The medieval bestiary describes the fox as a sly deceitful beast, as cunning as the devil. It lies down on the ground feigning death and, when crows trustingly approach it, opens its mouth, grabs one and devours it. So acts the devil, who knows well how to fool people and take them to Hell.
Representations of foxes running away with a goose or a hen in their jaws and of foxes in religious attire preaching to a poultry flock are frequently found in the margins of medieval manuscripts in order to warn us about their wily schemes and of the sharp intelligence of those who act like them. Likewise, images of foxes can be seen on the walls of churches, perhaps carrying the same warning, beware of the fox’s shrewdness.
However, it is fascinating to realise how the canniness, guile and wit attributed to its nature were the reasons why the fox became a key figure in medieval mentality, as this iconography, fables and the adventures of the extremely renowned Reynard the Fox come to prove. With precise concision, literature historian Paul Wackers delivers an insightful portrayal of the diverse presence of the fox in medieval culture, through which he encourages us to explore our understanding of a subtle and complex form of intelligence, perhaps even more refined than ours, that has always been embodied in the figure of the fox.
You retired in 2015 from your position as Professor of Dutch Literature to 1500 at the department “Talen, Literatuur en Communicatie” of the University of Utrecht and you are currently Honorary President of the International Reynard Society, an informal institution formed by scholars particularly interested in the presence of animals in medieval literature. In this book’s preface you say that you have worked almost fifty years as a professional on fox stories. What led you to the study of Literature and how did this particular interest in foxes begin?
As a child I liked stories, especially those featuring knights. So, when the time came for me to decide what university degree I should study, I chose Dutch Language and Literature. During my study I met a brilliant professor of Medieval Literature who was, however, not keen on stories about knights, so I read with him mystical literature, drama, etc… Some time went on, and when I was looking for a subject for my Masters’ Thesis, this professor had just been asked to prepare a new edition of Reynaerts historie, the second Dutch story of Reynard the Fox, which had been out of print for around 60 or 70 years at the time. My professor told me he was considering accepting the offer but he knew nothing about that text, so he suggested that we could work and learn about it together. So, this is how Reynaerts historie and other stories about Reynard the Fox entered my life. I found Reynaerts historie fascinating from the very beginning.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that the main theme of this text is the misuse of language and I have always been interested in the possibilities of speech and how a conversation between individuals can end up in a muddle.
After receiving my Master’s Degree I started working as a secondary school teacher; then, the following year there was a vacancy at the same university where I had studied and I became the colleague of my former professor of Medieval Literature. When we split the syllabus of the subject, he asked me if I wanted to take care of teaching the Reynard the Fox stories. That is when my interest in animal stories started and when I attended a meeting of the Renard International Society for the first time. There and then I discovered how interesting it is to speak to people from other countries and other specialities. This is how it all started.
You have been studying foxes as a scholar for around five decades, yet in order to prepare this book you had to carry out research on topics you hadn’t studied previously, such as the behaviour of the foxes, fur trade, fox hunting, usage of body parts of the fox for medical purposes…
When I started studying, the only thing that literary historians did was reading books. These dynamics have changed over time, but at that point their only focus was the text. I became aware that many manuscripts were illustrated; however, my colleagues simply didn’t take these images into account and, as for art historians, they would only pay attention to the illustrations.
I started looking carefully at the images, as I wanted to understand the way medieval people looked at the foxes. This desire for better understanding also led me to reading the Bible, commentaries, philosophical writings…
So the idea that you need a broad knowledge of culture in order to understand the literature has always been part of my work; however, in this book I had to talk about the fox in all possible aspects, including its existence as a real animal and I found that absolutely fascinating, particularly since it made me realise how coherent the medieval ideas on the fox were. Of course, during my years at university, I had seen that I could use the Bible, exegesis, the bestiary…when I was interpreting medieval stories but now I could see that many literary aspects were coming back in places where I did not expect them, for example in hunting manuals. And on the other hand real hunting techniques came to the fore in spiritual writings. To see that a duke can write about spiritual growth by using hunting techniques as metaphors or allegories was something entirely new to me. The same patterns of correspondence as in stories can be found in the medical use of foxes, another very interesting discovery for me as well. When I first started, I thought this book would be quickly and easily written as I had gathered so much material over the years but in the end it wasn’t. However, all these discoveries and new found aspects made the whole process of making the book a real pleasure.
A pleasant challenge?
Yes. Writing the book posed a challenge on two levels. The first was that I had to learn to write a holistic book about the fox in medieval times. The second one was how to write a short and readable book on a topic that is so enormous and complex. Once you start looking into it, you bump into sources everywhere.
