François Villon

Le Testament, dated 1461, is Villon's major late poem. It mixes mock bequests, street language, religious anxiety, and reflections on death.

Ballade des pendus, often translated as Ballad of the Hanged Men, speaks in the voices of condemned bodies asking for mercy. It is tied to Villon's reputation as a poet of crime, judgment, and mortality.

Villon's life records include arrests, exile, and a death sentence that was later commuted. He was banished from Paris in 1463, after which his life becomes historically uncertain.

Villon shaped the French lyric tradition through ballades and poems that mix high literary form with tavern, prison, and street voices. Le Testament remains a landmark of late medieval French literature.