![]() The laws and morals that govern them strongly resonate with the ruling ideology of 12th-century France. Together these figures represent the main branches of feudal society: royalty, the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry, respectively. Other characters in the story are Noble the Lion, Chanticleer the Rooster, Bruin the Bear, and Isen-grin the Wolf. As a fox, he uses trickery to get food, avenge himself, and defend himself against his enemies. Though a folk hero and an epic figure, Reynard is a trickster: This is the definitive aspect of his personality. The trouveres (troubadours) of northern France developed these popular folktales into a work that is at once a fabulous epic bestiary and a political allegory, cultural commentary and verse romance, fireside story and literary parody. The 13th-century English poem Of the Fox and of the Wolf and the Italian Rainardo also used the Reynard material. The names are arguably Germanic Reynard probably derives from Ragin-hard, which means “strong in counsel.” The German Reinhart manuscript, dated to 1180, and the Flemish variations of the stories likely draw on now-lost French originals that first circulated in the region of Alsace-Lorraine. ![]() As with many stories from folklore, the precise origins of the Reynard characters are obscure. The character of the trickster fox hails back to the fables of aesop, but fragments of medieval Latin poems contain some source material, including Ysengrinus, written at Ghent in 1148. ![]() The French tale is stylistically the most sophisticated rendition of the hugely popular tradition of Reynard the Fox, which appears elsewhere in Dutch, German, and English literature. About 20 different poets had a hand in writing the stories, and although the names of Pierre de Saint-Cloud, Richard of Lison, and a priest of Croix-en-Brie are linked with certain early branches, most of the writers remain anonymous. The earliest recorded branches emerged in 1170, and additions continued until 1250. Altogether the poem covers tens of thousands of lines and has 27 branches, or episodes. The Roman de Renart (Romance of Reynard) is a series of French tales composed over a span of several years.
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