His literary legacy gave rise to the word Rabelaisian, an adjective meaning "marked by gross robust humor, extravagance of caricature, or bold naturalism.

[a] His education was likely typical of the late medieval period: beginning with the trivium syllabus that included the study of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic before moving on to the quadrivium, which dealt with arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

Frustrated by the ban, Rabelais petitioned Pope Clement VII (1523–1534) and obtained an indult with the help of Bishop Geoffroy d'Estissac [fr], and was able to leave the Franciscans for the Benedictine Order at Maillezais.

[25] In 1532, under the pseudonym Alcofribas Nasier (an anagram of François Rabelais), he published his first book, Pantagruel King of the Dipsodes, the first of his Gargantua series, primarily to supplement his income at the hospital.

[21] The first edition of an almanac parodying the astrological predictions of the time called Pantagrueline prognostications appeared for the year 1533 from the press of Rabelais' publisher François Juste.

[27] Pantagruelism is an "eat, drink and be merry" philosophy, which led his books into disfavor with the theologians but brought them popular success and the admiration of later critics for their focus on the body.

[28][29] The book became popular, along with its 1534 prequel, which dealt with the life and exploits of Pantagruel's father Gargantua, and which was more infused with the politics of the day and overtly favorable to the monarchy than the preceding volume had been.

Nevertheless, when du Bellay was sent to Rome in January 1534 to convince Pope Clément VII not to excommunicate Henry VIII, he was accompanied by Rabelais, who worked as his secretary and personal physician until his return in April.

During his stay, Rabelais found the city fascinating and decided to bring out a new edition of Bartolomeo Marliani's Topographia antiqua Romae with Sebastien Gryphe in Lyon.

[32][33] Rabelais quietly left the Hôtel Dieu de Lyon on 13 February 1535 after receiving his salary, disappearing until August 1535 as a result of the tumultuous Affair of the Placards, which led Francis I to issue an edict forbidding all printing in France.

[35] On 17 January 1536, Paul III issued a papal brief authorizing Rabelais to join a Benedictine monastery and practice medicine, as long as he refrained from surgery.

[36] Jean du Bellay having been named the abbot in commendam of the Saint-Maur Abbey, Rabelais arranged to be assigned there, knowing that the monks were to become secular clergy the following year.

With support from members of the prominent du Bellay family, Rabelais had received approval from King Francis I to continue to publish his collection on 19 September 1545 for six years.

[41] After the king's death in 1547, the academic élite frowned upon Rabelais, and the Paris Parlement suspended the sale of The Fourth Book, published in 1552,[42][43] despite Henry II having accorded him the royal privilege.

The first book, chronologically, was Pantagruel: King of the Dipsodes and the Gargantua mentioned in the Prologue refers not to Rabelais' own work but to storybooks that were being sold at the Lyon fairs in the early 1530s.

[53] The inscription at the gate first specifies who is not welcome: hypocrites, bigots, the pox-ridden, Goths, Magoths, straw-chewing law clerks, usurious grinches, old or officious judges, and burners of heretics.

In it, Rabelais revisited discussions he had had while working as a secretary to Geoffroy d'Estissac earlier in Fontenay–le–Comte, where la querelle des femmes had been a lively subject of debate.

He consults authorities vested with revealed knowledge, like the sibyl of Panzoust or the mute Nazdecabre, profane acquaintances, like the theologian Hippothadée or the philosopher Trouillogan,[58] and even the jester Triboulet.

It is likely that several of the characters refer to real people: Abel Lefranc argues that Hippothadée was Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples,[59] Rondibilis was the doctor Guillaume Rondelet, the esoteric Her Trippa corresponds to Cornelius Agrippa.

The last chapters are focused on the praise of Pantagruelion, which combines properties of linen and hemp—a plant used in the 16th century for both the hangman's rope and medicinal purposes, being copiously loaded onto the ships.

[64] As a naturalist inspired by Pliny the Elder and Charles Estienne, the narrator intercedes in the story, first describing the plant in great detail, then waxing lyrical on its various qualities.

According to Jean Plattard, this publication served two purposes: first, it brought Rabelais some much-needed money; and second, it allowed him to respond to those who considered his work blasphemous.

[69] The full version appeared in 1552, after Rabelais received a royal privilege on 6 Aug 1550 for the exclusive right to publish his work in French, Tuscan, Greek, and Latin.

Rabelais' use of Latin, Greek, regional and dialectal terms, creative calquing, gloss, neologism and mis-translation was the fruit of the printing press having been invented less than a hundred years earlier.

[83] An article by Edwin M. Duvall in Études rabelaisiennes 18 (1985)[84] sparked a debate on the prologue of Gargantua in the pages of the Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France[85] as to whether Rabelais intentionally hid higher meanings in his work, to be discovered through erudition and philology, or if instead the polyvalence of symbols was a poetic device meant to resist the reductive gloss.

[4] Michel Jeanneret [fr] suggests that Panurge's description (in the Papimane Island episode in The Fourth Book) of the ill-effects of the pages of decretals being used as toilet paper, targets, cones, and masks on whatever they touch was due to their misuse as material objects.

[86] As the merry crew sail on from the island towards the Divine Bottle, in the subsequent episode, Pantagruel is content simply listening to the thawing words as they rain down on the boat,[87] whereas Jeanneret observes that his companions focus instead on their colourful appearance while they are still frozen, hurrying to gather as many up as they can and offering to sell those they have collected.

[91] Acknowledging both the sordid side of the work and its protean nature, Jean de La Bruyère in 1688 saw beyond that its sublimity:His book is an enigma, it is whatever you want to say, it is inexplicable, it is a chimera ….. a monstrous assembling of refined and ingenious morality and foul corruption.

[93] Alfred Jarry performed, from memory, hymns of Rabelais at Symbolist Rachilde's Tuesday salons, and worked for years on an unfinished libretto for an opera by Claude Terrasse based on Pantagruel.

[98] Milan Kundera, in a 2007 article in The New Yorker, commented on a list of the most notable works of French literature, noting with surprise and indignation that Rabelais was placed behind Charles de Gaulle's war memoirs, and was denied the "aura of a founding figure!