Rabelais, François Page 1 of 2

Rabelais, François
(b nr Chinon, 1494; d nr Paris [?St Maur], 1553 or 1554). French novelist and
physician. During the 1520s he was in turn a member of Franciscan and
Benedictine orders in Poitou. He studied Greek with the encouragement of
Budé and acquired a reputation as a scholarly humanist. Having abandoned
monastic life, he graduated in medicine at Montpellier University in 1530,
receiving the doctorate there in 1537. He had settled in Lyons by 1532 when
he was appointed physician at the municipal hospital and edited medical
studies by Hippocrates and Manardi. The humanist Cardinal Jean Du Bellay
took Rabelais to Rome as his personal physician in 1534 and 1535–6, and
between 1540 and 1543 Rabelais attended the cardinal’s brother, Guillaume
Du Bellay, governor of Piedmont.
Rabelais published Pantagruel, the first of his novels, in 1532 and the second,
Gargantua, followed in 1534. The third book of the saga was published in 1546
and part of the fourth two years later; like their predecessors these were
censured by the Sorbonne, but the author avoided persecution by fleeing to
Metz, rejoining Jean Du Bellay in Rome in 1549. Rabelais spent his last years
near Paris, probably at the abbey of St Maur-les-Fossés, where he had held a
canonry since 1536. The fourth book was completed by 1552, but the fifth
book (1562–4) was probably expanded posthumously from a rough draft.
Rabelais’ five novels abound in musical description and imagery used for
rhetorical effect and witty characterization. Innumerable instruments are
mentioned: the bagpipe, shawm, flute, organ and drum are used as physical
and often erotic symbols; the strings (lute, harp, spinet, viol) characterize
nobility, while trumpets, fifes and drums relate to military and important events.
The fifth book includes a list of incipits from 175 dance-songs, 159 of them in
the collection of 184 entitled S’ensuyvent plusieurs basses dances tant
communes que incommunes published in Lyons in the 1530s. Vocal music
also figures prominently, with refrains and quotations from noëls and popular
chansons used in contemporary theatre, made familiar through polyphonic
versions published by Petrucci, Antico, Attaingnant and Moderne. In the
‘Nouveau prologue’ to the fourth book Rabelais listed 58 of the most
distinguished composers of his time. These he divided into two generations,
the first including Ockeghem, Obrecht, Josquin, Agricola, Brumel, Mouton,
Compère, Févin, Richafort, Conseil, Festa and Berchem, and the second
including Willaert, Gombert, Janequin, Arcadelt, Sermisy, Certon, Manchicourt,
Villiers, Sandrin, Sohier, Hesdin, Morales, Passereau, Jacotin, Verdelot and
Carpentras. The first of these groups sings ‘melodiously’ a lascivious
épigramme by Mellin de Saint-Gelais, ‘Grand Tibault se voulant coucher’,
which was already known through a four-voice setting by Janequin published
in 1543. The younger group sings ‘daintily’ a much shorter but equally ribald
épigramme, ‘S'il est ainsi que coignée sans manche’, of which a four-voice
setting by Vassal appeared in the same 1543 volume. It is clear that the author
was familiar with other chansons by Janequin, since he cited or punned from
several, including La Guerre, as well as making similar references to songs by
Josquin, Compère and Le Heurteur.
Rabelais' musical knowledge is clear from his description of Gargantua's
musical education; his theoretical knowledge is also demonstrated in his many
puns on the gamut as well as in his descriptions of the ‘Chessboard Ballet’ and
the ‘Minim Friars’ (book 5, chapters 24–7). However, whereas Carpenter
(1954) claimed that the ubiquity of musical reference and the particular satirical

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Rabelais, François Page 2 of 2

references to plainchant and polyphony were a reaction to Rabelais'

unpleasant experiences as a choirboy and monk, McMasters interpreted his
imagery as the embodiment of the carnivalesque and the quest for a ‘humanist
utopia’.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Machabey: ‘Rabelais et la musique’, BSIM, ix/8 (1913), 26–35
C. van den Borren: ‘Rabelais et la musique’, Académie royale de Belgique:
bulletin de la classe des beaux-arts, xxiv (1942), 78–111
N.C. Carpenter: ‘Rabelais and the Chanson’, Publications of the Modern
Language Association, lxv (1950), 1212–32
N.C. Carpenter: Rabelais and Music (Chapel Hill, 1954)
M.A. Screech: Rabelais (London, 1979)
T.C. McMasters: Music in Gargantua and Pantagruel (diss., Ohio U., 1993)
FRANK DOBBINS

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