Symbolism in Medieval Society

The Similarities Between Martin Luther, and Reynard the Fox

Jun 2, 2009

Martin Luther and Reynard the Fox are two of Europe's most well-known weapons against the Catholic Church, and their primary tactic was the use of symbolism.

The symbolism utilized by both Reynard and Luther for the purpose of criticizing ecclesiastical power was very powerful. In medieval society, symbolism carried incredible weight in the minds of those who encountered it; symbolism “was believed to represent, objectify, and express faithfully various aspects of a universe that was perceived as widely, and deeply, meaningful.” In other words, symbolism was a very powerful means of spreading ideas and feelings, which the majority of the population could understand and meaningfully interpret during their everyday lives. In short, you could describe them as the earliest political cartoons.

Reynard the Fox

The stories of Reynard the Fox were very heavy with symbolism, particularly aimed at criticizing ecclesiastical authority and power within Europe. In one particular story, “we see Reynard, disguised as a preacher and talking his audience (mostly hens, ducks, and geese) into blind submission.” This is an excellent comparison to the clergy at the time, which had used their skill of rhetoric, not to mention the laity’s fear of the afterlife, to convince the laity that they must follow the doctrine of the Catholic Church, most notably purchase Indulgences.

Life After Death

During the middle ages, the greatest fear facing the common citizen was their lives after death. The reason for this was that medieval citizens were continually faced with death; the plague had wreaked havoc across Europe killing millions during the mid-14th century, and sporadically re-appeared, killing thousands more.

Healthcare and proper medical knowledge simply did not exist: a small cut could lead to infection, and become lethal. Therefore,the Catholic Church sold indulgences which were “the spiritual reassignment of existing merit to an individual requiring that merit.”

Catholic Indulgences

Purchasing an Indulgence could lessen your time in purgatory, and guarantee a persons place in heaven. Many priests, including Johann Tetzel, aggressively marketed these indulgences to the laity for the salvation of their souls, and in turn the medieval Catholic Church became incredibly wealthy, and eventually very corrupt.

The Symbolism of Wolves

Another way in which Reynard attacked the Church was by comparing the priests and Bishops to wolves. In the story The Sick Lion which was discussed earlier, the remedy which Reynard suggested to the King was to wrap a fresh wolf hide around his body. When the wolf was skinned, his paws and the top of his head were not stripped like the rest of his body. Reynard then referred to him as “Father”, and mockingly asked him who gave him his “gloves” and “bishop’s cap”.

By comparing the Church to a wolf (the primary predator of sheep) it implies that the Church, through their greed and corruption, was actually a threat to the well-being of its parishioners.

Catholic Greed and Corruption

Finally, in the earlier Latin version of the Reynard stories Reynard also commented on the greed and corruption of the Catholic Church. In Book IV Reynard, who had just been outwitted by a rooster thus allowing the rooster to escape certain death, was furious and cursed his teeth for not killing the rooster; “They [his teeth] should be as greedy as the Pope, he hissed, or better, as greedy as Anselm, the Bishop of Tournay.”

Martin Luther

For Martin Luther, the biggest obstacle for the successful reform of Catholicism was, as mentioned earlier, spreading his theology to the widely illiterate population. Male literacy rates on the eve of the Luther’s German Reformation hovered around 20% to 25%, and the overall literacy rate of the laity in Europe was around 15%.

Low Medieval Literacy Rates

Literacy was extremely low due to the fact that most forms of writing – manuscripts, books, tablets – had not yet been taken out of the temples or monasteries and circulated among the general populace, and this process would not be accomplished in any meaningful manner until the 17th century.

Luther needed to find a way of disseminating his message to the largely illiterate masses of Germany, and he did so using visual imagery accompanied by textual messages in the vernacular German language.

Early Medieval Images and Symbolism

These early caricatures were relatively innocent, especially when compared to the later works of Luther. For Luther, the comparison of the Pope to the Anti-Christ was the most effective way in which to attack the Papacy and to do this he utilized various forms of symbolism.

Luther chose to portray the Pope as the Antichrist because throughout the late Middle Ages it was widely recognized that those who spoke of the Antichrist were in fact speaking in apocalyptic terms. Everyone who saw these images produced by Luther would have immediately recognized the symbolism, and the message Luther was trying to convey: The Pope was the Anti-Christ, and through his actions on Earth, he damned every Catholic soul in Europe to Hell.

The symbolism they used contained vivid imagery that the laity could understand in order to challenge the religious authorities of the period with the intention of generating social awareness of the injustices occurring in their society. Their goal was for this awareness to create social change, much like other medieval writers of later periods. This awareness which would benefit the people of Europe as a whole; Reynard in the temporal realm, and Luther in the spiritual realm.

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Clifford, Geraldine Joncich. “Buch und Lesen: Historical Perspectives on Literacy and Schooling” in Review of Educational Research, Vol. 54, No. 4, 1984, 472-500.

Cunningham, Andrew and Ole Peter Grell. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine, and Death in Reformation Europe. (2000).

Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580. (2005).

Ladner, G.B., “Medieval and Modern Understanding of Symbolism: A Comparison,” Speculum, Vol. 54, (1979).

Strauss, Gerald. Luther’s House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation. (1978).

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