——. History of the Franks, trans. Lewis Thorpe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.
James, Edward. The Franks. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.
Wallace-Hadrill, J.M. The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in Frankish History. London:
Methuen, 1962, chap. 7.
Wood, Ian. The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751. London: Longman, 1994.
MESCHINOT, JEAN
(ca. 1420–91). Born in the region of Nantes, this soldier-poet has been characterized as a
“Grand Rhétoriqueur Breton,” belying the theory that such poets came from humble
origins. An impoverished nobleman, Meschinot served five dukes of Brittany, notably
Pierre II and Arthur III, although he was official poet for François II, celebrating his
marriage with Isabelle de Foix in 1471. His political poetry, in particular twenty-five
ballades against Louis XI exchanged with Georges Chastellain at the time of the Guerre
du Bien Publique, shows him to have been a poète engagé. His principal work, the
Lunettes des princes (1461–65), is not, as has been suggested, a breviary for princes but
rather a meditation on spiritual salvation for the noble soul, every human’s most precious
possession, regardless of station in life. The spectacles (lunettes) in question are given to
the poet by Reason in order better to read a book on Conscience she gives him. This
poem of 3,076 verses with a short prose interlude consists of a brief autobiographical
opening and the poet’s long dialogue with the four cardinal virtues: Prudence,
Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice. It reflects the late-medieval taste for miroirs and
parements but perhaps also the popularity of the earlier Traité des quatre vertus by the
Pseudo-Seneca (Martin of Braga). Boethius is an immediate source for the poet’s
reflections. Although little-read today, the Lunettes is preserved in four manuscripts, and
twenty-two editions printed between 1493 and 1539.
Charity Cannon Willard
[See also: CHASTELLAIN, GEORGES; GRANDS RHÉTORIQUEURS; JARDIN
DE PLAISANCE ET FLEUR DE RÉTHORIQUE]
Meschinot, Jean. Les lunettes des princes, ed. Christine Martineau-Génieys. Geneva: Droz, 1972.
Champion, Pierre. Histoire poérique du XVe siècle. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1923, Vol. 2, pp. 189–
238.
La Borderie, Arthur de. “Jean Meschinot, sa vie et ses œuvres.” Bibliothèque de l’École des
Chartes 56(1895):99–140, 274–317, 601–38.
MÉTAYER/MÉTAYAGE
. Mérayage is the agricultural regime apparently imported from Italy that became
increasingly predominant in the French Midi in the later Middle Ages; it is comparable
with fermage in the north. Small plots (fields, gardens, orchards, vineyards), medium-
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