Ysengrimus and Reynard the Fox: Anglo-Dutch Relations as Context for the Reynard Tradition: Part One

Part 1: Ysengrimus 

Written by Sjoerd Levelt

[Deze blogpost is gebaseerd op een recent in het Nederlands gepubliceerd artikel van Ad Putter, Elisabeth van Houts, Sjoerd Levelt en Moreed Arbabzadah, that hier te lezen is.]

                                 The dokes cryden as men wolde hem quelle;

                                 The gees for feere flowen over the trees;

                                 Out of the hyve cam the swarm of bees.

                                 So hydous was the noyse – a, benedicitee! –

                                 Certes, he Jakke Straw and his meynee

                                 Ne made nevere shoutes half so shrille,

                                 Whan that they wolden any Flemyng kille,

                                 As thilke day was maad upon the fox.

                                                            Geoffrey Chaucer, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

In his only reference to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, Chaucer mentions specifically the targeted killing of Flemings. Such killings indeed took place, and Chaucer is not the only one to mention them; a contemporary chronicler, mentioning in particular the linguistic difference between the English rebels and their Dutch-speaking victims, describes how ‘many fflemmynges loste here heedes at that tyme, and namely they that koude nat say breede and chese, but case and brode’.

– John Stow, The Chronicles of England from Brute vnto this Present Yeare of Christ (London, 1580), p. 482 (copy at the Folger Shakespeare Library, from Early English Books Online)

The reference to Flemings by Chaucer in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, however, was especially appropriate in another way: the tale is a retelling of elements from the rich medieval narrative tradition about the sly fox Reynard – and this tradition itself was repeatedly marked by contacts between Dutch and English speakers.

While the late sixteenth and the seventeenth century are justly recognized as an era of intense cooperation and rivalry between England and the Low Countries, the ‘Glorious Revolution’ that put a Dutchman on the English throne in 1689 was actually a ‘Glorious Evolution’, with deep roots in earlier exchanges between English and Dutch speakers. Our project, The Literary Heritage of Anglo-Dutch Relations, c.1050–1600, supported by a Project Grant from the Leverhulme Trust, is the first to study the impact of those relations on English and Dutch literature of the period. There is therefore special reason for us to pay attention to Reynard the Fox: Reynard is one of the literary characters whose world stretched across two sides of the North Sea – every time the fox shows its snout, Anglo-Dutch contacts follow in its tail. And conversely, our approach, revisiting English and Dutch literary texts with attention to their context of Anglo-Dutch relations, can lead to new insights for the study of the Reynard tradition. In the first published output of our project, an article in Tiecelijn, the journal of the Reynaertgenootschap (Reynard Society), we focus on two texts from this tradition: the Latin Ysengrimus and the Middle English Reynard the Fox by William Caxton. The full article, by Ad Putter, Elisabeth van Houts, Sjoerd Levelt and Moreed Arbabzadah, can be read here, in Dutch. Pending an expanded English version of the article which we plan to publish elsewhere, I will give a brief overview here. Caxton’s Reynard the Fox, the first printed English Reynard text, was a direct translation from Dutch, and it is therefore no surprise that taking into account its Anglo-Dutch context can lead to a better understanding of the work – as we will propose in part 2 of this post. But also for Ysengrimus, the oldest surviving Reynard text from Flanders, eye for its Anglo-Dutch context can lead to new insights.

Ysengrimus (c.1148-1150)

Ysengrimus, a Latin poem written in Flanders circa 1148-50, is a satirical epic about the wolf Ysengrimus and his nemesis Reinardus, the fox. Its author brought together elements from Classical literature, folk traditions, and recent events. The name ‘Isengrim’ had been used for wolves before the text: Guibert of Nogent (c.1114) tells that bishop Waldrik of Laon, who himself had lived in England, used it as a nickname for one of his eventual murderers. One way in which Ysengrimus is relevant to the impact of Anglo-Dutch relations on literature is that the work may have served as inspiration for another animal epic, the Speculum stultorum by Nigel de Longchamp of Canterbury (c.1170-80).

