■ Orwell Hittivemto % itatti FROM THE INCOME OF THE • FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND THE BEQUEST OF tUHlard yiske Librarian of the University 1868-1883 1905 A- 0^ S3 4 8 l.a.j.gL....|..!.!|; 8101 Cornell University Library BV4208.G7 M91 Exemplum in the early re ig ous and dida olin 3 1924 029 355 819 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924029355819 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH THE EXEMPLUM IN THE EARLY LITERATURE OF ENGLAND COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS NEW YORK : LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 West 27TH Street LONDON : HENRY FROWDE Amen Corner, E.C. TORONTO : HENRY FROWDE 25 Richmond Street, W. THE EXEMPLUM IN THE EARLY RELIGIOUS AND DIDACTIC LITERATURE OF ENGLAND BY JOSEPH ALBERT MOSHER, Ph.D. wm geb lork THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1911 All rights reserved s ^^34- OB Copyright, 191 1 By The Columbia University Press Printed from type November, 1911 Press of The New Era printing Compant Lancaster, Pa. TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER This Monograph has been approved by the Department of Eng- lish in Columbia University as a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication. A. H. THORNDIKE, Secretary. PREFACE Although the short story in England has been frequently treated, the subject of the present study has hitherto received comparatively slight attention. The exemplum seems never to have assumed in England the importance that it did on the Continent, but my aim has been to show that its part in English life and literature is by no means negligible. Indeed, owing to the various and far-reaching relationships of the type, I have found it inexpedient to carry out my original design to discuss the exemplum in England in all its phases. The field, there- fore, still affords opportunities for profitable research which I hope the following pages may in some measure suggest. In the preparation of the work I have incurred various obli- gations which are acknowledged with pleasure. For their kind co-operation I desire to thank the librarians of Union Theo- logical Seminary, New York University, and particularly, the librarians and attendants of Columbia University. I am indebted to Professor G. P. Krapp, who proposed the subject, read the manuscript, and offered valuable suggestions ; also to Professor H. M. Ayres for reading the manuscript and con- tributing helpful criticism. My chief obligation is to Professor W. W. Lawrence, who has watched the progress of the work with unfailing interest and has given me the benefit of his accurate and comprehensive knowledge of mediaeval literature. J. A. M. Columbia University, March 9, 191 1. vii CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE. Definition, Origin and Development of the Exemplum i Definition of the type: a, working definition — diversity of opinion concerning the exemplum — classification by Lecoy de la Marche — elimination of allied types — classes of example books — purposes served by the type. Origin and development of the exemplum: Eastern origin of the type — adoption and encouragement of its use by Gregory the Great — comparative disuse of exempla before the thirteenth century — popularization of exempla by Jacques de Vitry and the friars — multiplication of example books — abuse of the type — objections by individuals and Church Councils — gradual de- cline of the exemplum. CHAPTER II The Exemplum in English before the Coming of the Friars.... 20 Earliest use of exempla in English literature : Alfred's translation of the Pastoral Care, of the Consolation of Philosophy — Wer- ferth's translation of Gregory's Dialogues. The exemplum in Old English homiletic literature: Blickling Homilies — Aelfric's Hom- ilies — Wulfstan's Homilies — Old English Homilies — Ormulum — summary. CHAPTER III The Latin Exemplum in England 54 Use of Exempla in Latin treatises: John of Salisbury's Polycrati- cus — Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium — Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Imperialia — Alexander Neckam's De Naturis Rerum — Giral- dus Cambrensis' Gemma Ecclesiastica — Odo de Ceritona's moralized fables and sermons — summary. Early Latin collections : monkish legends — saints' lives and legends of the Virgin — summary. Formal example books: Liber Exemplorum — Exempla Deodati — Exempla Communia — Speculum Laicorum — Gesta Romanorum — Holkot's Moralitates and Liber Sapientiae — Bromyard's Summa Praedicantium — summary. CHAPTER IV The Exemplum in Popular Homiletic Literature after the Com- ing of the Friars 84 ix Low status of preaching at the opening of the thirteenth century. Effect of the Dominicans and Franciscans on exempla: revolution in religious teaching — popularization of exempla. Influence of saints' lives on exempla: Old English saints' lives — Aelfric's Lives of Saints — Middle English lives of Margaret, Juliana and Kath- arine — verse translation of Gregory's Dialogues — Legenda Aurea — South English Legendary — North English Legendary and Homily Collection. The exemplum in representative homily collections: North English Homily Collection — Contes Moralizes of Nicole de Bozon — Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle and his followers — ■ Mirk's Festial — summary. CHAPTER V PAGE. The Exemplum in Religious Treatises and Instruction-Books.... 115 Nature of the religious treatise. Typical treatises which lack the exemplum: Vices and Virtues — Sawle Warde — Speculum of Saint Edmund — Abbey of the Holy Ghost. Representative treatises em- ploying exempla: William of Wadington's Manuel des Pechiez and Robert of Brunne's Handlyng Synne — Agenbite of Inwyt — Jacob's Well — Myroure of Oure Ladye — summary. The exemplum not adapted to the majority of instruction books. Exempla prominent in instruction books which teach morality : Secreta Secretorum — Hoccleve's Regement of Princes — Young's Governaunce of Prynces — Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry — Liber Consolationis or Instructions to his Son by Idle Peter — Book of Cato — summary. CHAPTER VI Conclusion 137 The exemplum an exotic type — influence of Alfred's translations and their originals, of Gregory's Dialogues and the Vitse Patrum — decline of the exemplum — revival among the eleventh and twelfth century clerics — popularization by the Dominicans and Franciscans — comparative scarcity of English collections and original tales — increasing popularity of exempla — English conservatism — probable abuse — tendency toward secularization in religious treatises and in- struction books — a new problem — aim of the study reviewed. List of Books Cited 140 " If I am not too partial to myself, a variety of anecdote cannot be displeasing to anyone, unless he be morose enough to rival the supercil- iousness of Cato.'' William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regitm Anglorum. CHAPTER I The Definition, Origin and Development of the exemplum The exemplum may be briefly and conveniently defined as a short narrative used to illustrate or confirm a general statement. But since the term is frequently supposed to comprise a variety of illustrations which do not really belong to the type, it is desirable to consider the definition carefully. To this end we may examine the views of the critics, some representative exempla collections, and the actual use of the type. Among the critics there appears to be some diversity of opinion upon the subject. Arthur Piaget understands by exempla, " toutes especes de recits de toutes provenances, em- pruntes a l'histoire ancienne ou contemporaine, profane ou sacree, aux vies de saints, aux legendes populaires, aux bestiaires ; des anecdotes ou ' faits divers ' ; tout recit enfin qui, comme le mot l'indique, pouvait servir d'exemple, c'est-a-dire d'eclaircissement ou de preuve a l'appui d'un enseignement moral ou religieux." 1 The inclusion of bestiary material is particularly to be noted. The definition of Gaston Paris includes parables. He says, " II fut longtemps d'usage d'y [in sermons] introduire ce qu'on appelait des exemples, c'est-a-dire, de courts recits, tantot edifiants en eux-memes, tantot ayant le caractere de paraboles ou meme de recits plaisants, desquels le predicateur extrayait ensuite une moralite." 2 Ten Brink makes especial mention of fables. " The preachers," he says, " and especially the mendicant friars, had long been in the habit of making use of Aesopian fables and other tales in the pulpit." 3 Paul Meyer, however, is of the opinion that the edifying 1 Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la Langue et de la Litterature frangaise, II, 242. The page reference, here, as in all cases, is to the edition cited in the bibliography, where full titles are given. 2 La Litterature frangaise au Moyen Age, 247. 8 History of English Literature, I, 264. 2 1 anecdotes, or supposedly such, called exempla in the Middle Ages, are not to be confused with fables or parables. 4 Thomas Wright mentions among other species of exempla, jests and satirical anecdotes, adaptations from fabliaux, from the metri- cal poems of the jongleurs, and abridgments of more extensive romances. 5 Professor T. F. Crane states that among the early collectors of illustrations from the sermons of Jacques de Vitry, " sometimes moral reflections, etc., are considered exempla, and sometimes mere references to biographical or historical fact are so treated." 6 Perhaps the most satisfactory classi- fication is that of Lecoy de la Marche. " Les exemples em- ployes par nos [mediaeval French] 7 sermonnaires sont de quatre sortes. Les uns sont extraits de l'histoire ou des legendes, particulierement des historiens de 1'antiquite, des chroniques de France, des vies de saints, des livres historiques de la Bible. D'autres sont pris dans les evenements contem- porains, les anecdotes du domaine publique ou les souvenirs de Tauteur. . . . Les fables composent une troisieme categorie ; elle embrasse presque tous les sujets traites par Esope, Phedre et La Fontaine, plus beaucoup d'autres moins connus. . . La plupart sont empruntes uniquement au genie populaire, qui les avait en f antes, et a la tradition, qui les avait consacres ; u n petit nombre, pourtant, semblent directement puises chez les ecrivains antiques. . . . Le dernier genre d'exemples con- siste en descriptions ou en moralites tirees de ces singuliers bestiaires, si communs au moyen age." 8 In the opinions cited, it is to be observed that while the critics may vary on some points, they uniformly emphasize the narrative element of exempla. An examination of representative collections shows that the 4 Romania, XIV, 390. Cf. also Les Contes Moralizes de Nicole de Boson, introd., v, x. 5 Latin Stories, introd., vi. 6 The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, introd., xlvii. 7 It should be remembered that collections of stories circulated freely among the churchmen of all Roman Catholic countries. See J. J. Jus- serand, A Literary History of the English People, I, 154; also W. J. Courthope, A History of English Poetry, I, 152. 8 La Chaire franqaise ait Moyen Age, 302-304. statement of Lecoy de la Marche covers the ground very satisfactorily, although, strictly speaking, bestiary material and fables do not belong to the genre. Illustrative passages from bestiaries, lapidaries, and volucriaries are by no means wanting in the religious and moral literature of the Middle Ages; they are, like fables, sometimes even designated by the term " bysen," " ensampel," or " exemplum." But it is to be noted that illus- trations from nature are rarely found in the standard collec- tions of exempla, and that they are altogether lacking in the most notable storehouses, such as the Dialogues of Gregory, the Discipline* Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus, the Factorum et Dictorum memorabilium of Valerius Maximus, the Dialogus Miracitlorum of Caesar of Heisterbach, and the Tractatns de diver sis mater its praedicabilibus of fitienne de Bourbon. More- over, where bestiary and kindred matter does appear, it is usually distinguished from the narratives. A notable case in point is the Contes Moralises of Nicole de Bozon, where the essential part of the work consists of statements about the nature or " property " of plants, animals or stones, followed by moralizations drawn from them. For illustrating the moral so drawn, tales are added, under the caption " Narratio ad Idem " or " Fabula ad Idem," entirely distinct from the " prop- erties of things ' and the moralizations. Another work in which the distinction is felt if not openly indicated is Robert Holkot's Liber Sapientiae, where passages from natural history are jumbled together with narratives, analogies, metaphors, similes and moralizings. In such a case there seems to be no more reason for calling a bestiary passage an exemplum than for so designating a simile or metaphor. Certainly figures of speech should be excluded from the exemplum class, although " bysen," " ensampel " and " exemplum " are frequently applied to them. The following passages from the works of English writers will indicate the varied application of these terms to figures of speech. In Alfred's Boethius, Mind has asked Philosophy to show what true happiness is ; Philosophy replies, " Ic wille forlustlice for J?inum lufum ; ac ic sceal be sumre bysene sume anlicnesse J?sere wisan ]?e getaecan, oppe J?set ping cu)?re sie." 9 The examples cited are to the effect that whoever would sow fertile land must first pluck up all the weeds so that the wheat may grow better; that everybody thinketh honey-comb the sweeter after tasting something bitter; that calm weather is more delectable after a storm, day after night; so, happiness after misery. In the same work Alfred calls the well-known com- parison of godly and careless men with the parts of a wheel, a " Dispell." 10 In the homily on the Nativity of our Lord, Aelfric uses the term " bysen " in reference to an analogy. Speaking of the divine and human nature of Christ, which is neither mingled nor yet separated, he says : " We mihton eow secgan ane lytle bysne, gif hit to waclic naere ; Sceawa nu on anum sege, hu J?aet hwite ne bif> gemenged to )?am geolcan, and bi)? hwsej?ere an aeg. Nis eac Cristes godcundnys gerunnen to J?aere menni- scnysse, ac he ]?urhwuna}? peah a on ecnysse on anum hade untotwsemed." 11 Wulfstan uses similar examples. For instance, in " Lar- spell' (No. xlix), after stating that those who seek to raise themselves to high positions are most liable to be stricken down, he says, " Swa we magon be J?am pa. bysne oncnawan and ongitan, j?set treow )?onne, pe wexe)? on J?am wudubearwe, J?aet hit hlifa)? up ofer eall )?a o]?re treowu and braedej? hit, j?onne semninga storm gestande)? and se stranga wind, )?onne bij? hit swi]?licor geweged and geswencged, j^onne se o]?er wudu." 12 In the Old English Homilies, the writer says with reference to fasting, that the sinner fasts to cleanse himself from sin, the righteous man to preserve his righteousness and approach holi- ness, and the holy man to exalt his seat in heaven ; then he adds, "and )?is us do)? to understonden ]?e forbisne of )?e was- shestren." This " forbisen " tells how some bear soiled clothes to the water for washing — so fasteth the sinful man to be cleansed of his foul sins ; others bear clean clothes to the water 9 King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius, 51. 10 Ibid., 129. 11 Aelfric's Homilies, I, 40; see also pp. 212, 286, 304. 13 Wulfstan Homilies, 262. to be bleached — so doth the righteous man to please our Lord and to have eternal life, etc. 13 The author of the Ancren Riwle introduces a comparison between a castle surrounded by a filled moat and a man sur- rounded by the ditch of humility, with the expression " another example." 14 In the Second Sunday Sermon of the English Metrical Homilies, the Biblical comparison concerning the budding fig tree and the signs of the approach of the heavenly kingdom is called an " ensampel." 15 Another writer who uses the term " example' with reference to a figure of speech is the author of the Middle English dialogue, Vices and Virtues, written about 1200. He refers to Saint Gregory as the source of the example (forbisen) that just as no web can be woven without two beams, so charity can never be accomplished with- out two loves, God's and man's. 16 Richard Rolle's treatises abound in similes such as the one that just as the lords of castles send help to the besieged, so God sends help to those who are troubled in their souls. Opposite this figure the word " exemplum " 17 is written in the margin of the manuscript. Similar instances are frequent. 18 The reli- gious treatise, Jacob's Well, composed during the first quarter of the fifteenth century, has the same marginal note " exem- plum" or " exemplum bonum" opposite some of its figures of speech. 19 These instances show that the term " example " was pretty generally applied to figures of speech and analogies, even after the exemplum had become a well-defined form in religious and didactic literature. It is quite likely that some writers con- sidered any illustration whatever an exemplum. Others, per- haps recognizing a distinction between an example and an 13 Old English Homilies, Second Series, 57 ; see also First Series, 80. 14 Ancren Riwle, 247. 15 English Metrical Homilies, 22, 16 Vices and Virtues, 38. 17 Richard Rolle and his Followers, II, 47. 18 Ibid., I, 134, 138, 143. 19 Jacob's Well, 178. exemplum, may have carelessly confused the two at times. 20 There is strong probability that in the great majority of cases, the word " example '' when used with reference to bestiary pas- sages, figures of speech, moralizations and analogies, was used in the general sense of an illustration and not in the restricted sense of an exemplum, 21 which grew up in the Roman Church as a distinct species of illustration based upon actual or supposedly actual happenings. 22 To sum up, there seems to be warrant for limiting the application of the term " exemplum " inasmuch as (i) the grounds on which the critics agree, (2) the great body of collections, (3) the vast number of instances where the term is obviously used in a technical sense, and (4) the fundamental idea of basing the illustration on human experience, clearly indicate that the essentials of an exemplum are: (1) a brief narrative; (2) human characters. Fables, since they were fre- quently considered as exempla by mediaeval collectors and preachers, cannot be ignored in the following study, but such illustrations as figures of speech, analogies, bestiary and lapi- dary passages, will receive only incidental consideration. In spite of the elimination of kindred forms, it has already been made apparent that the material for exempla is of vast amount. An examination of the field shows that the sources from which exempla were taken may be divided into four classes: (1) such incidental material as was afforded by his- torical works, secular and ecclesiastical ; poems and prose fiction, ancient and mediaeval ; contemporary events ; incidents and stories brought personally to the attention of the writer; (2) collections of tales, fables, anecdotes, and saints' lives, not 20 Such a confusion would account for the fact that among the early collectors from the sermons of Jacques de Vitry, " Sometimes moral re- flections, etc.," are considered exempla. See above, p. 2. 21 Cf. the word " character,' 7 and the term " characters " associated with Hall, Overbury and others. 22 The exemplum was established by Gregory the Great on the ground that to acquaint people with actual experiences of men was often more efficacious than to employ precept only. Jacques de Vitry, the Knight of La Tour Landry and other influential writers, considered the exemplum in the same light. See below, pp. 13, 14. originally designed to serve as exempla but offering plentiful and convenient matter for such; these are represented respec- tively by the numerous early collections of Latin stories, Aesopic fable collections, the historical anecdotes of Valerius ■Maximus, and the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine; (3) elaborate moral and didactic treatises which make use of a large number of exempla in illustration of the points discussed ; to this class belong the Dialogues of Gregory, the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus, and Jacob's Well) (4) collec- tions especially designed for the use of preachers and moralists and properly designated as " example-books " ; of this class there are four varieties: (a) collections containing exempla unclassified and without accompanying moralizations, such as the early compilations from the sermons of Jacques de Vitry; (b) collections containing exempla classified under topics alphabetically but without moralizations, such as the Alpha- be turn Narrationum formerly ascribed to fitienne de Besangon ; (c) collections containing exempla moralized but not classified, such as the Gesta Rornanorum; (d) collections containing exempla both alphabetically classified and moralized, such as the Scala Cell of Johannes Junior. These example-books, although differing from one another in the number and length of the tales, show great similarity in manner and matter. This is accounted for by the substantial unity of purpose on the part of the collectors. An unelaborated outline which set forth the moral unmistakably and could be developed at the discretion of the preacher or moralist was considered the most advantageous form for exempla in the collections. In style, therefore, a dead level prevails. As to subject-matter, stories concerning good and bad bishops, monks, friars and hermits preponderate ; incidents from the lives of saints are next in general favor ; fables constitute the third choice. Copious borrowing from a few well-known early store- houses, such as the Vitae Patrum, Gregory's Dialogues, the Dialogus Miraculorum of Caesar of Heisterbach, the Factorum et Dictorum memorabiliutn of Valerius Maximus, saints' lives, and Aesopic fables, naturally resulted in much repetition. Constant copying and recopying of favorite and effective 8 stories tended to preserve the similarity. A glance at the notes of any well-edited collection, such as Professor Crane's Jacques de Vitry, will indicate what a large number of tales were repeated again and again in European collections. Variant forms, of course, abound, and as new material of a literary or historical character developed, new stories were added here and there; but the old favorites and the same general tone of the collections survived through the entire flourishing period of the exemplum. This vast amount of diversified material, which the assiduity of collectors placed at the disposal of moralists and preachers, afforded tales suitable for widely varying audiences and occa- sions. There were tales for the serious and the frivolous, for the sinful and the godly, for the churchman and the layman. The purposes served by exempla may be summed up as follows : (i) to furnish a concrete illustration of the result of obeying or disobeying some religious or moral law; (2) to give proof or confirmation of the truth of an assertion; (3) to arouse fear in the sinful or to stimulate the zeal of the godly; (4) to make clear the meaning of some abstruse statement; (5) to revive languid listeners, evoke interest or laughter; (6) to eke out a scant sermon by " farsing " it with tales. The last two of these purposes were emphasized by men like Chaucer's Pardoner, who contributed largely to bring the exemplum into disrepute. They may all be found in varying proportion in sermons and treatises from the time of Gregory the Great onward. Having in mind the nature of the exemplum, the character of the sources, and the purposes served by the type, we may proceed to a brief discussion of its origin and development in European literature. This has been presented, with particular emphasis on collections, by T. F. Crane, 23 and discussed inci- dentally by numerous other critics, such as Warton, Dunlop, Douce, Wright, Herrtage, Furnivall, Jacobs, Ten Brink, Goedke, Cruel, Horstmann, Aubertin, Gaston Paris, Lecoy de la Marche, Heaureau, Bourgain and Hervieux. 