Conclusion: The above will have made it clear that the Reinaert should not be regarded as a mere translation. But what is it then? An adaptation? A reworking? Gerritsen makes the distinction between adaptation and reworking by means of a narrative criterion: the ‘fable’ of the original which has or has not been altered. The ‘fable’ is-in theory-made up of the narrative events in their chronological order, separate from the narrator's artificial presentation. In practice, however, it is fairly difficult to define a narrative event exactly. It is, in particular, the dominant role of the spoken word in the Reinaert that complicates the reconstruction of the ‘fable” to a large extent. Direct speech is in fact an event in itself but the contents may refer to other events. When Reinaert confesses his sins to Grimbeert, the listener/reader is confronted with events on two levels: on the one hand with the confession of the crimes, but on the other with the crimes themselves which have their place somewhere near the beginning of the ‘fable’. This results in the paradoxical situation that certain alterations in the Dutch confession of the fox are instances of adaptation as well as of reworking. Of adaptation because they concern poetical interventions within one and the same narrative event: the confession. Of reworking, because the narrative past of Le Plaid and the Reinaert (the beginning of their ‘fable’) differ: several of Renart's crimes (e.g. Roq.1060–68, 1075–78, 1095–1110) are absent from the Dutch poem and in turn some ‘new’ crimes of Reinaert (e.g. Lfs. 1499–1503, 1606–45) do not occur in Le Plaid. It should also be remembered that the fox's spoken words are not always to be trusted. What is the status of an untrue event like the murder conspiracy against the king in the reconstruction of the ‘fable’? Besides, it is not always possible to distinguish between lies and truth: how much is true about Ysengrijn's escape from the priory on Reinaert's advice (who is supposedly excommunicated for this: Lfs.2706–19)? Consequently, definitions of adaptation and reworking that are based on the abstract notion of the ‘fable’ turn out to be somewhat insufficient to characterize the text genesis that resulted in the Reinaert. However, leaving this complication aside, we see that the Reinaert has been drastically reworked in its second part and that the first part shows signs both of adaptation and of reworking. On the basis of these findings the Reinaert may be characterized as a reworking.

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