Originally based on the friendship of wolf and fox, this relation changed to 'hostility and resulted in a series of duels between fox and wolf or the latter's retainers and champions, in which the cunning of the fox invariably worsts the heavier ferocity of his adversary. An especial favorite was the of Reynard,' with which' Martin's edition begins. Hens, titmice, kites, crows, hares, Tibert the cat, Patous the bear, the ram, the heron, all suffer or are killed. Reynard even becomes emperor, vio lates the female wolf and seduces the queen, who is at all times his friend, cures King Nobel, the lion, at the expense of the wolf. Finally he dies, or at least is supposed to die, receives a grand funeral (of which there was formerly a sculpture in the cathedral of Strassburg, repre senting Reynard on a stretcher carried by the other animals), and goes to the animals "para douse,* "two leagues beyond paradise?' To compliment Boniface VIII, Philip the Fair had the subject matter of this procession played in the streets of Paris about 1303.
Text: Meon, M. D. M. (4 vols. with supple ment. Frontispiece by Desenne. In Newberry Library, Chicago; Paris 1826) ; Ernest Martin (Strasbourg et Paris 1887). (The best; Branche I = Meon's Branche XX). Criticism: Sudre, L.,
Middle High German.— Only a few frag ments of the Reinhart Fuchs of Heinrich. der Glichezare (the Satirist) have come down to us, but a 13th century redaction was edited by J. Grimm in 1834. This poem represents Rein hart in the beginning as the dupe of weaker animals, later as victimizing the wolf in various pranks, working up to the illness of the king, to the trial of Reinhart. to his curing of the king at the expense of his opponents and his final poisoning of his benefactor.
The author seems to have been an errant minstrel or gleeman of whom nothing is known. His style is terse, dry and satirical, with proverbs and local allusions, and German names for animals. He seems to have used a French compilation, containing a portion of the extant Renart but with four episodes of which the French originals have not yet been found.
Text: Fuchs' (Reissenberger, Halle 1886).
Flemish.— Between 1250 and 1270 an un known poet wrote the 3,476 lines called den vos Reinaerde" (of Reynard the Fox). He may have been a "clerk," Willem, perhaps from Hulsterlo in East Flanders, or possibly an un known Arnout from Briigge or thereabouts.
From the 1st (Martin) branche of the French Roman he derives his poem with logical consist ency and epic purpose. It opens with the court of King Nobel, the lion, to whom com plaints against the thief and murderer Reinhart are preferred, and bear and later cat are sent to summon the culprit, who gets both into ter rible trouble. On the advice of the badger, his "nephew," he submits, goes to court, defends himself and offers to go on a pilgrimage to Rome. Acquitted by the king he breaks all promises, commits further depredations and is outlawed. It is told naively, humorously and well. Only a portion of the names are Flemish, the rest French.
Nearly a century later another unknown, possibly from Brugge, rewrote "Willem's" • work, and added some 3,318 lines with copious borrowings from the Roman de Renart, the Flemish adaptation of Marie de France's. 'Isopet,' and various Bestiaries. Its satirical, and obviously didactic purpose made it a great favorite for several centuries, as is witnessed by the chap books of Gouda, 1479, Delft, 1485, the Caxton English one of 1481, and the rimed and modernized Antwerp work of 1487, of which last only fragments are preserved be cause the Duke of Alba and the University of Louvain caused all copies to be destroyed in the year 1570. It was accompanied by didactic glosses and preceded by a preface from the pen of an unknown Hinrek van Alckmer, who was long wrongly considered the author of the Low German 'Reinke de Vos,' which con tains a translation, or more likely an adaptation, of the preface to an Antwerp print of 1564.
Text: 'Reinaert' (Ernest Martin, Paderborn 1874) ; (Reinaert) (F. Buitenrust Hettema en J. W. Muller, Zwolle 1903) ; 'Reinaert' (van Helten, Groningen 1891). Edition (MS.) : Hermann Degering (Munster 1910).
Low German‘—'The first version appeared at Liibeck in 1498 with the so-called Catholic (glosses," followed by the Rostock edition of 1539 with polemical Protestant (glosses," from which resulted 14 Low German, 2 high Ger man, 7 Latin, 3 Danish, 1 Swedish translation, down to Gottsched's reprint and prose transla tion of 1752, which is the beginning of modern (Reinhart' scholarship and the main basis of Goethe's (Reinecke Fuchs.' Reinke Ore is a diminutive) Vos is the principal literary monument of Middle Low German literature, but it has added little to the Flemish original. It has perhaps improved it by slightly amplifying certain portions, while condensing others, by eliminating some of the sermonizing so that a certain refreshing naiveté distinguishes it at least from Reinaert II, and its influence in Germany is deeper and broader than elsewhere. The 16th century engravings of Vir Solis and Jost Ammann also con tribute to this popularity.