24 To these men 23 T. F. Crane, The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry ; see introd. 24 See bibliography at the close of this study. and others I am considerably indebted for the material in the following section, which aims to afford a convenient view of the rise and decline of the exemplum. The value of the apologue, the concrete illustration, was per- ceived by the greatest of teachers, Christ. His use of the parable, such as that of the Sower, the Talents, or the Prodigal Son, was his favorite means of instruction. In the use of apologues, however, Christ was not an originator, inasmuch as this method of inculcating morals was popular in the East before Christianity was ever conceived. Such Eastern collec- tions as the Book of Sindibad (Seven Sages), the Fables of Bidpai (Kalilah and Dimnah), the Bhagavan Bodhisattvascha (Barlaam and Josaphat), and the Vedabbha Jataka (Buddhist Birth Stories), show that the illustrative tale must have been favored by the moralists of antiquity. It is not improbable that such usage arose independently among various peoples. That it should be imitated after prov- ing effective was altogether natural. " Greece and India," says Joseph Jacobs, " each invented separately the fable as a means of moral or political instruction. Similarly Judea and India, each probably independently, invented the parable for the same purpose. Both the Rabbis and the Brahmins found that the best way to point a moral was to adorn a tale. Both Jesus and Buddha adopted the method of their rivals for the purpose of their propaganda." 25 It was a long time before these oriental collections were intro- duced into Europe. In fact, the earliest known western compi- lation of oriental apologues, the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus, was not made until the beginning of the twelfth century. 26 Nor was the method of teaching by apologues, 27 25 Barlaam and Josaphat, introd., Iv-lvi. 28 Cf. T. F. Crane, Mediaeval Sermon-Books and Stories, Amer. Philo- sophical Society Publications, XXI, 50, note. 27 The part later played by oriental tales is emphasized by Gaston Paris. " D'ou venaient ces contes, repandus dans toute l'Europe, et dont plusieurs sont populaires encore aujourd'hui ? La plupart avaient une origine orien- tale . . . le bouddhisme, ami des exemples et des paraboles, contribua a faire recueillir des contes de toutes parts et en fit aussi inventer d'excel- lents. 5 ' La Litterature frangaise au Moyen Age, 119. 10 which had been effectively used by the Brahmins, Nestorians, Rabbins, and finally by Christ, extensively adopted by the Christian teachers of the early period. This fact may, perhaps, be accounted for by the extreme vogue of the symbolical method, the explanation of Scripture according to its moral, historical or spiritual significance. 28 The sermons of Augus- tine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great are replete with exegesis of this kind, and their influence in this respect is one of the remarkable features of mediaeval literature. 29 The last of these men did, however, recognize the value of the narrative illustra- tion, and established in homiletic literature the formal exem- plum, which was evolved from the Eastern apologue and parable. Thirteen exempla, dealing almost exclusively with incidents concerning clerics, are to be found in Gregory's forty Homiliae in Evangelia, 30 which are of a comparatively popular nature. Eight of the tales are taken from Gregory's own com- pilation, the Dialogues. 31 Besides the fully developed exempla, there are in these homilies many brief references used to con- firm or illustrate doctrine. Gregory's belief in the efficacy of exempla is evinced not only by his employment of them, but by commendatory state- ments. In one place he says, " Sed quia nonnunquam mentes audientium plus exempla fidelium quam docentium verba con- vertunt, volo vobis aliquid de proximo dicere, quod corda vestra tanto formidolosius audiant, quanto eis hoc de propinquo 28 " The allegorical interpretation, first introduced by Philo as a means to reconcile the Mosaic revelation with the Greek philosophy, was adopted by the Alexandrian theologians as the highest principle of Biblical exegesis, and through St. Augustine transplanted to the Western Church. In the Middle Ages four senses were found in Scripture : historical, allegorical, moral, and anagogical ; c. g. : Jerusalem is literally the city so named, allegorically the Church, morally the believing soul, anagogically the heav- enly Jerusalem." See Horstmann, Richard Rolle of Hampole, I, introd., ix ; see also Harnack, Hist, of Dogma, I, 114 seq. 29 In the writings of the great Fathers of the Latin Church " are to be found those myriad mystical allegorical interpretations of Scripture which were to dominate the literature and inspire the art of the Middle Ages." H. O. Taylor, The Classical Heritage, 104. 80 Edited by Migne, Patrologia Latina, LXXVI. 31 Edited by Migne, Pair. Lat., LXXVII. 11 sonat." 32 Again he states that "ad amorem Dei et proximi plerumque corda audientium plus exempla quam verba excitant." 33 These statements were employed later by a number of men who quote from Gregory to justify the method. 34 Furthermore, Gregory gave still greater encourage- ment to the use of the type by his compilation of the Dialogues, already mentioned. This work, as may be remembered, con- sists of a conversation between Gregory and his deacon Peter. The former tells tales, after which the latter asks questions in such a way as to bring out the moral points involved and lead to other tales. The first section relates incidents from the lives of Constantine, Boniface, Fortunatus, Severus and others; the second deals with Saint Benedict; the third and fourth narrate wonders concerning various holy men. The book was probably composed in emulation of the Vitae Patrum, with the idea of comparing the miracles of the Latin hermits with those of the Egyptians. 35 In the prologue, Gregory states that the narratives were principally intended to lead men to better lives ; for this purpose, exempla were, in his opinion, often more efficacious than ordinary exposition of Scripture : " Sunt nonnulli, quos ad amorem patriae coelestis plus exempla, quam praedicamenta succendunt." 36 The influ- ence of the Dialogues on the later development of exempla can hardly be overestimated, inasmuch as nearly every important collector after Gregory drew copiously from it. In three ways, therefore, this great churchman encouraged the use of exempla : by employing them in his homilies ; by recommending their efficacy ; and by writing a treatise which was, to all intents and purposes, a collection of exempla. 32 Homiliae, Patr. Lat., LXXVI, 1290. Professor Crane points out that Gregory here refers to the examples of men themselves, but the fact that the homilist says that he therefore wishes to tell of a recent happening would seem to indicate that the exemplum was not far from his mind. This is one of the passages frequently cited by later users of exempla. See Crane, /. de V., introd., xviii. 83 Homiliae, Patr. Lat., LXXVI, 1300. 84 Jacques de Vitry; fitienne de Bourbon; the author of the Alphabetum Narrationum (Arnold of Liege ?) ; the author of the anonymous Speculum Exemplorum. 35 Gaston Paris, La Litter ature frangaise, 252. ™ Dialogues, Migne, Patr, Lat., LXXVII, 153. 12 Gregory's encouragement did not, however, result in much employment of the type. 37 Not until about the time of the preaching friars did it become a marked feature in European sermons. Still, as will be seen later, exempla circulated in Latin among the churchmen before being extensively used in popular discourses. 38 Some anecdotes and legends appear in French sermons of the twelfth century, 39 and they were not altogether wanting in contemporary German preaching. 40 But in the main, the evidence leads to the conclusion that the exem- plum was comparatively little employed before the opening of the thirteenth century. Wright says, " The preachers of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, attempted to illus- trate their texts and to inculcate their doctrines, by fables and stories." 41 Gaston Paris notes that stories were inserted in sermons after the twelfth century. 42 Aubertin, speaking of the fourteenth century, says that then, as in the thirteenth, there was " emploi frequent des exemples, recommande par les rhetoriques sacrees et justifie par des succes eclatants." 43 Paul Meyer states that either exempla were not of frequent occur- rence up to the thirteenth century, or that the sermons of a popular character where they would naturally be found, have not been preserved. 44 Lecoy de la Marche, who has made a particularly careful study of French sermons, says, " Les exem- ples proprement dits sont rares avant le XIII 6 siecle." 45 The above statements seem to show pretty conclusively that previous to the beginning of the thirteenth century, the use of exempla was slight. 37 Crane, 7. de V ., introd., xviii. 35 Cf. M. B. Heaureau, " Les Rccits d' Apparitions," printed in Memoires de I'lnstitut national de France, XXVIII, Pt. II, 261. See Bourgain, La Chaire frangaise au Xlle Siecle, 258 seq. See R. Cruel, Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter, Chap. III. 11 Latin Stories, introd., vi. 42 La Littcrature frangaise, 120. 43 Histoire de la Langue et de la Littcrature frangaises au Moyen Age, II, 358. 44 Les Contes Moralizes, introd., xi. 45 La Chaire frangaise, 299. ■111 13 From the time of Cardinal Jacques de Vitry and the preach- ing friars, the exemplum rapidly became a prominent element of sermons. This was due largely to the fact that these men began an appeal to the masses. For this purpose, cold, pedantic arguments and scholastic subtleties were futile; 40 the people must be interested. The far-sighted and influential churchman, Jacques de Vitry, like the Franciscans and Dominicans, realized the necessity and stated it clearly. In the prologue to his Sermones Vulgar es he says that the keen sword of subtle argumentation has no power over laymen ; that to the knowl- edge of the Scriptures, without which one cannot take a step, must be added exempla which are encouraging, amusing, and yet edifying. 47 Other men who collected or used illustrative material stated their approval of the exemplum as an effective factor in discourse. Some of the more important of these may be cited here. Odo de Ceritona, who flourished in England during the last quarter of the twelfth century, wrote in the prologue to his Parabolae, " Et quoniam, ut dicit Gregorius, plus quandoque compungunt exempla quam verba, aperiam in parabolis os meum, et similitudines et exempla que libencius audiuntur, memorie firmius quam verba commendantur, proponam, quibus intellectis sapiens sapiencior erit." 48 litienne de Bourbon in the prologue to his Tractatus de diver sis materiis praedicabilibiis states that his object is to stir men to eschew vain worldly delights and to seek eternal good ; he then adds a recommendation of exempla, citing Gregory, Christ and Dionysius in support of his views. 49 The prologue closes with another authoritative commendation of exempla 49 Caesar of Heisterbach in his Dialogus Miraculorum says, " When I speak of God you sleep, but to listen to fables you rouse yourselves.'' See Histoire litteraire de la France, XXIV, 381. 4 '' See Crane, /. de V., introd., xli-xlii, note. 48 See Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins, IV, 175. Earlier in the pro- logue Odo says, " Paterfamilias debet proferre de thesauro suo nova et vetera verba et exempla, quibus reficiatur fidelis anima." 49 See Lecoy de la Marche, Anecdotes historiques, 4. 14 taken from the thirteenth century Life of St. Dominic by- Bishop Constantin of Orvieto. 50 The author of the Alphabetum Narrationum, formerly ascribed to litienne de Besanqon, cites in his prologue the authority of Gregory and St. Dominic and adds at considerable length his own recommendation of exempla as a means of instilling morality. " Narrationes quidem hujus (modi) et exempla facilius intellectu capiuntur, et memoriae firmius imprimuntur, et a multis libentius audiuntur." 51 At a later period the Knight of La Tour Landry, among others, is a firm believer in the moral benefits of exempla. In the introduction to his book of stories compiled for the instruc- tion of his daughters, he says that the work was done ' affin que elles peussent aprendre et estudier, et veoir et le bien et la mal qui passe est, pour elles garder de cellui temps qui a venir est.'' 52 Other references might be added to show that the collectors felt that they were greatly advancing the cause of religion and morality by their work. 53 Both collectors and preachers were encouraged by the writers of treatises on the art of preaching, to gather and employ exempla. A few cases in point may be mentioned. Alanus de Insulis, who died about 1203, advises in his Summa de Arte Pracdicatoria that authorities should be cited, quotations in- serted, also ' verba commotiva, quae mentes emolliant, et lacrymas pariant." He then adds, ' In fine vero, debet uti exemplis, ad probandum quod intendit, quis familiaris est 60 " ' Ubicunque conversabatur beatus Dominicus, sive in via cum sociis, aut in domo cum hospite reliquaque familia, aut inter magnates et principes vel prelatos, semper effluebat edificatoriis sermonibus, habundabat exemplis, quibus ad amorem Christi seculive contemptum audiencium animos invit- abat ; et vix ipsa communis ejus locucio a virtutis pondere vacua erat.' " Anecdotes historiques, 13; for corrected form of the passage, see editor's note, ibid., 14. 51 See Hist, lift, de la France, XX, 273. An early English translation of Alphabetum, entitled An Alphabet of Tales, is in process of edition by Mrs. M. M. Banks for the E. E. T. S. Under the heading " Exemplum," the compiler gives further evidence of the efficacy of tales ; see Alphabet, Pt. I, 217. 52 La Tour Landry, Le Livre, 3-4. 53 See Crane, 7. de V ., introd., xx-xxi. 15 doctrina exemplaris." 54 An anonymous work of the thirteenth century, entitled De Dilatione Sermonum, points out the various steps by which a sermon should be developed. The third step is the reasoning or argumentation, which may consist in bring- ing forth two contrary propositions with the idea of rejecting one of them ; in linking enthymemes ; or in narrating exempla. 55 Humbert de Romans, who in the latter part of the thirteenth century had considerable influence over the Dominicans and Franciscans, also recommended the use of exempla, in his De Entditionc Praedicantittm.** These citations may suffice to indicate that from the beginning of the thirteenth century the use of exempla was advocated by instructors in theology. The vogue of exempla spread rapidly all over western Europe. In France, Germany, Italy, Spain and England, were produced a number of sermon collections, usually entitled " Sermones de tempore et de Sanctis," in which exempla were employed. Often the collector added an appendix consisting of tales, which was known as a " promptuarium." The sources of the tales in these collections were widespread and various, but those most frequently quoted were the Vitae Patrum, the Dialogues of Gregory, the Dialogus Miraculorum of Caesar of Heisterbach, the Factorum et Dictorum memorabilium of Valerius Maximus, and saints' lives. The immediate success of exempla in the popular sermons of the preaching friars, gave rise to a large demand for more example-books. They were soon produced in large numbers. The more important works, such as those of Jacques de Vitry, litienne de Bourbon, Vincent de Beauvais, and the author of the Alphabetum Exemplorum, were scattered over Europe in copies and excerpts, and new compilations were made. The standard sources continued to furnish the most favored stories, many of which became so familiar that often only a few open- ing words of them were given in the collections. Up to the middle of the fourteenth century, collections had appeared in which the tales were accompanied by moralizations ; also those M Summa, Migne, Patr. Lat., CCX, 114. 65 La Chaire frangaise, 296. ™ Ibid., 301. 16 in which the tales were alphabetically arranged. About the middle of the century, a writer styling himself " Frater Johannes Junior, ordinis fratrum predicatorium," compiled a work called the Scala Cell in which there were both alpha- betical arrangement of the stories under topical headings, and frequent moralizations of the tales. The plan of this book represents the final stage in the development of example-books. The work of the preacher was reduced to a minimum. The ease with which sermons could be prepared by employing these plentifully distributed tales, and the satisfaction of the great mass of auditors in hearing them, resulted in excessive use of the type. There was, moreover, a marked tendency in favor of indelicate and even vicious narratives. 57 As a con- sequence, opposition to exempla was aroused and by the time of Dante became outspoken. The great Florentine expressed in his Paradiso a feeling of strong resentment at the excessive use of tales and fables in the sermons of his day. "... e'en they whose office is To preach the gospel, let the gospel sleep, And pass their own inventions off instead. One tells how at Christ's suffering the wan moon Bent back her steps, and shadow'd o'er the sun With intervenient disk, as she withdrew ; Another, how the light shrouded itself Within its tabernacle, and left dark The Spaniard and the Indian, with the Jew. Such fables Florence in her pulpit hears, Bandied about more frequent than the names Of Bindi and of Lapi in her streets. The preacher now provides himself with store Of jests and jibes; and, so there be no lack Of laughter^ while he vents them, his big cowl Distends and he has won the meed he sought." 58 Similar objection to the use of tales and fables in sermons was not uncommon. Professor Schofield calls attention to the words of the thirteenth century French preacher, Gautier de 67 " The most scandalous tales were not considered out of place by the preachers of the thirteenth century." Robinson, Petrarch, 92-93. 08 Paradiso, Canto XXIX, 11. 99 seq., Cary's translation. 17 Chateau-Thierry, relative to John's sending the disciples to Christ : " ' Audiebat verba oris eius, non opera regum, vel Renardi, vel fabulas.' " 59 In England, as in Italy and France, we find the same criticism. Perhaps the most vigorous oppo- nent of story-telling in the pulpit was John Wycliffe, whose sermons and tracts contain numerous passages directed against the employment of narratives. For example, in the tract " Of the Leaven of Pharisees,'' written about 1381, he deplores the fact that the friars " maken hem besi on ]?e holy day to preche fablis and lesyngis to J?e peple and not ]?e gospel, and gon fro place to place and fro man to man to begge of pore men for here false lesyngis, and letten men fro here devocioun." 60 Again, he says, " J?ei techen opynly fablys, cronyklis and lesyngis and leven cristis gospel and J?e maundementis of god." 61 In another place he states that these friars "han disceyved cristendom )?is hundred /eer & more bi ypocrisie & false prechynge of fablis & errouris & heresies." 62 In the tract "Of Prelates" Wycliffe states that "pei senden o]?ere )?at tellen lesyngis, fablis, & cronyclis, & robben ]?e peple bi fals beggyngis." 63 Similar references from the work of Wycliffe and his followers might be multiplied, in which " iapis," " gabbyngis," " lesyngis," " cronyclis," " fablis," " tradicions," and " poisies " are decried. 64 At a later period we find that criticism of the use of exempla is still alive. For instance, Erasmus in his Concionator deprecates the exemplum ; 65 and as Douce points out, ridicules in his Stultitiae Laus, the story- 09 W. H. Schofield, English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer, 342. 90 The English Works of Wycliffe, 8. 81 Ibid., 16; see also p. 10. 62 Ibid., 26. 63 Ibid., 59. "Ibid., 105, 124, 144, 153, 305-6, 310, 347, 438, 442, 468, 469. 65 Ecclesiastae sive de ratione concionandi, 529. " Ab exemplis fabulosis, quamquam et his ratione quadam utuntur oratores, ecclesiastae in totum abstinendum censeo, duntaxat apud promiscuam multitudinem. Video qui- dem fuisse morem nostra memoria, ut concionatores narrationibus qui- busdam uterentur sub rationis finem, quae videri poterant studio confictae ad terrorem incutiendum rudibus et obduratis, aut ut rem alioqui frugi- feram persuaderent." 18 telling theologians. 66 Along with these individual outcries against the use of tales, more formidable opposition had ap- peared: the Church Councils had joined issue with exempla. The action of the Councils was not taken, apparently, until the Catholic Reaction had set in and it had long been felt that exempla were exercising a pernicious influence. Toward the close of the fourteenth century a strong official sentiment against the type existed, though actual prohibition was yet deferred. In the Council of Salzburg (1386) it was maintained that " ' These false prophets [the wandering friars] by thei-r sermons full of fables often lead astray the souls of their hearers.' " 67 More definite action was taken considerably later. At the Council of Sens (1528), the first Council of Milan (1565), and the Council of Burgos (1624), measures were finally enacted to exclude the objectionable narratives. 68 The exemplum at this time had passed through its flourishing period, but still the Councils were unable to make their rulings immediately effective. The number of collections compiled, however, is compara- tively small after the fifteenth century. A few voluminous works belong to the latter half of the sixteenth and the opening of the seventeenth centuries. In 1555, John Herold, a scholar and editor of Basel, published his great three-volume collection entitled Exempla virtuhim et vitiorum, atquc etiam aliarum rerum maxime memorabilium, future lectori supra modum magnus thesaurus. A similar work, the Promptuarium Exem- 69 Douce, Illustrations of Shakspere, II, 343. The passage referred to, runs as follows : " Hie mihi stultam aliquam et indoctara fabulam, ex spec- ulo opinor historiali, aut Gestis Romanorum, in medium adferunt, et eandem interpretantur allegorice, tropologice, et anagogice.'' Stultitiae Laus, 261. Douce further states (p. 343) that the Italians had not entirely ceased using exempla even in the eighteenth century. " Grossley," he continues, " states that he heard a buffoon preacher at Rome who stuffed his dis- course with a thousand tales, among which was that of Father Philip's geese, from Boccaccio." Barclay in The Ship of Fools says that priests and clerks who tell gestes of Robin Hood in the pulpit are doubtless fools before God, if not before man. Cf. Snell, Age of Transition, I, 127-28. 07 See J. J. Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life, 303. 