Imagining Aesop: the Medieval Fable and the History of the Book

Home , Advocates (short story), John Lydgate, The Cock and the Jewel

MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School

Certificate for Approving the Dissertation

We hereby approve the Dissertation

Greta Lynn Smith

Candidate for the Degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

______Dr. Cynthia Klestinec, Director

______Dr. Katharine Gillespie, Reader

______Dr. Patrick Murphy, Reader

______Dr. Tory Pearman, Reader

______Dr. Stephen Nimis, Graduate School Representative

ABSTRACT

IMAGINING AESOP: THE MEDIEVAL FABLE AND THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK

Greta L Smith

Fable collections circulated widely throughout the Middle Ages. A popular classical form, the fable plays a significant role in medieval language education, storytelling, and social and political commentary. These collections were so popular that there are over 200 extant manuscripts and later became some of the first works put into print by British printer William Caxton. While other scholars have noted the widespread popularity of the fables, this dissertation addresses the implications of this popularity. Fables seem to have played an integral part in medieval language and literacy education, and later became a significant part of medieval literature. Ultimately, the fable played an integral role in the development of imaginative literature in the medieval period. This dissertation focuses on the transition between and overlap of the fable genre and the development of literacy education and medieval literature. It intervenes in the field of medieval literature and the history of the book. Focusing on the ways that various authors and translators use the fables differently, this dissertation explores how fable editions can enhance our knowledge of the reading practices of their time. Each of these topics can shed light on the other—a better understanding of the way that fables are working can help us better understand the history of the book, while understanding the history and rise of the book can also help us understand the significance of the fable genre. As the fables becomes a part of literary tradition, and later a part of print culture, the content and nature of fable collections shifts. In the Middle Ages, fables move from the classical model of detached short narratives with a pithy moral, collected together only because of their similar genre, into collections that offer a narrative structure with coherent characters across fables, and eventually into collections that are carefully organized to convey a series of messages, building from each individual fable to the next. Aesop is connected to the collections in name only until the rise of print, when the life of Aesop is reintroduced as a preface to the collections, and fable literature, rather than being held together with a narrative structure returns once again to short, disconnected narratives, with two-line morals. By examining different interpretations of the fable genre throughout the Middle Ages, I will look at how medieval readers experienced the fable as part of a developing culture of reading and the book.

IMAGINING AESOP: THE MEDIEVAL FABLE AND THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK

A DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of

Miami University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of English

Greta L Smith

The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio

2016

Dissertation Director: Dr. Cynthia Klestinec

Greta Lynn Smith

2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: 1 The History of the Book, Reading Practices, and Reception

Chapter 1: 20 Commentary, Marginalia, and Circulation: The Curricular Aesop

Chapter 2: 47 Characterization, Citizenship, and Collectivity: The Fables of Marie de France

Chapter 3: 86 Law and Tyranny: The Fables of John Lydgate

Chapter 4: 131 Social Commentary and Critique: Robert Henryson’s Morall Fabilli

Chapter 5: 184 Moving Back to the Classical: William Caxton’s The Fables of Aesop, and other print versions

Conclusion: 203 The Fable and Medieval Readers

Bibliography 206

iii ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1: “The Fable of the Rat and of the Frogge” 186

Figure 2: "The Fable of the Dogge and of the Sheep " 188

Figure 3: “The Fable of the Egle Whiche Bare a Nutte in his Becke,” 195

Figure 4: “The Fable of the Oxe and of the Frogge 200

DEDICATION

To Tom and Tori, for their never ending patience and support, and distractions and laughs when I needed them most.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to my chair, Dr. Cindy Klestinec, for her encouragement and careful editing, and the development of my writing skills that goes far beyond this dissertation. And to the rest of my committee, for their continued support and belief in the project, and in particular to Dr. Patrick Murphy for pointing out to me that medieval fables seemed like an interesting and understudied project, and letting me run with his idea.

To my Dad, for never letting me give up, for insisting I can do this, and never letting me accomplish less than my best, and my Mom, for being the strongest woman I have ever met. Your model of strength gave me the strength I needed to finish.

For my Miami friends, in particular Alyssa, who started and finished this journey with me; so many thanks for the late night consolations and editing help. Also Kasey and Megan, for making the whole grad school experience more enjoyable.

Thanks to my many running friends for letting me burn off my stress, and talk to you about fables for miles, even though I sounded crazy.

And last, thanks to my writing buddy, George the Cat, for sitting on my lap, and my computer, from the prospectus to the final draft.

vi Introduction: The History of the Book, Reading Practices, and Reception In 1692, John Locke published the Federalist Papers, which included a treatise entitled Some Thoughts Concerning Education. In this work, Locke discusses all of the methods through which a child ought to be educated, including the various texts he/she ought to study. When discussing which books should be used to teach reading, he notes a child should begin with “some easy pleasant book, suited to his capacity.” This book should not be dull, but rather “the entertainment that he finds might draw him on, and reward his pains in reading, and yet not such as should fill his head with perfectly useless trumpery.” The perfect text for this, Locke argues, is Aesop’s fables, which he believes are “stories apt to delight and entertain a child, may yet afford useful reflections to a grown man.” Locke goes on to note that Aesop’s fables are also the perfect work through which a child could learn Latin, encouraging that a child should read the same fable “over and over again, till he perfectly understands the Latin; and then go on to another fable, till he be also perfect in that.”1 Most interesting, however, is Locke’s classification of the fable texts: “The Fables of Aesop, the only book almost that I know fit for children, may afford them matter for this exercise of writing English.”2 Simultaneous to Locke’s proclamations on the usefulness of the fable genre in educating children, the perception of children began to shift as well. Rather than the medieval perception, which allowed children to be exposed to much the same literature as adults, children of the eighteenth century were viewed as more innocent, in need of protection from their parents.3 Locke’s work seems to have influenced later authors such as Hans Christian Anderson to use fables in ways that we

1 John Locke (John W Yolton, and Jean S. Yolton. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1989. Print. p. 91) also encourages that a child might write the English translation for each of Aesop’s fables, as literal as It might be, and through this method determine the meaning of each individual Latin word. 2 Locke’s encouragement for his readers to rewrite the fable in English (106) is certainly part of a long medieval tradition—he is simply lowering the age group that is completing this exercise. 3 Seth Lerer discusses the constructs of childhood, and the expressions and rise of childhood throughout the Middle Ages, and into the modern era at great length in his book Children’s Literature : a Reader’s History, from Aesop to Harry Potter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Print).

1 are all too familiar with today—as simple moral texts, designed to teach a child reader right from wrong. This was a far cry from how fables had been read; earlier in the 1600s, collections such as Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, covered sophisticated economic concepts. Before Locke’s work, fables seem to cover a much wider set of concerns, rather than being limited by beliefs on what a child should or should not be exposed to: collections such as Jean de la Fontaine’s, whose initial pre1692 fables are rather immoral and clearly aimed at a more sophisticated audience.4 A later translation of Fontaine’s work in 1754 has been significantly tamed, and truly intended to be read by children. This trend continues well into the twenty first century, as fables are now published almost entirely as children’s literature. Although we, like Locke, have come to associate the fable with children, the fable had different functions in earlier times. The modern perception of the fable places it strongly in the category of children’s literature, yet this is very far removed from the fable’s ancient and medieval roots. Even the purported author of the fable, Aesop, was a figure not suitable for children; in the Life of Aesop he is celebrated as a thief, and repeatedly tells rather crude jokes. In the Middle Ages the fable was used primarily for grammar and Latin language education, and certainly targeted exclusively at older students and adults. This becomes especially clear in the later fable collections, such as John Lydgate’s and Robert Henryson’s, who interpret the fables in more complex ways. Examining medieval fables in their own time, we are forced to rework our basic assumptions of the fable genre. Rather than looking at the fables to be pedantic and simple, the medieval fable can be complex both in its moral lessons and in its construction. For medieval authors, fables seem to have been something of a blank slate; a genre that could be reworked time and again to fit differing conventional molds, and different argumentation styles. Study of the medieval fable emphasizes that what we might view as a simple part of the canon of children’s literature has a long and storied history, is an incredibly versatile genre, and played a pivotal role in the development of reading and writing in the Middle Ages.

4 Fontaine’s earlier collection is actually dedicated to Louis XIV’s six year old son, but it is clear they are not actually intended for a younger audience.

2 There have been almost no book length studies done on medieval fable collections, and their impact on medieval literature. Only Edward Wheatley, in his 2000 work, Mastering Aesop: Medieval Education, Chaucer, and His Followers, truly addresses the fable as a medieval genre. Wheatley conducts a comprehensive study of the medieval fable in the context of Latin language education. His work argues for the significance of the often overlooked fable manuscripts and the interesting and interactive commentary that they provide from their schoolboy readers. Ultimately, after establishing his argument for the prevalence of the curricular fable, Wheatley looks at more literary uses of the fable. He discusses the influence of the fable on Geoffrey Chaucer in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, as well as in the works of John Lydgate and Robert Henryson. By reading these literary works through the lens of the curricular fable, Wheatley maps features of the commentary tradition onto the ways that these authors interpret the fable, and he attributes many of the complexities of these later retellings of the fables the earlier interpretations of schoolboys found in the commentaries. Although Wheatley’s focus on reading in the educational context clarifies the impact of the curricular commentary on later authors, it does not address the other ways that the elegiac Romulus impacted later fables outside of the curricular context, nor does it consider how the fable is adapted throughout the Middle Ages to move away from the curricular context.5 Wheatley also doesn’t focus much attention on the moral aspects of the elegiac Romulus, but these morals were a large part of what impacted later authors, and are worthy of deeper study. Wheatley studies the reader of the fable in so much that he views them as a part of the commentary tradition, and views these commentaries as the reader’s responses to the fables. However, his study addresses these responses as formulaic and unoriginal, each following a set tradition. Other signs, including marginalia in the fables, reveal a great deal more about the reader of the elegiac Romulus. A study that combines the commentary with these indicators, and close readings of the same fables across different

5 Only one other author, John Marlin (“Robert Henryson’s ‘Morall Fabilles’: Irony, Allegory, and Humanism in Late-Medieval Fables.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 34 (2009): 133–147. Print) takes up the question of the medieval fable and the commentary tradition, and he only does this in the context of Robert Henryson’s response to the fable commentaries. It is my intention to address both of these perspectives on the commentary, but then to reshift the focus of the conversation back to the text and materiality of the actual fable collections.

3 collections reveals far more about the reader of the medieval fable than a simple study of grammatical commentaries. The lack of study in these areas, along with the general lack of attention to the genre indicates the need for a broader study of the reception and use of the medieval fable. Scholars, including Wheatley, have placed Geoffrey Chaucer at the forefront of their discussion on fables, primarily because of his use of the genre in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, and perhaps in The Manciple’s Tale.6 Wheatley even goes so far as to argue that: The Canterbury Tales stands as the first great collection of fabulae in English, several of them having their roots in Latin clerical culture. Furthermore, the very structure of the complilation, with the portraits of the pilgrims in the General Prologue followed by a series of tales that they tell, may remind us of the scholastic practice of introducing the author of a fabula so as to allow us to judge his or her work in relation to that author’s life.7 The structure of The Canterbury Tales does indeed fulfill the basic standards of the fable genre—it is a set of short stories, each able to be read and interpreted on their own, and the tales themselves each provide something of a moral lesson or teaching, as the fables do. Chaucer addresses this feature of the fable (and perhaps of his own work) clearly in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale itself: Taketh the moralite, good men For Seint Paul seith, that al that written is, To oure doctrine it is ywrite, ywis, Taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille.8

6 H.J. Blackham, Donald MacDonald, Denton Fox, and Peter W. Travis are just a few of the scholars that place a heavy emphasis on the medieval fable as it appears in Chaucer’s work, ignoring the prevalence of fable collections. As Wheatley notes, The Manciple’s Tale only receives this classification because it contains a talking animal and a moral. Chaucer derives the narrative from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, recasting it as something of an animal tale. 7 98 8 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Larry Dean Benson, and F. N. (Fred Norris) Robinson. The Riverside Chaucer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Print (674-7)

4 Highlighting the bipartile nature of the fable genre, Chaucer notes fable literature is full of both moralities (fruyt) and witty tales (chaf), and encourages his reader to focus only on the morals. However, even Wheatley admits that although The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is one of the most well known fables in literature, its complexity and length do not fit within the confines of the fable genre. The actual animal fable is less than a half of the narrative; the remaining parts of the tale are devoted to a description of the old woman, and then Chauntecleer and his dream. Additionally, while sometimes linked to the fable of the Cock and the Jasp, the fable used in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale doesn’t come out of the elegiac Romulus tradition, which was the only fable collection to circulate widely in the Middle Ages. Rather, Chaucer seems to have taken largely from the Reynardian beast tales, while adding some narrative from both Marie de France’s fables and the commentary tradition. While Chaucer’s use of fable is significant and interesting, my focus here is not on individual uses of fable, but on fable collections, specifically those impacted by the elegiac Romulus tradition. Both John Lydgate and Robert Henryson are viewed as Chaucerians, and their use of the fable thought of as an attempt to follow Chaucer’s usage of the genre. Rather than add to this already rich critical tradition of comparing Henryson and Lydgate to Chaucer, here I aim to examine both authors in their role as fabulists, and their collections of fables as unique in their own right, apart from of their relationship to Chaucer’s work. Often discussions of fable collections are limited to focus on Chaucer and the realtionships of other collections to Chaucer’s work. While Chaucer does use the fable in an interesting way, and later fabulists John Lydgate and Robert Henryson were both Chaucerians in their own right, there is far more to be said about fable collections outside of their relationship to Chaucer. When discussions of the fable form are limited to the Chaucerian uses of the genre, this often fails to address the ways that the fable operates as a part of a collection and the literary heritage of fables themselves. The focus on Chaucer also tends to marginalize the fable as a form of literature, implying that in order to be considered literary, fables ought to be ensconced in larger works of literature. For a variety of reasons, fable collections and especially the later collections of Lydgate and Henryson can be viewed as literary in their own right. Both authors build their fables one

5 upon the next, use their fables to make social and political implications, and have overarching messages that they impose on their collections. Even the elegiac Romulus and Marie de France’s lengthy collection have elements of coherence, and ultimately use groups of fables to make clear arguments. Too much emphasis on Chaucer’s work or use of fable, or the fable collection’s relationships to Chaucer, such as in Wheatley and Blackham’s work, overlooks all of these aspects of the fable which can be emphasized by putting fable collections in conversation with each other. My work will bring a careful study of circulation, reception, and readership to the fable. It will also focus on how fable collections work in conversation with each other in order to build upon what Wheatley has done. I will seek to broaden the understanding of the impact that the reader of the fable had on later collections through a careful examination of marginalia in manuscript copies of the fables, as well as through examining the same fable in various collections. While determining the impact of the reader on fable collections, I will also examine the role of the author as reader, looking at the ways we can understand later medieval authors as readers of the elegiac Romulus and Marie de France’s collections, and how this role might have impacted their own work. Rather than looking at the effect of commentary on later authors such as Lydgate and Henryson, I will look different aspects of medieval fable collections that reflect traces of readership, including marginalia, morals, and coherency within collections, in order to argue for a close and revealing relationship between authors and their readers. Ultimately, rather than Wheatley’s model of borrowing from the commentaries, I believe these authors leave behind the commentary tradition to ask their readers a different set of questions about the fable. Because there are so many extant manuscripts containing some portion of fable collections, I was careful to integrate a study of these into my methodology. These manuscripts are simple, and often well worn, but this makes them an accurate and important reflection of the medieval readers. Traces of readership exist in these manuscripts, not just in the marginal notation, but in the ordering and presentation of the fables, and understanding this refocuses our understanding of the medieval fable reader. It is my argument that because there is such a strong material history for fables and fable collections, any study of fable literature should be approached with this in mind.

6 Critical discussions of the medieval fable also focus far too enthusiastically on the role of the fable as a curricular and grammatical text; I argue strongly that all fable collections, even the elegiac Romulus, have a storied history outside of the grammar school. An over emphasis on the grammatical role of the fable has the effect of diminishing its other features, including moral lessons, and the ability to argue for political, social, and religious change. A focus on the grammatical also forces a view of the fable that attempts to parse fable collections into individual fables, rather than acknowledging that they exist as a very coherent set of stories which all work together to make overarching arguments throughout entire collections. I believe that this idea of the fable as a collection is critical; even in the earliest medieval collections we can start to see narratives forming across fables, with early fables being used to teach the reader how to interpret those later in the collections. By the later Middle Ages, in Lydgate’s and Henryson’s collections, the authors have adapted the fable so completely that they use the idea of the collection in order to develop more complicated moral frameworks around the fables that they tell. While the form of the fable remains the same, the structuring of the individual fables into these complex collectives allows the authors to develop sophisticated arguments about politics, social roles, tyranny, and other issues significant to their (and potentially our) times. One reason that the fables have not received as much critical attention as they deserve is that their short length often disqualifies them from being thought of as literary. However, I would argue that when each fable collection is looked at as a whole, rather than as individual fables, it becomes evident that they contain a number of literary elements. In their work, Theory of Literature, Rene Wellek and Austin Warren work to define the term “literature,” ultimately settling on a definition that refers to “imaginative literature.” They determine the largest qualification for imaginative literature to be the use of language in the text, in particular language that pushes beyond the everyday to build aesthetic qualities. Beyond language, Wellek and Warren also determine that fictionality, invention, or imagination are distinguishing traits of literature, along with organization, personal expression, realization, and exploitation of the medium. Their study concedes that every work of literature may not have each of these characteristics,

7 nor is it simply the presence of these things that defines literature, but the artful combination of them into a text.9 While each individual fable may not meet these criteria, in particular organization and exploitation of the medium, when looked at as a whole, each fable collection can indeed be viewed as imaginative literature. Even the elegiac Romulus, which is the most grammatical and educational of the fable collections, when studied as a collection, has a careful organization, and makes use of the fable medium to deliver careful points to its readers. The fables are full of rich characterization and imagery, far richer than many other medieval works. All fables employ inventive language both in asking their reader to imagine animal characters enacting often human-like plot points, and each individual fabulist manipulates the genre through their own voice to express a specific set of arguments. In her discussion of other marginal forms of medieval literature (specifically law texts), Emily Steiner notes that imaginative literature in the Middle Ages “is capable of bringing about change, for example, by criticizing abuses and injustice, or by subverting social norms.10 Steiner’s criteria certainly apply to the medieval fable, which even in the most rudimentary form in the elegiac Romulus is still able to vaguely criticize wicked rulers and other evil men. As the fable is developed throughout the Middle Ages it expands to fulfill this definition, as the genre becomes not only an instrument for arguments of social change, but seemingly an incredibly effective way to leverage political and social critiques. Howard Needler specifically sets out to place the medieval fable in a continuum of medieval genres in his article “The Animal Fable among Other Medieval Genres.” Here he notesthe “fable is notoriously one of the smallest of ‘small’ literary forms…fable lacks many characteristics of the larger forms and established genres: characterization, motivation, distinctions of foreground and background, circumstantial detail, narrative

9René Wellek & Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3rd ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956), pp. 20-28. 10 Emily Steiner. “Response Essay: Chaucer’s Inquisition.” The Culture of Inquisition in Medieval England. Ed. Mary Catherine Flannery and Katie L. Walter. DS Brewer, 2013. 164–172. Print.

8 amplituate, and so on.”11 While Needler ultimately does classify the fable as literary based on the presence (however simple) of plot lines, and the existence of desire between characters, his definition fails to consider the fables as a collection. When looked at individually the fables may seem to lack features such as characterization and circumstantial detail, but when the narrative arch of the fable collections is taken into consideration, and fables are acknowledged to be building upon each other, the fable begins to emerge as a far more complex work of literature. H.J. Blackham begins to take up the argument for fable as literature in his aptly named study, Fable as Literature. However, Blackham’s argument establishes the fable as literary in that he argues that individual fables contain enough literary properties that they can be pulled out of their collections and be reworked into works of literature as Chaucer does. 12 Here, I argue that fable collections, not just individual fables, should be seen as imaginative literature in and of themselves, and that all fables ought to be carefully considered and closely read in the ways that we read and interpret literature. Once we acknowledge that fables are more than children’s literature, we come to see how mutable they are. They were used for simple pedagogy, and for calls for social and political change, yet each different iteration of the fable is still recognizable as a part of the genre. At the time that fable manuscripts began circulating, religious texts were some of the only other circulating medieval works. Fables differ radically from these texts not only in their length and form, but also in their approach to the subject matter. In sharp contrast to a religious text, rather than containing the same set of prayers or readings that are often interpreted to have the same meaning, the fables offer almost endless variety. The collections may appear similar in form, and contain basically the same fables with the same characters, but each different collection and author reworks the fable to fit their own arguments. Sometimes these reworkings simply provide an altered moral message, or encourage the reader to apply the fable not just to morality, but also to their social and political state. However, some fables ask the reader to completely reconsider how they originally would have understood that fable, pushing for interpretations so different that they call into question even the expectations that the

11 New Literary History 22.2 (1991): 423–439. JSTOR. Web. 12 Blackham, H. J. Fable as Literature. 1st Ed. Athlone Press, 1985. Print.

9 readers have for the genre. And yet, even these fables and their collections are still easily recognizable as a part of the fable tradition. Fables can and are used for religious purposes, but they are also used in very opposite ways, to argue against tyrannical leaders or corrupt courts. Working within the long standing tradition of fable—that is animal stories with attached moral lessons—fable authors remain true to the tradition of the fable genre, while also responding to the tradition by using it to make their own arguments. On the surface, the fable genre is just set of simple stories combined with moral lesson built together into uncomplex and unorganized collections, however a closer look reveals that medieval authors continuous bending of the fable genre makes the fable far from simple. Current scholarship on fable collections doesn’t address the pervasiveness of the fable tradition throughout the Middle Ages, and into the early modern period, and exactly how this pervasiveness may have influenced the reception of the fable. Examining similar fables in various collections will reveal the ways that the readers and authors of the fables may have changed their approaches across time, and how the fable came to be a significant feature in works of literature such as Chaucer’s. By looking at the ways that medieval readers and scholars might have approached the various fable collections, we can begin to see how the shifts in the content of the fables might be able to reflect reading and literacy practices of that particular time. Careful study of these fable collections will also show how fables are integral in the development of more imaginative literature in the later Middle Ages. Unfortunately for my study, most other mentions of fable literature in critical works come in texts that discuss the impact that one individual author and fable collection had, such as Logan Whalen’s work on Marie de France, Derek Pearsall’s discussions of Lydgate’s work, and William Kuskin’s studies on William Caxton. Because of this, in each individual chapter I look carefully at the works of these scholars to determine their approaches not just to the author’s fable collections, but to their entire canon of work. I then take these studies and broaden their arguments to fit them into my own overarching argument for connectivity between different medieval fable collections. What I aim to do in this study is look at the fables less as products of individual authors, and more as a set of texts that were a part of a larger conversation on fables and the fable genre, yet in doing this I undertake a careful study of each individual author and the

10 criticism of their work in order to place it carefully into the larger context of the fable canon, and into the canon of that author’s works. Because of the long history and broad circulation of the elegiac Romulus, I believe that we can examine almost all medieval fable collections as a related set of works, in dialogue with each other. The elegiac Romulus sets a tone for the educational and moral usage of the genre, and all other medieval fable collections play with these conventions, either consciously adhering or consciously departing from them. Currently, fable texts are invisible not just in critical scholarship, but also in anthologies and other teaching texts on the Middle Ages. Study of the Middle Ages gives more attention to canonical texts such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, or works such as Marie de France’s Lais over her fable collection. Even religious works such as The Second Shepherd’s Play receive greater classroom emphasize than the fables. While these texts may seem to qualify more literary, manuscript evidence reveals that fables were common in the Middle Ages, and served as a foundation for literacy education, moral education, and evolving interpretative strategies. Not only does this popularity warrant their study, but it also emphasizes how significant the fables might have been to authors of other medieval works. Methodology and the Materiality of the Text Because there are so many extant manuscripts containing the elegiac Romulus, and the dating of these manuscripts spans such a great swath of the Middle Ages, this study focuses on the central role that these manuscripts had on subsequent fable translations. By studying the sample of these manuscripts that resides at the British Library (about 20 manuscripts), I was able to trace patterns across manuscripts to get a better understanding of how these fables were read. The consistency of these manuscripts and the markings that can be found in them is remarkable, and this consistency makes it much easier to make arguments about the collection. I use my careful examination and close reading of these manuscripts to make arguments about not just them, but also about how later fable collections might reflect some aspects of these manuscripts as well. Using primarily manuscript evidence left behind by medieval readers, and close readings of the same fables across multiple collections, this dissertation looks to uncover the aspects of fable collections, such as coherence, plot lines, and character development

11 that make the fables a literary work rather than just a collection of educational texts. It seeks to analyze the relationship between the author and reader of the fables, working to better understand how the authors of medieval fables responded to and reworked their reader’s understandings of what a fable collection looks like. I am interested in the mutability of the fable genre, how different authors are able to use the genre to make various arguments throughout the Middle Ages, and how these various arguments might have had an impact on the development of medieval literature. Lastly, this dissertation is interested in the transmission of fables beginning with the Latinate elegiac Romulus and continuing throughout the entire medieval period. Because fable collections retained their popularity throughout the Middle Ages, it is easy to trace influence between different authors and collections; it is my goal to show how authors would have used their reader’s knowledge of other collections to impact their own writing. Ultimately, it is my argument that medieval fables are a grossly understudied genre, and careful attention to them will help us develop a better understanding of the development of the medieval literary cannon, the relationship between authors and texts in the Middle Ages, and reading practices of medieval readers. Chapter 1: Commentary, Marginalia, and Circulation: The Curricular Aesop The curricular fable offers a starting point for the discussion of all subsequent fable collections. Although we cannot be certain that, for example, Lydgate had access to Marie de France’s work, we can be certain that he did have access to the curricular fable. Examining how each subsequent collection adheres to and departs from the curricular fable in content, moral lessons, and structure, allows us to reconstruct the reading practices that later authors and audiences bring to these collections. This chapter offers a careful and critical overview of the curricular fable collection, not only to understand the readers of this collection, but also to better understand what previous knowledge readers of later collections would have had. Wheatley’s text is one of the only critical work on these fables, and he identifies a number of different allegorical patterns, or modes of interpreting the moral lessons at work in the commentaries on the fables. He argues that through this commentary we can see that the elegiac Romulus was used primarily in grammar school education, and that the commentaries were left by the schoolboy readers who interpreted the fables as a part

12 of their study. What Wheatley argues is significant about these allegorical readings, for this study, is that later authors, such as Marie de France, Lydgate, Chaucer, and Henryson, take up the interpretive models used in the commentaries. While these authors certainly do take on the commentary tradition, and their fables are impacted by the role of the fable as a grammar school text, I argue that there is far more to the elegiac Romulus than its position in the classroom. After acknowledging the significance of the fable as an educational tool, I move on to identify other features of the elegiac Romulus that are noteworthy both within this collection, and in the impact it had on other collections. Wheatley implies that the elegiac Romulus is largely a set of disconnected fables, but I argue that the collection can be more accurately understood as a coherent set. I note how the introductory fables set up particular themes, and how these are carried out throughout the collection. The elegiac Romulus beings to hint that fables can be used for social, political, and religious purposes, beyond just moral education, and these motives are certainly significant in later collections as well. Far more than just a text for grammar study, I use the textual aspects of the elegiac Romulus to argue for a fable collection that is much more united and literary than it may first appear. The contents of the over 100 extant of the elegiac Romulus are similar in many ways; they each contain largely the same fables, in the same order; these similarities indicate one function of fable collections. This continuity also allows for comparison across manuscripts, revealing marginalia that shows how the readers might have interacted with the fable texts. This chapter will take Wheatley’s careful argument for the existence and impact of fable commentary, and use these commentaries alongside the coherence of the fable collection, and the ordering of the fables to look into the variety of readers that were influenced by the fables. I also examine the physical characteristics of as many curricular fable manuscripts as possible, looking for clues into reading practices, such as rubrication, locations and frequency of marginalia, binding and wear patterns. These clues in the artifacts themselves offer a closer look into the ways that the manuscripts would have circulated, as well as allowing us to better understand which specific fables, and aspects of fables, were significant to readers. Chapter 2: Characterization, Citizenship, and Collectivity: The Fables of Marie de France

13 Much has been made about the feminine authorship of the works of the fairly- anonymous Marie de France, the role of gender in her works, as well as the strong female characters that appear within them. In addition to gender and her unique position as a twelfth-century female author, Marie’s choice of genre, as well as her relationship to the rise of literacy in the medieval era is also of note. Like the curricular Aesop, Marie’s work is a lengthy collection of fables, yet her work deviates notably from the curricular fable tradition. Marie’s work is the first translation of the fables into a vernacular language; she writes in Anglo-Norman. Marie’s fables are much longer than the traditional fable, many extending for more than 100 lines. She humanizes her animal characters and takes great care in describing the scenes that she places them in, allowing her reader to carefully visualize the action of the story she tells. As Logan Whalen argues, Marie uses vivid mental images to imprint her fables into the minds of her readers, a trait that he argues is particularly critical in the survival of literature, especially in the twelfth century because the reader may have only one chance to access a particular text. This chapter treats Marie’s fables as a unique collection but underscores its place among both curricular fable collections and later literary editions. Marie uses her fables to make a number of social and political arguments, often involving female characters; she dramatically alters the bodies and morals of particular fables from the elegiac Romulus in order to accomplish this, and in doing so sets the stage for later fable usage. While Marie’s collection has all of the features of a traditional fable collection—it is lengthy and contains a large number of fables which at first glance are seemingly unrelated, but her study is actually remarkable unique, and Marie is incredibly dominant as a narrator. While the elegiac Romulus does clearly have an impact on imaginative fable work such as Lydgate, Henryson, and even Chaucer, it would not have been possible without Marie’s collection. Marie bends the conventions of the fable genre just subtly enough to create an entirely new type of collection. The fables included in Marie’s work are different from curricular fable collections, not only in content, but also in the authorial tone. This collection takes unique influence from earlier collection of both fables and other folk stories, while also influencing later vernacular fable authors such as Lydgate and Henryson. Understanding the way that Marie works in her own text as

14 author and narrator will help to situate her fable collection within a history of the development of the book. Chapter 3: Law and Tyranny: The Fables of John Lydgate Even though John Lydgate is the first fabulist to write an English fable collection, this fable collection is only mentioned in four critical works. His seven-fable collection is quite short compared to previous collections, certainly very short compared to Marie’s 103. Each extending for at least three pages, Lydgate’s fables, as I will show, deliver much more than the traditional singular moral lesson; they integrate a set of moral lessons into the action of each fable, thereby inviting readers to view them in an entirely different way that then traditional moral fable. Lydgate’s understanding of the use of allegory in the fables, as well as the conversations that his work engages in with Chaucer’s, situates Lydgate’s work within a significant literary history. Predating Lydgate’s work, Chaucer famously uses fables in his Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Troilus and Creseyde. Following in Chaucer’s legacy, Lydgate explores every major Chaucerian genre, including the fable. Where Chaucer includes fables as a part of his larger narratives, Lydgate essentially develops a narrative about moral and religious living by using fables, and culminates his fables in an argument against tyranny. However, despite his familiarity with The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, and this religious motive, Lydgate is not trying to rework the fable in any way. Rather, his fables are reluctant to transgress the tonal and structural boundaries of the curricular fable. It is these similarities to the commenting practices of the curricular fable that make Lydgate’s works so interesting, as they become a relatively straightforward translation of the interactions that earlier medieval readers have with the core text though the commenting tradition. Because his influences are so clear, more than any other collection, Lydgate’s fables allow for a focus on the author as a receiver and translator of previous works. Even for their traditional structure and morals, Lydgate clearly reworks the content of his fables just enough to make a complex argument about the corruption of the legal system and the rule of tyrants. Lydgate uses the order of his fables to make a set of progressive arguments, building up to a warning against tyrannical rule; this complex set of political claims is unique in Lydgate’s collection, and certainly illustrates that he is reworking previous fable collections. Lydgate shifts the morals of a number of the fables,

15 thereby asking his readers to approach his collection a different way than they would approach the more traditional fable model. Rather than dismissing Lydgate’s collection as traditional and lacking innovation, I argue that his fables are actually one of the first to use the genre to make more complex arguments that carry across fables. Because Lydgate doesn’t try to rewrite the fables he uses significantly, this usage becomes even more interesting, as we can see how he is reworking the traditional fable to force a different argument on his reader. Wheatley argues that in these seven tales, Lydgate remains true to the understanding of the fable as discursive mode, learned in the grammar school curriculum that he would have encountered at Benedictine Abby of Bury St. Edmunds, which he entered in 1385 when he was 15. Lydgate’s fables rely heavily on social and religious interpretations, asking the readers to make direct connections between the animal characters in his fables and social classes, as well as religious virtues such as good and evil; these interpretations are clearly influenced by the commentary models in the curricular fables. Lydgate’s fables, however, function as a connected moral lesson rather than separate, disparate parts. Given this, Lydgate’s mode of fable telling departs much more completely from all previous models than Wheatley allows for. Lydgate, for example, connects the prologue with the first fable so that the combination leads his reader to an understanding of how to live correctly. Lydgate raises unique questions about authorship and translation with his work, particularly as he blurs the lines between fable collection and story telling. My analysis, in addition to emphasizing the significance of Lydgate’s fables, reconstructs the reader’s experience of the fables and their commentary. At the same time, it allows us to better understand ideas of authorship and literary heritage in a very early English-language work. Chapter 4: Social Commentary and Critique: Robert Henryson’s Morall Fabillis Like Lydgate, Scottish fabulist Robert Henryson is often overshadowed by Chaucer’s work. Where Lydgate’s fables clearly have an overarching religious moral lesson to teach, Henryson uses his fables to make a number of social and political points. Henryson’s fable collection depends strongly on structure—he has carefully chosen thirteen fables, which alternate between Aesopian and Reynardian roots, and build towards a central fable that includes a strange dream vision where the author meets

16 Aesop himself. This central fable essentially marks a downward turn in his collection, and from this point on, the fates of the animal characters, as well as the morals, paint an increasingly grim portrait of Henryson’s worldview. By the end of the collection, the reader is left skeptical about the value of moral living and the moral lessons that the fables teach; morality doesn’t seem to be able to save his animal characters from untimely death. Henryson uses the structure of the fables within his collection along with engaging characters to draw in his readers, offering a his own moral (or not-so moral) lessons through a method of reading that differs radically from the practices that would have been used to read the curricular fable. While Wheatley argues that Henryson is using more simple allegorical models, making direct social and religious connections, I argue that the structure and the gloomy moral lessons that Henryson employs in this fable collection move far beyond the simple allegories of the curricular fables, and even Lydgate’s work, into a view of fable reading that is much more complex. In fact, with highly developed characters, and vividly described scenes, Henryson’s work, again, has more in common with Marie de France’s collection than the curricular fable tradition. Where Marie’s fables, and other previous collections have been concerned largely with the moral teachings that are commonly associated with fables, however, Henryson’s work is much more concerned with critiquing the fable form and the value of the moral living that the traditional fable genre promotes. This chapter will show ways that Henryson’s collection departs from the traditions of the genre in ways that are both imaginative and highly critical. Expanding on Wheatley’s claim, I argue that there are a number of other factors at work in Henryson’s fables, such as a focus on social criticism and a critique of the moral lessons that standard fables teach. I illustrate places Henryson’s text is responding to, and then moving far beyond, the curricular fable by trying to shift the way fables were read. Henryson acknowledges the horizon of expectation but moves past it. He depends on his reader’s knowledge of other fable collections, and uses this assumption of knowledge to teach the reader a new form of reading the popular genre. Essentially then, a reader of Henryson’s work who was not familiar with the fable tradition would not have been able to see his careful, witty social commentary, nor his questioning of the virtues of moral living. Ultimately, Henryson takes the reading practices that curricular fables had made

17 so common, such as simple allegory and moral learning, and complicates these, asking his reader to reflect on the fable and the expectations that attend its form. Chapter 5: A Return to the Classical: William Caxton’s The Fables of Aesop, and other print versions Around the same time that Henryson was writing his Morall Fabillis (1480s), William Caxton placed fables on the edge of another significant shift—that between manuscript and print culture. Caxton’s print version takes from the German humanist Heinrich Steinhowel’s fable collection. Steinhowel’s print version of the fables reaches back to more classical models, and includes the Vita or The Life of Aesop, an introduction which offers a biography of the legendary teller of the fables. This introduction had been a part of almost all Greek versions of the fables, but was not included in any medieval versions of the fables. These fable collections also include not only the elegiac Romulus, but also portions of the Greek fable collections the Alphonso, Avian, and Poggio. Both Steinhowel and Caxton, along with the French printer Julien Macho, offer a model of the fables which includes as large number of short fables, with short moral lessons, thereby looking much more like the curricular fable collection than Marie de France’s, Lydgate’s, or Henryson’s . The narrative structure that Marie de France, Lydgate, and Henryson all use to hold their fables together as a coherent whole falls away, as do the political, social, and religious allegories that these collections use (inspired by the commentary tradition). Caxton’s work turns back to an earlier form of the fable, one which offers a set of moral lessons, all purportedly told by a mythical Aesop, rather than a number of connected fables meant to hold some sort of larger meaning. Similarly to Lydgate, Caxton’s work is often seen as unimaginative, and he is frequently labeled as a translator rather than an author, a labeling that could be particularly true in his fable collection, since he was working so explicitly from Steinhowel’s work. However, in this chapter, I argue an authorial role for Caxton, not only because he translates the fables into English, but also because he does add two fables into the Poggio section of his collection, and there are a few fables in which his translations clearly implicate that he is making subtle political arguments in his works. I also note the particular significance of Caxton’s work over Steinhowel and Macho because of Caxton’s construction of a particular literary canon. Caxton’s inclusion of the

18 fables in his set of print works helps to cement their popularity into the early modern period, and also helps mark the fable as a literary genre. This chapter explores the various ways that Caxton’s collections depart from the curricular fable, and the subsequent medieval fable collections, including innovations Caxton makes in the bodies of a few particular fables. It looks at Caxton’s work both in relationship to classical Greek and Latin sources in an attempt to determine which works Caxton had taken from. I determine the differences that print would have brought to the circulation of the fable, and look at ways that circulation may have affected the shifts that happen in Caxton’s fables. This chapter also looks for continuity between the fables that Lydgate and Henryson use, and Caxton’s versions of these same fables, all the while relating Caxton’s fables to the elegiac Romulus. These comparisons reveal that while in many ways Caxton is a compiler of works, we can also see his collection as unique and innovative, and his alterations as ripe with authorial intent. Fable collections permeate medieval literary history in unique and significant ways. My dissertation undertakes a careful study of this genre in order to argue both for its significance in medieval authors and readers, but also for a reimagining of our contemporary definitions of fable. Each fable collection that I study allows a different interpretation of the social, political, and religious arguments significant to that particular author and era. I argue throughout this text that there are not many other medieval genres that allow us to trace these themes in such a way, while also continuously drawing attention to education, morality, and the development of literature. Understudied and overlooked, my dissertation casts light on an incredibly interesting and complex medieval genre, and argues that it has a significant place in critical work and in the teaching of medieval literature.

19 Chapter 1: Commentary, Marginalia, and Circulation: The Curricular Aesop By the thirteenth century, only one collection of fables retained popularity. Fable collections had been consistently popular since approximately the 5th century BC, when the slave Aesop was purported to have spread moral wisdom through countless pithy short stories using largely animal characters.13 This collection, known as the elegiac Romulus (although it is unknown who the author, Romulus was, or if he even indeed penned a collection of fables) was likely written in the late twelfth century, and was remarkably popular, evidenced by over 170 extant manuscripts containing some portion of this collection.14 These manuscripts dated from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, and were located throughout Europe, with the majority being from Britain, France, and Germany. The elegiac Romulus consists largely of fables taken from classical models. However, the medieval author rewrote most of these fables in order to incorporate a more medieval Latin vocabulary, syntax, and grammar. The collection also includes a few longer fables, which are not found in classical sources. There are a number of

13 There has been little critical attention paid to the elegiac Romulus text and manuscripts outside of Wheatley’s study of the manuscript commentaries. Franciso Rodrigues Adrados chronicles the elegiac Romulus as part of his elongated history of the fable; examining his chronology can help better understand the role of this collection in all of fable literature. Other critical works on the fable that discuss the elegiac Romulus include Niklas Holzberg’s The Ancient Fable and Frederick Whitesell’s “Fables in Mediaeval Exempla.” Both of these texts, just like Wheatley’s study, focus on the fable commentary, arguing that this is the most significant feature of the fable text. My argument, while not diminishing the importance of the commentary, seeks to recentralize the actual fable texts, and argues for the significance of textual features within the fables themselves in helping interpret how the fables were read. There are a number of other studies that seek examine the role of the medieval fable in other types of writing. H.J Blackham points out a number of different instances in which the fable is alluded to in other medieval texts in his work Fable as Literature, and Annabel Patterson notes the use of the fable in various court and political documents in the Renaissance. Jill Mann and Jan Ziolkowski both contrast the medieval fable to other medieval beast literature, including the Reynard tales, and poems such as The Owl and the Nightingale and Chaucer’s The Parlement of Foules. These perspective all offer unique comparisons of the fable to other work, but this study is far more interested in the fable form itself. I argue that the fable is worth study as a text in its own right, without being compared to any other work, particularly because it was so popular among medieval readers. 14 In his study on the fables, Edward Wheatley (Mastering Aesop : Medieval Education, Chaucer, and His Followers. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000. Print. p. 3) includes a detailed list of the provenance and locations of these extant manuscripts.

20 possibilities for the author of this text, and the leading one, put forward by Leopold Hervieux, is Gualterus Panormitanus, who was more commonly known as Walter of England, the chaplin of Henry II of England in the 12th century.15 This collection seems to have become instantly popular, as there is evidence that it replaced the classical Avianus fable collection in grammar education.16 Because of the popularity and broad circulation of this collection we can be certain that medieval authors, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, and Robert Henryson were familiar with it. The important role of the Romulus fable collection is evidenced textually in each of their works. A better understanding of the significance of the elegiac Romulus, the fables included in the collection, and the manuscript evidence left behind by readers of the fables will subsequently allow a better understanding of the ways in which these later authors are using the fables in their work. Without an understanding of the conventions of the curricular fable, it would be difficult to understand the different ways in which authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, and Henryson are each appropriating the medieval fable genre in their works. Especially given its medieval popularity, the elegiac Romulus has been given relatively little critical attention. The fables also rarely make there way into the modern classroom, as there is only one English translation of the collection, and very few published Latin versions of the fables.17 This may be due to the "unglamorous" nature of the fable manuscripts themselves; because many of the manuscripts were used as grammar texts, they are in rather rough condition-- most are not illuminated, or decorated in any way, many of them are missing pages, and they are often highly abbreviated. Because of their short length and non-complex plot lines, the texts of the fables themselves, while later integrated into works of literature, could be considered less

15 The History of the Graeco-Roman Fable (Francisco Rodriguez Adardos, and Gert-Jan Van Dijk. History of the Graeco-Latin Fable: Introduction and from the Origins to the Hellenistic Age. Trans. Leslie A. Ray. Brill Academic Pub, 1999. Print. p. 642-3) discusses any other possibilities for authorship of the collection at length. 16 As Wheatley notes (55), it was the Avianus fable that was typically a part of the Auctores Octo, until the composition of the elegiac Romulus, which replaced the Avianus in all subsequent editions. 17 Ronald Pepin produced the only translation of the elegiac Romulus as a part of his translation of the entire Auctores Octo in 1999, and a Latin print version of the fables was published Aaron Eugene Wright in 1997 called The fables of “Walter of England.”

21 literary themselves; this may also contribute to the lack of critical work on the collection. In Mastering Aesop, Edward Wheatley offered the first systematic study of the elegiac Romulus as a work of literature, along with the implications that the various versions of the text may have on future works. Wheatley is also the first to identify, catalogue, and study the extant manuscripts of the fables. In his study, Wheatley persuasively argues that the fable collection was an integral part of medieval Latin education, and his argument is based on both manuscript evidence which shows the fable collection bound as a part of the Latin grammar the Auctores Octo, and an extensive study of marginal comments left behind by medieval readers of the text. Wheatley then uses this evidence to discuss the impact that this grammatical role, and particularly the commentary tradition had on later authors, specifically Chaucer's The Nun's Priest's Tale, and John Lydgate and Robert Henryson's fable collections. The work that Wheatley has done in uncovering and studying these fable manuscripts is invaluable, as he is able to establish their place in both the long- standing fable tradition (stretching from the classical Aesop to the modern day), and in the English literary tradition. While he mentions the fables as a collection, by far the most significant element in Wheatley’s study is the identification of a number of different commentary styles that were used when studying the fable collection. Many of these manuscripts have interlinear commentary, as well as notations in the margins, and others have entire paragraphs written underneath each individual fable, providing the scribes opinion of the lessons contained in this fable (British Library Add MS 33780 is the best example of this). Wheatley argues of these commentaries that "very few commentators, however, were content to rely exclusively upon paraphrase of the fables. These readers eschewed homogeneity by engaging in more active interpretation, elaborating upon the ethical lesson that the fable moral states flatly and succinctly."18 To this end, he has also identified a number of different styles of commentary, the most prominent of which is allegory, using the fable to comment on social roles, religious and spiritual roles, and the order of the natural world (using references to bestiaries and lapidaries). This argument

18 Wheatley (77) offers a number of interesting examples of this commentary in his work, illustrating the different ways that the medieval readers had interpreted the texts.

22 for the significance of the allegorical connections and the commentaries is particularly important when examining the work of later authors who incorporate fables in their work. Ultimately, however, focusing so strongly on the commentary tradition detracts from a study of the fables which make up the collection themselves. It is important that we consider the fables along with the commentary, as they clearly would have had great significance in developing the allegorical readings, and the fables themselves would have been read and studied by hundreds of other readers who did not partake in the fable commentary. Another problem with Wheatley's focus on the fable’s role in commentary tradition and the elegiac Romulus is that it only briefly acknowledges the emphasis that fables place on moral edification. Wheatley’s discussion focuses almost entirely on the fables as a part of grammar education, the commentary tradition that arose around the fables, and the effect this had on later fable authors. This focus on the fable as a grammar tool has the effect of painting the fable manuscripts, and the elegiac Romulus collection, as far more disjointed (that is, merely a happenstance collection of fables), than it actually is. Emphasis on the role of the fable in Latin language learning, while making a significant point about some of the ways in which this collection may have been used, marginalizes the moral role of the fables. This view also fails to see the fable collection as a unified whole, meant to be experienced from beginning to end, in the order that they are presented in the manuscripts, rather than just in small portions of individual fables. There is strong evidence for both of these readings in the fable manuscripts, and ignoring these details of the artifacts leads to an incomplete understanding of the reading practices used when studying the elegiac Romulus collection. Wheatley argues so strongly in favor of a disconnected approach to the fables that in the end of his chapter on the commentary in the curricular fables, he notes that the commentary "hints at the possibility of rich, multilayered readings of fables that might strike modern readers as odd, inconsistent, and poorly organized."19 He specifies that the

19 Wheatley’s argument here (95) implies that commentaries implicate a reading of the fables which is complex and intricate, yet it can be difficult for us as modern readers to see this complexity in what appears to be a simple fable collection. Wheatley does not necessarily parse out the complexities he finds in the elegiac Romulus in his text, but I intend to provide careful explication of this.

23 commenting practice could easily be viewed as "bumpy," and that this bumpiness is surely brought on because the fable themselves are a "bumpy" text, a compilation of short separate narratives that ask to be considered individually. However, when the presentation of the fables in the manuscripts is considered, I believe that especially to the medieval audience, whether a schoolboy or a different reader, the "bumpy" fable text is actually rather smooth. The fables flow neatly into each other, and the collection uses a subset of fables in the beginning to prepare the reader to find moral lessons both throughout the collection and from the collection as a whole. If this collection was indeed viewed as separate fables, each with their own individual moral, as an argument for a "bumpy" collection suggests, I believe that they would be presented as such, with fables contained neatly on their own pages, and no overlap between characters and actions. If this were the case, the order of the fables also would be insignificant. But none of these things are evidenced in the manuscripts: the fables run from page to page, and it is clear that they are in a very careful order, which is consistently replicated. Particularly when compared to previous collections such as the Phaedrus and the Avianus, this is a fable collection which cares deeply about the ways in which the fables operate in relationship to each other, and shows clear evidence of a medieval collection which is in fact, anything but bumpy. Ultimately then, my reading of the elegiac Romulus aims to emphasize both individual fables-- that is the actions, the voices and the dialogue of the animals that are depicted in each fable-- as well as the moralizing emphasis of the fables, and the ways in which the fables build upon each other to create a unified collection. I will use both the text of individual fables, along with careful study of extra textual clues from the fable manuscripts themselves in order to reconstruct the variety of reading practices that the medieval reader used for the fables. This includes the more privileged reader, likely the ones that left the commentary and marks on the manuscripts, as well as the schoolboy reader. By looking at consistency across manuscripts and factors such as the presentation of fables on the page and fable order, I show that the elegiac Romulus functions as a coherent whole, with unifying threads that run throughout or across the fables. I will also examine extra textual clues, which are remarkably consistent across a number of manuscripts, including rubrications, patterns in titling and fable order, and most

24 significantly, markings placed in the margins which seem to indicate significant parts of the fable. Unless we understand the fables in the elegiac Romulus in these ways: that is, for the moral lessons that they teach, and as a unified whole rather than just a compilation of unrelated tales, we will fail to fully understand the reading practices that were used in interpreting this early collection. A reading of the collection limited to grammar and word usage, even when expanded to include the commentaries, still falls short of acknowledging the full context of the fables, and in doing such limits our understanding of the wider reception (and production) of the fable tradition. The effects of a narrow view of the readership of the elegiac Romulus also extend beyond the collection itself. Without recognizing the unity in the collection, it would be easy to interpret the developments of later fable collections which rely on fable order to develop complex arguments such as far more innovative than they were. Understanding the way that this popular collection was approached by readers rather than just scholars of the Latin language will ultimately further our understanding of the relationship that these readers subsequently established with texts such by Lydgate and Henryson. This distinction is made all the more important because of the long span of time that the fable manuscripts cover. The existence of manuscripts containing the elegiac Romulus from as late as the fifteenth century means that it is entirely likely that Henryson's audience would have also been readers of this fable collection as well. A more careful understanding of the reading practices used with the fable collection can help us understand the assumptions about fable texts that authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, and Henryson were working with or against. History of Fables There are a number of different Greek fable collections that likely had influence on the elegiac Romulus. In his work on Marie de France, R. Howard Bloch sets out a comprehensive history of the fable's role in education, beginning in ancient Greece. He notes that there is evidence on wax tables which indicate that Babrius' collection of fables was used in schools as early as the third and fourth centuries A.D. Phaedrus, the author of the first Latin fable collection, argues for the educational value of the fables: "nor is anything else aimed at in the fables than that the mistakes of mortals may be corrected,

25 and that one may sharpen his wits by a close application to them."20 Quintilian also emphasizes the fables role in the instruction of rhetoric: "let them learn first to tell the fables orally in clear, unpretentious language, then to write them out with the same simplicity of style; first putting the verses into prose and translating the substance in different words, then paraphrasing it more freely, in the course of which they may abbreviate some things and elaborate others, so long as they preserve the poet's meaning."21 The Avianus fable collection also, significantly, was included in early versions of the grammar text, the Auctores Octo, later to be replaced by the elegiac Romulus itself. As Francisco Rodriguez Adrados notes in his three volume History of the Graeco- Latin Fable, in the West, during the Middle Ages, the link to the ancient fable tradition was broken; only the Phaedrus, Avianus, and Romulus collections were known to medieval fabulists and their audience. Of these collections, both the manuscript evidence as well as appearance in later works indicates that it is the elegaic Romulus which was the most widely read. The elegiac Romulus was integral in the transmission of the fables derived from the Romulus beginning in the 12th century.22 In his analysis of the elegiac Romulus collection, Wheatley argues that this popularity comes because of the collections "adaptability to different discursive situations and registers," or that these fables were highly adaptable, both in applicability to different moral situations, and in

20 This quote (R. Howard Bloch. The Anonymous Marie De France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Print. p.142.) emphasizes the moral lessons of the fables, a feature that, surprisingly enough is repeatedly overlooked in medieval fables because there is such a heavy focus on the fable as an educational tool. 21 And so being the practice of the schoolboy rewriting the fable to interpret language and meaning, a practice that continues in the elegiac Romulus, is suggested by Locke, and can certainly even be found in elementary school texts today (qtd in Bloch 142) 22 While Adrados (643) calls the elegiac Romulus “very defective as regards language, metre and the interpretation, sometimes, of the model," it is my opinion that the language and meter of the elegiac Romulus is not near as imperfect as his work may suggest. The elegiac meter of the fables is rather exact, and the Latin is good, especially for a medieval text. There are a few fables that the elegiac Romulus may have interpreted differently than its Greek predecessors, but this too may be reflective of the collections medieval audience.

