The earliest use of "rhétoriqueurs" can be found in Guillaume Coquillart's Droitz Nouveaux (1481) where it refers to lawyers; nineteenth-century literary historian Charles d'Héricault misread the term as designating poets.
The "rhétoriqueurs", alike in rejecting any taint of the vulgar world outside noble courts, were not a homogeneous group or organized literary movement, and there were great differences between each author's individual creative project.
Nevertheless, these authors show great similarities in poetic invention and sound experimentation and represent a period of literary transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
From the late 1540s on, many of the "rhétoriqueurs" were rejected by the French circle of poets around Pierre de Ronsard (sometimes called La Pléiade), who considered them representatives of an outdated medieval tradition.
Some of this disdain may have also been tied to class and chauvinism: many of the "rhétoriqueurs" were non-noble poets and writers working for the court of the Duchy of Burgundy, while Ronsard's circle was entirely French and dominated by nobles.