68 See Crane, /. de V ., introd., lxix-lxx. 19 plorum of Andreas Hondorrf, a German Lutheran minister, was published in 1580. In 1603, Johannes Major, a Jesuit of Douay, revised and added to the enormous anonymous collec- tion called the Speculum Exemplorum. 69 Other collections, such as the Exempla virtutum et vitiorum of Giovanni Vittoria Rossi, are even later. But the Reformation had brought exempla into general disrepute and they had long since become associated with facetiae, jests and secular tales. 89 An edition of this revision, the Magnum Speculum Exemplorum, as late as 1 71 8 is noted. Crane, /. de V ., introd., lxxv. CHAPTER II The Exemplum in English before the Coming of the Friars The remarkable and sudden popularity of exempla in western Europe from the beginning of the thirteenth century has over- shadowed the earlier appearance of the type, especially in English literature. 1 Its employment here was, indeed, rela- tively small, and does not seem to continue in unbroken connec- tion with the later period. But as may be inferred from the preceding chapter, the exemplum, owing to its detachment and simplicity, might easily be in vogue for a time, fall into disuse, and be revived without changing its essential form. It is not surprising that the use of the type in the early period dies out and leaves little trace upon English literature. The exemplum in Old English is, nevertheless, worthy of consideration. It is interesting to find that it makes its first appearance in England through Gregory the Great, who by precept, by the compilation of the Dialogues, and by a more or less systematic employment in his homilies, stood as a sponsor for the type. His Pastoral Care, translated by Alfred and sent " to every bishopric in my kingdom," marks the beginning of the use of exempla in English literature. The illustrations in this work are very different in subject-matter from the monkish tales which are usually thought of in connection with the term " exempla." They lack, moreover, the detachment, stock intro- ductions and conclusions, and position at the close of sections, characteristic of the type at a later period. Still, they are narrative passages used consciously to illustrate the doctrines of the text. In a few cases the incidents are introduced by statements which suggest that they were more or less clearly recognized as exempla. For instance, the account of David 1 The subject has been briefly touched upon by H. S. Canby in The Short Story in England, pp. 24 seq. 20 21 cutting a piece from Saul's cloak instead of killing him, begins, "Ac gif we nu onginna]? reccean ongemong }?isum ymbe Davides dseda sume, J?onne magon we )?is spell J?y openlicor gereccean." 2 The introduction to the episode of Abner and Asahel runs, " paet we magon openlicor gecyj?an, gif we Abneres dseda sume herongemong ssecgea}?, hu Assael hiene unwserlice mid anwalde J?reatode, & him oferfylgde." 3 In another place the writer, referring to the devil's use of flattery to soothe a disconsolate sinner, says, " pset waes mid ]?sere biesene getacnod )?e Dinan gedon wses Iacobes dohtor," after which the incident is given at some length. 4 The exempla in the Pastoral Care are all taken from the Old Testament and consist largely of episodes from the lives of David, Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hezekiah and Balaam. They are usually limited to four or five lines and are scattered promiscuously through the sections, sometimes occur- ring in groups of two or three. In many cases the exemplum is followed by a signification or "betokening' of its main features, with the aim of emphasizing its application to the point illustrated. Thus, after the tale of David soothing Saul by music, used to exemplify the effectiveness of dealing gently with the rich and proud, Saul's madness is said to signify the pride of the rich, and David, the humble life of holy men. 5 The fact that the narratives are all Biblical, and involve little or no originality on the part of the translator, renders further treat- ment unnecessary. They warrant attention simply as marking the first use of the type in our literature. Alfred's translation of the Consolation of Philosophy is of greater importance for our study. Not only did this work have a more widespread influence, 6 but whereas the translator kept closely to the text of the Cura Pastoralis, he exercised 2 King Alfred's West Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, 196. 3 Ibid., 294. * Ibid., 415. 5 Ibid., 183-4. 6 " Its influence and popularity, indeed, as a book of practical piety, can only be compared with the later Imitation of Christ, and the earlier Cicero's De Officiis. Hundreds of manuscripts are still to be found in dozens of libraries." W. J. Sedgefield, King Alfred's Version of Boethius, introd., xvi. 22 considerable freedom and originality in handling the text of Boethius. Since the Consolation was written not merely for the churchman, as was the Pastoral Care, but for the layman as well, the presence of more popular illustrations is not surpris- ing. There are fourteen exempla, all taken from history or mythology, and ranging from a reference of two or three lines, to complete stories, such that of Orpheus and Eurydice, or Ulysses and Circe. Alfred utilized all but one of these, — that narrating the heroic trials of Odysseus, Alcides, and others. This exemplum, which occupies thirty-five lines in Boethius, 7 is represented in Alfred's version by a general exhortation to follow the examples of good and brave men. 8 In spite of this obvious endorsement of exempla, Alfred takes occasion to add to a mild apology for their appearance, which he found in Boethius. Just before the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice in the original, Philosophia says to Anima, " Quod si rationes quoque non extra petitas sed intra rei quam tractabamus ambitum collocatas agitavimus, nihil est quod ammirere, cum Platone sanciente didiceris cognatos de quibus loquuntur rebus oportere esse sermones." 9 Alfred translates the passage as follows : " peah we nu scylen manega & mislica bisna & bispell reccan, ]?eah hanga]? ure mod ealne weg on J?aem )?e we aefterspyria]?. Ne fo we no on J?a bisna & on )?a bispel for J?ara leasena spella lufan, ac forJ?aemj?e we woldon mid gebecnan )?a soj?faestnesse, & woldon J?aet hit wurde to nytte j?am geherendum. Ic gemunde nu ryhte )?ses wisan Platones lara suma, hu he cwse)? J?aet se mon se ]?e bispell secgan wolde, ne sceolde fon on to ungelic bispell )?aere spraece J?e he J^onne sprecan wolde." 10 Alfred's use in the foregoing passage of the words " bisen " and " bispell " for Boethius' more general term "rationes' is to be noted; also the addition explaining that he does not use exempla for the love of the stories but because they help to make clear the truth. Whether or not Alfred enjoyed the narratives, his belief in 7 Philosophiae Consolationis, ed. Peiper, 1 18-19-20. 8 King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius, 139. 9 Philosophiae Consolationis, ed. cit., 85. 10 King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius, 101. 23 their helpfulness is attested by his treatment of the original. Almost every narrative is expanded; in some cases, like that of Orpheus and Eurydice, doubled in length. He is always careful at the end of the exemplum to recall the moral which has been illustrated. In this also, he departs from his source at times. The tales are all told in a simple, naive manner, with earnest desire to appeal to his readers. The following passages will serve to illustrate the charming simplicity of Alfred's nar- ratives as well as other points of difference in treatment. In the Latin, Anima has asked Philosophia to clear up a certain point, at which Philosophia replies that as soon as one doubt is settled others spring up. She then proceeds to illustrate the difficulty : " Talis namque materia est, ut una dubitatione succisa innumerabiles aliae velut hydrae capita succrescant: nee ullus fuerit modus, nisi quis eas vivacissimo mentis igne coerceat." 11 The Old English version runs : " Swa swa mon on ealdspellum saegj? ]?aet an naedre wsere J?e haefde nigon heafdu, & syle gif mon anra hwelc of aslog, ]?onne weoxon J?ser siofon on J?sem anum heafde. pa geberede hit J?aet J?aer com se foremsera Erculus to, se wses lobes sunu; ]?a ne meahte he gej?encan hu he hi mid senige craefte ofercuman sceolde, ser he hi bewaeg mid wudu utan & forbaernde j?a mid fyre. Swa is ]?isse spraece J?e Jm me aeft acsast." 12 Alfred's narratives are not only longer than the originals, but, as this comparison indicates, more vivid and concrete. The later effect is obtained by the adding of specific names, definite numbers, explanatory clauses, the use of concrete terms, and the substitution of prose for poetry where such occurs in the Latin. This treatment of the narratives seems to show that Alfred not only believed in their efficacy, but that he had both studied and enjoyed them. The purpose of the illustrations in the Consolation is two- fold : to make the points more clear and convincing, and to add to the interest of the treatise. The first of these, and probably the chief reason for inserting the exempla, is stated in the passage already quoted, where Alfred says that incidents are cited not for the love of stories but in order to aid in showing n Philosophiae Consolationis, 108. u King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius, 127. 24 the truth with profit to the reader. The secondary purpose, the arousing of interest, undoubtedly seemed more important to Alfred than to Boethius. Therefore, in order to make the book more entertaining, he added to the exempla specific names, numbers, explanatory clauses, and in general vitalized them. In some cases the effectiveness of the original exemplum as an aid to clearness is somewhat lessened by the alterations, but Alfred's care in restating the point illustrated usually over- comes the defect. Irregularity in the handling of the type is, of course, frequent in both versions. In the Latin, the minor incidents are often mere references which appear without special distinction ; a few more important ones, such as Orpheus and Eurydice, Circe's Cup, and The Hero's Path, are in verse at the close of sections. In the case of the translation, the illustrations are all in prose, and almost invariably run on without distinction. But notwithstanding the absence of con- ventional features, this work is a notable instance of the early use of exempla in English literature. 13 Alfred's name is still further associated with exempla through the translation of the Dialogues of Gregory. It was due to him that Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, 14 undertook and completed the translation of this book into Old English. This early vernacular collection of exempla, with its original, constituted the chief influence on the use of the type during the Old English period. Exempla in extant Old English literature are limited to Alfred's translations just examined, until the time of Wer- ferth's translation of the Dialogues. From that time to the close of the twelfth century, they appear only in sermons. The representative collections which we shall examine are the Blickling Homilies, Aelfric's Sermones, the Wulfstan Homilies, Old English Homilies of the Twelfth Century, and the Ormulum, all of which follow closely the standard Latin models 18 Alfred's figures of speech, which he loosely terms " examples," I shall not discuss. This subject has been treated by Dr. J. W. Tupper in his Tropes and Figures in Anglo-Saxon Prose. 14 See H. Krebs, Zur angelsdchsischen Ubersetzung der Dialoge Gregor's, Anglia, II, 65-66. 25 of Gregory the Great, St. Augustine, and Beda. In the homi- lies of the last two, occurrence of exempla is negligible; only those of Gregory encouraged the use of the illustrative tale. On the other hand, symbolism 15 was employed by Beda, and especially by St. Augustine and Gregory, in the most thorough- going fashion. It is by far the most characteristic feature of the models upon which our English homilists based their dis- courses, and of the English homilies as well. From these facts, it is obvious why exempla are not particularly prominent in the homilies of the early period, and why external influence is largely attributable to Gregory the Great. The Blickling Homilies, which we shall first consider, repre- sent a period considerably earlier than the date of the manu- script (971) in which they are preserved. Both in vocabulary and syntactical structure, Aelfric's homilies (991-996) are distinctly more modern. 16 The Blickling Homilies are " not a homogeneous work, but a motley collection of sermons of various age and quality " which, generally speaking, " repre- sents the preaching of the times before Aelfric." 17 For this reason a brief analysis of the structure of these homilies may be given to show the nature of Old English preaching. For convenience I shall divide the collection into two classes : the sermons for Sundays, and the sermons for Festival Days. The general structural plan of the Sunday sermons consists of a Biblical passage followed by an exposition, usually symbolical. An outline of a typical sermon, the Homily for Shrove Sunday, will best serve to indicate the manner of development. I A plain narrative of Jesus' ride to Jericho and the curing of the blind man. II A statement that the narrative involves a mystery which must be explained in order to make clear its signi- ficance. Ill The exposition according to the symbolical method. 16 See above, p. 10, note. 16 Blickling Homilies, preface, v-vi. "See Earle, Anglo-Saxon Literature, 213-14; also Cambridge History of English Literature, I, 126 seq. 26 a The blind man signifies the blindness of all man- kind after the Fall. b The coming of Christ to Jericho signifies the coming of Christ to light the path to eternal life. c The multitude which endeavored to restrain the blind man signifies the carnal will and unre- strained lusts which exclude God's works. d The blind man, asking for sight, not for silver or gold, signifies that we should not seek for tran- sitory things but for the light that never ends. e The blind man sitting by the wayside represents those who believe in God and follow Him. IV Exhortations to forsake certain faults and to be mindful of God's behests. 18 Similarly, in the sermon for Palm Sunday, which is based upon Jesus' ride upon the ass from Bethphage to Jerusalem, Bethphage signifies the Holy Church ; the two disciples sym- bolize holy teachers and the two loves necessary for eternal life ; the ass symbolizes the believing Jewish folk and others subject to God's will; the crowd which went before Jesus signifies the Jewish people, including the patriots and prophets. 19 Each part of the signification gives rise to more or less conven- tional discussion on such topics as the present-day errors, ways of betterment, the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous. The homilies are disjointed in style, as might be expected from their early composition and eclectic borrow- ings from the Latin. In the group just discussed, four exempla are used. Of these, two are Biblical references : David's fight with Goliath, and Judas burning in hell-fire for selling Christ. 20 A third is related as an experience of St. Paul. Paul saw an old man led by four " awyrgde englas," bound in chains, and cast into fiery water up to his knees. Being questioned by Paul, the man con- fessed that he was a bishop who had done more evil than 19 B tickling Homilies, 14-24. n Ibid., 64-82. 20 Ibid., 30, 62 respectively. 27 good. 21 The narrative closes with a warning to present-day bishops that disobedience of God's law will be punished by the " fiery river " and the " iron hook." The fourth exemplum, illustrating the futility of riches and the disastrous results of an ungodly life, treats another important theme. After the death of a very rich man, his dearest friend left the country for sorrow. Upon returning, he visited the tomb of the departed. Here the dead man's bones spoke to him, reminding him that death was not far off, and exhorting him to turn from riches and pray to God. The man in sadness left the tomb and soon began to study and teach God's law, whereby he earned divine grace and saved other souls from torment. 22 The homilist then remarks, " Magon we J?onne, men j?a leofestan, us )?is to gemyn- dum habban & J?as bysene on urum heortum sta)?elian, J?aet we ne sceolan lufian worlde glengas to swi)?e ne ]?ysne middan- geard." These last two exempla deal with themes greatly favored by later preachers and collectors : i. e., wicked and avaricious churchmen horribly punished by fiends ; and warn- ings of the deceased to the living. 23 The festival sermons of the Blickling Homilies make no use of tales to point moral or religious doctrine. At the same time this group consists almost wholly of narratives dealing with the lives of the Virgin and the apostles. The incidents, often of an extremely lurid tone and in many cases lacking Biblical authority, are given as facts with absolute assurance and no qualification. 24 In the sermon on the Assumption of Mary, for 21 Blickling Homilies, 42. This exemplum is taken from apochryphal writ- ings. Earle points out (op. cit., 215) that certain books, such as furnished material for the B. H. were, in the eighth or ninth century, put on the index. Some of these were : the Acts of Pilate, Journeys of the Apostles, Acts of Peter, Acts of Andrew the Apostle, the Contradiction of Solomon, the Physiologus. See " Prohibited Books " in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. 22 Ibid., \i2. 23 On the latter class, see M. B. Heaureau, Les Recits d' Apparitions dans les Sermons du Moyen Age, in Memoires de I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, XXVIII, Pt. II, 239 seq. 24 The marked contrast between these sermons and those of Aelfric is noteworthy. It is quite likely that Aelfric had the Blickling Homilies in mind when he wrote in the preface to his Sermones Catholici, " Then 28 example, a vivid and detailed account of her translation into heaven is given. 25 In the sermon on Peter and Paul appears a long narrative of a wonderful contest between Peter and the sorcerer Simon, which for startling features rivals a similar strife between Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. 26 The Dedica- tion of St. Michael's Church contains, among other marvelous things, an account of how one Garganus tried to shoot an unruly bull, but was himself killed by the arrow which the wind turned back; also of the marvelous footprints before the church door. 27 The Festival of St. Martin recounts wonderful resuscitations by that saint. 28 The festival of St. Andrew con- tains a number of such absurd narratives as the appearance of the cross on St. Andrew's face, his flesh and hair turning into a fruit-bearing tree, a stone image sending out a stream of brine from its mouth at his bidding. 29 These instances are representa- tive of a large number which form the body of the festival-day discourses. Tht Blickling Homilies, as has been shown, employ few narratives as illustrations. Two of the four noted are, indeed, of particular importance, since they represent two favorite exemplum themes : wicked men punished by fiends ; and warn- ings from the dead. 30 The festival group with its fantastic inci- dents indicates the vogue of narrative sermons based on the lives of holy men; it also shows lack of restraint on the part of the preachers, and the marvelous credulity of contemporary audiences. it occurred to my mind . . that I would turn this book from the Latin language into the English tongue ; not from confidence of great learning, but because I have seen and heard of much error in many English books, which unlearned men through their simplicity have esteemed as great wisdom." Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, I, 3. 25 Aelfric frankly admits that he is not prepared to state, as some have done, that Mary was translated. See Homilies, II, 444. 28 Blickling Homilies, 172 seq. 27 Ibid., 198-204. 28 Ibid., 216-18. 29 Ibid., 242—44. 30 Aelfric states that " we read everywhere in books " that men have died and afterward returned to tell their experiences. Homilies, II, 355. 29 The generally low state of learning and morality in the Church of the period which produced the Blickling Homilies was gradually changing for the better as Aelfric's time ap- proached. His homilies, written between 991 and 996, show in their sanity and literary excellence, the effects of the reforma- tion which originated in France and was carried on in England by Dunstan, Aethelwold and Odo. 31 Aelfric's homilies were probably compiled from the sources which he mentions in his preface: Augustine, Jerome, Beda, Gregory, Smaragdus, and Haymo. 32 In this preface, Aelfric states that he translates these sermons from Latin books into "simple English" so that the hearts of those readers or listeners who know only their native tongue, can be reached. He adds that he does not translate word for word, but sense for sense. The editor, Thorpe, states in his preface that he is not able to say whether Aelfric was a mere translator or whether he drew from his own stores. He gives his opinion, however, that no one of his homilies is, generally speaking, a translation from any one Latin original, but rather a compila- tion from several. 33 This, it seems to me, is pretty clearly indicated by such statements as that in which Aelfric says that he will expound the gospel according to the authority of Au- gustine and Gregory. 34 Moreover, his efforts to adapt his 31 On Dunstan and his times, see Memorials of Saint Dunstan, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, introd. See also Earle, Anglo-Saxon Literature, 2ig. 33 Homilies, I, 1 . 33 Ibid., editor's preface, vi. Max Forster's conclusions on this point are as follows : " Von einer wort-fur-wort-ubersetzung, wie solche z. b. in den Blickling Homilies vorkommen, kann nirgends bei Aelfric die rede sein ; . . . es handelt sich dort fast immer urn erklarungen zum Bibeltexte, die in ganz freier weise mit beibehaltung der schlagworter wiedergegeben sind. Ein weiteres moment fur die relative selbststandigkeit der homilien ergiebt sich daraus, dass wohl die halfte nicht auf einer vorlage beruht, sondern aus mehreren zusammengearbeitet ist. Das verhaltnis der quellen zu einander kann sich hierbei recht mannigfaltig gestalten ; meist beschrankt sich der beitrag der zweiten oder dritten quelle auf wenige satze, oft ankniipfend an eingeschobene citate ; doch kommt auch nicht selten vor, dass zwei quellen sich gegenseitig die wage halten." Uber die Quellen von Aelfric's Homiliae Catholicae, 9—10. For a good study of Aelfric's life and writings, see Miss C. L. White's Aelfric. 34 Homilies, II, 227; see also 536. 30 discourses to his audiences point to considerable originality of treatment. Probably the main doctrinal features, such as the interpretations of Scriptural passages and statements of dog- matic points, are freely translated from the Latin sources which best treated the particular matters under discussion ; the arrangement of material, the allotment of proportion, and the selection of illustrations, may be attributed mainly to Aelfric. A rapid glance at the homilies will indicate why adaptation was necessary and will suggest how the preacher was continu- ally regulating his discourses by the character of his audiences. In the first place, as the preface and the prayer at the end of the collection show, the homilies were written chiefly for the unlearned. The scholarship of Gregory, Jerome, and St. Augustine, although it might serve as a basis, needed simpli- fication. Then too, Aelfric sometimes addresses special classes, a group of girls (maedenlica heap), 35 a monastic body (munuchades mannum), 36 or maidens and pure widows. 