This is the final part of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the swashbuckling legends that surround Francois Villon (1431-1463?), remembered as one of France’s greatest poets and a notorious outlaw.
FRANCOIS VILLON PART SEVEN – We pick up this time in 1460, as Villon’s roaming career as a highwayman and armed burglar among the Coquillards was fast approaching its end, though the poet seems not to have realized it. None of his poetry from 1458 and 1459 has survived, unfortunately.
Accounts vary wildly, but Francois and some of his outlaw colleagues had supposedly been taking advantage of the feud between Archbishop Thibaud d’Aussigny of Orleans and his subordinate clergy members. Prior to Villon’s fugitive status, the Archbishop might have been a figure who appealed to him. D’Aussigny was a genuine reformer whose appointment was opposed by the Pope and the King, but whose political allies had maneuvered him into position despite all that. Continue reading