Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse (BnF Fr 2643-6) in the context of "Flemings"

To be hanged, drawn and quartered was a method of torturous capital punishment used principally to execute men convicted of high treason in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland. The convicted traitor was fastened by the feet to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn behind a horse to the place of execution, where they were then hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. Their remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. The punishment was only ever applied to men; for reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.

It became a statutory punishment in the Kingdom of England for high treason in 1352 under King Edward III, although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III. The same punishment applied to traitors against the king in Ireland from the 15th century onward; William Overy was hanged, drawn and quartered by Lord Lieutenant Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York in 1459, and from the reign of King Henry VII it was made part of statutory law. Matthew Lambert was among the most notable Irishmen to suffer this punishment, in 1581 in Wexford.

Froissart's Chronicles (or Chroniques) are a prose history of the Hundred Years' War written in the 14th century by Jean Froissart. The Chronicles open with the events leading up to the deposition of Edward II in 1327, and cover the period up to 1400, recounting events in western Europe, mainly in England, France, Scotland, the Low Countries and the Iberian Peninsula, although at times also mentioning other countries and regions such as Italy, Germany, Ireland, the Balkans, Cyprus, Turkey and North Africa.

For centuries the Chronicles have been recognized as the chief expression of the chivalric culture of 14th-century England and France. Froissart's work is perceived as being of vital importance to informed understandings of the European 14th century, particularly of the Hundred Years' War. But modern historians also recognize that the Chronicles have many shortcomings as a historical source: they contain erroneous dates, have misplaced geography, give inaccurate estimations of sizes of armies and casualties of war, and may be biased in favour of the author's patrons.