26 later versions of the fables.23 This collection was so wildly popular that the core 60 fables can be traced with relative consistency in both content and order through the manuscript tradition for almost 200 years, and I would argue that it is this consistency in content that allows for variations such as the extended morals and variant order of the last few fables. Two fable collections fell under the label of Romulus in the Middle Ages, the elegiac Romulus and the prose Romulus. The Romulus collection predates the elegiac Romulus considerably; written as early as the 6th century.24 The most significant difference between the two collections is that the Romulus is a prose fable collection, while the elegiac Romulus is written in elegiac distichs. There are ninety-eight fables in the prose Romulus, while there are only sixty (to sixty three, depending on the manuscript) in the elegiac Romulus. Both of the Romulus collections take the large majority of their fables from the earlier Phaedrus collection, but revise the form and language of these fables, while keeping the same animal characters.25 The prose Romulus remains much truer to the fables of the Phaedrus, as both collections are in prose, and each contain a far greater number of fables than the elegiac Romulus. Where the fables of the prose Romulus are, in many instances, very similar in wording to the Phaedrus, the elegiac Romulus differs greatly, taking more influence from the Avianus collection, while also reflecting the needs of its schoolboy readers. The Latin of the Elegaic Romulus displays a definite classicizing impulse, or a desire to teach more classical Latin. Indeed, in its playful use of the same word in different cases (polyptoton), the author seems to be showing off his knowledge of the meanings of the different cases, in contrast to one of the key linguistic changes affecting

23 Wheatley (6) makes repeated and strong arguments for the fable as a mode of discourse here, noting that it can be continuously changed to fit different circumstances. The impact of the elegiac Romulus is certainly evidenced in the collections of the authors I discuss later, in particular Henryson and Lydgate. 24 Adrados (517) provides this speculative date, along with a number of others for the different Latin and Greek fable collections in his study. 25 What Adrados (528) refers to here is that the fables not only maintain the use of the same characters, but that they also maintain similar basic plots, although the collections certainly differ in their interpretations of these animals and plot lines. An example of this is that in one collection a dog may drop a cheese in a pond while trying to grab the cheese from his reflection; in another it may be a wolf and a biscuit, and while both fables may discourage greed, it is likely that they would approach this condemnation in different ways.

27 vulgar Latin: the greater use of prepositions to express case relations. The fables also regularly use the accusative plus infinitive construction to express indirect statement, whereas the indicative with a conjunction had become common. In the use of various pronouns, many of which had changed their meanings over the years, the author of the elegiac Romulus is once again flamboyantly correct. In some cases, orthography reflects changes in the pronunciation of certain sounds, especially the diphthongs. Despite many changes in the meaning of words, for the most part the syntax reflects classical usage. The verse is quantitative in the manner of classical verse although there are no elisions in the entire work. The fables of the elegiac Romulus were a part of the Auctores Octo Morales, a collection of textbooks used in education; the other texts in this book include: the Distichs of Cato; the Eclogue of Theodulus; Facetus, a book of manners; Chartula contemptus mundi; Matthew of Vendome's Tobias, and Alan of Lille's Liber Parabolarum.26 Each of these texts has imbedded moral lessons for their reader, and are all relatively elementary in their use of Latin; their usage was widespread enough that they were put into print by Matthias Bonhomme in 1538 in Lyon, and continued to be used as a part of education in this form. Even these print versions show evidence of extreme usage, meaning that the Auctores Octo enjoyed popularity for well over two hundred years.27 Early manuscript versions containing portions of the Auctores indicate that it was originally the Avianus fable collection which was included in the Auctores Octo, but in the thirteenth century the elegiac Romulus replaced the Avianus. Wheatley implies that this substitution, along with the failure of the elegiac Romulus to appear alone in manuscripts before the thirteenth century indicates that these fables may have actually been translated and revised from earlier versions precisely for inclusion in the

26 Pepin xi 27 As the first and only author to have translated the Auctores Octo, Ronald Pepin (Pepin, Ronald E., ed. An English Translation of Auctores Octo, a Medieval Reader. Lewiston, N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. Print. p. 2) provides an introduction to each of the texts included in the collection.

28 grammar text. It also suggests that the author or editor of this collection would have been educated in the very grammatical lessons that the fables employ. 28 Often what we define as fable, and what the medieval reader defined as fable are markedly different. As Wheatley argues, the fable in the Middle Ages resembles a mode of discourse far more strongly than it does a literary genre. Rather than having a set of traits that are identifiable and traceable across collections, the fables of the Middle Ages adhere to a set of rhetorical practices, which include attributing the fables to Aesop, the use of animal character who behave as humans, or pointing out a moral application for the fable. Often, however, even these basic traits are sometimes forsaken, yet the fables still remain identifiable as such, especially to other medieval readers. The practices associated with the transmission of fables lay just as strongly in the hands of the teller and the reader as they did in the narrative themselves, meaning that each individual fable collection could have wildly different traits. For Wheatley, the distinction between mode of discourse and genre becomes significant in allowing the fable the "wide variety of forms which it has always encompassed."29 The fables in the elegiac Romulus, like many other medieval fable collections, while always containing some kind of moral lesson, do not truly follow any other specific set of defining characteristics. Some fables are the simple animal stories that the modern reader commonly associates with the genre, while others contain no animal characters at all, and still others mix human and animal characters rather improbably. While not as short as our modern versions, many of the fables are shorter, eight to ten line tales, with a two-line moral, but others are quite long, resembling what we might classify as a tale, or a folk story more than a fable. Some fables are devoted almost entirely to moralizing, so that there is very little plot or story, but rather a moral lesson repeatedly expounded upon by a narratorial voice. Therefore,

28 Wheatley discusses the substitution of the Avianus with the elegiac Romulus on page 55 of his book. In some instances the grammatical lessons of the elegiac Romulus are evident even to the modern reader—one example of this is that different forms of the same Latin word are often used in a single stanza, so that the reader can encounter the word as a noun, verb, gerund, or other part of speech. 29 What Wheatley (5) seems to be indicating here is that regardless of the genre (poem, prose, etc) of the fable, and often even of what kind of characters and plot take place, his classification of fables as a mode of discourse rather than a set literary genre means that as long as the work was communicating the kinds of lessons a fable imparts, than it could have been easily classified as such by the medieval reader.

29 there is very little in the form of each individual fable that identifies each of them individually as a fable, and the characteristics which do allows us to make this distinction are also not consistent across fables. Ultimately, I would argue that it is their position in a collection which connects all of the fables together, and allows all of them to be identified as such, making it all the more significant that we understand the elegiac Romulus as a united collection. Evidence for unity and moral readings of the fables It is clear in the elegiac Romulus collection that medieval readers began to approach the work as a collected whole, with places of real integration and coherence, rather than as a set of individual tales. The elegiac Romulus as a coherent whole was also structured in order to to teach moral lessons throughout its entirety. Extant manuscripts provide evidence that the fables were meant to be experienced together, through a lack of titling, and a failure to divide the collection into smaller books, as most other fable collections do. This unity makes the elegiac Romulus special as a fable collection-- the collections before this one, both in Greek, such as the Babrius and Avianus collections, and the Latinate Phaedrus collection, are all made up of a relatively large number (at least 100) of individual fables, each of which can be clearly separated from their own collection. This medieval collection, however, is much shorter (at 60 fables) allowing it to be understood as a unified work. Understanding the elegiac Romulus the first in a pattern of unified fable collections help us to understand the significance of this collection. Identifying unity in the collection also emphasizes shifts that were made in the presentation of fables and illustrates the way that this collection also changed reading practices that were used to understand medieval fables. One of the largest pieces of evidence that the elegiac Romulus was a collection that was viewed as a set of unified, interconnected fables, rather than a compilation of fables simply based on genre is the incredible amount of consistency that can be found across the manuscript copies of the fable collections. Each of the manuscripts that I examined contains the same fables, in the same order (except where leaves of the manuscript had been lost), and they are almost always marked in similar ways by the scribes (as in they have similar rubrication, titling, and any extra-textual marking is very consistent). Wheatley also notes that there are similarities across fable manuscripts;

30 however it is the differences between manuscripts that he is interested in, differences which lie largely in the commentary and other marginalia that can be found in the various copies of the fables. The contents and layout of each fable manuscript remain remarkably consistent, and I would argue that this consistency is motivated by a desire to keep the fables as a collection rather than separate them. The careful attention to the order of the fables in the collection across manuscripts, in particular, demonstrates a unity within the collection. Other indicators of unity include scribal markings that are dependent on the reader having access to the entire manuscript, such as alternating colors, and patterns in titling. For this particular study, I focused on the thirteen manuscripts of the elegiac Romulus housed at the British Library, and the one kept at the Newberry Library in Chicago.30 While this is a relatively small sample size in comparison to the 200 extant manuscripts that contain at least some part of the elegiac Romulus, these manuscripts are so remarkable similar that it is easy to infer that other fable manuscripts must contain similar features. Each fable manuscript that I studied was almost identical to the previous, with the same types and patterns of rubrication and notation—it is only because of this repetition that I feel able to make arguments about the contents of fable manuscripts. In studying these manuscripts I took careful note of fable order, fable titling, rubrication, paragraph markers, and any other markings that occur in each manuscript. I cataloged these features, and through this was able to develop arguments around the physical features of the manuscripts. There are a number of remarkable similarities in the physical layout and on page presentation of manuscript versions of these fables that indicate how the fable collections were being read and used. With very little exception, the manuscript copies of the fables are neat and clearly written, but simple. Each new fable is marked with a larger first initial, and in many copies the color of this initial alternates between red and blue, which would have helped the reader in distinguishing between the fables. The first letters of

30 The manuscripts I accessed were: At the British Library, Royal MS 15 A XXVIII, Add MS 33781, Add MS 11896, Add MS 10093, Add MS 10088, Add MS 33780, Add MS 11675, Add MS 27625, Add MS 18107, Add MS 10089, Add MS 11896, Add MS 11966, Harley MS 2746, and Newberry Library Case MS 153.

31 each line are also often set aside slightly from the rest of the line, and are rubricated with a red "slash" diagonally through the letter-- this makes the lines easy to follow, and would help the reader to better find their place in the fable. The titles of the fables are in the centers of the stanzas, meaning that they can be very easily overlooked in favor of these first initials. The alternating color pattern alone indicates a dependence on the collection being experienced as a whole; only when they fables are looked at together is it necessary to delineate them from each other in this way. A significant indicator of the reader’s interaction with the fable manuscripts themselves is the commentary tradition that Wheatley traces so carefully in his text. There are number of manuscripts with scrawled marginalia, sometimes correcting the Latin forms, other times writing explanatory notes, which are often just descriptors of what is happening in the body of the fable (i.e. the wolf talks with the lamb, the wolf eats the lamb, etc.). While these notes indicate the ways that the texts were used in the grammar classroom, the notes are also excellent indicators of the ways in which readers interacted, or felt free to interact with their texts. A heavy amount of notations can indicate fables that readers found more significant, as well as the different kinds of lessons they were learning from the collection. As Wheatley indicates, a number of these comments are grammatical in nature, but there are also a large number of notations in the moral sections of many fables, showing that the readers also focused on the moral lessons of the fables, rather than just the grammatical. Wheatley identifies a number of different allegorical traditions used in the commentaries on the elegiac Romulus; a brief overview of these traditions helps to better understand the ways that the fables might have been interpreted. Aside from a straightforward reading or interpretation, many commentaries use simple allegory in interpreting the fables. These commentaries offer broad, sweeping judgment, meant to help the reader understand the moral of the fable—they identify the good and the bad characters, and attribute qualities to any objects in the fable. Slightly more complex interpretations assign either social or religious roles to the characters in the fables, comparing them either to different social classes, or religious versus lay people. More complex even than this religious interpretation is the spiritual allegory, in which the action of the fable is reinterpreted to have a religious meaning, and, unlike the religious

32 interpretation, the repercussions for the actions typically have consequences outside of human world by either eternally saving or condemning the character. A natural allegory uses medieval bestiaries or lapidaries to interpret the meaning of a particular object or animal that appears in the fables; this type of commentary often does not engage with the plot of the fable, but rather helps to interpret the characters and objects in the fable. Lastly, an exegetical allegory takes the events of the fable and uses them to mirror a story found in the Bible. The social and religious allegorical uses of the fable seem to have had the greatest impact on later collections, such as Lydgate and Henryson, while the exegetical interpretation is the closest to how the modern reader interprets fables.31 Aside from the different styles of commentary, one of the largest inconsistencies across manuscripts is in the titling of the individual fables, which differ enough across collections that this variance becomes something of a pattern in itself. By diminishing the importance of the titles of the fables themselves in favor of the work as a whole, this again offers evidence for the unity of the entire collection. The titles are still presented similarly in every collection: they are given at the beginning of each new fable, are usually in red ink, and are center aligned to the text of the fable. However, there seem to be a number of places in each individual manuscript where the titles of particular fables have been forgotten; it is clear that the scribes would have returned and put in the titles later, when they were applying other rubrication to the text, and in these instances the adding of the title was overlooked. Fables that begin at the top of pages, or where the space between fables is particularly tight frequently are missing their titles. It is also notable that the titles of individual fables are rather inconsistent across collections. While some fables, particularly those towards the beginnings of the collections, such as "de gallo et jaspide," or "de lupo et agno," or fables with very simple titles such "de lupo et vulpe" are rather consistent in their titling, the titles of large majority of the fables actually change rather drastically from collection to collection. Even seemingly significant fables, such as the fable of the country and the city mouse, vary in their titles, almost from collection to collection. This inconsistency seems to indicate that the titling

31 As the commentary tradition and its impact on later fable collections is largely the focus of Wheatley’s study, he goes into great length about the distinctions between these various commentary types (78).

33 of the fables is actually rather insignificant, and only applied by scribes and later readers as a method of cataloguing the fables, perhaps for later organizing in tables of contents. The varying titles of the fables, along with their situating on the page, and the prominence of the large first initials over the title make it clear that it is this first line that was important to readers in identifying and remembering the fables, rather than the titles. Without emphasis on the title of each individual fable, the entire fable collection again appears more unified; individual, consistent titling, would allow each of the fables to stand on their own as separate works. The lack of identifiable titles, along with the clear evidence that titling of the fables was an afterthought by the fable compilers, offers further evidence that this particular collection of fables was thought of in terms of the collection as a whole rather than as individual fables bound together because it provides evidence that the fables were not necessarily thought of as individual works. The fables in the elegiac Romulus are also ordered very consistently across manuscripts, again providing evidence for the importance of unity within the collection. This means that the reader would begin to have expectations about which fable would follow from the last; a reading practice based on sequence could then develop. The sixty fables that make up this collection are arranged in the same order in each of the extant manuscripts I studied, except where there are pages of the manuscript that have been lost. If the reader recognizes the fables by content and first lines rather than by titles, it seems particularly important to this reading practice that the fables remain in a consistent order. Additionally, a consistent order throughout the collection makes it clear, again, that these fables were not thought of as individual entities, but rather that they are meant to work together in a coherent whole. The consistent ordering also illustrates that the way that the fables are arranged is not arbitrary, but that they were purposefully placed because they accomplish a particular goal in this order; with a consistent order, later fables can build on earlier concepts, and the reader can trace patterns throughout. Again demonstrating that reader’s experienced the elegiac Romulus as a unified work is that in the manuscripts specifically, the fables are not ever split into book segments; even through they are presented this way in later print versions and the modern translated edition. Many other fable collections, including the earlier Phaedrus fable collection, are presented as split into books; each book contained twenty fables, and the

34 entire collection is made of five books. Later fable collections, such as Heinrich Steinhowel's and William Caxton's, which are translations of the elegiac Romulus, are also split into books, again each containing twenty fables. The fables in the elegiac Romulus can easily be split into three book segments containing twenty fables each, however, there are no indicators in the manuscripts that this was ever the case. There are no book titles in the margins, and while most manuscripts are composed of at least two quires, the fables are not arranged in such a way that the quires could be conceivably split apart; as the split between the quires almost always cuts a fable in half. While our first instinct as modern readers may be to assume that the split into books would have made the fables easier to read, and easier for the medieval reader to commit to memory, but this clearly was not the case. The presentation of the fables as one united book rather than three separate illustrates that the medieval reader conceived of the fables as a more coherent whole than we do. This also illustrates that, rather than thinking of reading and studying the fables as an activity that would have happened on a line by line level as a grammatical study of the fables might do, we should understand that there must have also been a reading of the fables that looked at them, not line by line, or even fable by fable, but as an entire set of fables, all meant to work together. Careful study of the fable manuscripts also makes it clear that the fables at the beginning of the collection were more commonly read and studied than the fables towards the end of the collections. In manuscripts with any amount of illustration, it is only the first twenty, sometimes even just the first twelve fables that have marginal illustration. If the manuscript has any kind of illumination, the illuminated letters can be found only in these first fables, and even the larger first letters of the first lines of the fables are much more ornately decorated in red and blue ink in the first twelve to twenty fables. There is even greater care given to the on-page presentation of these fables; the handwriting is generally clearer, with fewer abbreviations, and the fables are often arranged so that there are very few lines hanging over on to other pages. The titles of these fables are not forgotten, nor are any of the initials left unrubricated. In manuscripts that have scholastic commentary, the commentary often is contained to, or is much more extensive in these first fables (with the exception of the two manuscripts that have commentary throughout).

35 Wheatley also observes this emphasis on the first fables of the collection, and notes in his work: "Evidence from fable commentaries in manuscripts and incunables indicates that on the whole, commentaries were organized so as to expose students to the full variety of commenting practices early in their study of the collection. The appendices amply demonstrate that within the first seven fables, readers could have learned several approaches to reading, and one of which they could have chosen to apply to any of the later fables."32 This approach emphasizes that manuscripts having full comments for the early fables does not necessarily indicate only a handful of fables received full interpretation, but rather that a pupil wrote down only enough comments to satisfy himself or his instructor. Through this, the student had internalized a range of comment types so that commenting on the first few fables may be actually an indicator that these fables are being used in order to better understand later fables. Based on evidence, the first twelve or twenty fables (it is either twelve or all twenty, never any number in between), depending on the manuscript, make up a coherent group. If the fables are seen as a curricular text, this would indicate that, as the first in the collection, these texts would be taught first, and the scholar would have to devote special attention to them, not just because of the grammar they utilize, but as they learned to navigate the language of the text. The inclusion of images, and careful attention by the scribes to complete the fables, including titles, rubricated initials, and illuminated first letters, show an awareness by the scribe of the significance of these fables, and an understanding perhaps that they were to be the most studied. When looking at the fable collection as a whole, however, these first twelve to twenty fables serve not only as a guide to the reader as they work to understand the Latin grammar, but also as a guide in teaching how the rest of the collection is to be read as a text. The first twenty fables introduce the reader to almost every animal character that appears in the entire collection (the only animal not included in these first fables that appear later in the collection are a

32Wheatley’s argument here (88) is not unlike my own argument on the use of characters and other learning tactics early in the collection—the reader is exposed to as much as possible in the beginning of the collection, and then asked to retain this information for the remainer.

36 few specific breeds of birds and a weasel). The protagonists of the first twenty fables are relatively varied, including the lamb, the mouse, various birds, an ass, and a few human characters. The animal antagonists are less varied; wolves are shown to consistently be evil, as are lions, and birds of prey such as the eagle and kite, but there are also fables where the villainy of the animal is more situational-- the fable usually titled "De Duabus Canibus," is a clear example of this, as one dog is clearly the victim, while the other the villain. These fables begin rather simply, where the reader can easily see the moral lessons being taught, and where there are often only two characters for most of the fable (“De Mura et Rana“ is one exception, where the kite is used to punish both animals, “De Ove et Capra et Iuvenca et Leone” is the other, in which a lion lords his power over all of the other animals by keeping all parts of a deer that the other animals helped kill) and increase in complexity through the twelfth fable, after which there are multiple fables with more than two animals. For the emphasis on unity and sequence, the most significant fable is the first one in the elegiac Romulus collection. This fable, "De Gallo et Jaspide" (The Cock and the Jasp), was moved from the middle of the Phaedrus collection to the beginning of the Romulus, and is lengthened and the moral shifted in order to show how the reader is to approach the rest of the collection, a lesson that would only be significant if the rest of the collection was viewed as unified, and meant to be understood in that way.33 Jill Mann calls this a "fable about fables," and also points out that it was “probably for this reason that it was moved from its relatively late position in the Phaedrus to stand at the very beginning of the Romulus collection.”34 In this fable, while searching through a dungheap for food, a rooster comes upon a precious gem. Rather than keeping the gem, however, the rooster leaves it aside, arguing that it might be valuable to someone else, but as he

33 The titling and capitalization of fable titles is more complex than it may seem; I am using the titles that seem to occur most often in the manuscripts and print versions of the elegiac Romulus, and the other works I discuss, but the titles are often very fluid. I have also decided to capitalize the titles of fables when I am referring directly to a specific fable, but because of the fluidity in titling, some critics choose to leave them lower case. 34 Jill Mann (From Aesop to Reynard Beast Literature in Medieval Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print. p.34) provides a much more thorough discussion of this traditional first fable in her work, talking about it not necessarily in the elegiac Romulus, but as having incredible significance for all fable collections.

37 cannot eat it, it has no value for him. In the moral attached to this fable in the Phaedrus, which would presumably be the “hoc illis narro qui me non intellegunt” (I tell this to those who do not understand me) the fabulist is much more defensive about his own moral lessons; the fable is for those who do not understand “me,” or the author directly; perhaps the fabulist here is offended that his work has not been respected.35 There is no indicator here that the fable is intended to be read in any broader context; there is no reference to the fable genre or to the fact that this short fable might exist as part of a larger collection. In the elegiac Romulus the moral of this fable now reads: “tu gallo stolidum. tu jaspide dona sophye/ pulcra notes stolido nil placet illa seges” [you, cock, represent the stupid person, you, jewel, the beautiful gifts of wisdom; that corn is pleasing not at all to a stupid one].36 Where the Phaedrus fable simply speaks of those that might find the fabulist unintelligent, the moral of the Romulus fable now refers back to the fable itself, speaking directly to both the rooster and the jewel, identifying the first as stupid, and the latter as the beautiful gifts of wisdom, which it is implied are to be found in the rest of this collection. The emphasis on wisdom in this fable in the elegiac Romulus is certainly a move to a more complex understanding of this fable along with its relationship to the rest of the fable collection, and the moving of this fable to the beginning of the collection is evidence that the work is aware of itself as a of a whole, and is encouraging the reader as to how they are to read the fables that follow. Both the twelfth and the twenty-first fable stand out as indicators of a more complicated reading, as well as a more intricate moral lesson. The twelfth fable, often called "De Mure Urbano et Rustico," and to us known as the familiar "The City Mouse

35 The moral is line 8 in this fable, which is called “Pullus et Margaritam” in the Phaedrus. (Phædrus His Fables with English Notes. By William Willymott. Lodon sic: printed for John Osborn, and Tho. Longman, 1928. Print.)

36 This moral is found in lines 9-10 of the elegiac Romulus fables. The Latin for all quotations from the elegiac Romulus is taken directly from the extant manuscripts of the elegiac Romulus housed at the British Library, via developing a consensus for language across texts, and then verified in Aaron Eugene Wright’s published work The fables of “Walter of England.” (Toronto, Ont., Canada: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1997. Print.), and the translations are my own, with reference to Ronald Pepin’s An English Translation of Auctores Octo, a Medieval Reader. (Lewiston, N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. Print.).

38 and the Country Mouse," seems in many fable manuscripts to mark a logical breaking point. The medieval version of this fable is very familiar, even to the modern reader; the city mouse travels to visit her country-dwelling sister, and the dine together, but the city mouse is disappointed in the country fare, and invites her sister to travel back to the city with her to enjoy more sophisticated food. Upon arriving in the city, the country mouse is enamored with the variety of food, until the master comes to eat his own meal and the two mice must scurry and hide in the wall. At this point, the country mouse is rather frightened, and decides she would rather eat her meager meal in peace. The city mouse remains behind, happy with her own lifestyle, and the moral teaches that neither mouse is in the right, and each should be content with what they have. This fable is longer than many of the others--the first long fable to appear in the collection-- and offers a much more complex moral. It is also the first fable where there is a pretty extensive discussion of moral living in the middle of the fable, rather than just an epimythium. In the previous eleven fables, the lessons that the fable is trying to teach is evident by the action of the animal characters-- it is clear which animals are in the right, and which are evil-- so the only explanation of moral lesson comes at the end of the fables, when it is presented in the two lines directed at the reader which encourage moral behavior. This fable, however, does not rely entirely on the action of the animals to convey the meaning of the fable; there is heavy narration throughout that carefully puts forward the moral lessons on the fable, interspersed with description of the animal's actions. This fable is also inherently complex-- there is not really a clear moral take away from the story of the city and the country mouse, for each mouse is content to return to her way of life, but neither livelihood emerges as definitively the better one. There is also no clear antagonist in this fable, no animal who can be identified by their species as a villain. The twenty-first fable is also peculiar, although more in presentation than content. In some manuscripts it is just one lengthy fable, while in others it is split in to two parts, and still others in to two entirely separate fables (usually numbered as 21a and b). The two fables, or two parts of one fable, tell essentially the same story: in the first the Athenians are desperate for a king, yet once they have appointed one, even though this king upholds the law fairly, the citizens quickly tire of being told what they may or may not do. In the second fable, it is a group of frogs who desire a king. Rather than

39 appointing one themselves, they plead with Jupiter until he bestows on them a stick, telling them that it is to be their king. The frogs quickly realize that the stick is inanimate, and again plead with Jupiter that they might have a king. In order to teach a lesson, Jupiter gives the frogs a snake to rule, which quickly begins to murder the frogs. This set of fables cautions about the dangers of a monarchy, but does so from two opposing perspectives. Ultimately, however, the moral for both fables, "Si quis habet quod habere decet, sit laetus habendo" (if one has what it is right to have, let him be happy by having it), shows the reader that they are to understand that both fables show the dangers of displeasure with one's circumstances, rather than making any kind of judgment on aristocracy.37 This pairing of fables, falling at the end of the first portion of the collection, sets up the reader as the move into the remainder of the collection looking for these kinds of moral lessons, where they understand the harm of their own actions rather than blaming others. In addition, the awkward presentation of two fables as one lesson, which also has the visual effect of a very long fable on the manuscript page, helps to delineate between these first fables and the remainder of the collection. This evidence of the scribal care given to these first fables, the heavier presence of illustration and commentary, along with the introduction of the different animal characters, points to the first sections of fables being considered as a separate group. These fables are set aside as a separate group, however, so that they can educate the reader in his style of engagement: how the reader should work through the rest of the collection. The first fables can be seen as teaching the reader to negotiate the moral lessons of the collection, and how they are to understand the animal characters as moral guides. The presentation of the different animal characters allows the reader to understand that these fables are indeed meant to work together, that they can develop an understanding of which characters are good and evil, and how to use this to interpret the remainder of the collection. The increasing complexity of these first fables, both in number of characters and moral lessons, allow the reader to ease into the ways that moral lessons are being taught, as the fables themselves show the readers which animal characters they are to emulate, and which animals are considered more villainous. The reader is also able to develop an understanding of what kinds of moral lessons the fables

37 The moral is line 21 in part “b” of the fable “De Attica Terra et Rege.”

40 are looking to develop-- that is lessons about moral behavior, such as jealousy and greed, as well as lessons about social expectations, such as the lion exerting his power unfairly. In the first fables the readers are also taught to expect moral lessons in the middle of the fable, rather than just at the end or beginning, as is the case in earlier fable collections; this is something that occurs with increasing complexity as the collection progresses. The Fable's Role in Moral Teaching: Focusing too strongly on the elegiac Romulus' role in Latin language education also dismisses the role that this particular fable collection had in moral edification. While fables have been used to teach moral lessons since the beginning of the Aesopic tradition, this collection takes a much stronger attitude towards moral teaching, both by placing greater emphasis on the morals at the end of the fables, and by interspersing moral lessons within the body of the fables. More complex morals, a moving of morals from the beginnings to the end of the fables, and scribal markings in the manuscripts indicating importance all also indicate increased moral emphasis in the elegiac Romulus.While this increased presence of moral teachings could be attributed to the religious climate in the Middle Ages, there is little religious emphasis in the fables. Instead, there is an apparent desire to emphasize the moralizing feature of the genre so that it could be used for future religious purposes. Fables in the Phaedrus collection have a rather simple relationship to their own moral lessons; the morals are at the beginnings of the fables, and they are nearly always confined to the first two lines of the fable. For example, in the fable "Vacca et Capella, Ovis et Leo" (the equivalent in the elegiac Romulus is often called "De Ove et Capra et Iuvenca et Leone"), the first two lines of the fable read: "Numquam est fidelis cum potente societas./ Testatur haec fabella propositum meum" [A partnership is never with faithful men in power, this story gives my evidence].38 The fable then goes on to illustrate this point in the actions of the animal characters-- the lion, goat, cow, and sheep kill a deer while hunting, but the lion takes all of the of the meat, because he is the most powerful of the animals. In version of this fable found in the elegiac Romulus, however, the story begins promptly with the narrative of the animals, " Ut ratione pari fortune munera sumant,/ Sumunt fedus ovis capra iuvenca leo" (In order that equal gifts of

38 Lines 1-2 in Phaedrus,”Vacca et Capella, Ovis et Leo.”

41 fortune might be obtained, the kid of the sheep, the goat, the heifer and the lion all take up together). 39The moral of the fable does not come until the end, but it takes up the last three lines of the fable, " Publica solus habet fortior, ima premens./ Ne fortem societ fragilis vult fabula presens/ Nam fragili fidus nesciet esse potens." [Only a the strong one has public property, oppressing the bottommost ones, the fable at hand proposes that the weak not associate with the strong, for the powerful does not know how to be faithful to the weak].40 In the Phaedrus, the relationship between the fable and the moral is rather direct; the moral states at the beginning of the fable that the following words are evidence of that there can be no equal partnerships with men in power, and then the body of the fable proceeds to prove this point by telling the story of the lion, sheep, goat and cow. The connection between fable and moral in the elegiac Romulus is more complex; this collection presents the body of the fable first, so that the reader makes their own connections about what the fable may be trying to teach. The moral at the end of the fable then emphasizes these connections by confirming that this fable is cautioning against the relationships with those stronger than yourself. In this particular fable, the moral is also a bit longer, three rather than two lines, but in other fables of the elegiac Romulus, the moral stretches as long as six lines at the end of the fable. Although the shift of the moral from the beginning to the end of the fable may seem to indicate a decline in importance, I believe that this shift actually evidences an increase in the significance of morality in the fables. In the later Middle Ages the concern with moral living (that is, the Catholic model of moral living) would have increased. Although not religious themselves, the fables were certainly used as a tool to teach a virtuous Christian life; Odo of Cheriton, an English preacher in the early thirteenth century who used fables in his sermons, is clear evidence of this. The increased emphasis on morality in the fables seems to fall in line with an increased focus on moral living. As evinced in my discussion of "De Ove et Capra et Iuvenca et Leone" above, the construction of the fables so that the moral lesson comes at the end of the fable rather than the beginning seems to force the reader to guess at or try to develop a moral lesson for themselves. Rather than being told what they are to understand from what they are

39 1-2 in “De Ove et Capra et Iuvenca et Leone” of the elegiac Romulus 40 8-10

42 about to read, the reader of the elegiac Romulus comes to each fable knowing that there is a moral lesson that they are to be learning, but this lesson isn't entirely evident from the outset. The reader is then forced to identify this lesson themselves from the actions of the animal character, until the lesson is specified in the moral at the end. Furthermore, the first fables in the collection are quite short (especially compared to later fables) and each make relatively clear links between the fable and moral, encouraging the reader to identify and understand the significance of the moral lessons in the fables. The presence of the moral at the end of the fable motivates reflection and aids the reader in coordinating the moral with the preceding fable The first fable, "De Gallo et Jaspide" works to set this up for the reader. When the rooster comes across a gem instead of the food he is searching for, the rooster addresses the jewel directly, " "Res utili pretiosa loco natique nitoris,/ Hac in sorde iacens nil mihi messis habes./.../ Nec tibi convenio, nec tu mihi; nec tibi prosum,/ Nec mihi tu prodes, plus amo cara minus." [This precious thing of natural splendor in a useful place, lying here in the filth, you have nothing of food for me...I am not appropriate for you, nor you for me, nor are you able to be useful to me, I love little things more].41 In these lines, the rooster both shows the utility of the gem, but then also adds his justification for rejecting it, by explaining how it is not useful for him. While this argument may seem logical to the reader, the moral explains to the reader that they are to act otherwise. It reads " Tu gallo stolidum, tu iaspide pulcra sophie/ Dona notes: stolido nil sapit ista seges." (You should understand stupidity by the rooster, you should understand the beautiful gifts of wisdom by the jasper, the crop has no flavor to the stupid). This first fable shows the reader that they are not always to act as the animal characters do, but that they should discern between the animals acting from instinct, and animals that are acting in such a way that the human reader should emulate them. It is also clear from the moral that the rooster in this fable can also be associated with the reader of the fables, and the gem with the wisdom of the fables. The rooster wasn't able to see the wisdom of the gem, but the reader is expected to see the wisdom in this and the subsequent fables. In many of the other early fables, the morals are quite clear. In the second fable, “De Lupo et Agno,” a lamb is antagonized by a wolf, who claims that the lamb is

41 Lines 3-4, 7-8

43 muddying his drinking water, even though the lamb is downstream from the wolf. Clearly, here, it is the wolf that is at fault, and the moral confirms that the reader is to be cautious of such men, " Sic nocet innocuo nocuus, causamque nocendi/ Invenit. Hi regnant qualibet urbe lupi." [Thus injurious men harm the innocent, and he will discover a reason for harming, these wolves reign in any city].42 Other morals include cautioning against false witnesses when a kite and a wolf accuse a lamb of a crime he didn't commit, a warning to be content with your own possessions when a dog drops his cheese into a pond coveting the cheese in his own reflection, and lessons on aiding the wicked when a crane receives nothing in return for pulling a bone from a wolf's throat. In the most complex, and also the lengthiest of the first fables, "De Mura et Rana," there are lines of moralizing in the middle of the fable to help the reader in understanding the moral lessons. The first two lines of the fable set up the action-- a lake blocks the way of a mouse, a frog promises to help the mouse to the other side. The third and fourth lines of the fable, "Omne genus pestis superat mens dissona verbis,/ Cum sentes animi florida lingua polit" [a mind discordant with words overcomes all kinds of pestilence, when the thorns of the mind smooth flowery language], then warn the reader about this frog, whose promises seem to good to be true.43 The reader then is prepared when the frog ties the mouse's leg to his own and dives to the bottom of the lake. Ultimately, a kite is attracted by the struggle between the mouse and the frog, and snatches them both; the moral in the end of the fable discusses how the frog is punished for deceiving. Beyond being slightly lengthier than the other fables, this fable is also a bit more complex; from his species it is not immediately clear that the frog is to be an antagonist in the fable. The moralizing lines in the middle of the fable clarify this for the reader, and also help the reader transition into the next part of the fable, where the kite is added as another character. This fable is additionally confusing as both the mouse and the frog are ultimately punished; these lines help in understanding this as well by faulting the mouse for trusting the frog. This is the only fable in the first twelve to have this kind of moral guidance in the middle of the fable, and it seems designed to encourage the reader

42 15-6 in “De Lupo et Agno” 43 These lines (3-4) provide a very nice way of noting that the frog is a deceptive character.

44 to find moral lessons in these instances in the fables where multiple characters are introduced, or there are a number of different actions occurring. As the collection progresses, the fables get increasingly longer and more complex, building on the interpretation skills that are developed in these earlier fables. The patterns in the first fables also illustrate the types of moral lessons that the reader is to extrapolate; as the fables I have referenced evidence, many of the lessons are social lessons, or lessons in what types of people ought to be trusted (or avoided as the case may be) rather than lessons on how to behave. In the most complex of fables, moral guidance is still offered in the middle of the fables, encouraging the reader to work to sort out the relationships between characters. The morals at the ends of the fables also become longer in the middle of the fable collection; many morals range from four to six lines. The most conclusive piece of evidence for an increased emphasis on moral lessons in the elegiac Romulus is that in a number of fable manuscripts the morals are marked with paragraph markers, designed to set them apart from the rest of the body of the fables. In a number of manuscripts these markings are simply on the last two lines of each fable; certainly these last two lines always contain moralizing, and in instances where there is a longer moral, the last two lines are the most strongly directive, telling the reader how they are to behave. However, three of the manuscripts in the British Library's collection (Add MS' 10088, 18107, 27625) use these paragraph markers to indicate both the longer morals in later fables, and the moralizing lines in the bodies of the fables. The similarities between these manuscripts are remarkable; the exact same lines in each of the fables are marked, even in the bodies of the longer fables. These markings, along with the pattern of consistent markings across manuscripts strongly indicate that the moral lessons which were being taught in these fables were of great significance to both the scribe and the readers. Not only do these marked moments of internal moralizing indicate just how significant the morality of the fables was to their medieval readers, but they also offer us insight into how the fables were read. In each of these manuscripts, there are ten fables with internal morals marked; each of these fables is a bit longer, and the pilcrows along with the internal morals that they mark seem to offer a sort of guideline by which the fables are to be understood. These internal morals help guide the reader to the eventual

45 moral lesson that the fable wants to impart, and the marginal markings only seem to further indicate that these moments were indeed significant to the medieval reader. Additionally, these internal morals become even more significant as they are emphasized by later fable authors such as Henryson as well. For a fable collection that circulated so widely throughout almost the entire Middle Ages, the elegiac Romulus has not gotten near the critical attention it deserves. Edward Wheatley’s pivotal study identifies and tracks the fable manuscripts, and uncovers the fascinating commentary tradition that accompanies the fables, yet his approach to the fables ignores some key features of how I believe the elegiac Romulus was read and interpreted by the medieval audience. Just as significant as the commentary tradition is understanding the Romulus as a coherent whole, or a text that could be read not just as individual fables, but from start to finish as a connected narrative. It is also pivotal to acknowledge the moral lessons that the elegiac Romulus taught, alongside its work in grammar education; the fable text is set up to weave together a number of complex moral lessons for its readers, and failing to acknowledge this is failing to realize some of what makes this collection a set of fables, rather than just an accumulation of short stories. Using the manuscript evidence to interpret the elegiac Romulus in these ways not only helps us better understand the reading practices surrounding the fable collection, but also sets us up to better understand all other medieval collections that use these fables as their base text.

46 Chapter 2: Characterization, Citizenship, and Collectivity: The Fables of Marie de France Like the curricular Aesop, Marie’s work is a lengthy collection of fables, yet her fables deviate notably from the elegiac Romulus and the curricular fable tradition.44 Marie’s work is the first translation of the fables into a vernacular language; she writes in Anglo-Norman. Marie’s fables are much longer than the Latin fables, many extending for

44 While there is a multitude of scholarship on Marie de France, much of it focuses on the far more popular Lais. R. Howard Bloch (The Anonymous Marie De France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Print) addresses the fables in The Anonymous Marie de France, but largely in the context of connecting the Lais and fables in order to paint a more complete picture of Marie as an author. Bloch, along with Logan Whalen (Marie De France and the Poetics of Memory. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008. Print) and Jerry Root (“Mustrer and the Poetics of Marie De France.” Modern Philology: Critical and Historical Studies in Literature, Medieval Through Contemporary 108.2 (2010): 151–176. Print) also focus heavily on the language that Marie uses in the fables; for Bloch this focus examines Marie’s use of speech acts in the fables, and for Whalen and Root the focus is on Marie’s use of the poetic form to allow her reader to commit the fables to memory. Other scholarship, including Sandra Hindman’s “Aesop’s Cock and Marie’s Hen: Gendered Authorship in Text and Image in Manuscripts of Marie de France’s Fables,” (Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence. Toronto, ON: U of Toronto Press, 1997. 45–56. Print) and Karen Jambeck’s (“Reclaiming the Woman in the Book: Marie De France and the Fables.” Women, the Book and the Worldly. Ed. Lesley (ed.) Smith & Jane H. M. (ed.) Taylor. xiv, 193 pp. Cambridge, Eng.: Brewer, 1995. 119–137. Print) work focuses on Marie’s role as a female author writing in the twelfth century, when women as authors was almost unheard of. Hindman shifts the focus to discuss how Marie uses female characters in her work in order to emphasize the role of the female author; I too point out Marie’s female characters, although I use them in an argument for Marie’s feminization of the entire collection. Both Hans Runte in his article “Mare de France’s Fables as Trilingual Palimpsest,” (Por Le Soie Amisté. Ed. Keith (ed. and foreword) Busby & Catherine M. (ed. and foreword) Jones. xxxiv, 552 pp. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 2000. 453– 462. Print. Faux Titre: Etudes De Langue Et Littérature Françaises (FauxT): 183) and Harriet Speigel in her introduction to her translation of Marie’s fables (Fables. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. Print) begin to acknowledge that Marie’s fables are rather unusual in her appeal to social and political themes. While these critics identify a few fables that carry this framework, they do little analysis other than to acknowledge Marie’s unusual use of language in the fable. My argument uses the fables identified by Runte and Speigel as a starting point, and builds off of their work to develop more concrete criticism about the ways that Marie de France is manipulating the fable form, and why she might be doing this.

47 more than 100 lines, partly because her fables are elaborately descriptive. She humanizes her animal characters and takes great care in describing the scenes in which they appear, allowing her reader to visualize the action of the story she tells. Attributing this careful description to Marie’s use of vivid mental images to imprint her fables into the minds of her readers, Logan Whalen has argued that this trait is particularly critical in the survival of literature in the twelfth century, when Marie is writing, because the reader may have only one chance to access a particular text. Description and vivid storylines such as Marie’s allow the text to imprint in the reader’s mind so that they are easy to remember long after they are read. Marie’s fables are also unique because she develops complex backstories in some of her fables, allowing her work to exist somewhere between the rather narrative fables of the elegiac Romulus and the more imaginative fables of the later Middle Ages. Lastly, Marie takes the fable genre and begins to mold the content to be used in order to make social and political arguments that are far more poignant than in the elegiac Romulus, and can be seen as a model for Lydgate and Henryson’s collections.45 Although Marie’s collection of Lais’ is far more popular with modern readers, the manuscript evidence suggests that her Fable collection was actually more popular, and more widely circulated. While there are only three extant manuscripts containing some portion of Marie’s Lais, there are twenty-three manuscripts that have Marie’s fables, and a few others containing some portion of the fable collection. This manuscript history alone, much like the manuscript history for the elegiac Romulus, makes Marie’s fables worthy of note. The Lais may provide more complex plot lines, but the fables are complex in their own right, and clearly significant to medieval readers. Marie was certainly aware that her readers were interested in the fable genre, and produced and circulated this collection assuming that it would be widely read, and hoping to make specific arguments to her audience. Unlike in the Lais, here Marie is working as a fabulist in a tradition that has already been well established, so when she makes even minute changes in the characters and plot lines of the fables, she is making the assumption that the reader is going to pick up on her changes. She is working within

45 I would even argue that Marie’s fables are influential in Chaucer’s work—without her manipulation of the fables to use them for careful argumentation, it would be difficult to imagine Chaucer using the genre so heavily, and The Nun’s Priest’s Tale seems to have been more impacted by her collection than any other fable text.

48 a tradition so she can manipulate that tradition to greater ends. Because the fables have a stable history, Marie is able to take more power in her translations, and I would argue that her reworkings have far greater impact than her work in the Lais. Just like the elegiac Romulus, the fables of Marie de France are relatively difficult to date. A best estimate on the elegiac Romulus is approximately 1175, where Marie's works have been estimated to have been composed sometime between 1155 and 1180, meaning that it is possible that the two fable collections were written contemporaneously.46 Although there is some notable overlap between collections, both also have a number of unique fables. This makes it clear that, while some of Marie's sources may have been the same as those used by the author of the elegiac Romulus, she is also working at least one other source. In her epilogue, Marie claims "Li reis Alfrez, que mut l'ama,/Le translata puis en engleis,/ E jeo l'ai rimee en franceis, [King Alfred, who was fond of it, Translated it into English, And I have rhymed it now in French.], attempting to establish an earlier English source from which she has translated her work.47 In the preface to her translation, Harriet Spiegel argues that aside from the first 30-40 fables, which are clearly taken from the Romulus, none of the rest of Marie's fables can be found together in a contemporary source, which implies that Marie could have been the first author to compile these fables together into a collection.48 However, Leopold Hervieux argues that it seems possible that the seventy of Marie's fables which are not a part of the elegiac Romulus seem to appear in a missing manuscript of the prose Romulus. Hervieux calls Marie's lost source the Anglo-Latin Romulus, and argues that the Romulus of Nilant is derived almost exactly from this missing source. There are two

46 Harriet Spiegel (Marie, de France, and Harriet Spiegel. Fables. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. Print. p.5) discusses the possible dates and arguments for this time frame in the prologue for her translation of the fables. It is important when thinking of these two collections to remember that there were of course other fable collections circulating both in written and oral form, so there could be some overlap in earlier influences as well. 47 Lines 16-8 in the Epilogue; Marie’s claim of a source text by King Alfred is likely false or an elaboration, added to bring brevity to her text by claiming a translation, although it is always possible that there is a fable collection written by Alfred that we no longer have manuscript evidence for. 48 Spiegel (7), admits that she is the first to suggest this possibility, and seems unsure if these fables are indeed unique to Marie, but it indeed likely that one of Marie’s greatest contributions is as a compiler of fables, even if the fable are found in a source text.

49 other incomplete sources, the Partial Derivative and Complete Derivative which also contain a number of fables that Marie includes in her collection, making it even more likely that there a source manuscript that Marie may have been familiar with.49 Regardless of the origin of Marie’s fables, in many instances, she has changed the fable so dramatically that, while they are recognizable in other collections, Marie’s work is clearly unique, innovating the bounds of the fable genre. Regardless of the existence of any previous source, even a quick comparison of Marie's collection to the Romulus of Nilant reveals that Marie's fables are not mere translations of the Latin work. Most obviously, Marie writes in verse, while the other collection is prose. Additionally, most of Marie's fables are also considerable longer, her characters more complex, and her morals are tailored to fit within the confines of her collection. All of these elements combine to make Marie's work a unique one, and worthy of note. Even if Marie is not the first to compile these fables as Spiegel suggests, the work that she does in translating and interpreting is enough to create a collection that is distinctive from its Latinate predecessors. We can also view Marie’s collection as a kind of bridge between the Latin fables and other medieval fable collections. While more direct references can be made between the elegiac Romulus and collections such as Lydgate’s and Henryson’s, the more imaginative elements of these later collections can certainly be attributed to the impact that Marie’s fables had on the genre. Marie’s fable collection indicates her awareness and responsiveness to the conditions of the literary scene in the twelfth century. Her fables are significant because they is the first to be translated into a vernacular language, and also because they exert influence over later collections, as the fable starts to become less simple narrative, and more imaginative. Lydgate's short collection of seven fables are ordered identically to Marie's, and Lydgate also includes a prologue before his first fable, as does Marie. It seems likely that aside from the elegiac Romulus, Lydgate was also working with Marie's collection in mind. Marie's fables also have a creative element to them, often giving her characters a backstory and clear motivations, which is picked up by both Chaucer and

49 Heriveax (qtd in Bloch 122) provides a much more complete discussion of Marie’s source texts, outlining all of the possible collections that Marie could have been working from.

50 Henryson in their later works. Although they didn't have quite the same cultural impact that the elegiac Romulus fables seem to have had, Marie's fables were integral to the style and form of later, more imaginative versions of the fables. Marie also uses her fables to make social and political arguments, a feature that is carried into later iterations of the fable, as they increasingly become tools used to argue for change. Ultimately, most of the discussions of Marie's work in the fables focuses on these two questions: either her place as a female author, or her position in a culture of growing literacy. While both of these questions are indeed significant in understanding Marie's work, the impact that her fable collection has on later collections indicates that a study of the reader reception of Marie's fables may be overdue. Marie's fables do not contain marginalia as the elegiac Romulus does, making it more difficult to attain a reader-based perspective of her fables. However, the relationship that her collection has to the fables in the elegiac Romulus, along with the impact that her fables had on later fabulists, such as Lydgate, can offer some insight. Because Marie's fable collection is so unique, it is also possible to view the changes that she has made to her fables as specific responses to her readers, or to what she would have believed her audience would have been expecting in a fable collection. She uses her fables to impact her readers directly, making arguments about the role of the female, the role of the citizen in their government, and the ability of the citizens to come together to impact social change. All of these topics are rather weighty, and invisible in the elegiac Romulus. Marie’s fables are innovative in that they make strong and specific arguments aimed directly at impacting social and political change in her readers. Marie’s collection serves as an important bridge between the Latin fables and later medieval works, as she creates the framework for using the fable to illustrate or argue for change in the reader. Dividing Marie’s collection into three significant models of fable, I will discuss how Marie impacted discussions on female characters, the political climate, and social commentary. Providing ample examples for each model, I examine the significant arguments that Marie is able to make in each of these areas. Beginning with the fables that emphasize feminine characters, I will examine the significant roles that Marie gives to women in the fables, and the arguments that she makes for the shifting role of women. While some of these arguments are not necessarily carried on in later works, they are

51 rather progressive for Marie’s time and worthy of note. I will then move on to the fables that Mare uses to make political arguments, noting specifically that Marie has a particularly interesting idea of the citizen as able to (or at least ought to be able to) make an impact on their government and society. Just as many other authors in the twelfth century, Marie is concerned with establishing and depicting the individual in her work, however her fables also place a strong emphasis on working as a collective, and she offers a critique against a society in which members of the same species have become so individualized they can no longer work together. Lastly I will discuss the fables in which Marie provides social commentary, emphasizing that here too Marie is concerned with unity, this time across the social classes. She offers models of both correct and incorrect social behavior, and ultimately advocates a system of checks and balances that will aid in social unity. Taking a closer look at Marie’s fables, this chapter will argue that Marie’s fables had great impact in understanding the developing role of the female in the twelfth century, along with the rising idea that the citizens can have true impact in their government and society. These ideas are progressive both for Marie’s time, and for the types of arguments fables can be used to make All of this combines to make Marie’s unique collection among both curricular fable collections and later literary editions. As an author in the twelfth century, when education is being moved out of the cathedral school to more secular arenas, and when books are becoming increasingly popular among all types of readers (rather than just religious and the nobility), Marie was in a pivotal position in the development of the medieval book. I will show that her fables reflect this by being particularly sensitive to the narrative structure of the collection as a whole, as well as by telling fables that are incredibly vivid and well developed. The fables included in Marie’s work are distinctly different from curricular fable collections, not only in content, but also in the authorial tone, a distinction that becomes particularly significant as Marie’s collection impacts later fable authors. Understanding the way that Marie works in her own text as author and narrator will help to situate her fable collection within a history of the development of the book and the fable genre. In the introduction to her translation of Marie's fables, Harriet Speigel notes that the most accurate way to describe what Marie does in her fable collection is to say that

52 she medievalizes the fables, or begins to use it to make arguments specific to the medieval period. Marie’s collection is a product of the twelfth century specifically, and she is able to offer commentary on contemporary life, including notes on the social and political situations of her time. Marie is the first fable author to use the genre to make direct and specific arguments, ones that are targeted exactingly at the readers that she imagines for her collection, and asks these readers to make significant social change. This use of the fable form is picked up by all other medieval fable authors, who seem to have taken from Marie’s work in using the fable to effectively reach and impact change in their readers. Speigel identifies a number of fables that speak to each of these motivations, as well as some that address Marie's concern for her female characters; I intend to use the fables that she identifies to further discuss how the arguments that Marie makes in the fables are indeed different from those in the curricular fables, are specifically medieval, and how they work to impact the development of the fable in later collections.50 Use of the Feminine A number of scholars have paid careful attention to Marie’s use of the feminine, and potentially feminism in her Lais. Critics such as Sharon Kinoshita note that Marie rejects feudal and chivalric value, giving her text a feminist argument. Similarly, in one of the most widely read studies on the Lais, “ The Voice of the Hind: The Emergence of Feminine Discontent in the Lais of Marie,” H. Marshall Leicester Jr. suggests that Marie views the female body as an indicator for the oppression of women. Leicester illustrates that the women in Marie’s Lais take the instruments of their own oppression and use these to fight back against the patriarchy.51

50 Speigel identifies these different fable types in her introduction (9-10) of her translation, and mentions briefly a few fables that might be suitable to political and social fables. I have taken her claims and expanded upon them exponentially in order to make arguments for the arguments Marie is making to her readers in these different types of fables. 51 Sharon Kinoshita "'Cherchez La Femme': Feminist Criticism And Marie De France's Lai De Lanval." Romance Notes 34.3 (1994): 263-273. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 13 July 2016. and H. Marshall Leicester, Jr. “The Voice of the Hind: The Emergence of Feminine Discontent in the Lais of Marie.” Reading Medieval Culture. Ed. Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005, pp. 132-69. Other scholars such as Roberta Krueger (.“Marie de France.”

