He earned a master's degree from the University of Paris, then dove into a violent underworld of gang life, a church heist, and murder charges. This deep dive traces the double life of Francois Villon, a 15th-century poet who was a respected scholar by day and a dagger-wielding outlaw by night.

Born into poverty around 1431 and raised by chaplain Guillaume de Villon, he killed a priest in a 1455 brawl, received a royal pardon, then orchestrated the College of Navarre robbery. Imprisoned in a subterranean pit and later banished, he channeled his suffering into works that permanently shifted literature before vanishing from the record.

• How ecclesiastical immunity bred a culture of impunity among students
• The satirical mock-will Le Lais he drafted while fleeing Paris
• His mastery of the Coquillards' criminal slang, or ...