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RUTEBEUF, or RUSTEBUEF (fl. 1245-1285)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 938 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RUTEBEUF, or RUSTEBUEF (fl. 1245-1285)  , See also:French irouvere, was See also:barn in the first See also:half of the 13th See also:century . His name is nowhere mentioned by his contemporaries . He. frequently plays in his See also:verse on the word See also:Rutebeuf, which was probably a nom de guerre, and is variously explained by him as derived from See also:rude &zuf and rude a;uvre . He was evidently of humble See also:birth, and he was a Parisian by See also:education and See also:residence . Paulin See also:Paris thought that he began See also:life in the lowest See also:rank of the See also:minstrel profession as a jongleur . Some of his poems have autobiographical value . In Le Mariage de Rutebeuf, he says that on the 2nd of See also:January 1261 he married a woman old and ugly, with neither See also:dowry nor amiability.' In the Complaints de Rutebeuf he details a See also:series of misfortunes which have reduced him to abject destitution . In these circumstances he addresses himself to See also:Alphonse, See also:comte de See also:Poitiers, See also:brother of See also:Louis IX., for See also:relief . Other poems in the same vein reveal that his own miserable circumstances were chiefly due to a love of See also:play, particularly a See also:game played with See also:dice; which was known as griesche . It would :seem that his See also:distress could not be due" to lack of patrons, for his metrical life of See also:Saint See also:Elizabeth of See also:Hungary was written by See also:request of See also:Erard de Valery, who wished to See also:present it to See also:Isabel, See also:queen of See also:Navarre; and he wrote elegies on the deaths of Anceau de 1'Isle See also:Adam, the third of the name, who died about 1251, Eude, comte de See also:Nevers (d . 1267), See also:Thibaut V. of Navarre (d . 1270), and Alphonse, comte de Poitiers (d .

1271), which were probably paid for by the families of the personages celebrated . In the Pauvrete de Rutebeuf he addresses Louis IX. himself . The piece which is most obviously intended for popular recitation is the Dit de l'Herberie, a dramatic See also:

monologue in See also:prose and verse supposed to be delivered by a See also:quack See also:doctor . Rutebeuf was ' also a See also:master in the verse See also:conte, and the five of his fabliaux that have come down to us are See also:gay and amusing . The See also:matter,' it may be added, is sufficiently See also:gross . The adventures of See also:Frere Denyse le cordelier, and of " la See also:dame qui alla trois fois autour du moaner," find a See also:place in the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles . Rutebeuf's serious See also:work as a satirist probably See also:dates from about• 1260 . His See also:chief topics are the iniquities of the friars, and the See also:defence of the See also:secular See also:clergy of the university of Paris against their encroachments; and he delivered a series of eloquent and insistent poems (1262, 1263, 1268, 1274) exhorting princes' and See also:people to take See also:part in the See also:crusades . He was a redoubtable See also:champion of the university of Paris in its See also:quarrel with the religious orders who were supported by See also:Pope See also:Alexander IV., and he boldly defended See also:Guillaume de Saint-Amour when he was driven into See also:exile . The libels, indecent songs and rhymes condemned by the pope to be burnt together with the Perils See also:des derniers temps attributed to Saint-Amour, were probably the work of Rutebeuf . The See also:satire of Renart le Bestourne, which borrows from the Reynard See also:cycle little but the names under which the characters are disguised, was directed, according to Paulin Paris, against See also:Philip the Bold . To his later years belong his religious poems, and also the Voie de Paradis, the description of a See also:dream, in the manner of the See also:Roman de la See also:Rose .

The best work of Rutebeuf is to be found in his satires and verse conies . A See also:

miracle play of his, Le Miracle de See also:Theophile, is one of the earliest dramatic pieces extant in French . The subject of See also:Theophilus, the Cilician See also:monk who made a pact with the See also:devil, which was afterwards returned to him by the intervention of the Virgin, was a See also:familiar one with the See also:story-tellers of the See also:middle ages . Rutebeuf can claim no priority in the choice of the subject, which had been treated dramatically in the Latin piece ascribed to the See also:nun Hroswitha of See also:Gandersheim, but his piece has considerable importance in dramatic See also:history . The Euvres of Rutebeuf were edited by Achille Jubinal in 1839 (new edition, 1874) ; a more See also:critical edition is by Dr Adolf Kressner ' It has been suggested that Brunetto See also:Latini was thinking of Rutebeuf when he wrote in his Li',re du Tresor: " Le Rire, le jeu, voila la See also:vie du jongleur, qui se moque de lui-mcme, de sa femme, de ses enfants, de tout le monde." (Rusiebuef's Gedichte; Wolfenbiittel, 1885) . See also the See also:article by Paulin Paris in Hist. lilt. de la See also:France (1842), vol. xx. pp . 719-83, and Rutebeuf (1891), by M . See also:Leon Cledat, in the Grands Ecrivains See also:francais Series .

End of Article: RUTEBEUF, or RUSTEBUEF (fl. 1245-1285)
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