the violence in society, especially the various wars that common folk endured at the time. Ysengrimus Reynard appears first in the medieval Latin poem Ysengrimus, a long Latin mock-epic written c. 1148–53 by the medieval poet Nivardus, that collects a great store of Reynard's adventures. He also puts in an early appearance in a number of Latin sequences by the early-13th-century preacher Odo of Cheriton. Both of these early sources seem to draw on a pre-existing store of popular culture featuring the character. Roman de Renart The first "branch" (or chapter) of the Roman de Renart appears in 1174, written by Pierre de St. Cloud, although in all French editions it is designated as "Branch II". The same author wrote a sequel in 1179—called "Branch I"—but from that date onwards, many other French authors composed their own adventures for Renart li goupil ("the fox"). There is also the Middle High German text Reinhard Fuchs by Heinrich der Glïchezäre, dated to 1180. Roman de Renart which fits into the genre of romance. Roman de Renart gets its start using the history of fables that have been written since the time of Aesop. The romance genre of the middle ages is not what we think of the romance genre of today; it was a fiction telling of a character's life. The protagonist of the romance genre often has an adventure or a call to action, almost always caused by an outside force. During the 13th century, French was a standard literary language, and many works during the Middle Ages were written in French, including Reynard the Fox. Many popular works from the Middle Ages fall into the romance genre. Pierre de St. Cloud opens his work on the fox by situating it within the larger tradition of epic poetry, the fabliaux and Arthurian romance: Van den vos Reynaerde A mid-13th-century Middle Dutch version of the story by Willem die Madoc maecte (Van den vos Reynaerde, Of Reynaert the Fox), is also made up of rhymed verses (the same AA BB scheme). Van den vos Reinaerde and Reinaert Historie (referred to as R I and R II, respectively) are two poems written by two different authors with R II being a continuation of R I. With different writers comes different variations. This can best be seen with Reynard himself. While describing the same character the Reynard from R I has many different character