Humanism in France ultimately came from Italy and most notably from Florence where it blossomed at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries AD. It is usually closely associated with the Renaissance and represents the revival of classical learning and literature in European culture.

Humanism represented a questioning of aspects of traditional religion and embraced man’s ability to control his own destiny. The studia humanitatis, or liberal arts, were grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history and moral philosophy. The early humanists of France, England, Germany, and the Netherlands often travelled and studied in Italy at the end of the 15th century.

The French scholar Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (1455–1536) lived in Florence and his greatest work was to translate the New and Old Testaments. Like many humanists he devoted himself to church reform after the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation. Guillaume Budé (1468–1540) helped to develop Greek studies in France and made notable contributions to the study of both Latin and Greek classical antiquity. Other French humanists included the writer François Rabelais (about 1495–1533). Probably the most famous humanist scholar was Erasmus of Rotterdam, who never broke with the Catholic Church.