Friedrich Bernard Christian Maassen
United Sees of Macerata and Tolentino
Vicariate Apostolic of Mackenzie
Marie-Edmé-Patrice-Maurice de MacMahon
Joseph-Anna-Marie de Moyria de Mailla
François-Pierre-Gonthier Maine de Biran
Françoise, Marquise de Maintenon
Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre
Marcellinus of Civezza, O.F.M.
Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament
Prefecture Apostolic of Mariana Islands
Congregation of the Missionaries of Mariannhill
Sts. Maris, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum
Lucius Perpetuus Aurelianus Marius Maximus
Vicariate Apostolic of Marquesas Islands
Moral and Canonical Aspect of Marriage
Diocese of Marseilles (Massilia)
Vicariate Apostolic of the Marshall Islands
Diocese of Marsico Nuovo and Potenza
Luigi Ferdinando, Count de Marsigli
Missionaries of the Company of Mary
Servants of Mary (Order of Servites)
Society of Mary (Marist Fathers)
St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds of Jesus
Richard Angelus a S. Francisco Mason
Devises and Bequests for Masses (United States)
Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus
Caius Julius Verus Maximinus Thrax
Prefecture Apostolic of Mayotte, Nossi-Bé, and Comoro
Charles Joseph Eugene de Mazenod
Abbey and Congregation of Melk
Vicariate Apostolic of Méndez and Gualaquiza
Francisco Sarmiento de Mendoza
Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy
Sisters of Mercy of St. Borromeo
Frédéric-François-Xavier Ghislain de Mérode
Delegation Apostolic of Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, and Armenia
Metal-Work in the Service of the Church
Prince Klemens Lothar Wenzel von Metternich
Francis, Joseph, and Paul Mezger
Military Orders of St. Michael
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola
Congregation of the Sisters of Misericorde
Prefecture Apostolic of Misocco and Calanca
Congregation of Priests of the Mission
Congregation of Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo
Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales of Annecy
Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle
Mission Indians (of California)
Catholic Indian Missions of Canada
Catholic Indian Missions of the United States
François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno
Diocese of Molfetta, Terlizzi, and Giovinazzo
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière
Principality and Diocese of Monaco
Canonical Erection of a Monastery
Monophysites and Monophysitism
Monothelitism and Monothelites
Montagnais Indians (Chippewayans)
Charles-Forbes-René, Comte de Montalembert
Marquis de Louis-Joseph Montcalm-Gozon
Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
Anne, First Duke of Montmorency
Alexis-François Artaud de Montor
Antoine-Jean-Baptiste-Robert Auget, Baron de Montyon
Dioceses of Mostar and Markana-Trebinje
Feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary
Toribio de Benavente Motolinia
Congregations of Mount Calvary
Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Karl Ernst, Freiherr von Moy de Sons
Johann Chrysostomus Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
St. Clair Augustine Mulholland
Baron Eligius Franz Joseph von Münch-Bellinghausen
Archdiocese of Munich-Freising
(Or MEUNG.)
French poet, b. c. 1260 in the little city of Meung-sur-Loire; d. at Paris between 1305 and 1320. He took the name of his native city, but received from his contemporaries the nickname Clopinel (clopiner, to limp) because he was lame. Such nicknames were very common in the Middle Ages and were used in lieu of patronymics, the custom of which was not yet established. Jean de Meun's social condition has been a much debated question. It seems certain to-day that he was born of well-to-do parents, received a very good education, and, about 1300, was a wealthy burgess of Paris, a steady and pious man who enjoyed the esteem of his fellow citizens and the friendship of many a noble lord. He translated the "De re militari" of Vegetius, the "De consolatione philosophiae" of Boethius and composed in French verses a Testament in which he reproves women and the friars. His fame rests on a work of his earlier years, the completion of the "Roman de la Rose", which had been left unfinished by Guillaume de Lorris. As it stood, the latter's work was a sort of didactic poem in which he used allegorical characters to describe the forms, the phases, and the progress of love. His aim seemed to have been to compose a treatise on the art of loving for the use of the noble lords and ladies of the thirteenth century. To the 4669 verses of his predecessor, Jean de Meun added more than 18,000 and made the poem a sort of cyclopedia of all the knowledge of the time. He quoted, translated, and imitated all the writers then known: Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Augustine, Juvenal, Livy, Abelard, Roger Bacon. Of the 18,000 verses which he has written, it has been possible to assign 12,000 to their authors. All the characters became so many pedants who discoursed on all sorts of topics, however remote they might be from the subject: the origin of the state, the origin of the royal power, instinct, justice, the nature of evil, marriage, property, the conflict between the regular and the secular clergy, between the friars and the university, etc. The book is full of attacks on all classes and duties of society: the magistrates, the soldiers, the nobles, the monks, tithes, feudal rights, property. De Meun's talent is vigorous, but his style is often cynical and reminds the reader of the worst pages of Rabelais.
PARIS, Jean de Meun in Hist. litteraire de la France XXVIII (Paris, 1888), 391-429; QUICHERAT, Jean de Meun et sa Maison a Paris in Bibl. de l'ecole des chartes (Paris, 1860); LANGLOIS, Origines et sources du Roman de la Rose (Paris, 1890).
Pierre Marique.