Jean Molinet presents his book to Philip of Cleves

Jean Molinet (1435 – 23 August 1507) was a French

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

chronicler A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...

, and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. He is best remembered for his

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

translation of ''

Roman de la rose ''Le Roman de la Rose'' (''The Romance of the Rose'') is a medieval poem written in Old French and presented as an allegorical dream vision. As poetry, ''The Romance of the Rose'' is a notable instance of courtly literature, purporting to prov ...

''. Born in

Desvres Desvres (; pcd, Dèfes; vls, Deveren) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. It is a market town, known for its pottery. In 2018 its population was 4,930 inhabitants. It is the seat of the canton of Desvres. Populati ...

, which is now part of France, he studied in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He entered the service of

Charles, Duke of Burgundy Charles I (Charles Martin; german: Karl Martin; nl, Karel Maarten; 10 November 1433 – 5 January 1477), nicknamed the Bold (German: ''der Kühne''; Dutch: ''de Stoute''; french: le Téméraire), was Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477. ...

from 1463, becoming secretary to

Georges Chastellain Georges Chastellain (c. 1405 or c. 1415 – 20 March 1475), Burgundian chronicler and poet, was a native of Aalst in Flanders. Chastellain's historical works are valuable for the accurate information they contain. As a poet he was famous am ...

; in 1464 he wrote ''La complainte de Grece'', a political work presenting the Burgundian side in current affairs. He replaced Chastellain as

historiographer Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

in 1475, and he was also the

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...

of Margaret of Austria. His chronicle covered the years 1474 to 1504, and was only published in 1828 after being edited by J. A. Buchon. It is considered inferior to Chastellain's chronicle, possessing less historical value. He was the head of a Burgundian school of poetry called the

Grands Rhétoriqueurs The grands rhétoriqueurs or simply the "rhétoriqueurs" is the name given to a group of poets from 1460 to 1520 (or from the generation of François Villon (no ''rhétoriqueur'' himself) to Clément Marot) working in Northern France, Flanders, and ...

, characterised by their excessive use of

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

s. His nephew

Jean Lemaire de Belges Jean Lemaire de Belges (c. 1473c. 1525) was a Walloon poet and historian, and pamphleteer who, writing in French, was the last and one of the best of the school of poetic 'rhétoriqueurs' (“rhetoricians”) and the chief forerunner, both in style ...

spent some time with him at

Valenciennes Valenciennes (, also , , ; nl, label=also Dutch, Valencijn; pcd, Valincyinnes or ; la, Valentianae) is a commune in the Nord department, Hauts-de-France, France. It lies on the Scheldt () river. Although the city and region experienced a s ...

, and Lemaire considered himself a disciple of the elder writer. In 1501 he became

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

of the church of Notre-Dame in Valenciennes, and he died there on 23 August 1507. Molinet was also a composer, although only one work, the rondeau ''Tart ara mon cueur sa plaisance'', can be reliably attributed to him; however, this work, an early

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic s ...

for four voices (most were for three), was extremely popular, as evidenced by the wide distribution of copies. He is also remembered for the elegy he wrote on the death of

Johannes Ockeghem Johannes Ockeghem ( – 6 February 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was the most influential European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with hi ...

, ''

Nymphes des bois ''Nymphes des bois'', also known as ''La Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem'', is a lament composed by Josquin des Prez on the occasion of the death of his predecessor Johannes Ockeghem in February 1497. The piece, based on a poem by Jean Molinet a ...

'', set by Josquin des Prez as part of his renowned motet ''La déploration sur la mort de Johannes Ockeghem''. Of other contemporary composers, both

Antoine Busnois Antoine Busnois (also Busnoys; – before 6 November 1492) was a French composer, singer and poet of early Renaissance music. Busnois and colleague Johannes Ockeghem were the leading European composers of the second half the 15th century, and ...

and

Loyset Compère Loyset Compère ( – 16 August 1518) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. Of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, he was one of the most significant composers of motets and chansons of that era, and one of the first musicians ...

carried on correspondence with him. Historian

Johan Huizinga Johan Huizinga (; 7 December 1872 – 1 February 1945) was a Dutch historian and one of the founders of modern cultural history. Life Born in Groningen as the son of Dirk Huizinga, a professor of physiology, and Jacoba Tonkens, who died two y ...

quotes some anti-clerical lines of Molinet's from a series of wishes for the New Year: "Let us pray God that the Jacobins/May eat the Augustinians,/And that the Carmelites may be hanged/With the cords of the Minorites."Johann Huizinga, ''The Waning of the Middle Ages'' (New York: Anchor Books 1989) p. 179

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Molinet, Jean 1435 births 1507 deaths People from Pas-de-Calais French chroniclers 16th-century French historians French poets Renaissance composers French male poets Male classical composers French male non-fiction writers