SOURCE: Miller, Eleanor Beatrice. “The Gesta Romanorum.” In “Romance Elements in the Gesta Romanorum. Master's thesis, pp. 1-24, University of Vermont, 1949.

[In the following essay, Miller surveys the characteristics, sources, and influences of the Gesta Romanorum.]

1. MANUSCRIPTS AND EARLY PRINTED EDITIONS

The Gesta Romanorum was one of the most popular collections of moralized stories in the Middle Ages. The stories do not concern Roman history, as the title might indicate, although many of them come from classical sources. The framework, if the tenuous connection which unites the stories may be called that, is simply the fact that each tale takes place in the reign of some Roman emperor, often a fictitious one, who seldom has any connection with the story related. Examples of the introductory words are: Leo regnavit, Quidam imperator regnavit, or Rex quidam erat in civitate romana. In fact, the stories in the English version are named after the emperor who supposedly reigned at the time of their happening.

The popularity of the Gesta Romanorum during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is shown by the astonishingly large number of manuscripts which remain from that period. Hermann Oesterley consulted some 165 manuscripts for his edition of the Gesta published in 1872¹—131 of these are found in Continental libraries and thirty-four in England. In addition to these, there is the famous Innsbruck MS, discovered too late for Oesterley to use.²

The manuscripts themselves present an interesting, if baffling, problem, for they differ in the number of stories told, the order of the stories, and often in their content and in the moralizations which follow, to such an extent that it has been impossible to determine which of the manuscripts most nearly resembles the original compilation. They fall into three groups, or families.³

1. The English MSS written in Latin. Douce calls these the “English Gesta”⁴, and Sir Frederick Madden termed them the “Anglo-Latin Gesta.” The fifteenth century MS, Harley 2270, containing 102 chapters is the best representative of this group.⁵ Seventy-two of these stories are also found in the Vulgate Gesta,⁶ the name given to the Latin edition of the Gesta printed from Continental MSS.
2. A group of Latin and German MSS represented by an edition in German, printed by John Schopper at Augsburg in 1489.
3. Numerous Continental MSS in Latin. These are greatly influenced by the Moralitates of Robert Holkot, and the Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury.⁷ They present a confusing disparity, and yet are greatly influenced by one another.

The earliest known MS of the Gesta is one discovered at Innsbruck in Austria and dated 1342.⁸ This MS contains 220 chapters of which 170 are included in the vulgärtext. The title is, “Hic incipiunt Gesta imperatorum moralizata ac declamaciones Senece et Johannis.” The Seneca referred to is Seneca Rhetor, whose Controversiae furnish themes for many stories in the Gesta. Herbert agreed with Gaston Paris that the Johannis could refer to Johannis de Alta Silva, author of the Dolopathos.⁹ This contention is given weight by the fact that the Gesta is followed in the Innsbruck MS by a Latin version of the Seven Sages. The colophon presents even more interesting information since it may possibly give some clue to the much debated question of authorship. It reads, “Expliciunt gesta imperatorum moralizata a quodam fratre de ordine Minorum.” This “quidam frater de ordine Minorum” has not been identified, but he may be the long sought author of the Gesta.

The printed editions also present a serious difficulty, for only one of them resembles any known MS. These, too, fall into three groups.¹⁰

1. The first consists of 150 stories in Latin published by Ketelaer and De Leempt at Utrecht (the date is not given) and reprinted, with the addition of another story, by Arnold Ter Hoernen at Cologne.
2. The second group consists of 181 chapters in Latin published by Ulrich Zell at Cologne. The date is uncertain but was probably in the latter part of the fifteenth century.¹¹ This edition resembles the Continental group of MSS but no one MS has been discovered which is its prototype. Whether there ever was such a MS seems doubtful, and the printed edition may have been based on selections from various MSS—certainly MSS of the Gesta are plentiful enough to make this possible. This collection of 181 stories makes up what is commonly known as the vulgärtext and is the basis for subsequent editions both on the Continent and in England.
3. The third group is an edition in English printed by Wynkyn de Worde; the date is uncertain but probably between 1510-1515.¹² It contains forty-three chapters and is a translation of the early fifteenth century MS Harley 5369 in the British Museum. There is a unique copy of this edition in the Library of St. John's College, Cambridge. In Elizabeth's time this edition of Wynkyn de Worde's was republished by Richard Robinson, and was, as he says, “by me perused, corrected, and bettered.” This edition went through seven printings between 1577 and 1602 and was extremely popular.

