicle, and unrivalled in point of simplicity and grace.

They were completed about 1309, and first printed by Marnef brothers (4to, Poitiers, 1547). The best editions are those of Du Cange (1668), Capperonnier (1761), and F. Michel (Didot, Paris, 1858). Capperonnier's was reprinted in 1840, with annotations, in the Recueil des historiens de France, vol. xx. An edition from a newly discovered manuscript, rendered into modern French by Natalie de Wailly, was published at Paris in 1873, tinder the title of Histoire de St. Louis.