Jean Marot

Jean Marot (actually probably Je [h] an Desmarets; * around 1450 near Caen ; † 1526 in Paris ) was a French merchant, courtier and author. Today he is best known as the father of the courtier and important author Clément Marot .

Jean Marot evidently had no school education, but seems to have acquired his literary knowledge autodidactically by reading French-speaking poets and historiographers.

In his younger years he must have moved from his native Normandy to Cahors in southern France, where he married and worked as a businessman, but undoubtedly also practiced his pen as a poet. His son Clément was born here in 1496.

Through a noble lady who liked his verses and her husband, Marot got in touch with the French queen, Anne of Brittany , the wife of Louis XII. In 1506 he became her secretary and court poet. Later he accompanied the king on his campaigns against Genoa and Venice , with the order to present them in the form of rhymed chronicles from the point of view and in the interests of his master, d. H. to legitimize politically.

After the death of Ludwig (1515) he was taken over into the service of his successor Francis I and was given the post of royal valet, which he held until his death (and which was transferred to his son Clément soon afterwards).

Jean Marot's texts are mostly in the tradition of the so-called rhetoriqueurs , a school of poets from the 15th century who wrote the highly rhetorical, now mostly bombastic occasional poetry , especially for princes and their courts. B. for the French royal court or the predominantly French-speaking court of the rich and powerful dukes of Burgundy .

Web links

• Literature by and about Jean Marot in the catalog of the German National Library