Good, Julian Russell Peter (2012) The human presence in Robert Henryson's Fables and William Caxton's The History of Reynard the Fox. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3290/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] THE HUMAN PRESENCE IN ROBERT HENRYSON’S FABLES AND WILLIAM CAXTON’S THE HISTORY OF REYNARD THE FOX Dr. Julian Russell Peter Good Submitted for the degree of Ph.D. Department of Scottish Literature College of Arts University of Glasgow © Dr. Julian R.P. Good. March 2012 ABSTRACT This study is a comparison of the human presence in the text of Robert Henryson’s Fables1, and that of William Caxton’s 1481 edition of The History of Reynard the Fox (Blake:1970). The individual examples of Henryson’s Fables looked at are those that may be called the ‘Reynardian’ fables (Mann:2009); these are The Cock and the Fox; The Fox and the Wolf; The Trial of the Fox; The Fox, the Wolf, and the Cadger, and The Fox, the Wolf, and the Husbandman.2 These fables were selected to provide a parallel focus, through the main protagonists and sources, with the text of The History of Reynard the Fox. The reason for the choice of these two texts, in a study originally envisaged as an examination of the human presence of Henryson’s Fables, is that Caxton’s text, although a translation, is precisely contemporary with the Fables, providing a specifically contemporary comparison to Henryson, as well as being a text that is worthwhile of such research in its own right.3 What may be gained from such a study is that the comparison of the contemporary texts, from Scotland and England, with parallel or similar main protagonists, may serve to sharpen the focus on each. The aspect of the human presence to be examined may be seen in the research question. 1. What are the functions of the different strands of human presence in the two texts? 1 I shall use this title, which is that used by Fox (1981), rather than any other title that may have been appended by other editors or publishers. There is no contemporary print of Henryson’s Fables, with Fox’s titles being based on a number of witnesses, none of which provide any conclusive evidence of Henryson’s actual titles. 2 The titles are those of Fox (1981). 3 Although research on the French and Northern European aspects of the Reynard tradition, with the British and European iconography, is widely available, there has been very little published research on Caxton’s The History of Reynard the Fox, apart from Schlusemann, R. 1991. The principal method used is the gathering of specific instances of human presence in the two texts, and the categorising or coding of such instances, with the aid of the qualitative-data computer program QSR N6.4 The human presence was thus categorised under the separate aspects of i) The tangible human presence (actual human characters who are actors within the narrative). ii) The human as social context, present in the social situations and behaviour of the animal protagonists. iii) The human presence as narrator, both within and outside of the narrative. iv) The human presence in the transmission and reception of the two texts. The resulting categories of human presence were used to generate a theory concerning the functions of the human presence within the texts. The findings for the research question are as follows: The human presence in the text serves a far more explicit moral function in the Fables than in Reynard, where it serves a primarily entertaining and satirical function. The less explicit moral function of the human presence in Reynard is found beyond the text, in the reader reception. 4 The ‘N’ of N6 is a shortened acronym for Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing Searching and Theorizing, formerly NUDIST. CONTENTS Chapter One. Introduction. Aesopic Fable, Beast Fable, and Beast Epic; Methodology and Thesis Structure 1.1 Aesopic fable; development and definition 1 1.2 Aesop and the Greek Fable 2 1.3 The Fable from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages 3 1.4 Fables as a Genre 5 1.5 The development of the Beast Epic 6 1.6 The Fable and the Epic 12 1.7 Henryson’s Fables 15 1.8 The Age of Henryson and Caxton 17 1.9 Methodology 20 1.10 Thesis Structure 21 Chapter Two. Literature Review 2.1 The Reynardian background to the Fables and Reynard 23 2.2 The Aesopic background to the Fables and Reynard 28 2.3 The Human presence in the Fables and Reynard 31 2.4 The Human Presence as Narrator 38 2.5 Critical review of Henryson’s Fables 42 2.5.1 Henryson’s Fables in Scottish literature 42 2.5.2 The order of the Fables 48 2.5.3 Conclusion to Critical Review 50 2.6 Research Question 51 2.7 Thesis Structure 51 Chapter Three: Tangible Human Presence in the Fables and Reynard 3.1 Tangible human presence in the texts 53 3.2 Henryson’s Prologue, Caxton’s ‘Hyer begynneth’ 53 3.3 Henryson’s Fables 54 3.4 Summarised memos for Henryson’s Reynardian fables 54 3.5 Second level analysis for human presence 56 3.6 Third level analysis for human presence in the Fables 57 3.7 Memoing and analysis, Reynard: first level coding 58 3.8 Second level analysis of the tangible human presence in Reynard 62 3.9 Third level analysis of the tangible human presence in Reynard 64 3.10 A Comparison of the tangible human presence in the Fables 65 and Reynard 3.11 Conclusion to comparison of tangible human presence 71 in Reynard and the Fables Chapter Four: Social Context in the Fables and Reynard 1 : Church and Religion 4.1 Introduction 74 4.2 The Scottish church and religion in the fifteenth century 75 4.3. The English church and religion in the fifteenth century 77 4.4 The Scottish and the English church in the fifteenth century 80 4.5 The perception of the church and religion through Henryson’s Fables 80 4.5.1 The Cock and the Fox, The Fox and the Wolf, The Trial of the Fox 80 4.5.2 Categories found in the three fables 81 4.5.3 The Fox, the wolf, and the cadger, and The fox, the wolf, and the husbandman 84 4.6.The perception of church and religion through The History 87 of Reynardthe fox 4.6.1 The Main Categories 88 4.6.2 The church as a social institution, public Christian practice 90 4.6.3 The church as a social institution, church teaching, ritual and liturgy 92 4.6.4 The church as a social institution, church and monastic lifestyles 93 4.6.5 Religious emotions and beliefs 94 4.7 Discussion: presentation of church and religion in the two texts. 95 4.8 The church and the religion in the two texts, conclusion 99 Chapter Five: Social Context in the Fables and The History of Reynard The Fox 2: Crime and the Law 5.1 Crime, the law and government in the fifteenth century 101 5.2 Crime, the law and government in fifteenth century Scotland 102 5.3 Crime, the law and government in fifteenth century England 104 5.4 Crime, the law and government in Scotland and England in the fifteenth century 106 5.5 The perception of crime, the law and government in Henryson’s Fables 107 5.6 Crimes and the life of crime 108 5.6.1 The life of crime 110 5.6.2 Redress and punishment for crime 111 5.6.3 Crime and justice in the three fables, CF, FW, TF 113 5.6.4 Categories concerning government in The Trial of the Fox 114 5.6.5 The display of power 115 5.6.6 The actual power of the king 115 5.6.7 Categories related to crime and the law in The Fox, the Wolf and the Cadger, and The Fox, the Wolf, and the Husbandman 116 5.6.8 Crime, perpetrators and beneficiaries in society 118 5.6.9 Crime, victims and the punished in society 119 5.7 The legal process, controllers and beneficiaries in society 120 5.7.1 The legal process, victims and losers in society 121 5.7.2 Crime and the law in Henryson’s Fables 122 5.8 Crime and the law in Caxton’s The History of Reynard the Fox 123 5.8.1 Categories related to crime, the law and treason in The History of Reynard the Fox 125 5.8.2 Themes and discussion emerging from the categories 126 5.8.3 The king as source of law or alternative to it 127 5.8.4 The law and legal systems 130 5.8.5 Crimes and the criminal 134 5.8.6 The people and the law 139 5.8.7 Crime and the law in Caxton’s The History of Reynard the Fox, conclusion 141 5.9.