37 The main reason for special treatment of his subject was his keen realization of the inability of the audience to understand the depth of the gospel as expounded by his great prede- cessors. "We might," he says in a thoroughly characteristic passage, " more elaborately expound this holy text, according to the interpretation of Augustine, but we doubt whether ye can accurately judge of the greater deepness therein." 38 Time and again he states that the gospel has a hidden meaning which is entirely beyond the comprehension of his hearers. 39 In con- sequence of this he takes great pains to present the symbolical significance of the text in a simple manner. At the same time, he writes with recognition of his hearers' limit of endur- ance. He says, for example, " One should speak to laymen according to the measure of their understanding, so that they be not disheartened by the deepness, nor by the length wearied." 40 In other places he asks patience while he proceeds. 35 Homilies, I, 437. M Ibid., I, 401. 87 Ibid., I, 447. 38 Ibid., I, 557. 39 Ibid., I, 167, 581 ; II, 189, 447. 40 Ibid., II, 447. 31 Occasionally he avowedly foregoes a part of the exposition and closes his sermon with such a statement as the following: " Tedious it would be for us to recount and for you to hear all the depths of the great Baptist's preaching;" 41 or, in another place, ''This exposition is longsome for you to hear, but we will now here end our speech." 42 The foregoing facts suggest not only a considerable amount of originality in the composi- tion of the homilies, but a comprehension of his audience far beyond that of his English predecessors. Possessing this comprehension, Aelfric tried to make his homilies clear and attractive. As a means to this end he recog- nized the exemplum and spoke clearly in favor of it. In one of his sermons he says : " This epistle is very complex for us to expound and very deep for you to hear. It does not now seem good to us to speak more concerning it, but we will relate for your bettering some other edifying matter of the great mother of God." 43 He then tells two legends showing how the intervention of the Virgin saved those who worshipped her. Again, in praising the preaching of St. Cuthbert, Aelfric states that " a his bodunga mid gebysnungum astealde, and eac mid wundrum wel geglengde." 44 In another place he suggests to his audience the reading of Gregory's Dialogues, which, he says, have been turned into English. 45 But, as has been stated, Aelfric was a product of the reform movement, a scholar and an earnest teacher. He himself was not carried away by the wild narratives in the Blickling Homilies, nor did he intend that his audiences should be misled by accounts from questionable sources. In view of the effect which this conservatism had upon Aelfric's use of exempla, it may be well to examine briefly his view of the preacher's duty. That it was, like Gregory's, an exalted one, may be seen in the noble expressions running through the homily on the Nativity of Several Apostles. Here he maintains that the teaching of Christ's lore is the business of 41 Homilies, I, 363 ; see also I, 449, 557; II, 467. "Ibid., II, 537. iS Ibid., I, 449. 44 Ibid., II, 148. "Ibid., II, 359. 32 the preacher ; that the world is full of priests, but that few are working in God's vineyard ; that ministers should work not merely for temporal reward ; that they should salt the minds of men with wisdom. 48 It is in the spirit of this last senti- ment particularly, that he guards against the extravagance of apochryphal and exaggerated legendary accounts. " If we should say more,' 7 Aelfric observes in one of the homilies, "of this feast-day than we read in the holy books that have been composed by the inspiration of God, then we should be like unto those heretics, who from their own imagination, or from dreams, have recorded many false traditions ; but the orthodox teachers, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, and many others, have, through their wisdom, rejected them. These heretical works, nevertheless, yet exist, both in Latin and in English, and ignorant men read them. It is enough for believing men to read and to say that which is true." 47 Frequently he warns his audience against going beyond the evidence of the gospel in such matters as the Assumption, Jesus raising the dead, and the vision of St. Paul. 48 This does not mean that Aelfric was altogether averse to using legendary material, as its presence in the homilies, as well as his later compilation of saints' lives, testifies. But even in the preface to the Saints' Lives, he again voices the conservative attitude. " I do not promise, however, to write very many in this tongue because it is not fitting that many should be translated into our language, lest peradventure the pearls of Christ be had in disrespect. And therefore I hold my peace as to the book called Vitae Patrum, wherein are contained many subtle points which ought not to be laid open to the laity, nor are we ourselves quite able to fathom them." 40 Having in mind Aelfric's free use of his sources, his appreciation of the needs of his audience, and his spirit of conservatism, we may proceed to examine his use of the exemplum. Although there are certain differences, Aelfric's use closely resembles that of thirteenth and fourteenth century writers. "Homilies, II, 529-537. "Ibid., II, 445. 48 Ibid., I, 441, II, 445; I, 495; II, 333, respectively. 49 Lives of Saints, 3. 33 The characteristic features of illustrative narratives at the height of their vogue were as follows: (i) the tales were ordinarily striking, often lurid or indelicate; (2) they were rarely taken from the Bible, but represented a vast range of sources, religious and secular; (3) tales about churchmen out- numbered all other kinds ; (4) they were not mere references, but incidents with a beginning, middle and end; (5) exempla were not excluded from the body of the sermon or treatise, but the favorite place was at the close, where from one to five usually appeared; (6) conventional introductory and closing phrases very often set off the exemplum; (7) in a great many instances the source of the narrative was given ; e. g., " We read in the Dialogues/' or " Cesarius tells of a hermit." Such are the characteristics of the tales in the North-English Homily Collection or Mirk's Festial. In the homilies of Aelfric may be found cases which illustrate practically all of these features. Taking up the exempla with reference to the points just noted, we shall first consider the character of the tales. From what has been said regarding Aelfric's conservatism, it may be expected that they will not be lurid and exaggerated. A num- ber of the tales are, of course, better adapted to a more credulous age than our own in that they involve the super- natural ; such, for instance, is the tale from the Dialogues tell- ing of a Valerian noble who was carried off by black fiends because of his sinful life; or the tale from Beda, about Ymma's fetters being loosened by his brother's singing masses. 50 Two of the exempla are of the lurid type. One of these from the Vitae Patrum relates how in answer to prayer for a proof of transubstantiation, an angel appeared and with a knife carved up a child in the sacred dish. When the monks went to examine it, the body and blood was changed to bread and wine. 51 The second instance of this kind, which Aelfric takes from Gregory, tells of a bad monk who on his death-bed was about to be swallowed by a dragon, when the prayers of good 80 Homilies, I, 413; II, 357, respectively. 61 Ibid., II, 273. It is to be remembered that Aelfric looked somewhat askance at the Vitae Patrum. a Ibid., I, 533. 4 34 monks drove away the monster. 52 But the great majority of exempla in these homilies are moderate in character and are related with little attempt to lay stress upon startling or dramatic features. This generally conservative tone is in part explained by the kind of sources from which he drew his illustrations. They are taken mainly from the Bible and Gregory's Dialogues; in addition to these sources, legends of the Virgin, Beda's Ecclesiastical History, and the Vitae Patrum are spar- ingly used. The Biblical narratives are the following: Gehazi stricken with leprosy for taking a bribe, Hezekiah's victory over Sennacherib, three youths in the fiery oven, Daniel in the lion's den, the apostles freed from prison by an angel, the child cured by its mother's faith, the rich man called to account, Jesus stilling the tempest, Jesus casting out devils, the parable of the unfruitful tree, Nebuchadnezzar turned into a beast, Belshazzar's feast. 53 Besides these twelve developed nar- ratives, there are a number of Biblical references used as exempla. 54 These are often grouped, as are the longer ones, to get a cumulative effect. The source of next importance is Gregory, from whom Aelfric takes nine exempla, exclusive of the incidents in the festival sermons. They are: Martyrius and the leper (Christ), the Valerian noble seized by fiends, the bad monk saved from the dragon, the joyful death of the holy Servulus, transub- stantiation proved by the bloody finger, the blasphemous child carried off by the devil, the report of a man returned from death, the glorious end of patient Stephen, Romula blessed for resignation to palsy. 55 There remain seven exempla, which were taken from three well-known sources. Beda's History furnished the tale of Ymma and Tunna ; the Vitae Patrum is the source of the child carved at the altar, the man who entertained a stranger (Christ), the death of the heretic Arius, the death of the B3 Homilies, I, 401, 569, 57i, 57i, 573 J II, Si, 105, 379, 379, 407, 433, 435, resp. "Ibid., I, 483, 489, 525, 575; II, 79, 107, 326, 331. 68 Ibid., I, 337, 413, 533; II, 97, 273, 327, 355, 547, 547, resp. 35 heretic Sabellius. A collection of Mary legends furnished Theophilus saved from the devil, and Basilius' victory over Julian. 66 In all, then, aside from the dozen or so brief refer- ences, the Homilies contain twenty-eight exempla, taken from five sources : the Bible, Gregory's Dialogues, the Vitae Patrum, legends of the Virgin, and Beda's Ecclesiastical History. Of these, the Bible and the Dialogues are by far the most im- portant contributors. The subdued tone of the stories taken from Gregory, and the large number of Biblical tales, give a moderation which contrasts with the later use of exempla, when the lurid story was not avoided and the Bible was but rarely cited. We have now to consider the literary handling of the tales. In the works previously examined, the exempla have been, in the main, brief and almost altogether lacking in artistic con- struction. Aelfric's narratives make a considerable advance beyond the brief Biblical references of the Pastoral Care, and the short, rather brusque narratives of Alfred's Boethius and the Blickling Homilies. A few of Aelfric's tales, such as the death of the heretic Sabellius (six lines), and the man who returned from death (half page), are brief. But the great majority occupy from three quarters of a page to two pages in the text. They have, moreover, the form of completely rounded incidents with a beginning, middle and end. The Biblical passages are related with considerable detail and in a familiar style. These, together with the translations from Gregory, make the narratives a very admirable body of exempla. The type in Aelfric's homilies becomes unquestion- ably a literary form of no little importance. An advance toward the conventional in the position and number of exempla, and introductory and closing phrases, is also to be noted. There is a marked tendency to place the exempla at the end of the homilies, as we might ex- pect from Aelfric's understanding of the mental state of his K Homilies, II, 357, 273, 287; I, 291, 291, 449, 445, resp. The last two contes devots represent a class which was much favored by those who collected or used exempla. The legends cited may be found in Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge traduits et mis en vers par Gautier de Coincy, 26 seq., and 395 seq., resp. 36 audiences. In six cases we find tales in medial positions ; three times they are placed near the end; and in twelve in- stances they appear at the close of the discourse. As a rule, a given homily has but one or two narratives or references, but in a few cases more are cited. In one instance we find three developed incidents and three outlines, which were very likely expanded in the spoken discourse. 57 This grouping for cumulative effect is most noticeable in the case of Biblical references. 58 Also in opening and closing the exempla, Aelfric's manner resembles that of the flourishing period. For purposes of comparison I shall cite a typical instance from the Festial of Mirk. After speaking of God's grace, the writer warns his readers not to abide in their sins, for God's patience is not everlasting. He then says : " For )?agh he abyde long, at J?e last he woll smyte suche )?at woll not amende horn ; and when he smytyth, he smytyth sore. Narracio I rede )?at per was a knyght," etc., to the effect that the knight sinned and was warned by a voice from heaven that at the end of thirty years he should feel vengeance. At the expiration of the period he and all his companious sunk with his strong castle into the earth. Then follows a new section, beginning: " }?us ye may se, )?agh God abyde longe, at J?e last he smytyth sore. Wherfor I amonysh you, J?at ye take not hys grace of abydyng yn vayne." 50 In some cases the section preceding the narrative ended with such a phrase as " Herby I may schewe you an ensampull," or " But forto undyrstond J?ys ]?e bettyr, I schew J?ys ensampull," or " And yet, forto styr you more in concyens, y tell you J?ys ensampull." Again, the tale did not always close a section but was sometimes followed by a brief moralization or restatement of the point illustrated by the tale. The conventional opening " I rede," which is very frequent with Mirk, is sometimes varied by such ex- 67 Homilies, I, 569—575. 68 Ibid., I, 525-27, 483, 489, 569-75 J IT, 379, 433-37- Many of the festival homilies, as in the case of the Blicklings, contain much narrative matter but no incidents for illustrative purposes. 60 Festial, Pt. I, 88-89. 37 pressions as, " Seynt Gregory telly]?," " An ensampull of }?ys I fynd, as Alisander Nekkam telly]?"; or, at times the tale opens without such phrases, as, " In j?e towne of Schrosbury sytten ]?re men togedyr." A comparison of Aelfric's handling of exempla with Mirk's as indicated above, gives further evidence that a formal use of the type existed thus early in English literature. Most of Aelfric's exempla either occupy the entire section, or at least open the section, which is closed by a return to the point illustrated. Again, as in the Festial, the tales are fre- quently introduced by such formal phrases as, "We have a very manifest example of this thing," " Gregory has related an example," or, " We read in the book that is called ' Vitae Patrum.' " The moralizations following the exempla are also similar to the typical forms of the fourteenth century. For instance, after narrating the horrible death of Arius, Aelfric says, " Thus God manifested that he was as void in his inside as he had before been in his belief." 60 Similarly, after the story of Gehazi, a new section begins, " Now it is therefore for monastic men to shun with great care these evil examples." 61 At other times he uses such expressions as, " From this it is manifest." Of course, the conventionality which results from using the same expression in scores of instances, as is the case in a work like the Festial or the Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry, is not to be found in Aelfric's score and a half of exempla. The point to be noted is the essential resemblance between Aelfric and the writers of the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries in the handling of the type. In the foregoing sections it has been shown that Aelfric's con- servatism largely excluded from his homilies the unrestrained narratives used by an earlier school of English preachers ; that, understanding his audiences, he saw the need and efficacy of exempla, as had his most quoted model, Gregory; that in the number and kind of exempla used, and in the manner of handling them, Aelfric not only advances beyond his English predecessors, but resembles the preachers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 60 Homilies, I, 291. 61 Ibid., I, 401. 38 Next to be considered is the collection of fifty-four homilies 62 attributed by Wanley to Wulfstan, Archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023. As the canon stands at present, seven are ac- cepted as unquestionably written by Wulfstan, and eight others as probably from his pen. 63 These fifteen homilies have been removed from the whole group with considerable effort. " The difficulties, " says Dr. Kinard, " attending any attempt to separate the genuine homilies in this collection from the spurious are emphasized by all critics who have expressed themselves on the subject." 64 From this it appears probable that the Wanley collection, taken as a whole, represents the school of Wulfstan. For the purposes of this study, dis- crimination in the matter of authorship would be of no par- ticular value ; I shall, therefore, refer to the whole group as the Wulfstan homilies. Before discussing these homilies it is desirable to recall the condition of the times which produced them. The compara- tively peaceful period during which the scholarly Aelfric com- posed his homilies changed rapidly into the stormy period in which Wulfstan wrote. 65 Trouble with the Danes and North- men had been growing through Aethelred's reign (978-1016), and finally in 1002 the king, in order to win the friendship of Normandy, married Emma, the Norman Duke's daughter. The same dread of invasion led to the massacre of the Northern mercenaries on St. Brice's Day, 1002, by the king's order. " Wedding and murder, however," says Green, " proved feeble defences against Swegen. His fleet reached the coast in 1003, 62 Wulfstan ; Sammlung der ihm sugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Unter- suchungen iiber ihre Echtheit, published by A. S. Napier. In the year preceding his publication of this edition, Napier brought out a study of Wulfstan's work, Uber die Werke des altenglischen Erzbishofs Wulfstan, in which he concluded that the attribution of Wanley was in great part erroneous. To those admitted by Napier, Dr. J. P. Kinard has added a few others. See A Study of Wulfstan's Homilies, 32 seq. 63 Unquestioned, Nos. 2, 3, 19, 22, 23, 2,3, 34 5 probable, Nos. 5, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 27. (Napier's numbering.) 01 Kinard, op. cit., 11. 65 The raiding expeditions which occurred before 1002 were not to be compared with the destructive ravages after that date. See E. A. Freeman The History of the Norman Conquest of England, I, 285 seq. 39 and for four years he marched through the length and breadth of southern and eastern England * lighting his war beacons as he went ' in blazing homestead and town. Then for a heavy bribe he withdrew, to prepare for a later and more terrible onset. But there was no rest for the realm. The fiercest of the Norwegian jarls took his place, and from Wessex the war extended over Mercia and East Anglia. In 1012 Canterbury was taken and sacked, Aelfheah the Archbishop dragged to Greenwich, and there in default of ransom brutally slain. . . . Meanwhile the court was torn with intrigue and strife. . . . Eadric, whom Aethelred raised to be Ealdorman of Mercia, became a power that overawed the crown. In this paralysis of the central authority all organization was lost. ' Shire would not help other' when Swegen returned in 1013. The war was terrible but short. Everywhere the country was pitilessly harried, churches plundered, men slaughtered." 66 Swegen died in 1014, but under Cnut the contest was maintained until the latter was made king and peace was established. In all this time the Church was the center of national resistance. 67 Produced in such a time by intense men, the Wulfstan homi- lies are concerned less with long expositions of Scripture than with vital issues of the day. Likewise the scholarly and literary style of Aelfric's homilies changes to a more practical and vigorous tone in the Wulfstan group. Poetic and figura- tive words give way to familiar, concrete words; the use of tropes, similes, and symbolism becomes rare. With the feeling of those who realize deeply and would better the evil conditions of men and the times, the writers constantly strive for clear- ness and directness even at the cost of felicity of expression and literary interest. A corresponding change in exempla takes place. The em- ployment of non-Biblical tales, which was so frequent in Ael- 66 J. R. Green, History of the English People, I, 98-99 ; see also Freeman, op. cit., I, 285 seq. 67 Green, op. cit., I, 100. In spite of this, it is to be remembered that the Church from the early years of Aethelred's reign was on the decline. With the accession of Cnut came a short period of improvement; still " religion declined . . . and a general inefficiency and indifference pre- vailed in the Church as in the State." H. D. Traill, Social England, I, 163. 40 fric's homilies, decreases and Biblical narratives are again largely depended upon to illustrate and confirm doctrine. Most of the citations are from the Old Testament. The fol- lowing undeveloped themes appear as illustrations : Adam's loss of Paradise, the burning of Job's possessions, Adam admonished by the angels, David's conversion, the conversion of the Nini- vites. 68 These five references of which two are repeated, are given briefly, with little or no detail. The same number of developed Biblical tales, two of which are repeated, are used as exemplar how Jonathas lost a battle by breaking a fast, Noah's flood, the destruction of Dathon, Abiron, and Choreb, the death of the Sunday laborer, the rich man called to ac- count. 