Having read all the titles of the “Medieval Animals” series published so far, I would argue that your book and Kathryn Smithies’ study of the ass in medieval times are the ones that consider these animals through their relationship with people from all walks of life, both directly and indirectly, as a beast with a real presence in their lives and as a symbolic character. Is this type of ‘familiarity’ something particularly specific to the relationship between humans and the fox in the Middle Ages?
I think so, but I am not entirely sure because I would say that no similar research to that which I have carried out here has been done on animals. Kathryn Smithies did indeed something comparable about the ass and there you see the same links between the reality, where these animals were a beast of burden and part of everyday life, and the texts. However, I believe there are fewer parallels between humans and problems of human life with asses than there are between human life and the fox.
When we take the wolf or the lion, which are also very important in medieval stories, we must realise that lions were totally absent in real medieval life and wolves were feared, a feeling which creates aggression against the wolf, which is always considered a bad creature. The wolf was used from the 10th to the 12th century in ecclesiastical circles to expose the bad side of monks. The wolf monk was a frequent literary figure and in the vernacular writings he is a stupid character, which always loses; whereas foxes sometimes win and sometimes loose, which makes them on the whole more interesting creatures. This is probably the reason that the fox is such a frequent character in fables.
Noting that the fox had a very remarkable cultural significance as a symbol long before the Middle Ages, in the book’s postscript you refer to a text written by the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) titled “The Hedgehog and the Fox”, a title referring to a statement ascribed to the Greek poet Archilochus (ca. 680-645 BC): “A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing”. Berlin used the hedgehog and the fox as images to describe two types of thinker and writer.
I am very glad you reacted to this because I wanted it to shock people and to put the book in a wider context.
Foxes are universal, I think they can be found in all cultures. Depending on the culture, the symbol embodied by the fox in one culture is embodied by the jackal in another, but the figure of a beast of extreme cleverness is always present. Human stories need a figure that represents shrewdness and they show that it is a trait that can be used both in negative and positive ways. The fox was important before and after the Middle Ages and with this book I have attempted to show which the main lines of the intellectual images in medieval times were and how they worked together. At present foxes are still very popular animals. On the one hand I was amazed that Walt Disney had portrayed Robin Hood as a fox in their film version, while on the other hand I perfectly understood this choice. The English author Anne Louise Avery has recently penned a rewritten version of Reynard the Fox, which is a brilliant work but, even though she is using the same literary material, her view and attitude on the fox is completely different to the one in the texts written in the Middle Ages. This is one of the aspects I find fascinating about fox stories: they go on and on and on but they change depending on the culture of the period in which they are received and told.
In ancient fables we see that the fox’s cleverness is not necessarily ill-intentioned but can often be evidence of its intelligence and ingenuity. However, in the Middle Ages, due to the moralistic views of Christianity the prevailing view about its behaviour tends to be negative.
In the Middle Ages, moral and belief were far more important than in our present culture, something which implies that establishing a moral concerning a particular event or action was easier and seen as more necessary. When we look at fables and stories, we see that it is possible to have a negative and a positive view on the fox. As I said, he always shows cleverness which can be used in negative or positive ways. If you are clever and find yourself in a difficult situation or someone else has a problem and you can solve it, then cleverness appears as a positive trait. However, if you use your cleverness to give yourself an advantage that can potentially damage others, then this is seen as a bad feature. Looking from a religious perspective, if you know your behaviour is unfair to other people, you will label it as wrong; however, when you tell a story you can deliver this message in a more complex way by introducing the duped as aggressive and stupid, thus suggesting that what they get serves them right, and creating some sympathy for the duper, the trickster.
A medieval story can trigger a mixed reaction: on the one hand I enjoy them but on the other I can see the wrong side of behaviour described in the story. This complex image of the fox may be found especially in fables, as fables are quite chameleonic, because the situation they sketch can be interpreted in many different ways.
Would you like me to tell you a fable to illustrate this chameleonic character?
Certainly.
The tortoise goes to the hare and says: “I want to race you. The prize for the winner will be 100 dollars”. The hare refuses the proposal since he is certain he will win. The tortoise insists and raises the prize to 200 dollars. The hare insists it will be unfair to the tortoise as he knows he will be the winner. He says that he knows the fable of hare and tortoise in which the hare wins, but real life is different. However, the tortoise raises up the prize to 500 dollars and the hare finally agrees to compete against the tortoise. The hare wins. And the moral of this story is: “do not trust fables”.
Of course, this is a modern revision of the ancient fable. It shows very nicely that the moral that can be connected to the fable is never inevitable, but always a construct.
