Guillaume Crétin

Guillaume Cretin (c. 1460 – 30 November 1525) was a French poet who is considered to belong to the network of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs ("rhetoricians").

He is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Guillaume Dubois, but this is a wordplay found in an epistle addressed to Jean Martin.

Cretin wrote in a wide variety of literary genres, including fixed-form lyrics (chants royaux, ballades, and rondeaux) as well as narrative verse.

Cretin's works include many chants royaux which were composed for the puys, Northern French poetry competitions in honour of the Virgin Mary.

He is one of the great virtuosos of 'rime équivoquée' (for example, the Epistre à Honorat de la Jaille of circa 1510).

From 1515, Cretin started work on a verse chronicle of French history, the Grandes Chroniques de France, which remained unfinished at the time of his death.

‘L’humanisme dissident des rhétoriqueurs : le cas de Guillaume Cretin’.