RABELAIS, Ta'b'-11)!, FRANcOIS ( c.1490 c.1553). A great French satirist and humorist, born at Chinon, in Touraine. Rabelais's life is surrounded by legend. Even the year of his birth and the occupation of his father are matters of doubt, like the year of his death and his burial.
place. The year traditionally assigned to his birth is that of Luther (1483). Sonic recent biographers put it in 1495, though others, fol lowing De Thou, prefer 1490, a date which of fers, perhaps, least intrinsic difficulty. His father is said by some to have been an innkeeper, or vintner, by others an apothecary. Tradition records that Rabelais went when lie was nine years old to a convent school at Seuille, near Chinon, and that he passed thence to a similar school at La Basnette, near Angers, where he seems to have made the acquaintance of the three Du Bollay brothers and of Geoffroy d'Estis sac, afterwards Bishop of Maillezais. He prob ably passed either from Seuilld or La Basnette to the Monastery of Fontenay-le-Comte, a Francis can house in Poitou, where he apparently was advanced to the priesthood; for we find his name on a legal document dated April 5, 1519, among those of some 12 prominent members of the mon astery. ITe seems to have read and studied here after the omnivorous fashion of the Renaissance, certainly in French, Latin, and Greek, possibly in Hebrew and Arabic. His scholarship gained him the friendly patronage of the Bishop of Mail lezais, of the distinguished scholar Budanis, and of some influential lawyers. With Bud:cus he and a monk, Pierre Amy, corresponded in Latin. and Greek, and fragments of their letters indicate that the other monks took offense at their studies and annoyed them so much that they left the convent, and doubtless the Franciscan habit, and sought the protection of the Bishop of Mail lezais, through whom, possibly by the interven tion of Cardinal du Bellay, Rabelais obtained from Clement VII., about 1524, permission to go over to the more scholarly Benedictines. He en tered the abbey at Maillezais and soon became the table companion of Bishop Geoffroy d'Estis sac, at whose chliteau he was a frequent guest for long periods. But lie seems to have grown restless, to have abandoned the abbey, his Bene dictine habit, and his patron, and to have gone as a secular priest possibly to Paris and probably to Lyons. On September 17. 1530, we have record a. of Rabelais's matriculation in the faculty of ip medicine at He took his baccalau reate degree December 1st of that year, and lec tured in 1531 at Montpellier on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates Art of Medicine. We have his own testimony (Pantagruel, iii. 34) that he took part in an academic comedy. In No vember, 1531, he was appointed physician at the Hate] Dieu of Lyons, but he did not take his doctor's degree till 1537.
At Lyons he seems to have begun publication, dividing his attention between medicine and law. At the same time his humor was finding expres sion in popular almanacs. Of these he issued between 1532 and 1550 sonic 18. The under lying purpose appears to have been to mock the astrologers and their art. One of these, the Prognostication Pantagrucline, suggests in its title the name of his most famous work, Pantagrucl, of which the present Book ii. ap peared at least as early as 1533. He appears to have revamped also a local Touranian legend of the giant Gargantua, an elaboration of which afterwards served him as prelude to his master piece. This new Gargantua probably dates from 1534. Early in that year Rabelais'accompanied Cardinal du Bellay to Rome, where lie spent three months and gathered materials published by Marliani in September. 1534, as a Topographic de Rome, preceded by a dedicatory letter from Rabelais to the Cardinal du Bellay in which he speaks of travels in Italy. He was in Rome
again from July, 1535, to March. 1536, and lost his place in the Lyons hospital in consequence of his absence. He corresponded diligently during this second Italian sojourn with the Bishop of Maillezais on matters of horticulture, politics, and Roman gossip, but chiefly concerning his et fo•ts to secure from the Pope an indulgence to resume the Benedictine dress and to practice medicine, excluding surgery. This indulgence was granted him by Paul 111, on January 18, 1536, in view of his "zeal for religion, knowledge of literature, and probity of life and morals," grounds on which Rabelais dwells with much complacency. It was on this visit to Italy that Rabelais procured seeds of the melon artichoke and carnation which he was first to introduce to France and so to England. There seems reason to place at about this time the death of Th6o doule Rabelais, "a child of two months," of whom Francois seems to have been the father. On his return from Italy Rabelais visited Paris and shared in a banquet in honor of the printer and humanist Dolet, who afterwards (1546) suffered death for his freethinking. On May 22, 1537, Rabelais took his doctorate at Montpellier and lectured there later in that year on Hippocrates. In 1540 he was granted a further indulgence by Paul III., passed a brief time with the canons of Saint-Maur-les-Foss6s, but soon took up a wan dering life again, for we find him in July, 1541, at Turin. A work by him on military art writ ten in Latin about this time was translated into French by Massuau and published in 1542 as Stratag6nes. Neither original nor translation exists. His protector, Guillaume du Bellay, Seigneur de Langey and brother of the Cardinal du Bellay, dying in 1543, bequeathed him "fifty livres tournois a year until his heirs shall have provided him or caused him to receive prefer ment in the Church to the value of 300 livres tournois annually." On September 19. 1545, Francis 1. granted Rabelais a permit for the third book (properly the second) of Pantagruel, showing that Gargantua was then accounted the first and the original Puntagruel the second book. Dolet's death in the next year seems to have frightened Rabelais. He took refuge at Metz, where in 1547 we find him employed as a physician by the city. In 1548 Cardinal du Bel lay sent for him to come to Rome, where Rabelais wrote a description of the great fCte organized by the Cardinal to celebrate the birth of Louis, Duke of Orleans. This was published in 1549 as La seiomaehie et festins faits a Rome, etc. Soon after Du Bellay's return to France (January 18, 1550) Rabelais was nominated CurC• of Meudon, and being assured of royal favor, he published the fourth book of his romance, taking the precau tion, however, first to resign (January 9, 1552) his curacies at Meudon and Jambet. The book fell, however, under the censorship of the Parle ment. The brief remainder of Rabelais's life is wholly obscure. He probably died in 1553 in Paris (others say Meudon). An early biog rapher, Colletet, says he was buried in the cemetery of Saint Paul's Parish. P:r•is. What purported to be a continuation of Gargantua et Pantagruel appeared in 1562 separately as L'Ile Sonnante, and in 1567 was incorporated with the rest as a fifth hook. A recension of this fifth book, differing considerably from the others and bearing the date [549, was discovered in 1900. Some regard it as genuine. Others recall that about that time Rabelais obtained a royal injunc tion against spurious works issued in his name and think this may be one of them. Parts of it are worthy of him.