[Sidenote: Ruteboeuf] Ruteboeuf (whose name appears to be a nickname only) has been more fortunate than most of the poets of early France in leaving a considerable and varied work behind him, and in having it well and collectively edited[74]. Little or nothing, however, is known about him, except from allusions in his own verse. He was probably born about 1230; he was certainly married in 1260; there is no allusion in his poems to any event later than 1285. By birth he may have been either a Burgundian or a Parisian. His work which, as has been said, is not inconsiderable in volume, falls into three well-marked divisions in point of subject. The first consists of personal and of comic poems; the second of poems sometimes satirical, sometimes panegyrical, on public personages and events; the third, which is apparently with reason assigned to the latest period of his life, of devotional poems. In the first division _La Pauvrete Ruteboeuf_, _Le Mariage Ruteboeuf_, etc., are complaints of his woeful condition; complaints, however, in which there is nearly as much satire as appeal. Others, such as _Renart le Bestourne_, _Le Dit des Cordeliers_, _Frere Denise_, _Le Dit de l'Erberie_, are poems of the Fabliau kind. In all these there are many lively strokes of satire, and not a little of the reckless gaiety, chequered here and there with deeper feeling, which has always been a characteristic of a certain number of French poets. Ruteboeuf's sarcasm is especially directed towards the monastic orders. The second class of poems, which is numerous, displays a more elevated strain of thought. Many of these poems are _complaintes_ or elaborate elegies (often composed on commission) for distinguished persons, such as Geoffroy de Sargines and Guillaume de Saint Amour. Others, such as the _Complainte d'Outremer_, the _Complainte de Constantinople_, the _Dit de la Voie de Tunes_, the _Debat du Croise et du Decroise_, are comments on the politics and history of the time, for the most part strongly in favour of the crusading spirit, and reproaching the nobility of France with their degeneracy. 'Mort sont Ogier et Charlemagne' is an often-quoted exclamation of Ruteboeuf in this sense. The third class includes _La Mort Ruteboeuf_, otherwise _La Repentance Ruteboeuf_, _La Voie de Paradis_, various poems to the Virgin, the lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and the miracle play of _Theophile_. Ruteboeuf's favourite metres are either the continuous octosyllabic couplet, or else a stanza composed of an octosyllabic couplet and a line of four syllables, the termination of the latter being caught up by the succeeding couplet. In this the _Mariage_ is written, of which a specimen may be given:--