53 However, very little has been said about the use of feminine characters and female agency in Marie’s collection, other than to identify the fables in which Marie shifts the genders of her animal characters. However, Maries turning of male or androgynous characters into notable, powerful females is only one way in which she feminizes the fables. She also tells fables which traditionally have had female characters in such a way that these roles are increasingly emphasized. Additionally, Marie feminizes any mention of the gods; and she carefully redeems her female characters from terrible ends. Marie also includes a number of fables that focus on labor and childbirth in her collection. By including these fables, she seems particularly aware of feminine issues, and she is quick to take the side of her female characters. Rather than placing blame on either of the pregnant characters, as the elegiac Romulus does, instead Marie illustrates the harmful situations that pregnancy and labor forces women into. One such fable is called "A Dog in Labor" in Marie's collection, and "The Two Small Dogs" in the elegiac Romulus; this change in title is significant, because in the elegiac Romulus there is no description of the dog in labor given. The second dog, with her young already at her side, arrives at the home of the first dog, who lives alone, and begs for refuge from the cold, using what the fable calls "honeyed words" to plead her case. The single dog, feeling sympathetic for the mother, allows the other dog and her young to come in from the cold. However, soon the second dog and her young take over the home, and the first dog begins to beg her to leave, desperate to recover her own home. Instead of agreeing, the second dog begins to threaten, and her young follow suit, eventually running the first dog out of her home simply because they now outnumber her. In the elegiac Romulus, the moral for this fable notes that "honeyed words" such as those used by the dog cannot be

The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing. Ed. Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace. v-xix, 289 pp. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2003. 172–183. Print. Cambridge Companions to Literature (CCtL) and Suzanne Klerks (Klerks, Suzanne. “The Pain of Reading Female Bodies in Marie de France’s ‘Guigemar.’” Dalhousie French Studies 33 (1995): 1–14. Print) also agree that Marie’s Lais can be read as making strong arguments for the role of the female and female agency. However, other critics have noted that Marie’s text falls too early to be considered feminist, and that her ideas of agency occur within the confines of the patriarcy. In the Lais, as in the Fables, I would argue that Marie’s arguments for the role of the female, and her depictions of female characters in her texts are advanced and highly critical for her time, and that her work stands out among medieval texts in for its depictions of the feminine.

54 trusted, for "Ex hoc melle solet pestis amara sequie” [from this honey a plague usually follows.]52 This moral is rather simple—the second female dog is to blame in the scenario, as she was deceptive in her language, and cannot be trusted. Marie's fable of the two dogs is notably more complex; the dog begging for a home is in labor rather than already with her young at her side. It is because of this compromised position that she is able to elicit the sympathy of another female dog, who opens up her home. The dog delivers her pups, but they soon begin to grow, and damage the host’s home. As in the other fable, the host dog attempts to cast the mother and her pups out, but is overwhelmed by the majority, and is forced to leave her own home. Marie's moral doesn't focus on the deceptive speech of the mother dog, but on the misfortune that befalls the other dog, who "Que par bunté de sun curage,/ Est dechacié de heritage.” [out of the goodness of his heart, is driven out of her lawful inheritance.]53 Rather than critique either of the pregnant dogs, instead Marie focuses on the unjust scenario that has forced these dogs to compete for this space at all. Marie is loath to place any blame on the female characters, and doesn’t depict either of them as deceptive, instead arguing that they have been disadvantaged by their society. Marie's continues this focus on childbirth in the fable "The Wolf and the Sow," where she notes that women must be weary of all men, as well as shifting the moral to speak directly to her women readers. This fable is relatively similar in Marie's collection and the elegiac Romulus-- a wolf approaches a pregnant sow and implores her to give birth quickly, so that he might help her raise the young. The sow is not fooled by this, and tells the wolf that all females must be weary of any male that comes near them during childbirth, and therefore drives the wolf away. In the elegiac Romulus, however, the moral doesn't make any note of the female sow, but rather extrapolates the lesson for all

52 An interesting use of the word honey here, (12 in “De Duabus Canibus”) as something that is so over-sweet it should cause hesitation. 53 35-6 in Marie’s fable “De la Lisse ki ot Chaelé.” For quotations from Marie’s fables, I have used Speigel’s text for the old French, but her translations hold strongly to Marie’s rhyming scheme, meaning she has manipulated the language of the fables in order to continue the end rhyme. For translating Marie’s work, I referred to Mary Lou Martin’s. The Fables of Marie de France: An English Translation (Birmingham, Ala: Summa Publications, 1984. Print.), and then examined the old French myself for accuracy in translation.

55 people: "Tempore non omni non omnibus omnia credas/ Qui misère credit, creditor esse miser.” [Not every time should you trust all things to not all people, he who trusts miserable is miserable.]54 In Marie's fable, however, the moral is directed specifically towards women: "Cest essample deivent oir/ Tutes femmes e retenir:/ Que pur sulement mentir/ Ne laissent lur enfanz perir!” [all women should listen to this fable and remember it,/ they should not let their children perish just to save their own skins.]55 The body of this fable makes a particularly strong statement about childbirth by warning against male influence, but the elegiac Romulus is careful to step back from this and apply the fable to all readers. Marie has no such hesitations in her fable, as she uses the motif of childbirth in the fable to develop a moral that is specific to females in her audience, again emphasizing her own concern with feminized issues. Marie's fables also feminize characters that are presented as male, or androgynous in other fable collections. One clear example of this is the fable “The Swallow and the Linseed.” In the elegiac Romulus, the swallow is mentioned as female (meaning the feminine pronoun is used in the Latin), but in Marie's fable the femininity of the swallow is strongly established in the animal's demeanor. Marie uses the female character of the swallow to show the animal as more nurturing, with clearly pure motives that are a result of her feminine nature. Again, the plot of this fable is rather simple in the elegiac Romulus: a farmer has planted flax in a field, and the swallow warns the other birds that they should all work together to eat the flax seed in order to keep the seed from maturing. The swallow tells the birds that when the seed does mature, the plants will be harvested, and the flax will be used to weave a net that will in turn be used to ensnare the birds. The swallow is ignored, and when the flax is harvested, many of the birds fall victim to the traps, but the swallow, bereft of any bird companions, befriends the human landowners, and is spared. The fable's moral emphasizes the foolishness of scorning useful advice. Marie provides a more complex narrative with this story, and her swallow is a more clever character, using careful foresight as she attempts to save all swallows, and then, unable to do this, her own family. After the swallow meets with the other birds, the birds report the swallow's warning to the farmer. When the swallow hears of this

54 9-10 in “De Lupo et Sue” 55 21-4 in “De Lu e de la Troie”

56 betrayal, she gathers a number of her family members, and makes peace with the farmer. The farmer embraces all swallows, and allows the birds to make their nests in his home. Marie's moral emphasizes the good advice of the swallow, as well as noting her desire to keep others from misfortune. Much like the feminized mouse in the mouse and the frog, Marie's swallow is depicted as a complex character, who is quite wise, rather than the simple harbinger of bad news from the elegiac Romulus. The swallow is not only wise enough to foresee the creation of nets, but also to try to save as many of her kind as possible; when the other birds refuse to listen to her, the swallow refocuses her efforts on her family, and on making peace with the farmer. She is able to think complexly, and when denied the ability to save her entire flock, she is wise enough to look to her own family, and at least save them through developing a reciprocal relationship with the farmer. Marie's swallow is nurturing and cunning, and through this she is able to secure for her family a favorable position in the eyes of the humans for the future, effectively securing the fate of her family. One of the most notable of Marie's female characters is the shifting in the character of the widow from a negative to a positive influence in her version of the story of the widow of Ephesus, which likely would have been familiar to the medieval reader for is use in the Satyricon by Petronius. In this fable in elegiac Romulus (and in the Satyricon) a widow is mourning over the body of her husband when she comes upon a soldier who is guarding the body of a thief on a cross.56 The soldier finds himself captivated by the widow, but while he is busy pouring out his love to her, the thief's body is taken off the cross. The soldier laments that he will surely be sent into exile for this, but the wife strategizes that the body of her husband might substitute for the thief's missing body. This tale is used by Petronius, and the elegiac Romulus, to point out the fickleness of a woman's love, and women are harshly criticized in the moral: "Sola permit vivosque metu poenawue spultos/ Femina: femineum nil bene finit opus.” [Woman alone oppress men living and dead with fear and punishment; Woman's work ends well not at

56 The Satyricon had been circulating since the 1st century A.D., and seems to have been relatively popular in the Middle Ages; the story of the widow of Ephesus (found in section 110) seems in particular to have been popular.

57 all.]57 Marie's version of this fable is relatively similar, but she does not villainize the widow, conversely the widow is called "the good woman" every time that she is mentioned. By the end of the fable, Marie's reader would be hard pressed not to agree with the logic of this "good woman," as she argues "deliverer deit hum par le mort/ Le vig dunt l’em ad cunfort.” tThrough the dead we should help the living who give us comfort.]58 Marie's moral notes that this fable illustrates that the dead should have no faith in the living, "tan est li mund faus e jolilfs.” [so fickle and frivolous is the world.]59 Although not protecting the widow entirely, the altered moral, and emphasis on the "good woman" in Marie's fable ultimately depicts this female character as wise and resourceful, rather than as a cunning traitor. The fable of the widow is not alone in showing human female characters to be wise and resourceful, if not potentially morally questionable. Later in her collection, Marie tells two consecutive fables in which female characters are able to cuckold their husbands because they are wise enough to trick them. In the first, "The Wife and Her Husband," a husband sees his wife in bed with another woman. As the husband begins to accuse his wife of infidelity, the wife tells him, "Fous es, fete les, sit u creiz/ Pur verité quan ke tu veiz.” [you're mad... if you believe everything you see is true.]60 The wise wife takes the man to a tub of water, and shows him his own reflection. She then questions if he also believes that he is in the tub fully clothed, since that is what he sees. The husband admits that indeed everything he sees is not true, and repents his accusations. While the wife’s moral behavior is certainly questionable, the reader of this fable would be forced to admit that her method of deception is rather wise. She is not only able to free herself from blame, but she also shows herself to be exponentially the wiser character, while revealing her husband as a fool for not understanding the basic principles of reflection. The following fable, "The Wife and her Husband in the Forest" is rather similar in that the female character is again able to use her sharp wit to evoke her husband’s

57 29-30 in “De Viro et Uxore” 58 35-6; Marie’s interpretation of this fable really makes the reader question their own morality, as her argument for existing among the living is truly rather persuasive. 59 40 60 15-16 in “Del Vilein Ki Vit un Autre od sa Femme;” Marie seems to be quite a fan of using bathtubs to level justice; in the Lais Equitan, the cheating husband also receives his comeuppance by being shoved into the scalding water of a tub.

58 sympathy, and force him to retract his accusations. A man sees his wife go into the forest with her lover, and runs after them, again with accusations of infidelity. The wife defends herself by exclaiming: Lasse, fet il, morte sui! Demain murrai u uncore hui! A ma aiole avient tut autresti- E a ma mere ker jel vi: Un poi devant lur finement (Ceo fu sceü apertement) Que uns bachelers les cundueient61 [I am as good as dead! I shall die tomorrow or maybe even today! It happened just this way to my grandmother and to my mother, because I saw it: a little before their deaths it was openly known that a young man was leading them off where they had no business.] The wife exclaims that they might as well divide their estate, and that she will take her share into an abbey. Upon hearing this threat, her husband begs for forgiveness, retracting his earlier statements. The wife is not easily placated however; she exclaims that she must at least move elsewhere, as her honor has now been tarnished, overdramatically citing her mother and grandmother’s deaths as reason that she too is condemned. The husband, not wanting to be left alone, apologizes again, and goes with his wife to a church in order to swear her innocence. This wife is able to read her husband well enough to know that he is reliant on her for companionship and care, and her threats of death and confinement in the abbey are enough for the claims against her to be erased. Again, Marie’s female character might not be overly moral, but she is wise, and she uses this wisdom to manipulate her situation, clearly evidencing that she controls her own relationship. In both of these fables, it is clear that the woman is unfaithful, but Marie tells the fables in such a way that the women both appear to be ingenious, and their husbands are left cuckolded, confused, and made to apologize for and ignore any infidelities. While both our modern conceptions of moral behavior, and those espoused by the elegiac Romulus, label these woman as adulteresses, Marie depicts them as resourceful and

61 19-25 in “Del Vilein Ki Vit sa Femme od Sun Dru”

59 clever. The theme of the unfaithful woman is one that Marie also repeats in her Lais, and in every instance, it is clear that the man does not deserve a faithful woman-- Marie's male characters are old, jealous, and often unfaithful themselves. Rather than accepting the cheating male character, as most medieval romances do (such as Arthur in the Lancelot/Guinevere story), Marie depicts female characters who have their own sexual needs, and will cleverly fulfill them while outsmarting their husbands. Marie's moral to her first fable clearly illustrates her position on these women: "E plus aide a meinte gent-/ Que sis aveirs ne si parent.” [This fable tells us that good sense and imagination are more valuable and useful to many people than their money or their family.]62 Marie’s cheating women are cast in such a light that it seems she would want her reader to view them not as dishonest, but as dominant and resourceful. In these fables, the male characters are the ones clearly subjected to Marie’s critique, as they are cast as foolish and unworthy of such clever women. Marie also uses female character throughout her fables in subtle yet significant ways, merely to continuously emphasize the significant role of the female in society. Rather than the god Juno or Jupiter, who is used most frequently in the elegiac Romulus, Marie's animals always pray to an unnamed goddess for help. There are a number of Marie's fables where the villainous character is also notably depicted as female, including the raven who urges the eagle to drop and crack the whelk's shell in “The Eagle and the Raven,” and the crow who repeatedly picks on a sheep while also hitching a ride in "The Crow and the Sheep." While these female characters are seemingly insignificant, they are pervasive in a way that women are not in any other fable collection, and this alone makes Marie's fables significant. Marie does not let her reader forget that she is a female author, and that her female characters (and presumably her female readers as well) ought to be given careful attention. While much attention has been given to Marie's innovations in female characters in the Lais, these fabular examples illustrate that Marie makes similar claims about the significant role of females in this work as well. Marie carefully presents a number of different feminine role models in fables where these characters did not previously exist.

62 35-6 in “Del Vilein Ki Vit un Autre od sa Femme;” Marie really emphasizes the value of intelligence, placing it even over family in this passage.

60 She argues that when women fall into harm it isn’t because they are necessarily at fault themselves, but because they were put into bad situation by the men around them. She continuously depicts female characters as cunning and wise, able to discern between right and wrong in an incredibly complex way, and offers models for her readers on how to live as these women do. Marie encourages her readers to take after the women in her fables, looking after their own best interests in a world aimed to please the interests of men. She shows that for women, morality is complex, and must be carefully negotiated in a world where they may be found continuously at fault. In a time when strong female characters certainly were not valued, and the legacy of the elegiac Romulus does not celebrate femininity, Marie’s fables seem all the more innovative, and her work with the feminine all the more significant for both her male and female readers. Political Fables Marie includes a number of fables in her collection responding to political questions that seem to have been particularly relevant in the twelfth century, primarily the role of the citizen in effecting or failing to effect political change. Conversely, the elegiac Romulus is entirely educational in nature, making only gestures to further moral education, rather than advocating any other kind of outside lessons. Here, Marie is responding to a perceived desire on behalf of her readers for the fable to do something more than just offer a means of education; and she is using the fables to reach out to her reader to ask them to attempt to make significant political change. Rather than simply providing commentary on the political system as the Latin collection does, Marie uses political fables to offer specific morals on the relationship between the ruler and those that are to be ruled. Marie seems to be concerned with the impact that she believes the citizen could potentially have on a ruler, and she argues that this relationship should be carefully considered. While the citizens of Marie’s time clearly were unable to choose their rulers, Marie seems to be envisioning a time when this may be possible, and advocating that her readers practice responsible political practices if this time should come. One of the first fables that Mare imbues with a political meaning is the fable "The Frogs Who Asked for a King," where the citizens are clearly desperate for a ruler, but unaware of the consequences of their request. This fable was clearly a significant

61 inclusion in the elegiac Romulus; it is the twenty-first fable, found right after the significant first section of twenty fables. Although it is not a part of this section, its position marks a transition into the rest of the collection, and is one of very few in the elegiac Romulus to make an overtly political point. This fable is also particularly lengthy, and is actually split into two separate fables depending on the manuscript. The first fourteen lines, or in some manuscripts what is labeled as fable 21a, discuss the Athenians desire for a king, which subsisted until they were governed by an unjust ruler, which caused them to immediately retract their wishes. The rest of the fable (or 21b) tells a story that is more clearly identified as a fable, in which a group of frogs plead with Jove for a king, just as the Athenians had in the first portion of the fable. The frog's plea is eventually answered, and Jove offers the frogs a log to serve as their king. It is clear that the frogs haven’t considered the consequences of their request, however, and as soon as the log lands, the sound that it makes when striking the pond frightens the frogs so much that they are terrified to get too close to their new ruler. Even long after the descent of the log, the frogs remain scared, and they find themselves unable to approach the king, for they realize that they would be unable to move it. Even with this failed attempt at a ruler, the frogs still believe that they want a king, and take back up their initial plea with Jupiter, asking again that he might bequeath them second king. This time, Jupiter is angered with the unsatisfied frogs, and gives them a hydra to serve as their king. As might be expected, the hydra begins to devour the frogs, and they become even more frightened than they were initially. The frogs again plead with Jupiter: "Morimur, pie Jupiter; audi/ Jupiter, exaudi! Jupiter, affer opem!/ Nos sepelit venter, nostril sumus esca tyranny, Aufer caedis opus, redde quietis opes.” [We are dying, Holy Jupiter, hear us Jupiter, help us! We are buried in its stomach, we are the food of the tyrant; bear us help from the slaughter, bring us the wealth of rest] 63 Jove is now so angered that he will not help the frogs, telling them: "Emptum longa prece ferte magistrum./ Vindicet eternus otia spreta metus.” [Endure the master procured by long prayer; Let eternal fear avenge the peace which was mocked" The moral of the fable warns that often good things become

63 13-6 in “De Attica Terra et Rege,” as found in the elegiac Romulus—this fable is split into an A and B part in the elegiac Romulus to distinguish the story of the Athenians from the story of the frogs; the line numbers restart with section B, where this quote is found.

62 cheapened by overuse, and men are apt to become discontent with what they have. The reader of this fable would have come away having learned that the frogs were dissatisfied, first with having to rule themselves, and second with the log that Jove gave them to serves as king, and that it is this discontent that led them to anger Jupiter. Even though the fable clearly has a political overtone, cautioning that it may be better to be content with out a ruler, or with a weak ruler, in the elegiac Romulus the moral turns this lesson away from political arguments. By noting that men simply should be content with what they have, this politicized fable suddenly becomes another fable with simple morality in the Latin collection. Marie also includes this fable in her collection, but her moral is significantly different than in the elegiac Romulus, as it emphasizes the political role that the frogs are playing. Just as in the other fable, Marie's frogs are discontented, and they cry out to Destiny to provide them with a king. Destiny is also worn down with their requests, and she provides them with a log to serve as a king. Significantly, however, Marie's frogs are not frightened of the log for very long, as they are in the elegiac Romulus. Instead, they quickly recover from their initial fright, and approach the log: "Si sunt ensemble al trunk alees./ Primes le salient cume rei,/ E chescune li pramet fei.” [The log together they approached./They greeted it as their king royal,/ And each one promised to be loyal.]64 The frogs continue in this way, each honoring and adoring the log as their king, until they realize that the log does not respond to their adoration. Then, rather than continuing to respect the log, the frogs all climb upon it and "Lur vileinie sur li firent,/ El funz de l’ewe l’abatirent” [Such dirty deeds performed each frog,/ that to the depths they sank the log.]65 Rather than the frogs remaining terrified of their log-king, by adding a description of the frogs first pledging loyalty, and then discovering the ineffectiveness of the log, Marie develops the log first as a harsh ruler, than as a neutral one, and lastly as weak and ineffective. The log serves as a number of different types of royalty to the frogs, and in a few short lines Marie argues each of these models as ineffective.

64 18-20 in “Des Reines Ki Demanderent Re;” these lines provide one of the funnier images in the fables, as the reader imagines the frogs carefully worshiping their log king. 65 27-8; the use of Destiny here is a good example of an instance where Marie replaces the male god Jove in the elegiac Romulus with a female deity.

63 The frog's response to the loss of their king is the same as in other fables, and they again beg for a second king, only to be given an adder, the strongest possible example of a wicked king. However, when the frogs beg for the adder to be taken away, Destiny's response reflects their earlier poor treatment of the log: “Nenil, nenil! Jeo vus suffri/ Tuz voz volentez a feire./ Seignur eüstes de bon eire./ Vileinement le hunisistes;/ Tel l’aiez cum le quesistes!” [No, no. You've been allowed All of the things which you desired./A lord good-natured you acquired./ You shamed churlishly that seignior,/ And now you have what you asked for!]66 Destiny also utters what is to be understood as the moral of the fable, which is rather different in tone than the other moral to this fable: "Issi avient, plusurs le funt/ De bon seignur, quant il l’unt” [This is what many folks have done to a good lord (should they have one).]67 This moral also goes on to note that when given a good lord, the people don't guard his honor, and if they are not being threatened, they do him neither wrong nor right. The moral ends by noting that people only appreciate a good leader when they are in the grips of a cruel one. Here, Marie continues her focus on the relationship between the frogs and the king, rather than shifting to talk about general contentment as the elegiac Romulus does. Marie emphasizes that this is a political lesson—the reader is to learn to respect good leadership, lest they fall into the hands of an unwise ruler. While the basic plot line of this fable remains the same, Marie changes the interaction between the frogs and the log, as well as the moral of the fable, in order to make a significant point about the relationship between the people of a nation and their ruler. Rather than focusing on contentment with what one has, as the elegiac Romulus does, Marie instead emphasizes honoring a good leader, treating them with respect while they rule. This politicized moral is specific to Marie's own time; instead of the wide- reaching, ambiguous moral code of other collections, Marie uses this fable to deliver a specific direction to her reader as to how they are to behave towards their own leaders. Besides beginning a trend of political fables, both in her collection and subsequent ones, in this specific fable, Marie also shows her own position as sympathetic to the ruling class, and able to recognize and appreciate a moral leader.

66 40-4 67 45-6

64 In both Marie de France’ collection and the elegiac Romulus, the same fable, "The Doves and the Hawk" follows "The Frogs who asked for a King;" this fable serves to solidify the message that is conveyed in the earlier fable, but because of Marie's reworking of the frog fable, this second fable also conveys a more poignant message. Marie again argues that it is important to appreciate a fair ruler, but here she allows the doves to make their own choice in a leader, and then chastises their foolishness when they choose poorly. In the elegiac Romulus this fable is merely an echo of the previous, emphasizing that it is important to be content with what one has. Here, a flock of doves makes a hawk their king in order that he might help them ward off enemy attacks. Just as the hydra in the previous fable, the hawk quickly becomes more terrifying than the foe it is suppose to be protecting them from, and they realize that it would have been more sensible for them to have fought off the other birds on their own. However, just like in the previous fable, the moral takes a step away from the political interpretation, by noting that it is best to bear ones own burdens to keep from having to bear heavier ones. This burden could be interpreted as the worry caused by having an unjust ruler, but it could also just as easily be generalized to apply to any scenario. In Marie's version of "The Doves and the Hawk," just as in the elegiac Romulus, the doves have mistakenly made a hawk their king, and the hawk now murders more of them than their enemies do, but again Marie’s moral politicizes the fable strongly, this time asking the reader to perhaps think about choosing their own rulers. This fable ends by noting that the doves would have been better off without the hawk; and a dove speaks up to the rest of the flock, assessing of their situation: "Einz nus guardum bien de lui,/ Ne dutum fors sun aguait./ Puis que l’umes a nus atrait,/ A il tut fet apertement/ Ceo qu’il fist einz celeiement,” [We watched out for him earlier and had no fears except ambush. But ever since he's come to us, he has done all things openly, that he before did secretly.]68 The dove also self reflexively emphasizes their own role in choosing the ruler by noting that "Grant foilie, fet il” [We did a very foolish thing.]69 Again, rather than talking about the importance of being content with what one has, Marie's moral speaks directly to the

68 16-20 in “Des Colums e de L’ostur” 69 11; this is a very impressive moment of self awareness in the fables, illustrating the level of complexity in Marie’s collection over the elegiac Romulus.

65 mistakes that the doves made in selecting the hawk as their ruler. She notes, "Cest essample dit as plusurs,/ Que choisissent les maus seignuts.” [this lesson speaks to everyone/Who's picked an evil sovereign.] There is no hesitant morality in Marie’s fable, rather she makes overt and strong political arguments, asking her reader to consider the implications of her fable. Here Marie emphasizes the opposite of the lesson from the earlier fable-- rather than showing the error of not appreciating a good ruler, this fable places the responsibility of choosing an evil ruler on the people themselves. While Marie’s readers may not have lived in a democracy, Marie seems to be emphasizing a kind of reflective citizenship, where she asks the reader to consider how they might choose a leader, and what kind of leaders are the most effective. Marie continues to repeat this lesson throughout her collection, continuously placing emphasis on the role that people may one day be able to play in establishing the monarchy, repeatedly asking her reader to reflect on their own role as citizens, and how this role might be shifted. Two other fables that speak to this kind of civic responsibility are "The Wolf King" and "The Birds and the Cuckoo." Neither of these fables were included in the elegiac Romulus, although it is likely that they could have been part of some version of the prose Romulus that Marie would have had access to. It seems as though she has included them in this collection because, again, they continue to emphasize the lessons on evil rulers that Marie is trying to teach. In “The Wolf King,” the animals vote to make the wolf their ruler, but worried about his carnivorous past, make him swear that he will not eat any meat. The wolf agrees to this, but of course he is soon overcome by hunger, and formulates a plan to deceive various animals into smelling his breath. When each of these animals admits that his breath was rather foul, he devours the animals under the auspices that would be best to be rid of such traitors. A wise monkey sees through the wolf's deceit, and refuses to fall into the trap. The wolf, now consumed with power, is convinced that he must have the monkey. He feigns illness, and forces the doctors to say that the only remedy is to eat animal flesh, and insists that only the flesh of the monkey will cure his illness. After the monkey is eaten, the wolf forsakes his vow entirely and eats all of the rest of the animals. Again, even though it is clear that it is the wolf that is wicked, and other fable collections would likely have cautioned against that kind of man, here the blame is placed on the animals for making the mistake of electing

66 the wolf as their ruler. Marie emphasizes that such a ruler never should have been selected, nor received loyalty from the rest of the animal kingdom, so again it is the citizens who are called upon to reflect on their potential ability to choose an effective and kind ruler. In “The Birds and the Cuckoo,” the birds are able to avoid the mistake of the animals in “The Wolf King.” They first elect the cuckoo to be their ruler, but they send the titmouse as an ambassador to ensure that they have made a wise choice. Upon arriving, the titmouse discovers that he can walk (literally) all over the cuckoo without any negative consequences, and thus reports back to the rest of the birds that the cuckoo is an unfit choice for a leader. The birds then choose the eagle as their leader instead, as they decide that he is just and fair, and "[LI egles ad bele grandur,/ Si est asex de grant valur;/ Mu test sobres e atemprez.” [grand and glorious, and hes especially valorous, and very staid and dignified.]70 In the moral, Marie praises the birds for having the foresight to choose a leader who is not “De mauveis humme jangleuur” [wicked and a charlatan], nor ineffective like the titmouse.71 Finally, the lesson that Marie is illustrating has been learned, and the leader is neither ineffective like the log, nor wicked as the hawk and the wolf. The birds are wise enough to avoid the harm of an evil ruler, but again Marie emphasizes it is the subjects that are responsible for this choice, and asks her readers to reflect upon their own ability to make this choice. Most notably, in all of these fables, Marie's emphasis is not on the injustices that the ruler might preform in their rule, but on the role that the people have, or have the potential to have, in choosing their ruler. These fables seem to emphasize that equally as important as the integrity of the ruler is the way that the people treat this ruler. In the fable of the frogs, Marie does not blame the frogs for being dissatisfied with their ruler- less current state, or with the ineffective log as the elegiac Romulus does, but instead she emphasizes that they mistreated the log, and that it is common for honorable rulers to be

70 59-61 in “Des Oiseaus e del Cuccu;” again, even for all of the complexity of narrative I argue the elegiac Romulus has, this is another example of where Marie’s text adds to the fable collections by developing moral lessons across fables, and then allowing her characters to seemingly learn from other fables. 71 72, perhaps in reference to the hawk from the earlier fable, since there is no wicked ruler depicted here.

67 treated as such. Marie emphasizes again in the moral that it is easy to disregard a good ruler, treating him neither "wrong nor right," implying that good rulers ought to be continuously encouraged by their people. In the fable of the doves, Marie again puts the emphasis for choosing a ruler onto the people; it is doves who have done wrong because they have chosen to follow evil ruler. Marie seems to be using these fables to emphasize that the responsibility for a just ruler lies within the people themselves, rather than in the ruler. Marie coaches her reader through a number of scenarios, from the proper way to treat a leader, through the choosing of wicked leaders, ultimately shows the wisdom and discernment of the birds, offering this as an example of how her readers ought to consider their own potential political role. The Individual, Social Commentary, and the Social Collective Largely because of Marie’s role as an author in the twelfth century, there is often much attention placed on her desire to create her characters as individualized. Harriet Speigel argues that Marie does this through careful description applied to each of her characters which propels them beyond a simple stock fabular character. Speigel notes, "Marie brings a special drama to the concerns of her own time. Her characters spar with one another in spirited, realistic dialogue; the action is strongly visualized and the setting vividly suggested by a few words."72 The concept of the individual, or individualization did indeed rise in the twelfth century, both in monastic and lay writing, but in many ways, even through her individualized characters Marie seems to be worried about this shift. While Marie’s characters are described as individualized, the morals of the fables with these characters emphasize the role of the social collective, emphasizing that the characters must work together to achieve social good. One of the most remarkable instances of this is early in Marie's collection, in the fable of “The Mouse and the Frog,” where the character of the mouse is saved in the end of the fable for her benevolent behavior towards the frog. Also featured in the elegiac Romulus, this fable is traditionally quite simple, and also rather tragic. A mouse seeks to cross a lake, but is unable to swim herself. A frog offers to help her by tying their legs

72 Speigel (10) provides multiple examples of how she believes Marie’s fables appeal to the individual, and seems to argue for the rise of the individual in all of Marie’s works without acknowledging the discomfort Marie seems to feel that I address.

68 together and swimming across the lake himself. The mouse agrees to this arrangement, but the frog's intentions are wicked. The frog begins to sink in the lake, intending to drown and then eat the mouse. The mouse struggles, which attracts the attention of a kite overhead. The kite swoops down and snatches both the frog and the mouse, and the last scene of the fable shows both animals lying, while "viscera trita fluut” [their burst entrails pour forth.]73 The moral of the fable notes that pain returns to its own author, and condemns the frog for deceiving the mouse. Undistinguishable as a character, the mouse is also swept up in the tragedy, and killed by the kite, simply because she was so easily deceived. Marie's fable is different from this version; not only does she lengthen the fable dramatically-- from sixteen lines to over ninety-- but she also provides a great deal more information about her characters, most notably the mouse, who becomes quickly established as a strong character in the fable. Marie begins not with the mouse's predicament at the lake, but with a description of her living situation. This mouse has made her dwelling at a mill, and at the beginning of the fable she sits on her stoop, stroking her whiskers, "combing them out with tiny feet." It is here that the frog finds her, not at the banks of the lake; he approaches as she sits on her stoop, and asks if she were the lady of the house, and how she assumed this position. The mouse replies: “Amie,/ Pieca k’en oi la seignurie./ Bien est en ma subjection/ Quant es pertuz tut environ/ Puis herberger e jur e nuit/ Jüer e fere mun deduit.” [Amie, for some time I have had the run of it, and it is well under my control, since I can live, play, and enjoy myself day and night in the mouseholes all around the house.]74 As the far more developed character, and clearly out of a desire for companionship, the mouse then extends an offer to the frog that he might stay with her at the mill. The frog accepts the offer, and the two animals sit together, enjoying a meal. As they finish, the mouse asks the frog's opinion of the food; the frog notes that the food was good, but it would be better if it was moistened by some water. The frog says wistfully that it would better if they "En mi cel pré en un wasel/ Fussums ore, que mu test bel-/ La est la meie mansion.” [were both comfortably in a mud

73 14 in “De Mure et Rana” 74 15-20 in “De la Suriz e de la Reine.”

69 puddle in the middle of that meadow-- that's my home!]75 The mouse seems ever concerned with pleasing the frog, and the frog, through her cleverness, convinces the mouse that they should go to the pond together, but when they arrive in the meadow, the mouse gets wet enough that she is afraid that she might drown, and begs the frog that they might turn back. The frog comforts the mouse, appealing to her sense of companionship, and carries her the rest of the way, until they come to a river. The mouse cannot cross the river on her own, so the frog suggests that they tied their legs together, as in the other version of the fable; Marie's frog has built a great deal of trust, so the mouse agrees to this plan without hesitation. Just as in the elegiac Romulus, the frog tries to dive down to the deepest part of the river with the mouse, but the mouse begins to struggle, attracting the attention of a kite overhead. The kite dives, and picks up the two, but in Marie's version of the fable, the frog is so "big and fat" that the kite eats just her, and the mouse sneaks away unscathed. The moral for Marie's version of this fable focuses on the injustice of the frog's behavior-- not just the drowning of the mouse, but also the frog's deceptive befriending of her in order to gain her trust in the long lead-up to the scene where the two are tied together. In the moral, Marie says of wicked people, such as the frog: Ja n’averunt si bons compainuns, Tant facent a eus grant honor, Si rien lur deit custer del lur, Que durement ne seient liez,/ Si par eus seient enginniez. [Clever scoundrels are much like the frog; no matter how kind and complimentary they are to their friends, they are never so close to their friends that they would hesitate to take advantage of them.]76 Marie then notes, just as in the elegiac Romulus, that the misfortune that these people plan for their friends often ends up putting themselves in peril. In Marie’s fable there is continued emphasis on the mouse’s desire to create companionship with the frog, and it is only through this desire that she is deceived. It is

75 37-9.. 76 84-8. The frog truly is one of the most wicked characters in the collection—unlike the wolf or the fox, he doesn’t appear deadly, and the mouse cannot be warned by his appearance of his evil plan, but his deception is just as deadly as the traditional villains.

70 because the frog has broken her trust that he is punished, but for Marie, the mouse, who simply wanted to be a part of a collective, has done nothing wrong. Marie carefully develops the mouse in this fable so that she has her own autonomy, and is easily relatable to the reader. The mouse is very much an individual character, rather than an archetype for a small, innocent animal, yet for all of her individuality, she strongly desires to be a part of something larger than herself. She has a backstory-- she has made her dwelling at a mill-- and she seems to be an aspiring innkeeper, working to find the frog a comfortable place on the millstone, and to feed him. The frog also, is a bit of an individual, rather than simply a wicked character, making his union with the mouse even more improbable; this can be evidenced by his foresight in working to gain the mouse's trust before he attempts to drown her. These two animals have spirited dialogue; the mouse sells the comforts of the mill: Jeo vus mustrerai, par dreite fei,/ Sur la mole mut a eise- N’I averez rien que vus despleise Asex averz ferine e greins Del bléque remeint as vileins, [I'll find you a place on the millstone where you'll be comfortable. You'll find nothing there to displease you, and you'll find quite a bit of flour and grains of wheat that are left over by the peasants.] And similarly, the frog works to convince the mouse that they might go to her home when he mentions they could both be more comfortable in the mud puddle that she calls home.77 Marie notes that the frog talks to the mouse "sweetly and pleadingly" in an attempt to convince her that they should tie their legs together. These conversations between animals are only eluded to in the elegiac Romulus; Marie's inclusion of this dialogue works to individualize and humanize her characters, while at the same time emphasizing the desire of the mouse to live and work as a collective. The conversations between the frog and the mouse emphasize that friendship and trust are necessary to unite two individuals, yet these morals aren’t present between the two animals, and so their unity fails.

77 22-6. The frog discusses her mud puddle home in lines 36-9, which I quoted previously.

71 The strongest argument for the development of both individual character and the importance of being true to a collective in Marie's fables lies in the "saving" of the mouse. By the end of fable, the reader finds themselves grown quite attached to this mouse-- the image of her sitting on her millstone, fixing a meal for her frog-friend, and her earnest desire to befriend and appease the frog is rather endearing. After noting that the frog has deceived the mouse time and again through false friendship, and over- flattering language, the reader would be dismayed to see the mouse snatched up with the frog by the kite. In every other version of this fable, both animals are devoured, and the lesson learned is much crueler than any moral notes-- the frog is eaten in punishment for deceiving the frog, but the mouse is also killed, and the reader is left to assume that this is her punishment for being so easily deceived by the frog. Marie's fable preserves the mouse; only the frog is devoured because he is so "big and fat" that he is seemingly much more delicious than the tiny mouse—Marie clearly wants to emphasize the mouse’s desire for companionship as wholesome and right. After working to develop the mouse as a sympathetic character, Marie, alone among the fabulists, saves her mouse, and illustrates to her reader that, although the mouse's trust was misplaced, this offence alone is not punishable by death. In saving the mouse, Marie also offers a continuum of moral behaviors and punishments, not offered as a part of the elegiac Romulus. In the Latin fable tradition, all immoral behavior is punished the same-- the mouse and the frog both do wrong, therefore the are both equally punished in the end of the fable, and no account is given for frog's much more wicked deception. Marie's system of punishments still disciplines the mouse for allowing herself to fall victim to the frog--she still must survive the fright of near- drowning--but the frog's deception is punishable by death. The mouse learns a lesson in which kind of people she ought to yolk herself too, but she lives in order to reform herself as part of a more edifying whole. This continuum of punishments also allows for greater individuality of characters-- the mouse's actions are her own, and she is punished for them in a suitable fashion while the frog is made accountable for her own actions as well, and through both punishments Marie emphasizes that it is better to truly desire companionship as the mouse does than to deceive as the frog.

72 Marie both individualizes her animal characters and shows their desire to be a part of a whole in a similar way in her version of the two mice fable. In the elegiac Romulus, this is one of the lengthier (and likely more read) fables, yet the characters of the country mouse and the city mouse are little developed. The moral of this fable in the Latin collection states that it is better to be joyful in poverty than to have immense wealth, which often is accompanied by great sadness. The fable is told so that this moral is emphasized continuously, without any stress on the two mice themselves. In the beginning of the fable, when the two mice are in the country, it is the humble appearance of the table that is highlighted, rather than the lifestyle of the country mouse. When they make the journey to the city, it is the "clementia vultus” [gentleness of his face] which is emphasized as "convivam satiat plus dape frontis honor.” [satisfying the guest more than the appearance of the food] 78 The country mouse gives a rather long speech towards the end of the fable, but even here, she focuses on the taste of the food: "latet hoc in melle venunum…Rodere malo fabam quam cura perpete rodi,/ Degenerare cibos cura diurnal facit.” [Poison is hidden in the honey... I prefer to gnaw a bean rather than to be gnawed by perpetual care; daily fear makes good food deteriorate.]79 The country mouse leaves the city, clearly happy with the safety of the country, but again it is the humbleness of his lifestyle which is praised, never his decision to maintain this humble lifestyle. As in many of the fables in the elegiac Romulus, the animals serve largely as instruments for the moral of the fable, and it is clear that their decisions are more a result of their animalistic nature, rather than any awareness between right and wrong. The humility of country life is clearly preferenced, and riches are condemned as often causing sorrow. In Marie's version of this fable each of the mice have clearly developed characters of their own; they are each humanized, and the moral is conveyed more through the conversation between the mice rather than through language about the nature of their respective homes. The mice seem to desire to be a part of a collective as well, but in the end of the fable they are shown to have developed so completely as individuals that they can no longer exist as a collective, a loss which Marie laments in her moral. The mice are

78 9-10 in “De Mure Urbano et Rustico” in the elegiac Romulus. 79 19, 23-4; again here we have the use of honey in a fable to make something that is so over-sweet that it shouldn’t be tasted.

73 also feminized in this version of the fable, just as the mouse in "The Frog and the Mouse." Even the moment where the two mice encounter each other is explained as a part of a narrative, rather than as a simple happenstance. In Marie's fable the city mouse is traveling to a nearby town, to "amuse herself," and night has fallen as she travels through the forest. Rather than spend the night in the woods, seeming to desire companionship as well, the city mouse seeks out the hole of the country mouse, and asks if she might dine with her. The country mouse notes that she has plenty of food; "Si plus eüssez de cumpainie,/ Si en seriez vus bien servie!” [even if you had more companions there would be plenty]80 Just a short time into this meal, the city mouse grows tired of her surroundings, and tells the country mouse that "Dist que od li est sun ester mauveis-/ E que ele ne volt demurer meis” [her home was shabby and that she didn't want to stay any longer.]81 Even though her back story (especially travelling to a nearby town simply for amusement), and more explicitly, the accusing the country mouse of keeping a "shabby" home establish the city mouse's character, make it clear that might be considered a villain in the story, just like the mouse in “The Frog and the Mouse,” in many ways she simply desires companionship with the other mouse. The city mouse seems to have been a wanderer, travelling from town to town, and is simply seeking another mouse to travel with her. To show her generosity and desire for friendship she invites her new friend, the country mouse to come away with her, to visit her home in the city, with "Beles dispenses, beaus celers,,/ E bons beivres e bons mangers.” [lavish rooms, beautiful pantries, lovely cellars, and good food and drink.]82 The country mouse believes these tales of opulence, and also seems to desire to unite herself with another individual, and agrees to come with the city mouse; upon arriving in the city, she is astounded by the "Ses dispenses, ses celers,/ Plenté de farine e de miel,” [sumptuous rooms," "lofts,

80 13-4 in “De la Suriz de Vile e de la Suriz de Bois” 81 17-8; this makes the reader wonder why the city mouse chose to stop in the first place, since in this version of the fable the country mouse isn’t even an acquaintance. 82 21-2

74 pantries, and cellars, as well as an abundance of flour and honey.]83 Overwhelmed by the generosity of her new friend, the country mouse is convinced that she may be in heaven, until the butlers come into the cellar to get some food for the household. The city mouse, accustomed to this, scampers into her hole, but the country mouse, who did not expect this interruption to the perceived paradise of the city mouse, is frightened to death. The final conversation between the two mice, again emphasizes the desire of the two mice to remain as a collective in spite of their different definitions of contentment. The city mouse turns to her companion and asks: "Quel semblant fet ma duce amie?” [What's the matter with my sweet friend?]84 The country mouse notes that "maubaillie/ Pur la pour que jeo ai eüe;/ Mut me repent que te ai creüe” [The fright I've just had was a terrible shock to me, and I'm so sorry I believed you.]85 The country mouse is accusing the city mouse of lying to her, accusations which only grow: Tu me cuntoues tut tun bien, Mes de tun mal ne deists rien. Ore as tu pour de la gent, De chaz, de oiseus – tut esement- E des engine que hum ret pur tei. [You told me all about your good fortune, but you said nothing about the bad. Now you're afraid of people, cats, and birds as well-- and of the traps that are set for you.]86 In Marie's version of the fable, in emphasizing the difference between the lifestyles of the two mice, the reader is simply left to believe that the two mice have become too accustomed to being individuals, rendering them unable to exist as a collective. Marie's moral reflects this distinction by noting: "Chescun aimt meuz le suen petit/ Que il ad en pes e sanz dutance,/ Que autri richesce od mesestance. [everyone should prefer to have his own meager possessions peacefully and without worry, rather

83 26-7; maybe country mouse should have been warned by the presence of honey in the city mouse’s coffers; certainly the reader might begin to recognize honey as being an indicator of something that is too good to be true 84 41; these terms of extreme endearment are unique to Marie, and truly do emphasize that Marie would rather the two mice be able to dwell together 85 42-4 86 45-9; in his later collection, Henryson will examine more carefully these different threats, presenting them individually to the mice.

75 than the riches of others with their anxieties.]87 She doesn’t specifically critique either mouse, but rather emphasizes that each individual must come to terms with their own state in life. Unfortunately, for the two mice this means that they must continue to live separately, and Marie seems to lament that the development of their individual characters has necessitated this split. Here, it would seem that Marie is illustrating how each mouse is enticed by the other’s lifestyle, and she critiques them both equally for their inability to coexist. She is critiquing the country mouse for being enticed by the riches of others (the city mouse), but I would argue that the critique is levered just as strongly on the city mouse. Distinct from the country mouse, the city mouse's existence depends on stealing from the stores at the house where she dwells, hence also being unhappy with her own possessions, and enticed by the riches of others. Rather than focusing on the differences in lifestyles between the two mice, Marie, with her increased focus on the individual, notes the difference between the behavior of the mice because in the fable they are each established as individuals, with separate and distinct wishes, unfortunately unable to live together. Where the mice in the elegiac Romulus seem to have the same disposition, but have learned to adapt in different environments, these mice are clearly two separate characters; the city mouse is not built for country living, and the country mouse finds the city life to be immoral. It is notable that this fable is one of very few (in both Marie's collection and the elegiac Romulus) where they characters are of the same species, and there is no clear "evil" or "villainous" character. Often it is clear which character is more wicked-- most commonly a wolf, fox, or some kind of predatory bird. In this fable, however, the characters are the same, and both clearly individuals; it is not immediately clear which mouse will be chastised by the fable. In the elegiac Romulus, it is the moral (both spoken by the country mouse, and at the end of the fable) that allows for this distinction. Conversely, in Marie's fable, it is the character of the mice that distinguishes them from each other, because each of these mice is set up as an individual in the fable. Through this fable Marie seems to be illustrating that it might not be the species of an animal an

87 54-6; this is a turn back to the moral of the benefits of country living from the elegiac Romulus, but Marie only hints at benefits of meager versus great possessions before returning her focus to the anxieties of trying to live as others do.

