x_, one of the capital works of the Middle Ages, and with the
sister but contrasted _Romance of the Rose_, as much the
distinguishing literary product of the thirteenth century as the
romances proper--Carlovingian, Arthurian, and Classical--are of the
twelfth.

[Footnote 137: Works of Marie; ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1820; or ed.
Warnke, Halle, 1885. The _Lyoner Ysopet_, with the _Anonymus_; ed.
Foerster, Heilbronn, 1882.]

[Sidenote: Reynard the Fox.]

Not, of course, that the antiquity of the Reynard story itself[138]
does not mount far higher than the thirteenth century. No two things
are more remarkable as results of that comparative and simultaneous
study of literature, to which this series hopes to give some little
assistance, than the way in which, on the one hand, a hundred years
seem to be in the Middle Ages but a day, in the growth of certain
kinds, and on the other a day sometimes appears to do the work of a
hundred years. We have seen how in the last two or three decades of
the twelfth century the great Arthurian legend seems suddenly to fill
the whole literary scene, after being previously but a meagre
chronicler's record or invention. The growth of the Reynard story,
though to some extent contemporaneous, was slower; but it was really
the older of the two. Before the middle of this century, as we have
seen, there was really no Arthurian story worthy the name; it would
seem that by that time the Reynard legend had already taken not full
but definite form in Latin, and there is no reasonable reason for
scepticism as to its existence in vernacular tradition, though perhaps
not in vernacular writing, for many years, perhaps for more than one
century, earlier.

[Footnote 138: _Roman du_ (should be _de_) _Renart_: ed. Meon and
Chabaille, 5 vols., Paris, 1826-35; ed. Martin, 3 vols. text and 1
critical observations, Strasburg, 1882-87. _Reincke de Vos_, ed.
Prien, Halle, 1887, with a valuable bibliography. _Reinaert_, ed.
Martin, Paderborn, 1874. _Reinardus Vulpes_, ed. Mone, Stuttgart,
1834. _Reinhart Fuchs_, ed. Grimm, Berlin, 1832. On the _story_ there
is perhaps nothing better than Carlyle, as quoted _supra_.]

[Sidenote: _Order of texts._]

It was not to be expected but that so strange, so interesting, and so
universally popular a story as that of King Noble and his not always
loving subjects, should have been made, as usual, the battle-ground of
literary fancy and of that general tendency of mankind to