Both of these early sources seem to draw on a pre-existing store of popular culture featuring the character. He also puts in an early appearance in a number of Latin sequences by the preacher Odo of Cheriton. 1148-1153 by the poet Nivardus in Ghent, that collects a great store of Reynard's adventures.

Reynard appears first in the medieval Latin poem Ysengrimus, a long Latin mock-epic written ca. Reynard's wife Hermeline appears in the stories, but plays little active role, although in some versions she remarries when Reynard is thought dead, thereby becoming one of the people he plans revenge upon. Some of the tales feature Reynard's funeral, where his enemies gather to deliver maudlin elegies full of insincere piety, and which features Reynard's posthumous revenge. Reynart's principal castle, Maleperduys, is available to him whenever he needs to hide away from his enemies. The stories typically involve satire whose usual butts are the aristocracy and the clergy, making Reynard a peasant-hero character. Other anthropomorphic animals, including Bruin the Bear, Baldwin the Ass, Tibert (Tybalt) the Cat, Chantecler the Rooster and Hirsent the She-wolf, appear to give testimony against him, which Reynard always proves false by one stratagem or another. Reynard has been summoned to the court of king Noble, or Leo, the Lion, to answer charges brought against him by Isengrim the Wolf. An extensive treatment of the character is the Old French Le Roman de Renart written by Perrout de Saint Cloude around 1175, which sets the typical setting. He seems to have originated in French folklore. Reynard the Fox, also known as Renard, Renart, Reinard, Reinecke, Reinhardus, Reynardt and by many other spelling variations, is a trickster figure whose tale is told in a number of anthropomorphic tales from medieval Europe.

Van den vos Reynaerde by Unknown