76 individual, but rather their motives and behaviors, while illustrating a fear that these individuals have developed so strongly that they can no longer exist as a collective, even though they are a part of the same species. As these fables evidence, Marie is aware of her characters as individuals in a way that other fable collections, most notably the elegiac Romulus, are not, yet this awareness brings with it a concern for the loss of the collective. Instead of using stock characterizations, where the difference between good and evil often lies within the nature of the species of the animal, Marie is concerned with each animal’s individual behavior. While the behavior of the animals in the elegiac Romulus is largely determined by their environment, Marie's animals are shown to have internal thought, and make decisions contingent on the situations that they are in. Marie constructs backstories for her animals- - such as the mouse being owner of the mill-- so that her reader might identify with these characters on a more individual level, and to strengthen the lessons of her morals. Similarly, by using phrases such as “everyone should prefer,” as in the two mice fable, Marie's fables offer morals which are much more determined by individual action, and human’s capacity for individual though rather than advising against wicked men, or harmful situations, as the elegiac Romulus often does. Even through this emphasis, however, we can see that Marie desires for her individual characters to unite with each other into a collective. In these fables, the characters have fundamental differences that prevent them from doing this, even when the characters are a part of the same species. Marie seems to be concerned about this, as she repeatedly emphasizes friendship and camaraderie as desirable even as she acknowledges the characteristics that keep her characters apart. While Marie's focus on and concern about the individual versus the collective is surely rooted in the rise of the focus on individuals which occurs in the twelfth century, this focus can also be seen as a part of her impulse to create more narrative-style fables. The individual characterization of the animals within the fables, especially as these individual characters struggle to unite, is worth study simply because it differentiates Marie's work from the Latin fable collection, and helps to create the story-telling feel that Marie is able to achieve in her fables. This distinction is of ever greater significance, however, when Marie's fables are examined in relationship with later collections, which

77 would have used her work as influence. Both Lydgate's and Henryson's characters are highly developed as individuals, and the reader is given explanation of the thoughts and motivations of each of the characters in these works. While their work would have been impacted by other non-fabular sources, I would argue that Marie had great impact in characterizing the animals in these fables, on arguments that these later collections make for social unity, and on the tone and development of the fable into a more literary form. Marie also uses the idea of the social collective to offer social commentary which is not a part of the fables in the elegiac Romulus. From her (assumed) position as an upper class woman, Marie is interested in the interactions that occur across different class groups. Where the elegiac Romulus often addresses differences between animal characters as simply interactions between species, with any evidence of a hierarchy attributed to the difference in species (i.e. a mouse falls below a lion), Marie often uses her morals to explain that these differences are a result of the distinctive social classes that are represented, and a lack of unity across these classes. Even as Marie is concerned with the interactions of the upper class, she is also careful to point out incidences of corruption through her fables. The fable “The Wolf and the Lamb,” the second fable in both the elegiac Romulus and Marie's collection, serves as a clear example of Marie's focus on lack of unity across social classes. In the elegiac Romulus, this is a rather simple fable (coming early as it does in the collection), with only the slightest idea that the fable might be making arguments about social class. A wolf and a lamb are both drinking from the same stream; the wolf is upstream, and the lamb downstream. The wolf speaks angrily to the lamb, accusing him of disturbing his drinking and the beauty of the river. The lamb denies these accusations, noting that not only is it rather difficult for the stream to run backwards, but also that the water doesn't lack any of its previous beauty. This argument only angers the wolf further, and he thunders at the lamb "Mihi damna minaris?” [are you going to injure me.]88 The lamb denies that he made any threats, but the wolf is already too angered. He argues that the lamb's father did the same thing six months ago, and "Cum bene patrisses, crimine patris obi.” [because you take so well after your father, you

88 9 in De Lupo et Agno

78 will die for the crimes of your father.]89 The lamb rebutts that he has not even been alive for a full six months, but the wolf will not hear this argument, and he devours the lamb. The moral that is given for this fable in the elegiac Romulus simply notes that "Sic nocet innocuo nocuus, causamque nocendi invenit” [a harmful one harms a harmless one, and he finds a reason for harming.]90 This places the emphasis of this fable largely on the helplessness of the lamb, and the evil that the wolf does in harming him. The last phrase of the moral, "Hi regnant qualibet urbe lupi” [These wolves rule in any city,] is the only hint that there might be any kind of social implications for this fable.91 In Marie's version of this fable the social implications are clearer, as the lines between the two classes are clearly drawn. The interaction between the lamb and the wolf is relatively similar to the elegiac Romulus, although there are implications that the wolf is of a higher social class. When they first begin to drink together, the wolf announces to the lamb that he finds her "grant ennui” very irritating," to which the lamb responds, "sire, de quei?” how sir?" using “sir” to imply that the wolf is of a higher social standing.92 The lamb is also a bit more apologetic when the wolf begins to argue, noting that he didn't mean to offend, allowing some doubt about the placing of blame in the fable. The moral makes it clear that in this fable, Marie means for the wolf to be associated with members of the upper class, or ruling class, who are struggling to associate with the sheep in the lower class. She begins: "Issi funt li riche seignut,/ Li vescunte e li jugeür./ De ceus qu’il unt en lur justice” [The rich robbers, the viscounts, and the judges do the same thing to those whom they have within their power.]93 Marie notes that these characters behave just as the wolf with those who are under their power-- out of greed they will accuse them falsely, and have them charged with unfounded lawsuits. In her last line, Marie notes that these men take away the flesh and blood of those under them, just as the wolf does to the lamb. Marie addresses the distinctions between the social classes that make up the collective, including the poor (the sheep) and

89 12 90 15 91 16; connecting the wolves to government leaders here is a rather overtly political move for the elegiac Romulus. 92 The lamb is called irritating in line 8, her polite response can be found in line 10 of “Del Lu e de L’aignel” 93 31-3

79 the wealthy ruler (the wolf). This fable, then, can serve as an example of how the two classes can struggle to get along, while Marie seems to be emphasizing that a correct relationship between the two classes would allow for social unity. While the shift in this fable isn't drastic, Marie's added emphasis on the distinction between the rich and the poor is certainly worthy of note. In comparing the wolf to members of the upper class, Marie is able to shift the focus of the fable to a social commentary, and use her fable to teach more than a simple moral lesson. Where the elegiac Romulus doesn't aim to target one social class specifically, nor does it note the possibility of communication and unity across social classes, Marie's fable targets the extremely wealthy, a specific group that seems to be particularly harmful to her reader, andcautions that there must be careful communication between both classes. Besides revealing her own social concerns, this move also sets a precedent for later fable collections (particularly Henryson's), which have strong social implications throughout. Just a few fables later, Marie emphasizes this warning of disunity among the social classes again, in "The Sun Wants to Wed." In the elegiac Romulus, this fable is actually couched within another narrative of a woman who desires to marry a thief. When the woman becomes engaged to a thief, her neighbors first rejoice, believing that the woman will be able to revise the thief’s behavior. An honest man then tells the fable of the sun who wished to wed in order to illustrate that the marriage is ill-fated. In this version, much like the neighbors, the planets first rejoice for the sun's pending nuptials. Shortly after, however, they realize that the bride will double the intensity of the sun, making the heat too strong to bear. The moral warns against both the woman and the thief and the sun and his bride, noting that you should be afraid of any person who does any kind of evil deed. Marie's version of “The Sun who wished to Wed” seems to have been taken more directly from an earlier source, most likely the Phaedrus, which also features this fable; Marie’s lesson here is quick and direct—there must be balance between social classes. There is no framing story, the sun is simply looking to take a wife, and asks every creature for advice. The animals present the situation to their goddess for her opinion on the matter: Quant le soleil, fete le, est hauz,

80 El tens d’esté, est il si chauz Qu’il ne lest rien fructifier; Tere e herbe fet sechier E s’il ad esforcement E cumpaine a sun talent Nule riens nel purra suffrir, Desuz li vivre ne garir. [In the summertime when the sun is high, it is so hot that nothing can flourish, and it makes the ground and the grass dry up. If it had help and a companion to its liking, nothing would be able to bear up of to live or prosper under it.]94 The goddess notes the truth in this, and agrees that the sun must remain alone, for he is too socially strong to take a mate. Marie emphasizes the balance between the classes here, noting that the lower classes have unity and strength in numbers, allowing them to places checks and balances on the upper class. In her moral, Marie compares the sun to an evil lord, who is very wealthy. She notes that the lesson in this fable is that those that are under the power of such a lord ought to do everything possible to prevent a union between the lord and someone else that might be wiser or wealthier. This, Marie notes, would only increase the strength of such a ruler, and they stronger a lord becomes, "Cum plus est fort, pis lur fet:/ Tuz jurs lur est en mal aguet.” [the worse he treats them, for he is always just waiting for a chance to do them in.]95 Again, Marie is concerned with class relationships, and shifts the focus of this fable away from evil and evil deeds, as is emphasized in the elegiac Romulus, to put the focus onto how members of the ruling might take advantage of those beneath them. By allowing the lower class in her fable to effectively rule against the upper class, Marie emphasizes a balance between the classes that allows for unity. Another example of Marie's focus on social lessons is attached to her fable "The Fox and the Eagle," which again emphasizes the power of the lower class. This fable is also found in the elegiac Romulus; an eagle steals one of the fox's kits, and carries the

94 13-20 in “Del Soleil Ki Volt Femme Prendre;” here is another fable where a goddess replaces a male deity in the elegiac Romulus. 95 31-2; this moral definitely forces the fable into the realm of the political, since the sun certainly isn’t actually waiting for the chance to do anyone in with its rays.

81 young to her nest. The fox is dismayed, and follows the eagle to her nest, begging for the kit to be returned. The eagle refuses, instead taking the young fox to her own young chicks. Ultimately, the fox outsmarts the eagle in the end, building a fire at the base of the tree, in order to smoke out the eagle, who happily relinquishes the young fox in exchange for extinguishing the fire, so that her own young would not be harmed. The moral in the elegiac Romulus is not unlike the other fables which Marie uses for social lessons—a greater person should not try to harm those that they perceive to be lesser than themselves, because the lesser person is often more powerful than expected. Again, Marie's fable is quite similar, but in the moral, rather than discussing the eagle and the fox in terms of the greater and the lesser as the elegiac Romulus, she relates the animals to the proud, rich man and the poor man. The eagle is related to the rich man, who refuses to listen to the cries of the poor, and the fox to the poor man, who has being overlooked by the rich. Marie notes that the poor man is often overlooked by his humble appearance and his cry, but if he could wreak vengeance on the rich man, than the rich will bow. Notably here, Marie uses a conditional to place the poor over the rich "Mes si cil se pust dunc venger” [IF the poor man COULD wreak vengeance,]96 expressing doubt in the likelihood that such a scenario would be possible, given the social constrictions of the twelfth century. However, just like the fable of the sun who wished to wed, Marie imagines a world where the lower class has the ability to bind together to overcome the upper class through their cunning. Marie continues to stress these social lessons throughout the collection, emphasizing that in order to achieve societal unity wealth must be carefully managed. There are a number of other fables where Marie uses the moral in order to emphasize the split between the wealthy and the poor. In all of these additional fables, Marie takes a traditional moral about harmful or wicked behavior, and applies these lessons to social scenarios. In fables such as “The Lion who fell from Power,” these morals focus on the fleeting nature of wealth, where in the elegiac Romulus the moral of this fable reads "Non sit qui studeat, quia major, obese minori,/ Cum bene majori possit obese minor.” [Let there be no one who he is eager, who is greater, to hurt the lesser, when he who is

96 21 in “Del Gupil e de L’egle;” the capitalization is my addition to emphasize the use of the conditional here.

82 lesser is able to hurt the greater.]97 There is no mention of wealth in the Latin fable; the only emphasis is on the behavior of the lion, who did not treat the rest of the animals kindly in his younger years, and therefore shouldn't expect kind treatment now that he has aged. In Marie's fable, it isn’t his wicked behavior that condemns the lion to the other animals, but rather that he has fallen from power, and it is his wealth that has put him in the position of being "regarded with great contempt." Had the lion managed his wealth carefully, and helped others, he would not have been so hated in the end of his life. In her fable "The Affectionate Ass" (called "The Ass and the Puppy" in the elegiac Romulus), Marie again shifts the moral in order to emphasize social implications, and the danger of trying to work outside of one’s social class. In this fable, an ass watches as a puppy jumps into his master's lap, and receives a great deal of affection. Jealous, the ass reasons that if he were to sit on the master's lap as well, he too would receive an equal amount of affection. However, when he jumps on the master, he quickly knocks the man over because of his larger size, and injures him with his hooves. Frightened, the man screams out, and his men quickly rush to his aid, beating the ass with sticks to force him away. The moral for this fable in the elegiac Romulus emphasizes order within nature: "quod natura negat, nemo feliciter audit” [no one dares happily what nature denies,] but in her version, Marie explicitly notes that this is a fable with social implications: "Que tant se veulent eshaucer;/ E en tel liu apargier/ Que ne avient pas a lur corsage” [This fable presents to us the social climber... it is this person's desire to raise his standing and to ascend to a position that does not fit his station in life nor especially his breeding.]98 In this case, it seems that Marie's reading of the fable may actually be more accurate, or at least more intuitive of the action in the fable; the ass is indeed attempting to ascend his social class by attempting to take over the position of the dog. Marie's fable also ends a bit more dramatically, seemingly in order to emphasize the extreme consequences of reaching outside of one's social class. In her fable, the ass strikes his master repeatedly with his hooves while jumping, so severely that Marie notes he would have killed the master had the men not arrived to beat him off. The punishment

97 9-10 in “De Vupe et Aquila;” or in much less confusing terms, watch out for the people that you think might be weaker, for they might surprise you. 98 16 in “De Asino et Catulo et Domino” and 45-7 in “De L’asne ki Volt Jüer a Sun Seignur”

83 the ass receives is also more severe in Marie's fables-- rather than just subduing the animal, the ass is beaten until he is prostrate, and he returns to the stable in agony. Particularly in the confines of a social lesson, this additional violence in Marie’s fable emphasizes her own concerns about the violence used against the lower class in her own time. Again, Marie seems to emphasize heavily that social unity can only be achieved when one stays within their social class. Marie's fables with social commentary generally focus on the great divide that exists in the twelfth century between the rich and the poor, while emphasizing that unity can be achieved through balance and conversation between the classes. Where the elegiac Romulus repeatedly uses the same fables to discuss more simplistic morals about evil behavior, and the harm that evil men might cause, Marie takes these fables and develops morals about oppression of the poor, and the dangers of reaching outside of one’s social class. She repeatedly offers social lessons in the checks and balances that must exist in society, and gives examples of societal unity, such as in “The Sun Who Wished to Wed,” while also warning against disunity, such as in “The Wolf and the Lamb.” Again, as with her more political fables, the effects that Marie's social fables had on later fabulists are far reaching-- both Lydgate and Henryson use fables to make much stronger arguments about the social environments of their time, taking from Marie’s warnings against social disunity and manipulating her message to argue against tyrants and other social injustice. Here again, Marie's fables offer an entirely different mode of moralizing than the elegiac Romulus, and this model perpetuates in other fable collections throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. In contract to the elegiac Romulus, Marie de France’s fables takes some of the more narrative qualities of the Latin collection, including significance in order, and coherency in characterization, and expands them dramatically in order to make a fable collection that is radically different. Marie’s fables contain highly developed characters and situations, and employ narrative before the focus on educating with a moral lesson, which sets them apart from the elegiac Romulus. It seems that Marie takes the fable genre, which, until her collection served as a set of very basic moral lessons—a set of guidelines applicable to almost everyone that dictated how they should be living—and revised them in order to impart more specific lessons, such as encouraging her female

84 readers, offering lessons in citizenship, and illustrating social balance. Marie writes a more specific type of fable, one that has very intentional moralities aimed at different members of her reader base. Rather than a simple definition of what constitutes moral behavior, for Marie, the morality of the fables seems to exist on a continuum, and her definition of morality is far more complex. Marie’s fables are clearly a product of her time—she is concerned about ideas such as individuality, but she uses her fables to both illustrate and question these ideas. She offers some examples that hint towards political reform, and encourages a balanced society, all while forming a coherent collection that begins to develop a narrative style. Marie’s fables truly exist in a space between the elegiac Romulus and the later medieval collections, as she pulls together a number of fables and moralities, but does this with an eye on impacted her reader towards future action. Marie’s reworking of the fable genre is significant because she asks her readers to reconsider the kinds of moral lessons that fables can teach. However, Marie’s fables are made even more significant by the legacy that her collection leaves. Subsequent medieval uses of the fable genre, in particular in John Lydgate and Robert Henryson’s collections, employ a narrative style, and a set of social and political arguments that seems clearly to be inspired by Marie’s use of the fables. Marie’s fables were quite popular in their own time, and their interesting cast of characters and careful narrative development make them worthy of study today.

85 Chapter 3: Law and Tyranny: The Fables of John Lydgate When 14th century author John Lydgate’s works are discussed it is almost always in relationship to the works of his clear literary predecessor, Geoffrey Chaucer.99 Lydgate’s understanding of the use of allegory in the fables, as well as the conversations that the entire cannon of his work engages in with Chaucer’s, certainly does situate Lydgate’s fables within a significant literary history. Predating Lydgate’s work, Chaucer famously uses fables in his Nun’s Priest’s Tale and Troilus and Creseyde. Following in Chaucer’s legacy, Lydgate explores every major Chaucerian genre, including fable use. Where Chaucer includes fables as a part of his larger narratives, conversely Lydgate develops a narrative about moral and religious living through the use of fables.100 While Lydgate’s role as a Chaucerian is certainly worthy of note, here I am interested in Lydgate as a fabulist, and the ways that his fable collection departs from Chaucer’s use of one fable by complexly weaving together a number of fables into a narrative. Despite his relationship to Chaucer, and the fact that John Lydgate is the first fabulist to write in English, his collection has received almost no critical attention, perhaps because they are often buried within his Minor Poems.101 His seven-fable collection is quite short compared to the elegiac Romulus, and certainly very short compared to Marie’s lengthy 103 fables. The abbreviated length, the location of

99 Derek Pearsall in his book John Lydgate and article “Lydgate as Innovator,” is really the only author outside of Wheatley’s study to even acknowledge the existence of Lydgate’s fable collection. Much of Lydgate’s work is understudied, discussed as Maura Nolan does in John Lydgate and the Making of Public Culture (John Lydgate and the Making of Public Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print) in relationship to how it has impacted other contemporary authors, or is a reflection of Chaucer’s canon. However, Pearsall does draw some attention to formal changes in Lydgate’s work, and my argument agrees with this assessment, but argues that there is a need for even further study. Both Pearsall and Wheatley argue strongly that Lydgate’s fables are mundane and do not make any innovative moves in reinterpreting the fable genre, an argument that I disagree with strongly. 100 Lydgate’s relationship to Chaucer is certainly significant, and this significance plays out increasingly clearly in other of Lydgate’s works. While I mention the relationship here, this is only intended to indicate the significance of Lydgate’s work; it is not my intention in this chapter to explore Lydgate’s relationship with Chaucer, but rather this relationship with the rest of the fable traditions in the Middle Ages. 101 Of these, only Edward Wheatley and Derek Pearsall (John Lydgate. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1970. Print.) discuss the fables at any length; in other critical works Lydgate’s fables are only mentioned in that they are a part of the canon of his work.

86 Lydgate’s fables in the canon of his work, along with a perceived idea that his fable collection is neither innovative or significant have likely all contributed to the lack of scholarship on the collection. Contrary to this perception, Lydgate’s fables, as I will show, are worthy of extended study because they deliver much more than the traditional singular moral lesson. Instead, Lydgate integrates a complex set of moral lessons into the body of each fable, thereby inviting readers to view them in an entirely different way than traditional moral fable. Building on the complexity of Marie de France’s fable collection, I would argue that Lydgate arranges his fables in a very specific order so that he might make arguments about natural and social law, as well as the role of tyranny, and how to cope under the reign of a tyrant. Rather than constructing fables that follow the traditions of the elegiac Romulus, Lydgate uses the same fables, but reconstructs their meaning in such a way that it is clear he is aware of what the reader might be expecting from the fables, and is eager to rework these expectations. What little critical attention has been given to Lydgate's fables has repeatedly noted that the collection is not worthy of much study.102 Edward Wheatley even goes so far as to note that Lydgate's fables are almost so mundane that this is what makes them remarkable. Lydgate strictly adheres to the conventions of the fable genre in his work, yet this strict adherence is particularly interesting in that it help us define what Lydgate, his contemporary readers (his imagined audience), and perhaps all early fifteenth century readers of the fable might have defined as the structural and lingual boundaries of the fables.103 In his simplicity, Lydgate can be understood as both an author and a reader of the fables—his translations reveal how he experienced fable texts, probably a version of the elegiac Romulus in the classroom at the Abbey. Understanding Lydgate’s desire for his text to reflect the curricular fables is especially significant in understanding the circulation and reception of the medieval fable. Since the other fable examples we have surrounding Lydgate's work-- Chaucer's, as well as Marie de France and Robert

102 Pearsall, in particular, seems to question Lydgate's ability to have morally complex lessons and thoughts in the fables, repeatedly noting instances where he believes that Lydgate does not probe the moralities of the fables nearly deep enough. 103 Wheatley (124) identifies the ways in which Lydgate strictly follows the fable genre; I make the argument for the impact that this adherence might have on our understanding of the genre.

87 Henryson-- are largely concerned with breaking conventions. Lydgate’s fables remind us that even while Chaucer and other authors are radically reimagining the fable into works of literature, the elegiac Romulus continued to circulate, and readers were constantly being reminded of the traditional, curricular fable. John Lydgate has developed a literary reputation as a poet-apologist for Henry V in The Troy Book, and the Siege of Thebes, and is perhaps best known for his political warnings in the Fall of Princes. His fables came long before these roles; it is likely that Lydgate wrote his collection as early as 1405, when he was a cleric at Oxford (John Shirely notes this in the marginalia of MS Ashmole 59).104 At this time, Lydgate was far from the concerns of the Lancastrian court that motivated much of his later work; rather he had been in the monastery about 20 years at this time (since 1385), and the majority of his concerns seem to be religious. In his Isopes Fabules we can see exemplified Lydgate's motivations as a religious man, but there are also notable political undertones in his translations, ideas from which may play into his later works. Even with his later development as a literary figure, Lydgate's fables don't seem to have circulated very widely. Only one extant manuscript, MS Harley 2251, contains all seven of Lydgate's fables, and only two other manuscripts contain some portion of the fables-- MS Trinity College Camb. R.3.19 with approximately five and a half fables scattered throughout a presentation of Lydgate's other poetry, and MS Ashmole 59 with one lonely fable, the dog and the cheese.105 Of the two more complete manuscripts, a clear order does not necessarily emerge, particularly because in the Trinity College manuscript, the fables are interspersed throughout the manuscript. Derek Pearsall argues that this disorganization might imply that the fables were a task that Lydgate returned to at odd times across a number of years. He speculates that Lydgate may have written the first four fables, which follow the sequence of the elegiac Romulus, earlier in his life,

104 This would make the fables Lydgate’s earliest work, which only makes it more shocking that the collection has received such little critical attention. 105 Wheatley (128) catalogues the different manuscripts of Lydgate’s work and presents the locations of the different fables in an informative table. Of these manuscripts, I have examined the MS Harley 2251, which contains all seven of Lydgate’s fables, in the order I argue for here. This manuscript seems particularly complete, which adds to my argument, but I haven’t examined the other two manuscripts containing Lydgate’s fables to compare them.

88 while completing the final three fables later. As evidence for this, Pearsall cites MS Trinity R.3.19, where the two groups of fables are separated drastically.106 Wheatley disagrees, noting that "neither the collection's genesis nor its unimpressive manuscript tradition should blind us to the possibility that Lydgate wrote into the collection a certain thematic unity-- or more precisely, a thematic progression through social concerns about self-governance and larger issues of government."107 Neither of these manuscripts follow the exact order of either Marie de France or the elegiac Romulus, but the fables that he does use are within the first ten fables of both collections.108 As I noted when discussing the elegiac Romulus, it seems that these first ten fables were the most significant to the reader because they are the most frequently studied, marked, and illustrated in the manuscript copies. So, while Lydgate's order may be his own, he is clearly working within the confines of fables that he believes his audience would have been extremely familiar with.109 Lydgate progressively builds on the moral lessons his fables teach, leaving textual clues as to the intended order in his collection by threading themes throughout the fables that become clear when they are arranged in the order I argue for here. Lydgate uses at least three different sources for his fable collection: the Nun's Priest's Tale, Marie de France's fable collection, and the elegiac Romulus with some kind of commentary. Because he is working from a number of different texts, rather than just one specific collection, as is the case for most other fable translations, his collection has the unique ability to engage with a number of different readers. As we know from the manuscript tradition, Marie de France's text was very popular, but both Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and the elegiac Romulus were equally so. This context makes it likely

106 On page 192 of his work, Pearsall also gives a very thorough overview of the manuscript history and various arrangements of Lydgate’s fables. 107 Clearly, I agree strongly with Wheatley (128) here. I don’t believe that a strong manuscript tradition is required to show the unity in Lydgate’s collection; his fables speak for themselves. 108 Lydgate’s collection contains the first seven of Marie's fables, merely rearranged into a different order, and the first eight fables, with the fable of the Lion the She-goat, the Sheep, and the Heifer omitted, from the elegiac Romulus. 109 Regardless of order, Lydgate may have chosen these particular fables believing that he could have greater impact, given their popularity with his audience (and perhaps his own familiarity with them as a reader).

89 that Lydgate's readers would have been familiar with all of his source texts, and thus may have been able to recall at least some portions these of while reading Lydgate's text. In his article, "Lydgate as Innovator," Derek Pearsall repeatedly argues that Lydgate, as a poet, is neither particularly skilled nor innovative in his writing. He notes that while Lydgate reworks a number of Chaucer's works, "innovation is desirable change, and it would be hard for us to regard what Lydgate was doing to Chaucer as desirable."110 But, what Lydgate does do is normalize Chaucer’s work, and in some ways he is able to make it more accessible to readers, particularly by standardizing a number of words borrowed from Latin and French, so that we, the modern reader, might understand Chaucer's work more readily.111 Innovations that we might identify in Lydgate's work in meter, theme, and style, Pearsall argues, are not because of any conscious effort on Lydgate's part, but rather because "he did not understand the point of the poetic tradition within which he was working, or simply because someone asked him to do something that had not been done before."112 However, Pearsall also notes that what he does find to be remarkable about Lydgate's work is that it is representative of a characteristically medieval way of interpreting things, of thinking and of writing-- or, in his words, "Lydgate gives us the Middle Ages in slow motion."113

110 Pearsall (“Lydgate as Innovator.” Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History 53.1 (1992): 5–22. Print. p. 8) and others criticize Lydgate heavily for his reworking of Chaucer, but in many instances his goal was to normalize or simplify Chaucer’s language, probably for less literary readers, and that he accomplished. 111 Reismuller (qtd in Pearsall, “Lydgate as Innovator, p.9) estimates 800 words that are first used in Lydgate's work, a number which is no doubt a bit exaggerated, as his study was done in 1911, yet Pearsall still identifies a number of rather significant words that can be credited to Lydgate, including abuse, adjacent, depend, disappear, and excel. 112 Pearsall (“Lydgate as Innovator” 10) implies that we cannot blame Lydgate for his shortcomings, but indeed he was working in uncharted territory. 113 Pearsall, “Lydgate as Innovator.” 6. One such example of this particularly medieval behavior that can be seen in the fable collection is Lydgate's claims of classical translation. Just as countless other medieval works, in his prologue, Lydgate claims to be translating his work from a classical source, yet it is blatantly clear that Lydgate is working from another medieval source, Marie de France, who may in fact be working from yet another medieval source-- at any rate his access to the classical source is much more distant than he would have his reader believe. Yet, this practice of citing a source that sounds the most credible, but is rather far away from the actual content is resoundingly medieval. Marie likely does this with her reference to an English source as

90 I will walk through each of Lydgate’s fables, arguing simultaneously for a clear order in his collection, and parsing out the careful arguments that Lydgate seems to be making with his fables. Lydgate focuses heavily on the law—both natural law, which governs animal behavior, and social law; I will discuss how he reworks fables to advocate ideas about law, ineffective laws, and ultimately ineffective rulers. While seemingly unimaginative, Lydgate’s fables were carefully chosen and subtly reworked to reflect the arguments he is trying to make. I will map out the progression of these arguments throughout the collection, and illustrate how the way that Lydgate executes the arguments show a careful order in his collection, as well as a careful reworking of the fable collection. Prologue and the Fable of the Cock and the Jewel Lydgate begins his fables just as every other medieval collection with a prologue, yet it is clear even here that this collection has a slightly different focus; while other fable collections indirectly imply that there is morality to be learned in the fables, Lydgate notes that his reader ought to look not just for morality, but for wisdom. He begins: "Wisdom ys more in prise, then gold in cofers, To hem, that haue sauour in lettrure./ Olde examples of prudent philosophers/ Moche auaylyd to folke that dyd her cure.”114 This direct celebration of the wisdom of the fables contrasts the elegiac Romulus, which uses rather flowery language to suggest much more indirectly that there might be some pleasing messages in the collection to follow: "Ortulus ille parit fructum germine flore. Fauorm/ Flos et fructus emunt. Hic sapit, ille nitet./ Si fructus plus flore sapit, fructum lege; si flos/ Plus fructu, florem. Si duo, carpe duo.” [This little garden produces fruit with the seeds of its flowers. The flower and the fruit gain favor. This one tastes good, that one is brilliant. If fruit tastes better than flower, choose the fruit; if flower better than fruit, choose the flower; if the two are pleasing pick the two.]115 This subtle metaphor of fruit and flower implies that the fables are meant to be the flower, and the morals the

an intermediary, and later, Caxton certainly does this by reference Aesop directly, when he is most definitely copying from Julian Macho's contemporary French translation. 114 Lydgate, John, H N. b. 1880 MacCracken, and Merriam Sherwood. “Isopes Fabules.” The Minor Poems of John Lydgate. Nabu Press, 2010. Print, Lines 1-4; this is the only print version of Lydgate’s fables. 115 Lines 3-6 of the prologue the elegiac Romulus.

91 fruit, but the reader is welcome to choose which of the two, fable or moral, they prefer to embrace. It isn't until the second to last line that the true purpose of the fables is even mentioned: "Verbuorum leuitas morum fert pondus honestum” [The lightness of my words bears an honest weight of usage.]116 Stripped of all of these subtle suggestions, Lydgate's prologue mimics Marie de France's, even duplicating her language by using English cognates where possible for words such as "lettrure," "philosopher," and "example." However, Marie's prologue begins with a suggestion that “Cil ki seivent de lettruüre,/ Devreient bien mettre cure/ Es bons livres e escriz/ E as essamples e as diz/ Ke li philosophe troverent” [Those persons, all, who are well-read,/ Should study and pay careful heed/ To fine accounts in worthy tomes,/ To models and to axioms:/ That which philosophers did find.]117 Lydgate's exonerating of wisdom is much stronger than a suggestion that the reader heed the following moralities, and Lydgate also implies that the wisdom he is about to present is far more important than any other virtues, thus demanding his reader's attention. After these disparities, Lydgate and Marie’s prologues become remarkably similar as they both make nods to the "prudent philosophers," and they both attempt to provide some kind of a genealogy for the fable. Lydgate mentions Aesop, noting that he presented these fables to the Roman senate so that they might apply them to "sondry matyrs." Marie traces the fables to her own collection: Romulus, ki fu emperere,/ A sun fiz escrit, si manda… Unes fables ke ot trovees,/ De grui en latin translatees…A mei, ki dei la rime faire” [The emperor, named Romulus, wrote to his son, enunciating… from Greek to Latin were transposed those fables found and composed to me, who must these verses write. ]118 Lydgate also provides a similar genealogy for the fables, but even though he clearly didn’t have access to the Greek Aesop, he moves straight from Aesop to his own translation, omitting Marie, and any other Latin source he might be working from: "For

116 Line 11 in the prologue of the elegiac Romulus 117 Lines 1-5 in Marie’s prologue 118 This is an interesting claim by Marie (Lines 33-7) based on what we know about her collection, since the provenance of a number of her fables is unclear.

92 wyche I cast to folow thys poet/ And hys fables in Englyssh to translate.”119 Wheatley notes of this omission "By effacing not only the role played by an intermediary fable collection--in this case, Marie’s--but also the initial stage of textual transmission and the translation of the fable from Greek to Latin, Lydgate has claimed for himself the authority of directly translating the work of an auctor from Latin into English."120 Indeed, Lydgate makes precisely those claims directly in his work: "And hys fables in Englyssh to translate,/ And though I haue no rethoryk swete,/ Haue me excusyd: I was born in Lydgate.”121 Yet, even after presuming to be translating directly from Aesop, Lydgate makes the exact same claims of ignorance that Marie does in her work: "And, yef I fall bycause of ignoraunce,/ That I erre in my translacion,/ Lowly of hert & feythfull obeysaunce,/ I me submyt to theyr correccion/ Of hem, that haue more clere inspeccion/ In matyrs, that touche poetry.122 . Even with all of these similarities to Marie's collection, Lydgate's prologue is overwhelmingly unique in that it combines his opening remarks with his first fable, “The Cock and the Jasp.” Lydgate hints at his intent to combine the two even in the very first line of the fable when he compares wisdom to "gold in cofers," alluding to the emphasis on precious metals that is to come later in the fable The comparison of wisdom to precious metals is continued throughout the prologue, long before any mention of the cock and his own precious discovery. Lydgate uses phrases such as: "Where syluer fayleth, in a pewter dyssh," and, a few lines later, "Vnder blak erth byn precious stones founde, Ryche saphyres & charbuncles full ryall And who that myneth downe lowe in the grounde, Of gold & syluer groweth the mynerall;

119 Lines 29-30; certainly Lydgate did not have access to even a work that was purported to be written by Aesop in any way—there isn’t even mention of Aesop in the elegiac Romulus, so this claim is clearly made to add credibility to his text. 120 Wheatley (127) also notes that this claim of authority could potentially imply that Lydgate had at one time intended to translate a much larger collection of fables, as Marie did. 121 30-2 122 These claims (43-8) are, of course, very common in medieval texts; the trope of the erring translator or author is very common, but surely neither Marie nor Lydgate truly believe that they have erred in their work.

93 Perlys whyte, clere & orientall And out of fables gret wysdom men may take.123 Lydgate is so concerned with molding his fables into a coherent text that he uses these hints in his prologue to transition into the opening fable, overstressing the importance of the moral lesson for his reader, while also emphasizing his own focus on continuity in the collection. As Lydgate moves into his first fable, his collection becomes even more unique, as unlike in the elegiac Romulus, where the rooster is ultimately labeled as stupid and foolish, Lydgate’s rooster is introduced here as a noble animal, "The Cok of kynde hathe a crest rede/ Shape lyke a crowne, token of gret noblesse." As seems to be a pattern in Lydgate's fables, he continues to elaborate on the greatness of the cock over a number of other lines, noting the clerks all agree on his courage, that his voice is so clear that it keeps the tides of the night, and that he defends his brood like a champion. In fact, Lydgate praises the virtues of the cock for a full forty six lines before he commences with the rest of the story. Here, Lydgate’s earlier comparison of fine jewels to wisdom becomes a bit more complicated. Lydgate's rooster finds a jasper, just as in the other versions of this fable, while he is scratching in a dungheap. But, rather than being portrayed as a fool for not collecting this gem, equivalent to wisdom, Lydgate's cock is celebrated for his wise choices, and his adherence to his own station in nature: Yet hys labour & hys besy cure Was for nat eles, but for hys pasture. He yaue ensample, whyche gretly may auayle, As he was oonly taught by nature.124 Lydgate praises his cock for the astute understanding that the jasper could comfort and strengthen many a man, but for him and his family, it will be of no help, for "precyous stones longen to iewellers/ And to princes, when they lyste wel be seyn."125 Rather than noting the jasper isn't edible, Lydgate's cock doesn't focus on his stomach, but on the

123 22-8; Wheatley notes that this extensive listing of gems is reminiscent of a medieval lapidary, which is sometimes mentioned in the fable commentaries. 124 111-4; note here that Lydgate emphasizes that the cock was taught by nature. 125 169-70

94 appropriateness of the jasper to his own station in life. For Lydgate, it isn't ignorance that causes the cock to leave the jewel behind, but wisdom. He notes that the jewel might be a reward for some, but for him, a "good greyn" would be reward enough.126 In the moral, where the cock is typically called "stupid," Lydgate notes that "He cheseth the best in myn opinion./ The cok demyd, to hym hit was more dew/ Small simple grayne, then stones of hygh renoun."127 Here, the moral, rather than asking the reader to do the opposite of the cock in the fable, asks that the reader act as the cock does, understanding that he should "laboreth for rychesse./ And on the worlde he set all hys intent./ The vertuos man to auoyde all ydelnesse."128 Wheatley notes that Lydgate uses this fable to establish his own semblance to the virtuous cock. Lydgate has noted that the animal is industrious, virtuous, and content with his own place, and reads all of these qualities as admirable. Lydgate, as narrator, has already asked God for "suffysaunce" as he compiles this text, the exact same language that he uses to discuss the cock: "with suffisaunce hold hymself content.” In this reading, the tone of the first fable shifts entirely; rather than opening on a critique of those who ignore wisdom, Lydgate opens by offering an example of what he deems natural wisdom.129 While this shift in the interpretation of the first fable seems radical, Wheatley argues that Lydgate may have taken it from the commentaries on the elegiac Romulus, which also show this inversion of moral. This shift in moral makes a dramatic difference in the way a reader would engage the first fable of the collection. In the prologue, Lydgate sets up the reader to expect the fable to follow the traditional path-- he emphasizes again and again that allegory can be built between precious metals and wisdom, but in the body of the fable, these connections are no longer significant. Lydgate seems to be aware that even in its traditional form, this

126 172; Lydgate’s rooster notes that he would prefer a “lytell rewarde of corn or good greyn,” a finding much more suitable to his species. 127 212-4; This is a clear example of Lydgate’s authorial intervention—he clearly supports the cock, and positions himself as a reader himself agreeing with the animal’s logic. 128 218-20 129 As interesting as the relationship is between Lydgate and his animal character, as Wheatley (129) notes, equally interesting is the use of the word suffisaunce—this term implies an interesting kind of morality, not an action per say, but a contentedness.

95 fable creates a rather confusing internal contradiction.130 Lydgate seems to be sympathizing with his medieval reader, who would likely have viewed the scenario from the cock's perspective-- the gem isn't useful to him or his family, therefore he is smart to leave it in the dungheap. While the elegiac Romulus takes an abrupt turn by calling the cock, and by extension the reader who was lured in by his logic, stupid, Lydgate encourages his reader to act just as the cock does, leaving unnecessary things lie. Just as in the elegiac Romulus, this fable serves as an example for the reader as to how they are to interpret the rest of the collection. Here, the example is the opposite of what the reader would be expecting. Unlike the models that Lydgate is working from, he doesn't use the first fable as a lesson to his readers on how to interpret fable collections, rather he moves straight into other moral lessons. Where this fable traditionally provides a model for fable interpretation, Lydgate believes that his reader will already know how to interpret fables, and chooses to offer a moral lesson on the virtues of living within one's station. Rather than show how an ignorant man might interpret the collection, the first fable in Lydgate's work offers a model of behavior against which we can judge the rest of the characters in the fables. In shifting the meaning of this first fable, Lydgate shifts his reader's perspective in a number of significant ways, aside from the establishing of the natural allegory. First, in connecting the prologue and the first fable, Lydgate offers continuity across his fables. It is clear from the outset that Lydgate is shifting the model of fable-telling into something more narrative like, even if that narrative is strung together by himself as narrator rather than by the animal characters. Lydgate lengthens the fables yet again, but not necessarily to incorporate more moral lessons, but instead to include a stronger narrative structure combining his ideas. Even Marie's fables, which we can clearly attribute as source for Lydgate’s prologue model, don't extend for nearly as long as Lydgate's, and hers are drastically longer than the elegiac Romulus. He uses the trope of his translation from Aesop to move from prologue to fable, and then to thread between portions of the fable itself in lines such as: And, as myn auctor dothe at the cok begyn,/ I cast me to folow hym in substaunce," and: "as myn auctour remembreth by

130 As I note in the following chapter, in his later fable collection, Robert Henryson also comments on the confusing contradictions found in this fable.

96 wrytyng,/ Whylom thys foule in a glad mornyng."131 This narrative framing not only gives Lydgate a method to continuously mention that he is translating from an earlier source, but it also allows Lydgate to include lengthy descriptions of the cock and the gem without detracting from the storyline of his fable. In weaving his prologue and first fable together, Lydgate is setting up his reader to expect that his entire collection might work this way, woven from one fable to the next in a continuous narrative, rather than as individual stories with individual morals. Lydgate adds to this continuity of his text through the repetitive mentioning of silver and other precious gems in his prologue, which is situated right before he presents a fable in which a precious gem is rejected because it isn't suitable to the station of its finder. Although Wheatley notes that the shift in the cock and the gem fable indicates that Lydgate assumes that his audience does not need any instruction in how to read the fable, I would argue that these repeated indicators draw an allegorical relationship between wisdom and precious stones and hint at how the fables should be read. The prologue makes the connection between such a large number precious materials, including silver, gold, sapphires, carbuncles, and pearls that the reader would certainly be expecting that wisdom also be equated with the gem that the cock finds in the fable. However, immediately following this discussion, it is the rejection of the gem that Lydgate illustrates as wise, and the gem itself that is presented as the foolish choice. The relationship between precious things and wisdom is suddenly reversed, and yet Lydgate makes this shift by continuously exclaiming the greatness of the rooster, so it seems natural that all the sudden wisdom is a humble trait. In the fable, Lydgate shows that it is the humble creatures that are the most wise, and furthermore, that wisdom can be found in the most humble of places. This lesson provides an opposite model than that of earlier fable collections by asking the reader to find morality in the humility of the animals, and perhaps of their own lives, rather than seeking it in high or lofty places. Lydgate's reader now expects the rest of his collection to illustrate virtuous living, rather than as cautionary tales. The elegiac Romulus, and even Marie's collection, contain many fables that offer moral lessons through cautioning the readers not to behave as the

131 These mentions of Aesop refer to him as “myn auctor” and happen at lines 50-1, and 102-3.

97 animals do. They warn against evil men through the example of betrayed animals, illustrate that uniting with evil can only beget further evil, and show that virtue is lost when used upon evil men. But, overwhelmingly, the morals of these fables present scenarios that the reader is then warned against. Here, Lydgate is presenting the opposite- - he gives a scenario that his reader is to fulfill-- behave as the cock and you will be rewarded for your virtue. Lydgate's fable model presents moral behavior for the reader, and then tells them to follow this behavior, rather than warning against behaviors that cannot be rewarded. And, lastly, this fable illustrates that Lydgate, uses the fables to advance a religious interpretation of moral behavior. While the elegiac Romulus or Marie's collection isn’t against religion in any way, they are certainly not overtly religious. And, the original Aesopic model that Lydgate claims to be working from is very definitely not a religious text, as Aesop himself is a rather pagan figure. But Lydgate sees that the moralities in the fable can be reinterpreted as religious lessons, and begins this interpretation in his first fable. He makes mention of God when asking for help in interpreting the fables correctly, and notes that the rooster chases Lucifer away with his beautiful morning song. But just as the rooster in the fable, Lydgate presents a rather humble approach to religion. After finding the gem, the animal himself notes: Lyke as folkis of relykis haue deynte, Theron they set a valew or a pryce, Hygh maters profounde & secree Ne shuld nat without gret auyce Be shewy in opyn to hem, that be nat wyse.132 The rooster seems to be criticizing the relics of the church here as not truly valuable or useful items, but only attributed value by their viewers. In this tale of humility, Lydgate may be cautioning against this kind of pompous behavior by even the church, which is valuing fine gems over humility. This religious interpretation of moral behavior may also account for Lydgate's more active interpretation of the fables themselves. He offers a

132 176-80; although I don’t discuss Lydgate’s use of religion much in this chapter, as a monk it was clearly an important feature of his work, and his critique of the relics of the church here is an interesting one for that reason.

98 model for proper Christian behavior, one that he expects his readers to note and follow, rather than pithy insights of the other fable collections. While Lydgate's first fable and prologue may seem to be nothing unique, taken from Marie de France, and even from the commentary models, he creates just enough discontinuity that his first fable is indicative of an entirely new model for a fable collection. He retains the concept of the fables-- moral lessons and animal stories-- and even models aspects such as natural allegory, and descriptions taken from bestiaries and lapidaries as appearing in the scholastic commentary, but he combines all of these features together to ask his reader to follow an entirely different fable model. Here, Lydgate begins a continuous narrative of morality, but he shows that this morality is active, and humble, just as the cock humbly rejects the gem in favor of more appropriate things. The Fable of the Wolf and the Lamb As Wheatley has noted, Lydgate’s second fable, “The Lamb and the Wolf” follows the laws of nature in much the similar way as “The Cock and the Gem,” yet this fable offers a counter example to the points made in the first fable. In several places, Lydgate emphasizes the wolf’s hatred for the lamb as part of his animal nature (to be celebrated, not criticized). But, because a rabid wolf doesn't make for a virtuous moral lesson, Lydgate turns away from the natural interpretation for this fable, and instead introduces the idea of socially constructed laws that restrict natural behavior. Deftly, in just a few lines, Lydgate shows that while it would be within the laws of nature for the wolf to eat the lamb, social law notes that this may in fact not be the best course of action. At the end of the fable, Lydgate then allows his reader to determine which they believe to be the most just outcome. The action in this fable is rather simple-- a lamb drinks downstream from a wolf, yet the wolf accuses the lamb of muddying his drinking waters. When the lamb points out this discrepancy to the wolf, it only angers the villainous animal more, and he snaps back that the lamb's father had also committed the same "crime" months ago, and that the lamb ought to die for the crime of his father as well. The lamb begins to protest that he wasn't

99 even alive at the time of his father's offence, but the wolf won't hear it. He snatches and devours the lamb before the animal can even finish his protest.133 Lydgate relates the behavior of the wolf to his natural impulses—the same impulses that caused the cock to reject the jasper-- from the very first lines of his fable: "Ryght as atwene turment & delyces/ There ys in kynde a gret difference," and again in the second stanza: "Atwene rancour & humble pacience/ Ther ys in nature a gret diuision."134 But Lydgate doesn't just make mere mentions of the order of nature he proceeds to offer a lengthy example of how great fish swim around eating the smaller fish, as this is the natural order of things. He begins the fable with this framework, and is quick to note that not only is the wolf the larger creature, but that he is also by nature inclined towards "malyce and outrage."135 Even as he presents his case to the wolf, the lamb himself acknowledges that he will not be able to work against the wolf's nature: "Hyt were but foly for me with yow to styue./ Ye shal for me haue your desyres all."136 This emphasis on the role that nature has to play on the wolf's anger towards the lamb is unique to Lydgate's version of this fable; in both Marie and the elegiac Romulus it is simply understood that the wolf is intended to be an evil character. Lydgate’s emphasis on the relationship between nature and the actions of the wolf also has the effect of lessening the villainous nature of the wolf in the fable. In the elegiac Romulus, as well as in Marie de France's collection, there is no explanation given for the wolf's actions; in fact, all of the logic presented in the fable argues that the lamb is in the right, and the wolf is behaving unreasonably. In Lydgate's version of the fable, however, the space between right and wrong, and between good and evil is muddied. The wolf may be using false logic, and he might be behaving wickedly in the fable, but this behavior is because he is merely acting according to his nature. It is only logical that he be easily provoked to anger, and even more logical that he find a lesser animal to fulfill his hunger.

133 Wheatley offers a brief conversation on this fable on pages 130-1 of his work, where he notes that the wolf corrupts the use of the law that was presented in the first fable, but fails to note that natural law may actually support the wolf’s behavior. 134 225-6, and 323-3; Lydgate’s fable collection is numbered throughout, rather than being divided by fable—reflective of the unity within. 135 254 136 282-3; even the sheep seems to clearly note that natural law does indeed support the wolf’s actions.

100 While the actions of Lydgate's wolf might be evil, he is evil because his nature has dictated him to be; it has made him hungry, and granted him a short temper. In order to frame the wolf as evil, Lydgate shifts to the role of the law in governing nature. The framework of natural law allows the wolf’s actions to be interpreted as wrong, even though they were within his animalistic nature. It is the wolf himself that acknowledges the law should prevent him from eating the sheep: "How thou dost ayene me malygne/ To vex me wrongfully, yef thou haddyst myght./ The lawe shall part vs, whyche of vs hath ryght." Yet the line that immediately follows this notes "But he no lenger on the lawe abood,/ Deuouryd the lambe & aftyr soke hys blood." 137 Here, Lydgate shifts his reader from a feeling of relative ambivalence for the wolf's actions back into the moral disgust that they would have been likely to feel after reading other versions of the fable. Where the beginning part of the fable justifies the wolf's actions with the continuous attention to his animal nature, this line situates this behavior within the constraints of human law. This shift in the law not only puts the wolf's actions within the human world, but it shifts them from disgusting but necessary for survival to being morally reprehensible.138 By examining the wolf's behavior both within the context of the animal world, and again in terms of human interactions, Lydgate highlights one of the most interesting cruxes in not just the fable of the wolf and the lamb, but in all fable literature. One of the defining characteristics of fable is that animals are essentially presented as humans; they are shown acting as animals, but are judged for these actions according to human standards. Rather than leaving his reader to sort out this complex moral situation on their own, Lydgate makes explicit this feature of the fables by illustrating that it is human law that allows for the distinction between human and animal actions. The lamb illustrates the logic of natural laws that typically governs the bodies of fables by admitting his logic will not be able to sway the wolf. Yet, this same action is judged in the morals of the fable, and the readers are warned against the animal’s behavior. These splits between

137 290-4 138 Wheatley (131) notes that it is significant that the mentions of the law come from the mouth of the very animal that breaks it. He argues that this represents a fall in morality, into misapplication of the law, where I would argue that it emphasizes the shift in the type of law that is being discussed.

101 animalistic behavior and human behavior are often interpreted as a trope unique to fable collections, and understood as a barrier to interpretation that the fable reader must overcome; here Lydgate attempts to reconcile this divide for his reader. In this fable, Lydgate uses a rather elaborate set up to discuss this issue. Instead of using the fable genre to allow the division between animal and human behavior, Lydgate uses the constructs of human law to provide an explanation for the critique of animal behavior that he leverages in the moral. By acknowledging the natural instincts that govern his animals throughout the entire first portion of this fable, Lydgate refuses to simply let his work be interpreted as lessons applied to animal fables. Instead, he creates a level of discomfort in his reader-- he allows them to believe the animals are simply behaving as they should, but then makes an abrupt switch by putting them into context of human law, here even using the voice of one of the animal characters. Just as he has used his first fable and the first portion of this fable to convince his readers that they ought to judge the animals according to natural law, he very quickly employs the construct of human law to force his reader to think of the fable in terms of human morality. As soon as this constraint is employed, the wolf's behavior becomes shockingly immoral, and the reader is left questioning how they ever could have believed that his behavior was justifiable. In the actual moral for the fable, Lydgate broadens his focus again to compare the wolf to "folkys rauenous" and the lamb to those "content with grasse for hys vytayle."139 Interestingly, while this celebration of those content with what they have might seem rather natural for this fable, Lydgate's sources each have slightly different interpretations. The elegiac Romulus focuses on the ineffective pleas the lamb offers to the wolf, and the unjustness of the situation in the moral, noting that "Sic nocet innocuo nocuus causamque nocendi/ inuenit.” [thus the harmful one hurts the harmless one and invents cause for hurting]. Marie de France instead applies her moral to the nobility: "Issi funt li riche seignur,/ Li vescunte e li jugeür,/ De ceus qu’il unt en lur justie.” [And this is what our

139 Lydgate also offers a lengthy religious interpretation using a very traditional comparison of the lamb to a follower of Christ and the wolf to Satan. This is a predictable understanding of the fable and isn’t particularly relevant to my argument, but can be found from lines 307-40.

102 great lords do,/ The viscounts and the judges too,/ with all the people they rule.] 140And so, the final moral that Lydgate's version of this fable emphasizes is that perhaps the fable of the wolf and the lamb is one of the most versatile in the collection. Lydgate is easily able to use the fable both to reflect on its own genre, and to offer a religious message, while also allowing the same fable to emphasize a more traditional moral illustrating the futileness of arguing with an evil man, as well as the corrupt nature of leaders. The Fable of the Frog and the Mouse Lydgate revisits his emphasis on the natural law in the third fable, “The Fable of the Frog and the Mouse,” but here he uses natural law to reveal that some "naturall disposicions" are in fact evil.141 The frog acts according to his nature, yet it is revealed that his nature is cruel, much like the wolf’s in the previous tale. The mouse also acts according to nature here, and this is ultimately her salvation. In the fable, a mouse is struggling to cross a creek, when a frog offers to help her. The mouse accepts his help, but her trust is misplaced, as the frog ventures to the middle of the creek, and then dives under the water in a clear attempt to drown the frog. The mouse puts up a fight, which causes a kite flying overhead to see the two animals, and swoop down to eat them both. In the elegiac Romulus, both the mouse and the frog are devoured, but the moral of the fable remains targeted at the frog: "Sic pereunt qui se prodesse fatentur et obunt:/ Discant in actorem pena redire suum.” [May those die, who claim that they are helping and hurt; let him learn that the punishment returns against its own author.]"142 However, as I noted when discussing Marie's fable collection, because the mouse is such an important character in Marie's argument for female agency, she is spared by the kite, and is only frightened by her wrong choices, but not eaten as a result of them. Similarly, Lydgate's fable also preserves the mouse at its end, although his motivations for doing so are certainly not the same as Marie's.

140 Line 15 in the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb in the elegiac Romulus and 31-3 in Marie de France. 141 Wheatley also discusses the return of the natural law in his work. This fable is third in both the elegiac Romulus and in Marie de France's collection, and Lydgate's interpretation of this fable seems to have been more directly influenced by Marie than any other fable. 142 Lines 15-6 in “De mure et Rana” of the elegiac Romulus.

103 Lydgate's fable begins with an incredibly long discussion of deceitful men, which he uses to establish the idea that nature has caused this behavior: "In man & beste ys shewy experyence: Som haue to vertew theyr inclinacions,/ Oone to profyte, another to do offence; Some man pesyble, som man doth violence;/ Som man delyteth in trouth in hys entent,/ Another reioyseth to be fraudulent."143 Just like Marie does, Lydgate spends a great deal of time setting up a back story for the character of the mouse. Lydgate's mouse is an entirely different kind of character, whose largest concern is living as humbly as possible. He notes that he dines on the grains that come from a mill: "Suffisaunce ys my possessione./ As I haue appetyte, I dyne late or sone."144 The mouse plays host to the frog, a passerby, and takes this opportunity to discuss at great length the virtues of poverty, rather philosophically: "Blessyd be pouerte, that causeth assurance,/ Namely when gladnes doth hys brydyll lede;" apparently educated, the mouse proceeds to quote Solomon on the subject.145 Lydgate uses the character of the mouse to deliver a lengthy message about the virtues of humble living-- while this is a very fabular lesson, it is not one that is typically discussed in this particular fable, yet Lydgate uses it as illustration for the virtues of the mouse’s lifestyle, especially as he is saved from death later in the fable. Where in Marie's fable the mouse is lured to cross the river because the frog promises great delights, Lydgate's humble mouse is not tricked by promises of greatness, but because he feels that he ought to make a reciprocal visit to his new friend’s home. And when the kite swoops down and grabs both animals, it is his greed that condemns the frog, while the mouse is saved by his leanness: "Fatte was the ffroshe, the mowse sklender & lene;/ The frosshe deuouryd because of hys fatnes./ The threde to-brake, the mowse fell on the grene, Fro dethe escapyd."146 Because of his love for finer things, the

143 374-8; the idea that nature caused this behavior in the frog helps to emphasize that it is merely nature that forces the wolf to act the way he does as well, even though he notes it is against the law. 144 404-5; here again is the use of the term suffisaunce as an indicator of correct morality. 145 414-5; this quoting of Solomon is yet another example of Lydgate bringing the religious into his fable collection. 146 498-501; this description surely was taken directly from Marie’s work, which notes that the frog is “big and fat” as well—there is no mention of the frog’s weight in the elegiac Romulus.

