Le sensus historicus d’une œuvre allégorique à la fin du Moyen Âge La ballade d’Eustache Deschamps consacrée à l’hirondelle calomnieuse

We analyse the ballad of Deschamps devoted to the scurrilous swallow (no. 156 of the Complete Works) in relation to the meaning that the term “sensus historicus” had at this time, that is, the historical context in which a given text was created. Deschamps slips indications of this context into the ballad: the swallow stands for Pope Gregory XI who, in the early 1370s, attacked the Viscontis, the Dukes of Milan, in his papal bulls.