Jean de Meun

Jean de Meun (also Jean de Meung), born around 1240 in Meung-sur-Loire and died around 1305 in Paris, was one of the leading writers in Old French of the thirteenth century. He is remembered chiefly for the second part of the Roman de la Rose, a long allegorical poem on love whose first part was written by Guillaume de Lorris. The work matters both for its literary craft and for its sharp portrait of the society of its day.

Tradition holds that he studied at the University of Paris, and much of his life was spent in that city, where he owned a house with a tower, courtyard and garden on the Rue Saint-Jacques. Like his contemporary Rutebeuf, he sided with Guillaume de Saint-Amour and was a harsh critic of the mendicant orders. He later said that in his youth he had written songs that were sung in public squares and schools across France. He also translated Latin works, most notably Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy.

His continuation of the Roman, which runs to some 19,000 lines, is usually dated between 1268 and 1285, though some scholars place it at the close of the century. Where Guillaume had celebrated courtly love, Jean adopts a mocking, skeptical tone, attacking monastic orders, celibacy, the nobility, the papacy and royal pretensions, and reserving his sharpest passages for women and marriage. His encyclopedic learning, his citations from classical authors and his precise command of French brought him fame, but also drew criticism from figures such as Guillaume de Deguileville, Jean Gerson and Christine de Pisan, who accused him of misogyny.

He also rendered Vegetius's military treatise into French in 1284 and produced a French version of the letters of Abelard and Heloise. His legacy lies in the influence he exerted on later poetry: Chaucer translated part of the poem into Middle English, and the Roman de la Rose became one of the most widely read works of the late Middle Ages.