It is strange indeed, considering the popularity of the Gesta Romanorum, that no new editions were brought out until the Rev. Charles Swan published an English translation of the vulgärtext in two volumes in 1824. This was followed in 1838 by Sir Frederick Madden's edition of the English versions of the Gesta for the Roxburghe Club which was re-edited in 1879 by Sydney J. N. Herrtage and published by the Early English Text Society.¹³ Oesterley's edition, however, is still considered the standard work by scholars, and references to the stories in the Gesta are usually given by the numbers he assigned them. He collected altogether 283 stories from all three forms of the Gesta. His edition is the result of a painstaking investigation of all the known MSS both on the Continent and in England. Herbert lodged the only criticism voiced concerning Oesterley's work—namely, that Oesterley, while he identified the 181 chapters of the Vulgate, failed to tell from what MS sources he obtained the other 102 stories, or what principle he followed in selecting the last eighty-seven.¹⁴

To summarize: The great divergence in the numerous MSS of the Gesta makes it impossible to determine its original form. The MSS fall into three distinct groups, the Anglo-Latin MSS found in England, the German and Latin MSS found in Germanic countries, and the Continental MSS in Latin which give the vulgärtext of the printed Gesta. The printed form of the Gesta also presents a problem, for no MS has been found which is the archetype of the most popular edition, that is, of the vulgärtext.

2. THE AUTHOR AND DATE

The Gesta Romanorum is a comparatively late compilation, the manuscripts dating in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the earliest being 1342. The date is one of the few things on which scholars express any agreement. It is generally conceded that the Gesta was composed in the last quarter of the thirteenth or the early part of the fourteenth century.¹⁵ As Oesterley says, the middle of the fourteenth century finds the Gesta so widely diffused and so well-known throughout England and the Continent that it must have been in existence for some years.¹⁶

The Gesta, like so many of its mediaeval companions, is anonymous and the question of authorship has provided scholars with a vexing problem and a subject for acrimonious debate. Thomas Warton in The History of English Poetry, the four volumes of which appeared between 1774 and 1781, claimed Petrus Berchorius, or Pierre Bercheur, as the author.¹⁷ Berchorius was a native of Poitou and was prior of the Benedictine convent of St. Eloi at Paris. He is the author of the Reductorium morale super totam Bibliam, the Dictionarium Morale, and several translations of Latin classics. He died in 1362. Warton based his claims, first of all, on a remark of Salomon Glassius in the Philologia sacra which names Berchorius as the author of the Gesta. As a second reason he offered the likeness in manner, style, and form between the works of Berchorius and the Gesta. The introduction of some of the stories of the Gesta into the Repertorium morale, Berchorius' skill in allegory, and his evident familiarity with Roman history provided Warton with more evidence to support his claims.

Sir Frederick Madden, in his introduction to the English Gesta published for the Roxburghe Club in 1838, upholds Warton's view.

It would be very desirable to ascertain what grounds Glassius had for this assertion, but in the absence of further information we naturally recur to the writings of Berchorius himself, and I am bound to say, after a tolerably minute examination of the three bulky tomes in which they are contained, that the internal evidence is decidedly in favor of Warton's argument. No one can indeed rise from a perusal of the two works without being forcibly struck by the surprising coincidence of style, method, and plan of both.¹⁸

Madden to substantiate his argument, then related further stories common to both the Gesta and Berchorius, and added the fact that moralizations in both works begin with carissimi and end ad quod nos ducat. Both of these arguments seem a precarious basis for an opinion, since these stories are the common property of all mediaeval compilers, and carissimi is the familiar salutation of the Middle Ages.