69 To these may be added two apochryphal tales: Peter's victory over Simon the sorcerer, and St. Paul's account of a contest over an expiring soul. 70 There are in all, then, sixteen Biblical exempla. This is, as a comparison of the non- Biblical narratives will show, a very large percentage of the entire number. It is to be noted that four incidents are re- peated, and that nearly all of the illustrations exemplify the results of wrong-doing. How may this marked preference for Biblical illustrations be explained? It is not likely that it was due to ignorance of other material. Wulfstan and his school were undoubtedly more or less familiar with Beda's History, the Consolation of Philosophy, Gregory's Dialogues, the Vitae Patrum, saints' lives, and probably with Aldhelm's De Laudibus Virginitatis, which contained a large number of non-Biblical exempla. Ael- fric's homilies, moreover, furnished an immediate precedent for the use of such illustrations. In my opinion the explana- tion lies rather in the practical adaptation of illustration to text. The insistent thought running through the Wulfstan homilies centers around the sins and short-comings of men, and the terrible punishments which await those who will not reform. The best, most convenient and authoritative illustrations of that theme were Biblical. For instance, the preacher urges 99 Wulfstan Homilies, 69, 97, 103, 170 (repeated, 172), 170 (repeated, 173), resp. 09 Ibid., 174, 206 (repeated, 216), 219 (repeated, 295), 220, 257, resp. 70 Ibid., 98, 234, resp. 41 the avoidance of breaking fast; as an illustration of the dire results which attend a violation of the ordinance, the case of Jonathas and the lost battle is both apt and convincing. Or, the preacher attacks Sabbath-breaking, and the fate of Dathon and his companions comes to mind without necessitat- ing search. To men like Aelfric, of greater literary inclina- tion and more given to theological exposition of the Scriptures, the symbolism of the Church Fathers, the legends, and the Dialogues of Gregory, made a greater appeal. To men of intense reforming zeal like Wulfstan and his followers, the Bible was first and foremost. The non-Biblical exempla, though fewer, are of importance because of their character. They are four in number : a young monk who sang from heaven to his mother, the sinner's soul which dared not leave the body, a devil's account of hell, an account of hell by a Scot returned from death. 71 The tale of the young monk is a detached exemplum standing alone as number XXXI of Napier's edition. 72 That it was used as an exemplum in some homily is clear from the opening, "We willa]? nu secgan sume bysne to )?isum." The story tells of a boy who was wont to sing among the monks. His mother came often to hear him, but was one day disappointed ; the boy had disappeared. Finally, at the mother's entreaty, the abbot prayed that the boy might be allowed to sing from heaven. In response to the prayer, his voice rang out loud and clear, showing that he was with God whom he had served. This tale is unusually delightful both in subject-matter and quiet manner of telling. It seems distinctly out of place among this set of homilies. The other three narratives are of an entirely different char- acter. The first of these deals with a soul which dared not leave the body for fear of the " awyrgedan gastas" which stood before it. The soul upbraids the body, while a devil 71 Homilies, 152, 140, 146 (repeated in variant form, 214), 205 (repeated in part, twice in the same homily, and twice in the following homily), resp. "The editor's note on this tale (p. 152) runs: " Nur in E [Bodleian, Junius 99] enthalten. Keine uberschrift ; die seitenuberschrift, die nicht vom schreiber herruhrt, lautet XVI Be ane munuccilde." 42 cries out to his associates, " stinga]? stranglic sar " on his eyes, mouth and heart ; after this, the unfortunate victim is further tortured by a sight of the joy of heaven, and is then hurled into the mouth of a fiery dragon which spews him into the hottest fires of hell-punishment. The story of Nial, the Scottish deacon, is broken up and told in parts through two sermons. It narrates how this man was dead five weeks and then returned to tell of the awful fire that awaited those who disobeyed God's law against Sabbath- breaking. The tale of the devil and the hermit relates how the devil told the hermit that the earth compared in size to hell was as a pin prick to a broad surface (bradum brede). He also told the hermit that if hell were fenced in with iron and filled with fire, and surrounded with bellows, each blown by a man with the strength of Samson; and if an iron roof were put over this fire and covered with men, and each of these men had a hammer in his hands ; and though the men blew all the bellows and the others beat the hammers on the iron roof, — if this should be done, there would not be experienced what a single night in hell brought forth. The second version of this tale in the homilies is different. Here, in reply to the hermit's ques- tion as to the nature of hell, the devil says that though seven men should sit on the earth and they could speak in every tongue, "j?ara is twa and hundseofontig," and each man were to live forever, and each of them had seven heads, and each head had seven tongues, and each tongue had an iron voice, they could not tell of all the punishment of hell. Two of the tales discussed represent favorite stock exemplar the soul of a dying person attacked by devils, and a person re- turned from death to tell of the other world. 73 The last tale, dealing with the devil and the hermit, was to be found, accord- ing to the homilist, " on halgum bocum," so the idea was appar- ently common also. Of course there are in later sermons and collections, stories in which devils have dealings with hermits, but the naively terrific form of these exempla in the Wulfstan 73 Both of these stories have analogues in Beda ; see Ecclesiastical His- tory, I, 285, 294. 43 homilies is almost unique. The aim of this narrative is the same as that of the two preceding. Indeed, the whole body of exempla in these homilies is homogeneous in that they serve practically one purpose, — to frighten the audience by the con- sequences of wrong-doing. To this end no pains seem to have been spared to make the people tremble, since even the Biblical incidents are often recounted in a manner which makes the original seem mild. 74 As a formal type, the exemplum is not as marked in the Wulfstan group as in the homilies of Aelfric. The Biblical incidents are short, and, though forcible, are crudely, baldly told. The non-Biblical narratives are longer and more com- plete, but they lack the rounded development of the legends related by Aelfric. Besides this lack of literary quality, there are other departures from form. The exempla are rarely re- served till the end of the homilies, but occur wherever occa- sion requires ; nor are they introduced with formal expressions. In a couple of instances we find, " betere eac, )?3et we nu sum to bysne secgan," and, "uton niman us nu ealle bysne be Saule fam cinicge," 75 opening the illustration. But these are excep- tions to the usual abrupt transition from the abstract observa- tion to the tale. Such fixed phrases as, " we read," or " I find," are also wanting. On the other hand, the exempla are usually followed by a varying form of request that the auditors or readers benefit by the tale just related. Such expressions as, " Let us, therefore, turn to the Lord and forsake evil " ; " That may serve as an example for us " ; or, " Lo, we may perceive by this," are not uncommon. These are, however, an entirely natural accompaniment of narratives with a purpose. The present examination of the Wulfstan group has shown that the homilies are largely concerned with making the Scrip- 74 There can be little doubt that exaggeration was not a willful imposture on the part of the clergy at this time. Probably they believed to a considerable extent the wondrous things they narrated. The Venerable Beda himself recounts in his History the experience of one who returned from the dead. This account vies in terror not only with the exempla in Wulfstan, but with the pictures in Dante's Inferno, to which it has a curious resemblance ; see Eccl. Hist., I, 287 seq. 76 Homilies, 98, 174, resp. 44 tures bear directly upon everyday life, and that the style is adapted to this end. The exempla, both in the kind selected and in the manner of treatment, express the simplicity and un- restrained ardor of popular reformers. Brief and familiar Biblical incidents, crudely but forcibly stated, point out the fearful fate of the evil-doer. 76 A small number of non-Biblical exempla of a kind which persisted throughout the history of the type, answers the same purpose. A tone of exaggeration, un- qualified by literary niceties, pervades them all. The unfixed position of the exempla, and the virtual absence of conventional features, give further indication that Wulfstan and his fol- lowers used the type with serious motives, never merely to follow custom, to consume time, or to satisfy the popular taste. From the Wulfstan homilies we pass to the collection, largely of the twelfth century, known as the Old English Homilies. In the opinion of Morris, those of the First Series possess com- paratively little originality, but are made up from Aelfric and " compilations from older documents of the eleventh cen- tury." 77 Three of the Old English Homilies, numbers IX, X, and XXIV, are, as he points out, taken substantially from three of Aelfric's. In one of the other homilies, number XI, is inserted a passage drawn from another of Aelfric's. 78 The original texts of the remaining homilies have not been found, but Morris believes that they also are copied from older docu- ments of the eleventh century. With reference to the Second Series, he concludes, though he has not found evidences of transcription, that since five homilies of this series are found also in the manuscript of the First Series, " these, if not many other homilies of this [Second] series, are transcripts." 79 He further states that most of them were, perhaps, translated from 78 It is noteworthy that Sabbath-breaking is more constantly and harshly dealt with than any other evil treated in this collection. 77 Old English Homilies, edited by Richard Morris, First Series, preface, xi. 78 The original of No. IX is found in Thorpe's Aelfric, I, 311. The orig- inal of No. X is found in O. E. H., First Series, Appendix II. The origi- nal of No. XXIV is found in Thorpe's Aelfric, I, 9. The original of the passage in No. XI is found in Thorpe's Aelfric, I, 217. 79 See O. E. H., Second Series, preface, vii. 45 Latin homilies, though some of them have the appearance of original compositions. 80 The above statements lead to the con- clusion that the Old English Homilies, where not original, were transcribed from earlier English homilies, which, in turn, were based upon still earlier Latin homilies. Vollhardt takes a different position with reference to some of the homilies, and with a fair degree of plausibility advocates a direct late-Latin source. His summary is as follows: " Several, at least, of our homilies, may be explained by the acceptation of some late-Latin model, written in the twelfth century ; a model in which Augustinian and Gregorian passages are already changed and worked over as we have seen in the citations of the English homilies before us ; a model in which, moreover, literal borrowings from Ambrosius, Paulus Dia- conus, Ovid, Horace, have found favor. All these requirements can, in my opinion, be furnished only by the work of a French or Norman clergyman, not that of an Anglo-Saxon, as the cita- tions from Bernard of Clairvaux, etc., have shown to be im- possible." 81 Vollhardt's citations of parallel passages from the Latin homilies of Bernard of Clairvaux and Radulfus Ardens, who flourished about noo, make it seem extremely probable that such sources were used. The probability is increased when we consider the power which had been wielded by French clerics in England since the middle of the eleventh century. 82 What conclusions, then, may be reached as to the composition of the Old English Homilies? In my opinion there seems to have been, generally speaking, too much insistence upon whole- sale copying from single sources, and not enough allowance made for originality and eclectic borrowing on the part of the homilists. The substantial agreement between numbers IX, X, and XXIV of the present collection and three of Aelfric's, warrants a practically unqualified conclusion. But when, for 80 O. E. H. Sec. Ser., preface, ix. 81 W. Vollhardt, Der Einfluss der lateinischen geistlichen Litteraiur auf einige kleinere Schopfungen der englischen Ubergangsperiode, 17. 82 "A man might now [in 1051] go from the Straits of Dover to the Humber, over Kentish, East-Saxon, and Danish ground, without once in the course of his journey going out of the spiritual jurisdiction of Norman prelates." Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, II, 159. 46 example, one homily in the collection has a passage certainly borrowed from Aelfric ; 83 another homily has a passage almost certainly taken from Gregory, and a quotation from St. Ambrose ; 84 another has a passage which is obviously original ; 85 and still another contains a passage which has an almost exact prototype in Bernard of Clairvaux; 86 — when in addition to these facts we remember that the homilies were composed by different men at different times, it seems reasonable to believe that the homilies are, in most cases, compilations brought together from both early and late English and Latin sources, with frequent interspersing of new matter. In the collections of homilies previously discussed, the exempla have been a part of these additions. The great sources, such as the works of Jerome, Augustine, and Beda, which, together with the writings of Gregory, furnished the body of mediaeval sermons, contained very few exempla. Even in Gregory's homilies, exempla were confined to a limited number of the Homiliae in Evangelia. So the exempla in the Blick- ling, Aelfric, and Wulfstan collections, were mainly English additions to the classic exposition. But the employment of the type in these collections had not been sufficient to exert much influence upon succeeding literature. Nor was such an influ- ence exerted by the homilies of French writers who may have contributed something to the Old English Homilies.* 1 More- over, the stimulus derived from the translation of Gregory's Dialogues had become weakened by the lapse of time. If, therefore, exempla were to appear in the Old English Homilies, they would apparently be due rather to natural impulse than to tradition or external influence. 83 O. E. H. First Series, 122; cf. Thorpe's Aelfric, I, 217. 84 Ibid., Second Series, no; cf. Vollhardt, op. cit., 16. 85 For example, the following denunciation of contemporary priests : " The layman honoreth his spouse with clothes more than himself, and the priest not so his church, which is his spouse, but adorns his servant, who is his whore, with clothes more than himself. The church cloths are utterly rent and old, and his woman's must be whole and new. His altar cloth coarse and soiled, and her chemise fine and white." O. E. H., Sec. Ser., 162. 86 See Vollhardt, op. cit., 13. 87 See Lecoy de la Marche, La Chaire frangaise, n. 47 A study of these homilies reveals but slight traces of exempla. A few Biblical narratives are used, among them certain parables, which are called " examples." The homily De Natale Domini, for instance, begins, " Godalmihti seij? an forbisne to his folk in )>& halie godspel and sei]?;" 88 then fol- lows the parable of the Good Samaritan, and after it comes a symbolical explanation of the main elements. Such narratives are recounted, not as exempla, but as bases for exposition, frequently symbolical. Cases might also be pointed out in which Biblical persons, such as Moses, Solomon, Job, Mary, and David, are spoken of as examples. Mention should also be made of a small number of curious narrative bits which are told for their historical rather than their illustrative signi- ficance. 89 But the exemplum is wanting; its place is supplied by a copious use of figures of speech, analogies, and occasional illustrations from bestiaries, — features which are more effec- tive than the more cumbrous exempla for the clarification of many detailed points. Whereas the main aim of the Wulfstan homilies is to exhort and secondarily to explain, the reverse is true of the present collection. Symbolism, which seems to have increased in favor, is the chief means of exposition. Closely akin to this method is the use of figures of speech and analogies. These had been employed frequently in standard Latin homilies and patristic writings, and to a certain extent in the earlier English homilies. But there is a notable increase here in the amount of attention paid to similes, metaphors, and analogies, some of which are really elaborate. An interesting case in point may be cited. The writer states that men fast for three reasons, which he enumerates; then he adds: "The example (forbisen) of the washerwomen enables us to understand this. Some bear soiled clothing to the water to wash it clean — so fasteth the sinful man to cleanse himself of his foul sins ; others bear 88 O. E. H., First Series, 79; see also 231, 244; and Sec. Ser., 155. 89 An account of the rescue of Jeremiah from the miry pit; an account from the Apocalypse, of the fowl which flew down from heaven to earth and back ; an account of St. Paul's visit to hell. See O. E. H., First Series, 47, 81, 41, resp. 48 clean clothes to the water to be bleached, so that they may be white — so doth the righteous man to please our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . Another beareth clean clothes and fair and white — so fasteth the holy man, to be high in heaven and to be near our Lord, and for to have perfect bliss with him/' 90 Numerous passages of this kind, indicating much naive ingenuity in illus- trating moral and religious observations, might be cited. 91 Equally noteworthy are the bestiary passages and the compari- sons of men with animals. The adder, with a jewel in its head, the fox, the wolf, the bear, the lion, great and little fish, are used as symbols of man. Certain men are also likened to an apple, rosy outside but rotted within ; to a tree that beareth leaf and blossom but no fruit. A number of the figures belong dis- tinctly to ecclesiastical tradition ; such, for example, is the comparison of water quenching fire with almsdeeds quenching sin ; or the likening of Christ's entering the Virgin's womb to the sun shining through a glass window. 92 Other illustrations are of a more homely, unpoetic nature. " Who is he that may water the horse that will not drink himself?" asks the homilist. " No more may anyone do good for their souls who in this life would not begin to do good." 93 Again he asks, " How may the physician heal thee whilst the iron sticketh in the wound? Never. Neither canst thou be shriven sufficiently well to please God Almighty, unless thou forsake all thy sins." 94 These analogies are hardly of argumentative force, but undoubtedly they were illuminating to the audiences addressed, and perhaps 80 0. E. H., Sec. Ser., 56. 81 Ibid., First Ser., 22, 32, 80, 122, 158; Sec. Ser., 150, 200. 92 This idea was popular in Old French religious lyrics, and at a later period in Middle English lyrics. The following stanza from the religious lyrics of Jacob Ryman is characteristic : " Seint Anselme seith : ' So Criste did pas Thurgh Marie myelde, as his wille was, As the sonne beame goth thurgh the glas, That mayde full of honoure." Die Gedichte des Franziskaners Jakob Ryman, printed in Herrig's Archiv, vol. 89, p. 186 ; see also pp. 187, 207. 03 0. E. H., First Ser., 8-10. M Ibid., First Ser., 22. 49 even convincing. At any rate, like the exempla in the preced- ing homily collections, they are rarely, if ever, merely decora- tive, but have a thoroughly utilitarian office. By means of these figures, analogies, and symbolical interpretations, the doctrines of the Church, the commandments, the mass, the paternoster, shrift, penance, and many Biblical passages, are explained. But the writers of the Old English Homilies seem to have made little effort to interest and stimulate their audi- ences. The use of the exemplum, which, as I showed earlier, depended in this group upon natural impulse, is negligible. The remaining collection, the Ormulum, represents the uninspired homiletic literature of England at the close of the twelfth and the opening of the thirteenth century. The con- siderable fragment extant is but a part of a more ambitious attempt at Scriptural exegesis than had hitherto been made in English. 95 It also exhibits a lower level of literary interest, and is thoroughly in keeping with the decadent state of popular preaching in England at the opening of the thirteenth century. A glance at the status of the Church at this time helps us to comprehend better the nature of the Ormulum. For a long time, as was previously indicated, 96 Norman prelates had con- trolled Church affairs in England. These dignitaries were, in most cases, thoroughly worldly, interested in their lands, castles, horses, dogs, and little concerned with what their sub- ordinates did for the masses. 97 Vice, misery and disease among the people were appalling; but there were " few priests, and these were frequently but ill-educated to cope with the difficulties of the situation." 98 Whatever they may have done in other matters, it is certain that preaching was at a low ebb. Jessop states the situation as follows : " The observance of 96 The work undertook a series of homilies for nearly the whole year; only thirty-two are extant. 00 See above p. 45, note. 97 The passage previously quoted (p. 46, note) from the Old English Homilies, relative to the priest's neglect of his true spouse, the Church, and the attention paid to personal matters of a questionable nature, might apply to such a state of things. On this point see J. J. Jusserand, A Literary History of the English People, I, 162. 98 Father Cuthbert, The Friars and how they came to England, introd., 4. 5 50 Sunday was almost universally neglected. . . . Sermons had become so rare that when Eustace, Abbot of Flai, preached in various places in England in 1200, miracles were said to have ensued as the ordinary effects of his eloquence." 99 It was at this time, during the reign of King John, that England came under an interdict ; as a result, the churches were left desolate and in large districts the worship of God came to an end. 100 Such was the religious situation when the Ormulum was pro- duced. In view of the foregoing facts, it is not at all surprising that homiletic literature should have been heavy and uninspiring. In the case of the Ormulum, two vital defects are responsible for tediousness. First, the homilies are almost entirely lack- ing in originality. The writer does not appear to have been abreast of the times even in his borrowing. Although the lighter and more subtle French literary forms were being utilized in general English literature, and later Latin sources had been drawn upon for English homilies, Orm clings to Beda, Gregory, Josephus, and Isidor. 101 Secondly, the bor- rowed material is treated in a thoroughly hackneyed manner. After opening with a lengthy paraphrase of a Scriptural pas- sage, the writer almost invariably proceeds to give the sym- bolical significance, often outdoing his predecessors in far- fetched explanations. Salt, stones, grass, smoke, an axe, an ox chewing its cud, the calf, 102 — in short every little detail is made to signify some moral or religious phase of human life. Borrowing of antiquated material, therefore, and a mechanical treatment of an over-worked method of exposition, are largely responsible for the dullness of the Ormulum. 99 Rev. Augustus Jessop, The Coming of the Friars, 9. 100 See Jessop, op. cit., 31. 101 Dr. Gregor Sarrazin sums up his study of the sources of the Ormulum as follows: " Das resultat dieser untersuchung ist das f olgende : die haupt- quelle des Orrmulum ist Beda, daneben sind die homilien Gregors des grossen benutzt, vielleicht auch Josephus' und Isidors schriften. Von einer directen benutzung Augustins, Hieronymus', oder Aelfrics ist dagegen nichts zu entdecken." Uber die Quellen des Orrmulum, 26. 102 The way in which Orm carried symbolism to the extent of absurdity is suggested in the following line: "He [Christ] was tacnedd purrh pe calif; forr he wass uppo rode." Ormulum, I, 207. 