Marie de France is simultaneously one of the most well-known and enigmatic female authors of the medieval period. Often cited as the first female poet writing in Old French, she is the attributed composer of three, potentially four, texts: the Lais, a collection of 12 short poems written around the 1170s; the Fables (known as the Ysopë), a collection of fables likely composed between 1189 and 1208; the Espurgatoire Seint Patriz, a translation of the Cistercian monk H. de Saltrey’s Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii dating to around 1190; and, finally, La Vie Seinte Audree ( The Life of Saint Audrey), a hagiography detailing the life, death, and miracles of Saint Audrey dated roughly to c. 1200.