Douce refuted Warton's contentions on the following grounds: first, the internal evidence is not conclusive; second, Berchorius himself laid no claim to the authorship of the Gesta although he was very careful to list all of his works both in the prologue to the Repertorium and in the conclusion to his translation of Livy; third, Berchorius was French and “the Gesta had no trace of Gallicisms nor any other symptom of French authorship.”¹⁹ Douce himself thought that the author was a German. He says:

There are strong marks that the Gesta Romanorum was composed by a German. In the moralization to Chapter 44 there is, in most of the early editions, a German proverb; and in Chapter 142 several German names of dogs.²⁰ Many of the stories are extracted from German authors, as Caesarius, Albert of Stade, and Gervase of Tilbury who wrote his book De Otiis Imperialibus, in Germany. In this country likewise the earliest editions of the Gesta were printed.²¹

Douce termed Warton “that accomplished and elegant historian of English poetry whose accuracy is unhappily known to have been by no means commensurate with his taste.”²² Douce, therefore, claimed a German origin for the Gesta; he believed that the Anglo-Latin recension was composed in England toward the end of the fourteenth century in imitation of it. He made much of the fact that there were two versions of the Gesta.²³

Warton considered the German proverb an interpolation of a German scribe, and Douce himself admitted this later. The dogs' names Warton judged to be Saxon rather than German.²⁴

Swan believed the author was an Englishman because of tale 155, the action of which occurs in the bishopric of Ely in England. “This fact,” says the writer of the Gesta, “related upon the faith of many to whom it was well known, I have myself heard both from the inhabitants of the place and others.” “The inference, therefore,” Swan concluded, “is that the narrator was either an Englishman, or one well acquainted with the location of the place he describes.”²⁵

Oesterley believed in a single origin for the Gesta, and inclined toward England as the place, and an Englishman as the author of the Gesta, although he admitted the possibilites of German authorship. He concluded that the Gesta was originally compiled in England, that it quickly spread to the Continent where new tales were added and it developed along different lines from the Gesta left in England. The first editions of the printed Gesta were made on the Continent and brought to England. Subsequent printings made in England were based on these and not on the Anglo-Latin MSS, thus accounting for the fact that the printed Latin Gesta in England differs so widely from the MS Gesta.²⁶

Joseph Mosher says:

The most significant fact in connection with the present discussion is that all indications point to England as the place of compilation. This circumstance undoubtedly gave a special prominence to exempla in England, but it must be realized that for the most part the Gesta is no more English than French, German, or Italian. It represents the universal clerical spirit of an age in which story telling had a sort of practical value.²⁷

Herbert, influenced by the date and place of the Innsbruck MS, wrote:

On the whole, the evidence available hitherto points to the conclusion that the Gesta was originally formed in Germany early in the fourteenth century, the writings of Holcot, as well as other English sources, being utilized; that the original compilation is represented more or less exactly by the Innsbruck MS of 1342, and that the Anglo-Latin MSS contain a free adaption made in England about half a century later.²⁸

Oesterly's findings are, however, still considered definitive by scholars.²⁹

In summarizing, the date of the Gesta Romanorum is generally conceded to be late in the thirteenth or early in the fourteenth century. Its author still remains unidentified, and Germany and England lay equal claim to the place of origin. The findings of scholars are contradictory and negative, but no considerable scholarship has been expended upon the Gesta in the last seventy-five years. The more scientific investigations of modern scholars might possibly resolve these problems.

3. SOURCES OF THE GESTA ROMANORUM STORIES

The predominating sources of the stories in the Gesta Romanorum are oriental and classical. To teach by parable had long been an oriental mode of instruction and Jesus followed a well established practice in the famous parables of the New Testament. Gregory the Great gave an added impetus to the use of exempla in sermons both by precept and example. In his Homiliae in Evangelia occurs the much quoted “Sed quia nonnunquam mentis audientium plus exempla fidelium quam docentium verba convertunt.”³⁰ Again in the Dialogues he said, “Et sunt non nulli quos ad amorem patriae coelestris plus exempla quam praedicamenta succendunt.”³¹ Both the sermons and the dialogues are well seasoned with stories from the Bible, the lives of saints, and pious tales of monks and martyrs. These quotations from Gregory were frequently cited by mediaeval preachers to justify their use of exempla.