51 Orm did not seem to realize the tediousness of his dis- courses ; at any rate he never apologized for it, nor relieved it by illustrations of an entertaining nature. The term "example' (bisen) frequently appears, in connection with some person like St. Paul or Christ, 103 who are spoken of as " good examples " ; or in connection with some Biblical narra- tive which is the subject of discourse. 104 Both of these uses of the term have been noted in the discussion of the Old English Homilies. Orm, apparently, had no feeling for the exemplum. We may now rapidly review the exemplum as it has appeared in English up to the opening of the thirteenth century. It has been found that Biblical exempla were predominant and that the use of illustrative tales was confined to homiletic literature, with the exception of Alfred's translations of Gregory's Cura Pastoralis and the Consolatio Philosophiae of Boethius. It was in these two works that the exemplum made its first appearance in English literature. In the case of the Pastoral Care, the narratives, usually short Biblical passages, were literally trans- lated. In the Consolatio, the translator found not only Bibli- cal episodes but also historical and mythological incidents, which he amplified and made more vital, thereby stamping the type with his approval. In addition to this, Alfred was respon- sible for the chief influence upon exempla during the period, — Bishop Werferth's translation of the Dialogues of Gregory. Although the translation of the Dialogues probably antedated somewhat the Blickling Homilies, it is very doubtful if the former influenced the latter to any great extent. These homi- lies contain few exempla ; four distinct cases were noted, two of which represent long-lasting themes. With Aelfric's homi- lies the use of exempla became well marked. Here, besides a considerable number of Biblical narratives, there are an even greater number of non-Biblical tales. The majority of these are taken from Gregory's Dialogues, but the Vitae Patrum, legends of the Virgin, and Beda's Ecclesiastical History are 108 Ormulum, I, 183, 194, 230, 279, 315; H, 23, 24, 27, 112, 113, 331. Christ is most often pointed out as an example. 104 See ibid., I, 226, et passim. 52 also used. The exempla are, moreover, usually complete narratives, and have, in the main, the conventional features of the type in its flourishing period. In spite of the indications of conventionality, however, the exemplum is here, as elsewhere throughout the period, thoroughly serious and practical. The writers of the Wulfstan group no doubt took sugges- tions from their predecessors. Here too, exempla are fre- quently employed, but the number of Biblical narratives in these homilies outnumbers the non-Biblical. This has been explained as the practical adaptation of convenient and authori- tative illustrative matter by zealous reformers who lacked the literary taste of Aelfric. We found that the exempla used by these men, though strikingly forceful, were crude in con- struction, and in most cases unconventionally treated. It has been noted that the Old English Homilies fell in a period when preaching in England was becoming almost uni- versally neglected. They consist of compilations from early and late English and Latin sources, with some admixture of original passages. None of the sources drawn upon furnished a strong influence for the use of exempla, but each one empha- sized symbolical interpretations, figures of speech, and analogies. These were constantly used in the Old English Homilies and were, no doubt, better suited than exempla to the detailed explanations which characterize the group. The virtual dis- appearance of the exemplum from these homilies suggested that the use of illustrative narratives in religious literature might not after all be so obvious and natural a device, but that anything like a systematic use of exempla must be a product of literary tradition, or of a strong immediate influence from without. This conclusion was strengthened by the absence of exempla from the Ormulum, which with its dry, unrelieved paraphrases, and time-worn symbolical expositions, indicates the decadence of English preaching at the close of the twelfth century. The earlier influences which had made for an extensive use of the exemplum had become weakened by the lapse of time, and although it is quite likely that illustrative narratives were occasionally employed, any considerable usage depended upon • 53 a revival. Such a revival came, influenced by the growing popularity of saints' lives, and encouraged by the preaching friars. But, as I shall attempt to show in the next chapter, the flourishing period of exempla in the vernacular was preceded in England by a growth of the type in Latin, under the influ- ence of Continental churchmen. CHAPTER III The Latin Exemplum in England We have noted that the use of illustrative tales in English literature to the end of the twelfth century was confined to sermons, and that even there, at the close of that period, such tales were only occasionally employed. The practice had been born of foreign, not native impulse. When the revival of the exemplum came, and use of the type was extended beyond the sermon, foreign influence was again responsible. As has already been stated, the coming of the friars to Eng- land 1 gave a great impulse to the popularization of moral and religious literature, but before that time the exemplum in Eng- land was spreading in the Latin works of men who had mingled with Continental churchmen. Those curious miscellanies of the twelfth century, such as John of Salisbury's Polycraticus, Walter Map's De Nugis Ctirialium, and Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Impcrialia, were preparing for the later vogue of illus- trative tales. A little later, in the last quarter of the twelfth century, Alexander Neckam's De Naturis Remm employs them, and at the opening of the thirteenth century, Giraldus Cambrensis in his Gemma Ecclesiastica makes so copious a use of monkish tales that the work is really an example-book. Finally, in the Latin sermons of Odo de Ceritona, which were written before 1219, 2 exempla are strikingly prominent. These representative writers were men who had lived and studied on the Continent, especially in France, 3 and had imbibed the cleri- cal taste for illustrative tales and fables, which were circulating among Continental churchmen. John of Salisbury's Polycraticus, or De Nugis Curialium, 4 1 The Dominicans came in 1221, and the Franciscans in 1224. 2 See Hervieux, Les Fabulistes, IV, 46. 8 It will be remembered that the " English Nation " was famous in the University of Paris during the twelfth century. ♦Edited by Migne. Pair. Lot., CXCIX. 54 55 written shortly after the middle of the twelfth century, con- sists of eight books which, in treating of the nature of men and affairs, are replete with illustrative incidents from Greek and Roman history and mythology, the Bible, the Latin poets, and widely scattered historical gleanings. Often a story of con- siderable length is used to illustrate a general observation. For instance, after speaking generally about the extremes to which hunger will reduce people, John of Salisbury says, " Sed quid opus est per haec pondus famis illius explicare cum gestum sit ibi facinus, quod neque apud Graecos, neque apud barbaros, ullus accepit auditus ?" Then he relates a story of a woman who, driven to desperation by hunger, ate her own son. 6 Again, the writer maintains that flatterers should be punished, and in illustration of various phases of the subject he cites episodes from the lives of Aristippus, Metellus, Xenophon, Diogenes, Alexander, Caesar, and others. 8 In another place he makes his point concrete by recalling an incident which occurred during the reign of Edward the Confessor. 7 The episode of Brennus from Roman History 8 is another repre- sentative illustration, typical of the matter in this curious mosaic of general observation, learning, and narrative. The exempla are comparatively few and briefly told, but they show that the type existed in the Latin literature of the time. Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium is similar in general plan to its more serious forerunner of the same title. It was written considerably later, however, probably between 1182-89, 9 and is much richer in monkish anecdotes and legendary tales. These are scattered through the five " Distinctiones " into which the treatise is divided. A brief outline of the sections may be use- ful. (1) Map compares the English court to the infernal regions, drawing pictures of such persons as Tantalus and Sisyphus; narrates stories of the follies and crimes of the court; tells monastic tales; gives accounts of the origins of 6 Polycraticus, 423. 8 Ibid., 506. 1 Ibid., 598. 8 Ibid., 612. 9 Gualteri Mapes De Nugis Curialium, preface, ix-x. 56 monkish orders, Templars, and Hospitallers, with reflections on their corruption ; attacks the Cistercians ; discusses various heretical sects; and closes with a tale of three hermits. (2) The second opens with tales of pious monks and hermits and their miracles ; then follow some anecdotes illustrative of Welsh manners ; the section closes with a collection of curious fairy legends. (3) The third consists of four fairly long stories of a romantic nature : de societate Sadii et Galonis, de contrarietate Parii et Lausi, de Ransone et ejus uxore, de Rollone et ejus uxore. (4) The fourth contains the Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum philosophum ne uxorem ducat, and a number of tales and legends of both popular and historical interest. (5) The last section consists of several English his- torical traditions dealing with Earl Godwin and Cnut, and a sketch of the English court from the reign of William Rufus to that of Henry II. The work was avowedly written to show the strenuous and involved existence of a courtier, 10 but how seldom the writer strayed into that particular field may be judged by a glance over the foregoing outline. The book has for us a special interest, not merely because it uses illustrative tales, but also because it shows thus early in England the tendency to collect monkish stories, which were evidently already circulating among churchmen, and to com- pile other legendary incidents which were to furnish stock in trade for the preachers and moralists of a later day. The following exemplum, which Map uses to illustrate the con- stancy of the early Templars, is typical of the monkish legends in his treatise. " Quiddam Mirabile Circa tempus idem, clericus quidam a Sarracenis sagittabatur ut negaret. Quidam autem qui negaverat astans inproperabat ei quod stulte crederet, et ad singulos ictus aiebat, ' Estne bonum? ' Ille nihil contra. Cumque videret ejus constantiam, uno sibi caput amputavit ictu, dicens, 'Estne bonum?' Caput autem resectum cum proprio ore loquens intulit, ' Nunc bonum est.' " Map then continues : " Haec et his similia primitis contigerunt Templaribus, dum Domini caritas et mundi vilitas inerat. Ut autem caritas viluit, et invaluit opulentia, prorsus alias audi- 10 De Nugis Citrialium, preface, x. 57 vimus quas et subjiciemus fabulas; at et prius eorum primos a paupertate motus audiantur." 11 Immediately following this is another tale which relates how a certain knight named Hameri- cus set out for a tournament, but hearing the morning bell of a religious house he parted from his companions to hear mass, thinking to follow them shortly. After mass he unwittingly strays into a by-path which brings him at night back to the place of worship. This is repeated on the next day. On the third day a hermit guides him to his companions, who joyously greet him with congratulations. He is much surprised and suspects ridi- cule. Upon calling aside a close friend, however, he learns that the enemy has been turned back because of their wonder at his own prowess. He then comprehends that a miracle has been wrought and that divine service has accomplished more than feats of arms, so he thereafter devotes himself and his possessions to the service of God and the Templars. 12 Among other incidents relating to holy men, the second sec- tion contains six accounts of apparitions and four of prodigies, all of the last involving moral or religious situations. One of them, for example, which appears in the so-called Chronicle of Turpin, tells of a man who left his goods to a cleric with directions to distribute them among the poor. But the cleric failed in his duty and was warned that at a certain time he would be snatched into the air by demons. Although he sur- rounded himself by a great army of soldiers, at the stated time he was torn away into the air and later dashed to pieces on the rocks. 13 A number of the legends in the third section are common in mediaeval exemplum collections; the following are typical themes : a prodigal young man is restored to fortune by making a compact with the devil ; a man disregards three warnings of death and meets a terrible fate; a pious painter meets with favor at the hands of the Virgin. 14 Map rarely drew the moral 11 D e Nugis Curialium, 31. ^Ibid., 31. 13 De Nugis Curialium, 105. "Ibid., 154-5-6. Cf. Wright's Latin Stories, 13, 34, 35, resp. The Three Warnings of Death appears in Bromyard's Summa Praedicantium, under the title, "Mors." 58 in connection with his tales, but being a churchman he no doubt anticipated their beneficial effects. The Otia Imperialia, 15 a. work of a younger contemporary of Map, Gervase of Tilbury, should be mentioned here, not be- cause it is rich in exempla, but because it further indicates the vogue of corrective, entertaining and instructive mis- cellanies. The list of sources drawn upon for this work numbers seventy-five items. 16 It was written, according to J. A. Sandys, about 121 1, for the amusement of the German Emperor, Otto IV; 17 at any rate, it is calculated to entertain and instruct rather than to reform. An occasional tale, such as No. XVIII, " De visione portarum inferni," or No. CXXIX, " De fonte, qui nihil sordidum admittit," might well be used to point a moral. But the work consists almost wholly in descriptions and accounts of natural phenomena and wonders of the world. Alexander Neckam's similar and slightly earlier work, De Naturis Rcrum, makes considerable use of exempla. This book, it would appear from John of Bromton's Chronicle, was well known at the end of the twelfth century. 18 Neckam, like the other writers mentioned in this chapter, had been in contact with foreign scholars and churchmen ; in fact, he was for a time a professor in the University of Paris. 10 Later, he held an ecclesiastical office in England until his death in 1217. De Naturis Rerum is, as may be remembered, a compilation from such sources as Solinus, Cassiodorus, Aristotle, Pliny, Vergil, Lucan, Martial, Bernard Silvester, Ovid, Boethius, St. Augustine, Juvenal, the Bible, ancient history, traditions, mythology, and contemporary superstitions. Of particular significance for the present investigation is the use to which exempla are put to explain and illustrate the nature of animals and natural phenomena. Neckam's scholarly pursuits and clerical learning had brought him into contact with exempla, 16 Des Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Iniperialia, in einer Auswahl neu herausgegeben, Felix Liebrecht, Hannover, 1856. 1B Ibid., preface, xi-xii, note. "Cambridge History of English Literature, I, 213. 18 See De Naturis Rerum, preface, xiii-xiv. 19 Ibid., preface, x. 59 which, as I have shown, were already circulating. These enabled him to add a number of excellent moral touches to his treatise, — an addition which no true mediaeval writer would forego. The exempla, though not very numerous, are of no little im- portance in that they appear in a treatise on natural history. I shall cite only the more important ones, which show Neckam's purpose in introducing them, and represent the kinds of tales employed. After speaking about the dangers of the sea and the bravery of sailors, he illustrates and confirms the discus- sion by telling a story, on the authority of eye-witnesses, 20 of a man who used to cross the "mare Britannicum" with only his dog to help him. In another place he illustrates the nobility of the horse by narrating how Broiefort aided his master Ogier the Dane in conquering the Saracens at the siege of Meaux. 21 A marginal note opposite this tale runs, " De commedatione equorum et exemplum de Ogero." In some cases he draws a moral (instructio moralis) after the narrative. For example, he writes that the birds once assembled to choose a king, and decided to confer that honor upon that bird which should fly highest. The wren hid under the eagle's wing and just as the latter was about to claim the award, the wren hopped upon the head of the rightful victor. 22 This little tale, Neckam points out at some length, shows how some people wrongfully rise to high honors and rewards by the labors of others. The moralist supplants the naturalist. None of the tales above mentioned are common in collections of exempla, but certain others appear again and again in later compilations. There are three of these: (i) the knight and the lion. In Neckam's version the knight rescues the lion from a serpent and in order to escape from the grateful beast's companionship he betakes himself to the sea ; the lion tries to follow and is drowned. 23 This tale, he points out, exemplifies *> De Naturis Rerum, 141. " Relatu eorum qui testimonium de visu perhibuerunt." a Ibid., 261. 72 Ibid., 122. 28 Ibid., 229. 60 gratitude. (2) The knight and his three sons. A noble knight with a depraved wife had three sons. Shortly before his death he called his feudal lord and asked him to select one of his sons as his successor. After the knight's death, the lord, realizing the infidelity of the wife, determined to make a test which would discover to him the true son. He therefore pro- posed to the boys that they find who can inflict the deepest wound upon the dead body of their father. Two of the sup- posed sons made their most powerful thrusts but the third refused to compete in the mutilation of his father's body ; he was selected as the lawful heir. 24 (3) The fate of a glutton. The Count of Pons-Ysarae was a good man except for glut- tony. One day after his death, his virtuous son with a party of friends visited the Count's tomb. Upon removing the top, they found a loathsome toad clinging to the neck through which so much rich food had passed. 25 Much moralizing follows this tale, which, like the other two, was a favorite with later teachers of right-living. The appearance of exempla in this secular compendium is of considerable importance in indicat- ing their presence and favor among the Latin writers at the close of the twelfth century. The next work which we shall consider deals with a subject more closely related to exempla. It is the Gemma Ecclesi- astica 20 of the influential churchman, Giraldus Cambrensis. The book was probably written at Lincoln between 1196-99 27 and was presented by the author to Pope Innocent III who was implored by bishops and cardinals for a loan of the manu- script. The Pope valued it so highly, however, that he would not let it be taken away. 28 This much-treasured work was a treatise on the sacraments of the Church, ecclesiastical abuses, and matters pertaining to clerical discipline, interspersed with a great number of exempla. Giraldus' introductory words to the 24 De Naturis Rerum, 313. "Ibid., 334. 26 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, II. 27 See ibid., VII, 168. 28 Gemma, Brewer's preface, ix-x. 61 clergy are so suggestive of the status of exempla at the time that I venture to quote at some length. " It is not altogether undeserving of your praise and gratitude, that out of ponderous volumes, where, owing to the diffuseness of the authors, it is not easy to find what is more worthy and elegant, I have collected into a small compass all that savored of sounder sense and was more adapted to your spiritual weal, and have made a compendium out of the waste and luxuriance of other men. 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 spacious gardens from the foolish and fruitless herbs the useful and the virtuous, separating the lilies and roses from the nettles and brambles." " The subject of my book falls under two heads, one of precept, the other of example. For, as Jerome tells us : ' Long and tedious is the way that leads by precept ; commodious and brief is the way that leads by example.' 23 So, from the legends of the holy Fathers, of which very few copies are to be found among you of Wales, and from the faithful nar- ratives of ancient and of more recent times, I have compiled, with a view to your imitation, some things which will be not unserviceable to you. To the words of instruction I have subjoined examples in suitable places, that as from the perusal of the former you may gain learning, from the latter you may derive consolation and be provoked to emulation." " I am well aware, that to learned ears and fastidious readers, to whom all these things are trite and common, my work will appear either tedious or superfluous. But I would have such men understand that this work is intended exclusively for my own country of Wales ; and it is therefore set forth in phrase and matter intelligible and unrefined, without rhetorical ornament. I aim at being perspicuous, no more. But if, perchance, this work of mine, transgressing the limits prescribed to it, should flit across the Marches, fall into the hands of great ones, and presumptuously intrude upon the eyes of the learned, let such readers know that I prefer to set before them what they may consider superfluous than to withhold from my country- men what I deem to be necessary." 30 The fact that Giraldus, when seeking advancement, chose a copy of this book rather than anything else to present to the great Innocent III, suggests that the apology was conventional, 29 The term " examples " here, as with Gregory, the Knight of La Tour Landry (see above, pp. n, 14, resp.), and others, seems to refer to the actual deeds of men, but unquestionably these writers had in mind the narrations of such deeds, since they invariably proceed to cite exempla. 80 Gemma, xi-xii. I have used the editor's translation of this passage, making a change in the last sentence of the second paragraph where he interchanged " former " and " latter." 62 rather than sincere. 31 However that may be, his statements as to the method of selecting these " precious gems " from the " innumerable sands/ 7 his implication that at least a " very few- copies " of the patristic legends could be found even in Wales at the time, his recommendation of the serviceableness of exempla, are pertinent observations on the presence and favor of the type among the learned at the opening of the thirteenth century. We may now turn to the book itself, which is divided into two parts. The first treats in a familiar manner of matters, small and great, which presented everyday problems to the clergy, such as the administration of the eucharist, extreme unction, the mass, confession, the ornamentation of the church, the enjoining of penance, and kindred topics. The second part deals with matters of conduct and of contemporary clerical abuses. In both parts a voluminous mass of tales and anec- dotes is used to illustrate and confirm the text; twenty-eight anecdotes, 32 for instance, support the single point of ignorance among the clergy. Giraldus takes his narratives from a variety of sources, such as the Vitae Patrum, the Dialogues of Gregory, saints' lives, and historical compends ; 33 but what dis- tinguishes the exempla particularly is the number of con- temporary instances of which the writer either knew directly or had heard. These not only add to the charm of the treatise but must also have increased its convincing quality. Practically the whole body of illustrations deals with ecclesi- astical affairs. The use of purely secular incidents is a later tendency in the history of the exemplum. In order to indicate the tone which pervades the narratives, I give herewith a few themes taken almost at random. After speaking of the value and sanctity of the eucharist, the writer recalls four incidents which are in substance as follows : Maurice, Bishop of Paris, reproved the Canons of St. Victor for offering him on his death-bed unconsecrated wafers, in the belief that he was too 31 He also presented a. copy to the Lincoln Cathedral Library ; see ed. cit., VII, 168. 