But the text itself also carries the traces of Anglo-Dutch relations, in the way it pokes fun at the English. It is worth taking into account that in the period immediately preceding the time Ysengrimus was written, significant numbers of Flemish mercenaries (of low social standing) had fought in England during the Anarchy. In fact, the text is a rich source for the investigation of mid-twelfth century Flemish attitudes toward the English, where the latter are presented as socially inferior to Flemings. The unflatteringly described pig Baltero, for example, is said to be an Anglicus ybris, ‘a hybrid Englishman’. The phrase points at an important dimension of Anglo-Dutch relations, namely sexual relations between Dutch and English speakers – an often neglected, yet unsurprising occurrence when, for example, considering the presence of Flemish immigrants and soldiers in England throughout the period.

Better known is the way in which the author, on several occasions, ridicules Englishmen as having tails; the most recent editor of the text, Jill Mann, has suggested that this running gag was inspired by the etymological link between cauda (‘tail’) and caudatus (‘cowardly’). Supporting this reading is that when Reynard and Isengrim meet, the wolf accuses the fox of being as wild as a Brabander, and as cowardly as an Englishman – the poem’s author indulging in a sense of Flemish superiority toward both England and Brabant. From the Norman Conquest, the English had been known on the Continent to wear their hair longer than their continental contemporaries – and an association with characteristics considered to be effeminate was made, further reinforcing the etymological link to cowardice. Ysengrimus shows that such associations had lost none of their original force a century later. It is noteworthy that the English and their supposed tails remained a trope in Dutch literature far into the early modern period. In the next part of this post, we will see how not only interpersonal relations, but also Anglo-Dutch bilingualism impacted on literature.

‘Britons are not valiant in fighting, nor faithful in peace talks; they can braid beautiful words but hold their tail in their sleeve.’ From: Nederlandtsche nyp-tang (1652) (copy at Universiteitsbibliotheek Groningen, from Google Books)

Ysengrimus and Reynard the Fox: Anglo-Dutch Relations as Context for the Reynard Tradition: Part Two

Part 2: William Caxton’s Reynard the Fox 

Written by Sjoerd Levelt

[Deze blogpost is gebaseerd op een recent in het Nederlands gepubliceerd artikel van Ad Putter, Elisabeth van Houts, Sjoerd Levelt en Moreed Arbabzadah, that hier te lezen is.]

The previous post described how relations between English and Dutch speakers impacted on the oldest surviving text about Reynard the Fox written in Flanders. Here, we will see how our understanding of the first printed English Reynard text is improved by reading it as a product of Anglo-Dutch contact. These posts are based on a recent publication from our project that can be read here, in Dutch.

Caxton’s History of Reynard the Fox (1481)

The History of Reynard the Fox was printed by William Caxton in 1481, in Westminster. While the character of the sly fox had been widespread in England – found in wood carving and illuminated manuscripts, and used in sermons – there are only two Reynard texts in English predating Caxton’s: The Fox and the Wolf (c.1220) and Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale (c.1390) from the Canterbury Tales. It is quite possible that French texts about Reynard satisfied the market for such animal epic in the thirteenth and fourteenth century; both Middle English texts are themselves based on French originals. It is worth noting, however, that The Fox and the Wolf shows dialectal signs of an origin in Kent – an area of England with particularly strong ties to the Dutch Low Countries.

Detail of a bas-de-page scene of a fox, with a mitre and a pastoral staff, preaching to several birds.

London, British Library, Royal 2 B VII (‘Queen Mary Psalter’), fol. 157v. [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=6467&CollID=16&NStart=20207]