104 frog is quickly devoured by the kite, but the mouse is so slender that he is able to slip through the fetters and run away. Unlike in the previous fable, where the laws of man at least reminded the wolf that he ought not devour the lamb (even if he chose not to abide by these laws), in this fable not even social law can limit the wickedness of the frog. It seems that the frog is by nature so wicked, so deceitful, that he does not listen to or abide by any kind of law. Lydgate notes that a deceitful man is worse than any other evil: "Of vyces all, shortly to conclde,/ There ys no vyce in comparyson/ To the vyce of ingratitude... But agayn fraude may be no defence." The wolf appears evil from the beginning of the fable, but the frog "by fraude & violence/ Vnder colour of frendly dylygence/ Was euer besy hy felow to encloy."147 Lydgate implys that bad intentions such as the wolf’s can be harnessed by the laws of men, but deceit such as the frog’s runs so deep that even when you feel deceitful man is behaving truthfully they cannot be trusted. Lydgate even uses the species differentiation between these two animals to his advantage-- in collections like the elegiac Romulus animals are simply defined as good versus evil based on the individual fable-- in this fable the frog is wicked, but in future fables there are virtuous frogs. In Lydgate's fable, the wolf is a known predator and represents a man that can be identified as wicked, where the frog is less readily identified as an evil animal but is depicted as deceitful here. Similarly, the kite in this fable is identified as wicked by nature, and is not punished for its attempt to eat both the mouse and the frog. It is in the kite's nature to be hungry, and to make a thrashing object in the water its next meal, and following this nature simply helps exact revenge on the frog. It is the frog who appears to be kind, yet is acting out of his own kind with his evil behavior that is to be punished.148 This is the central fable in Lydgate’s collection, and he has now made a progression of points about the relationship between natural impulses and how man is to behave: first, the rooster is shown to behave according to nature and is rewarded for this because his nature is to only eat that which is beneficial to him. In the second fable the

147 505-7 and 511 discusses the deceitful man, and the frog is described in 515-7. 148 The pun using the two definitions of kind” is also made by Lydgate in the line "Lawe & nature pleynyn on folke unkynde."

105 wolf is shown to also act according to his nature, but in this case, his natural instincts fall outside of the confines of human law. Lydgate notes here that while it may be acceptable for the wolf to behave in this manner, it will never be acceptable for humans to behave in this way, as the law governs their behavior. And, in the third fable the frog presents a deceitful front in order to cover up his wicked nature, thereby dodging the confines of both natural and human law. As he moves into the second half of his collection, with the fourth fable, Lydgate begins to define exactly what is meant by "law," at least in the context of his fable collection. While in the second fable, Lydgate's presentation of the law is as a just statute, preventing the wolf from legally devouring the lamb, in the fourth fable he recasts the law into another light, questioning if it is in fact always just. The Fable of the Dog and the Sheep In order to question the validity of the law, Lydgate uses the fable of “The Dog and the Sheep,” which is often reinterpreted to offer critiques on the legal system. Not unlike the previous fable of the wolf and the lamb, here again a sheep is accused of wrong that she did not commit. A dog argues that the sheep has stolen food from him, and demands that she pay reparations. But, instead of taking the punishment into his own hands, the dog summons witnesses to testify against the sheep in front of a judge. A kite and a wolf--both animals we have seen as evil in previous fables--serve as witnesses, and convince the judge that the sheep is at fault. The judge orders that the sheep sell her fleece in order to repay the debt, and she is left shivering in the cold. In the elegiac Romulus, the moral of the fable notes that "Saepe fidem falso mendicat inertia teste/ Saepe dolet pietas criminis arte capi” [often laziness obtains faith with a false witness, often goodness grieves to be caught by the skill of a criminal.]149 Similarly, while Marie de France also focuses on the evilness of the witnesses, noting that "Savez pur quei chescun le fist?/ Qu’il en atendeient partie,/ si la berbiz perdist la vie.” [Why did they act this way, those two?/ Each one was waiting for his share,/ If death should be her sentence there.]150 While in Lydgate’s version of the fable there is some focus on the falseness of the witnesses that were chosen, there is not a strong argument made for the wickedness of the court system itself; it is the law that allows this kind of court that he focuses on.

149 Lines 9-10 in “De cane et Ove” of the elegiac Romulus. 150 Lines 16-9 in “Del chien e de la Berbiz” of Marie’s collection

106 Lydgate makes no secret that he finds not just the witnesses, but the judge and the entire court proceedings to be false, beginning his fable with the line: "By a false iorrour and a false wytnesse,/ Horryble monstres enbrasyd in a cheyne."151 He argues in his first stanza that it is the goal of these jurors and witnesses to eclipse the "lyght of ryghtwysnesse," and to oppress the generous. Lydgate continues to critique such people for a full second stanza, noting that they take little heed of their conscience, and speak with "cancryd lyppes & with tunge double."152 These opening stanzas of the fable not only serve as a kind of promythium, providing a warning about the lessons that are to follow, but they also reveal that Lydgate is going to take a more direct approach in the interpretation of this fable then in previous collections. Lydgate also adds the additional note that the sheep is not allowed to have any representation in defending herself against the dog's accusations.153 But, as the trial begins, we are introduced to the judge who isn't identified as a particular type of animal, but seems to be a bit over-protective of his own position as an administrator of the law: Quod the iuge: "The lawe thow must abide, Till ther be yoven sentence of iugement; I may no favour do to nowther side, But atwene both stande indifferent, As rightful iuge of hert and hole intent, Til I may se by lawe to make me strong, Whiche of the partyes have right or wrong. The lawe, first founde on a triewe grounde, May nat eclyne from his stabilnesse.154

151 527-8; Lydgate doesn’t hide his feelings towards the legal system here—his description of them as horrible monsters is about as harsh as it gets. 152 The “light of ryghtwysness” is mentioned in 530, and description of people who ignore their conscience is in 533. 153 Although there aren’t any other members of the defense in any previous versions of the fable either, Lydgate is the first to make this injustice explicit. 154 575-83; since Lydgate mentions the law three times in this short passage it is clear how strong of a focus he is placing on this.

107 Three time in this stanza, the judge mentions that the law is what provides strength to his judgments—a point that he emphasizes a few too many times to truly convince the reader, and the sheep, that he will make a trustworthy judge.155 The dog uses a similar level of deceit in presenting the kite and the wolf as his witnesses: I have brought two, that the couenant knewe, The faithful wolf, in trowth that doth delite, And with hym comyth the gentil foule, the kyte Chose for the nones by report of theyr names, As folke wele knowe, that dredith sclaundre and shames. "To offende trewth the wolf doth gretly drede, He is so stidefast and triew of his nature The gentil kyte hath refused al falshede, He had lever grete hunger to endure, Lovyng no raveyn vnto his pasture, Thanne take a chykken, by record of writyng, To his repast, or any goselyng.”156 In these descriptions, the dog becomes guilty of the deceit that Lydgate speaks so strongly against in the previous fable. Just as the frog had presented himself as kind and trustworthy, here the wolf is presented as faithful and true, and the kite as honest and gentle. While any reader of the fables would recognize these descriptions as false, they are particularly unbelievable, falling as they do after Lydgate provides examples of both a wolf and a kite in the previous two fables. It is no coincidence that Lydgate uses these two animals as examples of those who are not able to overcome their evil nature-- the wolf cannot contain himself from eating the lamb, and it is automatic for the kite to swoop down and snatch the frog and the mouse. With these previous examples, is it quite

155 Wheatley (132) also notes that the judge is trying over-hard to convince that he is a "irrefutable representative of the law." 156 591-602

108 clear that the wolf and the kite will certainly not be kind or honest, but instead more like the frog of the previous fable, with his deceitful nature.157 With these witnesses on his side, the dog easily persuades the judge that the sheep has indeed stolen from him, yet Lydgate makes it explicitly clear that this judgment is false. In both the elegiac Romulus and Marie's fables, it is implied that the sheep is innocent, but never stated. Lydgate, however, notes that the "wolf, the puttok that were ful loth to ly." And then, later, that they ought to be hung for false witness under oath, "becawse they swore wetyngly vntriewe!" And it is not just the witnesses that Lydgate questions, he also notes that "the hound wele wiste his complaynt was false," and that the entire "matier false, rehersed here to-forn." And, if that is not enough, he continues in another stanza: "Thus al thre were false by oon assent,/ The hound, the wolf, and the cursid kyte." In all, Lydgate spends eighteen lines repeatedly emphasizing the falseness of the three animals, thereby solidifying exactly what emphasis he wants his reader to take away from his version of the fable.158 The unjust court finds the sheep to be guilty, and he is forced to repay the debt to the dog by selling the fleece off of his back. In the elegiac Romulus, this is where the punishment ends-- the sheep is left cold, but survives the winter. Lydgate uses the sheep's death to emphasize just how false the dog, wolf, and kite are. It seems as if this was their intent all along, as they descend upon the animal, devouring all of his flesh moments after his death. The wolf even makes a reference to the law as he begins to devour the lamb: "The lawe shall part vs, whyche of vs hath ryght./ But he no lenger on the lawe abood,/ Deuouryd the lambe & aftyr soke hys blood."159 At first, it might seem as though Lydgate might be attempting to restore some natural order in the end of this fable, until the wolf’s

157 The wolf and the kite are used as jurors in other versions of the fable as well, but I would argue that this doesn’t diminish the emphasis that Lydgate is placing on these animals as continuously evil here. 158 In line 606 Lydgate notes that the wolf lies, in line 611 he notes that they swore falsely under oath, in 612 he argues that the hound was false, and lastly in line 615 names the entire matter as false. 159 292-4; Lydgate has gotten incredibly gruesome in this fable—he does not mince words in describing the evilness of the wolf.

109 excessive use of physical force shows that these wicked animals can’t seem to abide by any kind of law—natural or social.160 This fable also performs a significant role in the scheme of Lydgate's fables as a whole, as it calls into question his previous arguments about the virtues of human law. As I discussed in the second fable, “The Wolf and the Lamb,” Lydgate illustrates that while it might be natural for the wolf to eat the lamb, social law dictates that this is unacceptable behavior. Through this, Lydgate is able to explain why the readers of the fable find the wolf's actions to be so odious, even if they are within the laws of nature. In the following fable, these laws are again allowed to stand, as the frog lies about his intentions and is punished (significantly, punished solely while the mouse is spared) by the kite for his deception. In this fable, however, Lydgate has introduced the idea that the laws ought to also be called into question themselves. In the fable of the dog and the sheep, the dog and his false witnesses are actually rewarded for their lying, and furthermore, the legal system itself allows this reward to occur. Situated in the center of his collection, this fable casts doubt on the use of the law in the previous fables, while redefining this law for subsequent fables. While we must believe that Lydgate still expects his reader to understand that the wolf and the frog are bound by social laws, it is clear in this fable that the dog, wolf, and kite bent these laws so profoundly that they no longer represent what is just. And so, in this fable, Lydgate is able to illustrate the split between law that is serving in the best interest of the people, and corrupt law which allows harm to come. And, in his moral with strong emphasis on treason against God, Lydgate makes it clear that those who administer these corrupt laws are condemned alongside the lying witnesses the laws benefit. However, this does not improve the conditions on earth for the innocent characters such as the sheep, who are merely trying to survive within the confines of this corrupt system. Lydgate continues to address these injustices in the second half of his collection, yet as he does this he also begins to pin point the aspects of society in which he believes these wrongs to have occurred. And, while the emphasis in the fable of the Dog and the Sheep is on the wolf

160 Wheatley (138) illustrates that this referencing, and then immediate disregard, of the law is taken from commentary on the Auctores octo where the commenter makes particularly strong moral judgments against the wolf’s devouring of the lamb by invoking the law.

110 and the kite as false witnesses, an astute reader would note that the judge has made a corrupt decision in choosing to believe these witnesses; it is to this dishonest authority figure that Lydgate redirects attention. The Fable of the Wolf and the Crane In the fable immediately following, “The Wolf and the Crane,” Lydgate increases the crane's complaint against the wolf in order to emphasize the tyranny of the wolf, who is meant to represent a governing figure in the fable. A wolf has a bone trapped in his throat, and is beginning to choke, unable to breath. All of the other animals attempt to help the wolf, goaded on by the promise that whomever is able to dislodge the bone from the wolf's throat would receive a reward. It seems as though no one will be able to help the wolf, until a crane comes forward and offers a solution: her long bill and neck enable her to reach down the wolf's throat and extract the bone easily. After performing the procedure and rescuing the wolf, the crane asks for her reward, but the wolf quickly reneges his offer, arguing that while the crane's neck was in his throat he could have very easily devoured her, so her life ought to be reward enough. The crane is dismayed, but moral of the fable simply states that this is often the way with wicked men; they fail to reward any good deeds, and will never return a favor. It is worth noting that this fable is separated from the dog and the sheep by a number of fables in both the elegiac Romulus and Marie de France's collection, marking the first point where Lydate diverges from the order found in his source material. In Marie de France there are two fables in the interim, and three in the elegiac Romulus. The first of these, the fable of the dog and the flesh (called the dog and the cheese in Marie's collection) focuses on a self-reflexive moral-- the dog has lost the cheese because he greedily wanted more than his share. While this moral certainly could have been reinterpreted with a religious meaning, the fable doesn't seem to fit with Lydgate's increasingly complex moral scheme, with his emphasis on the law. The second fable is on the sun who wished to take a wife (or alternatively called the woman marrying a thief). The moral of this fable is a bit more closely aligned with Lydgate's goals for his collection, as it cautions against giving more power to an already overly strong lord. Yet, while this fable might emphasize corrupt leadership, it doesn't illustrate the abuse of the governing system that allows this to occur. Furthermore, at this point in the fables, it

111 seemed that Lydgate was looking to introduce the concept that corrupt government might be tied to tyrannical leaders, and the fable of the sun who wished to wed already presumes this connection, while the wolf and the crane establishes such a connection.161 Examining these omissions helps solidify and argument for this specific order in Lydgate’s collection. As I noted in the first chapter, order was a strong component of the medieval fable genre, and I would argue that Lydgate's decision to jump from the fable of the sheep and the dog to the wolf and the crane was calculated and deliberate. Particularly at this midpoint in the fables, it would seem that Lydgate is working carefully to establish a particular narrative focused on the development and then breaking of laws. Especially since Lydgate’s collection is so short in length, it is notable that he elects to use only fables that emphasize his arguments strongly, while also developing a larger narrative arch. As with previous fables, Lydgate augments the fable of the wolf and the crane extensively, emphasizing the wolf's predisposition to lie. Instead of the matter-of-fact argument that the wolf presents in other versions of the fable, emphasizing that the crane ought to consider his life the promised reward, Lydgate's character denies his promise entirely: "The wolffe denyed that he had be-hyte, Sowght a-gayne hym froward occacion,/ Seyd, he had don hym grete wn-ryght,/ And hym deseyvyd by fals colusion."162 For Lydgate, however, this denial doesn't just make the wolf wicked, which is the adjective used by both the elegiac Romulus and Marie to describe the animal. In Lydgate's fables, this denial makes the wolf a tyrant:

161 The elegiac Romulus has yet another fable separating the sheep and the dog from the fable of the wolf and the crane: the lion and she-goat, the sheep and the heifer. The moral argument that this fable makes is far more similar to the dog and the crane than the other two omitted fables-- the goat, sheep, and heifer, desire to have their share of a stag that they have hunted, but the lion systematically argues that each share should belong to him, because of his great honor and strength. Essentially this fable has the same moral as the wolf and the crane, noting that it is foolish to aid a wicked ruler, and still expect a reward. The omission of this fable from Lydgate's collection either indicates that he is in fact using Marie de France's collection as his direct source, or that perhaps he found both fables to be making such a similar argument that he chose to only include one of the two in the collection-- the fable of the wolf and the crane is a bit simpler in its logic, particularly as the reward was explicitly promised-- making it a more logical choice for inclusion. 162 778-81

112 And semblably, makyng a fals excuse To pay theyr dewte wnto the poraile, Takynge ther service & labour to ther vse, Ever doutles to make them to travayle Yf they aught ax, tyrauntes them assayle, And of malys constreyne them so for drede, They not so hardy of them to ax ther mede.163 There is no indication earlier in the fable that the wolf is in any position of power, yet Lydgate seems to argue that this usurping of the animal's power over the crane is so grossly out of line that he becomes a tyrannical figure. In his next paragraph, Lydgate actually highlights this logic: "The tyraunt hathe possescions and riches,/ The poure travelyth for meate, drynke, & fode."164 In this fable then, Lydgate combines previous moral teachings with a new lesson. This wolf is highlighted as false, and a liar, much like the wicked animals in the previous fable, but now Lydgate defines what role he believes that such people have in society. He sees the rulers as synonymous to these false characters, and labels them all as tyrants. In his moral, Lydgate further defines the behavior that the tyrants exhibit: Prayer of princes is a commaundement, The poure obayethe, they dare non othar do, Presept of tyrantes is so vyolent, Who-evar sey nay, nede it muste be so, Hove they ther lust, they care for no mo.165 Lydgate also summarizes the situation again for the reader-- the crane was chosen to remove the bone, and save the wolf. Yet, upon doing so, the wolf "made hym blow the bookes horne," lying his way out of administering the reward, while diminishing the crane's claim in the process.166 By this point in Lydgate's fable collection, the laws

163 799-805; this is the first time that Lydgate actually uses the word tyrant in his collection, marking carefully the turn his morals are about to take. 164 806-7 165 813-7; it seems here that maybe Lydgate could have a particular ruler in mind, since he specifically mentions a prince in his argument on violent tyranny. 166 824

113 governing right from wrong seem to have been entirely disregarded. The tyrannical wolf has taken it upon himself to make an entirely new set of laws; laws which change depending on the moment, reflect only the desires of the wolf, and are designed to punish those around him while he continues to reap rewards. Lydgate isn't able to offer any constructive solution for dealing with this kind of behavior—there seems to be no example in the fables, or in the natural world he can offer that allows for the tyrant to be punished. Instead, the best that Lydgate is able to do is warn his reader to run from these kind of tyrants: To pley withe tyraunts I hold it no iape, To oppres the poure they have no concience, Fly frome daunger, yf ye may askape, Thynke on the crane that dyd his delygence To helpe the wolfe, but he do recompence, His kyndenes manshed hym, as I fynde, This tall applyinge a-gayn folke that be wn-kynde. 167 There is no social law that can curb the behavior of the wolf, instead, as Wheatley notes, "Lydgate simply throws up his hands," telling his readers to flee from this kind of danger.168 Lydgate warns his readers to do the same when faced with real-world tyrants; the moral of this fable is that the only solution to dealing with a tyrant is to allow them to continue to reign, while conducting your own life in peace. This fable also marks a distinct turning point in the collection; rather than offering suggestions on navigating the world through moral behavior, Lydgate beings to focus on the effects-- or in this instance the lack of effects-- that moral behavior has on one's circumstances. In this fable, the reader can clearly see the redefinition of the law that occurred in the previous fable, the fable of dog and the sheep. This earlier fable establishes that the law, and the entire legal system has been redefined, perhaps by false witnesses convincing judges to rule immorally so that there is no threat of justice to prevent evil actions. Falling right after the fable of the dog and the sheep, which establishes the

167 841-7 168 Wheatley (133) notes that Lydgate is very literal about this advice: “Fly from daunger, yf ye may askape.”

114 process through which the courts came to ignore the laws, the fable of the wolf and the crane seems to illustrate exactly what kind of evils occur when this state of lawlessness is allowed to prosper. The Fable of the Sun who wished to Wed The next fable in the collection, the sun's marriage, or the sun who wished to wed, has been relocated from its order in the elegaic Romulus, as I noted previously. This fable now falls after “The Wolf and the Crane,” showing how tyranny might be furthered. Lydgate uses the fable of the wolf and the crane to set up a clear example of the kind of wicked behavior that tyrants exhibit, and he emphasizes to the reader just how dangerous a tyrant can be. He then uses the fable of the sun's marriage to illustrate how a tyrant can pass his evil ways on to others while continuously growing in power. This fable is relatively simple in both the elegiac Romulus and Marie's collection, but makes a remarkable clear argument on the effects of a tyrant. In both versions, the sun has decided that he should take a wife. This decision is met with much dismay (from the Earth in the elegiac Romulus, and from a council of animals in Marie's collection). This dismay is then taken to a council, headed by a judge (Jove in the elegiac Romulus and Destiny in Marie). The argument is then clearly made: the Sun alone provides too much heat, particularly in the summer. Marie's fable notes: "’Quant le soleil,; fete le, ;est hauz,/ El tens d’esté, est il si chauz/ Qu’il ne lest rien fructifier;/ Tere e herbe fet sechïer.” [The summer sun's so hot,' she said,/ That when the sun's high overhead,/ No trees can blossom or bear fruit; The earth is parched, no plants take root.]169 In both versions of the fable these complaints seem to be taken into consideration. In the elegiac Romulus, the argument about the scorching of the sun in the summer is the end of the fable-- it is followed immediately by the moral which reads: "Hic prohibet sermo letum prebere favorem/ Qui mala fecerunt vel mala facta parant?” [This speech forbids us to show favor to those who have done evil or prepare evil deeds.]170 Thus, it is never made entirely clear if the sun was in fact prevented from his marriage, or if the animals were made to suffer from the heat of a second sun-- the entire fable then exists in the hypothetical, and the

169 Lines 12-6 in “Del Soleil ki Volt Femme Prendre” in Marie’s collection. 170 Lines 7-8 in De Coniugio Cuiusdam Furis” in the elegiac Romulus.

115 reader is simply reprehended for any joy they might express on the sun's marriage.171 In Marie's fable, we are told that Destiny carefully listens to the complaints of the animals, and is then convinced that they are justified in their concern. She then says, "I won't allow his strength to grow," and the fable is ended. Marie's moral speaks a bit more directly to the fable itself, as she cautions that "Qui sure us u nt les maus seignurs,/ Que pas new deivent esforcïer/ N’a plus fort de eus acumpainer.” [when under evil sovereignty:/ Their lord must not grow mightier/ Nor join with one superior.]172 It is assumed here that the animal council and Destiny were able to stop the sun, but the lesson to be learned is that this kind of caution should be taken in all similar scenarios. Because Lydgate uses this fable as a further example of the spread of tyranny, his promythium makes this purpose undeniably clear: "Agayne the vice also of tiranny/ In oo contray or in on regioun,' Oon is to mekil, poetis specifye, To wast and spoyle bi false extorcyoun."173 This fable is also going to talk of tyranny, and furthermore, Lydgate argues that it is "Isopos makith mencyoun,/ Vnto purpos bryngith in a fabil,/ To be rehersed moral and notabil," therefore attributing the mentions of tyranny to Aesop's original words, even if their is no evidence of that, likely again to establish authority.174 As with the previous fables, Lydgate seems to use this as a means of transition, indicating the discussion of tyranny is to continue in this fable. Yet, he also uses this preface to prepare the reader for his moral, particularly because, once again, he uses a rather complex introduction before making his argument in the fable. After the council of the gods, the advice of the wise philosopher,175 and reviewing the work of the Roman authors, it is finally determined that indeed "if so be that Phebus

171 This moral also speaks to the framework for this fable, which only exists in the elegiac Romulus-- a woman has married a thief, and the entire neighborhood rejoiced, until a wise man told the story of the sun's marriage, thus reminding that it is more likely that the woman become evil than the thief become virtuous. 172 Lines 26-8 in Marie’s fable. 173 848-51; here again Lydgate is very explicit about his feelings on tyranny. 174 852-4; just as Lydgate likely didn’t have any access to 175Oddly, one of the characters that Lydgate quotes, the philosopher Theorfrast, is the author of the Liber de Nuptiis, a work which is extensively quoted by Chaucer's the Wife of Bath. Particularly interesting here, as Wheatley argues (145), is the role that Theofrast has to play in the fable: "an example of the way in which authorities who should be

116 take a wyf,/ And procreacioun be vnto hym sent,/ By his lynage therth[e] shuld be brent."176 And so it is ruled that the sun should not be married, for, as Lydgate phrases it, "This is to sayne, that no erthely creature/ hete of ii sunnes may nowhile endure."177 Unlike in the elegiac Romulus, and Marie's collection, the ultimate ruling on the sun's marriage is known-- it has been decided that the sun should not wed, and furthermore, Lydgate explains exactly what would happen if there was a second sun--no earthly creature would be able to endure the strength of the heat. The ultimate ruling that is given here makes it much more clear when Lydgate issues his own judgments on the sun as a tyrant in the moral, and contrasts the open-ended fable and moral in earlier traditions. Interestingly, in Lydgate's fable, it seems as though it is the threat of "procreacioun" which ultimately seems to determine the ultimate ruling on the sun's marriage. It is implied in these lines that if the sun were to marry, he would then procreate, and it is by this lineage that the people of earth would be burnt. This concern also seems to imply then that each of the sun's children (and presumably further generations as well) would join the sun and his wife, rather than eventually replace them. Or, conversely, perhaps it is exactly this replacement of the sun in the sky that is the concern here--the marriage of the sun would allow for a second sun if the original should burn out, and this might be of concern to the earth as well, for the gods, the wise man, and the authors all seem to note that the sun is causing more harm in over heating the earth than the benefits its rays provide. But, putting this oddity aside, this concern is rather unique to Lydgate's collection-- in every other version of this fable, the worry is that there will be two suns in the sky rather than one (and Lydgate does acknowledge this concern in the next stanza), but here, it seems as though it is the reign of one sun that the council is concerned with, and they are eager to end this reign entirely. While seemingly trivial, this emphasis in Lydgate's fable is actually relevant because of his arguments on the rules of tyrants. Lydgate concludes his fable by returning to the traditional threat of two suns: Thus concludyng, it doth inow suffice, passive, external commentators are called upon to play active roles in the plot of the fable, in spite of a certain incongruity in placing them alongside mythological characters. 176 892-4 177 895-6

117 Vnto heven oo sunne to shyne bright, Twey sunnes were like in many wise, To breen al the erth, by fervence of theyr myght; And, semblaly, who-so looke aright, O myghti tiraunt suffisith in a shyre All the contrey for to sette a-fuyre.178 It seems that in this stanza, while acknowledging the idea of two suns would be terrible, Lydgate also works to situate the one existing sun as problematic. Rather than acknowledging the benefits of one sun, as other versions of this fable seem to do, Lydgate is ignoring these benefits in favor of casting the sun as a tyrant. As to be expected at this point in the collection, the entirety of Lydgate's moral is devoted to cautioning the reader against the danger of tyrants such as the sun.179 He begins by noting that tyranny is worse than other crimes: "By tirauntry, than are they more to drede/ In theyr ravyne and extorcioun,/ By theyr counseil and false convencioun;/ For multitude of robbers, where they gon,/ Doth more damage, sothly, than doth oon."180 Lydgate even provides the counter argument, in saying that thieves only hurt a few, while tyrants hurt the masses: "Lass is to drede the malice of oo thief,/ So sayne merchauntis, ridying in theyr viage,/ But wher many on awaytith on the passage,/ Ther standith the parell, as it is often sene."181 Lydgate does, however, end with a metaphor more suiting to the fables: Nombre of tirauntis thurgh theyr violence Pursweth the pore, both est and sowth; Gredy wolfis, that comyn with open mowth, Vpon a folde theyr nature can declare By experience, whether they will hurt or spare. By example of Phebus, as to-fore is previd

178 897-903; this interpretation of the fable is actually rather amusing, since it suggests that perhaps we would be better off without the sun, which is of course untrue. 179 This particular moral drones on quite a bit, as Wheatley notes on page 133: "Lydgate feels obligated to ruminate at some length (stanzas 129-33) upon the topic of a tyrant passing on his tyrannical ways to his heirs." 180 906-10 181 913-6; indeed, Lydgate is at great pains here to solidify the horrors of tyranny.

118 By an vnkowth moral for liknes, Whervpon this fable was contryved By Isopos of grete advisenesse, Plainly to shewe and opinly to expresse, If oo tiraunt the people may constrayne, Than the malice is worse and damagith more of twayne.182 Likening a tyrant to a ravenous wolf, set to prey upon the people, particularly the poor, Lydgate no longer leaves it up to his readers to determine themselves who is evil, as he does in the beginning of the collection. Tyrants run rampant in this world, and the only thing worse that a single tyrant might be a second ruler with the same intentions. Once again, this fable fits neatly within Lydgate's scheme for the collection. If the previous two fables established first how the law has allowed evil rulers to rise to power, and then secondly how these rulers behave towards their subjects, than this fable warns about the danger that only increases in magnitude as evil rulers increase in number. Lydgate uses the fable “The Sun who Wished to Wed” to illustrate that the best method in dealing with a tyrant is to prevent them from spreading their influence, be that through marriage and progeny as illustrated in the fable, or through the impact of their rule on those around them. With this fable, Lydgate's metaphors for the harm of tyranny seem to have pinnacled-- he has used this sequence of fables to show repeatedly the harms of an overstepping rule and proposed a course of action which, while at one point seems like merely throwing his hands in the air, culminates in advocating a forceful ending of tyrannical lines. The Fable of the Dog and the Cheese Given this, it may seem like this fable would have been a more appropriate choice for the final fable in his collection, however Lydgate has one last lesson he asks his reader to identify. Having made broad scale claims about the effects of tyrants, Lydgate returns to the personal traits that define the tyrant, not only furthering this lesson for his readers, but also offering a bit of hope, particularly in the wake of the previous three fables. For his final fable, Lydgate has reordered his collection so that the fable “The

182 920-31; this using the fabular trope of providing advice is one of the traditional moves that Lydgate makes which so often cast his fables as more traditional than innovative.

119 Dog and the Cheese” (called the dog and the flesh in the elegiac Romulus) falls last, moved from forth and fifth in the elegiac Romulus and Marie's collection respectively. In both instances, the fable is moved so that it falls after, rather than before the fable of the sun's marriage and the wolf and the crane.183 Another relatively popular fable, the plot of “The Dog and the Cheese” is rather simple. A dog is carrying a piece of cheese (or meat, in the case of the elegiac Romulus) in his mouth, rather contentedly, until he happens upon a pond and sees his own shadow. Upon spying the shadow, the dog suddenly desires this second piece of cheese as well. In order to get it, he moves to grab it in his mouth along with the piece he already has, but of course, in doing so he loses his preexisting piece of cheese into the water. Therefore, since the reflected cheese never existed, and the actual cheese is now lost in the pond, the dog is left with nothing. The moral of the fable is simple-- it is best to keep one's current possessions, which are a sure thing, rather than abandon them in search of empty promises. Unlike some of the other fables Lydgate uses, this fable is relatively similar in both Marie de France's collection and the elegiac Romulus. The focus of the two is only slightly different: in the elegiac Romulus, much emphasis is placed on the empty promises of the reflection of the meat. Rather than just noting that the dog is after a mere shadow of his current piece of meat, the Latin collection reads: "Spes canis plus carne cupit, plus fenore signum” [The hope of the dog prompts a desire for more meat, the image of profit for more profit].184 Building on this scheme, the moral then notes that: "Non igitur debent pro vanis certa relinqui./ Non sua quis avet, mox caret ipse suis.” [Therefore, certain things ought not to be left behind for uncertain things. If one desires things that are not his own, then he will be without his own possessions.]"185 In the elegiac Romulus, the focus is on the appreciating what one has, rather than falling victim to empty promises. Marie's version of this fable makes the role of greed a bit more explicit, particularly in the moral: Pur ceo se deivent chastier

183 I would strongly argue that this reordering is certainly deliberate-- the dog and the cheese is last in all extant manuscripts containing Lydgate's fables. 184 Line 3 in “De Cane Carnem” in the elegiac Romulus 185 Lines 5-6

120 Cil di trop sulent coveiter. Ki plus coveite que sun dreit, Par sei memes se recreit; Kar ceo qu'il ad pert sovent, E de autrui n'a il nent. [So therefore people should take heed/ Who are misguided by their greed./ Those who desire more than is just,/ Will be undone by their own lust./ They'll lose whatever they had before,/ And get from others nothing more.]186 Marie defines the blind hope that the dog places in the reflected cheese as not just a following of an empty promise, but as a clear example of greed for what he cannot have, a vice which Lydgate certainly builds on in his fable. This fable is rather short in both other collections, and Lydgate's version is no different. As Wheatley notes, "the poet seems pressed to wrap up his compilation with the fable of the dog and the cheese, which he dispatches in four stanzas."187 Certainly, Lydgate has shown that he has the ability to make a short fable very lengthy, but here it seems that he might agree with his sources that not many words are needed make the argument clearly. He begins with a promythium, as in the previous fables, but even this is rather short: "An olde proverbe hathe bene sayd, and shall,/ Towchynge the vyce of grete covetyce--/ Who all covetythe, offt he losythe all."188 This is followed, as in every fable, by a short reference to Aesop as the author, after which Lydgate tells the entire narrative of “The Dog and the Cheese” in just one stanza: Castyng his loke downe to the ryver, By apparence and fals yllusion, As hym thought, a chese ther did apere, And was nought els but a reflexion Of the chese in his posesciou; Which to cache, what he dyd his payne,

186 Line 12-7 in “Del Chien e del Furmag” in Marie’s collection 187 Wheatley (133) notes this to point out that the fable is rather short for Lydgate, although still exponentially longer than any other version. 188 932-4

121 Opynynge his mouthe, he lost bothe twayne. 189 This is shockingly simple for Lydgate, particularly at this point in the collection when the reader has come to expect the elaborate moral set-ups that have only increased in complexity throughout the collection. Hurried or not, Lydgate returns his reader to the simplicity of the beginning of his collection, with just one character, left alone to attempt to make a moral decision. After the elaborate middle of the collection, there is no way that Lydgate's reader could be expecting a correct moral decision from the dog, and they would not be disappointed as the dog looses both his piece of cheese and the promise of a possible second piece as well. Lydgate's moral speaks to the vice of greed that Marie introduces, particularly in the beginning: By whiche exsample men may conceyve & lere,/ By experience prevyd in many place,/ Who all covetythe, faylyth offt in fere.190 But Lydgate quickly moves to broaden the moral of the fable to encompass all men, in particular referencing the tyrannical greed of his previous fables. As Wheatley notes, it is through the repeated use of the word "all" that Lydgate moves this fable from focusing on the cheese and the dog to encompassing the entire world: One man allone may not all purchce, Nor in armys all the worlde enbrace, A meane is best withe good governaunce, To them that be content withe suffisaunce.191 The item which the reader ought to be contented with is not the cheese of the fable itself, nor one's own current possessions, as in the elegiac Romulus, but suddenly it is "good governaunce" which cannot be purchased for all the money in the world, but should be

189 939-4; even Marie, who is verbose, but not near as much so as Lydgate, spends twice as many lines describing the dog's plight to capture the cheese, detailing that he had been standing on the bridge, and describing him as jumping into the water after the reflection. 190 946-8; this introduction almost makes it seem as though Lydgate has abandoned his focus on tyranny and is going to tell a basic fable, but of course it soon becomes clear that isn’t quite the case. 191 949-52

122 desired over all of these things. In Wheatley's words, "between the extremes of total loss and tyrannical proprietorship lies the natural mean of 'suffisaunce.'"192 In his last stanza, both of the moral, and presumably of the entire collection, Lydgate offers encouragement to his readers, but he also seems to note how exactly he believes so many leaders have become the tyrants he cautions so carefully against: Ther is no man that lyvythe more at ease Than he that can withe lytill be content; Even contrary, he standithe evar in disseasse That in his hert with covetyce is blent; Withe suche fals etykes many a man is shent: Lyke as the hownd, not content withe one chese. Desyryd tweyne, bothe he dyd lese.193 Lydgate encourages his reader to be content with their own possessions, but in light of the previous stanza's mention of "good governaunce," in addition to the entire collections emphasis on tyranny, it seems that he is also illustrating the fatal flaw of the tyrant. Unlike the virtuous animals in the beginning of the collection, the dog wants more than he can have, and is willing to lose his own simple possessions along the way. So too, the tyrants in the previous fables have continuously wanted more than they should-- the dog wanted not just the loaf of bread that he claimed the sheep had stolen, but the flesh of the sheep herself. The wolf wanted to be freed from the bone that was choking him, but he seems to take even greater delight in the ability to break his promise to his rescuer. The mindset of the tyrant is simple, Lydgate illustrates; he wants everything that he cannot have, and will not be satisfied until he has attempted to obtain this, even if, as in the case of the dog and the cheese, this means loosing both things along the way. And so, while living under tyranny can be quite complex, as the previous fables illustrated, in this fable it seems that becoming a tyrant is actually quite simple. This simple lesson at the end of the collection makes it appear as though Lydgate's entire

192 Again, as Wheatley points out (134), another use of Lydgate’s idea of suffisaunce; if there is a second lesson to learn from Lydgate’s fables, it is that being content with what you have is the most important of virtues. 193 953-9; and here we have at last a clear definition of what Lydgate means by suffisaunce—ease and contentment.

123 motive may have been a lesson for the tyrants that he clearly sees in governance of his own times, while simultaneously offering lessons in caution against these tyrants. This fable is perhaps meant to represent nature's revenge on the tyrant; it is by a trick of nature that the dog sees the reflection of the cheese in the pond, and is bested.194. This leaves the reader with a glimmer of hope, hinting that by their own greedy nature, tyrants will eventually defeat themselves. With this indication that tyrants will be overthrown by their own nature, Lydgate brings his fable collection full circle. Just as in the first fable, the fable of the cock and the jasp, this fable involves just one animal and the finding of an inanimate object. In both the first and final fable, the two animals, the rooster and the dog respectively, are faced with their own nature in a scenario where there are not even witnesses to hold them accountable for their actions. In Lydgate's fable scheme, the rooster makes the correct choice, turning away from the temptation of the gem, as he is able to acknowledge that it won't ever be of any benefit to him. Conversely, the dog cannot turn away from the temptation of the cheese, even though it is clear that he already has one piece for himself, and doesn't truly need a second. As Wheatley notes, The cock's decision is admirable, providing a positive example against which the other animals can be judged. The dog's is not, but in the final couplet, 'Lyke as the hownd, not content withe one chese/ Desyryd tweyne, bothe he dyd lese", Lydgate reminds us that covetousness destroys contentment, reminding us further of the contented beast with which the collection opens.195 The entire middle of the collection, while clearly significant, seems to fall away when these two fables are compared-- it becomes explicitly clear that what Lydgate truly hopes to have taught his reader is that the most important decisions are those made when one is

194 Wheatley (134) also hints that it is nature that brings down the dog, since it is in this animal’s nature to always want more than what is given. 195 134; it is clear here that the nature of the two animals may have something to do with this difference as well—dogs are more greedy by nature, which fits well with Lydgate’s emphasis on natural law.

124 alone, and furthermore, that it is these decisions that have the ability to define and determine one's character.196 Wheatley notes that this symmetry in the beginning and ending fable, which are consistent in their placement across manuscripts, may be evident of symmetry throughout the rest of the collection as well. However, because of the variations amongst manuscripts, he is hesitant to definitively define this symmetry. Working with the order in the Trinity College manuscript, the order in which I discussed the fables, I argue Lydgate’s schema is as follows: the first three fables celebrate the virtues of three creatures true to their natures: the cock, the lamb, and the mouse. The narrator praises each of these genuinely virtuous characters at some length. The fable of the dog and the sheep balances vice against virtue, and when vice wins the trial, the scales are tipped in its direction. Thereafter, the fables concentrate on the tyrannical, unnatural behavior of the vicious, covetous characters. I would argue that the existence of this symmetry alone may be enough to posit the fable order in the Trinity college manuscript as the more definitive order, the order that Lydgate would have intended his fables to appear in. The reordering of the fables, and augmentations that Lydgate makes in his collection seem to be evidence enough that Lydgate was a careful fable author, and concerned with how the details of his fables continuously combine to produce a very specific reading, with clearly defined moral lessons. I would argue that this order fits together so cautiously and purposefully that it is perhaps designed to eliminate the effect that fable morals can have of overwhelming the reader with a depth of lessons, all of which they are then expected to absorb and follow. Instead, the reader emerges from Lydgate's collection with a limited number of moral lessons in mind, and more than this, a set definition of how the failure to follow these morals may lead to tyranny. While, as Wheatley notes, there has been a bit of debate over how Lydgate arrived at the order of his fables, as they don't align with either the elegiac Romulus or Marie de France's fables, his two sources, I would argue that it is actually rather significant that

196Wheatley (134) postulates the idea of the mating of the first and last fable in his book, but refuses to place any significance on this, or to allow it to serve as an argument for a specific order in Lydgate’s fables.

125 Lydgate have a fable order all his own.197 It seems as though Lydgate uses the order of his fables rather poignantly so that he might make a series of arguments. He begins by explicitly establishing the crux most fable collections ask readers to ignore-- the difference between human and animal actions. Rather than expecting his reader to act oppositely of the animal in the fable, Lydgate seems to almost sympathize with the reader, who may be trying to live within their means as the cock in the fable, and cannot be assuaged by shiny objects. Lydgate acknowledges that it is acceptable that human's natural logic operates on the same basic level as the animals, and then allows his reader to dwell within that comfort, at least until the center of his second fable, when he reminds them that humans do in fact differ from animals, at least in that they must obey certain laws which demand just and civil behavior. But, by the fourth fable Lydgate once again challenges his reader to make yet another connection through his fables-- he uses the fable of the dog and the sheep to illustrate a legal scenario, or what ought to be a reinforcing of the laws that had been emphasized in the previous two fables. But, instead, Lydgate uses this court setting to show that in fact some laws and law makers (Lydgate perhaps implies that he believes this is increasingly the case in his own time), make wicked laws, designed to reward liars and cheats, while punishing the innocent. With this established, Lydgate then moves into the second half of his collection, where he begins to locate the establishing of these wicked laws within the rich nobility, in order to comment on corrupt rulers. His discussion of these rulers escalates into a feeling of relative hopelessness as he presents instance after instance of particularly wicked rulers, and shows how quickly this tyranny might spread. This demonstration of evil rulers culminates in the final fable, where Lydgate ultimately illustrates that the reign of the tyrant is destined to be short lived, as he shows the dog falling victim to his own greed, and ultimately becoming deprived of his prize. This fable in particular has been relocated, pulled from fourth in other collections to fall last in Lydgate's, and this reordering provides the ultimate illustration of Lydgate's motivations for reworking his fables into a new collection model.

197 This debate has occurred, of course, in so far as there has actually been any discussion of Lydgate's fables as all; really only Pearsall and Wheatley have discussed the collection, but both have noted that it is a strange ordering.

126 The structure of Lydgate's individual fables also emphasizes the concept of unity of collection-- he seems to be the first medieval author to use the promythium as a transition technique between each fable. Lydgate uses these promythiums to introduce his reader to the moral lesson that he wants his reader to pull out most strongly in the following fable. This might be part of the original moral for the fable, but more often Lydgate’s morals fit with his own goals for the collection. He also uses these introductions to provide transitions between his fables, and to solidify the theme of tyranny, particularly in his later fables. The body of Lydgate's fables follow a rather typical fable model, providing narration that defines the animal characters, and relatively clear and straightforward descriptions of their motivations. In fact, if anything, the body of Lydgate's fables is more clearly focused on narration than fable collections such as the elegiac Romulus. Perhaps because of the use of the promythium, he doesn't provide the internal moralizing of the Latin collection, which focuses more attention on the actions of the animal characters themselves. However, Lydgate's morals are notably more complex than other collections, first in their sheer length, but also in the lessons that he expects his readers to extrapolate. Unlike earlier fable models, Lydgate's lessons often extend far beyond the simple morals that the animal The repeated mentions of tyrants and tyrannical behavior, combined with our knowledge of Lydgate's later works such as Seige of Thebes and the Fall of Princes might also raise some question as to the contemporary political arguments that Lydgate may be making. Lydgate had patronage from Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI, which would presume him to be at least an unofficial Lancastrian court poet, although he was also alive to see the throne shift from Richard II and Plantagent rule to Henry IV and the House of Lancaster. Under the auspices of the "advice to princes" genre, it seems that Lydgate is perhaps using the Fall of Princes to offer advice to Henry VI, who was on the throne by the time the work was published, and others in the Lancastrian dynasty. Written much earlier than these longer works, Lydgate's fables might reflect his own feelings on the shift of the throne from Richard II to Henry IV and the Lancastrian rule, a shift which, of course, did not occur by mere primogeniture, or without warfare. As Wheatley notes, "Indeed, in the first decade of the fifteenth century in England, raising the issues of breaking natural law and imposing tyrannical rule must have seemed nothing less than

127 pointing a finger at the new occupant of the throne, a man who had not chosen the quietism of mere aristocratic 'suffisaunce.'"198 Even a quick comparison of the warnings of tyrannical behavior that Lydgate repeatedly gives in the fable collection, and the shift of power that occurred between Richard II and Henry IV would raise suspicion that Lydgate must have at the very least had this shift of power in mind when writing his fables. There is even a bit of subtle inclination within the fables themselves that this might indeed be the case-- for example, in the fable of the wolf and the crane, it is noted that the wolf, the example of the tyrant in this fable, had gotten the bone lodged in his throat at a banquet, a detail which is not specified in any other version of the fable. Most fables exist in a kind of undefined time and space, but Lydgate's defining of this location to the banquet may augment his views of the new Lancastrian reign.199 The strong emphasis that Lydgate places on tyranny certainly seems to be directed at a particular scenario, and Henry IV overtaking of the throne is the most likely candidate. While certainly it is difficult to be positive of a biographical reading for Lydgate's advice in his fables, I would argue that delivering the strong cautions against tyranny that Lydgate does cannot happen without at least some personal experience with a wicked ruler.200 Lydgate certainly seems to be providing personalized advice both on living under the rule of a tyrant, and preventing tyrants from taking hold. Even if we cannot label Lydgate's fables as biographical, I would at least argue that they are specifically designed with the political scene at the turn of the fifteenth century in mind. With this motive in mind, Lydgate repeatedly augments and alters his sources in order to reflect his arguments-- or as Wheatley terms it, he amplifies his sources, "co-

198 Wheatley (135) argues that if Lydgate is indeed pointing a finger at Henry IV, that he has revised his persona so strongly that such a biographical reading is impossible. While this may be true in Lydgate’s time, I would note that it is possible for us as modern readers to make this connection. 199 Wheatley mentions this offhandedly in his discussion of the fable, saying that it "might provide evidence of an anti-Lancastrian bent in Lydgate's fables." He then also argues that the same incongruity might also come from a detail in the Esopus moralizatus commentator. 200 In fact, after making the speculation that Lydgate might be referencing the take over of the Lancastrian house, Wheatley (135) is careful to back step: "But if Isopes Fabules betrays a Lydgate disenchanted with Henry IV, the poet himself revised his own persona to the degree that such biographical reading seems nearly impossible.”

128 opting them and embellishing them almost beyond recognition; they become enslaved by Lydgate's pedanticism."201 Here, I hope to have shown that this assessment may be a bit extreme, particularly in light of how mutable of a genre fables truly seem to be. Instead, I would argue that Lydgate's fables introduce a new style of reading and authorship to fable conventions. In the collection, it seems that Lydgate had a particular motive in mind-- to communicate to his reader the danger of tyrants-- and that he selectively chose fables that fit his goals, but that were still popular enough for his reader to have been familiar with the fable, and therefore able to identify and understand his alterations. In doing this, however, Lydgate repeatedly throws out a number of typical aspects of fabular discourse, including the appropriation of Aesopic authority throughout his fables, and, in many cases, the clear moralities that fable collections typically espouse.202 He then uses the familiar genre with altered moral lessons in order to pass on a different morality to his readers, one that does not focus near so strongly on moral living as it does on recognizing, avoiding, and living with immorality in others. Moving into the later Middle Ages, I would also argue that Lydgate's collection serves as a bit of a turning point for the use of fable collections. He clearly is working from the older fable collections, the elegiac Romulus and Marie de France, and he doesn’t entirely lose the tone of these earlier fables. However, simultaneously, perhaps playing off of Chaucer’s narrative reworking of the fables, Lydgate develops a collection that clearly has a set story line arching across all of his fables, a practice that sets the stage for Henryson's later work. Ultimately, Lydgate asks his readers to being to look at fables differently—he gives them a set of morals that to take away from the entire collection rather than individual, disjointed morals in the individual fables, and perhaps

201 Wheatley’s argument (147) implies that Lydgate’s collection is painful to read, and overly educational in tone; I hope my arguments have proved otherwise. 202 It is of note that the final claim in Wheatley's chapter argues that Lydgate seems in some sense unwilling to appropriate Aesop’s authority, instead making repeated attempts to share authority with Aesop. Wheatley posits that this could reflect an anxiety on Lydgate's part about using a vernacular translation as his primary source. He then notes that this unwillingness to commit to a strategy for appropriation, as much as the incompleteness of the collection--which I am not sure exists-- contributes to the sense of "unfinished business" in Lydgate's collection.

129 even hints that the reader might reexamine earlier collections to look for this kind of moral model.

130 Chapter 4: Social Commentary and Critique: Robert Henryson’s Morall Fabillis Like Lydgate, Scottish fabulist Robert Henryson is often overshadowed by Chaucer’s work; he too is studied for his role as a Chaucerian, but his work as a fabulist is often ignored.203 Like Lydgate, Henryson uses his fables to raise a number of social

203 Critics have made a number of interesting arguments in an analysis of Henryson's unusual collection, but little of this conversation has been devoted to the relationships that readers would have had with Henryson's text, or to the expectations these readers would have had as a result because of the wide circulation of the elegiac Romulus. Some authors, such as Arnold Henderson (“Having Fun with the Moralities: Henryson’s Fables and Late-Medieval Fable Innovation.” Studies in Scottish Literature 32 (2001): 67–87. Print), have even suggested that Henryson's work has little in common with more traditional fable collections. Henderson compares Henryson's work to fable collections such as Marie de France's and Odo of Cheriton's, arguing that his innovative morals have more in common with these imaginative readings of the collection. As Edward Wheatley argues in his work, however, failing to understand Henryson's work in conversation with the elegiac Romulus and the scholastic commentary tradition misaligns the sources for Henryson's collection. Wheatley shows that, aside from the clear narrative influence, Henryson uses other feature of the elegiac Romulus, such as moral interpretation and the division of narrative, even going so far as to argue that "the narrator thus provides readers with an example of how to use curricular practice to internalize fable" (150). John Marlin also notes that Henryson's work fits into "the long history of scholastic commentary on the fable text," and shows that Henryson uses allegory, a common scholastic practice, to help his readers understand the world of his fables (133). While the use of the curricular practice is not my focus, the influence that Henryson's work had on his readers certainly is; the close alignment of Henryson's text with the curricular fable is significant for my argument, as it shows that Henryson is aware of preexisting conceptions that his readers might have of the fable genre. Although Henryson's fables do appear at first glance to align more closely with the imaginative fables of Marie de France and Odo of Cheriton, I argue that careful study of these fables in connection with elegiac Romulus show that Henryson is not only building his text off of the fables in the Latin collection, but that he is expecting his reader to also have read this earlier text so that he might challenge their understanding of the fable genre. The other question dominating criticism on Henryson's fables is the question of relationship between fable and moral. A number of early scholars of Henryson's fables repeatedly pointed out that there is a disjunction between fable and moral, and this lack of unity often lead to the assumption that the two were mean to be considered independently. Later scholars, such as Denton Fox (“Henryson and Caxton.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 67 (1968): 586–593. Print), and his respondent, George Clark (Henryson and Aesop: The Fable Transformed.” ELH 43.1 (1976): 1–18. Print), look to find a coherent whole in Henryson’s work, arguing that this whole is so sophisticatedly developed that it produces narratives that go beyond piecemeal Aesopic moralizations. Fox does this through arguing that Henryson intended for his human readers to see themselves in his animal characters, a unity which ultimately results in

131 and political issues, and Henryson’s fable collection also depends heavily on structure— he has carefully chosen thirteen fables, which build towards a central fable that includes a strange dream vision where the author meets Aesop himself. This central fable essentially marks a downward turn in his collection, and from this point on the fates of the animal characters, as well as the morals paint an increasingly grim portrait of Henryson’s worldview. By the end of the collection, the reader is left skeptical about the value of a good life and the moral lessons that the fables teach in order to obtain it. Morality doesn’t

fables which, when gathered together, form a symbol for mankind through which to understand and critique their own actions. Clark expands this view to show that any perceived disunity is caused by the complex world which Henryson is depicting, one which transforms the simple moralism of earlier fables "into a deeper, more sympathetic, and finally more pessimistic view of the human conditions"(5). Accepting these explanations for fable/moral relationships, other critics such as Stephan Khinoy (“Tale-Moral Relationships in Henryson’s Moral Fables.” Studies in Scottish Literature 17 (1982): 99–115. Print) and Arnold Henderson develop the notion that Henryson, as a schoolmaster, is using the very complexity that had seemed so inexplicable to earlier critics to teach his audience how to read this more difficult text and to teach a different perspective on life to a specific audience. These arguments show that Henryson is consciously educating his reader in how to understand fables, much as my own argument, although their interpretations highlight different aspects of fable interpretation than my own. Khinoy argues that in each of his morals, Henryson is calling upon his reader to do the opposite of the beasts in the fable. He also shows that the morals continue to decline, presenting a relatively bleak view of humanity-- the animal creatures are left hopeless by the end of the collection, but as Khinoy notes, eternal salvation offers hope to the human reader. While I also acknowledge this bleak social depiction in Henryson's fables, attention to the reader of the elegiac Romulus shows that some of this depiction comes from an apparent desire to revise the nature of fable collections. Henderson's arguments align more closely with my own; he states that "Henryson uses the schoolroom sort of fable collection less as a source than as an implicit foil, a somewhat ordinary old thing his audience would know and against which he can set his shining--and surprising—gems" (70). He shows that Henryson plays with the norms of the fable collections in ways that are witty and humorous, while at the same time also turning fables to his own purposes. What Henderson's work does is set up the contrast that I also argue for-- the interplay between the elegiac Romulus (or scholastic) fable and Henryson's collection. Rather than simply identifying this relationship, however, it is my aim to explore the nuances of this relationship on the fable-by-fable level, in order to illustrate the actual meanings that Henryson is creating through his furthering of the earlier collection. My argument continuously notes the norms of fabular literature which Henryson is playing with, but then pulls these instances together to examine how Henryson is subverting the morals of the elegiac Romulus, and providing his own morals, many of which suggest an alternate way to read and understand fables.

