in 
Literature 
and Art. 
I15 
 appears in many of thefe ftories, and as it is no doubt truly painted,  
 although,of courfe, in many infrances, much exaggerated. We have already  
 feen how in the {tory of Reynard, the character of mediaeval fociety was  
 reprefented by the long itruggle between brute force reprefented by the  
 wolf, the emblem of the ariftocratic clafs, and the low altutenefs of the  
 fox, or the unariflocratic clafs. The fuccefs of the craft of the human fox 
 over the force of his lordly antagonift is often told in the fabliaux in  
 ludicrous colours. In that of Trubert, printed by Meon (i. 192), the  
 " duke" of a country, with his wife and family, become repeatedly the 
dupes of the grofs deceptions of a poor but impudent peafant. Theie 
fatires upon the arittocracy were no doubt greatly enjoyed by the good 
liourgeojfie, who, in their turn, furnifhed abundance of itories, of the 
drolleft defcription, to provoke the mirth of the lords of the foil, between 
whom and themfelves there was a kind of natural antipathy. Nor are  
the clergy fpared. The prielt is ufually defcribed as living with a  
concubine--his order forbade marrying-and both are confidered as  
fair game to the community; while the monk figures more frequently 
as the hero of gallant adventures. Both prielt and monk are ufually 
diftinguiihed by their felfifhuefs and love of indulgence. In the fabliau 
Du Bouchier d'Abbeville, in Barbazan (iv. 1), a butcher, on his way 
home from the fair, feeks a night's lodging at the houfe of an inhofpitable 
prielt, who refufes it. But when the former returns, and offers, in 
exchange for his hofpitality, one of his fat fheep which he has purchafed 
at the fair, and not only to kill it for their fupper, but to give all the 
meat they do not eat to his hoft, he is willingly received into the houfe, 
and they make an excellent fupper. By the promife of the ikin of the 
fheep, the gueit fucceeds in feducing both the concubine and the maid- 
fervant, and it is only after his departure the following morning, in 
the middle of a domeftic uproar caufed by the conflicting claims of the 
prieft, the concubine, and the maid, to the poifefiion of the Ikin, that it 
is difcovered that the butcher had ftolen the {heep from the prie{t's own 
flock. 
The fabliaux, as remarked before, form the molt important clafs of 
the extenfive mats of the popular literature of the middle ages, and the 
writers,