French Renaissance writer, a Franciscan monk, humanist, and physician, whose comic novels Gargantua and Pantagruel are among the most hilarious classics of world literature. François Rabelais' heroes are rude but funny giants traveling in a world full of greed, stupidity, violence, and grotesque jokes. His books were banned by the Catholic Church and later placed on The Index librorum prohibitorumon (the Index of Forbidden Books).
"Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf's skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney's bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer's lure. But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains." (from Gargantua, 1534)
François Rabelais was born in 1484 (or 1483, 1490, 1495) near the town of Chinon in western France. His father Antoine Rabelais owned vineyards there. According to some sources he was a lawyer, according to others an apothecary or inn-keeper. Little is known about Rabelais' youth and time at the Abbaye de Seuillé, where he was sent. He was a novice at the Convent of La Baumette, where the brothers de Bellay may have been among his fellow students. He became a member of the Franciscan convent at Fontenay-le-Comte, in Lower Poitou, and by 1521 he had taken holy orders. At the fair of Fontenay-le-Comte Rabelais heard stories which stirred his imagination, and he later wrote in Gargantua: "He went to see the jugglers, tumblers, mountebanks, and quacksalvers, and considered their cunning, their shifts, their somersaults and smooth tongue, especially of those of Chauny in Picardy, who are naturally great praters, and brave givers of fibs, in matter of green apes." After the ecclesiastical authorities of the Sorbonne started to confiscate Greek books, Rabelais petitioned Pope Clement VII. He received permission to leave the Franciscan order and join the Benedictines.
In the monasteries Rabelais had studied Greek, Latin, law, astronomy, and ancient Greek medical texts, which had been ignored for centuries. He left the Abbaye de Maillezais without permission and started to study medicine, possibly with the Benedictines in their Hôtel Saint-Denis in Paris, and then in Montpellier. In 1530 he became bachelor of medicine.
At Montpellier Rabelais lectured on the ancient physicians, Hippocrates and Galen. He made public dissections of human bodies and was a specialist in the new disease, syphilis, and hysteria. Rabelais also invented devices for the treatment of hernia and fractured bones and published his own editions of Hippocrates' Aphorisms and Galen's Ars parva. In 1532 he was a physician at Hôtel-Dieu, a general hospital in Lyons. In the same year he published his famous comedy, Pantagruel, under the pen name Alcofribas Nasier – an anagram of Rabelais's real name. It dealt with the early years of Pantagruel, the son of Gargantua, and introduced the cunning rogue Panurge, an Everyman, who became Pantagruel's companion. Rabelais took the character of Gargantua from a booklet, which was sold in Lyons, and depicted the adventures of a giant famous in oral folk tradition. The city was at that time the cultural center of France and famous for its international book trade. It was claimed that at one Lyons fair more copies of the booklet were sold than Bibles in nine years. Pantagruel was followed by Gargantua (1534). The books were highly successful, but condemned by the Sorbonne and the Parliament.
In Lyon Rabelais fathered a son, Théodule, who died at the age of two. He went to Rome as physician to his friend and patron Bishop Jean du Bellay. Du Bellay was the bishop of Paris, who was later appointed cardinal. In Rome Rabelais made archeological and botanical studies. During the following years he visited the city several times. In 1536 he entered the monastery of Saint Maur-les-Fossés. The pope allowed him to practise medicine and in 1537 Rabelais received his doctor's degree. He lectured on medicine and in 1539 he served as the medical advisor of Guillaume du Bellay in Turin. King Francis I of France (1494-1547) gave a license to print the third book of the Gargantua-Pantagruiel series, Le Tiers Livre des faicts et dicts héroïques du bon Pantagruel (1546), which was dedicated to Margaret of Navarre, the King's sister. At Court the party in favour of toleration was strong. Marguerite of Navarre and Jean and Guillaume de Bellay had been willing to help those who had trouble with religious authorities, and the King supported moderate policies. He had also tried to defend Erasmus (1466-1536), the famous humanist and scholar, against the attacks of theologians. In Gargantua Rabelais gave his support to the humanist ideal of King Francis I.
Le Tiers Livre (The Third Book) was published under Rabelais' own name, and again condemned in spite of the royal licence. In it Panurge wonders if he should marry, and starts with Pantagruel a voyage to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle for an answer. The king had been Rabelais' protector, but as the king's health was declining, Rabelais fled to Metz, where for a while he practised medicine. Although French booksellers were not able to publish "heretical" works, they went on selling and printing books by Rabelais and other writers simply dropping their addresses from the title page. In Pantagruel Rabelais wrote: "Printing likewise is now in use, so elegant and so correct that better cannot be imagined, although it was found out but in my time by divine inspiration, as by a diabolical suggestion on the other side was the invention of ordnance."
In 1547 René du Bellay gave Rabelais the curacy of Saint-Christophe-du-Jambet, though he probably did not reside there. Later he was also given the curacy of Mendon, near Paris – he was known as "the curate of Meudon". The fourth book in the series, Le Quart Livre de Pantagruel, appeared in 1552. Rabelais died probably on April 9, 1553, in Paris. There have been doubts about the authenticity of the fifth book, Cinquisme Live (1564), where Panurge and his friends arrive at the temple of the Holy Bottle. The five books of Gargantua and Pantagruel were first published together in English by J. Martin in 1567. The fifth book was first printed without the name of the place, and the in 1565 at Lyons by Jean Martin.