Exempla, at first, were used primarily at the close of a sermon and illustrated its lesson. They were tales from the Bible, lives of the saints, miracles of the Virgin, and monkish tales to which the moral was obvious. The mediaeval mind loved a story, and the illiteracy of a great part of the congregation made this type of preaching more efficacious than any other. The coming of the friars to England in the thirteenth century (the Dominicans came to England in August 1221, and the Franciscans three years later) added new impetus to popular preaching. Soon not only sermons containing exempla but exempla without the accompanying sermon were being collected. Often these were arranged in alphabetical order according to the subject illustrated, and were accompanied by a moralization.³² These collections were known as promptuarium. The story became more and more important, and there crept into these collections not only tales which had no obvious moral but stories from classical and oriental sources which, while entertaining, were definitely secular in character.

J. S. Brewer in his introduction to Giraldus Cambrensis' Gemma Ecclesiastica says:

The fashion of enforcing precept by example was frequent enough in theological works of this nature. And from these unsuspected sources many of these fictions have been derived which afterwards adorned the page of the novelist, and have since dribbled down into nursery tales and the remotest corners of modern literature. I am not to inquire how that practice arose, whence its origin, or where sprang the different currents which afterwards mingled their waters in one undistinguished stream. I am not to describe how pagan, oriental, heretical, neoplatonic legends were rebaptized into the service of the church, and fell in graceful accents from the lips of the unsuspecting clergy who happly had never seen them in their anti-Christian form.³³

The Gesta Romanorum belongs to the most flourishing period of exempla. It was not only one of the most popular collections of exempla in its own day but it has proved a veritable store house of plots and themes for subsequent writers down to our own time. Mosher says:

It would, of course, be an error to consider this great collection merely an example-book. The early date, the Latin language, and the general tone of the work indicates that it was designed primarily for clerics; but it is more than a preacher's manual. Mingled with many fables and short, typical exempla, are a greater number of elaborated and purely secular tales. It may, therefore, with some propriety be looked upon as a transitional work between collections of exempla and compilations of tales, which though sometimes didactic in tone, were largely secular in content and were more pleasingly told for popular entertainment, and left the lesson to be drawn without the aid of an explanation. On the one side the Gesta points to the collections of Gregory, Nicole de Bozon, and Jacques de Vitry; and on the other, to the stories of Boccaccio, Gower, and Chaucer.³⁴

This transitional character which Mosher pointed out is one of the extraordinary things about the Gesta. Its use of Latin, plus the moralizations, would make it seem a collection of exempla for the use of monks in preaching, yet the lack of alphabetical or topical arrangement common to such collections would make this compilation exceedingly awkward to use. On the other hand the secular character of many of the stories is difficult to account for if such were its sole purpose.

The stories in the Gesta are collected from many sources—oriental apologues, monkish legends, saints' lives, miracles of the Virgin, classical stories, tales of the chroniclers, popular traditions, and even fabliaux. There are many pitfalls in attempting to discover from what sources the stories were taken. The anonymous character of mediaeval literature makes it common property, and the same tale appears and reappears innumerable times in varied forms and combinations in bewildering succession. The Gesta has many stories in common with other mediaeval collections and compilations; it would be impossible to say that the compiler of the Gesta used any one of these as sources, and it is rather as analogues that the following collection of tales must be regarded.

Some ninety of the 283 stories in Oesterley's edition are also found in classical literature. These may have been the nucleus around which the other stories gathered, thus accounting for the title. It is in the lesser known classical authors that these are found. No less than thirteen are in the Controversiae of Seneca Rhetor, so called to distinguish him from the more famous philosopher of the same name.³⁵ The Controversiae form the second half of his book on Oratory and Rhetoric, the first half being the Suasoriae, or art of persuasion. The Controversiae are legal in character, a law is quoted, a question involving the application of the law arises, and an ultimate settlement reached.