83 Gemma, 341 seq. 83 It is to be noted that Biblical exempla were less and less frequently employed as monkish tales multiplied and became more available. 63 far gone to realize the deception. 84 The writer saw in Paris an Englishman, Richard de Aubry, who was unable on his death-bed to take into his mouth the viaticum because he had not believed in transubstantiation. 35 At the suggestion of the devil, a woman waited to take from the mouth of the dying Urban III the viaticum which he had been unable to swallow. 86 Pope Gerbert, when he should have held up the host in the service, used to turn his back to the audience and drop the burden into a sack suspended from his neck. When he con- fessed to this deception, a rule was made requiring the pope to face the audience when he officiated. Gerbert, in penitence for this and other offences of his early life, mutilated himself. It is said that in consequence of this his marble tomb sweats blood at the impending death of the reigning pontiff. 37 Brief anecdotes of this kind are sprinkled plentifully through the book. Besides such colorless stories, there are a considerable num- ber which, though told in a serious manner and with a serious purpose, are pleasantly absurd. For instance, in connection with transubstantiation, Giraldus tells of a contemporary Ger- man who for some reason put the pix in a hollow tree. Later it was found surrounded by a little ornamented wax temple which the bees had made for it. 38 The lesson of honoring the holy paraphernalia is clear and would no doubt sink deep into the hearts of a thirteenth century audience. It is quite prob- able that Giraldus himself was not altogether incredulous of some of the strange accounts that came to his notice. 39 For example, he states that he has heard it for a fact — " Ego etiam de quodam verissime audivi " — that a man who had unwittingly swallowed a spider in the sacramental wine was relieved three 84 Gemma, 32. 85 Ibid., 33. "Ibid., 34. 87 Ibid., 34. "Ibid., 42. 89 J. F. Dimock, in his preface to the Topographia Hibernica (ed. cit., V. lxvii), says, " He [Giraldus] was almost as credulous as he was vain and pompous, exactly the man that a joker would fix upon as fair and first-rate game." 64 days later by scratching the offending creature out of his great toe. 40 I may cite another instance of his tendency to believe strange tales, especially when they came or were supposed to come from high authority. He relates, on the authority of Bishop Baldwin of Worcester, a case of a young woman who proffered love to a young man. The latter, suspicious of an evil spirit, made certain tests but still was not satisfied. The woman became impatient and one day, seeing him pay more attention to a hound named Galiena than to herself, left him with the words, " 'You have slighted me for Galiena ; Galiena shall avenge me for this affront/ " Later the young man met and fell desperately in love with a girl named Galiena who con- sistently repulsed him. Despite his efforts to forget her by retiring to a monastery, despite the prayers of the brothers, he died of unrequited love. 41 The outcome of the story was at variance with the usual reward for withstanding temptation and the narrator was at loss to explain the affair. As Brewer says, " The reflections of Giraldus on this occasion show the perplexity under which he labored. It never occurred to him to question the authenticity of the narrative, nor could he for a moment doubt the authority on which he had received it." 42 But if Giraldus was strangely credulous, he was not a wilful impostor, as is shown by a statement in the Topographia Hibernica, relative to those wonderful anecdotes and marvelous monstrosities there recorded. He says that he does not desire that credence should be given to all that has been advanced in the chapter on the marvels and miracles of Ireland, inasmuch as he dares not himself believe those things unless they have actually fallen within his own observation, or might so have fallen. As for the rest, he forbears to pronounce upon them affirmatively or negatively, but leaves them rather to the reader's judgment. 43 Giraldus, in common with the majority of mediaeval clerics, accepted and recounted many unplausible tales as gospel fact, but the probability is that in the eagerness to establish the principles exemplified, the reality or fictitious- ness of the concrete instance was often forgotten. 40 Gemma, 122. 41 Ibid., 228. 42 Ibid., introd., 50 43 Ed. cit., V, 74-S. 65 Closely akin to Giraldus' narration of incredible happenings is his use of trivial, ridiculously incongruous illustrations. This is a charge which may also be brought against many mediaeval preachers and moralists who employed exempla. It might be expected, nevertheless, that a man who in his observa- tions on the conduct of Church aflairs shows such remarkable moderation and good sense, would have exercised more dis- crimination. Its absence we can interpret only as another manifestation of the mediaeval fondness for the juxtaposition of incongruities. As an illustration of the trivial anecdotes employed as exempla in the Gemma I shall quote two of the four which are used to show the terrific effects of excom- munication. In each case the unfortunate subjects of this mighty weapon of the Church are vermin ! " Exemplum de beato Bernardo abbate Clarevallensi, qui cum ad ecclesiam quandam venisset, sicut in legenda ipsius reperitur, in qua, propter mus- carura ingruentem abundantiam, nee etiam divina celebrari poterant, et hoc ei ref erretur ; subjecit vir sanctus : ' Et ego in nomine Christi eas ex- communico.' Mane vero omnes, tarn in ecclesia quam per claustra domus et septa, mortuae inventae sunt." " Item exemplum de sancto Yvoro episcopo, qui majores mures, qui vulgariter rati vocantur, quia libros suos forte eroderant, per suam impre- cationem a provincia Hiberniae, quae Fernegulam dicitur, in qua delique- rant, prorsus ejecit, adeo ut nee ibi postea longo tempore nasci, nee vivere valeant advecti." 4 * The appearance of such pied-piper accounts is not at all un- common in this book of grave and sound observations on the greatest of mediaeval institutions. For the most part Giraldus' exempla are neither more trivial nor more serious than those employed by other men during the centuries immediately following. Stories relating the de- plorable acts of evil spirits and devils, 45 and tales illustrative of the worldliness, impurity, avarice and ignorance of the con- temporary clergy, abound. 46 As is usual wherever any appre- 44 Gemma, 160—61. 46 Ibid., 53, 54, 55, 56, 158, 260, passim. 46 Two typical illustrations of the latter class are in substance as follows. A priest in speaking about Barnabas told his audience that he was a good man but yet he was a thief for the gospels say, " ' erat autem Barabbas latro ' " ; the priest made no distinction between Barnabas and Barabbas. 6 66 ciable use of exempla is made, the work includes a few stock favorites. 47 The incidents, though usually short and un- adorned, are at times very brisk and entertaining. This is particularly true of those which deal with Giraldus' personal observation. As a whole, this treatise and example-book is not only unusually interesting, but since it was addressed to the clergy by so prominent a man, it must have had considerable influence for the encouragement of our type. Of equal or even greater importance was the work of the English preacher and fable writer, Odo de Ceritona. 48 His collection of fables and tales, compiled between 1219-21, is apparently the earliest in which fables are accompanied with moralizations. Although preachers used this collection as a source-book for illustrations, it was probably compiled to re- form clerical abuses. Those " parabolae " which were intended for exempla, Odo inserted in his sermons but never collected. 49 The collected narratives, by virtue of their accompanying moralizations, acquired a greater independent value than they had hitherto possessed in the subordinate office of illustrations. The collection was composed largely of fables, but the idea of appending moralizations was soon applied to collections of tales other than fables and helped to produce such compilations as the Gesta Romanorum. These moralized tales and fables of Odo were eagerly utilized by preachers 50 who in copying them Another instance of the same kind tells of a priest who in a sermon on the woman of Canaan, said that she was part woman and part dog, " inter Cananeam et caninam non bene distinguens." Gemma, 341. 47 It is worthy of notice that Giraldus relates the tale, immortalized by Cervantes, of a man hiding money in a cane which he has his creditor hold while he swears that he has paid his debt. 48 Les Fabulistes Latins, IV, contains the fables and parables of Odo, and a thorough critical and biographical study of their author. 49 See Hervieux, Les Fabulistes, IV, 35. 80 That some of Odo's contemporaries were using exempla is evinced by sermon collections still preserved. Wright calls attention to some of them as follows. "In a manuscript [Arundel, 231] ... in the British Museum some monastic compiler has arranged in one series the homilies of John of Abbeville, Odo of Kent, and Roger of Salisbury on the Sunday Gospels throughout the year. . . They all present one characteristic which is much less common in the writers of sermons at an early date, the frequent illus- 67 into collections for their own use "sometimes lengthened, shortened, or otherwise changed them, sometimes added others, borrowed, in theme at least, from other authors or from their own imagination." 51 The large number of manuscripts con- taining such collections still extant in France, Germany, Eng- land, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, 52 testify amply to the popularity of Odo's fables. 53 The fables, however, though often mingled in the sermons as exempla, 54 are of less importance for our study than the "parabolae," or exempla, which appeared in his sermons, written previous to 1219. 55 There are two collections of homilies: those for Sundays (Homiliae de Tempore), and those for Festival's (Homiliae de Sanctis). Of the former there are sixty-six; of the latter, twenty-six. The exempla in these sermons show growing familiarity with such writers as Seneca, Ovid, Vergil, Horace, Juvenal, Claudian, and Boethius. 56 Moreover, the type is employed on a scale far greater than in any of the English homily collections of the earlier period. Hervieux' edition of the " parabolae " used in the Sunday sermons only, contains one hundred and ninety- nine. Odo's chief sources for exempla, outside of fables and tradi- tional anecdotes, are Gregory's Dialogues and the Vitae Patrum. The Bible and secular history are sparingly utilized ; tration of the subject by short stories or fables." Biographia Britannica Literaria, I, 22$. The Catalogue of the Western MSS. in Trinity College lists (I, 9— 11) a thirteenth century MS. of fifty-nine " Sermones per anni circulum," which formerly belonged to the Durham Cathedral. Mr. James, the compiler of the catalogue, notes that stories are used in many of these sermons. 61 Hervieux, op. cit., IV, 35. *Ibid., IV, 47-77- 83 Hervieux states that there are only three translations of Odo's fables : One Spanish {El libro de los gatos), and two French. One of the latter is anonymous ; the other he believes to be the Contes Moralises of Nicole de Bozon. Les Fabulistes, IV, 85. 64 Seventeen of the Aesopic collection appear in the homilies, besides nine others " au moins en germe." Ibid., IV, 124-5. 65 Ibid., IV, 46. *Ibid., IV, 126. 68 Latin classics and patristic writings are more frequently cited. Compared with the illustrative tales previously discussed in this chapter, those of the present collection show a more con- stant and serious aim to exemplify and correct the sins and weaknesses of the masses. 56a Most of the exempla in the sermons are followed, as were the fables, by a clear applica- tion to the condition of the audience. " Sic ergo faciat Domine," " Ita in presentia," " Huius modi," " Similiter," " Tales sunt cupidi," are expressions indicative of the usual manner in which Odo introduces his moralizations from the tales. Sometimes the moralization takes the form of a sym- bolical interpretation, of which I shall give illustration later. The exempla used by Odo may be classified under the fol- lowing heads: (i) historical incidents, (2) Biblical narratives, (3) fables, (4) Bestiary passages and figures of speech, 57 (5) monkish tales. The first four groups I shall consider briefly before passing to the monkish tales, which comprise fully two-thirds of the entire number. The historical group consists of about half a dozen incidents, such as the death of Julian the Apostate at the hands of a special agent of the Virgin, 58 the account of Socrates hurling a great lump of gold into the sea with the observation that one cannot possess riches and virtue, 09 the inability of Canute to keep back the sea. 60 Most of these are vague and legendary rather than authentic. The Biblical exempla, of which there are about the same number, are for the most part mere references. For instance, one of them consists of a single line, " Paulus post naufragium a vipere percussus est ; nihil ei nocuit." 81 The moralization occupies four lines. Another, which I translate entire, is but 60a Hervieux remarks that Odo " avait un grand amour de la purete." Les Fabulistcs, IV, 29. 67 That Odo considered bestiary passages and figures of speech in much the same light as exempla is suggested by his definition of " parabolae " • " Parabola dicitur a para, quod est juxta, et bole, quod est sententia, quasi juxta sententiam. Parabola enim est similitudo quae ponitur ad sententiam rei comprobandam." Les Fabulistes, no, 68 Les Fabulistes, IV, 271. 09 Ibid.. 271. "Ibid., 275. 61 Ibid., 299. 69 little longer: "It is said that Dives, tired of the clamor of the beggar, set his dogs on him. But the dogs licked his wounds." 82 Elijah under the juniper tree occupies three lines. 68 The epi- sode of the citizens of Ephesus who turned back from follow- ing Paul seemed particularly worthy to the homilist since it is given no less than a page and a quarter. 04 Among the bestiary passages may be found references to the pelican and its young, 65 the elephant's habit of leaning against a tree which the hunter cuts, 66 the antelope caught among the branches by its spreading antlers. 67 These, and a few references to the habits of the hen which gathers its chicks, the fly which pollutes, and the wolf which feigns death, are used to symbolize human qualities. They are hardly more than figures of speech. The Aesopic fables incorporated in the sermons are of greater signi- ficance both in number and bulk, but they offer no special object for discussion, so we may turn to the group of greatest im- portance, the monkish legends. A large number of these are of the familiar, clerical, unrea- lized kind, dealing with " a certain rustic," " a certain king," " a certain bishop," or " a certain hermit." The following outlines will indicate their simple and homely character. A certain rustic who was invited by his lord to a feast, drank putrid water from a ditch outside his lord's dwelling, in spite of the remonstrances of his companion. Later, in the midst of the company, he vomited the putrid water upon the table. Then follows Odo's moralization that in the present, men spoil their lives by evil-doing and only by penance may they fit them- selves to partake of the heavenly feast. 68 A certain great noble- man, having relinquished the pomp of the world and taken the habit of the white monks, was asked why he had done such a thing. He replied that he judged it better to gain salvation in vile clothes than to perish in silken stuff. 69 In others of 62 Les Fabulistes, IV, 305. 63 Ibid., 322. M Ibid., 339-40. 65 Ibid., 269. "Ibid., 316. 67 Ibid., 327. 88 Ibid., 266. 69 Ibid., 268. 70 this kind, the moral is drawn on a detailed allegorical basis. For example, a certain man had a beautiful wife whom he often spurned and afflicted; but his vicious maid-servant he nourished and fed with delicacies. The wife is the soul which we misuse; the servant is the flesh which we pamper and indulge. 70 Other monkish tales deal with incidents in the lives of par- ticular saints, such as St. Anthony, St. Lawrence, St. Hilary, St. Martin, and St. Machary. Legends about devils and reap- pearances after death are prominent. The monkish group con- tains also a limited number combating abuses among the clergy. For example, a Master of Paris asserted that Peter and Paul were fools, and upon being questioned, explained that they suffered poverty, toil and hunger to be saved, whereas present-day bishops were able to win salvation with rich food and drink, fine clothes and luxuries. 71 A very amusing tale of this class satirizes the greed of churchmen. A little old woman (vetula) not being able to get a hearing from the bishop, was advised by one who knew his custom, not to attempt to im- portune that dignitary until she had annointed his palm. The woman, interpreting this advice in a very simple manner, straightway secured three pieces of butter and sought the bishop. At her request he stretched out his hand which she suddenly greased well with the rich butter. Odo's comment is brief but pertinent, " Utinam tale obsequium omnibus cupidis exhiberetur." 72 The foregoing exempla are perpetuated in sub- sequent collections, as are the following, which I outline briefly because they are thoroughly typical of the themes con- stantly appearing in the great collections of exempla. (i) "De Juliano apostata et diabolo." This relates how Julian sent a demon on a wicked errand, but the demon was stopped and turned back by chancing to fly above a certain religious man who prayed day and night. 73 (2) "De sene cui angelus judicia dei ostendit." This story, 70 Les Fabulistes, IV, 270. 71 Ibid., 268. 72 Ibid., 301. 73 Ibid., 296-7. 71 the theme of Parnell's Hermit, tells of an angel who stole a gold cup from a generous host, later gave the stolen cup to a miserly host, and finally strangled the infant child of a pious host. The agent of God then explained to his revolted mortal companion just how he was executing God's wisdom in doing these apparently atrocious things. 74 (3) "De quodam eremita et cadavere fetente." An angel traveling along the roadside with a hermit, passed by a rotting corpse, unnoticing, but held his nose at the sight of a fashion- ably arrayed young gentleman. 75 (4) "De quodam monacho et patre ejus." This is one of the many variants of an extremely popular theme, — the heroic struggles of clerics to withstand temptations, usually contrived by the devil. A young monk upon being solicited by a woman, consults his father, who advises forty days' labor on bread and water. After twenty days the devil in the guise of a revolting Ethiopian female appears to the youth and states that it was she who had been his former charming temptress. The youth and his father render thanks to God, but the father remarks that if the son had stayed in the hermitage for the rest of the forty days, he would have perceived the deception even more clearly. 76 (5) "De quadam sancta religiosa." This anecdote tells of a girl whose father was ever heavy and sad, whereas her mother was proud, talkative and lustful. After their death, the girl in a vision saw their respective dwellings in the other world; the father in bliss, the mother in hell-torment. 77 (6) "De quodam clerico fiente et abbate Bernardo." A penitent young cleric wrote a list of his sins on a card which he sent to Bernard. When the abbot looked at the card, the writing, owing to God's mercy to penitents, had disappeared. ™Les Fabulistes, IV, 308. 78 Ibid., 275. ''"Ibid., 329-30. 77 Ibid., 330-2. The frequent appearance of this theme in mediaeval writ- ings, indicates that the doctrine that sadness in this life brought happiness in the next, and vice versa, was not only held by ascetics but was taught to the masses. 72 So, through confession, the card of the heart is wiped clean of the letters of sin, runs the allegorical moral. 78 All of these exempla are brief, 79 tersely phrased, and usually obvious in their lessons of faith, reward for good, or punish- ment for evil actions. A clerical preference for the incidents recorded in the works of the Church Fathers, the Dialogues of Gregory, the Vitae Patrum, and saints* lives, is to be noted. Hervieux has suggested that Odo told these tales to the people as actual facts rather than as legendary illustrations. That he, like Giraldus, may have considered the incidents for the most part factual is not at all unlikely, inasmuch as he takes pains occasionally to caution his audience that a certain account is not quite authentic. 80 The faith in the substance of exempla, the belief in their efficacy, 81 their prominence, and the fact that the manuscripts of Odo's sermons are plentiful, 82 are all indi- cations that the type was growing in favor among contempo- rary scholars and churchmen. 83 We have seen in the work of these Latin writers of England in the second half of the twelfth century, that narratives were already becoming important as illustrations. This is evident 78 Les Fabulistes, IV, 336-7. 79 The average length of the exempla in the collection is about nine lines. 80 For example, he introduces the tale about the weeping child who was cured by bathing where Christ had bathed, with the words, " Dicitur, licet non sit autenticum." Les Fabulistes, IV, 330. Hervieux cites (ibid., 112) another case which closes with the words, " Sed non est autenticum." 01 Among other things, Odo says in one of his prologues, " Paterfamilias debet proferre de thesauro suo nova et vetera verba et exempla, quibus reficiatur fidelis anima." A little later he refers to the authority of Greg- ory, as follows : " Et quoniam, ut dicit Gregorius, plus quandoque compun- gunt exempla quam verba, aperiam in parabolis os meum, et similitudines et exempla que libencius audiuntur, memorie firmius quam verba commen- dantur, proponam, quibus intellects sapiens sapiencior erit." Ibid., 175. This prologue is very suggestive of that of the Knight of La Tour Landry; see below, p. 134. ^Ibid., 1 27-4.1. 83 Crane says that Odo " left e mayster of stories/' 110 John 107 Festial, 226. Perhaps he guards himself by remarking at the close of the passage, " pus clerkys preven how our lady was assumpted bodely ynto Heven." 108 A study of the sources and analogues of Mirk's exempla offers a fruit- ful subject for research, although Dr. Erbe's promised second volume may undertake the matter. Mirk may have consulted the Legenda Aurea for some of these. The tale referred to this source deals with King Darius' question as to which is strongest : wine, women, or a king. It is told by Gower, Conf. Amant-.j Bk. VII, 11. 