132 seem to be able to save his animal characters from suffering or untimely death, and Henryson leaves the reader doubting the value of the moral behavior that fables typically espouse, calling into question the function of the genre. The goal of Henryson's entire fable collection seems to be to take the morals of the elegiac Romulus and complicate them, disrupting his reader's expectations for moral learning. But, more specifically, in the fables where there are internal morals, Henryson directly contradicts the lessons taught in these marked lines with his own moral lessons. These contradictions are used throughout the collection to continuously call into question the traditional moral lessons of the fables, and I would argue that through this, Henryson is calling attention to the ineffectiveness of the fable form as a whole. Henryson takes moral lessons that would have been familiar to his readers from the elegiac Romulus and negates them within his fables to show that practicing the simple moral living taught by the fable genre is ultimately ineffective.204 Although there has been much critical attention given to the structure of Henryson's collection, little attention has been given to the relationship between Henryson's collection and the elegiac Romulus as a source text. Here, I explore the influence of more traditional fable collections on Henryson's collection and their role in shaping readership. Henryson’s collection departs from the traditions of the genre in ways that are both imaginative and highly critical. The importance of the internal moral and marginal notation can be clearly seen in Henryson’s fables, as the goal of the entire fable collection seems to be to take the morals found in the elegiac Romulus and complicate them, disrupting his reader's expectations for moral learning. But, more specifically, when reinterpreting fables sourced in the elegiac Romulus that included internal morals, Henryson directly contradicts the lessons taught in the marked lines of the earlier collection with his own moral lessons. These contradictions are used throughout the collection to continuously call into question the traditional moral lessons

204 While Henryson makes this argument rather broadly in his collection, he does seem to be specifically addressing the social and political climate of 15th century Scotland. This is particularly evident in the few fables that he relates rather deceptive animal characters (the fox, the wolf) directly to members of the courts--summoners, and judges, among others. I don't discuss it at length here, but Henryson does ultimately argue that it truly is just here on earth that moral living is ineffective; he is careful to specify that be believes an eternal reward for moral living in his final fables.

133 of the fables, and I would argue that through this, Henryson is calling attention to potential weaknesses of the fable form as a whole. Henryson takes moral lessons that would have been familiar to his readers from the elegiac Romulus and negates them within his fables to show that practicing the simple moral living taught by earlier examples of the fable genre does not always reap immediate reward. The pilcrow markers in the manuscripts of the elegiac Romulus have left us a guide to what the medieval reader would have been expecting to find in Henryson's versions of these fable. A number of manuscripts of the elegiac Romulus were still circulating as Henryson was writing, meaning that Henryson's reader could have been familiar with the Latin collection, and Henryson makes the connection between this collection and his own explicit by a reference to the "Mother toung of Latyng" from which he will be translating in the prologue.205 This claim of translation makes the contradictions between the morals of the two collections especially apparent.206 Because Henryson continuously presents morals that oppose those in the elegiac Romulus, he ultimately forces his reader to mistrust, or at the very least speculate about, the morals that they would have been so familiar with. Henryson then takes this doubt that he has built in his reader and replaces the old moral lessons with his own kind of lesson, which teaches instead that moral living has potential to be dangerous and unwise. While this altered morality is relatively clear to us as modern readers, an intimate familiarity with the elegiac Romulus would have made it all the more clear to Henryson's late medieval readers.

205 Certainly a literate reader of Henryson’s collection may have been familiar with the elegiac Romulus as a written text, but it is also significant to note that much of Henryson’s audience would have only had access to the text aurally. Because much of what I am arguing for relies on textual evidence in the elegiac Romulus, this audience may have had a different perception of both texts, although it is also certainly possible that the internal morals might have had significance for the listener of the fables as well. 206 Wheatley, Mastering Aesop, 149, notes that Henryson's use of the elegiac Romulus as a source text is clearly noted by a Latin quotation in his prologue as well. This notation is in line 28 of the prologue, and the reference to his own work as a translation is in line 31. For this, and all quotes from Henryson's Morall Fabillis of Esope I am using George D. Gopen's edition, The Moral Fables of Aesop. (U. of Notre Dame Press, 1987) for the original Old Scottish; the translations are my own. All quotations from Henryson's work will be referred to by line number.

134 In addition to his attention to the morals embedded in the body of the fable, Henryson also revised and supplemented the elegiac Romulus to further complicate his reader's expectations. While these features are not my main point, they are certainly of note in understanding how Henryson's collection is working. First, it is significant that while most manuscript versions of the elegiac Romulus have sixty short fables, Henryson includes just thirteen fables in his collection, but each of these thirteen are rather long, many extending for two hundred lines, with an additional thirty lines in the moral. Partially, Henryson uses this length to develop the previously referred to complexity, but he also uses it to develop his animal characters so that their actions can work to contradict traditional moral teaching. And while Henryson only has very few fables in his collection, he has carefully chosen the fables that he does use to include ones that seem to have been very popular in the elegiac Romulus. In fact, five of the seven fables that Henryson uses have pilcrows in the body of the text, indicating their significance to the reader of the Latin collection.207 Henryson's reader also would have quickly noted that not all of his fables come from the elegiac Romulus; in fact only half of them are taken from the Latin tradition, while the remaining fables come from the Reynardian beast epics, a French text. Henryson intersperses the two collections, so that the reader is constantly being asked to move between them. While readers would have expected there to be morals attached to the elegiac Romulus, of course, the Reynardian epics did not traditionally have moral lessons. The main character in the beast epics, however, Reynard the Fox, is significantly more complex than the characters in the fables, sly and conniving, yet smart and resourceful, and Henryson is able to use the foxes behavior to present an alternative to the more well-behaved characters of the elegiac Romulus. In combining the fable and beast epic genre, Henryson is actually forcing his readers to look for fable-type morality in genres other than fable, while also asking them to take the more difficult moral lessons he is able to convey through the complex characters of the beast epic, and apply these to the simpler fables as well.

207 The two fables which Henryson uses that don't have pilcrows in the elegiac Romulus are "The Cock and the Jasper" and "The Wolf and the Lamb," which are the first two fables in the Latin collection, so certainly quite familiar to the reader as well.

135 Lastly, Henryson's fable collection follows a very specific structure, which he uses quite artfully to ease his reader into his complicated moral universe, and to show them that the simplistic moral living of the elegiac Romulus can have fatal consequences. In the first six fables of Henryson's collection, the characters that live outside of the traditional moral boundaries repeatedly fare better than their more moral-behaving friends, but no animal, good or evil, dies as a result of their behavior. This pattern builds to the central, seventh, fable, where the narrator of the collection is depicted as encountering Aesop himself through a dream vision. The narrator recognizes Aesop as the father of the genre and attempts to convince him to tell a fable, but Aesop hesitates, admitting that he has become jaded with the effectiveness of fables.208 In the fable that follows it is again clear that moral living cannot be taught, and Aesop hands the reins of story-telling to the narrator, and the rest of the collection following this encounter is increasingly grim. Where moral behavior appears merely foolish in the first half of the collection, in the second it is downright deadly. All of the remaining "good" characters ultimately find themselves faced with death because they are too busy following the moral advice of the fables to save themselves from the danger presented by the antagonists.209 These features--the carefully chosen fables, the inclusion of Reynardian epic, the structure--all work comprehensively to help Henryson frustrate his reader's expectations for a fable collection. However, it is in the relationship between the marked lines of moralizing in the elegiac Romulus and Henryson's questioning of these moral lessons that his purpose truly becomes clear. By examining Henryson's treatment of individual fables from elegiac Romulus, I will argue that careful study of the materiality of manuscript copies of the earlier fable collection reveals that Henryson is manipulating his reader's moral expectations. Not only does this reading reconcile a perceived disparity between Henryson's fables and his morals, it also seeks to cast more attention on Henryson's

208 When the narrator asks Aesop to tell him a fable, Aesop shakes his head and says "my sone lat be; / For quhat is it worth to tell ane fenyeit taill, / Quhen haly preching may na thing availl?"[My son, let be, for what is it worth to tell one false tail, when holy preaching doesn't avail one thing?] 209 For a far more detailed account of Henryson's structure see the introduction Gopen provides in The Moral Fables of Aesop, pages 17-24.

136 intentions as author of the Morall Fabillis.210 This approach also sheds light on what portions of elegiac Romulus were important to its readers, and how these readings and the collection's popularity might have affected later authors of more imaginative fable collections such as Henryson's. But, most importantly, carefully looking at Henryson's fable collection in relationship to the moral lessons of elegiac Romulus offers a new reading of Henryson's work, one which shows how he might be revising earlier fable collections in a way that promotes new usages for the popular genre. Critics have made a number of arguments in an analysis of Henryson's unusual collection, including discussions of possible source texts, and continued arguments on the relationships between his fables and morals. However, little of this conversation has been devoted to the relationships that readers would have had with Henryson's text, or to the expectations these readers would have had as a result because of the wide circulation of the elegiac Romulus. As Edward Wheatley argues in his work, however, failing to understand Henryson's work in conversation with the elegiac Romulus and the scholastic commentary tradition distorts our understanding of the fable collection. Wheatley shows that, aside from the clear narrative influence, Henryson uses other feature of the elegiac Romulus, such as moral interpretation and the division of narrative, even going so far as to argue that "the narrator thus provides readers with an example of how to use curricular practice to internalize fable".211 John Marlin also notes that Henryson's work fits into "the long history of scholastic commentary on the fable text," and shows that Henryson uses allegory, a common scholastic practice, to help his readers understand the world of his

210 A number of early scholars of Henryson's fables have wrestled with this disparity, including Denton Fox who suggests that Henryson intended for the reader to see themselves reflected in the animal characters, which combine to form a symbolic representation of mankind meant to critique man's actions, and George Clark, who argues that any perceived disunity is because the world Henryson is presenting is rather complex. Later critics, including Stephen Khinoy and Arnold Henderson argue that Henryson is using disunity to teach his audience how to read a more difficult text; I am furthering these arguments by pinpointing the specific lines that Henryson is using to teach his reader. 211 Wheatley (151) even notes here that this narrator continues to gain authority as the fable collection progresses, using the fables himself to establish this authority.

137 fables.212 While the use of the curricular practice is not my focus, the influence that Henryson's work had on his readers is; the close alignment of Henryson's text with the curricular fable is significant for my argument, as it shows that Henryson is aware of preexisting conceptions that his readers might have of the fable genre. Although Henryson's fables do appear at first glance to align more closely with the imaginative fables of Marie de France, I argue that careful study of these fables in connection with elegiac Romulus shows that Henryson is not only building his text off of the fables in the Latin collection, but that he is expecting his reader to also have read this earlier text so that he might challenge their understanding of the fable genre. The materiality of the fable manuscripts, including the pilcrow markers, allows us a glimpse into what readers had found valuable in the elegiac Romulus, and allows us to trace these same moments into Henryson’s text. Neither Marlin nor Wheatley address the implications that the material aspects of the fable manuscripts or the readers of these manuscripts had on Henryson’s collection, but my argument illustrates that understanding expectations of the readers of the elegiac Romulus is key to interpreting Henryson’s text. Structure of the collection In the elegiac Romulus fable collection, fable order seems to have been, if not important to the collection, at least consistent across manuscripts.213 The fables in the elegiac Romulus seem to have been designed to work together in a specific order; the patterns are set both for moral teaching and consistent characters in the early fables, and these patterns are carried out throughout the collection. The structure of this collection is, if not significant, at least important enough to remain consistent across manuscripts of this collection. Much like Lydgate’s collection before him, Henryson pushes this significance of structure further in his own collection by developing a carefully structured

212 Marlin’s (“Robert Henryson’s ‘Morall Fabilles’: Irony, Allegory, and Humanism in Late-Medieval Fables.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 34 (2009): 133–147. Print. p. 133) argument here is very reminiscent of Wheatley’s discussions of the commentary, certainly impacted by the earlier study.

213 There are a number of manuscript copies, and even some early print editions of the Auctores octo that have been dated to the fifteenth century, evidencing the elegiac Romulus’ continued popularity.

138 collection which places a heavy significance on the ways that each fable works together with the surrounding ones. Although a number of critics have acknowledged the structure in Henryson's fables, it is George Gopen that gives this structure the most critical attention in his work. Gopen suggests that Henryson's fables have a highly serious and cynical message, which is conveyed to the reader in large part through the structure of the poem.214 Gopen actually identifies a number of different structural patterns at work in Henryson's collection. He notes that not only do the Aesopic and Reynardian fables alternate throughout the fables, but the fables also increase in complexity leading up to the middle fable, peaking in this fable when Henryson's narrator meets with Aesop, who passes over authority of fable telling to the narrator.215 After this midpoint, as Gopen has noted, the fables become increasingly grim, and the "good" characters in the fables are repeatedly punished, seemingly unfairly, for their actions, while the "evil" characters are treated increasingly well. This pattern culminates in the final fable, where the mouse, who is simply trying to cross a stream, is devoured by a kite, and the kite walks away from the incident unscathed.216 While Gopen notes that the symmetry of the collection would not have been sensed by the medieval reader, I would argue that the popularity of the elegiac Romulus indicates that readers would have indeed been familiar enough with the content and order of fable collections that they would have easily noticed the revisions that Henryson is making in the structure of his collection.217 Indeed, because Henryson seems to be constantly striving in his collection to subvert the traditions of the fable genre, it would

214 In fact, almost all of Gopen’s (44) discussion of Henryson revolves around ideas of structure. 215 The collection begins with two Aesopic fables, then follows with three Reynardian, than three Aesopic, three Reynardian, and then ends as he begins with two Aesopic; Gopen argues that the symmetry in the use of Reynard is particularly notable, as is his decision to start and end the collection on Aesopic fables; I would certainly agree with this second point, since it is the Aesopic fables that his readers would have been most familiar with. 216 Gopen (50) offers a chart of sorts, mapping both the order of the fables and their content together. 217 Gopen (57) argues strongly that the order couldn’t be recognized, but it is hard to imagine that would be possible, given the circulation of the elegiac Romulus.

139 seem that he is in fact using this revision in structure as a tool, again challenging his readers expectations, and asking them to view fables in a different way. Rather than using the structure of the fables to help his readers better understand the difference between good and wicked animal characters for easier interpretation, as I argue that the elegiac Romulus does, Henryson uses structure in his collection to opposite ends. While the same animals are used to represent good and evil characters throughout the collection, the way that these characters are treated is continuously reinterpreted. Where the elegiac Romulus repeatedly condemns evil behavior through highlighting evil characters, as noted in chapter one, the structure of Henryson's fables show that these evil characters often escape without any punishment for their immoral behavior. Because the evil in Henryson's fables is punished increasingly less as the collection continues, the structure of the collection works to emphasize that this immoral behavior is, if not rewarded, at least not punished. Where the elegiac Romulus uses structure to emphasize the importance of moral learning, Henryson uses structure to show that moral behavior does not always have the desired result. Henryson’s structure is further complicated by his inclusion of the Reynardian beast epics. These stories are traditionally much lengthier than fables, and do not contain any kind of moral lesson. In fact, the Reynard stories often showcase the bad behavior of the trickster character Reynard, whose cunning almost always wins out over the moral actions of his targets. As Jill Mann argues, the Reynardian tradition is largely about appetite—it shows the fox fulfilling his hunger, both literally, and for foul behavior and sexual misconduct—but it does not condemn this behavior as the fables do. The Reynardian epic simply offers a platform for the reader to chuckle at Reynard’s cunning, and watch him attempt to outsmart his next victim.218 If the beast epic is indeed more of a celebration of cunning over moral behavior, than Henryson's inclusion of this kind of literature can, in itself, be seen as a subversion of the genre. In intermingling beast epic with his fables, Henryson is asking his reader to realize that cunning can and does win out over moral behavior, and works to instruct them to modify their behavior

218 Mann (From Aesop to Reynard Beast Literature in Medieval Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print. p. 224) talks at great length about the Reynardian tradition, both in this collection and in a number of other medieval texts.

140 accordingly. Henryson takes the celebration of cunning and appetite that Jill Mann shows as central to the Reynardian epic, and applies this to his fabular content, while taking the emphasis on moral behavior that is central to the fable tradition, and working this into Reynardian tales. This intermingling of morals has the effect of showing the futile nature of moral behavior in a world that is full of cunning and wicked characters, such as Reynard the fox. Henryson uses the inclusion of a secondary genre to shock his reader by the unfamiliar content, but he also does this through the mixing of values from the two genres as well. It does seem notable, however, that Henryson begins and ends with fables from the elegiac Romulus, as well as couching three Romulan fables in the center of his work; this prominence, along with the emphasis on morals at the ends of the stories, situates Henryson's work soundly in the fable genre. The Cock and the Jasp The first fable in Henryson's collection, just as his readers would have expected from the elegiac Romulus, and even Marie de France's and Lydgate's collections, is the fable of the cock and the jasp. Henryson uses this fable to instruct his readers on how they are to view the rest of this collection, but the instruction that he provides is quite different than the simple moral conveyed in other versions of this fable. Just as this fable prepares the reader to search for moral lessons in the elegiac Romulus, in Henryson's collection the fable prepares the reader to look for the subversion of the moral lessons in the rest of the collection. The cock in Henryson's fable, while called a fool in the moralitas, just as in the previous versions of this fable, speaks incredibly eloquently in the fable itself. Using his elevated rhetoric, the animal presents the reader with a rather convincing case that he is in fact right to conclude a cock such as himself has no business gathering the gem. The convincing presentation of this argument necessarily complicates the reader’s understanding of the fable’s basic message, a complication that Henryson seems to intend. He does not want his readers to accept in advance the established moral lessons of fable precedent, but to engage more actively in the rather complex set of lessons implicit in this fable and in the rest of his collection. Perhaps these complications of Henryson’s cock are meant to show the reader that it is acceptable to dismiss or readily digest the simple morals of other fable collections—but not the lessons found here in his collection.

141 Henryson’s cock seems particularly humble, in a move that asks his readers to empathize with the animal. The bird leaves his dunghill, his only focus on finding dinner, but while scratching through the rubbish looking for some grain he finds a gem that had been accidentally swept out of the house. The fable then quickly turns to somewhat of a side-story on human carelessness that is unique to this version of the fables, delivered by Henryson's narrator: As Damisellis wantoun and Insolent, That fane wald play, and on the streit be sene, To swoping of the hous thay tak na tent; Thay cairn a thing, swa that the flure be clene. Jowellis ar tint, as oftymis hes bene sene, Upon the flure and swopit furth anone- Peradventure, sa wes the samin stone [Since careless and insolent chambermaids love to be dallying and to be seen on the street, they pay little attention when they are sweeping out the house; they only check to see that they floor is clean. Jewels are lost, as so often happens, by being dropped on the floor and then swept out of the house. Perhaps such was the case with this very stone.]219This stanza is often separated from the body of the fable and cited as an example of “local color,” however, its true significance can be seen when it is placed in context with the rest of the fable. Denton Fox claims that the mention of the carelessness of the "Damisellis" first establishes a tone of “barnyard realism” as it explains the commonality of the jasp’s position, locating it not just within the world of the cock as he searches through the mud, but domesticating its cast-aside state as a common household occurrence. Moreover, the “wantoun Damisellis” also give the reader a clear parallel for the cock (and the reader themselves), as they too are preoccupied with cleaning the floor, doing only what is necessary to earn the means to fill their stomachs. As Denton Fox points out, even here, early in the fables, Henryson is establishing a commonality between humans and animals, using links between his characters to encourage his readers

219 71-7

142 to begin to link themselves to the animals in the fables. 220 The explicit establishing of this commonality, especially in the body of a fable, is again unique to Henryson as he illustrates the likeness between human and animal much more directly so as to question why this is glossed over in these other collections. Whereas in the elegiac Romulus the cock has very little to say, Henryson’s cock seems to be not only eloquent, but very well educated as well, which works to build the character's credibility with the reader. The fable continues as the cock then addresses the jasper directly, with rhetorical pomp rather inappropriate for a rooster: O gentill Jasp! O riche and Nobill thing! Thoucht I the find, thow ganis not for me. Thow are ane Jowell for ane Lord or King. Pietie it were, thow suld ly in this mydding, Be buryit thus amang this muke on mold, And thow so fair, and worth sa mekill gold. [Oh gentle Jasp! O rich and noble thing! Though I found you, you are not suitable for me. You are a jewel fit for a Lord or King. Pity it was, you should lie in this dungheap, be buried among this muck on the ground, you so fair and worth so much gold.]221 Where the rooster of the elegiac Romulus simply exclaims that they have no use for the gem, this cock is capable of exploring and appreciating the relative value of things. He also treats the gem as if it were alive (just as the fable genre treats fowl as if they could speak): he voices pity for the Jasper, lamenting for the gem’s sake that he, who would never appreciate its “grit vertew, not yit thy cullor cleir” [great virtue, nor your clear color] has found it.222 He reasons, though, that he would be better served to continue searching through the mud for grain and chaff, or worms and snails rather than to find a multitude of gems, and that the gem itself would be better served if it had been found by

220 Fox (“Henryson’s Fables.” ELH 29.4 (1962): 337–356. Print. p. 342) discusses the relationships that Henryson establishes between the human and animal character at length in his work. 221 79-84; Wheatley argues that it is significant that it is a Jasp that is used in this fable, citing numerous mentions of the gem in the commentary collection. 222 86; this lament indicates that the gem was indeed beautiful to the cock, unlike in the elegiac Romulus, where he seems uninterested entirely, he just deemed it to not be virtuous.

143 someone who can fulfill its needs: “Thow ganis not for me, nor I for thee” [You are not fit for me, nor I for you]—the complex reasoning of the cock pinnacles in this concern for both the gem’s welfare and his own.223 The rooster leaves the jasp lying on the ground and walks away. Even in this display of strutting eloquence, the domestic, rudimentary nature of the cock shows through: “To grit Lordis thocht thow be leif and deir,/ I lufe fer better thing of les avail,/ As draf, or corne, to fill my tume Intraill.” [To great Lords though you be beloved and dear,/ I love far better things of less value,/ As chaff or corn to fill my empty stomach.]224 Just as the Damsels only care for the immediate gratification of the food, rather than looking to the future by saving lost jewels, so the rooster is so concerned about his stomach that he is willing to eat not only the grains he finds on the ground, but also the chaff, which is usually cast away as waste. The cock’s simple tastes here may remind us of the country mouse’s rustic diet of simple grains in the fable to follow, but it also recalls a common metaphor Henryson evokes in the prologue: The nuttes schell, thocht it be hard and teuch. Haldis the kirnill, and is delectabill. Sa lyis thair ane doctrine wyse aneuch, And full of fruit, under ane fenyeit Fabill. [The nut’s shell, though it be hard and touch, holds the kernel and is delectable. So lies there a doctrine wise enough, and full of fruit, under a false fable.]225 Notice that this seemingly straightforward scheme (ultimately we must discard the trivial but delightful aspects of the narrative in discerning its meaty moral core) is complicated by Henryson’s characterization of the narrative shell as “hard and tough.” Such subtle incongruities are characteristic of Henryson’s approach to the fables and provoke us to consider the significance of the cock’s desire to fill his stomach indiscriminately with “chaff or grain.” As a beast, of course, the cock makes no such distinction between “substantial wisdom” and empty moral advice, preferring to simply eat the metaphor itself. This inclusion of the chaff, then, serves to emphasize Henryson’s view of the animalistic nature of men as

223 112 224 89-91; this desire for the corn over the gem is incredibly similar to Lydgate’s cock. 225 15-8; an interesting metaphor here, given the previous mention of the kernel of corn— now Henryson discusses the kernel of a nut.

144 rude and non-discerning—this reminds the reader of the more simple fable collections where a moral lesson can easily be determined. Still, one wonders to what extent Henryson wishes for his reader to contemplate further this complex task of discerning moral grain from an earthly appetite for narrative thrills and whether Henryson understands this task as a possible one in a fallen world. Can the fable reader be expected to “get beyond his stomach” any more than this eloquent fowl? Henryson leaves the Jasp on the ground, and the rooster on his search for food, and transitions to his moralitas by saying that—although he does not know who found the Jasp—he will discuss “bot of the Inward sentence and Intent/ Of this fabill (as myne Author dois write)/ I sall reheirs in rude and hamelie dite. [Of this fable (as my author does write) I shall rehearse in rude and homely terms]226 Henryson’s oblique reference to the unnamed Aesop, it should be noted, tends to keep the issue of moral authority at the fore; such references seemingly ground Henryson’s collection in Aesopic authority. In the context of Henryson’s rather idiosyncratic approach to the Aesopic genre in the fables to follow, however, these references may be seen more as a kind of mocking of the reliance of the fable form on authority from the unknown Aesop, as well as pre- determined morals. As the moralitas begins, Henryson tells his readers that, unlike the rooster, they are to search for lost wisdom. He uses the color quality of the Jasper to relate it to the virtue that it represents in the fable—wisdom. Just as the Jasper is distinctive among jewels, so wisdom is more excellent than all other virtues, for it is the one virtue that is necessary for a man to become great. If the Jasper represents wisdom, then, for Henryson, the cock represents a fool, mocking knowledge by refusing to acknowledge it. Henryson concludes the moralitas as follows: But now (allace) this Jasp is tynt and hid: We seik it nocht, nor preis it for to find. Haif we richis, na better lyfe we bid, Of science thocht the Saull be bair and blind.

226 118-9; it is interesting to note here that Henryson does not refer to Aesop by name, but rather calls him “myne Author,” perhaps in a build up to the middle fable, where he does indeed meet Aesop.

145 Of this mater to speik it, it wer bot wind. Thairfore I ceis, and will na forther say. Ga seik the Jasp, quha will, for thair it lay. [But now, alas, this Jasp is lost and hidden, we seek it not, nor prize it when it is found. Have we riched, no better life we seek, of science, though the soul be bare and blind. To speak of this mater, it is but wind, therefore I cease, and will no further say. Go seek the Jasp, who will, for there it lay.]227 The implication here goes far beyond the traditional moral for the fable by saying that the gem, or wisdom, has been lost to this earth because we have failed to seek it, and do not respect it when it is found. Yet wisdom must not be eternally lost, for Henryson’s last line “go seek the Jasp, you who will, for there it lay” implies that those who look long enough for wisdom will still be able to find it. Along with the direct reference to the cock’s foolishness, the emphasis on wisdom seems to bring Henryson’s moral in line with earlier fable collections, but the reader cannot shake the eloquent, persuasive argument against keeping the jasp that the cock delivered in the fable itself. Arnold Henderson and John Marlin deal with the tension between the persuasive cock in the fable and his condemnation in the moralitas by discussing the distance that Henryson is establishing between fable and moral, giving each part of the fable distinct literary lives of their own.228 While Denton Fox argues that Henryson is trying to establish a difference between his human reader and animal character—the cock may not need the jasp, as he explains in the fable, but in the moral, the reader is to see themselves in the place of the cock.229 However, I would argue that while this explanation for the split between human and animal works in the elegiac Romulus, here Henryson’s language seems to indicated that he is more concerned with ignorant people, who, like the cock, cannot distinguish between that which is precious,

227 155-61 228 Arnold Clayton Henderson. “Having Fun with the Moralities: Henryson’s Fables and Late-Medieval Fable Innovation.” Studies in Scottish Literature 32 (2001): 67–87. Print. p. 79-81. John Marlin. “Robert Henryson’s ‘Morall Fabilles’: Irony, Allegory, and Humanism in Late-Medieval Fables.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 34 (2009): 133–147. Print. p. 136-7. Both of these authors are a part of a long tradition of debating the relationship between Henryson’s morals and his fables, a debate which I believe attention to the elegiac Romulus can certainly help solve. 229 Fox (344), again as is built into most of his argument, returns to the relationship between the human and animal characters.

146 and earthly things.230 This statement is not aimed at the cock at all—he, in fact, does realize that earthly possessions are not so important when he rejects the jasp. Perhaps, even, the cock’s decisions to leave the jasp could be seen as the kind of wisdom that Henryson is trying to teach—his ability to discern his own needs could be what Henryson is hoping his reader will model. In all fable collections this fable in particular serves an important function by indicating how significant the following morals are to the reader, but in many of these collections these following fables are in no particular order. In Henryson’s work, where the order is almost as important as what is being said in the fables themselves, this fable has even greater weight. Henryson uses the Cock and the Jasp not only to show that there is wisdom in the fables, but also that this wisdom is going to be harder to uncover than the casual reader would expect. Even in the elegiac Romulus, this fable creates a bit of discomfort, as the rooster's argument for leaving the jasper in the dungheap is a logical one, but Henryson's educated rooster increases this discomfort tenfold. By allowing his reader to be persuaded by the rather convincing rooster, and later by chastising them in the moralitas for trying to use the same kind of other-worldly wisdom as the cock, Henryson shows his readers that the moral lessons in his fables won't be as simple as they might expect. Henryson complicates the understanding of moral teaching even in his first fable in order to show his reader that they are going to have to work to find the space between the easy moral and the more complex understanding that Henryson is advocating. Even in this first fable, we can see that the complexity of Henryson’s work stands in stark contrast to the simple-minded characters and singular morals of other fable collections. In this early fable, which follows the traditional fable quite closely, by creating a complex central character, and bringing in secondary characters such as the careless damsels, Henryson challenges the notion that a simple fable moral is not always enough to bring about significant change. Yet, notably, Henryson also does not discount the moral lesson that the fable tradition has associated with this fable, just complicates

230 Henryson’s cock indicates as much in lines 149-52, where he says “understandis nocht/ Quhilk is as Nobill sa preious, and sa ding,/ That it may not with eirdlie thing be boucht. [do not understand that which is so noble, so precious, so worthy cannot be bought with earthly things.]

147 the moral for his reader by showing that it is much more difficult and convoluted than earlier collections imply. The Two Mice Henryson's reworking of his reader's expectation for morals can be even more clearly understood in fables where manuscripts offer a clear depiction of how the fables were read through the use of marginal pilcrows. The second fable in Henryson's collection, the familiar "Country Mouse and the City Mouse," is also the first in the elegiac Romulus collection to have pilcrows marking lines other than the last two of the fable (that is, the moral); in this fable lines 3-4, 9-10, and 20-24 are also marked. These markers consistently indicate moments of moralizing in the fables of the elegiac Romulus; a pattern which begins in this fable. In this fable, the first two pilcrows mark lines in which the fable highlights the emptiness of the country mouse's table, but the fullness of his heart: "In mensa tenui satis est immensa voluntas,/Nobilitat viles frons generosa dapes." [Immeasurable good will is enough at a poor table,/A generous look ennobles a cheap feast.] The markers on lines 9-10 again emphasize the importance of generosity over an elaborate meal, this time on behalf of the city mouse: " Emendat conditque cibos clementia vultus,/ Convivam satiat plus dape frontis honor." [Mildness of expression corrects and spices the food,/honor of appearance satisfies the guest more than the feast.] The lines 20-24 offer a bit more complicated lesson, beginning " Fellitumque metu non puto dulce bonum;/Quam timor obnubit, non est sincera voluptas;" [And I do not think it good when sweet things are poisoned by fear;/That which fear veils is not pure pleasure;], and continues by emphasizing that even the sweetest of foods is not good, when tainted with fear. This moral lesson comes from the country mouse himself, who offers this as part of a lengthy explanation (10 lines in a 32 line fable) as to why he won't be staying or dining with the city mouse any longer. The moral of this fable "Pauperies, si leta venit, tutissima res est./Tristior immensas pauperat usus opes." [If joyful poverty comes, it is the safest thing./Sadness makes great wealth poor.] is also notable, as it continues to emphasize the desirability of the country life. Particularly in the emphasized lines 3-4, and in the moral, it is clear that the reader of the elegiac Romulus is encouraged to note the fable’s idealized image of rural life, and the message that it is better to live humbly and simply. Conversely, Henryson's

148 fable is at pains to undermine the apparent “honesty” of the country mouse’s lifestyle. This is evident, as I will illustrate, in his representation of the country mouse as a kind of outlaw, in the abundance of food that the country mouse seems to have, and in the agency she is depicted as having while in the city. Details such as these might be overlooked as innocent elaborations on a well-known fable, one with an established and obvious moral message, but in his revisions of the fable tradition, Henryson undermines the core message that was so emphasized in the marked lines of the elegiac Romulus, implying that, in this world, there can be no truly humble, entirely moral life—that even the humblest of lifestyles is not rewarded in a world where even a country mouse must steal to maintain what little she has. Rather than describing the country mouse as humble, with a "mildness of expression" as line nine in the elegiac Romulus, Henryson’s description paints the country mouse as outlawish by noting not only the darkness of her house, but also the furtive lack of fire or candles, saying “for commonly sic pykeris luffis not lycht” [for commonly such pilferers do not love the light].231 The country mouse’s status as a skulking “pilferer” is reflected in the dinner she fixes her sister, which includes peas, a cultivated fare, one that would have to be stolen from a farmer's field or reserves, meaning a mouse could not hope to procure it honestly like more humble chaff or seeds. In his work on Henryson, John Marlin has described this “homely stock” as “charming and relaxed,” but a careful reading of the fable will show that Henryson certainly does not depict the country mouse as relaxed when “throw rankest gers and corne,/ And under buskis prevelie couth thay creip.” [through thickest grass and corn and under bushes secretly they crept.]232 The acquisition of this grain, Henryson seems to stress, would be a harrowing affair. As the two mice journey to the city, we begin to see that the country mouse is much scrappier than in the elegiac Romulus, and she isn’t easily frightened by the city

231 203 232 Lines 253-54. Marlin, "Robert Henryson's 'Morall Fabilles': Irony, Allegory, and Humanism in Late-Medieval Fables." Fifteenth-Century Studies 34, (2009): 139, uses this scene as part of an argument for a lighthearted beginning to the fable collection, which is accurate in that all of the characters live through their respective fables, but which fails to see the seriousness in Henryson's character manipulation here, through the country mouse.

149 mouse’s lifestyle. After the two make the journey to the city mouse's home, the country mouse is asked if she notices the difference between this and her lowly house and feast, to which the country mouse response “Ye, dame…bot how lang will this lest?” [Yes, dame, but how long will this last], to which the city mouse response “For evermair, I wait, and langer, too.” [for evermore, I believe, and longer too].233 Unlike in the elegiac Romulus, where the country mouse doesn't even get to begin her meal before being frightened away, in Henryson’s version, the country mouse is given unique agency to question the meal. The country mouse knows—perhaps from her own life as a pillager— that something is going to go wrong, but begins to enjoy the feast nonetheless. After they had both eaten their fill, and were rejoicing in their meal, the narrator takes a moment to repeat the moral lesson voiced by the country mouse above: “Yit efter joy oftymes cummis cair,/ And troubill efter grit prosperitie..” [Yet after joy oftentimes comes care, and trouble after great prosperity].234 Seemingly, Henryson’s statement is calculated to confirm the country mouse’s wisdom, as in the elegiac Romulus, yet it is striking to note that the country mouse ignores her own words and continues with the feast. The country mouse's inability to heed her own moral advice is soon punished when a steward enters the room and both mice have to scatter, leaving the remains of their feast behind. The city mouse ducks into her hole, but the country mouse has no place to hide, and is so overcome with fear that she falls into a swoon, almost dead. Luckily, the steward is just passing through, so they are left unharmed. The city mouse emerges from her hole to find her sister lying flat on the ground, scared nearly to death. In the elegiac Romulus, this horrifying scene is enough to send the country mouse into her moralizing speech, about the virtues of simple living: "Fellitumque metu non puto dulce bonum; / Quam timor obnubit, non est sincera voluptas; / Non est sollicito dulcis in ore favus. / Rodere malo fabam quam cura perpete rodi," [And I do not think it good when sweet things are poisoned by fear; That which fear veils is not pure pleasure; nor is honeycomb sweet in a troubled mouth. I prefer to gnaw a bean rather than be gnawed by continuous fear,]

233 278-9 234 292-2; much like in the elegiac Romulus, Henryson offers internal moralizing here, through the voices of his animal characters.

150 before she runs back for her humble hole.235 Henryson’s more defiant mouse does not appear to be sufficiently frightened—her sister’s pleas are able to convince her to sit back down at the table. Because Henryson's country mouse seems to be familiar enough with a life of theft to be unfazed by human interruption, he adds another character to this fable, Gib the cat. Even the cat plays with the mouse for quite some time, before she is scared enough to flee for the country: Fra fute to fute he kest hir to and ffra, Quhylis up, quhylis doun, als cant as ony kid; Quhylis wald he lat hir rin under the stra, Quhylis wald he wink, and play with hir buk heid. [from foot to foot he tossed her to and fro, sometimes up, sometimes down, as playful as any kid, sometimes he would let her run under the straw, sometimes he would wink and hit her blindly on the head].236 Following this extended torture, the country mouse is able to see a hole between the baseboard and the wall, and she slips in there, hanging by her claws so that the cat cannot catch her. After the terror of this experience, the country mouse, finally fed up with the uncertainty of city life, quickly heads back to her rural home, telling her sister: “Thy mangerie is mingit all with cair; Thy guse is gude, thy gansell sour as gall. [Your meal in mingled all with care; your goose is good, but your garlic sauce is bitter as gall].237 No other version of the fable involves this second threat of the cat, but the episode is a fitting one given the country mouse’s relationship to her own moralizing. Just as Gib the Hunter plays with her food in this scene, so too does the country mouse treat her own insights as mere playthings—tossed about and proudly touted but never fully put into practice. At fable’s end, Henryson delivers the conclusion that his reader would expect. It is the same offered in the elegiac Romulus. Henryson emphasizes country living just as previous versions of this fable do, and encourages his reader to be honest and humble. The country mouse, we learn, lives out the rest of her days without returning to visit her

235 Lines 20-3 of “De Mure Domestic et Campestri” in the elegiac Romulus 236 330-3; here is where Marie de France’s earlier warnings of cats comes to fruition. 237 344-5; this is a very different focus than Marie’s fable—where her mice are concerned with appearances, Henryson’s mice focus on the quality of the food.

151 sister. The fable ends: “Quhen ever scho list, scho had aneuch to eit,/ In quyet and eis withoutin ony dreid;/ Bot to hir sisteris feist na mair scho yeid.” [Whenever she wanted, she had enough to eat, in quiet and without any fear, but she never returned to her sister’s feast ].238 The implication of her outlaw lifestyle is repeated again even here, however, as her diet is once more described in terms of pilfered “beinis and nuttis, peis, ry, and quheit” (beans and nuts, peas, rye and wheat).239 In this moralitas, Henryson confirms the standard interpretation of this fable by saying early on: “Blessed be the simple life without fear.” However, it could be easy to miss that Henryson prefaces his moral with a challenge to the reader: “Freindis, heir may ye find, will ye tak heid, / In this fabill ane gude moralitie." [Friends, if you take heed you will find in this fable a good morality].240 Unlike the country mouse, who gives voice lightly to moral pronouncements—only to ignore their implications and resultantly suffer torments by Gib the cat—Henryson suggests a careful reader will heed the implications of the fable itself. And one implication is that, unlike the emphasized humble life of the elegiac Romulus, country life is not without fear or trouble, despite the conventional happy ending tacked on at tale’s end. In fact, this ending explicitly opposes the portrait of country life given earlier in the text. We are told, for instance, “This rurall mous in to the winter tyde/ Had hunger cauld, and tholit grit distress” [This country mouse in the winter- time had hunger, cold, and was affected with great distress].241 This description oddly contradicts the conclusion given at the fable’s end that the country mouse lived happily ever after “as warm as woll”.242 Such contradictions seem to demand a reader willing to dwell in situations of moral complexity and contradiction rather than adhering to the more familiar moral lessons of the elegiac Romulus. Early scholars of Henryson's fables note, as I do here, that his morals and fables are often disconnected, and call for a dismissal of the aspects of the fable narrative or

238 362-4 239 361 240 365-6; it is odd that Henryson’ makes this proclamation here, where in many of the other fables—including the fables from the Reynard tradition, which don’t usually have morals—he offers no such advice. This seems to be a kind of textual clue, indicating the morality of the fable may in fact be different than the reader might expect. 241 169-170 242 359

152 moral that seem at odds. As Stephen Khinoy points out, “We may feel tempted to indulge in strained re-readings of the tale in order to force it into harmony with the moral.”243 Or, we may simply define inconsistencies as chaff to be discarded, as John Marlin advocates, insisting upon the “relative unimportance of the tale’s humane details in determining its moral judgment: they are vulgar ‘vetches’ rather than ‘noble seed.’”244 But there is nothing vulgar in Henryson’s challenging his reader to reconsider the ways that they had previously understood the “two mice” fable. In fact, Henryson seems to offer strange hints that the pat ending tacked on to the fable is not to be taken at face value, framing it as something he is unsure of: “I cannot tell how well she managed thereafter,” he slyly notes, “But I have heard tell” of her living “in quiet and ease, without any fear.” Surely Henryson does not wish us to take this at face value, or dismiss these contradictions as “vetches.” Rather, he asks his readers to think through the implications of both fable and moralitas, and their relationship. Unlike Chaucer’s clear division between the chaff and the grain, or the fable and the moral, Henryson views both parts of the stalk of wheat together as one. Where Chaucer encourages his reader to “Taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille,” or to heed the moral, but ignore the frivolity of the fable, here Henryson asks that his reader carefuly read both fable and moral, and consider the two together. In her work on Henryson, Jill Mann states that “the expansion of the moralitas makes room for a powerfully emotionalized reaction of the kind that the classic fable shuns.”245 This also makes room, indeed challenges, the reader to reconsider an easy, standard reading based upon previous knowledge of the fable tradition. In fact, one curious contradiction within the first two stanzas of the moralitas involves a detail that is

243 Stephen Khinoy, "Tale-Moral Relationships in Henryson's Moral Fables," Studies in Scottish Literature 17, (1982): 102, goes on to argue that many readers of Henryson might feel this way, but cautions Henryson is using the discrepancy to teach the reader how to negotiate a more complex text. While this may be true, Henryson is certainly using this as far more than just a lesson in complexity. 244 Marlin, 139, makes this claim as part of an overall argument for looking at the allegorical functions of the morals, but here, it is rather dismissive of this particular fable/moral relationship, as he looks more seriously at the later fables, which he calls more complex. 245 Jill Mann, From Aesop to Reynard: Beast Literature in Medieval Britain. (Oxford U. Press, 2010). 297. Much of Mann's discussion of Henryson's fables focuses on the use of rhetoric, and how it functions, particularly among the animal characters, who are surprisingly eloquent.

153 seemingly quite straightforward. First, Henryson pronounces that “so intermingled is adversity with earthly joy, so that no estate is free without trouble and some vexation,” directly contradicting the happy fate of the mouse in the fable who lives ever after “in quiet and ease, without any fear, ” as well as the next stanza's “Blessed be the simple life without fear.” The emphasis on the simple life tempts the reader to seize upon the standard conclusion, which was so pervasive in the elegiac Romulus, that a rural life is somehow purer or more authentic. Henryson’s fable, however, has effectively called that assumption into question. Comparing these two fables, we are able to see how the manuscript evidence from the elegiac Romulus emphasizes particular moral lessons that the readers seem to have found significant, most notable in this instance the virtue of the humble life, one that may be lived without fear. Rather than emphasizing this same lesson in his fables, Henryson has taken these emphases and subverted them by depicting a country mouse that lives in just as much fear as her city-dwelling sister. Henryson's mouse does not shy away from fear as the country mouse in the elegiac Romulus but prefers her own pilfering to that of her sister. Henryson’s fable complicates the notion of "the simple life without fear” with the idea that such a life is not to be found in this world. Nor is it something to be achieved through simple living or by means of easy the moral behavior depicted in the elegiac Romulus. The Sheep and the Dog Henryson's third, fourth, and fifth fables, entitled "The Cock and the Fox," "The Confession of the Fox," and "The Trial of the Fox," are taken from the Reynardian tradition, which, as I argued above, offers a different kind of subversion of the reader's expectations, but I will not discuss these fables at length here. The sixth fable in Henryson's collection, "The Sheep and the Dog" marks a return to the Aesopic tradition for the middle three fables; this fable is fourth in the elegiac Romulus. Of the manuscripts I have examined, only Add MS 27625 has additional pilcrows in the body of this fable, but the location of these markers on the third and fourth line is notable. These two lines, "Pro cane stat milvus, stat vultur, stat lupus: instant/ Panem, quem pepigit reddere, reddat ovis" [A kite, a vulture, and a wolf stand on behalf of the dog, they insist that the sheep return the bread which she had agreed to return], may seem like a recounting of the action

154 of the fable, but a quick look to the moral shows that these lines actually set the reader up to better understand the lessons in the fable. The moral reads, "Saepe fidem falso mendicat inertia teste,/Saepe dolet pietas criminis arte capi" [Often laziness obtains faith with a false witness; often justice grieves to be caught by the skill of crime].246 The reader may expect that the villain in this short fable would be the dog, who wrongfully accuses a sheep of stealing a loaf of bread, and forces the convicted sheep to pay for the loaf by selling her fleece. However, these two lines, along with the moral, actually lay blame on the corrupt political system that allows the innocent sheep to be convicted. The emphasized lines 3 and 4 show a false court, composed of what the reader is to assume are villainous animals-- a kite, a wolf, and a vulture, while the moral argues that it is these false witnesses which allow the sheep to be condemned, as the lazy dog uses this corrupt court to achieve his next meal. Again, Henryson subverts his reader's expectations, using his fables to illustrate that the courts of man will only reward immoral behavior. The version of the "Sheep and the Dog" fable found in his collection shows an even more complex court, with even more villainous animals prepared to condemn the sheep. But, unlike the elegiac Romulus, it isn't the "false witnesses" that Henryson questions, but the entire structure of the court which would force them to behave so falsely, simply to win their legal case. In addition, Henryson also depicts the sheep as a complex and eloquent character, one who should have been able to argue her way out of the false charges, and who is cautious of "the skill of crime," just as the elegiac Romulus warns her to be. In the end, even Henryson's sheep is condemned, and the reader must acknowledge yet again that the reward for moral living isn't to be found in this world, and certainly cannot be achieved simply through following the morals found in the elegiac Romulus and other fable collections. Henryson's version of this fable also begins with a dog who, in a scheme to gain money, brought a sheep before a court accusing him of stealing a loaf of bread, but it is clear from the beginning that Henryson intends to discuss the wickedness of the court. A raven named Sir Corbie is chosen Summoner, and the sheep, frightened by the

246 9-10 of “De Cane et Ove” in the elegiac Romulus.

155 appearance of the raven, hurries to court.247. When the sheep arrives, he finds a fox is the clerk and notary, and a kite and a vulture stand at the bar—Henryson's readers, will recognize these untrustworthy animals from the elegiac Romulus fable, with the exception of the fox, who it seems, works to tie traditions together. The fox calls the sheep, and delivers the charge: “Ane certaine breid, worth five schilling of mair,/ Thow aw the Doig, off quhilk the terme is gone.” [A certain loaf of bread, worth five shillings or more, you owe the Dog, for which the term has expired].248 The sheep realizes the situation was stacked against him and that it would do him no good to reject the charges, so he objects to the judge, the time, and the place of the trial, saying that the members of the court are mortal enemies of his kind, the place is too distant, and the time not within the term of the court because it was too late in the evening: The Law sayis it is richt perilous Till enter in pley befoir an Juge suspect; And ye, Schir Wolff, hes bene richy odious To me, for with your Tuskis ravenous Hes slane full mony kinnismen off mine; Thairfoir, as Juge suspect, I yow decline. And schortlie, of this Court ye memberis all, Baith Assessouris, Clerk, and Advocate, To me and myne are enemies mortall, And ay he bene, as mony Scheipheird wate. The place is fer, the tyme is feriate, Quhairfoir na juge suld sit in Consistory Sa lait at evin, I yow accuse ffor thy. [The law says it is right perilous to enter in plea before a suspect judge, and you, Sir Wolf, have been very odious to me, for with your ravenous teeth you have slain many kinsman of mine; therefore, as Judge suspect, I you decline. And shortly, of this court,

247 1161 The character of the summoner is unique to Henryson’s fable, and the name Sir Corbie comes from the Reynardian tradition. I would argue that this extra member of the court has the dual effect of bringing together the two traditions that Henryson is working in, while also showing that all aspects of the legal system are corrupt. 248 1183-5

156 you members all, both Advisors, Clerk, and Advocate, are mortal enemies to me and mine, and have been, as many shepherds agree. The place is far, the time is late, wherefore no judge should sit in wisdom so late in the evening, I accuse your for these reasons].249 Like the rooster in the "Cock and the Jasp" fable, Jill Mann emphasizes how rhetorically eloquent this plea is, as the sheep appeals to the law, offers the shepherd as a witness, and gives clear examples for all of his complaints.250 Where the sheep in the elegiac Romulus silently accepts his fate, not speaking at all in the fable, Henryson has set up the sheep as a logical and wise character, juxtaposing his rationality against the brash, harsh characters of the wolf and the other members of the court. To address the sheep’s concerns about the unfair time and place of the trial, as well as the suspect members of the court, the judge (the wolf) orders that two rather suspicious arbitrators, the bear and the badger, be assigned to the case to determine if the sheep should submit to trial; their ruling only further emphasizes Henryson’s suspicions of the court system. After combing through “the Codis and Digestis new and ald,” [The Code and Digests, new and old,] and examining the arguments “Contra et pro,” [for and against] the bear and badger determine that the trial is fair and the sheep must come before the wolf and his court. Unlike in the rest of the characters in the fable, and in the elegiac Romulus, Henryson never determines for his reader if the choice of arbitrators or their decision is fair as he does with the members of the court; he simply says “On Clerkis I do it, gif this sentence wes leill.” [I put it on the scholars to determine if this sentence was trustworthy] so that it is up to the reader to make the moral decision in this situation.251 By putting such an emphasis on the use of legal documents, and saying that the Bear and the Badger acted as true judges (rather than “fair” judges), Henryson shifts emphasis from their individual culpability again emphasizing the unfairness of the system (to which the Bear and Badger remain “true”). The remainder of the fable precedes much as the version in the elegiac Romulus (although with a great deal more detail), in order to illustrate the innocence of the sheep.

249 1191-1201 250 Mann (279) uses this fable as part of an extended discussion about the use of rhetoric in Henryson’s fables—a number of his characters are surprisingly well spoken. 251 1229; here, by placing emphasis on the scholar, Henryson truly is asking his reader to interact with his text, using his fables to learn their own morality.

