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GRINGOIRE (or GRINGORE), PIERRE (c. 1...

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 606 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GRINGOIRE (or GRINGORE), See also:PIERRE (c. 148o-1539)  , See also:French poet and dramatist, was See also:born about the See also:year 1480, probably at See also:Caen . In his first See also:work, Le Chasteau de labour (1499), a didactic poem in praise of See also:diligence, he narrates the troubles following on See also:marriage . A See also:young couple are visited by Care, Need, Discomfort, '&c.; and other personages See also:common to See also:medieval allegories take See also:part in the See also:action . In See also:November 1501 See also:Gringoire was in See also:Paris directing the See also:production of a See also:mystery See also:play in See also:honour of the See also:archduke See also:Philip of See also:Austria, and in subsequent years he received many similar commissions . The fraternity of the Enfans sans Souci advanced him to the dignity of See also:Mere Sotte and afterwards to the highest honour of the gild, that of See also:Prince See also:des Sots . For twenty years Gringoire seems to have been at the See also:head of this illustrious confrerie . As Prince des Sots he exercised an extraordinary See also:influence . At no See also:time was the See also:stage, See also:rude and coarse as it was, more popular as a true exponent of the popular mind . Gringoire's success See also:lay in the fact that he followed, but did not See also:attempt to See also:lead; on his stage the See also:people saw exhibited their passions, their judgments of the moment, their jealousies, their hatreds and their ambitions . Brotherhoods of the See also:kind existed all over See also:France . In Paris there were the 1 Enfans sans Souci, the Basochiens, the Confrerie de la See also:Passion and the Souverain See also:Empire de See also:Galilee; at See also:Dijon there were the Mere Folle and her See also:family; in See also:Flanders the Societe des Arbaletriers played comedies; at See also:Rouen the Cornards or Conards yielded to none in vigour and fearlessness of See also:satire . On Shrove Tuesday 1512 Gringoire, who was the accredited defender of the policy of See also:Louis XII., and had already written many See also:political poems, represented the Jeu du Prince des Sots et Mere Sotte .

It was at the moment when the French dispute with See also:

Julius II. was at its height . Mere Sotte was disguised as the See also:Church, and disputed the question of the temporal See also:power with the prince . The political meaning was even more thinly veiled in the second part of the entertainment, a morality named L'Homme obstine, the See also:principal personage representing the See also:pope . The performance concluded with a See also:farce . Gringoire adopted for his See also:device on the See also:frontispiece of this trilogy, Tout See also:par Raison, Raison par Tout, Par tout Raison . He has been called the Aristophane des Halles . In one respect at least he resembles See also:Aristophanes . He is serious in his merriment; there is purpose behind his extravagances . The Church was further attacked in a poem printed about 1510, La See also:Chasse dv cerf des cerfs (serf des See also:serfs, i.e. servus servorum), under which See also:title that of the pope is thinly veiled . About 1514 he wrote his mystery of the See also:Vie de Monseigneur See also:Saint-Louis par personnages in nine books for the confrerie of the masons and carpenters . He became in 1518 See also:herald at the See also:court of See also:Lorraine, with the title of Vaudemont, and married See also:Catherine See also:Roger, a See also:lady of See also:gentle See also:birth . During the last twenty years of a See also:long See also:life he became orthodox, and dedicated a Blason des heretiques to the See also:duke of Lorraine .

There is no See also:

record of the See also:payment of his See also:salary as a herald after See also:Christmas 1538, so that he died probably in 1539 . His See also:works were edited by C. d'Hericault and A. de Montaiglon for the Bibliotheque elzevirienne in 1858 . This edition was incomplete, and was supplemented by a second See also:volume in 1877 by Montaiglon and M . See also:James de See also:Rothschild . These volumes include the works already mentioned, except Le Chasteau de labour, and in addition, See also:Les Folles Entreprises (1505), a collection of didactic and satirical poems, chiefly ballades and rondeaux, one See also:section of which is devoted to the exposition of the tyranny of the nobles, and another to the vices of the See also:clergy; L'Entreprise de Venise (c . 1509), a poem in seven-lined stanzas, giving a See also:list of the Venetian fortresses which belonged, according to Gringoire, to other See also:powers; L'Espoir de paix (1st ed. not dated; another, 1510), a See also:verse See also:treatise on the deeds of " certain popes of See also:Rome," dedicated to Louis XII.; and La Coqueluche (1510), a verse description of an epidemic, apparently See also:influenza . For details of his other satires, Les Abus du monde (1509), Complainte de trop See also:Lard See also:marie, Les Fantasies du monde qui regne; of his religious verse, Chants royaux (on the Passion, 1527), Heures de Notre See also:Dame (1525); and a collection of tales in See also:prose and verse, taken from the Gesta Romanorum, entitled Les Fantasies de Mere Sotte (1516), see G . See also:Brunet, See also:Manuel du libraire (s.v . Gringore) . Most of Gringoire's works conclude with an See also:acrostic giving the name of the author . The Chasteau de labour was translated into See also:English by See also:Alexander See also:Barclay and printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1506 . Barclay's See also:translation was edited (1905) with his See also:original for the See also:Roxburghe See also:Club by Mr A .

W . See also:

Pollard,who provided an See also:account of Gringoire, and a bibliography of the See also:book . See also, for the Jeu du Prince des Sots, See also:Petit de Julleville, La Comedie et les mceurs en France au moyen See also:age, pp . 151-168 (Paris, 1886); for Saint Louis, the same author's Les Mysteres, i . 331 et seq., ii . 583-597 (1880), with further See also:bibliographical references; and E . Picot, Gringore et les comediens italiens (1877) . The real Gringoire cannot be said to have many points of resemblance with the poet described in See also:Victor See also:Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, nor is there more See also:foundation in fact for the one-See also:act prose See also:comedy of See also:Theodore de See also:Banville .

End of Article: GRINGOIRE (or GRINGORE), PIERRE (c. 148o-1539)
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