Jean d'Arras

Who is Jean d'Arras?

Jean d'Arras was a 15th-century North French poet-composer about whom little is known.

He collaborated with Antoine du Val and Fouquart de Cambrai in putting together a collection of stories entitled L'Évangile des quenouilles. The frame story is that these are the narratives told a group of ladies at their spinning, who relate the current theories on a great variety of subjects. The work dates from the middle of the 15th century and is of considerable value for the light it throws on medieval manners, and for its echoes of folklore, sometimes deeply buried under layers of Christianity.

There were many editions of this book in the 15th and 16th centuries, one of which was printed by the early printer Wynkyn de Worde in English, as The Gospelles of Dystaves. A more modern edition had a preface by witty and cynical tale-teller Anatole France.