726 Villon, François
See alsoMANORS AND THE MANORIAL SYSTEM; PEAS-
ANTRY; PEASANT REBELLIONS; SERFS AND SERFDOM.
Further reading:Rodney H. Hilton, The English Peas-
antry in the Later Middle Ages(Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1975); George C. Homans, English Villagers of the Thir-
teenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1941); S. H. Rigby, English Society in the Later Mid-
dle Ages: Class, Status and Gender(London: Macmillan
Press, 1995).
Villon, François (ca. 1431–after 1463) Parisian lyric poet
François was born, perhaps, as François de Montcorbier
or François des Loges at PARISin 1431. In March of 1449
he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of
Paris and was made a master by that institution in 1452.
While drinking with some friends in 1455, he fought
with a member of the CLERGY, whom he stabbed to death.
This led to a temporary banishment, but he received a
pardon in January of 1456. He was implicated in a theft
at the Collège of NAVARREthat forced him to leave Paris.
He was condemned to hang in 1463 and finally banished
from Paris.
François disappeared from the historical record after
- Despite all this reputation for dissolute friends,
crime, and debauchery, he at the same time wrote memo-
rable and personal poetry famous for its compassion for
the suffering of humanity and regret for a wasted life. The
Testament(1461–62) explored DEATH. Villon dealt with
his failed love affairs, deception by women, his bungled
existence, POVERTYdecrepit old age, and dying. This all
parodied a typical written testament or last will.
Further reading:François Villon, Complete Works,
trans. Anthony Bonner (New York: D. McKay, 1960);
John H. Fox, The Poetry of Villon(London: T. Nelson,
1962); Stephen G. Nichols, “François Villon” in European
Writers: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance.Vol. 1, Pru-
dentius to Medieval Drama,ed. William T. H. Jackson and
George Stade (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983),
535–570; Evelyn Birge Vitz, The Crossroad of Intentions: A
Study of Symbolic Expression in the Poetry of François Vil-
lon(The Hague: Mouton, 1974).
Vincent of Beauvais(ca. 1190–1264)French Domini-
can, writer
Vincent was born about 1190 in Beauvais in FRANCE.As
a Dominican friar from 1220, Vincent of Beauvais was
the subprior of the convent of Beauvais founded in 1225
and a visitor at the nearby Cistercian abbey of Royau-
mont. There he became a close friend of its founder, the
king and Saint, LOUISIX. Under the patronage of the
king and his court, he wrote a treatise on the education
of noble children between 1247 and 1250, a letter of
consolation on the death of the king’s eldest son in 1260,
and a treatise on the proper conduct of a prince between
1260 and 1262.
Vincent’s most important work was the Speculum
maius(the great mirror), an encyclopedic collection in
three parts, Naturale, Doctrinale, and Historiale. He
wrote it in the 1240s and 1250s while moving between
Paris and Beauvais. A fourth section by another author
on moral questions was added later in the century. In it
Vincent tried to present in an organized manner the
totality of knowledge up to the time of his contempo-
rary Louis IX. He drew on all the written sources acces-
sible to him from antiquity to the present. This work
was intended to promote the study and understanding
of dogmatic teachings, assist in the instruction of
morals, and foster appropriate interpretations of the
BIBLE. In other words it was to direct the reader toward
REDEMPTION. Vincent incorporated much of the new
study of Aristotelian and Jewish-Arabic naturalPHILOS-
OPHYand the teaching of the Dominican and Franciscan
masters such as ALBERTUSMAGNUS, Thomas AQUINAS,
RAYMOND OF PEÑAFORT, and Alexander of Hales
(1170–1245). It amounted to an intellectual tool and a
collection and summary of mid-13th-century knowledge
and thought a compendium of HAGIOGRAPHY, history,
economics, ALCHEMY, and scientific knowledge in some
80 books. It survived in a large number of manuscripts
and was translated into French and Flemish. Vincent
died in Beauvais in 1264.
Further reading:W. J. Aerts, E. R. Smits, and J. B.
Voorbij, eds., Vincent of Beauvais and Alexander the Great:
Studies on the Speculum maius and Its Translations into
Medieval Vernaculars (Groningen: E. Forsten, 1986);
Astrik L. Gabriel, The Educational Ideas of Vincent of Beau-
vais(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,
1962); Joseph M. McCarthy, Humanistic Emphasis in the
Educational Thought of Vincent of Beauvais(Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1976); Rosemary Barton Tobin, Vincent of Beauvais’
“De eruditione filiorum nobelium”: The Education of Women
(New York: P. Lang, 1984).vines and vineyards In the ancient world viticulture
had attained a high degree of production and quality.
During the Middle Ages, WINEwas drunk widely in West-
ern Europe, especially in the south. In Christian worship
in the MASS, wine was used and consumed by the cele-
brant to represent symbolically, and controversially, the
actual substance of the blood of Christ. Since it was not
easy to transport and very perishable, wherever the cli-
mate permitted the cultivation of the grape was exten-
sive, from the 12th and 13th centuries, even in northern
countries such as England and in mountainous regions.
These marginal vineyards tended to be abandoned in the
14th century as the climate grew colder and population
and demand fell.
Viticulture in the Middle Ages did not require large
investments of time or financial resources. Peasants and
town dwellers cultivated and drank their own production,