With Caxton’s Reynard, things change: the edition itself was a commercial success, being reprinted and revised by Caxton himself, and remaining in circulation in new successive editions throughout the sixteenth century and later. And unlike the previous two texts, Caxton’s Reynard was not based on a French original, but translated from Dutch: its source was a Middle Dutch prose text, Reynaerts historie (‘Reynard’s History’), which had been printed only recently, in 1479, by Gerard Leeu of Gouda. To see how Caxton came to translate a Dutch text into English, how he came to be able to do so, we need to look at his biography – about which we are informed by his own comments, in his introduction to the first work he published in English, The Receuyell of the Historyes of Troye, itself a translation from French. Here, Caxton asks his readers to excuse him for his limited skill both in French and English, for the ‘symplenes and vnperfightnes that I had in bothe langages, that is to wete in frenshe and in englissh. For in france was I never and was born and lerned myn englissh in kent in the weeld where I doubt not is spoken as brode and rude englissh as in ony place of englond, & have contynued by the space of .XXX. yere for the most part in the contres of Braband, flandres, holand, and zeland’ (‘how simply and imperfectly I express myself in both languages, I mean French and English. For I have never been to France, and I was born and learned my English in Kent in the Weald where I have no doubt as broad and rude English is spoken as in any place in England, and I spent the most part of thirty years in the countries of Brabant, Flanders, Holland and Zeeland’).

The Weald, in Kent, was an area that saw significant immigration from Brabant and Flanders in the fourteenth century (and later), and as such, Caxton will have encountered Dutch speakers in his youth; in fact, due to similarities between the two, speakers of the local English dialect in Kent will have found it easier to understand and make themselves understood by speakers of Dutch than speakers of other English dialects would. Caxton himself, following an apprenticeship with a prominent London merchant, became engaged in trade with the Dutch Low Countries – from the 1440s being connected primarily to Bruges, where he settled and eventually became governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London. He spent time in Antwerp, Middelburg and Utrecht, and briefly lived in Cologne, where he started his involvement in printing. In c.1473, probably in Ghent, he began his own press, publishing the first printed book in English, The Receuyell of the Historyes of Troye – which he dedicated to Margaret of Burgundy, wife of Duke Charles the Bold (also known as Margaret of York, sister to the English kings Edward IV and Richard III); he subsequently set up his press in Bruges (1474-1475), before returning to England to establish its first press, in 1476, at Westminster, after having spent three decades or more in the Low Countries.

The History of Reynard the Fox, published in 1481, and therefore in England, has received much negative critical attention focused on the quality of its translation, and Caxton’s regular use of Dutch words has led scholars to see the translation as rushed and careless. The language does raise eyebrows: ‘Yf the fox will telle how it byfel, I wyl gyve hym the fordele thereof, for I can not telle it so wel but he shal beryspe me’ – the words ‘fordele’ and ‘beryspe’ (‘chide’) here are easier to understand to modern speakers of Dutch than those of English; and the latter, indeed, reproduces the same word in the source text. The word ‘fordele’, as used here by Caxton to mean ‘privilege’, however, indicates that the situation is not one of mere sloppy translation: Caxton uses it to translate not the Dutch ‘vordele’, but its synonym ‘voorwaerde’ in his source. Caxton’s substitution of one Dutch loan for another in his English translation, is therefore indicative not of careless translation, but of bilingualism: Caxton was a Dutch speaker. This is further confirmed by the fact that other Dutch loans are found in works which Caxton translated from French, such as for example the word spyncop (from the Flemish spinnekop, ‘spider’), a word that occurs in three of Caxton’s works. Such interference between the two closely related languages in Caxton’s usage also provides a potential contributory explanation for peculiarities in Caxton’s orthography – peculiarities which coincide with characteristics found in the Kentish dialect, such as his use of <ie> or <ye> when <e> or <ee> are expected: diere, hier, hyer fore, etc., and his use of the suffix –nd for the present participle in the Receuyll. The latter peculiarity was archaic in Kentish by Caxton’s time; the principal influence will therefore have been his Flemish.

Anglo-Dutch Literature

The texts discussed in these two posts can justifiably be characterised as Anglo-Dutch literature. Each stems from a milieu coloured by contacts between Dutch and English speakers. In Ysengrimus, a Latin poem from 12^th-century Flanders, such relations impress themselves on characterisations of protagonists in the text (a text which itself possibly crossed the North Sea to inspire further literary production). Caxton’s translation of Reynaerts historie, when seen from a perspective of bilingualism, shows itself to be a less slavish translation than has previously often been assumed. Both are products of a literary culture which shaped around the North Sea, in which both languages, Dutch and English, were in contact with each other continuously and responded to each other – and in which contacts between English and Dutch speakers repeatedly were made subject of literary texts.