Valerius Maximus, who flourished early in the first century A.D., had told nine of the Gesta's stories in his Dictorum et factorum memorabillium, a collection of sayings and anecdotes to be used by orators to illustrate their speeches, comparing favorably with a modern collection of after-dinner stories.³⁶ The Natural History of Pliny the Elder accounts for the next largest number of classical tales.³⁷ This book, with its strange wonders, such as dog-headed men and stones which could repel the poison of serpents, was a great favorite in the Middle Ages. Other Gesta stories are found in Ovid, Macrobius, Livy, Cicero, Seneca the Philosopher, Lucan, Suetonius, and Aulus Gellius. Virgil appears in his mediaeval role of magician in four of the tales, but never in his proper character as greatest of the Roman poets.³⁸

Many tales from the Gesta are found in oriental collections. Chief of these, representing eight of the best known stories, is the story of Barlaam and Josaphat, which although included in the Vitae Patrum and formerly assigned to the authorship of John of Damascus, has been identified as a Christianized version of the oriental lives of Buddha.³⁹ It is in this collection of apologues that the famous casket story is found. Many oriental tales found their way into Christian literature through the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsus, a converted Jew who lived in Spain in the time of Alfonsus I.⁴⁰ Oesterley has found twelve of the Gesta's stories in this collection.⁴¹ The Gesta Romanorum and the Seven Sages of Rome have several stories in common.⁴² Killis Campbell, in his edition of the Seven Sages, further connects the two collections of stories by the fact that they are very frequently found side by side in the same MS.

Many of the stories in the Gesta are saints' lives, miracles of the Virgin, and various monks' tales. The number of such collections in the Middle Ages is overwhelming and I shall cite only those which have most in common with the Gesta. The Dialogues of Gregory the Great contain many stories of early saints and martyrs, and his Homiliae in Evangelia (a collection of forty sermons on various passages from the Gospels) are well illustrated with exempla which were frequently retold by later churchmen, and some of which have found their way into the Gesta Romanorum.

The sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux were also rich in exempla.⁴³ Bernard is often quoted by Caesarius of Heisterbach in his Dialogue on Miracles, another storehouse, and a charming one, of Christian legends and monks' tales. Caesarius was a Cistercian monk who flourished early in the thirteenth century. In the prologue to the Dialogue on Miracles he says,

Mindful also of the saying of the Saviour (gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost) while others are breaking whole loaves to the people, that is, are expounding hard problems of scripture, or writing down the more important occurrences of modern days, I have collected the crumbs that fell, and have filled twelve baskets with them for those who are poor, not in grace, but in learning.⁴⁴

The twelve chapters of this work correspond to the twelve baskets of broken bread collected after the miracle.

The Sermones Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry and the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais must also have been familiar to the compiler of the Gesta.⁴⁵ The Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Varagine is perhaps the best known collection of saints' lives.⁴⁶ From this may have come the legends of St. Eustacius, St. Julian, and St. Alexis told in the Gesta.

The remarkable Giraldus Cambrensis added his share of parallel tales to the Gesta through his Gemma Ecclesiastica. This is a book of instructions to his clergy in Wales, replete with example as well as precept. Its title comes from Giraldus' remark in the preface.

My task is that of the man who from the innumerable sands on the seashore picks out with much labor the precious gems; or who selects as he walks through a spacious garden from foolish and fruitless herbs the useful and virtuous, separating the lilies and roses from nettle and bramble.⁴⁷

More secular collections to which the Gesta was apparently indebted are Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium, and Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Imperialia.⁴⁸

Closely connected with the Gesta Romanorum are the collections of moralized tales and fables; of course, it is in this group that the Gesta itself belongs. Those which show the greatest influence on the Gesta are the De Naturis Rerum of Alexander Neckam, the Contes Moralizés of Nicole de Bozon, and the Fables of Odo of Ceriton.⁴⁹

