The writer known only as Rutebeuf composed some of the most important works written in Old French during the thirteenth century. His Le Miracle de Théophile (The Miracle of Theophile, circa 1276) exerted a strong influence on the development of medieval religious drama. In lyrical poems, his autobiographical voice is so unusual for its time that he has come to be seen as the founder of the modern French lyrical voice. Furthermore, representations of urban, Parisian themes and voices—along with the absence of courtly literature—in Rutebeuf's work have prompted literary historians to characterize Rutebeuf as the first French author of la littérature bourgeoise (bourgeois literature).

There is no surviving historical or literary attestation of the individual known as “Rutebeuf.” This is not to say that the work went unnoticed: the number and variety of manuscripts in which Rutebeuf's works have survived indicate that...