157 The sheep is found guilty, and she is forced to sell the fleece off her back in order to purchase the bread with which to repay the dog. Rather than chiding the evil behavior of the dog and his band of false witnesses ,as in the elegiac Romulus, Henryson’s moral is not directed at persuading bureaucratic villains such as the allegorized raven, dog, and bear to reform their corrupted court. Such figures as “Sir Corbie,” the corrupt Summoner, are simply inevitable features of a fallen world. This fable is not “for” them, for in this allegorized state they are simply representative of a certain kind of flawed reality. The end of the moral in the elegiac Romulus also warns good people (such as the sheep) about these kinds of criminals. Rather than offering this kind of advice, Henryson's moral seems to argue that avoiding such situations is futile. As Henryson is at pains to stress, the heep “gavse answer in the cace” [responded to the circumstance] and her case is both just and legally sound.252 Her only fault, if it can be termed such, is to proceed “but Advocate, allone” [without counsel, alone]. At two points in the tale Henryson stresses this decision, once when first formally charged, and again at the hearing in which sentence is passed. Henryson clearly wants us to understand the sheep as a figure who is destroyed by the court because she is unwilling to play by corrupted rules. But, this does not mean that the sheep should have hired a corrupted official to represent her. Such a decision, presumably, would only position her as one more allegorical figure in a rogues’ gallery of the court system. Parsing this allegory is the focus of the first half of Henryson’s moralitas of the fable as he begins to breakdown his critique of the court. For the first several stanzas, he itemizes the characters in the fable, giving them each a direct relationship to a human member of Scottish culture. The sheep he likens to the commoners, who are daily oppressed Be Tirrane men, quhilkis settis all thair cure Be fals meinis to mak ane wrang conquest, In hope this present lyfe suld ever lest; Bot all begylit, thay will in schort tyme end, And efter deith to lestand panis wend.

252 1186

158 [By tyrannous men, who direct all their energy towards gaining possessions by unjust means, trusting that this present life will last forever; but, completely deceived, there life will soon end and go after death to everlasting pains].253 The wolf he likens to a sheriff, who buys the right to collect fines in the name of the king, and the raven to a false coroner, who has a life of offenders to bring to judgment “bot luke gif he be of trew Intent,/ To scraip out Johne, and wryte in Will or Wat,/ And swa ane bud at boith the parties skat. [But judge for yourself if he be of true mind, to scratch out John and write in Will or Walt, and take a bribe from both the parties involved].254 Henryson mentions the fox and the kite, but only to say that he has mentioned them before, and will say no more here. Henryson uses these characters to offer a different kind of satire —a commentary on the entire legal system and its flaws, rather than the criticism of the characters within the court as his readers would have expected. However, focusing on this specific collection of characters seems a bit odd- the fox, kite, and vulture have just as big of a role to play, and it is the bear and badger that ultimately determine that the trial is to continue, whereas the raven actually plays a very small part in deciding the sheep’s fate. In the previous fables, Henryson is careful to moralize all of the main characters —both good and bad, but perhaps here he is now allowing the reader to make their own moral judgments on some characters, much as he inserts small moral lessons in many of the other fables without bringing them up in the moralitas. Through moments such as these, Henryson retrains his readers in fable interpretation, asking them to develop a different set of critical reading skills than they would have had when they began his collection. In order to show the true effects of this wickedness, in the fourth stanza of the moralitas, Henryson suddenly breaks from his droning allegorical exegesis and presents himself as a character in his own text, telling his reader that as he was walking one day, he happened to pass by the sheep and hear his lament. Such a move certainly has no precedent in the elegiac Romulus; while, as the pilcrow markers indicate, a moral is often embedded within the body of a fable, the fable narrative is not normally allowed to

253 1260-4; this emphasis on tyranny is reminiscent of Lydgate’s fables, although Lydgate does not actually discuss tyranny heavily in this particular fable—however, it makes a fitting lesson here. 254 1276-8

159 encroach upon the author’s position of detached moralizing. Here, Henryson jarringly shift his position from Aesopic authority to sympathetic observer: “for as I passit by/ Quhair that he lay, on cais I lukit doun,/ And hard him mak sair lamentation.” [for as I passed by where he lay, by change I looked down, and heard him make this lamentation].255 It is now the middle of the winter, and the sheep, shivering from the cold, lifts his eyes toward the heavens, and cries: ‘Lord God, quhy sleipis thow sa lang? Walk, and discerne my cause, groundit on richt; Se how I am, be fraud, maistrie, and slicht, Peillit full bair’; and so is mony one Now in this warld, richt wonder, wo begone! [‘Lord God, why do you sleep so long? Awake and discern my case, grounded on right; see how I am, by fraud, corruption, and slight, stripped full bare,’ and so are many now in this world, overcome with woe].256 The sheep’s cry, as Stephen Khinoy stresses, breaks the narrative frame to harshly remind the reader that there is no justice from the church or the crown, and God has mysteriously allowed all of this to happen.257 The sheep’s naked reappearance in the moral shifts the focus to the animal’s suffering rather than the absurdities of the court. In this context, allegorizing the petty corruptions of the legal system is a futile exercise—one which Henryson strikingly interrupts with an image of a beast stripped bare to the force of “Boreas with his blasts.” Henryson follows this snapshot with a lament of his own, which highlights the sin of covetous (which we are to assume the dog is guilty of) for doing away “lufe, lawtie, and Law” [love, loyalty, and Law], and the lack of justice to determine the truth without prejudice.258 He then, just as the sheep, laments directly to God by asking if He does not see the chaos the world is in, with the poor man being stripped of all he has, plagued by war and disease, while the great man continues to profit. He ends his lament, and the moralitas by giving his reader

255 1283-5 256 1295-9; it seems that this sheep is likely voicing the lamentations of Henryson himself. 257 As Khinoy (107) notes, this call to God is actually a rather harsh breaking of the narrative frame, in a collection that otherwise focuses on earthly morality (or lack thereof). 258 1301

160 a shred of hope: “We pure pepill as now may do no moir/ Bot pray to the, sen that we ar opprest/ In to this eirth, grant us in hevin gude rest. [we poor people, as of now, may do no more, but pray to thee, since we are oppressed on this earth, in heaven grant us rest].259 In this unusual interruption, Henryson refocuses the "Sheep and the Dog" fable a second time, now taking the focus away from the false witnesses of the elegiac Romulus, and away from the corrupt legal system that he had emphasized up until this point. Here, Henryson focuses on what readers, both of his collection, and of the elegiac Romulus, would certainly have found most significant-- the jarring image of the stripped sheep, shivering through the winter. Henryson emphasizes the "good" character here, rather than keeping his discussion on the wickedness of the court in order to drive home the infertility of moral behavior through punishing an innocent character. The sheep has done nothing wrong, yet she is prosecuted by an unfair and arbitrary court, and condemned to pay back a debt she never owed to the dog. The sheep appeals this charge both honestly and skillfully, expertly challenging the legality of the dog’s case, but neither moral rectitude nor honest intelligence is rewarded in this instance. The world Henryson presents here is one in which wickedness is rewarded—those who try to live by the law rather than manipulating it are only punished for a lack of shrewdness. More than this, though, is a growing sense that Henryson is challenging the Aesopic outlook of the elegiac Romulus. Here, the sheep behaves exactly as the earlier fable teachers her to behave—she is honest, yet she is extremely cautious of false witness and knowledgeable in legal matters—she is not, as the moral of the elegiac Romulus implies, "caught by the skill of crime." In this fable, Henryson implies that these strengths are not of much value in a world of such hopeless corruption, again upending the expectation for moralizing that his readers would have brought to his collection, while also forcing them to reinterpret the fable by showing that there is no caution that can protect against the corrupt court in this fable. The Lion and the Mouse The next fable in Henryson's work, “The Lion and the Mouse,” is the central fable in the collection and unique because rather than the traditional argument for treating

259 1318-20

161 others as you would like to be treated, Henryson illustrates that doing unto others can actually have terrible results. In Add MS 26725 the markings appear on lines 9-10 and 13-14 and in Add MS 18107, all of lines 9-14 are marked. All six of these indicated lines work to build the same moral lesson-- the mighty may be able to vanquish the weak, but the action of vanquishing itself is a crime. This internal moral peaks in lines 13-14: "De pretio victi pendet victoria: victor/Tantus erit, victi gloria quanta fuit." [Victory depends on the value of the conquered: the victor will be as great as the glory of the conquered was] The moral, which reads, "Tu, qui summa potes, ne despice parva potentem: / Nam prodesse potest, si quis obesse nequit." [You who can do the mightiest things, do not despise one capable of small things, For if someone does not hinder him, he can be useful] again reminds the reader of the value of the weakest among them.260 Henryson uses his version of this fable to question the validity of the moral lesson by portraying his lion as particularly villainous; he refrains from killing the mouse, but not because he heeds this lesson on the criminality of vanquishing the weaker, or recognizes the inherent power of the mouse, but because he figures the mouse wouldn't be very tasty after all. After sparing the mouse, the lion also promptly hunts other creatures, both tame and wild, creating an uproar in the countryside, proving that the order of nature does not allow him to preserve the weaker animals. Henryson's lion, then, behaves exactly opposite of how the reader might expect from their experience with the elegiac Romulus; rather than preserving the small for their value, he preserves only for his own edification, and continues to kill the weak. Making this fable even more significant, Henryson frames the “Lion and Mouse” with his narrator encountering Maister Esope, Poet Lawriate” in a dream vision. “This dream is dreamt in a setting of lush and idealized nature—it is mid-June, the sun has dried the dew, the flowers, “quhyte and reid” smell beautiful, the birds were “richt delitious,” and the morning was mild. Henryson even goes so far to say of the birdsong: “To heir it wes ane poynt off Paradise” [To hear it was a hint of Paradise].261 This detail

260 Lines 13-4 and 24-5 in “De Leone et Mure” in the elegiac Romulus. 261 1337; this idealized setting is a very strange place to find the rather crude, rather pagan Aesop—a potential clue that not much was known about the actual character of Aesop through most of the Middle Ages, a distinct possibility since the Life of Aesop wasn’t circulating.

162 may also be a small hint to his reader that a place this perfect, where animals (and people) can live in peaceful bliss can only be found in the afterlife—in actual Paradise. In other words, Henryson’s idyllic setting may perhaps strike the reader as a little too perfect and is perhaps best read as deliberatively naive in the immediate wake of the bitter ending of “The Sheep and the Dog.” The Aesop that Henryson encounters is a little too perfect as well, forcing the reader to question the character’s judgment. In the dream, the narrator sees “The fairest man that ever befoir I saw.”262 He goes on to describe this fair man, saying that his gown was white as milk, his robe purple silk, his hood scarlet, and his beard white, his eyes grey. He notes that the man has a roll of paper in his hand, a quill behind his ear, and an impressive and immaculate physical presence. This description would have been unexpected, at least to some of his readers. The Life of Aesop, a part of the Greek fables, had just been "rediscovered" by the German Henrich Steinhowel in 1476, and it describes Aesop as being “amonge other dyfformed and euylle shapen…corbe backed [hunchbacked]…and yet that whiche was werse he was dombe and coude not speke.”263 The beautiful man that Henryson sees, who in the next stanza begins to speak, fits none of the distinguishing characteristics of this description. Mann suggests that this may be Henryson’s idea of a joke, but the humorous incongruity may also resonate in other ways, particularly to readers that were familiar with the hunchbacked Aesop.264 For instance, Henryson’s earlier allusion to Paradise raises in the reader’s mind the difference between fallen earthly existence and the hereafter. Henryson’s implicit argument that good can only come in the afterlife—that the Aesopic dream of charting a simultaneously prosperous and moral course of life on earth is nothing more than that (a dream)--is now emphasized and illustrated ironically through the image of an improbably idealized Aesop. The reader is given a vivid image of Paradise to propel them through the rough moral lessons that Henryson is going to continue to deliver—as they realize that there is no rescue from persecution in this life, at least they are able to see that even Aesop’s deformities have been corrected in heaven. And yet this figure is Aesop the man, not

262 1348 263 This quote is taken from Caxton’s English translation of Steinhowl’s work, page 27. 264 Mann (303) also includes this in her discusson of complex language usage in Henryson’s fables.

163 Aesop the text. When this “Poet Lawriate” opens his mouth, we learn that Aesop has come to doubt the value of Aesopic discourse. Even the narrator seems a bit suspicious of the Aesopic character. After Aesop introduces himself to the narrator, the character of Henryson asks: “ar ye not he that all thir Fabillis wrate,/ Quhilk in effect, suppois thay fenyeit be,/ Ar full off prudence and moralitie?” [Are you not he that all the fables wrote, which in effect, though they be false, are full of prudence and morality].265 Aesop confirms that he did, but then says “God wait gif that my hert wes merie than.” [God knows that my heart was merry then].266 In this brief interchange, Henryson draws his reader’s attention to the fictional nature and limited value of the fable form. Although they are “full of prudence and morality” they are at the same time in some sense false (“fenyeit”), as he mentioned so poignantly in the prologue. On the one hand, of course, the false nature of the fables is simply their status as impossible fictions. However, Henryson’s beautified yet pessimistic Aesop suggests too that the belief that these morals can persuade may also be false: “For quhat is it worth to tell ane fenyeit taill,/ Quhen haly preching may na thing avail?” [For what is it worth to tell one false tale, when holy preaching may nothing avail?].267 Even the master himself is not convinced in the power of fables. Aesop gives voice to a point that seems to be emerging from Henryson’s fable collection—there is no hope left for the world—humanity is fallen, and a collection of false stories has no power to change that. After giving his answer to Henryson, Aesop even continues for another stanza detailing the state of the world—“the eir is deif, the hart is hard as stane, /Now oppin sin without correctioun,” which makes even fables an impossible mode for teaching moral lessons.268 And yet, surprisingly after all of this questioning, the narrator persists in his request to be told a fable, in the hope that “Quha wait nor I may leir and beir away/ Sum thing thairby heireafter may avail?” [Who know but that I may learn from it and take

265 1379-81 266 1383; this scene presents such a bleak view of the fables, fable literature, and Henryson’s entire worldview that the reader should be well prepared for the decline that happens in the second half of the collection. 267 1390 268 1393-4

164 away with me something that may be of use hereafter?]269Aesop, we have seen, certainly knows that “Sa roustie is the warld with canker blak/ That now my taillis may lytill succour mak.” [So corrupted is the world with a black disease that now my tales may afford but little aid].270 Aesop agrees reluctantly to tell a fable, and thus begins “The Lion and the Mouse.” There are two notable differences in Henryson's version of this fable which again emphasize a cautionary message against moral living. First, in the elegiac Romulus, the lion dangles the mouse in the air for a moment, but is quickly convinced to free the smaller animal. While the pleas that the mouse makes are not described in detail, the elegiac Romulus does show that the mouse is set free because slaughtering such a small creature would bring dishonor to the mighty lion, who should have loftier sights. It is clear that this motive for preservation would have had great significance for the reader of the elegiac Romulus, because it is this decision to spare the mouse that is followed by the six lines of moralizing which emphasize the shame that exists in conquering one that is so much weaker than yourself. In Henryson's version of the fable, however, this motive is entirely erased. Henryson's lion is not near so benevolent to the mouse; in fact he actually condemns the mouse to death, telling him that there is no defense for his sin, and sentences him “unto the Gallous harlit be the feit.” [unto the Gallows to be drug by the feet].271 Where, in the elegiac Romulus, the conversation between the lion and the mouse isn't depicted, Henryson details this exchange. It is immediately clear that the lion is upset, not because he was awoken, but because the mouse hadn't properly respected his kingly status: "Thow cative wretche and vile unworthie thing, / Over malpart and eik presumpteous / Thow wes, to mak out over my thy tripping. / Knew thow not weill I wes baith lord and king / Off beistis all?" [Thou captive wretch and vile unworthy thing, you were malapart and also presumptous to use me for your dancing. Knew you not well I

269 1402-3 270 1396-7; Aesop himself believes there is no reason to tell any more fables, since their morality cannot provide any peace on earth. 271 1460; this is kind of a strange sentence, since in every other version of this fable, the lion simply threatens to eat the mouse (even this lion decides later the mouse would make a bad meal)—surely the reader is meant to equate this moment with an unmerciful leader.

165 was both lord and king of all beasts?]272 The mouse in Henryson's fable actually makes a multipartite plea for mercy, first asking the lion to consider his "simple povertie," noting that the mice acted "nouther off malic nor of presumtioun," and lastly noting that the lion "lay so still and law upon the eird / That by my sawll we weind ye had bene deid." [lay so still and low upon the earth that by my soul, we thought you had been dead]273 The lion is not impressed with the mouse's reasoning, and argues back that, even had he been dead, the mice should have respected his body enough to let him lie in peace. The lion condemns the mouse, but the mouse begins to speak again. It is here that the message from the elegiac Romulus about the shame of conquering the weak is brought in, as the mouse notes, "Alswa ye knaw the honour triumphall / Off all victour upon the strenth dependis / Off his conquiest." [Also you know the honor and triumph of all victory depends on the strength of his conquest].274 This, seemingly, is not enough to convince the lion, because the mouse continues talking, finally making a plea to the lions stomach: Also it semis not your celsitude, Quhilk usis daylie meittis delitious, To fyle your teith or lippis with my blude, Quhilk to your stomok is contagious. Unhailsum meit is of ane sarie mous, And that namelie untill ane strang lyoun, wont till be fed with gentill vennesoun. [also it is unfitting to your Celestitude, who is use to delicious daily meat, to defile your teeth or lips with my blood, which is contagious to your stomach; unwholesome meat of one sorry mouse, especially for one strong lion, wont to be fed on gentile venison].275 It is this argument--that the mouse's flesh would is too tough, nothing like the delicate venison that the lion is use to--that seems to be able to placate the lion, as he finally frees the mouse. The lengthy reasoning that the mouse must use to convince the lion to free him,

272 1427-31 273 The entirety of the mouse's please can be found in lines 1434-1446. The last argument by the mouse, that they believed the lion to be dead, is now a common part of this fable, but it was clearly not a part of the argument in the elegiac Romulus, and may have perhaps been introduced here, in Henryson's work. 274 1475-77 275 1489-95; this oddly contradicts the mouse’s earlier sentence of a trip to the gallows.

166 peaking in the appeal to the lion's stomach is a definite contrast to the moral in the elegiac Romulus which emphasized not conquering those so far beneath you. Henryson does provide this expected moral, but he couches it so deeply in the rhetoric of the mouse's speech that it becomes clear the only real way to appeal to the lion is through his next meal. Again, Henryson then casts the morals of the elegiac Romulus aside in favor of a practical message, one that he likely sees as much more effective for the mouse. But, of course, the fable is not over; in the elegiac Romulus, the next thing that occurs is the lion's misfortune by falling into a trap, and the fable transforms into a lesson in doing unto others, as the mouse chews his fetters loose. However, in Henryson's version, there is a brief interlude in which the lion goes off to hunt, “and slew baith tayme and wyld, as he wes wont, / And in the cuntrie maid ane grit deray;” [and slew both tame and wild animals, as he want, and in the country made great disturbance].276 Not at all the merciful, kind lion of the elegiac Romulus, Henryson's lion is so overcome by hunger that he fills his stomach with both tame and wild animals. So, the lion doesn't heed the message carried over from the elegiac Romulus at all, for conquering tame animals seems just as shameful as devouring a mouse. Henryson also notes that the lion is disturbing the countryside, causing such an uproar, and eating so many animals, that "the pepill fand the way, / This cruell lyoun how that they mycht tak. / Off hempyn cordis strang nettis couth thay mak." [the people found the way that they might take the cruel lion: of hemp cords strong nets they make].277 In this fable, it is not that the lion happens accidentally into a trap; rather he has eaten so many of the farmer's animals that they devise a plan to trap him in order to put an end to his cruel rampage. They construct the trap and travel to where he was known to run through the woods and chase him, blaring horns, and with hunting dogs, in order to capture him in the trap. This plan works, and the lion is ensnared, which is how the mouse finds him and is able to free him from the trap as a repayment for his earlier kindness. By depicting the lion as a scourge on the countryside, however, the way that we understand the mouse's repayment shifts entirely. Rather than simply showing the lion the same mercy that was shown to him, now, by freeing the lion

276 1513-14 277 1514-16

167 the mouse is actually doing a great disservice all in the name of keeping the simple "do unto others" moral. Just as in the two mice fable, Henryson's moral turns back in line with the more traditional moral lessons from the elegiac Romulus; Henryson compares the lion with a prince, and the mice to the common man, emphasizing that each must learn to serve the other. Yet again, the body of Henryson's fable reads oppositely, showing that following this moral might seem right for the lion and the mouse, but for the rest of the characters in his fable this moral brings them far more harm than it does good. Henryson demonstrates that there are two sides to every scenario: for every character that is benefited by moral behavior, there are just as many who are harmed by the same behavior. As central in Henryson's collection, this fable seems to serve a particular function in summarizing the first half, while setting up the reader to understand what will happen in the second portion of the collection.278 For the two main characters, this fable has a utopian outcome, in which the lion and the mouse survive, and are able to mutually benefit each other. This fable seems to serve to emphasize the intended outcome of the fable tradition, or the moral that arises from the entire elegiac Romulus collection. Reason is used properly, each animal spares the other, and each comes to a significant moral realization. But the mouse’s appeal to the lion’s stomach, and the realization that the reader will have at the end of the fable that while the mouse and the lion are happy, the rest of the countryside continues to live in fear of the lion's attacks, imply that Henryson still wants his reader to question the value of moral behavior. The mice are spared, but the price for their lives is high, as animals "wild and tame" continue to be slaughtered, all because they paid back the favor to the lion. Henryson widens the focus of this fable to encompass all affected characters, rather than just the lion and the mouse, allowing his reader to see that even "doing unto others" as this fable teaches can lead to widespread disaster. Here, Henryson presents an optimistic fable and moral interpretation, yes, but the fable’s internal contradictions, and especially the elaboration

278 Because it is in the introduction to this fable that the narrator also happens upon Aesop in a sort of dream vision,, and Aesop tells this fable order to illustrate how the form has become ineffective, this adds yet another layer of complexity to its moral.

168 of the framework again underlines the possible pitfalls of the morals of the elegiac Romulus. It would be easy, indeed, to forget that context, but when Aesop explicates the moral and allegorical significance of the fable, Henryson-the-dreamer’s own position in the world is implicated: “The fair Forest with levis lowne and le,/ With foulis sang and flouris ferlie sweit,/ Is bot the warld and his prosperitie,/ As fals plesance myngit with cair repleit.” [The lovely forest, with leaves sheltered from the wind, with the song of birds and the flowers wonderfully sweet, is but the World and its prosperity, where false pleasures are mixed with pervading sorrow.]279 This exegesis is directed explicitly at the mice and their antics in the “pleasant forest” of the fable. However, in its specific details this explication more precisely recalls Henryson’s own idyllic ramble in the woodland landscape where he falls asleep to the pleasant sounds of birds and scents of flowers. Given this clear connection, is it reasonable to question further just what the “false pleasures” are which Aesop condemns? Surely those false pleasures must be related to the indulgent belief that moral behavior will lead to a just world-- note that Aesop himself is even reluctant to tell a moral fable. In other words, Aesop’s moralitas might be applied as much to Henryson-the-dreamer’s desire for cheap Aesopic thrills as to the callow antics of the thoughtless mice. There are many possible reasons why Henryson would have chosen to represent Aesop in his fables, particularly at this point. George Clark suggests that he does so to discuss the master/pupil relationship, which indeed seems plausible, as Henryson was likely a schoolmaster himself. Here Henryson becomes the pupil, submitting to the authority of the ultimate teacher of fables, Aesop himself.280 Jill Mann suggests that Henryson is using Aesop to show that all rhetoric—even the rhetoric of preaching, as Aesop suggests to the narrator, has become ineffective.281 Tim Machan has argued that Henryson uses this narrative device to draw attention to himself as a writer—he questions

279 1580-2 280 George Clark. “Henryson and Aesop: The Fable Transformed.” ELH 43.1 (1976): 1– 18. Print. p. 3. Clark is likely right about his assumption here, he simply does not push the image of Aesop any further, and the characters idealize appearance along with his refusal to tell a fable is certainly worthy of further note. 281 Mann (304) again is concerned with the use of rhetoric in the collection.

169 the authority of Aesop and the Aesopic tradition by bringing him into the fables. Henryson asserts dominance over Aesop by silencing his protests, and forcing him to tell a fable, but then showing that the fable he tells is ineffective, rendering Aesop as part of the fiction itself, and establishing Henryson himself as a moral authority. To push these points further, it seems that in this central fable, through drawing in the master/student relationship with Aesop Henryson is calling into question the fable tradition, and then illustrating the ways in which his own set of fables differs from this tradition by demanding a fable of Father Aesop himself, which forcing him to admit the ineffectiveness of the fables.282 The Preaching of the Swallow The next fable, “The Preaching of the Swallow,” is unique in that Henryson pauses to remind that reader that, although he continuously has critiqued the value of moral behavior by showing the morals the reader had learned in the elegiac Romulus as problematic and false, moral behavior is still important, and will be valued in the afterlife. Just as we see in Henryson's fable, in the elegiac Romulus a swallow continuously encourages the other birds to eat the flax seed while it is in the field, rather than in the barn, for once harvested, the seed is often used to ensnare birds. The other birds continuously ignore these warnings, and are eventually trapped, while the swallow, who has endeared herself to man through her song, is spared. In the manuscripts, only one line is marked with a pilcrow: "Nam praevisa minus laedere tela solent." [For foreseen weapons usually hurt less].283 In Henryson's version of the fable, this moral lesson is actually emphasized, and it seems that he is working with a more elevated lesson, by encouraging moral behavior for its effects in the afterlife, rather than on earth.284

282 Tim Machan (“Robert Henryson and Father Aesop: Authority in the Moral Fables.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer: The Yearbook of the New Chaucer Society 12 (1990): 193–214. Print. p. 203) makes a number of arguments about Henryson’s relationship to Aesop as the author of the fables, including this questioning of the Aesop character. 283 Line 10 of De Seminatore Lini et Yrundinibus” in the elegiac Romulus. 284 This fable has been commented on extensively by both Denton Fox, and then later by George Clark, responding to Fox’s work. Fox sees the work as a tragedy contained within a larger comedy. The tragedy—the birds, trapped by nets and killed, is prefaced by a statement about the divine order of the world, and then followed by an assurance of

170 The birds are also punished for their failure to listen; the swallow attempts to pass moral wisdom, of the kind that the fables teach, asking the birds to be active participants in their own future, but they refuse, preferring to sit back and allow fate to play out. In the end, Henryson highlights that the swallow’s advice was indeed wise, and would have saved the other birds, had they heeded. Henryson seems to again be cautioning his reader of the essential seriousness of the fabular morals, even as he examines their limitations. As a transition from the exclamations of natural beauty in the beginning of the previous fable, this work too begins with a prologue of sorts discussing God’s infinite power. It reminds of the many perfect parts of nature, and then describes the seasons, beginning with summer, and ending with winter before moving into the spring, when the fable begins. The narrator wanders through nature, admiring its beauty, until at last he sees some laborers, building a dike and guiding the plow. The narrator seems to be trying to avoid this kind of industry himself, and says: “it we grit Joy to him that luifit corne/ To se thame labour, baith at evin and morne.” [it was great joy to him that loves corn, to see them labor both at evening and in the morn.]285 The narrator now is thinking of his own stomach, much as the earlier characters in “The Cock and the Jasp” and “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse,” and even the lion that the reader has just seen spare the mouse because of her tastelessness. In this wandering, hands-off attitude towards labor, and the focus on earthly reward, the narrator is taking Henryson’s cautions that moral behavior may not rewarded

eternal joy. Clark builds off of this, emphasizing the element of time in the fable as an instrument of pessimistic realism. As the seasons progress, the birds are condemned, because ultimately the world, as the narrator describes it, includes evil. Clark finds, that as this fable follows the central fable by Aesop, it emphasizes the difference between Henryson’s and Aesop’s outlooks on the world, particularly as the story ends in the winter, and emphasizes death. He emphasizes, that in other versions of the fable (such as the elegiac Romulus) the birds are condemned simply because they fail to listen to the swallow, but in the Henryson version, the birds die because this is their state in life, because we all must die; time passes as a symbolization of this fate, and the ending in winter is an emphasis on the evil in the world. 285 1725-6; this brief narration of the scene of laborers is very interesting in the fable collection, perhaps drawing a distinction between the authors such as the Aesopic character that the narrator had just encountered, and the laborers who the fables are to be reaching. Here, there could be some emphasis on the responsibility of the author to communicate useful lessons to the laborers.

171 on this earth to an extreme. Rather than living morally, or even actively participating in earthly affairs, the narrator is now unattached, thinking only of his needs, and removing himself from the daily work of the world. The narrator is dismissing the ways of living that are taught in the collection, and has decided to focus only on how his own stomach may be filled. Henryson seems to be wary that his readers, because of the complexity his ownfables present, will simply remove themselves from the world, or trivialize the necessity of the lessons in the elegiac Romulus. He uses the following fable—“The Preaching of the Swallow” to shift the focus of the fables from the previous complex moral lesson in order to show that the moral lessons the fabular tradition has taught are not to be taken lightly, even if he has revealed them and their resulting rewards as more complex. But the narrator is startled away from his reflection on what the next meal may bring by a swallow, whom he overhears telling the other birds that the farmer has planted hemp, and that from this he will make nets to capture them. With this shift, it becomes immediately clear to the reader that they are to be learning a lesson on following sage advice. The swallow pleads with the other birds that they must go into the field and eat the seeds before they become victim of the nets, but the birds refuse to listen to the swallow’s insight, caring only for their immediate gratification, and they do not eat the seed. The swallow reiterates her pleas later in the summer, and again in the fall, asking that the birds eat the seed, but they do not listen, and when winter comes the birds are weak from lack of food. They take up residence among the harvested seeds in a barn, and the farmer, just as the swallow predicted, fashioned nets, and laid out chaff on top of them. Again, thinking only of their stomachs, the birds are so hungry they believe the chaff is grain, they begin to eat, and are trapped in the nets. This usage of the chaff is reminiscent of the cock in the first fable, who takes the chaff with the grain, preferring even the empty calories of the waste to the jasp, which he realizes is useless to him. These birds have also taken this empty chaff, but there is no grain mixed in—they, unlike the cock, do not have the wisdom to take only what they need. They are punished for their lack of wisdom—Henryson describes their brutal death, saying the butcher “beit thay birdis down,” striking some on the head and some on the neck. The wise swallow

172 escapes, and says that this often happens to those that don’t take advice, but she too has suffered, since she has lost all her friends. In the moralitas, Henryson likens the farmer to a fiend, who goes about day and night, sowing poison in the soul of man, regardless of their behavior. The birds that are caught in the trap he compares to wretched people who are interested only in the goods of this life, which are just like the chaff that was used to trap them—without substance. The swallow, who escaped from the fiend, is likened to a preacher who warns people about the chaff, even if they do not listen—very reminiscent of the preaching that Aesop mentions as bring ignored in the previous fable. Henryson then turns to lament, just as he did in “The Sheep and the Dog”, before the interjection of Aesop. This time he looks not to heaven, but to hell—“quhat cair, quhat weiping is and wo,/ Quehn Saull and bodie departit ar in twane!/ The bodie to the wormis Keitching go,/ The Saull to Frye” [what care, what weeping there is, and whoa, when the soul and body are parted in two. The body goes to the worms’ kitchen (the ground), and the soul to the fire]286 He reminds the reader that the chaff—earthly possessions that the unwise birds could not leave behind— are of no help in Hell, for they are of this world rather than eternal. He then ends the fable chiding the reader to pray for four things: to be “fra sin remufe,” to “seis all weir and stryfe,” to maintain “perfite cheritie and lufe,” and lastly that in the end of our lives we may “in blis with Angellis to be fallow.”287 These prayers reflect the same kind of wisdom that Henryson has been advocating from the start—a kind of complex wisdom, but one that is very worth noting. Henryson’s brutal description of the eternal end for the birds emphasizes this—the casting off of moral lessons is not only unwise on earth, but brings about eternal damnation. The Wolf and the Lamb The next three fables are taken from the Reynardian tradition, and I will not comment extensively on them here, but I will note that they do continue the precedent set in “The Preaching of the Swallow," emphasizing that moral behavior certainly won't be rewarded in this life, but it is still significant, as it is the key to a reward in the afterlife. In

286 1930-3. 287 1945-9; and here, Henryson foreshadows his arguments in the end of the collection, that the only place that morality is rewarded is when the soul is in heaven.

173 the twelfth fable, Henryson begins to shift his moral focus slightly, so as to remind his readers of the examination of the complexity of moral lessons that he argues for in the first half of the fables. This story, “The Wolf and the Lamb,” where the lamb is murdered simply for drinking in the same stream as the wolf, has a very similar feel to the earlier “Sheep and the Dog,” and again features the lamb as an innocent creature who cannot be saved by moral behavior. This shift back to the lesson of the first half of the fables comes right before the end of collection, as Henryson begins to sum up his work. By returning to his earlier theme in these last two fables, Henryson ties his morals together—it becomes clear that he wants to emphasize the essential seriousness of the lessons learned in the fables, but all the while calling into question the various pitfalls of the fable form in conveying these morals a simple truths rather than complex wisdom. This fable is second in the elegiac Romulus, and "The Wolf and the Lamb" is often illustrated, clearly a popular fable, that the reader would have been familiar with. A lamb begins to drink downstream from a wolf, and the wolf, offended, accuses the lamb of polluting his drinking water. The lamb points out the impossibility of this, but the wolf is not convinced, and argues that he also knew the lamb's father, and he too committed the same crime. The sheep again argues, saying that it is unjust that he be punished for his father, but this further enrages the wolf, and he devours the sheep. The moral in the elegiac Romulus is a mere two lines, and simply warns "Sic nocet innocuo nocuus, causamque nocendi/Invenit. Hi regnant qualibet urbe lupi'" [Thus a harmful one hurts the innocent, and he finds a reason for hurting. Such wolves reign in any city.]288 Henryson's fable is rather similar to the elegiac Romulus, but, as in many of his fables, the dialogue between the sheep and the wolf is drastically lengthened in order to show again that the legal system is unjust. Rather than just reasoning with the wolf, the lamb then tries to appeal to the court system, so that Henryson has the opportunity to once again show that there is no morality to be found under the law. The reader of the collection will know from the earlier fable of the sheep and the dog that this system is just as likely to condemn the lamb as the wolf alone is, but still the lamb attempts to convince the wolf that the lion, who serves as judge, could institute justice. Henryson, having already shown this corruption allows the wolf to dismiss even the idea of a fair

288 Lines 15-6 of De Lupo et Agno” in the elegiac Romulus

174 trail as ridiculous in the current legal system: “thow wald Intruse ressoun/ Quhair wrang and reif suld dwell in propertie.” [You would insert reason where wrong and villainy should rightly rule]289 Then, to emphasize that there is no escape from the villainy, the lamb, just as the sheep, is punished even though he has proved his innocence to the reader. This time, driving his view home, Henryson doesn’t spare his reader—the sheep isn't simply devoured as the elegiac Romulus reads. Rather, the lamb is gruesomely beheaded, the wolf drinks his blood, and then tears his flesh and eats it. Henryson ends the fable with a question, forcing his reader reflect on the lamb’s innocence, and broaden the lesson to their own world: “Of his murther quhat sall we say, allace?/ Wes not this reuth, we not this grit pietie,/ To gar this selie Lamb but gilt thus de?” [Of his murder what shall we say, alas? Was not this a shame, was not this a great pity, that this spotless lamb should thus die.]290 Following the precedent from “The Sheep and the Dog,” it appears that the efficacy of moral behavior is yet again being questioned. The sheep struggles vainly to prove her innocence, but her reward, also, can only come in the afterlife. Henryson begins the moralitas by relating the lamb to the innocent people, and the wolf to oppressors of the poor, a reading that can hardly seem shocking to his readers. But, importantly, after using the previous three fables to show how men can be easily persuaded to become villainous, Henryson finally defines specifically which types of men he is referring to. Rather than the simple moral warning of the "injurious man" found in the elegiac Romulus, Henryson determines three types of wolves which he claims now reign in this world: the false preventer of the laws, the mighty men who have plenty but are still greedy, and a man of inheritance who leases his land unfairly. This first type of wolf, Henryson has clearly illustrated in this fable—he implies that he knows right from wrong, but in fact his version of the law is a “fraudis Intricait.” This type of wolf, Henryson rewards with the fires of hell. The second type of wolf, who represents greed, a sin that is flushed out in many of the Reynardian tales. The third wolf, the reader may

289 2693-4; like Lydgate, Henryson is effectively throwing his hands up here, and admitting there is no justice that he can see in the world. 290 2704-6; this description puts Lydgate’s sheep to shame, and is only one of many of brutal deaths in this collection. Henryson seems to use this brutality to capture the attention of his readers while reemphasizing his arguments.

175 find a bit unfamiliar—Henryson gives us no examples of dishonest landowners in the fables, yet nonetheless he has found this to be an apt moment to warn his reader against them. This separation of the villain into a tripartite warning shows the importance of understanding the complexity of moral behavior—a clear-cut lesson between right and wrong will not suffice (just as it did not for the sheep) because there are many different types of wrong in the world that must be negotiated. Here Henryson seems determine to complicate the "injurious men" of the elegiac Romulus by showing that there is not simply one type of villain to be aware of, as the fable seems to imply. Henryson's moral shows that villains abound, looking to deceive the innocent in so many ways that it is impossible to resist. The last stanza summarizes Henryson’s lament, and offers a prayer of hope for his readers, who must be feeling rather hopeless, all the while serving as a kind of benediction for the fable collection. Henryson prays: God keip the Lamb, quhilk is the Innocent, From Wolfis byit and fell extortioneris; God grant that wrangous men of fals Intent Be manifest, an punischit as effeiris; And God, as thow all rychteous prayer heiris, Mot saif our King, and gif him hart and hand All six Wolfis to banes of the land. [God keep the Lamb, who is the Innocent, from the wolf’s bite and false extortioners; God grant that evil men of false intent. Be manifest, and punished as suitable; and God, as you hear all righteous prayers, please save our king, and give him heart and hand to banish all such Wolves from the land.]291 This prayer is very different from the lament at the end of the Sheep and the Dog—as a conclusion to the second half of the fables, Henryson offers a reason for his readers to live morally, even if this moral living is complex. Even as their world is ruled by “wolves,” perhaps God—and even more promising, a future just king, would someday rescue them from the torture that is depicted in the preceding fable.

291 2770-6

176 This fable, just as the earlier "The Sheep and the Dog," marks the end of a section of the collection, and, even though it is grimmer than “The Sheep and the Dog,” through its moral this fable also seems to be meant to offer same kind of encouragement for the moral living that Henryson promises after the middle fable. The fable gives a kind of ending lesson for the reader—it depicts almost everything that Henryson hopes to accomplish in his collection. The reader is reminded that they are forced to live in an immoral world where living morally is complex and cannot always be achieved according to simple Aesopic morals, while they are at the same time encouraged that their own moral behavior will pay off, and even more than this, may be eventually rewarded, perhaps in their own lifetime. The Paddock and the Mouse The last fable in the collection, “The Paddock and the Mouse,” is particularly gruesome, effectively wrapping up Henryson’s arguments that moral behavior will not be rewarded. A mouse is attempting to cross a stream, and relies on a deceptive frog for help, who quickly attempts to drown him, but both are punished as they are snatched and eaten by a bird overhead. Found early in the elegiac Romulus collection, Henryson relocates this fable so that it falls last in his collection in order to argue that the moral advice from the fables is not only ineffective, but potentially deadly. In the elegiac Romulus, this fable has two morals lessons; the first is marked with pilcrows in lines three and four: "Omne genus pestis superat mens dissona verbis,/Cum sentes animi florida lingua polit" [A mind that is discordant with its words surpasses every kind of pest, while a florid tongue smooths the thorns of the mind" The second comes in the moral at the end of the fable, and reads: "Sic pereant qui se prodesse fatentur et obsunt;/Discat in auctorem poenam redire suum." [May those die who claim that they are helping and hurt; let him learn that the punishment returns against its own author].292 Just as in the previous fables, the lesson of the epimythium remains consistent in Henryson's fable, but the internal moral lesson, which cautions of the danger of a mind out of harmony, is again complicated as the character of the mouse to emphasizes this rather than the frog. Ultimately, Henryson uses this final fable to subvert a number of the simple moral lessons of the elegiac Romulus by showing how complex moral behavior on this

292 Lines 3-4 and 15-16 in the elegiac Romulus

177 earth is; the carnage of this final fable gruesomely puts an end to a simple interpretation of the fable genre. Interestingly, in this fable Henryson depicts the mouse as a simple character, of the kind that the reader familiar with the elegiac Romulus would have expected when picking up the fable collection. Now, however, at the end of the collection, it seems to be Henryson's hope that he has trained his reader to realize that had the mouse acted wisely and discerningly as the cock in the first fable, or the mouse in the two mice fable, he would have been able to apply the complex moralities that Henryson shows. Here, it is the mouse’s simple-mindedness allows her to be easily swayed by the paddock’s rhetoric, and ultimately ends in her destruction. Her acceptance of the paddock’s moral teaching can represent the acceptance of the fabular morals—both are destroyed in the end of the fable, replaced with a complex understanding of moral behavior as requiring shrewdness and reason. The mouse seems to have forgotten the cautioning against simple moral living that is taught in the collection (that is, that it leads to an unsavory end), and instead is influenced by the paddock’s smooth talk to trust him. The reader empathizes with the mouse, who is only trying to reach better food, but can easily see that she is being deceived. The mouse uses logical reasoning to argue that the paddock is an evil character, but is then easily talked out of her own logic. In allowing herself to be talked out of her convictions, it is the mouse whose "mind is out of harmony with its words," as the elegiac Romulus cautions. The paddock that Henryson depicts as a trickster figure is far more careful than other villains—he knows that the mouse is judging his character based on appearance, and he appeals to the moral teaching that discourages this. Through this, Henryson is able to show that yet another simple fabular moral has far more complex implications than the reader originally may have thought. The mouse has not learned to negotiate in this world of complex morality, and instead applies the black-and-white learning that the elegiac Romulus encourages to her demise. In order to teach this lesson, the fable begins with the mouse coming to a river that was so deep that she could not cross. The mouse cries out for help, and is answered by a nearby paddock, explaining that she desired to cross the water because of the better food on the other side. The paddock offers to help her, but the mouse, after looking the animal over is skeptical: “Giff I can ony skill of Phisnomy,/ Thow hes sumpart off falset

178 and Invy.” [If I have any skill of Physiognomy, you have some part of falseness and animosity].293 Very interestingly, the mouse then goes on to explain the physiognomies that she has learned—“For Clerkis sayis the Inclinatioun/ Of mannis thocht proceidis commounly/ Efter the Corporall complexioun” [For scholars say, the inclination of man’s thought proceeds commonly after his corporal complexion], or, in short, that a man acts how his constitution dictates.294 The mouse questions the toads appearance, which had previously been described as wrinkled and sagging, clearly supposing that the appearance can in fact define the man, but the paddock quickly replies that this proverb is not true, and chides the mouse for believing such silly things, discussing for many stanzas that many people may be “full flurischand” but be “full of desait.” This critique of judging by appearance rather than character is a common one—it is even one that is emphasized at times in the elegiac Romulus—to never “judge a book by its cover.” But Henryson, in effect, by including the mouse’s discussion on physiognomy rather than just having her express her skepticism as in the earlier collection, illustrates that a man of questionable appearance may in fact be of questionable character, showing again there are pitfalls to the traditional fabular morals. The paddock’s speech almost convinces the mouse, forcing her to again fall victim to another moral, the one that is emphasized in the elegiac Romulus about the mind being out of harmony with words—until the paddock proposes tying them together with a “twynit threid.” The mouse revolts at this thought, saying “suld I be bund and fast quhar I am fre” [should I be bound and fast where I am free.]295) But, after the paddock swears an oath that he means well, the mouse trusts him and the two are yoked together, the mouse once and for all silencing the disparities between her mind and her words. Just

293 2824-5; this mouse character has a number of different interesting iterations as we have moved through the fable collections—from Marie’s feminine mouse, to this incredibly well educated character—she seems to be a vehicle for the author to develop characterization, as any development in her character makes her death all the more painful to read. 294 2826-8; better known as “don’t judge a book by its cover.” 295 2861 When viewed in light of Henryson’s eventual moral, which emphasizes the relationship between the body and the soul, this moment seems to signify the tying of the free, spiritual soul to the earthly body. The mouse’s protest then is equivalent to the soul (perhaps here seen as the moral self) crying out at being “tied” to an immoral body—the soul longs to do right while the body does evil.

179 as the mouse suspected, the paddock meant to drown her, and she begins to struggle as this becomes clear. A kite, perched nearby, sees the struggle, and captures both animals. The fable, and Henryson’s work, ends as the kite murders both the paddock and the mouse, in the most hopeless scene of the collection: Syne bowell thame, that Boucheour with his bill, And belliflaucht full fettillie thame flaid; Bot all thair flesche wald scant be half ane fill And guttis als, unto that gredie gled. [For a long time he disemboweled them, that Butcher with his bill,/ and fully, deftly flayed them but all their flesh would scarcely half fill, even guts and all, that greedy kite.]296 So both the paddock and the ,ouse are killed, but their death seems to have been in vain, as they, combined, don’t even provide a full meal for the kite. In a move that Stephen Khinoy calls chilling for its complexity, the moralitas begins with the two morals that Henryson has already emphasized in the fables, even in the previous “The Wolf and the Lamb”— to be careful of wicked appearances, and not to keep false company.297 He then emphasizes the mouse’s reluctance to give up her freedom by saying “it is grit nekligence/ To bind the fast quhair thow wes frank and fre;/ Fra thow be bund, thow may make na defence.” [it is great negligence to bind fast where you were open and free, from the moment you bound you make no defence.]298 Clearly, Henryson’s reader isn’t going to be physically bound as the mouse was, but he seems to emphasize that making a bad association can be just as condemning as this literal tying— it removes one’s freedom. This emphasis on binding could be meant to symbolize a metaphorical binding to the simplistic morals of the traditional fables—Henryson uses the image to show the ridiculousness of attaching oneself so unwaveringly to this kind of single-minded interpretation of moral truth.

296 2903-6; again, an incredibly gruesome moral, creating an image the reader cannot forget. 297 Certainly, some of the chill Khinoy (11) must come from the over descriptive disemboweling of the animals as well. 298 2926-9; unlike Marie, here the blame is placed directly on the mouse for her inability to judge character.

180 Henryson then explains that the mouse is to represent the soul and the paddock the body, which are inseparable until “cruell deith cum brek of lyfe the threid.” [cruel death come break the thread of life]299 Henryson relates the water to the world, in which the body and soul are traveling together, and the kite to death, as she has appeared suddenly. With these metaphors in place, Henryson then takes one last moment to encourage his reader to “make the ane strange Castell/ Of gude deidis” [Make a strong castle of good deeds], so that they are not caught unaware as the mouse.300 Henryson seems to be spiritually concerned about the souls of his reader—he urges them to moral behavior through a parsing of the body and soul that illustrates eternal doom for the wicked, or even those who listen to wicked counsel. After showing how complex moral behavior on this earth is, the carnage of this final fable gruesomely puts an end to a simple interpretation of the fable genre. Had the mouse acted wisely and discerningly as the cock in the first fable, or the mouse in the central fable and casting aside the too-simple moral lessons of the elegiac Romulus, she would have been able to apply the complex moralities that Henryson shows, but her simple-mindedness allows her to be easily swayed by the paddock’s rhetoric, and ultimately ends in her destruction. Her simple acceptance of the paddock’s moral teaching can represent a simple acceptance of the fabular morals—both are destroyed in the end of the fable, replaced with a complex understanding of moral behavior as requiring shrewdness and reason. Conclusions In his collection, Henryson does not simply fulfill his reader’s expectations for the fable. Instead he forces his reader to turn back to the elegiac Romulus fable collection and reexamine its definition of moral learning. Using lines that the readers of the elegiac Romulus had marked as significant, Henryson provides scenarios which are direct contradictions to these lines in order to develop an increasingly complex world through his fables, providing a social commentary that questions the authority of the ruling class

299 2951; Henryson may call death cruel, but he clearly doesn’t actually believe this, as it seems to be his only hope for release from the immoral world. 300 2965-6; even with all of his discussion of the soul and the body, and the eventual fate of the soul, this is the most religious moment in the fables, when Henryson actually encourages some kind of behavior out of his readers.

181 and judicial system. Through this commentary Henryson shows time and again that, in the corrupted universe of his fables (and, presumably, of the world), humble, moral behavior does not always reap the rewards promised by the fables of the elegiac Romulus. He is not only appropriating fabular authority, but in fact is also challenging his reader to explore the possibilities and limitations of the traditional fable. Henryson illustrates that a simplistic approach to the fable genre can involve dangers of its own. Often frustrating expectations, he warns against a lazy or inappropriate reading of the fables. Henryson is asking his reader to consider a different type of fable, then: a fable that explores the potential shortcomings of its own genre, while at the same time illustrating how the genre can be utilized to great ends. The moral of Henryson’s work is very different from the morals in the elegiac Romulus that his reader would have been familiar with. Through the use of complex moral lessons, multifaceted characters, and convoluted behaviors, Henryson illustrates that the simplistic moral lessons that are typically associated with Aesop may not be applicable in actual earthly practice. He illustrates time and again that the reward for this kind of behavior is not to be found in a better life on this earth, as the elegiac Romulus implies, but in a promise of eternal happiness. The aim of Henryson’s fables does not seem to be further moral lessons—he realizes that this is no answer to an already complicated moral situation. Instead, Henryson teaches a different understanding of the fabular tradition, his fables, and other beast literature as well, through his inclusion of the Reynardian tradition. He asks his reader to realize that there are limitations to the Aesopic form, but to accept these limitations, and he negotiates the lessons in these fables so that they are more practical. Henryson’s work does not seem to offer a complete translation of, nor a replacement for the traditional fable collections—it merely uses some of these works to show how they can be complicated to better understand their functions within society. But, although Henryson metaphorically jumps on the dead body of Aesop through the mouse’s jumping on the lion, and slays simplistic understandings of fables through a slew of brutal murders in the end of the collection, he does not seem to advocate an erasure of Aesopic learning. These moments can be seen as ironic and poignant, forcing the reader to realize that they are to take an active part in fable interpretation rather than

182 allowing moral lessons to be spoon-fed. In fact, just as the devoured mouse in the final fable, the man who does not realize the essential seriousness of the fabular form and the morals therein is certainly sentenced to an eternal damnation. Robert Henryson’s Morall Fabillis of Esope are exhaustingly long, shockingly specific, and highly spiritual. His characters do not function as typical fable characters, and his morals reflect his specific worldview. But he illustrates that these “fenyeit Fabills” are much less false than many other similar works. For those that can “to gude purpois quha culd it weill apply” [to good purpose can it well apply], Henryson’s collection offers a set of directions for negotiating between the world of the fabulist and this one, for understanding the complexities and pitfalls of simple fables, and for extending beyond these complexities to reason and wisdom.301 If this lesson is learned, the reader, following the example of the cock, should be able to pick out their personal “chaff and grain,” and leave the jasps behind, equipped with the knowledge of what exactly will benefit them long beyond their lifetime.

