author
active 14th century d'Arras Jean
Little is known about this 14th-century French writer, but his name endures through one of the Middle Ages' most memorable tales: the story of Mélusine, the mysterious fairy ancestress of the house of Lusignan. His work blends legend, family history, and courtly storytelling in a way that still feels vivid centuries later.
2 Audiobooks
Les évangiles des quenouilles
by maistre de Cambray Fouquart, Antoine Duval, active 14th century d'Arras Jean
Mélusine Nouvelle édition, conforme à celle de 1478, revue et corrigée
by active 14th century d'Arras Jean
About the author
Jean d'Arras was a writer from northern France who flourished in the late 14th century, and the surviving record about his life is very thin. He is best known for Mélusine, a prose romance written for Jean, Duke of Berry, in which the legendary fairy Mélusine is tied to the origins and prestige of the Lusignan lineage.
That story helped make Jean d'Arras an important name in medieval French literature. Mélusine mixes marvels, noble genealogy, and political imagination, showing how medieval writers could turn folklore into a richly shaped courtly narrative.
He is also associated with L'Évangile des quenouilles (The Spinners' Gospel), a collection assembled with Antoine du Val and Fouquart de Cambrai. Even though the man himself remains shadowy, the works linked to him have kept his voice alive as part of the imaginative world of the later Middle Ages.