The Weekly Sage hopes to regularly bring brief profiles of key contributors to thought and faith before a Christian audience for historical education and awareness of valuable resources.

Francois Rabelais

• “Summarily exposing to you about this year what I’ve been able to extract from the authors in the field, Arab and Latin, we shall begin this year to feel part of the infelicity of the conjunction of Saturn and Mars…So that in this year will come only machinations, carryings-on, bases, and seeds of the unhappiness to follow. If we have good weather, that will be beyond the promise of the stars; if peace, that will not be for lack of inclination and enterprise for war, but for lack of opportunity. That’s what they say. For my part, I say that if the Christian kings, princes, and communities hold in reverence the divine Word of God and according to that govern themselves and their subjects, then never in our time did we see a year more salubrious for bodies, more peaceful for souls, than this one will be”.[1]
• “Who tells you that white means faith and blue firmness? A paltry book, one which is sold by peddlers and book salesmen, with the title The Blazon of Colors. Who composed it? Whoever it was, he was prudent in this, that he did not put his name to it. For the rest, I don’t know which I should marvel at first in him, his arrogance or his stupidity: his arrogance, which without reason, cause, or likelihood, dared to prescribe by his personal authority what things would be denoted by colors, which is the practice of tyrants wanting their will to take the place of reason, not of the wise and learned who by reason satisfy the readers; his stupidity, which considered that, without other demonstrations and worthwhile arguments, people would regulate their devices by his doltish propositions.”[2]

Francois Rabelais (1494? – 1553) was a French man of letters and Renaissance figure whose writings and ideas had a significant impact in his own day and down through the centuries. A classical scholar of great learning, Rabelais was nevertheless a stylistic innovator of impressive breadth, with a deft touch in dialogue and description. As such, he certainly earned the sage title; despite the distance between much of his material and the familiar elements of today’s society, his style of humor and critique parallels the tone of current cultural commentary.

While little is known about Rabelais’ youth, he was born in France, and his father was a lawyer, allowing Francois to access the upper circles of medieval society and the corresponding benefits, such as education. Nevertheless, without a noble pedigree, a political career was not likely in Rabelais’ future, and he entered the Franciscan order instead.

As a novice, Francois was able to pursue extensive studies in classical languages, science, and law, allowing him to engage with the scholars and thinkers of his day. Nevertheless, he was compelled to carry his learning even further, moving first to the Benedictine order, then engaging in medical studies at universities in Poitiers and Montpellier. Rabelais practiced as a physician in Lyon, additionally translating ancient physicians such as Galen and Hippocrates and engaging in experimentation.

Having achieved significant knowledge of ancient and current sources, as well as significant written practice through extensive correspondence, Rabelais commenced his main literary contribution, Gargantua and Pantagruel. These groups of stories appeared in multiple books under different names and engaged a very witty, satiric, unconventional style. Rabelais used many unique literary devices that create a humorous effect. Long lists, whether of insults, professions, or military implements, break up the narrative, as do significant digressions and interspersed mini-tales. An overwhelming flood of allusions and references to classical authors and historical figures serves to critique medieval Scholasticism while demonstrating the extent of Rabelais’ own learning.

The tales themselves focus on a pair of giants, father and son, along with a band of companions, who engage in fantastic and exaggerated adventures. Vanquishing armies by swinging ship’s masts, catching deer on foot, and engaging in academic disputations by gestures alone, these heroes nevertheless appear surprisingly ordinary. To the reader that may expect models of Christian ethical behavior, Rabelais’ writing presents a sharp shock. Further, Gargantua, Pantagruel, and their friends are primarily concerned with the basic details of life – eating, drinking, and partying their way through their journeys. This leads them to embrace very material and worldly desires, rather than embracing the life of virtue.