In the example of the fable of the fox and the ape that I mention in the book one moral is don’t refuse to help those in need, while the other one is don’t share what you need yourself. So what we see in stories about the fox is that he is sometimes presented under a light that is not entirely right nor very warm, while in other stories he is portrayed in a very bad light. In many of the longer stories that I have mentioned in the book but not analysed the fox is clearly evil.
As a symbol of cleverness, the view on the fox is good depending on how the author thinks about life in general. When the author is a pessimist and looks at the intellectuals of his time and reckons they are causing havoc, then the view is negative. Authors who think that cleverness is not only useful for the fox but also for human society tell more positive stories.
Is this possibility of a double reading that provides the symbol of the fox with a particular vitality and relatability? The fact that Reynard the Fox, a fictional character, became (and still is) so widely popular in many regions of Europe might be seen also as proof of the prominence the fox achieved in the medieval mind. It is probably worth noting here how Reynard went on to symbolise the fable fox as well.
Yes. The combination of fox and wolf is also important. The wolf is a symbol of strength and force, while the fox is a symbol of cunning. Whether to use strength or cunning is one of the major questions in human life. I would also add that there is something captivating about somebody who is really clever, but the reason for this extreme fascination is something I don’t really have an explanation for. In any case, we see that an animal that was a symbol of something became an individual character: the fox became Reynard.
Reynard seems to be a figure that started in the oral tradition, we are unable to trace its origins back. The name Reynard (in fact: Reinardus) appears for the first time in a written Latin text in the middle of the 12th century. I would say that the name ‘Reynard’, ‘Renard’, had then been going around for a hundred years or so, but it is very hard to ascertain this fact. It will remain unsolved because it is absolutely impossible for us to get into the oral tradition of the past, so I have simply accepted that in the Middle Ages the fox and Reynard became interchangeable.
Plus, as you mention, the fact that the stories spread so widely across Europe is very remarkable. We know this because in many religious and didactic texts authors refer to a Reynard story and clearly take for granted that the public knows it, which proves that Reynard must have been one of the most famous literary characters of the Middle Ages. These days, in many European countries, the fictional characters that the public know best from he Middle Ages are King Arthur and his Round Table, Tristan and Isolde, and Reynard. In the particular case of Reynard, they may not know the plot of the stories that are protagonised by him, yet they are aware that stories about him were written.
You mentioned earlier the need for scholars to combine the study of text and images and have them work in a more interwoven way. However, certain marginal images featuring foxes cannot always be connected to a written source. The same applies to one of the parts of the mosaic at the Cathedral of Lescar (southern France, ca. 1130-1140). That is supposed to be representing a scene from the Roman de Renard, albeit that the specialists disagree about which scene precisely is illustrated. This leads to the hypothesis that the story which the mosaic is representing is far older, had been transmitted orally and had to be a very well-known one, so church-goers would probably recognise the scene very easily.
In the case of the Lescar mosaic we have the same story as image and as text. The image is older than the text, so is proof of the existence of an oral version of the story before it was written down.
Sometimes images seem even to refer to stories that have never been written down. We see often an image of a fox running away with a goose linked to one of a fox preaching to geese and there are also images where we see the geese hanging the fox. There is no written story where such a thing happens. In most stories a fox meets a cock instead of a goose and he does not preach to him but flatters him. So you find two different sets of information: visual and written, they are linked but they don’t overlap with each other completely. The only explanation is that the images of the fox and the geese are referring to unwritten sources and perhaps they are not so much referring to a story as to a proverb or short saying. “When the fox preaches, beware of the geese” is still a popular saying in many languages. This could have been the starting point for a short story in which the geese fought back and hanged the fox for his misdeeds. I have never encountered evidence for or suggestions to such a story, but it seems quite plausible that something like it existed and that could explain the images.
After I had finished the book I thought about the fact that many of the images of a fox preaching to geese, which afterwards hung the fox, are to be found in churches. If the point of departure for this was the proverb, “when the fox preaches, beware of the geese”, and it was an image the Church chose to use, it could perhaps be interpreted as a warning saying the Devil is a false preacher who wants to grab you, so do not become a member of his flock, but do as the geese who hanged him and make him harmless. In Italian mosaics we see something comparable: two cocks carrying a dead fox as a hunting trophy. If you interpret the cocks as symbols of vigilance and the fox as the devil, that would explain why this scene could be found so often in churches.