301 Line 14 in Henryson’s prologue.

183 Chapter 5: Moving Back to the Classical: William Caxton’s The Fables of Aesop, and other print versions In 1480, a German doctor, Heinrich Steinhowel translated the Latin Aesop into German, and worked with printer Johann Zainer to produce a bilingual edition of Steinhowel's work, which contained both the Latin and the German text. This edition of the fables is particularly comprehensive, containing not just all 60 fables from the elegiac Romulus, but also the narrative “Life of Aesop” as a preface, 27 fables by Avianus, another popular medieval collection, 13 tales from the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus, and 7 fables from to Poggio; these additions made the collection especially popular, not only in Germany, but also in other European nations. But the real key to Steinhowel's success was the more than two hundred woodcuts which accompanied the text that have been copied so widely that they have become nearly synonymous with the early modern fable.302. In the fall of 1480, Julien Macho of Lyons, translated the collection into French. The woodcuts in this French edition are almost identical to those in the German work, except that they appear in reverse, a feature of the copying procedure.303

302 We have very few clues as to who the artist of these woodcuts was, butone leading theory is Jorg Syrlin the Elder, who was famous for carving the choir stalls at the Ulm Catherdral in 1474. 303 The reversed copies were made by tracing the original images, and then laying these tracings face down onto the new blocks. It had been widely believed William Caxton copied his woodcuts and translated the fables from Julien Macho’s Lyonesse edition, but in his study, Martin Davies discusses a fragmentary source. Davies illustrates that Caxton's translations continuously side with the wording from the fragment, especially in places where the wording different drastically between the 1480 French edition and the fragment.303 Aside from establishing a source text for Caxton's translation, this discovery also alters our understanding of where Caxton got the images for his text. It has long been argued that Caxton's woodcuts are rather crude redrawings from the 1480 Lyonesse edition, made freehand by the illustrator of Caxton's text. However, as Davies illustrates, this is not possible, as the Caxton images all face the same directions as the 1480 French images. In order for this to be the case, the illustrator would have had to reverse all of the images in his drawings, so that the cuts would not be reversed when printed on the page, which, based on the crude condition of the images, is very unlikely. It is much more likely that Caxton's images were copied from the fragment images, which were copied from the 1480 French edition (which was in turn copied from the Ulm woodcuts), therefore the fragments images are backwards from both its source and its antecedent, Caxton's edition.303

184 This print edition of the fables was influential in the development of the print book and literacy in the late 1400’s, as well as solidifying the fables popularity moving into the early modern era. The comprehensiveness of this fable collection brought together classical, medieval, and even early modern fables to create a set of fables that were truly applicable to their time. The woodcuts that accompanied the print collection not only helped to increase its popularity, but they also paired with these vernacular translations to aid in developing literacy. The fable editions by Steinhowel, Macho, and Caxton, while translations, reimagine and reorganize fables to present a collection that is both reflective of medieval tradition, but also carefully aimed at the needs of their audience. Of these print fable editions, William Caxton’s fables are of particular note. Unlike Steinhowel and Macho, Caxton printed the fables as a much larger canon of work, with a clear intent towards making them part of a larger collection of texts. Caxton also goes beyond simple translation in his fables; he augments the collection by adding a few fables that seem to be of his own composition, and reworks fables to make arguments suitable for his readers. Just as in the medieval texts, Caxton deliberately articulates a message of moral living, while at the same time using his fables to argue for the rising significance of the printed book as a means to share these morals and other such lessons. The Woodcuts The woodcuts featured in the print version of the fables help distinguish these collections from their source in the elegiac Romulus, situate the print fables in the early modern period, and were used to help readers develop their literacy skills. As Martha Driver indicates in her work on illustration, early print books, such as the Aesop, and their woodcuts enhance and aid in the development of literacy and reading practices in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. The woodcuts could be used to assist the readers in extrapolating the meaning of the written text, even if they could not read it completely, and thereby also aid in developing recognition of words. These (relatively) cheap, illustrated books had a strong role in self-education, and the woodcuts contained within these works can teach us about early audiences and the ways that they read and understood texts. Print also increased the number of books that were available to the public, and ownership of books became possible to a large number of people for the first

185 Figure 1: An example of a woodcut, for “The Fable of the Rat and of the Frogge” time.304 Driver also notes that vernacular literacy was developed in the years leading up to the Reformation (or the years that the print fables circulated), and this rise is in direct relationship to the increased xsproduction of books, especially illustrated books. Woodcut images allowed for "rapid communication of visual information and ideas, with familiar pictures from familiar stories contributing to the development of literacy."305 Although Driver argues that woodcuts created a network of meaning for texts, she limits that network to English language texts. My analysis postulates that the network created by the fable woodcuts extended across nations, as the images used were repeated alongside text in different vernacular languages in the Macho, Steinhowel, and Caxton texts. There is also a difference between block books, such as the fable texts, and books printed with moveable type; they are directed at two different kinds of audiences. Picture books are a

304 Driver (2) again discusses the relationship between print and images at far greater length in her work. 305 Driver 3

186 transitional phase between hearing the story and reading it, while illustrated books were designed for lay use and for readers that might be more practiced at interpreting visual rather than verbal signs.306 Driver argues that "the reading of visual and/or verbal signs becomes a question of perception as well as of literacy... reading the image not only aids in reading the text, but fixes the contents of the text in the memory.” 307 As Avril Hjenry notes "Pictures in this mode can only 'instruct' if you already know what they mean. They then act as reminders of the known truth."308 Driver notes that just like the text of the fables itself, the woodcuts are not meant to be interpreted as direct documentary evidence. Many woodcuts relationship to reality (in this case the reality of, or the plot of the fable) is rather complex. Most of the woodcuts are not directly accurate portrayals of the action of each individual fable, although some of them certainly are. Instead, the viewer/reader brings their cultural predispositions to the interpretation of the woodcut, and they are asked to combine this with what is on the page in order to come to an interpretation of the work. Even thought the woodcut is largely a feature of the era of print, the woodcut also reflected a tradition of illustration in the medieval fable. Quite a few of the early fable manuscripts contain images used to illustrate the fables, including the British Libraries Add MS 37780 and 37781. A number of fables area lso illustrated in other art forms, including most famously in the Bayeux Tapestry, and in the stonework of the Fontana Maggiore in central Italy, which dates to about 1270. Although some manuscripts, such as Add MS 33781, provide illustration for many of the individual fables, it isn't until the rise of print and the use of woodcuts in illustration that illustrated fable books became truly popular. Indeed, what is largely acknowledged by bibliographers to be the first typographical book of any genre with illustrations, Dominican Ulrich Boner's Der Edelstein is a book of fables.309

306 Ibid 16 307 Ibid 19 308 Hjenry (qtd in Driver 21) emphasizes exactly the role of the woodcut in the fable— bringing clearer interpretation to an already familiar text. 309 Martin Davies. “A Tale of Two Aesops.” The Library 7.3 (2006): 257–288. library.oxfordjournals.org. Web. (259). Many of the fables in Der Edelstein are from the Aesopic tradition, but are not attributed to Aesop in the work.

187 The combination of the woodcuts with the vernacular translation was also significant for the development of literacy. Driver argues that "the repetition of woodcuts created, perhaps not entirely intentionally, networks of meaning across a variety of contexts, testing the ingenuity of early printers to transmit visually the message of the word."310 In the case of the Aesop, the network that the woodcuts created can be clearly

Figure 2: The image for "The Fable of the Dogge and of the Sheep" depicts how the woodcuts can represent the action of the fable traced across continents. The same image was used beside what is essentially the same text, but in different languages, making it easy to read the image as an aid in understanding text. In Steinhowel's edition, where the German and the Latin are side by side, the woodcuts could be seen as helping the reader successfully make the translation between the languages. In Macho and Caxton's editions, where the woodcut simply accompanies the fable in the vernacular, it would seem that the woodcut then helps the reader with vernacular literacy. While Driver's argument extends to all texts, the aid of

310 Here Driver (2) implies that woodcuts are placed in different contexts through their repetition, and it was up to the medieval author to situate the woodcut to convey the appropriate messaging.

188 woodcuts can be see as particularly significant in fable collections; because fables are so short, and typically there is only relatively simple action occurring, the illustration in the fable more directly calls to mind the fable it is meant to represent. Almost all of the woodcuts in the print fable collection show every animal character in the fable, even if all of these animals don't appear at exactly the same time in the actual fable. This further emphasizes the role that the woodcuts might have had in helping the reader establish vernacular literacy, for again, as Driver emphasizes, "picture books are a transitional phase between hearing the story and reading it, while illustrated books were designed for lay use, for readers that might be more practices at interpreting visual rather than verbal signs."311 The woodcuts aid the reader in interpreting the fables, thereby simplifying their engagement with the text, and allowing them to more easily interact with the content of the fables themselves. Caxton and Connectivity While Steinhowel, Macho, and Caxton all did a great deal to bring the fable to a different audience in the early modern period, Caxton’s fables are worth additional attention because of the place he gives them among his other print work.312 Caxton’s canon includes almost entirely literary works, including Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte de Arthur. By adding the fables into his collection of print works, Caxton puts them into a literary tradition, and cements their role as a part of

311 Driver (16) provides repeated and strong arguments for the different ways that images work in medieval texts to aid comprehension. 312 Scholars such as N.F. Blake have dismissed Caxton’s work as lacking in style and language, and frequently misunderstanding the original French. Garrett responds to this by arguing that Caxton's motivations were much different than a more "poetic" author or translator, such Chaucer, or even Henryson. Caxton is simply trying to create a market for his works, and to appeal to the already educated English people. Caxton was both working for the court ("the king's printer") while also trying to establish himself as a businessman, and is more interested in producing faithful rather than imaginative translations. Kuskin also embraces Caxton's model of reproduction rather than creation. He argues that just because Caxton's work is reproductive doesn't keep it from being dynamic, and calls Caxton's system "an intellectual mechanism of appropriation and consolidation (16). Caxton's model of reproduction over creation actually allows him to make a number of interesting innovations, not least of which is the consolidation of texts into something of a canon.

189 literature and the literary canon for the future. As Richard Garrett notes in his study of Caxton's fables, more so than any other medieval fable collection, as both a printer and a fabulist, Caxton found himself at the center of a complex "multilingual, multicultural ethos in late fifteenth-century London.”313 As both a translator and a printer, it seems that Caxton was interested in the translation of culture-- that he felt obliged to choose genres that he believed would sell, but that would also have a moral or educational value for his readers.314 As Garrett notes, the entire canon of Caxton's work (including his non-literary texts, such as legal treaties), because it puts so many works in the English vernacular, plays a significant role in conceptualizing the English nation of the late fifteenth century.315 This attention to English nationalizing is, of course, in part because of his printing of Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, which had an indisputable impact on the developing of English nationality, but it is also because of the sheer number of works that he translated from the French into English.316 Caxton’s fable collection is also significant because of the methods he uses to brings together the elegiac Romulus, a distinctly medieval collection, with other medieval and classical fable forms, such as the Avianus, Alphonsus, and Poggio fables, effectively

313 Garrett ( “Modern Translator or Medieval Moralist?: William Caxton and Aesop.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 37 (2012): 47–70. Print. p. 47) describes the political and cultural make up of Caxton’s time in great detail. 314 Garrett details all of the genres that he believes were popular with Caxton's readers, including saint's lives, manner guides, manuals of chivalry, and romances, and argues that Caxton's readers expected him to produce texts in these genres because they reflected the "popular culture" of the time (48). 315 As Garrett notes (49) we can certainly trace some parts of our literary canon back to Caxton’s decisions as a printer. 316 Garrett 49; Kuskin argues that Caxton's work in the fifteenth century helped to create a narrative of fluidity between Latin as the language of print and the use of the vernacular. He notes "Caxton's work with the press is tied to the specifically vernacular production of knowledge and this implicates it in a series of irresolvable, yet nevertheless powerfully reproductive paradoxes: vernacularity within Latinity; heterodoxy within orthodoxy; literacy within unread books; and capitalist nationalism within an economy driven, largely, by manorial tenancy. (11)" Martha Driver also speaks to the relationship between rising literacy and works like Caxton's in her text: With the introduction of printing, books were suddenly available to people who could not previously afford them, people who were often partially literate or literate only in the vernacular. In many cases woodcuts, initials, and page layout in books produced by the English printers act as guides through difficult or partially comprehended texts, indirectly promoting literacy by acting as signals or symbols of the texts and inviting the reader to read them.

190 honoring fable tradition while simultaneously repositioning the fable collection for the early modern period. This compiling of works allows for a more historically complete, more complex fable collection to form and circulate into the early modern period, complete with the life of Aesop as an introduction. This is not the only compilation of works that Caxton prints; as a printer he seems to be concerned with bringing works together into a collection and presenting them in a way that he believes would allow each individual part of the collection to appeal to his audience.317 For Caxton, putting the fables into a collection allows them to serve a more complete moral and educational function and allows him to reemphasize and build upon moral lessons throughout the text. Caxton’s work at compilation is also interesting because it combines a return of the classical fable forms with a representing of a medieval work, all the while emphasizing the significance of the vernacular. Caxton’s emphasis on completeness in all of his works is so strong that Kuskin notes: “it is far better that we acknowledge it as a process jointly material and intellectual, and in doing so seek to understand the historical reasons for any one particular construction.”318 Another significant feature of all of Caxton's work, but particularly the fable collection, is that it helps to address what William Kuskin terms "the issues of connections from the age of Chaucer and the high Middle Ages and Renaissance originality." Rather than the commonly assumed model that notes the rupture between these two time periods, looking at Caxton's works helps to demonstrate the fifteenth century as a time of transition, and of connections, to the Renaissance.319 This can be advocated for the entire canon of Caxton's work, as much of his model revolves around

317 For example in the fables, Caxton would have had to work to draw his readers into the more classical fables, as they would have been far more familiar with the elegiac Romulus. He couches the elegiac Romulus between the life of Aesop and the Greek fables, likely for this exact reason. 318 Kuskin (5) builds on this idea of completeness to also note that although it might be possible to look at one work by an author, it is far better, especially in the instance of an author like Caxton who was deeply involved in “both the intellectual contents and material forms of literary reproduction” to look at all of the works produced by that author, a practice he terms symbolic bibliography. 319 Kuskin (4) notes that often the shift from manuscript to print culture is noted to help smooth the transitions between the two time periods, but that this does little more than gloss over the issue. Rather, Kuskin advocates for a model of connectivity, which sees the fifteenth century as full of transition.

191 taking medieval texts and putting them into a new medium for greater circulation-- in essence bringing the stories of the manuscripts into the Renaissance. But, Caxton's fable collection can also be seen as a kind of subset of this argument. Caxton takes the medieval model of fables from the elegiac Romulus and translates the Latin into English so that they can be better understood by an audience that is increasingly reading in the vernacular. In this translation, Caxton maintains the original order, and "feel" of the Latin fables, but modernizes the language, the word order, and the concepts for his ever- shifting audience. Caxton's treatment of the elegiac Romulus is at the same time classical and fresh; he tells the fable stories, but he does so in a way that becomes relevant to the political and social situation of his time.320 But Caxton does not just use the elegiac Romulus fables to form this collection; his addition of The Life of Aesop, as well as the Avianus, Alphonsus, and Poggio fables fables also speak to the transition of the fable genre, and create a new type of fable collection. The Life of Aesop had only recently been translated from the Greek into Latin by Italian humanist Rinuccio da Castiglione of Arezzo in the early 1400s, and it is this translation that is the foundation both for this section as well as the inclusion of some Romulus fables that are not a part of the medieval elegiac Romulus. Translated from the earlist Greek collection, the Babrius, Avianus' fables are the earliest Latin fable collection (c AD 400), but although Alexander Neckam produced an edition of them in the 12th century, they did not circulate widely during the Middle Ages. The collection also includes thirteen tale-length fables from the Disciplina Clericalis, a 12th century work by Petrus Alphonsus. Unlike the Romulus fables, Alfonsus' sources are moralizing tales from the oriental tradition, which he translated from Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit. The Disciplina Clericalis was popular in the Middle Ages, but not as a fabular text; rather it was used in religious discourses. Last, Caxton includes fables by another very early Italian humanist, Poggio Bracciolini.321 Like the Alfonsi, Poggio's works were intended to be longer fabliaux, and are taken from his work Liber Facetiarum or Facetiae, a collection of humorous (and rather indecent) Latin tales, but they are included here as

321 Poggio (1380-1459) interestingly served as a scriptor under seven different popes, and is known largely for his discoveries and recovering of a number of classical Latin manuscripts.

192 fables.322 Notably, while Steinhowel (and Macho's French edition) uses seven fables from Poggio's Facetiae, Caxton chooses to add seven an additional four other tales from the same work, and there are two other fables in this same section of the collection which appear to have been authored by Caxton himself.323 Thus what this collection does is indeed uniquely a product that evidences the transition between the medieval and early modern periods; it brings together medieval and classical fable sources, while at the same time also introducing two sources, the Alphonsus and the Poggio, that had not previously been understood as fables. Thereby Caxton not only bridges time periods, but also puts forward these tales as a slightly different model of fable telling. There are notable differences between Caxton and the Steinhowel and Macho editions that allow for a slightly different argument to emerge from Caxton's collection, one which emphasizes the moral uses of the fable. Steinhowel includes editorial remarks for his selections from Alphonsus and Poggio. There, he argues that these tales are clearly less appropriate to serve as moralizing fables, and he as an editor has noted this lessened suitability. Caxton does not include any editorial remarks to this regard, and he also appendages two additional fables onto the Poggio section of the work, which make it clear that his collection, while it may entertain, the does not mean to diminish the traditional fable role of moral instruction. The first of these, the tale of the widow's reply, seems to be a more sober variation of a typically more flippant reply given in the Facetiae.324 The other additional fable, Caxton which attributes to a "worshipful preest," seems to be entirely of his own conception, and depicts a parish priest, who, upon riding through the town, cannot be recognized by his parishioners. The priest realizes that this

322 In fact, it is presumed that Poggio's Facetiae were actually written to demonstrate the "living" quality of Latin-- that is, that as a language, it could still be used to amuse and entertain. As I note, inclusion in the fable collection, particularly Caxton's, steers the collection far from this intent. 323 Lenaghan (8), notes that the last six fables/tales in the Poggio section of Caxton's work form a textual unit in that they follow sequentially from each other without each one being delineated by a separate number, the only place in his collection where this occurs. 324 In this story, a widow is engaged to a widower, when a servant approaches the widow, explaining to her that her fiancee had only become a widower because he had slept with his previous wife so many times that he killer her. The widower replies "forsothe I wold be dede/ For ther is but sorowe and care in this world," a rather bleak moral to draw from the tale. (In Poggio the widower is actually a eunuch, a much more humorous outcome.)

193 means he is not performing his duty fully, and vows that from that day forward he "shold be the better/ and take more hede to his cures and benefyces that he had done."325 This fable not only ends the Poggio section, but also Caxton's entire work, and the overt morality of the tale reminds the reader of the message of self instruction that is transmitted throughout the entire book. These differences indicate that Caxton sought to follow an established fable model, but allowed himself the freedom to augment the collection in order to emphasize the moralizing function of the fables. Caxton’s fable collection seeks to address two problems that arise when you combine the fables and print, which Lenaghan identifies in his study as the vitality and elasticity of the fable. Caxton desires to situate the fable for continued popularity, and his collection also seeks to determine what defines a fable. First, Caxton positions his work to provide a means of continuity and continued success for fables. Indeed, he notes that this collection almost functions as a history of the fable, beginning with the ancient Life of Aesop, proceeding into two popular medieval collections, the elegiac Romulus and the Avianus. These are followed by the fables pulled from the tales of the Disciplina Clericalis of Alphonsus in order to illustrate another common medieval use of the fable—a combination with didactic literature. The collection ends with the most recent work, from the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini, which had been recently translated from the Greek text, and illustrated a new attention to Greek literature. Establishing the historical strength of the fable seems to be an obvious incentive for the fable author. Secondly, Caxton anticipates the problem of the mutability of the fable. As Lenaghan notes, "he has to decide what a fable is before he can assemble a collection." It seems that the basic definitely of the fable for the ancient and medieval audience might be something that combines the elements of story and moral with the aims of amusement and instruction.326 Lenaghan argues that in Steinhowel's collection this definition is much clearer, as he apologizes for Poggio's tales and insists upon the value of fable morality in his preface. Lenaghan then notes that Caxton is not particularly sensitive to this ambiguity, but I would argue that in his revisions of the Poggio section, Caxton is in fact

325 This is the final fable in the Poggio section, on page 227 in Lenaghan’s text. 326 Lenaghan (11) reiterates here just how mutable and interesting of a genre the medieval fable is, able to be reappropriated seemingly endlessly.

194 more sensitive to the moral instruction inherent in the fables than both Steinhowel and Macho. Rather than offer a mere apology for the unseemly fables, Caxton works to bring the Poggio fables in line with the rest of the collection, carefully including additional tales seemingly designed to establish their morality, and value in instruction. In these changes then, it would seem that not only is Caxton working more explicitly to make a coherent collection, but that he is also has a more focused aim on moral education in his collection. While Caxton's translation is largely word-for-word from the French of Julian Macho, there are a few notable features of the translation that can provide information about Caxton's careful tone towards his work. Caxton abridges the French narrative in places, dropping out words or phrases, which sometimes affect the understanding of later

Figure 3: The woodcut for “The Egle whiche bare a nutte in his becke,” clearly depicting a snail phrases.327 He also occasionally mistakes the identity of an animal, even when the woodcut clearly notes otherwise; such is the case in the fable “The Egle whiche bare a

327 One example of this is in the two mice fable, where Caxton translates that they country mouse had given the city mouse "of such mete as he had," rather than the more

195 nutte in his becke,” where the fable tells of an eagle who drops a nut in order to crack the shell, while the woodcut very clearly illustrates a snail about to be dropped with the same motive. These alterations don't appear to be conscious changes on Caxton's part, but rather as signs of carelessness.328 However, there is also evidence that Caxton takes careful interest in the style of his work. He inflates his prose, often doubling words unnecessarily from a single word in the French. In his Eneydos, Caxton perhaps offers an explanation for this, noting that he is attracted to "the fayr and honest termes and wordes in frenshe" and that he "wryte[s] the moste curyous termes" whilc also honoring "olde an homely termes." In the doublets of the fables, Caxton attempts to do both of these things, using one English and one French word, a "homely" term alongsize a "curyous" one.329 In his fable collection, Caxton is particularly aware of his role as a printer, and highlights the collections function as a print book in his fables, encouraging his readers to experience the work in its entirety. As Richard Garrett notes, Caxton's first fable (and also the first fable in every fable collection I discuss), the Cock and the Jasp, reveals Caxton's attitude towards his fable collection. This first fable typically uses the cock's rejection of the jasp he found in a dungheap as a metaphor to encourage the reader not to reject the moral lessons within the fables similarly; Caxton takes this argument a step furture to encourage finding morality in his own work. As to be expected, Caxton's version of the body of this fable is quite similar to the elegiac Romulus: the cock finds the stone, but decides to leave it lie, saying "but in vayne I haue found the/ For no thynge I haue to do with the/ ne no good I may doo to the/ ne thou to me." Even though the layers of translation, we can see that here, Caxton maintains the back-and-forth conversation with the gem. However, in the moral, Caxton's fable shifts slightly. Where, in previous versions, especially in the elegiac Romulus, the gem is simply referred to as "wisdom," and it is up to the reader to extrapolate that this might imply the wisdom of the fables, Caxton is quite explicit in his interpretation of the gem. Instead of noting that the correct translation which would emphasize grains of wheat; later the country mouse talks about how letting the city mouse "ete some cornes in the feldes, " which doesn't match well with the mention of mete. 328 Lenaghan (20), echoing Garrett’s concerns also argues for carelessness in Caxton’s work. 329 Lenaghan (21) analyzes Caxton’s use of both the French and English language more carefully in the prologue of his printing of the fables.

196 cock is stupid, and the jasper is to represent wisdom, which has no appeal to the stupid, Caxton's moral reads: "And thys fable sayd Esope to them that rede this book/ For by the cok is to vunderstond the fool whiche retcheth not of sapyence ne of wysedome/ as the Cok retcheth and setteth not by the precious stone/ And by the stone is to vnderstond this fayre and playsaunt book."330 Here, Caxton takes away the ambiguity of the fable interpretation, and replaces an open ended interpretation with an encouragement that his reader pay careful attention to his entire collection. He does not ask his reader to make the connection between the cocks "stupid" disregard of the gem, that is wisdom, and their own attitude towards the wisdom of the fables-- a connection which I have previously noted as vexed, as it might seem that the cock is actually rather wise for leaving the non-edible gem behind. Instead, Caxton makes the connection clear for his reader, pushing them quickly beyond any kind of confusion that this moral might not be well suited to the fable. But, more significantly here is Caxton's emphasis on the book. Rather than being concerned about fables, this fable, or a collection of fables, in this moral, it is the perception of the book as a whole that Caxton is concerned about. He indicates that the reader is to find wisdom in "this fayre and playsaunt book," encompassing not just the traditional fables, but all of the other fable literature, and the life of Aesop included in the book as well. Caxton is even careful to ascribe the concern for the integrity of the book to Esope himself-- noting that Esope said this fable to those that read the book, adding ethos to his concern for the perception of his text. Of course, the Aesop of fabular tradition certainly would not have been concerned about a book of any kind-- he passed the fables orally to his audience-- yet the rise of book making technology means that Caxton's biggest concern would be with the reception of books, so he uses Aesop as an authority figure to emphasize the veracity of his text. It is possible that Caxton is not merely identifying the gem as his own book, but encouraging his readers to pay careful attention to all books, as a newly emerging literary form. Garrett notes that it is possible that the jewel might stand for the emergence and establishment of the book as a product of print culture in England specifically, and the

330 All quotations from Caxton’s work are taken from Lenaghan’s Caxton’s Aesop; the fable of the “Cok and of the Precious Stone” can be found on page 74.

197 shifting perspective of the author that was a result of the rise of print. In this, we can see that Caxton has a particular anxiety about his own appearance as author and translator-- he is not "telling" all of these fables as Aesop did, yet he seems to be claiming authorship of them in a different way, as the presenter and interpreter of wisdom. If we buy into this heuristic, Garrett then notes that Caxton is using this fable as a means to attack his critics, or anyone that dismisses his writing or work with the printing press as ignorant fools, just like the cock. He argues that the gem is the hero of this re-written fable, and that Caxton is setting a pattern for his reader to look beyond the face value of his fables.331 Whether or not we can see Caxton's concern with the book as representative of a concern about his entire enterprise of English print culture, certainly his shift to argue for the book as a source of wisdom in this fable is conscious and calculated. “The Cock and the Jasper” is typically situated to position the reader for the remainder of the fables, falling as it does after only a short prologue. Here, the fable of the cock and the gem is buried after the lengthy Life of Aesop, so it seems all the more important that Caxton references his book as a whole, gesturing both forward to the coming fables, and backward to the Life as places where wisdom might be found. Furthermore, while his changes to this first fable are subtle, Caxton sets a pattern for the remainder of the collection, indicating that he intends to follow the elegiac Romulus, but not so strictly that he will not adapt for this new era of print and book circulation. Another emphasis throughout Caxton's fable collection that indicates that he is concerned with the unity of his entire work is his continuous mention of Esope as the speaker or narrator of the fables. Almost every single fable contains this line: "whereof Esop reherceth (telleth) to vs suche a fable." The few fables that don't have this, or some variation of this line (or Esope saye), instead make reference to Esope's intentions for the fable in the introduction of the moral at the end. By either opening or ending the fable with the mention of Esope, not just in a few fables, but time and again, Caxton seems to be working to bond the fables together coherently, while also augmenting his authority as a fable-teller by calling on the authority of Aesop as the father of the fables.

331 Garrett (57-8) develops an incredibly interesting argument here, which is reflective of Kuskin’s (and my own) ideas of Caxton as an author as well as a printer and translator.

198 Caxton also reworks a few of his fables in order to reflect the changing economic climate of the fifteenth century, shifting some fable morals to appeal directly to his audience. First, Caxton translates the fable of the two mice (or “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse”) as the fable of the two rats. While this could be another example of sloppy translation on Caxton's part, a struggle which I previously noted, calling the fable “The Two Rats” certainly also has a different implication for its contents. Rather than seeming sweet and rather harmless, as the country mouse and the city mouse do, rats appear off-putting and a bit more odious; perhaps not the characters the reader would be first inclined to learn moral lessons from. Additionally, the emphasis of a split between country and city is missing from this version of the fable; instead, Caxton calls the two the "grete ratte" and the "poure rat." Rather than beginning with the encounter between the two animals, as in the elegiac Romulus, Caxton's version of the fable begins with a promythium, or a moral before the fable: "Better worthe is to lyue in pouerte surely/ than to lyue rychely beyng euer in daunger." This moral essentially replaces any occurrence of internal moralizing from the elegiac Romulus-- there is no longer any mention of how the kindness of the country mouse makes her feast greater than the city mouse, nor is there any emphasis on the bitterness that comes with fear. Instead, the moral of the fable has shifted—or perhaps been simplified—to merely preference poverty over riches. Without any internal moralizing, the body of the fable becomes rather direct, simply telling the story of the two rats with no interruptions. This narrative is much like the elegiac Romulus; unimpressed with the poor rats table, the great rat takes him to his own home to flaunt his great feast. The two are interrupted by the butler, the fear of whom sends the poor rat running back to her home. There is a moral presented at the end of the fable, but it is almost identical to the moral at the beginning "and therfore hit is good to lyue pourely and surely,/ For the poure lyueth more surely than the ryche."332 The shift in emphasis from the country and the city to rich and poor is interesting here, as Caxton clearly shifts the moral of the fable to address the economic climate of his audience. The emphasis on the country life was so strong in the elegiac Romulus that it was emphasized as preferable by the first two sets of pilcrows, and as a place of peace without fear in the last set of marked lines. It isn't until the moral of the elegiac Romulus

332 The “Fable of the Two Rats” can be found on Lenaghan 81.

199 that the poverty of the country mouse is noted: "If pleasing poverty comes, it is the richest possession: sorrowful use makes immense wealth poor". Perhaps here we can see in Caxton's work a particular awareness of his own audience. Printing in Westminster, and hoping to reach a growing literate merchant class, Caxton's readers are different than the schoolboys who studied the elegiac Romulus. This merchant class, buying the commodity of the print book, did not need to be told of the virtues of the country life, as they already lived in the city. Rather than criticize their livelihood, Caxton's fable addresses the economic factors that they could control. In emphasizing the corrupting power of wealth, Caxton shows an awareness that his audience might be reaching ever upward economically, not unlike himself, and issues a caution that allowing finances to control all of one's actions is always a mistake. Another example of shifting a fable to further emphasize the economic climate of the late 1400’s details how the poor ought to act around the rich, and occurs in the fable of the frog and the ox. In this simple fable, a frog wants to appear massive and impressive

Figure 4: The frog begins to puff himself up in an attempt to equal the ox in “The Fable of the Oxe and of the Frogge”

200 like an ox that she saw in a pasture, so she swells herself up as large as she can. Even at this size, her child notes that she is nowhere near the size of the ox, and that she ought to stop struggling. Determine to equal the ox, she puffs herself up even greater. In the elegiac Romulus, this swelling is too much strain on the frog’s skin, and she bursts. However, in Caxton's fable, the frog does not burst herself, but instead, while she is swollen, "the oxe sawe her pryde/ he tradde and thrested her with his fote and brake her bely." In the elegiac Romulus, the fable’s moral warns against the lesser comparing themselves to the greater, but Caxton again puts this lesson in financial terms, warning that "it is not good to the poure to compare hym self to the ryche."333 Not only is the relationship in the moral shifted so that it emphasizes the rich and the poor, but the added detail of the ox bursting the frog with his foot alters the scenario of the fable so that the rich is punishing the poor directly for his attempt to appear as though he were wealthy. Conclusions Although Caxton was not particularly innovative in his work, and some might argue he did not have strong authorial intentions, through his work with the printing press he introduced an entirely new attitude towards printing and publishing. As Blake notes, Caxton “was aiming at a more popular clientele rather than at a learned audience in so far as his books were new, fashionable, and in the vernacular. He appears to have thought out this position even before he learned how to print.”334 Caxton seems to acknowledge, even in his own work, that his mind isn’t necessarily original or creative, but he had a particular ability to anticipate what works his audience would want to read, or use his press to create such a demand that the audience would be interested in his works regardless of content. All three printers of Aesop’s fables, Steinhowel, Macho, and Caxton aiming to put a text into print that their audience would have wanted to read in the vernacular. They used what was already a popular medieval text and genre, and expanded upon this notion to create a compilation that not only adheres to the traditional fable values of morality and grammatical education, but also pushes the fable into the early modern period as a vehicle for timely economic arguments, and even creative expression. These collection’s

333 “The Oxe and the Frogge” can be found on 102. 334 Blake 32

201 uniqueness make them a fruitful object of study, but the truly remarkable work that they do is was in augmenting an already popular genre with features such as the woodcuts, and even the use of the vernacular, in order to increase its popularit. The printers then created such a demand for this text that it was able to remain in continuous production into the early modern period.

202 Conclusion: The Fable and Medieval Readers Fable collections have never truly fallen out of favor; a number of the fables that were significant in the medieval collections are still familiar to us today, such as the fable of “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse,” or “The Lion and the Mouse.” Modern children’s books use the fables to teach their young readers moral lessons, a motivation which is not so far removed from the medieval uses of the genre. Even though fables have been simplified from their medieval roots, their animal characters and short plot lines have consistently made them apt vehicles for teaching lessons to their readers. Despite this modern popularity, it is shocking that the medieval fable collections have received very little critical attention. I hope that this study has brought attention to the medieval fable genre and argued persuasively for it a significant place among medieval literature. Fables have often been misunderstood as disconnected short texts, but the medieval fable existed as a part of a collection, with an emphasis on interconnectedness between fables. With this unity, most medieval fable collections make strong arguments about the political, social, and religious climates they were written in. Medieval authors also use the fables to explore new modes of discourse, to argue for gender equality, and to question authority. A highly mutable genre, the medieval fable was able to transform into a vehicle for a number of different arguments, while still retaining its role as fable. Authors such as Marie de France, Lydgate, and Henryson (and even Chaucer in a different way) are able to manipulate the fable genre both through the body of the fables and the rearranging of fable order. These authors leverage the popularity of the fable collection to rework familiar texts in ways that ask their readers to reconsider the uses (and limitations) of the genre. The collections that these authors are able to produce are just as imaginative and complex as other forms of medieval literature. The medieval fable constantly adheres to and simultaneously breaks the confines of its genre, making it a true reflection of the role of literature throughout the Middle Ages, and into the development of print. Because of their popularity the fables also have a significant role in the rise of literacy and the book in the Middle Ages. The elegiac Romulus began as a grammar text, Marie de France uses vivid language and imagery in her fables to help situate them

203 between oral and written tradition, and Caxton’s fables are one of the first print books to being circulating in England. Fables seem to exist at the cusp of a number of significant shifts in the history of the book. Because of this, fable collections can help us as modern readers better understand the role of the author and the reader as literacy was developed and as print became a more familiar medium in the early modern period. As Harold Love has insightfully noted, oral transmission, manuscript circulation and the rise of print did not each occur independently of each other. The shift from oral culture into manuscript and then print was messy and overlapping; and the fables were a part of this overlap.335 Love notes that “in many cases the same text could have been encountered in several media.” 336 This most certainly was the case for the fables, in particular towards the end of the Middle Ages when they were circulating as collections from a number of different authors, in manuscript form, in print with images from woodcuts, and likely still orally as well. The study of texts such as the fables helps us as modern readers better understand the reception and circulation of texts in the Middle Ages when all of these forms of textual transmission were developing. Tracing reading and reading practices can be challenging in any era, as Roger Chartier develops in his essay “Labourers and Voyagers: From the Text to the Reader,” because reading is an embodied practice, and deeply imbedded in the reader’s consciousness. For Chartier, to understand the reader you must also understand the conventions of the community the reader, which he argues can be almost impossible to reconstruct.337 We need to develop a set of methods to determine how medieval fables were read using the manuscript evidence from the fable collections, and the interplay

335 Love describes the overlap of cultures of communication eloquently in his article “Early Modern Print Culture: Assessing the Models” (Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery, eds. The Book History Reader. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006. Print. p.76): “As a result of this symbiosis of communicative cultures, no reader or writer of the early modern period was ever ‘within’ print cultures without also being within oral culture, scribal culture, a culture of symbolic images, a culture of the use of signs and graphics, a culture of physical performance and bodily self-presentation, numerous cultures of expert practice passed on through visual, tactile and kinaesthetic demonstration.” 336 Love 77 337 Chartier (”Labourers and Voyagers: From the Text to the Reader.” Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery, eds. The Book History Reader. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006. Print. p. 88) argues “reading rarely leaves traces, is scattered into an infinity of singular acts, and purposely frees itself from all the constraints seeking to subdue it.”

204 between fable collections. Fable readers do identify themselves as a part of a community through shared practices such as the commentary tradition, and even the reinterpretations of fables by later authors. And they have left some traces of their readings in the manuscripts; just enough evidence that we can begin to map out the fables influence for a number of different authors, and a number of different readers. Robert Darton contradicts Chartier: “If it is not possible to recapture the great rereadings of the past, the inner experience of ordinary readers may always elude us. But we should at least be able to reconstruct a good deal of the social context of reading.”338 We can reconstruct this social context for fable collections, both through developing connections between collections and through manuscript study. The understanding of fable readers I develop here helps us reinterpret the medieval fable genre, and better understand medieval readers as a whole. There are scores of extant manuscripts containing the elegiac Romulus which have been largely untouched, manuscripts which tell us about the social contexts for the fable readers through the markings they and the scribes left behind. Other than religious texts, fable collections likely have one of the strongest manuscript presence within the archives. Although typically not illuminated or illustrated, these manuscripts are worthy of critical attention; I hope to have shown how the material study of fable manuscripts can help solidify our understanding of this text and other medieval works.

338 Darton’s study (“What is the History of Books?” Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery, eds. The Book History Reader. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006. Print.” p. 21) is also significant because he maps out a communications circuit (12) that books travel through, showing that the author is influenced by the reader, and also the other agents in the book making process (printers, binders, etc).

205 Bibliography Introduction: History of the Book Blackham, H. J. Fable as Literature. 1st Ed. Athlone Press, 1985. Print. Bourdieu, Pierre. “Language and Symbolic Power.” The Discourse Reader. Ed. Adam (ed. and introd.) Jaworski & Nikolas (ed. and introd.) Coupland. xvi, 602 pp. London, England: Routledge, 1999. 502–513. Print. Carruthers, Mary. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print. ---. The Craft of Thought : Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Print. Chartier, Roger. The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe Between the 14th and 18th Centuries. 1st ed. Stanford University Press, 1994. Print. Chaucer, Geoffrey, Larry Dean Benson, and F. N. (Fred Norris) Robinson. The Riverside Chaucer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Print. Clanchy, M. T. From Memory to Written Record : England 1066-1307. London: Edward Arnold, 1979. Print. Finnegan, Ruth H. Oral Poetry : Its Nature, Significance, and Social Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Print. Gellrich, Jesse M. The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages : Language Theory, Mythology, and Fiction. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985. Print. Goldhammer, Arthur. Inscription and Erasure: Literature and Written Culture from the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia, PA: U of Pennsylvania P, 2007. Print. Griffiths, Jeremy, and Derek Pearsall. Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375- 1475. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print. Jaeger, C. Stephen. The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950-1200. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. Print. Lerer, Seth. Children’s Literature : a Reader’s History, from Aesop to Harry Potter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Print.

206 Locke, John, John W Yolton, and Jean S. Yolton. Some Thoughts Concerning Education.. Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1989. Print. McKenzie, D. F. Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print. Minnis, A. J. Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages. London: Scholar, 1984. Print. Minnis, A. J., and A. B. Scott. Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism, C. 1100-c.1375. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988. Print. Needler, Howard. “The Animal Fable among Other Medieval Literary Genres.” New Literary History 22.2 (1991): 423–439. JSTOR. Web. Partridge, Stephen, and Erik Kwakkel. Author, Reader, Book: Medieval Authorship in Theory and Practice. Toronto, ON: U of Toronto P, 2012. Print. Pepin, Ronald E., ed. An English Translation of Auctores Octo, a Medieval Reader. Lewiston, N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. Print. Mediaeval Studies 12. Steiner, Emily. “Response Essay: Chaucer’s Inquisition.” The Culture of Inquisition in Medieval England. Ed. Mary Catherine Flannery and Katie L. Walter. DS Brewer, 2013. 164–172. Print. Stock, Brian. The Implications of Literacy : Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Print. Walter, and Aaron Eugene Wright. The fables of “Walter of England.” Toronto, Ont., Canada: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1997. Print. Toronto medieval Latin texts 25. Wellek, René and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3rd ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956), pp. 20-28. Wheatley, Edward. Mastering Aesop : Medieval Education, Chaucer, and His Followers. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000. Print. Yates, Frances Amelia. The Art of Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Print. Chapter One: The Curricular Fable and General Fable Scholarship

207 Adrados, Francisco Rodriguez, and Gert-Jan Van Dijk. History of the Graeco-Latin Fable: Introduction and from the Origins to the Hellenistic Age. Trans. Leslie A. Ray. Brill Academic Pub, 1999. Print. Allen, Elizabeth. False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later Middle English Literature. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print. New Middle Ages (NeMiA). Babrius. Babrius and Phaedrus. Cambridge, Mass. : London: Harvard University Press ; W. Heinemann, 1984. Print. Loeb Classical Library 436. Ellis, Robinson. The Fables of Avianus. BiblioBazaar, 2008. Print. Gehl, Paul F. A Moral Art: Grammar, Society, and Culture in Trecento Florence. Cornell University Press, 1993. Print. Goldschmidt, A. An Early Manuscript of the Aesop Fables of Avianus and Related Manuscripts. Princeton, NJ, 1947. Print. Henderson, Arnold Clayton. “‘Of Heigh or Lough Estat’: Medieval Fabulists as Social Critics.” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 9 (1978): 265–290. Print. Holzberg, Niklas. The Ancient Fable : an Introduction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Print. Mann, Jill, and Oxford University Press. From Aesop to Reynard Beast Literature in Medieval Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print. Patterson, Annabel M. Fables of Power : Aesopian Writing and Political History. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991. Print. Pepin, Ronald E. An English Translation of Auctores Octo, a Medieval Reader. The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. Print. Phaedrus. Phædrus His Fables with English Notes. By William Willymott. Lodon sic: printed for John Osborn, and Tho. Longman, 1728. Print.Whitesell, Frederick R. “Fables in Mediaeval Exempla.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 46 (1947): 348–366. Print. Ziolkowski, Jan M. Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750-1150. Univ of Pennsylvania Pr, 1993. Print. Chapter Two: Marie de France Amer, Sahar. “Marie De France Rewrites Genesis: The Image of Woman in Marie De France’s Fables.” Neophilologus 81.4 (1997): 489–499. Print.

208 Bloch, R. Howard. The Anonymous Marie De France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Print. Burgess, Glyn S. “The Fables of Marie De France: Some Recent Scholarship.” French Studies Bulletin: A Quarterly Supplement 61 (1996): 8–13. Print. Hindman, Sandra. “Aesop’s Cock and Marie’s Hen: Gendered Authorship in Text and Image in Manuscripts of Marie De France’s Fables.” Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence. Toronto, ON: U of Toronto Press, 1997. 45–56. Print. Jambeck, Karen K. “Reclaiming the Woman in the Book: Marie De France and the Fables.” Women, the Book and the Worldly. Ed. Lesley (ed.) Smith & Jane H. M. (ed.) Taylor. xiv, 193 pp. Cambridge, Eng.: Brewer, 1995. 119–137. Print. ---. “Truth and Deception in the Fables of Marie De France.” Literary Aspects of Courtly Culture. Rochester, NY: Boydel and Brewer, 1994. 221–229. Print. Kinoshita, Sharon. "'Cherchez La Femme': Feminist Criticism And Marie De France's Lai De Lanval." Romance Notes 34.3 (1994): 263-273. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 13 July 2016. Klerks, Suzanne. “The Pain of Reading Female Bodies in Marie de France’s ‘Guigemar.’” Dalhousie French Studies 33 (1995): 1–14. Print. Krueger, Roberta L. “Marie de France.” The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing. Ed. Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace. v-xix, 289 pp. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2003. 172–183. Print. Cambridge Companions to Literature (CCtL). Leicester, H. Marshall, Jr. “The Voice of the Hind: The Emergence of Feminine Discontent in the Lais of Marie.” Reading Medieval Culture. Ed. Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005, pp. 132-69. Marie de France, and Harriet Spiegel. Fables. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. Print. Marie de France, and Mary Lou Martin. The Fables of Marie de France: An English Translation. Birmingham, Ala: Summa Publications, 1984. Print.

209 McCracken, Peggy. “Translation and Animals in Marie De France’s Lais.” Australian Journal of French Studies 46.3 (2009): 206–218. Print. Root, Jerry. “Mustrer and the Poetics of Marie De France.” Modern Philology: Critical and Historical Studies in Literature, Medieval Through Contemporary 108.2 (2010): 151–176. Print. Runte, Hans R. “Marie De France’s Courtly Fables.” Por Le Soie Amisté. Ed. Keith (ed. and foreword) Busby & Catherine M. (ed. and foreword) Jones. xxxiv, 552 pp. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 2000. 453–462. Print. Faux Titre: Etudes De Langue Et Littérature Françaises (FauxT): 183. ---. “Marie De France’s Fables as Trilingual Palimpsest.” Dalhousie French Studies 38 (1997): 17–24. Print. Salisbury, Joyce E. “Human Animals of Medieval Fables.” Animals in the Middle Ages. Ed. Nona C. (ed. and introd.) Flores. xvi, 206 pp. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000. 49–65. Print. Smith, M. Ellwood. “A Classification for Fables, Based on the Collection of Marie De France.” Modern Philology: A Journal Devoted to Research in Medieval and Modern Literature 15.8 (1917): 477–489. Print. Spiegel, Harriet. “Instructing the Children: Advice from the Twelfth-Century Fables of Marie De France.” Children’s Literature: Annual of The Modern Language Association Division on Children’s Literature and The Children’s Literature Association 17 (1989): 25–46. Print. ---. “The Male Animal in the Fables of Marie De France.” Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages. Ed. Clare E. (ed.) Lees, Thelma (asst.) Fenster, & Jo Ann (asst.) McNamara. xxv; 193 pp. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1994. 111–126. Print. Medieval Cultures (Medieval Cultures): 7. Ward, Susan L. “Fables for the Court: Illustrations of Marie De France’s Fables in Paris.” Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence. Toronto, ON: U of Toronto Press, 1997. 190–203. Print. Whalen, Logan E. Marie De France and the Poetics of Memory. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008. Print. Chapter Three: John Lydgate

210 Kuskin, William. “The Archival Imagination: Reading John Lydgate Toward a Theory of Literary Reproduction.” English Language Notes 45.1 (2007): 79–92. Print. Lydgate, John, H N. b. 1880 MacCracken, and Merriam Sherwood. “Isopes Fabules.” The Minor Poems of John Lydgate. Nabu Press, 2010. Print. Nolan, Maura. John Lydgate and the Making of Public Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Pearsall, Derek. John Lydgate. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1970. Print. Pearsall, Derek. “Lydgate as Innovator.” Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History 53.1 (1992): 5–22. Print. Renoir, Alain. The Poetry of John Lydgate. Cambridge; Routledge & K. Paul: Harvard UP, London, 1967. Print. Schirmer, Walter F. John Lydgate: A Study in the Culture of the XVth Century. Berkeley, CA: U of California P, 1961. Print. Chapter Four: Robert Henryson Bauman, Richard. “The Folktale and Oral Tradition in the Fables of Robert Henryson.” Fabula: Zeitschrift fur Erzahlforschung/Journal of Folktale Studies/Revue d’Etudes sur le Conte Populai 6 (1963): 108–124. Print. Clark, George. “Henryson and Aesop: The Fable Transformed.” ELH 43.1 (1976): 1–18. Print. Denton Fox. “Henryson’s Fables.” ELH 29.4 (1962): 337–356. Print. Fox, Denton. “Henryson and Caxton.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 67 (1968): 586–593. Print. Gopen, George D. “The Essential Seriousness of Robert Henryson’s ‘Moral Fables’: A Study in Structure.” Studies in Philology 82.1 (1985): 42–59. Print. Greentree, Rosemary. “Reader, Teller and Teacher: The Narrator of Robert Henryson’s Moral Fables.” (1993): ix, 120 pp. Print. Scottish Studies (Scottish Studies): 15. Henderson, Arnold Clayton. “Having Fun with the Moralities: Henryson’s Fables and Late-Medieval Fable Innovation.” Studies in Scottish Literature 32 (2001): 67–87. Print. Henryson, Robert, and Denton Fox. The Poems of Robert Henryson. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1981. Print.

211 Higgins, Iain Macleod. “Master Henryson and Father Aesop.” Author, Reader, Book: Medieval Authorship in Theory and Practice. Ed. Stephen (ed. and introd.) Partridge & Erik (ed.) Kwakkel. ix, 305 pp. Toronto, ON: U of Toronto P, 2012. 198–231. Print. Khinoy, Stephan. “Tale-Moral Relationships in Henryson’s Moral Fables.” Studies in Scottish Literature 17 (1982): 99–115. Print. MacDonald, Donald. “Chaucer’s Influence on Henryson’s Fables: The Use of Proverbs and Sententiae.” Medium Aevum 39 (1970): 21–27. Print. Machan, Tim William. “Robert Henryson and Father Aesop: Authority in the Moral Fables.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer: The Yearbook of the New Chaucer Society 12 (1990): 193–214. Print. Marlin, John. “Robert Henryson’s ‘Morall Fabilles’: Irony, Allegory, and Humanism in Late-Medieval Fables.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 34 (2009): 133–147. Print. Murtaugh, Daniel M. “Henryson’s Animals.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language: A Journal of the Humanities 14 (1972): 405–421. Print. Powell, Marianne. Fabula Docet: Studies in the Background and Interpretation of Henryson’s Morall Fabillis. Odense: Odense UP, 1983. Print. Odense University Studies in English (OUSE): (6). Toliver, Harold E. “Robert Henryson: From Moralitas to Irony.” English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature 46 (1965): 300–309. Print. Chapter Five: Caxton Blake, N. F. Caxton : England’s First Publisher. London : Osprey, 1976. Print. Caxton, William, and Edmund Goldsmid. The History of Reynard the Fox. Edinburgh, Private Print, 1884. Print. Davies, Martin. “A Tale of Two Aesops.” The Library 7.3 (2006): 257–288. library.oxfordjournals.org. Web. Driver, Martha W. The Image in Print : Book Illustration in Late Medieval England and Its Sources. London : British Library, 2004. Print. Febvre, Lucien, and Henri Jean Martin. The Coming of the Book : The Impact of Printing 1450-1800. London : Verso, 1997. Print.

212 Garrett, Richard. “Modern Translator or Medieval Moralist?: William Caxton and Aesop.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 37 (2012): 47–70. Print. Gillespie, Alexandra. “Caxton and the Invention of Printing.” The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Literature, 1485-1603. Ed. Mike Pincombe & Cathy Shrank. Oxford, England: Oxford UP, 2011. 21–36. Print. Hellinga, Lotte. William Caxton and Early Printing in England. London : British Library, 2010. Print. Jacobs, Joseph, William Caxton, and Aesop. The Fables of Aesop: As First Printed by William Caxton in 1484, with Those of Avian, Alfonso and Poggio. Nabu Press, 2010. Print. Kuskin, William. Caxton’s Trace: Studies in the History of English Printing. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame P, 2006. Print. ---. Symbolic Caxton : Literary Culture and Print Capitalism. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. Print. Lenaghan, R. T, William Caxton, and Aesop. Caxton’s Aesop. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967. Print. Rutter, Russell. “William Caxton and Literary Patronage.” Studies in Philology 84.4 (1987): 440–470. Print. Scott-Macnab, David. “Caxton’s Printings of The Horse, the Sheep and the Goose: Some Observations Regarding Textual Relationships.” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 13.1 (2004): 1–13. Print. Smith, M. Ellwood. “AEsop, a Decayed Celebrity: Changing Conception as to AEsop’s Personality in English Writers Before Gay.” PMLA 46.1 (1931): 225–236. Print. Wheatley, Edward. “The Aesopic Corpus Divided Against Itself: A Literary Body and Its Members.” Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History 2 (1999): 46–72. Print. Wolfgang, Lenora D. “Caxton’s Aesop: The Origin and Evolution of a Fable; Or, Do Not Believe Everything You Hear.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledg 135.1 (1991): 73– 83. Print. Conclusions: The Fable and Medieval Readers

213 Chartier, Roger. “Labourers and Voyarers: From the Text to the Reader.” Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery, eds. The Book History Reader. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006. 87-98. Print. Darnton, Robert. “What is the History of Books.” Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery, eds. The Book History Reader. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006. 9-26. Print. Love, Harold. “Early Modern Print Culture: Assessing the Models.” Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery, eds. The Book History Reader. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2006. 74-86. Print.

214