The Moralitates of Robert Holkot needs more comment because it has been frequently described as the collection of exempla on which the Gesta Romanorum was patterned. Herbert says,

A point of great interest about the present work is its relationship to that somewhat vague compilation known as the Gesta Romanorum. No fewer than 27 of the 54 stories in the Moralitates are to be found in Oesterley's edition of the Gesta Romanorum, and Oesterley actually refers to Holkot 59 times in his notes.⁵⁰

Oesterley decided that the compiler of the Gesta borrowed from Holkot, rather than vice-versa.⁵¹ The Innsbruck MS was found too late for Oesterley to use in his discussion. Miss Bourne in her article in Vassar Mediaeval Studies says,

If, however, the MS found after the completion of Oesterley's work and referred to in only two enthusiastic pages of Nachtrag is to be trusted, either the tables are reversed and Holkot must have drawn some of his material from the Gesta, or there must have been a third work which served as a common source.⁵²

Holkot died of the plague in 1349, and the Innsbruck MS is dated 1342. Herbert, however, felt that it was possible that Holkot wrote his Moralitates some considerable time before 1342. A similar collection of exempla known as the Convertimini is often ascribed to Holkot, but the authorship is uncertain. Herbert says of this,

It may be, of course, that the author of the present work, like the compilers of the Gesta, borrowed from Holkot; but it seems more natural to conclude that Holkot wrote the present work as well as the Moralitates, repeating himself to a certain extent; and that his writings were used more freely than has been supposed in the compilation of the Gesta Romanorum.⁵³

There is an unpublished collection of moralized tales found in MS Royal 12 E, xxi in the British Museum. Of this MS Herbert says,

Sixteen of these tales are identical with chapters in the Gesta Romanorum, and the moralizations are all in the same style as those of the Gesta. It seems possible, therefore, that the present MS may be a type of the collections out of which the Gesta was gradually evolved by successive combinations and selections.⁵⁴

4. THE MORALIZATIONS

A brief word must be said concerning the moralizations with which the tales are concluded. Sometimes these moralizations are of greater length than the stories, occasionally when the story is itself an allegory the moralization is omitted. They have a stereotyped form, beginning with “carissimi” in the Latin and “dere friends” in the English, and usually ending with the Latin “ad quod nos ducat.” They also have a stock set of figures.

The emperor is either “our Lord Jesus Christ” or “our heavenly father.” The women in the story invariably represent the temptations of the flesh, regardless of what their character may have been in the tale itself. In fact the moralizations do not run parallel with the themes of the stories, but characters are arbitrarily assigned roles in the allegory. In the fables the lion represents Christ, the lion of Judah. However secular the stories may be, the moralizations are sincerely religious, stressing again and again the sacraments of the church, the need for confession and repentence in particular. Warton with a condescension characteristic of his age, concludes his dissertation as follows:

It may not be thought impertinent to close this discourse with a remark on the moralizations subjoined to the stories in the Gesta Romanorum. This was an age of vision and mystery, and every work was believed to contain a double, or a secondary, meaning. Nothing escaped this eccentric spirit of refinement and abstraction; and, together with the Bible, as we have seen, not only the general history of ancient times was explained allegorically but even the poetical fictions of the classics were made to signify the great truths of religion, with a degree of boldness and a want of discrimination, which, in another age, would have acquired the character of the most profane levity, if not absolute impiety, and can only be defended from the simplicity of the state of knowledge which then prevailed.⁵⁵

The Gesta still retains an importance in English literature when many contemporary works have faded into obscurity. The compiler, or compilers (for there may have been more than one person responsible for the Gesta) knew how to select tales with lasting appeal. This literary storehouse has provided Chaucer, Lydgate, Gower, Shakespeare, Parnell, and dozens of others with material for stories.

Notes

1. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Hermann Oesterley (Berlin, 1872). In his introduction, pp. 5-241, Oesterley lists all the MSS consulted by him, and gives a careful summary of the contents of 138 of the ones he considered most important.

