FABLIAU. The entertaining tales in eight-syllable rhymed verse which form a marked section of French mediaeval literature are called fabliaux, the word being derived by Lithe from fablel, a diminutive of fable. It is a mistake to suppose, as is frequently done, that every legend of the middle ages is a fabliau. In a poem of the 12th century a clear distinction is drawn between songs of chivalry, war or love, and fabliaux, which are recitals of laughter. A fabliau always related an event ; it was usually brief, containing not more than 400 lines ; it was neither sentimental, religious nor supernatural, but comic and gay. About 15o fabliaux have come down to us more or less intact ; a vast number have doubtless dis appeared. As early as the 8th century fabliaux must have ex isted, since the faithful are forbidden to take pleasure in these fabulas manes by the Paenitentiale of Egbert. But the earliest surviving fabliau is that of Richeut, which dates from 11S9. This is a rough and powerful study of the coarse life of the day, with little plot, but engaged with a realistic picture of manners. Such poems, but of a more strictly narrative nature, continued to be produced, mainly in the north and north=east of France, until the middle of the 14th century. It does not seem probable that any ancient or exotic influences were brought to bear upon the French jongleurs, who simply invented or adapted stories of that uni versal kind which springs unsown from every untilled field of human society. More remarkable than the narratives themselves is the spirit in which they are told. This is full of the national humour and the national irony, the true esprit gaulois. A very large section of these popular poems deals satirically with the pretensions of the clergy. There are also tales whose purpose is rather voluptuous than witty, and whose aim is to excuse liber tinage and render marriage ridiculous. Among these are promi nent Court Mantel and Le Dit de Berenger. Yet another class re peated, with a strain of irony or oddity, such familiar classical stories as those of Narcissus, and Pyramus and Thisbe.
The object of the writers was the immediate amusement of their audience; by reference to familiar things, they hoped to arouse a quick and genuine merriment. Hence in the fabliaux we get closer than elsewhere to the living diction of mediaeval France. Such scholars as Gaston Paris and Paul Meyer have praised, in the general laxity of style and garrulity of the middle ages, the terseness of the jongleurs; in the period of false orna ment, their fidelity to nature; in a time of general vagueness, the sharp and picturesque outlines of their art. One feature of the fabliaux, however, cannot be praised and yet must not be over looked. In no other section of the world's literature is the scorn and hatred of women so prominent. It is difficult to account for the anti-feminine rage which pervades the fabliaux, and takes hideous shapes in such examples as Le Valet aux deux femmes, Le Pecheur de Pont-sur-Seine and Chiclie f ace et Bigorne. Prob ably this was a violent reaction against the extravagant cult of woman as expressed in the contemporary lais as well as in the legends of saints. We must remember, too, that those who listened were not nobles or clerks, they were the common people. The fa bliaux were fabellae ignobilium, little stories told to amuse persons of low degree, who were irritated by the moral pretensions of their superiors.
The names of about 20 of the authors of fabliaux have been preserved, although in most cases nothing is known of their personal history. The most famous is the man whose name, or more probably pseudonym, was Rutebeuf. He wrote Frere Denyse and Le Sacristain, while to him is attributed the Dit d'Aristote, in the course of which Aristotle gives good advice to Alexander. Fabliaux, however, form but a small part of the work of Rute beuf, who was a satirical poet of wide accomplishment and varied energy. Henri d'Andeli was an ecclesiastic, attached, it is sup posed, to the cathedral of Rouen. Jean de Conde, who flourished in the court of Hainaut from 1310 to 1340, and who is the latest of the genuine writers of fabliaux, lived in comfort and security, but most of the professional jongleurs seem to have spent their years in a Bohemian existence, wandering among the clergy and the merchant class, alternately begging for money and food and reciting their mocking verses.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The principal authorities for the fabliaux areBibliography.-The principal authorities for the fabliaux are Anatole de Montaiglon and Gaston Raynaud, who published the text, in 6 vols., between 1872 and 1890. This edition supplemented he works the labours of Meon (1808-23) and Jubinal (1839-4) of Henri d'Andeli were edited by A. Heron in 188o, and those of Rutebeuf by Leon Cledat in 1891. See also the editions of separate fabliaux by Gaston Paris, Paul Meyer, Ebeling, August Scheler and other modern scholars. Joseph Bedier s Les Fabliaux (1925) is a useful summary of critical opinion on the subject.