Homosociality, Life-Writing, and the Claim to Coterie Authorship in the Livre des Cent Ballades.

The article examines the claim of co-authorship and coterie production in the late medieval French lyric cycle *Livre des Cent Ballades* (1389), attributed to four historical noblemen—Jean le Seneschal, Philippe d'Artois (Count of Eu), Jean II le Meingre (Boucicaut), and Jean de Créseques—none of whom are otherwise known as poets. It explores how this claim functions as a literary conceit blending historical reality with fiction, supported by thirteen appended poetic responses and a later biographical text, the *Livre des Fais de Boucicaut* (1409), which references the cycle's creation during an overseas voyage. The article highlights the tension between historicity and rhetorical construction in coterie poetry, showing how the *Cent Ballades* and its surrounding texts collapse the boundaries between real historical figures and their literary personae, thereby problematizing late medieval notions of authorship. Ultimately, it argues that authorship in this context is a flexible social performance tied to elite homosocial networks rather than a fixed individual creative act, contrasting with the contemporaneous rise of single-author collected works.