Only in recent years has the tale of The Vox and the Wolf been recognized as anything more than a simple bit of entertaining fluff, lacking (as one of its first and most influential students claimed) even ‘‘the moral significance that has given vitality to many fables.’" There is little doubt now that this verse tale of Reneuard and Sigrim contains a rich pattern of allusion which points to a serious moral purpose. Recent scholarship has shown us that the description of Reneuard as a fox-priest draws upon a long tradition of imagery for clerical corruption, that the well which is so important to Reneuard’s deception recalls the stock sermon metaphor of the well of salvation and heavenly bliss, and that the bucket-pulley apparatus with which Reneuard tricks the Wolf and saves himself alludes to conventional figures for the scales of divine justice. The irony of these religious allusions demonstrates that beneath its surface humor this tale of the Fox and the Wolf is a serious work of satire, having as its target, we are told, ‘‘those priests who indulged...in gluttony and lechery, and who, at the duped layman’s expense, perverted their holy office to their own profane ends.’? - [Author]-

Language: English