When the Fox Preaches to the Geese

On Twitter, Matt Cross posted a picture of carving of a fox preaching to geese as seen on a side wall of the tomb of Prior Leschman (1480-1491) in Hexham Abbey.

My first thought was the fox looked a lot like a badger: note the digging claws, head shape, and general ear placement. That said, I was almost certainly wrong, as it turns out the fox preaching to geese is an old medieval trope. 

Who knew? And what's the back story?

The short story is that across Europe, in nearly every culture and language, there are tales and fables about the trickery of fox.

But is there more going on here than simple anthropomorphic tales for entertainment?

There is.

It seems, according to Wikipedia, that:

The trickster fox, Reynard, is considered to represent the medieval burghers, the lion represents the monarch, the bear represents the medieval landlords, the wolf represents the medieval knights, the donkey represents the clerical class, and the small animals (chicken, hare, snails, etc.) represent the public mass.

 

Ah! So this is the cosmology baked into the medieval illuminations of hares, snails, fox, and bear? 

Who knew?  I have never seen it explained before.

But what of this fox, as a priest, preaching to a congregation of geese (and sometimes chickens and other birds)? 

Was this an early warning about pedophile priests and the fraud perpetrated by a wealthy church defrauding poor gullible peasants?

Not quite. It seems this was a branding warning. You see, every religion warns you to stay away from the OTHER fraudsters selling their bunk and belief.  Sure, there are over 4,000 gods and even more sects, but lucky you that you were born into the ONE true religion.

In the case of the Hexham Abbey carving, the fox is probably a warnings against the preaching of the Lollards, a 14th Century religious movement that wanted the church to translate the Bible out of the Latin and Greek and into the common language (English in this case), and which also rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation --  the notion that a priest mumbling a few words over a loaf of bread and a jug of wine physically transforms that bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Though the Roman Catholic Church sought to use the "fox preaching to the geese" as a warning to beware of false prophets, the carvers of church adornments were not blind fools and may have intended another meaning.  After all, who could not see, with their own eyes, that upper class clergy were robbing congregations and shagging women and boys with abandon?  Who could not see the hypocrisy?

The warning about fox preaching to the geese and the bird-brained did not entirely disappear after the 14th Century, and in fact it continues to this day in German, French, Dutch, American, and even Chinese proverbs all of which offer up some form of "Take care of your geese when the fox preaches."

In the illustration, below, from 1907, a Progressive Party poster from the London County Council Elections shows the Duke of Norfolk as a fox preaching to geese. The pulpit is marked "Municipal Reform League" (of which the Duke was Chairman), and behind and below him are the sacks of money the fox has fleeced from the geese, marked as "Unearned Increment" and "Ground Rents". 

So is the fox still preaching to the bird-brained?

Absolutely, as anyone who has turned on Fox News can attest.  

Donald Trump and his charlatans at Fox News have hoovered over $250 million out of the pockets of the gullible geese who salute conspiracy theories laced with racism and every kind of afraidism.

"Fox News"?  Indeed!