ISENGRIM

greedy and dull-witted wolf who is a prominent character in many medieval European beast epics. Often cast as a worldly and corrupt churchman, he appears first as a character in the Latin Ecbasis captivi (c. 940), in which the beasts are unnamed, and under his own name in Ysengrimus (1152). He is the main character in both epics. In the first he is represented as a monk to symbolize slothful and degenerate clergy of the period; in one episode of Ysengrimus he is tricked into becoming a monk by Reynard the Fox's report of the good food in monasteries. While Isengrim is being tonsured and ordained with blows and insults, Reynard goes to his house and possesses his wife. In beast epics written after Ysengrimus, Reynard the Fox supplants the wolf as the chief character. In these tales the clever animals have French traits of manner and speech, while the uncouth Isengrim is German.