Contextualising the Crane in the Fabliau Cele qui fu foutue et desfoutue

The crane appears in one fabliau, Cele qui fu foutue et desfoutue, a stereotypical fabliau, in which a worldly valet dupes a naive young girl over the exchange of a bird: a crane. In understanding the significance of the crane, the bestiary tradition appears a logical point of departure; yet, a careful examination of these animal texts reveals otherwise, and points to the influence of other types of animal texts: encyclopaedia; natural history texts; Christian exemplar literature; and homilies. Moreover, the significance of the crane is not restricted to animal texts or to other literary contexts. Rather, the significance of the crane in Cele qui fu foutue et desfoutue further depends on the ways in which the audience understood the crane, particularly in a social and cultural context. This paper will consider three specific contexts – literary, social and cultural – in an attempt to reveal the complex, often overlapping and mutable meanings of the crane in this fabliau.