This literary naturalism and realism is one reason why Rabelais is considered to have been an important figure in the development of modern Western writing. Indeed, in his correspondence with other humanists of his day, Francois embraced a criticism of the present day, promoting the classical period of learning and accomplishment, as did many of the leading thinkers of the Renaissance. This approach to his contemporaries was born out in Gargantua and Pantagruel, as various representative figures stand in for their professions and display the foolishness Rabelais attributes to the entire group. The monks quarrel and fight, the judges decide cases by throwing dice, the philosophers err and jest, the doctors produce clearly hopeless remedies, and the kings war constantly.

However, while assessing his time rather harshly, Rabelais occasionally lets a ray of hope shine through. The choppy lines of sayings, quips, and insults are interrupted by a paragraph or two extolling the harmony that a virtuous prince can bring, or the joy of learning. This combination of hope and bitterness combined in Rabelais to produce significant humor. I often found myself laughing out loud over page after page of the works’ best moments.

While some objectionable content and perspectives flow from Rabelais’ rejection of the Christian consensus of the High Middle Ages, his irritation appears to me only to have led him as far as Christian humanism, rather than a more revolutionary radicalism. As a result, Francois was able to retain the patronage of the powerful King Francis I of France until that ruler passed away in 1547. After that, the French cultural establishment frowned on Rabelais’ work, and publication was suspended, a final frustration before his death in 1553. Having left an impact on the letters of his age, Rabelais legacy has dwindled out of the popular domain today, but the joy of his style remains, hidden a bit by his constant battling against the Scholasticism he deplored.

• “A few days after they had refreshed themselves, he [Gargantua] looked over the town and was seen by everybody in great astonishment, for the populace of Paris is so stupid, so silly, and so inept by nature that a juggler, an indulgence peddler, a mule with its cymbals, a fiddler in the middle of a crossroads, will draw more people than would a good Evangelical preacher. And they followed him so annoyingly that he was constrained to take a rest upon the towers of Notre Dame….he considered the great bells that were in the said towers and made them ring most harmoniously. As he did, the thought came to him that they would make a very fine jingles for the neck of his mare, which he wanted to send back to his father loaded with Brie cheeses and fresh herring. In fact, he took them to his lodging….The whole town was stirred to an uproar, as you know they are so prone to be that foreign nations are amazed at the patience of the kings of France, who do not check them otherwise than by good justice, considering the disadvantages that come out of it from day to day. Would God I knew the workshop in which these schisms and plots are fabricated, so as to place them in evidence for the brotherhood of my parish!”[3]
• “My advice is that we call him [Pantagruel] and confer with him about this matter, for never will man get to the bottom of this if that man does not. To which all these councillors and doctors willingly consented. And so they sent for him immediately, and asked him to be good enough to canvas the case and scrutinize it thoroughly…and they delivered into his hands the briefsacks and documents, which made up almost a load for four stout [donkeys]. But Pantagruel said to them: ‘Gentlemen, are the two lords who have this lawsuit between them still alive?” To which he was answered ‘yes.’ ‘Then what the devil,’ said he, ‘is the use of all these tumblejumbles of papers and copies you’re handing me? Isn’t the best thing to hear their dispute by the spoken word rather than to read these babooneries, which are nothing but deceits, diabolical wiles of Cepola, and subversions of justice?…Furthermore, seeing that the laws are extracted from the milieu of moral and natural philosophy, how are these idiots to understand it who, by God, have studied less philosophy than my mule….Therefore, if you want me to take cognizance of this lawsuit, first of all have all these papers burned for me, and secondly have the two gentlemen come before me in person, and when I have heard them, I’ll tell you my opinion on this, without the slightest feigning or dissimulation.”[4]

[1] Francois Rabelais, “Almanac for 1535,” in The Complete Works of Francois Rabelais, trans. Donald M. Frame, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 761.

[2] Francois Rabelais, “Book 1: Gargantua,” in The Complete Works of Francois Rabelais, trans. Donald M. Frame, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 25.

[3] Ibid, 42-43.

[4] Francois Rabelais, “Book 2: Pantagruel,” in The Complete Works of Francois Rabelais, trans. Donald M. Frame, (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991), p. 168 – 169.