Jean Molinet

He entered the service of Charles, Duke of Burgundy from 1463, becoming secretary to Georges Chastellain; in 1464 he wrote La Complainte de Grèce, a political work presenting the Burgundian side in current affairs.

He is considered to belong to the network of poets called the Grands Rhétoriqueurs, characterised by their excessive use of puns and technical virtuosity.

Molinet was also a composer, although only one work, the rondeau Tart ara mon cueur sa plaisance, can be reliably attributed to him; however, this work, an early chanson for four voices (most were for three), was extremely popular, as evidenced by the wide distribution of copies.

He is also remembered for the elegy he wrote on the death of Johannes Ockeghem, Nymphes des bois, set by Josquin des Prez as part of his renowned motet La déploration sur la mort de Johannes Ockeghem.

Historian Johan Huizinga quotes some anti-clerical lines of Molinet's from a series of wishes for the New Year: "Let us pray God that the Jacobins/May eat the Augustinians,/And that the Carmelites may be hanged/With the cords of the Minorites.