Medieval French literature is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in Oïl languages (particularly Old French and early Middle French) during the period from the eleventh century to the end of the fifteenth century.
The material and cultural conditions in France and associated territories around the year 1100 unleashed what the scholar Charles Homer Haskins termed the "Renaissance of the 12th century" and, for over the next hundred years, writers, "jongleurs", "clercs" and poets produced an enormous quantity of remarkable creative works in all genres. Although the dynastic struggles of the Hundred Years' War and the international Black Death epidemic of the fourteenth century in many ways curtailed this creative production, the fifteenth century laid the groundwork for the French Renaissance.
For historical background go to History of France, France in the Middle Ages or Middle Ages
For other national literary traditions, go to Medieval literature
Read more about Medieval French Literature: Language, Early Texts, The Chanson De Geste, The Roman, Lyric Poetry, Theater, Other Forms
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“In French literature, you can choose “à la carte”; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)
“Our medieval historians who prefer to rely as much as possible on official documents because the chronicles are unreliable, fall thereby into an occasionally dangerous error. The documents tell us little about the difference in tone which separates us from those times; they let us forget the fervent pathos of medieval life.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)