2. This MS was mentioned by Oesterley in an afterword, but was not known to him when his introduction was written.

3. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, p. 244.

4. Francis Douce, Illustration of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners (London, 1839), pp. 535, ff. Douce believed these MSS were compiled in imitation of the “Original Gesta”, that is, the MS which is the prototype of the Vulgate.

5. Douce used this MS as a standard in arranging the stories, and Oesterley consulted it for the last eleven chapters in his Appendix, according to Herbert. See J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of MSS in the British Museum (London, 1810), Vol. III, pp. 212-216.

6. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, pp. 187, 245.

7. Ibid, p. 253.

8. The Latin text of this MS without the moralizations has been edited by Wilhelm Dick (Erlanger Beiträge zur Engleschen Philologie VII; Erlangen-Leipsic, 1890). The MS is carefully described by Herbert, op.cit., pp. 189, ff.

9. Ibid, p. 189.

10. See Herbert, op.cit. pp. 185, ff. and Early English Versions of the Gesta Romanorum ed. Herrtage (EETSES XXXIII; London, 1879), pp.xxi-xxiv.

11. Miss Ella Bourne, in her article, “Classical Elements in the Gesta Romanorum,” Vassar Mediaeval Studies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1923), p. 346, gives the date as “some time previous to 1473, probably in 1472,” but she gives no reasons for thus dating it.

12. See Gesta Romanorum, ed. Herrtage, p. xxii; ed. Oesterley, pp. 241-2.

13. For later Continental editions of the Gesta see Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, p. 254—one by Grasse in 1842; Barbier, 1824; Robert, 1825.

14. Herbert, op.cit., p. 188. In my copy of Oesterley, once owned by Herbert, he has identified twelve of the tales of the appendix in marginal notes as follows:

    app. 60. Text probably from MS XXX, cap. 18. f-113 (confluent 101, quart. XU. jh)

    app. 75 Text apparently from LX., 27 (Cod. Monac. 8497. XV Cent. v.f. 164)

    app. 77-87 Text from Harley 2270 (ff. 20, 22, 24b, 69, 69b, 70, 71, 74b, 75, 76, and 77, respectively)

15. Warton, Douce, Swan, Madden, Herrtage, Oesterley, and Herbert all agree about this. Tyrwhitt placed the date almost a century earlier, but he is the only one who did so.

16. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, p. 256.

17. Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry, ed. Price (3 vols., London, 1840), Vol. I, cxcix ff.

18. Madden's introduction is included in the EETS edition. See Gesta Romanorum, ed. Herrtage, p. xl.

19. Douce, op.cit., pp. 527 ff.

20. The dogs names are Richer, Emulemin, Hanegyt, Bandyn, Cresmel, Egofyn, Beanus, and Renelyn. See Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, cap. 142, p. 496 for the tale.

21. Douce, op.cit., p. 529.

22. Ibid., p. 174.

23. Douce says, “Mr. Warton's dissertation would no doubt, have been rendered more perfect, had he been aware of the fact, which had not only escaped his own attention, but even that of Mr. Tyrwhitt. Neither of these gentlemen, in consulting the manuscripts of the Gesta Romanorum, had perceived that there were two works so entitled, totally distinct from each other, except as to imitation, and certainly compiled by different persons. Of that treated by Mr. Warton, it is presumed no manuscript has been yet described; of the other several manuscripts remain, but it has never been printed except in some translated extracts.” op.cit., pp. 520-21.

24. Later Oesterley agreed with both these views. See Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, pp. 254-55 and 264-65.

25. Gesta Romanorum, trans. by Charles Swan and revised by W. Hooper (Bohns Library; London, 1877), p. xxxiii.

26. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, pp. 241-269.

27. Joseph A. Mosher, The Exemplum in the Early Religious and Didatic Literature of England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1911), p. 79.

