A fabliau (French pronunciation: [fabljo]; plural fabliaux) is a comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs in northeast France between c. 1150 and 1400. They are generally characterized by sexual and scatological obscenity, and by a set of contrary attitudes—contrary to the church and to the nobility.[1] Several of them were reworked by Giovanni Boccaccio for the Decameron and by Geoffrey Chaucer for his Canterbury Tales. Some 150 French fabliaux are extant, the number depending on how narrowly fabliau is defined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabliau
This is part of the “What are words for?” project.
This word scored a six on a three part scale of allusiveness, political oomph and cultural capital (min score 1, max score 3 for each part of the scale). Lots of words did. This is one I clawed from the slushpile on a whim.
marchudson.net 