Short answers, pulled from the story.
François Rabelais was a French writer, physician, humanist, and Catholic priest who died in 1553 and is considered the first great French prose author. He is best known for his satirical novels featuring the giants Gargantua and Pantagruel, and for giving the English language the adjective Rabelaisian, meaning marked by gross robust humor, extravagance of caricature, or bold naturalism.
Rabelais died in Paris in 1553. His exact birth year is uncertain, but most scholars accept around 1483 as his likely birthdate, with the range given as between 1483 and 1494. He was born at the estate of La Devinière in Seuilly, near Chinon, in the Touraine region.
Rabelais wrote the Gargantua and Pantagruel series: Pantagruel King of the Dipsodes (1532), Gargantua (1534), The Third Book (1546), and The Fourth Book (1552). A fifth book published in 1564 has contested authorship. He also wrote a series of parodic almanacs called Pantagrueline prognostications, published irregularly from 1533 to 1542.
All four Pantagrueline chronicles were censured by either the Sorbonne, the Paris Parlement, or both, at the request of Catholic theologians. The Sorbonne condemned both Gargantua and Pantagruel in 1543, and the Tiers Livre was banned on the 31st of December 1546. John Calvin also condemned Rabelais, viewing his mocking tone as dangerous because it could be read as rejecting sacred truths.
The Abbey of Thélème is an imaginary monastery described in Gargantua, built by the giant as a reward for the monk Frère Jean. Unlike real monasteries, it has a swimming pool, maid service, no clocks, and admits both monks and nuns. Its only rule is: Do What You Want.
According to Radio-Canada, the novel Gargantua alone permanently added more than 800 words to the French language. The first book of the series, Pantagruel, contains the first known occurrence in French of the words encyclopédie, caballe, progrès, and utopie. The 1534 re-edition of Pantagruel also introduced the use of diacritics, including accents, apostrophes, and diaereses, which was new to French printing at the time.