28. Herbert, op.cit., p. 170.

29. Mosher says, “Since Oesterley's masterly work was published in 1872, nothing material has been added,” op.cit., p. 24. Thomas Crane in his edition of the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry says, “No new light has been thrown on the question of time and place of this remarkable collection since Oesterley's edition of 1872,” Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. T. F. Crane (Folk Lore Society XXVI; London, 1890), p. lxxxv. Wynnard Hooper in his preface to the Bohn Library edition of Swan's translation says, “The book which has dealt with the subject in the most thorough and satisfactory manner is the work of the painstaking German, Herr Hermann Oesterley,” p. vi. Herrtage says, “The subject has however, been most thoroughly and satisfactorily investigated by Herr Hermann Oesterley,” Gesta Romanorum, ed. Herrtage, p. viii.

30. Homiliae in Evangelia, ed. Migne (Patrologia Latina Vol. LXXVI, Paris, 1902), col. 1290.

31. Dialogues, ed. Migne (Patrologia Latina Vol. LXXVII, Paris, 1902), col. 155.

32. Such as John Bromyard's Summa Praedicantium, containing over a thousand exempla.

33. Gemma Ecclesiastiea, ed. J. S. Brewer (“Rolls Series” XXI; London, 1868), p. xiii.

34. Mosher, op. cit., p. 80.

35. L. Annaeus Seneca, Oratorum et Rhetorum Sententiae Divisiones Colores, ed. Adolphus Kiessling (Leipsic, 1872).

36. Valerius Maximus, Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium Libri Novem, ed. Carl Halm (Leipsic, 1865).

37. Gaius Plinius Secundus, Natural History, trans. from the Latin by H. Rackham (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, 1940).

38. For a discussion of these tales see John W. Spargo., Virgil the Necromancer (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature X; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934), pp. 34 ff.

39. Vitae Patrum, ed. Migne (Patrologia Latina CXCIX; Paris, 1879).

40. Petrus Alphonsus, Disciplina Clericalis, ed. Alphons Helka and Werner Soderhjelm (Sammlung Mitellateinischer Texte I; Heidelberg, 1911).

41. See Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, pp. 714-749 for a list of sources and analogues. Some of the better known tales have as many as thirty or more parallels, showing how difficult it is to trace the course of such a story through the mazes of mediaeval literature.

42. Seven Sages of Rome, ed. Killis Campbell (“Albion Series”; Boston; Ginn & Co., 1907), p. xxiv. Oesterley cites 35 MSS having the two collections. See Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, pp. 14-194.

43. Bernard of Clairvaux, Homiliae, ed. J. P. Migne (Patrologia Latina CLXXXIII; Paris, 1879).

44. Caesarius, Dialogue on Miracles, trans. by Scott and Swinton (2 vols., Broadway Mediaeval Library IV; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1929), Vol. I, p. 1.

45. The exempla in the Sermones Vulgares have been edited by Thomas F. Crane (Folk Lore Society XXVI; London, 1890). The Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais has not been edited since the early sixteenth century and is now so extremely rare that I have not been able to find a copy.

46. Jacobus de Varagine, The Golden Legend, trans., by G. Ryan and H. Repperger (2 vols., New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1941).

47. Gemma Ecclesiastica, ed. J. S. Brewer, Introduction p. xi. The translation is Brewer's, see Vol. VIII in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. Brewer, Dimock, and Warner (8 vols., “Rolls Series” XXI; London, 1868).

48. Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, ed. Thomas Wright (Camden Society L; London, 1850); Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, ed. Felix Liebrecht (Hanover, 1856).

49. Alexander Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, ed. Thomas Wright (“Rolls Series” XXXIV; London, 1863); Nicole de Bozon, Les Contes Moralizés, ed. L. T. Smith and P. Meyer (SATF XV; Paris, 1889). Neither the Fables of Odo of Ceriton nor the Moralitates of Robert Holkot have been edited since the sixteenth century.

50. Herbert, op.cit., p. 106.

51. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, pp. 246-47.

52. Vassar Mediaeval Studies, p. 349.

53. Herbert, op.cit., p. 118.

54. Ibid., p. 156.

55. Warton, op.cit., Vol. I, p. ccvi.