The animal epic Van den vos Reynaerde compared to the Old French Roman de Renart.

It is not known exactly when the Old French stories about the fox Renart originated. The written tradition, which is inspired by the Middle Latin Ysengrimus (ca. 1150), is usually said to begin with Pierre de Saint-Cloud. Around 1175 he is said to have described in ‘branche II-Va’ - against the background of the contemporary knightly epic - how the feud between the two barons, Renart the fox and Ysengrin the wolf, began. This first literary Renart story was soon imitated: various authors wrote six other stories up to 1180, and another eleven up to 1205. In the first half of the thirteenth century, ten more appeared. These Renart stories or ‘branches’ initially functioned independently (even though they refer to each other), but were eventually collected in compilations. From the thirteenth century onwards, they have been handed down in a large number of manuscripts and as a whole they form the Roman de Renart. - [Author]

Language: Dutch

ISBN: 978-90-5333-037-1