What I have rediscovered while writing this book is that if you want to study medieval culture you must speak with colleagues, not only those who are specialist in other languages, but also with those who are specialists in other fields. It is impossible for one individual person to know everything. As a literary historian I need to look at images and then speak with colleagues who are more knowledgeable about images and less about the text, so we can exchange knowledge and push it further. When I started studying, I never looked at images, which is a mistake. You must use a wide net to make your research worthwhile. Of course, the amount of knowledge you will be able to gather is limited. One doesn’t have the time nor the brain power to know everything; therefore, one should choose a very specific subject to specialise on and then accept that the assistance of people who are knowledgeable on complementary aspects about it will be indispensable.
And also to humbly admit that no matter how extremely hard one works and carries out research, the amount of knowledge on a particular subject that one will gather is a really minuscule portion of the whole.
But the positive thing is that as you gain more knowledge, you become more capable to acknowledge things like the fact I wouldn’t have been able to write this book when I was younger. This book needed a whole life of scholarship to be able to trace the big areas of research and condense them in a short overview. That’s been possible thanks to the fact that I knew many things that are not in the book but which were nevertheless necessary to decide what had to be in there. So, working incessantly and steadily does absolutely help.
The appearance of the image of the preaching fox in the 13th century is a particularly interesting subject. It coincided with the emergence of the Franciscan and Dominican orders and the Fourth Council of the Lateran, bringing with it new obligations for the laypeople.
I think the image of the preaching fox is part of a more general development. We see that the importance of religious culture and intellectual culture started to grow in the 12th century and became very important in the 13th century. In the Church and in the court of worldly rulers written texts and intellectuals became more and more indispensable, meaning that study and intellectual knowledge became a key for social success, something that was completely new. In previous centuries that was unnecessary as society was based on oral communication and not on written culture. This change had both negative and positive effects.
When looking at the negative aspects one finds the connections between the foxes and the Dominicans and Franciscans, which, as I say, is a sign of this more general development. The friars had a difficult ideal: they wanted to be poor and other people had to provide for their living, so they had to beg, while delivering a promise of salvation to those who helped them. This was something that could generate tension, which can be felt in the criticism addressed towards the Dominicans and the Franciscans. It is also quite likely that not all Dominicans and Franciscans lived in accordance with the ideal of poverty claimed by their orders’ founders and could therefore be compared to (hypocritical) foxes. Plus, when you are living in a society where you are forced to have a more direct contact with the clergy and there is an increasing number of literate people, who can use written language, it would seem almost inevitable that the number of texts and images aggressive towards these new orders increased. Also, there wasn’t any other animal that could be used for this kind of criticism, because the Dominicans and the Franciscans were preaching orders and the animal representing language and its misuse is the fox. So, as I said, when one wants to represent force, the animal symbolising it will be the wolf, the bear or the lion because they are strong and aggressive but the Reynard stories are essentially texts about language. I cannot really pinpoint the reason why it is so, but language is always connected with the fox.
In your discussion about this issue in the book you mention the Pentecostal feast organised by the king Philippe IV Le Bel in Paris in 1313, a public event which must have delivered to the lower classes the underlying message that deceivers of laity could be found in every rank of the Church, something that keeps underscoring the fact that the fox was widely understood as a symbol of falsehood among the folk.
This Pentecostal feast is fascinating. It was an event organised to honour some foreign guests. The king wanted to impress these guests and also to criticise the Church since he had a conflict with the Pope. There are two levels of audience in the feast: the citizens of Paris and the high guests, closer to the king, that is, the community of peers and noble guests who should be influenced to think like him in order to keep France free of any kind of conflicts. This shows that the Reynard the Fox material can be used as political commentary and also to present to the masses an idea of how the world functions. The fox is presented there as the deceiver and deceiving is present in all ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
There is only one source documenting the celebration of this feast, a chronicle that provides a relatively vague description of it. Two scholars have written about it and one of the studies was never published for some unknown reason; however, I found this reference so interesting that I decided I had to make a reference to it. Anybody who is interested in learning more about can read the notes in my book and go further.
Anyway, what is particularly fascinating is that a French king would present his people criticism of the highest circles of the Church, claiming that they were a problem. In the 13th century there was a fight between the Pope and the European kings and emperors regarding influence and political power. Therefore, this feast could be seen as an attempt of sending people the message: “Trust me, not them”.
The fox represents the clergy and also people who can use language, such as lawyers, chancellors…In the book I emphasize the clerical aspect because it was something slightly unexpected for me as a scholar, yet something that appeared very frequently. But it is important to bear in mind that the fox does ultimately symbolise all (professional) users of language and, especially, misusers of it.
In the book you say the fox can also be seen as a symbol of the Devil. What you have just said reminds me of Debating with Demons, an essay by Christina M. Heckman (Boydell & Brewer, 2020) where she discusses early English literary texts warning about the fact that the devil could use language and the verbal arts to manipulate knowledge and lure individuals into sinful thinking.
