François Villon

François Villon (born François de Montcorbier or des Loges, c. 1431–after 1463) was the preeminent French lyric poet of the late Middle Ages. Educated at the University of Paris where he earned a Master of Arts, Villon led an infamous life entangled in barroom brawls, lethal duels, robberies with the criminal Coquillard brotherhood, and multiple imprisonments.

Sentenced to death by hanging in 1462 before his sentence was commuted to ten years' banishment from Paris, Villon disappeared from historical records in 1463. His poetic masterpieces, Le Lais (The Legacy), Le Testament (The Testament), and the Ballade des Pendus (Ballad of the Hanged), broke completely with artificial chivalric romance to deliver raw, poignant verse on mortality, destitution, bodily rot, and the snows of yesteryear ('Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?').