Jean Lemaire de Belges

The recorded working language is Middle French and medieval Latin. Works named in the authority record are La plainte du desiré, Les regretz de la dame infortunee, La chronique de 1507, La légende des Vénitiens, Carnet de notes and Des anciennes pompes funeralles.

• Name — Jean Lemaire de Belges • Born — c. 1473 • Birthplace — Belges, Wallonia (modern-day Belgium) • Died — c. 1524 • Occupation — Poet, historian • Language — French • Notable Works — Illustrations de Gaule et singularités de Troie • Movement — French Renaissance

Jean was born in Hainaut (Hainault), the godson and possibly a nephew of Jean Molinet, and spent some time with him at Valenciennes, where the elder writer held a kind of academy of poetry. In his first poems, Lemaire calls himself a disciple of Molinet. In certain aspects he does belong to the school of the grands rhétoriqueurs ("rhetoricians"), but his great merit as a poet is that he emancipated himself from the affectations of his masters. He perhaps owed this independence from the Flemish school in part to his studies at the University of Paris and to the study of the Italian poets at Lyon, a centre of the French Renaissance. In 1504 he was attached to the court of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, and afterwards Regent of the Netherlands. For Margaret he undertook more than one mission to Rome, where he came into contact with the culture of the Italian Renaissance; he became her librarian and a canon of Valenciennes. Jean's most original poems were addressed to Margaret: the burlesque Épîtres de l'amant vert, of 1505 (see 1505 in poetry). The amant vert (green lover) of the title is a green parrot belonging to his patroness. This latter piece was subsequently utilised in the sublimely melancholic Soubz ce tumbel (Within this tomb) by Pierre de la Rue. It is an intense elegiac farewell to Margaret's 'green lover'. Within this tomb, which is a harsh, locked cell, Lies the green lover, the very worthy slave Whose noble heart, drunk with true, pure love, Losing its lady, cannot bear to live. Lemaire gradually became more French in his sympathies, eventually entering the service of Anne of Brittany, wife of Louis XII, and supporting Louis's ambitions to create a church relatively independent of the Pope. His prose Illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye (1510–1514), largely adapted from Benoît de Sainte-Maure, is a novel-like history that connects the House of Burgundy with Hector. Lemaire probably died before 1525. Étienne Pasquier, Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay all acknowledged their indebtedness to him. In his love for antiquity, his sense of rhythm, and even the peculiarities of his vocabulary he anticipated the humanist movement led by Du Bellay and Ronsard, the Pléiade.

A 4-volume edition of his works, edited by Jean Stecher, was published in Leuven in 1882-1891.

• 1510–1514: Illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye

• 1504 or 1505: La courrone margaritique, on the death of Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, the second husband of Archduchess Margaret of Austria • 1505: Épîtres de l'amant vert • 1507: Les Chansons de Namur, written in support of a popular revolt • 1511: La Concorde des deux langages, referring to the French and Italian languages, urging cultural unity

While a poet in residence at the court of Margaret of Austria, Jean wrote two rhymed letters extolling his patroness. The first epistle is a witty parody of the Ovidian farewell love letter, the second of the tradition of Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy. The letters, written to defend the value of French poetry, were written around 1505, published around 1510-1511, and hide his own private subject under the guise of a green parrot.

He also worked under the name Jean Lemaire de Belges. The authorities additionally record the headings Jean Le Maire, Lemaire de Belges and Jean Lemaire éd Belges. His recorded languages were Middle French and medieval Latin. Other recorded relations include Jean Molinet.

Works recorded as notable number 8: La plainte du desiré, Les regretz de la dame infortunee, La chronique de 1507, La légende des Vénitiens, Carnet de notes, Des anciennes pompes funeralles, Les Illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye and Epitres de l'amant vert.

Jean Lemaire de Belges is recorded as poet, writer, essayist and historian.