In early Christian exegesis the fox is very often symbolising heretics. Heretics are seen as people who misuse language to tell lies and say things against the divine truth, so there is the same element, albeit in a slightly different context. So, certainly, as you are suggesting, this aspect was there from the very beginning.
Lastly, I would like to ask you what the specific importance of examining the presence of animals in medieval literature is today.
I could talk for a long time about this. I think it is very important to study historical subjects to learn to look at our own times in new ways. The subject you are studying is not relevant, as long as it is something different from our time, but I think that studying animals in the Middle Ages is interesting for a number of reasons.
One of the reasons is because many animal stories which are an indirect way of commenting on human society are ambiguous. Unless the author specifies the meaning very clearly, we can see readers reacting very differently to the same story. Ambiguity is a fairly important part of our society today and learning to cope with it is very difficult. Certainly it is not the best nor the only way to study ambiguity, but medieval animal stories have helped me to get a better grasp on the phenomenon and I think others could experience the same.
Another reason is that in the stories and the use of animals we can see very clearly the medieval tendency to allegorical thinking, to assume that the world is there not just to be used and profited from, but also because it gives us meaning and information about the way to live. This medieval respect for nature, of looking at the world as a wonder and as means of knowledge and wisdom is something I miss very often in our times. Many of the problems we currently face are caused by the fact that we look at animals and nature as ‘things’ that we can use to obtain something. I wish we could retrieve a bit of that medieval respect and feeling of wonder when thinking about nature.
Finally, a new field of studies called “Animal Studies” has been established and one of its branches, “Cultural Animal Studies”, has been gaining importance over the last five or six years. This new discipline has appeared because many scholars, particularly in the US, are very unhappy with the way humans are handling animals, so they are focusing on studying animals and what is the difference between humans and animals, how should humans behave with animals, etcetera. What I see very often in the books and articles produced by these scholars is the assumption that the way we look at these problems is universal, an idea I disagree with as I think this is something determined by our own specific historical circumstances. When you study the way medieval people saw animals you can give some modest but necessary influx to these important discussions by showing that some suppositions are not as evident as they may seem and by helping people to be more careful about their thinking and to call into question their own views, so they can understand there is not one manner of handling things.
These are all indirect ways, but I think they are important because they use material that is unavailable when you remain rooted in the modern age only. There are many negative clichés about the Middle Ages, that they were dark and all this kind of rubbish, and the best way to discover how wrong these clichés are is go and read what somebody who lived in the Middle Ages wrote rather than stick to what someone who was born after the Middle Ages wrote about that period.
Paul Wackers, Introducing the Medieval Fox, University of Wales Press, 2023.
ILLUSTRATIONS
(1). Liber quatuor tractatuum, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 131, f.71r, 14th century.
(2). Psalter and Book of Hours, Bibliothèque Municipale de Metz, MS 1588, f.21v, 14th century.
(3). Gaston Phébus, Livre de la chasse, British Library, Add MS27699, f.23r, 15th century .
(4). Gaston Phébus, Livre de la chasse, J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms 27 (87.MR.34), f.27r, ca. 1430-1440.
(5). Fable of the fox and the dog. Avianus, Fabulae, Bibliothèque nationale de France, NAL 1132, f.39r, ca. 890-910.
(6). Fable of the fox and the cat. Woodcut for Reynke de Vos, Lübeck, 1498, f.K1r.
(7 y 8). Fable of the fox and the stork. Breviary of Louis de Male, Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België, ms.9427, f.127, 14th century.
(9). Le roman de Renart, British Library, Add MS 15299, f.33r, 14th century.
(10). Roman de Renart, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 12584, f.66r (detail), ca. 1301-1350.
(11). Part of the mosaic of Lescar Cathedral (France, ca. 1130-1140).
(12). Frescoes, Ottestrup Kirke, Denmark, ca. 1500-1525.
(13 y 14). Smithfield Decretals, British Library, Royal MS 10 E IV, ff.49v, 48v, ca. 1340.
(15). Gaston Phébus, Livre de la chasse, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 616, f.99v, 14th-15th century.
(16). Book of Hours, British Library, Stowe MS 17, f.84r, ca. 1300-1325.
(17). Missal, Morgan Library, ms m.892.3, Hamburg, f.1r, 14th century.
(18). Rochester Bestiary, British Library, Royal MS 12 F XIII, f.26v, ca. 1230.
(19). Paul Wackers
[With thanks to Brian Gallagher]
un trabajo tartamudo 