SOURCE: “The Fabulists' Fox,” in Reynard the Fox: A Study of the Fox in Medieval English Art, Leicester University Press, 1967, pp. 95-101.

In the following excerpt, Varty describes the spread of fox fables and summarizes some of the tales most often depicted in art.

In the preceding chapter we have seen how the Bestiary fox was drawn into the Roman de Renard and how Reynard came to be identified with him. Pierre de Saint Cloud, his continuators and imitators similarly drew on the fabulists' fox for inspiration and, as Reynard's reputation grew, he moved into many of their fables, both in France and England.

Most fables told in the Middle Ages go back to Phaedrus, a slave born in Macedonia who spent the greater part of his life at Rome and became a freedman of the Emperor Augustus. Another important source of the medieval fable is the Roman...