established by 1341. The Leys went through successive stages, in both prose and verse.
The final stage, in three prose books, was published by Anglade. The first volume is a
history of the founding of the Consistòri, combined with a treatise on ethics (the nature of
God and love, the moral virtues); the second and third include an extensive grammar
(phonology, morphology, syntax, with some poetic samples) and an art of poetry
(versification, rhymes, and numerous examples of the principal literary genres). The
influence of the Leys was extensive, well into the 16th century, particularly in Catalonia,
and it is credited with keeping Occitan alive as a poetic medium until the end of the
Middle Ages.
William W.Kibler
[See also: DIDACTIC LITERATURE (OCCITAN); TROUBADOUR POETRY]
Anglade, Joseph, ed. Las leys d’Amors. 4 vols. Toulouse, 1919–20.
Lafont, R. “Les Leys d’Amors et la mutation de la conscience occitane.” Revue des langues
romanes 77 (1966):13–59.
LIMUISIS, GILLES
(Gilles Li Muisit, 1272–1353). Chronicler and poet. Born into a powerful middle-class
family from Tournai, Gilles Li Muisis entered the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Martin
in Tournai as a novice in 1289; he later served as its seventeenth abbot. According to
some accounts, Gilles studied at the University of Paris. In 1300, he accompanied the
abbot Gilles de Warnave to Rome on the occasion of the great pardon instituted by
Boniface VIII. Elected abbot of Saint-Martin in 1331, Gilles restored discipline and
financial stability to the institution. When blindness overcame him in his late seventies,
he dictated his memoirs to Jacques Muevin, his successor. Two cataract operations
performed in 1351 restored Gilles’s eyesight but hastened his demise.
In his Latin prose chronicles, four volumes of Tractatus, Gilles documents his years at
Saint-Martin and his first-hand knowledge of Tournai and the county of Flanders. His
Méditations, a didactic poem composed in French, is a survey of the worldly estates
designed to correct the vices of clerical and lay readers. It shows the influence of the
Reclus de Molliens and the Roman de la Rose, read as a satire of contemporary manners
and customs.
Lori Walters
[See also: ÉTIENNE DE FOUGÈRES; LE MOTE, JEAN DE; RECLUS DE
MOLLIENS]
Li Muisis, Gilles. Poésies de Gilles Le Muisis, ed. Joseph M.B.C. Kervyn de Lettenhove. 2 vols.
Louvain: Lefever, 1882.
Badel, Pierre-Yves. Le roman de la Rose au XIVe siècle: étude de la réception de l’œuvre. Geneva:
Droz, 1980, pp. 74–82.
D’Haenens, Albert. “Gilles li Muisis historien.” Revue bénédictine 69 (1959):258–86.
Guenée, Bernard. Between Church and State: The Lives of Four French Prelates in the Late Middle
Ages, trans. Arthur Gold-hammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Langlois, Charles-Victor. La vie en France au moyen âge de la fin du XIIe au milieu du XIVe
siècle. 4 vols. Paris: Hachette, 1926–28, Vol. 2: D’après des moralistes du temps, pp. 321–73.
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