Reynard - in Medieval European Folklore and Literature

In Medieval European Folklore and Literature

The figure of Reynard is thought to have originated in Alsace-Lorraine folklore from where it spread to France, the Low Countries, and Germany. An extensive treatment of the character is the Old French Le Roman de Renart written by Pierre de Saint-Cloud around 1170, which sets the typical setting. Reynard has been summoned to the court of king Noble, or Leo, the Lion, to answer charges brought against him by Isengrim the Wolf. Other anthropomorphic animals, including Bruin the Bear, Baldwin the Ass, Tibert (Tybalt) the Cat, all attempt one stratagem or another. The stories typically involve satire whose usual butts are the aristocracy and the clergy, making Reynard a peasant-hero character. The story of the preaching fox found in the Reynard literature was used in church art by the Catholic Church as propaganda against the Lollards. Reynard's principal castle, Maupertuis, is available to him whenever he needs to hide away from his enemies. Some of the tales feature Reynard's funeral, where his enemies gather to deliver maudlin elegies full of insincere piety, and which feature Reynard's posthumous revenge. Reynard's wife Hermeline appears in the stories, but plays little active role, although in some versions she remarries when Reynard is thought dead, thereby becoming one of the people he plans revenge upon. Isengrim (Alternate French spelling : Ysengrin) is Reynard's most frequent antagonist and foil, and generally ends up outwitted, though he occasionally gets revenge.

Reynard appears first in the medieval Latin poem Ysengrimus, a long Latin mock-epic written ca. 1148-1153 by the poet Nivardus in Ghent, that collects a great store of Reynard's adventures. He also puts in an early appearance in a number of Latin sequences by the preacher Odo of Cheriton. Both of these early sources seem to draw on a pre-existing store of popular culture featuring the character. In 1174, the first branch or chapter of the Roman de Renart appears, written by Pierre de St. Cloud (though in all French editions it is designated as Branch II). Pierre wrote a sequel in 1179 (called Branch I) but between that date and after many French authors composed their own adventures for Renart li goupil (the fox). There is also the text Reinhard Fuchs by Heinrich der Glïchezäre.

Pierre de St. Cloud opens his work on the fox by situating it within the larger tradition of epic poetry, the fabliaux and Arthurian romance:

This would roughly translate as:

Seigneurs, oï avez maint conte
 Que maint conterre vous raconte
 Conment Paris ravi Elaine,
 Le mal qu'il en ot et la paine,
 De Tristan que la Chievre fist
 Qui assez bellement en dist
 Et fabliaus et chançons de geste
 Romanz d'Yvain et de sa beste
 Maint autre conte par la terre.
 Mais onques n'oïstes la guerre
 Qui tant fu dure de gran fin,
 Entre Renart et Ysengrin.

Lords, you have heard many tales,
That many tellers have told to you.
How Paris took Helen,
The evil and the pain he felt
Of Tristan that la Chevre
Wrote rather beautifully about;
And fabliaux and epics;
Of the Romance of Yvain and his beast
And many others told in this land
But never have you heard about the war
That was difficult and lengthy
Between Renart and Ysengrin

A 13th-century Middle Dutch version of the story (Van den vos Reynaerde, About Reynard the Fox), is also made up of rhymed verses (the same AA BB scheme). Like Pierre, very little is known of the author, Willem, other than the description by the copyist in the first sentences:

This would roughly translate as:

Willem, die Madoc maecte,
 Daer hi dicken omme waecte,
 Hem vernoyde so haerde
 Dat die avonture van Reynaerde
 In dietsche onghemaket bleven
 (Die Arnout niet hevet vulscreven)
 Dat hi die vijte van Reynaerde dede soucken
 Ende hise na den walschen boucken
 In dietsche dus hevet begonnen.

Willem who has made Madoc,
and suffered many a sleepless night in doing so,
regretted
that the adventures of Reynaert
had not been translated in Dutch
(because Arnout had not completed his work).
So he has researched the facts of Reynard's deeds
and in the same way as the French books
has he written it in Dutch.

"Madoc" is probably another one of Willem's works, but is lost.

Geoffrey Chaucer used Reynard material in the Canterbury Tales; in "The Nun's Priest's Tale", Reynard appears as "Rossel" and an ass as "Brunel". In 1481 William Caxton printed The Historie of Reynart the Foxe, which was translated from a Middle Dutch version of the fables. Also in the 1480s, the Scottish poet Robert Henryson devised a highly sophisticated development of Reynardian material as part of his Morall Fabillis in the sections known as The Talking of the Tod. Hans van Ghetelen, a printer of Incunabula in Lübeck printed an early German version called Reinke de Vos in 1498. It was translated to Latin and other languages, which made the tale popular across Europe. Reynard is also referenced in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight during the third hunt.

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