It is better to hold to the earlier general opinion that Chinon was his native town; Chinon, whose praises he sang with such heartiness and affection.

There he might well have been born in the Lamproie house, which belonged to his father, who, to judge from this circumstance, must have been in easy circumstances, with the position of a well-to-do citizen.

As La Lamproie in the seventeenth century was a hostelry, the father of Rabelais has been set down as an innkeeper.

More probably he was an apothecary, which would fit in with the medical profession adopted by his son in after years.

Rabelais had brothers, all older than himself.
Perhaps because he was the youngest, his father destined him for the Church.
The time he spent while a child with the Benedictine monks at Seuille is uncertain.