1783 seq. 100 no Ill Belet. 111 Many of the tales have no reference to their source other than " I rede " or " I finde," but the above list is suffi- cient to indicate the kind of narratives favored. We see that later and secular sources, together with saints' lives, were growing in favor, and that patristic writings and the mediaeval exempla collections were decreasing in popularity. Many tales in the Festial deal with local happenings and are, apparently, set down from oral tradition. These are sug- gestive of the way in which exempla sprang up, but the local tales throw scarcely more light upon men and ideas of the times than do those of universal application. 112 Nevertheless, it is quite likely that they were doubly effective on contemporary audiences. So Mirk must have calculated when, for instance, he says in introducing the story of a sinner torn to pieces by three dogs, "Wherefor I telle ]?is ensampull ]?at was told me of suche ]?at knewyn hit done yn dede." 113 Similarly, he gives an account of a company of fellows taking a " stene of ale " to drink in a tavern. Among the number was a priest who, strangely enough, recalled that a clerical duty awaited him. Being requested to bless the ale before leaving, he complied, whereupon the " stene barste al to pesus, and a grete tode was in ]?e stene bo)?om." This also was "a tale J?at was don in dede/' 114 Some of these tales center about prominent national figures. For example, he narrates how Thomas a Becket and King Henry II, while riding together "yn J?e Chepe of Lon- don " on a cold day, met a thinly clad man. Becket was wear- ing a cloak " of fyne scarlad, well yfurred wy)? grys." This the king seized and after they had " wrastlet long," Becket let ' nx John Belet appears to have been an Englishman who was at one time a theologian in Paris. Migne (Pair. Lat., CCII) prints his Rationale divinorum officiorum, and calls him " Theologus Parisiensis." Belet is cred- ited also with a collection of sermons and a treatise entitled Gemma Animae. See D. N. B. 113 It is interesting to note the emphasis upon such topics as lechery, revellings, gluttony, vain plays at Christmas time, and the desirability of submitting to earthly trials for the sake of a proportionate reward in heaven. But these things were, of course, not peculiar to England. ™ Festial, I, 56. ui Ibid., 293. 112 him pull it off and cast it to the poor man. The prelate simulated anger but was really well content. 115 Another tale deals with "Robert Grosched, Byschop of Lyncolne." It seems that to his death-bed came " a gret multytude of fendys, and spyted wy)> hym so of >e fayfe, J?at J?ay hadden negh turned hym." But " oure lady," ever ready, said to him, " say )?ou belevyst as holy chyrch doJ?e." Robert hastened to reply, " Y beleve as holy chyrch belevy)?," whereat the fiends vanished and he gave up the ghost in peace. 118 Many other wonderful happenings are located by the homilist in various parts of Eng- land, notably as follows : a miracle was witnessed by two men dwelling near Norwich; a wonderful miracle happened in Devonshire " bysyde Auxbryge " ; a miracle happened to a man of " Erkaleton " named Adam ; a miraculous cure was wrought in the town of Shrewsbury ; an unshriven man near the " abbay of Lulsull" was tormented after death; a child near North- ampton had visions of the punishment of an adulterous man ; the Virgin appeared in the nunnery of Shaftesbury and urged fewer " aves " and more devotion. 117 These tales, aside from the fact that they have "a local habitation and a name," are scarcely different from the great mass of monkish legends which had been circulating for centuries throughout the Chris- tian realm. This bears witness to the fact that anything like distinct national features in religious literature was practically impossible under an organization so universal and all-powerful as the mediaeval Church. 118 Mirk's effort to infuse new ma- terial and to localize the exemplary incidents is practically lost amid the mass of well-worn tales which play so important a 118 Festial, I, 39-40. 110 Ibid., 78. 117 Ibid., 91, 173, 180, 181, 192, 281, 293, 299, resp. 118 " In the fourteenth century," says W P. Ker, " one need not be sur- prised to find that a good deal of the prose of all the countries of Europe is a little monotonous and jaded. For the general character of progress had been a levelling down of national distinctions, and a distribution over the whole field of the same commonplaces, so that one finds the same books current everywhere, the same stories ; the popular learning in the vernacular tongues became almost as clear of any national or local char- acter as the philosophy of the schools." Essays on Mediaeval Literature, 21. 113 part in this representative of English preaching at the time of Chaucer, Langland, Gower and Wycliffe. To summarize, — we have seen that at the opening of the thirteenth century exempla in Latin were circulating among the clergy but preaching was at a low ebb, and stories were rarely employed in the dry sermons of the period. Then, toward the close of the first quarter of the century, came the friars, who spread quickly through the thickly settled districts and popularized the tales in their vernacular sermons. During the remainder of the century, however, the exemplum was little used in English. Meanwhile, saints' lives had been ac- cumulating and growing in favor, and by the opening of the fourteenth century were circulating widely. The legendary had now to a certain extent taken the place of the ordinary homilies, especially in the service for saints' days. Narratives in the pulpit were thus encouraged both by the sermons of the friars and by readings from the legendaries. About 1300 the North English Homily Collection gave prominent expression in the vernacular to the exemplum. A little later the Contes Moralizes of Nicole de Bozon, in addition to their use of tales, sometimes local and secular, indicate that fables and moraliza- tions from nature and popular superstitions were in vogue as material for sermons. The treatises of Richard Rolle and his followers show that among the Mystics, narration was dis- tinctly subordinate to the expression of thought and religious emotion. Finally, at the opening of the fifteenth century, Mirk's Festial represents the type at the height of favor. Secular tales mingle in profusion with episodes from saints' lives and monkish legends and though evidently serious in his aims, the preacher has become a teller of tales rather than an expounder of the gospel. The exemplum had taken such strong hold upon both preachers and people that it maintained itself for a long time in spite of opposition. WyclifTe and his followers had, in the closing years of the fourteenth century, voiced a strong ob- jection to the use of tales in the pulpit, but a confirmed practice which lightened the labors of the clergy and pleased the masses was not to be stopped at once. Even the opposition of the 9 114 Church Councils, as was pointed out in the introductory chapter, failed for a time to do more than check the abuse of illustrative tales. So the use of exempla continued in England, as elsewhere, and new translations of Latin example-books ap- peared. Sermon collections of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies attest the persistence of the type 119 and show that even such reformers as Latimer 120 were not altogether beyond its pervasive influence. By 1400, however, the beginning of the end had arrived; the Reformation had set in and although the decline was gradual, the passing of the exemplum was fore- shadowed. 121 UB See Crane, /. de V., introd., liii ; also Douce, Illustrations of Shaks- pere, II, 341-42. 130 See Sermons by Hugh Latimer. It is important to note that Latimer's narratives usually resemble more the illustrations used by modern preachers than they do the legendary incidents which made the exemplum a distinct type. V2X Cf. Paul's Grundriss, II, Pt. ii, 739. CHAPTER V The Exemplum in Religious Treatises and Instruction- Books In addition to its use in sermons, the exemplum was em- ployed in at least two other types of literature, the religious treatise and the instruction-book, which constitute the subject of this chapter. Inasmuch as the religious treatises consist of discussions of the vices, virtues and kindred topics pertaining to ecclesiastical discipline, they closely resemble the sermons. It was a Church policy to expound regularly the commandments, the creed, the virtues, and the deadly sins. A ruling of the Synod of Ox- ford (1281) ordered that "every priest having charge of a flock, do, four times in each year (that is, once each quarter), on one or more solemn feast days, either himself or by some one. else, instruct the people in the vulgar language, simply and without any fantastical admixture of subtle distinctions, in the Articles of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Evan- gelical Precepts, the Seven Works of Mercy, the Seven Deadly Sins with their Offshoots, the Seven Principal Virtues, and the Seven Sacraments." 1 Instruction of this sort was not con- fined to sermons ; treatises helped to spread the knowledge of how to live so as to gain the reward of heaven. I have already cited the English Metrical Homilies to the effect that 1 See Gasquet, Parish Life in Mediaeval England, 214; also 215, for a similar ruling. In 1357 Archbishop Thoresby of York had Jon Gatryke, a monk of St. Mary's, York, translate into English an exposition of the creed, commandments, virtues, sins, etc. The Archbishop says in his preface to the tract that it is sent out to all his priests " so that each and every one, who under him had the charge of souls, do openly in English, upon Sundays teach and preach them, that they have cure of the law and the way to know God Almighty." Parish Life, 216. The Synod of Ely (1364) ordered that every priest frequently expound the ten com- mandments, etc., in English. Ibid., 216. 115 116 "... Laued men havis mar mister, Godes word for to her Than klerkes that thair mirour lokes, And sees hou thai sal lif on bokes." 2 About 1200, when this was written, " mirours " for the laity began to appear in English. One of the earliest of these treatises extant is the Middle English dialogue between Soul and Reason, entitled Vices and Virtues. Since this piece illustrates in its plan the type with which we are to deal, it may be briefly outlined. First, Soul, representing mankind, indicates the vices to which she is ad- dicted : sorrow, sloth, pride, 3 disobedience, swearing, lying, back- biting, deceit, cursing, impatience, self-will, unrighteousness, the ill-doing of the five senses. Reason suggests betterment by advising right-belief, firm hope, charity, humility, fear, pity, knowledge, counsel, strength, understanding and wisdom. But other virtues are desirable to perfect Soul in her progress, so after an interruption, Reason continues to prescribe peace, prudence, foresight, righteousness, moderation, obedience, mercy, penitence, confession, cleanness in body and thought, discipline, patience, maidenhood, chastity, continence, inno- cence, abstinence, fasting, sobriety, conscience, prayer, tears, discretion, and perseverance. This list indicates how thor- oughly the Church had classified the vices and virtues of humanity and provided that the good should serve as an anti- dote for the evil. 4 Nothing could be better adapted to the use of exempla than a treatise of this kind. But in this early piece, as in some later ones of the same 2 Eng. Metr. Horn., 3. The number of such treatises in Latin must have been enormous. The translator of the Orologium Sapientiae or the Seven Poyntes of Trewe Wisdom says, "per beb so manye bokes & tretees of vyces & vertues & of dyvers doctrynes, bat bis schort lyfe schalle have anende of anye manne banne he maye owbere studye hem or rede hem." Anglia, X, 328. 3 A note in the MS. follows " pride," to the effect that '* envy " seems to have been overlooked by Soul. V. and V., 6. 4 It will be recalled that at the opening of the thirteenth century, the Church under Innocent III reached its supreme dominion over Christen- dom. Its influence was felt even upon the most insignificant acts of the people. 117 nature, the exemplum is negligible. 40 The allegorical structure, which commonly characterized these pieces, is also but little emphasized. The writer states that Soul is God's temple. Right-belief is the foundation ; the posts which are to bear up the edifice are such major virtues as humility, fear, knowledge, strength, and understanding; charity is the enclosing wall; to it are fastened the rafters, i. e., the other virtues. Steadfast hope is the roof which covers all beneath it with the shingles of holy thoughts which Wisdom, the work-master of the blessed temple, dictates. 5 This scheme, however, is not developed in the body of the treatise. In another early thirteenth century representative of the " mirour " type, Sawle Warde* the exem- plum is wanting but the allegorical scheme is enlarged. Here, Soul is a house of which Wit is the master, and Will the untoward wife. The servants of the house are of two kinds: first, the five senses needing ever to be guarded from following the directions of the lady of the house; second, Wit's four daughters, the virtues, Prudence, Spiritual Strength, Modera- tion, and Righteousness, each of which has special offices. The Latin Speculum of St. Edmund, written by Archbishop Edmund Rich, who died in 1240, was translated into English 7 during the opening years of the second half of the century. Here again, the seven deadly sins, the seven Christian virtues, the ten commandments, the twelve articles of the creed, the seven works of mercy and the seven prayers of the Paternoster are set forth. The translator preserves the stern Manichean style of the author who held " sykerly ]?at it es a foule lychery for to delyte ]?e in rymes, and slyke gulyardy." 8 Beyond a doubt he would have looked upon the exemplum as savoring of " gulyardy " ; at any rate the severity of the work is not relieved by allegory or exempla. 4a A brief exemplum from Vitae Patrum, illustrative of discretion, is the only instance. See V. and V., 148. 6 Ibid., 92-4. 8 Printed in Old Eng. Horn., First Series. The source of the work is a piece by Hugo of Saint Victor. See Engl. Stud., XII, 459-63 ; see also Vollhardt, op. cit., 26 seq. 7 Printed in Religious Pieces in Prose and Verse, ed. Perry. 8 Speculum, 35. 118 The mid-fourteenth century treatise on the virtues and reli- gious functions, called the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, 2 is less severe, inasmuch as it developed with an elaborate allegorical apparatus which probably made the book fairly inviting. Its general character may be recalled. The Abbey is builded on the River of Tears and its walls are made by Obedience and Mercy. The stones, which are Deeds of Charity, are cemented by Love of God and Right-faith. Patience and Strength raise the pillars ; Prayer, the chapel ; Contemplation, the dormitory ; Pity, the infirmary ; Devotion, the cellar ; Meditation, the store- house. The Holy Ghost rules the convent, and Charity is the abbess ; Wisdom is the prioress, and Meekness, the sub- prioress. So the treatise runs on through the gamut of the virtues and religious functions of mediaeval daily life. This allegorical structure gave to the work a popular tone, but of the more diverting feature, the illustrative tale, there is little use. Traces of it here and there show at least an acquaintanc with the type. Reference is made to the familiar tale from the life of St. Bartholomew concerning the fiend who cried out, " Bar- tholmee incendunt me oraciones tue." 10 In another place appears a brief account from St. Augustine, of a priest who fell into a state of ravishment whenever the name of God was mentioned. 11 But the writer was distinctly of the Mystic cult, and as I previously pointed out, the Mystics were not inclined to use exempla. The contemporary manual translated by Jon Gatryke, 12 although it is a " Lay Folks Catechism " as well as a preachers' guide, has no illustrative tales. The explanation for the absence of exempla in the above treatises is, first, that they were based upon Latin treatises which did not contain exempla ; second, some of the more dignified of the secular clergy were apparently unwilling to popularize their works by using the favorite means of their rivals, the friars. The exemplum, it must be remembered, was never quite free from reproach. But sufficient evidence remains to show that some writers 9 Printed in Religious Pieces in Prose and Verse. 10 Ibid., 52. 11 Ibid., 56. 12 See above, p. 115, note. 119 looked upon the exemplum as a helpful adjunct in confirming and explaining the points in these " mirours," and as a legiti- mate temptation to read their otherwise dry pages. This will appear in the examination of the following treatises : William of Wadington's Manuel des Pechiez, with Robert of Brunne's adaptation, Handlyng Synne (1303), the A%enbite of Inwyt (1340), Jacob's Well (early 15th century), the Myroure of Oure Ladye (c. 1425). Of William of Wadington, the author of the Manuel,™ little is known beyond the fact that he was a thirteenth century cleric who "... en engletere fu ne, E norri, ordine, et aleve." 1 * This he urges in excuse of the bad French and somewhat crabbed versification of his treatise. It is quite likely that if Robert of Brunne had not made a redaction of the Manuel it would have remained in oblivion. As it is, the work has the modest distinction of being, so far as I can ascertain, the first vernacular " mirour " treatise in England to employ the exem- plum consistently. 15 In substance, the work follows closely the lines noted in the opening pages of this chapter. Indeed, William disavows any invention and appears to take the usual mediaeval pride in assuring his readers that all is said on authority. 18 The purpose of the book is, he says, to enable people to amend their lives, but he suggests that the reading will be made enjoyable by tales : " Ki plus en lisant seit delituz, Cuntes vus mettrum nus aucuns, Sicum les seinz nus unt cunte, Pur plus fere hayr pechie." 17 These tales, of which there are fifty-four, do not differ in sub- 18 Robert of Brunne 's Handlyng Synne, with the French Treatise on which it was founded, Le Manuel des Pechiez by William of Wadington, ed. by Furnivall for the Roxb. Club, 1862 ; re-ed. by Furnivall for the E. E. T. S., No. 114-23, to which I refer unless otherwise noted. 14 Roxb. ed., 413. "Schofield {op. cit., 463) dates it 1267. 18 Handlyng Synne, 3. "Ibid., 4. 120 ject-matter and treatment from those in the sermons. Stories taken directly or indirectly from Gregory's Dialogues, the Vitae Patrum, Acta Sanctorum, saints' lives, Beda's History, and the Bible are most prominent. They are placed, regularly, near or at the close of the topic divisions. Secular and local tales are comparatively few. Here and there among the well- known exempla may be found unfamiliar ones, such as that of the adulterous wife whose skeleton was discovered split in two with a dragon lying between, 18 or of a proud lady whose ever renewing body was repeatedly burned to ashes by a fiery wheel. 19 But these themes indicate no departure from the established type. All of the stories are nearly as long as those in the Metrical Homilies, which they closely resemble. Robert of Brunne's adaptation of the Manuel brings the exemplum nearer the realm of art than any work previously considered. In view of the fact that Robert produced the Handlyng Synne as early as 1303, he shows unusual ability as a story-teller; he has, moreover, a worthy aim. 20 Since "... many ben of swyche manere, bat talys and rymys wyl blebly here ; Yn gamys, & festys, & at be ale, Love men to lestene trotevale : bat may falle ofte to vylanye, To dedly synne, or ober folye," 21 Robert will supply them with tales which, if they " falle ofte to vylayne," at any rate have a corrective effect. A new audi- ence is appealed to; not the audience which assembled to hear the preacher, though overlapping was, no doubt, considerable, but the assembly at " gamys, & festys, & at ]?e ale." The effect 18 Handlyng Synne, 63 seq. 19 Ibid., 113 seq. 20 Hearne, in his preface to Robert's redaction of Langtoft's Chronicle, says that Robert of Brunne " was of a. chearfull, pleasant humour, and . . . very blithe and merry whenever he saw a proper occasion ; at all which times, however, he behav'd himself without any immoral or indecent expressions. He was naturally addicted to virtue, and his being engaged in a religious course of life made him have a stricter guard upon himself." Roxb. ed., preface, xxxv. 21 Handlyng Synne, 3. 121 of this on the spread and popularity of these moral tales must have been great. Robert makes no claim to originality, 22 but aside from almost constant variations from his source, 23 his omissions and addi- tions are numerous. Realizing that for his purpose too much unrelieved religious matter would be ill-advised, he omitted entirely the section on the Twelve Articles of Faith, the " Petit Sermun " of six hundred and eighty-eight lines on the Fear of God and the Love of God, and the final fourteen hundred and sixty lines on the Over-scrupulous Conscience and the Efficacy of Prayer. 24 In spite of the omissions, Handlyng Synne has above three thousand lines more than the Manuel, at the point where the adaptation ends. This increase is due in part to the more flowing style of Robert ; in part to his frequent amplifica- tion of moral precepts, but chiefly to the addition of illustrative tales. Besides expanding some of those in the Manuel, Robert adds no fewer than a dozen outright. 25 Some of these deal with conventional themes, but even in them the treatment is so spontaneous and fresh that the dry example-book versions are not suggested. Most of the added tales, however, narrate local events of which Robert knew or had heard. Such tales as those of the witch and her cow-sucking bag, Robert Grosseteste and why he loved music, the Cambridgeshire miser-parson, the dishonest Kesteven executors, the reproof that a Norfolk bond- man gave a knight, have a local, unconventional stamp both in matter and manner. 26 But aside from these local tales, the illuminating and poignant descriptions, the cleverly phrased direct discourse, and the delightful interspersed personal observations of the narrator, make even the hackneyed themes live again. 27 The Handlyng Synne, therefore, marks another distinct step in the development of the type in England. The religious 22 Handlyng Synne, 4. 23 The parallel texts in both editions make comparison easy. 24 These are printed in the Roxb. edition. 25 See ibid., preface, xv, for a list of these. 28 For the above tales, see Handlyng Synne, 19, 158, 200, 206, 273, resp. 27 Furnivall speaks of Robert as " the worthiest forerunner of Chaucer." Roxb, ed„ preface, iv; see also Schofield, op. cit., 411-16. 122 treatise naturally gave greater opportunity than the more compact sermon for the amplification of illustrative narratives, but the exempla of the contemporary Metrical Homilies show an almost equal length. Robert went a step farther. Although he introduced and closed his tales with the familiar expres- sions, 28 he threw an added emphasis upon the story for the story's sake. 29 Often where a brief exemplum of the conven- tional pulpit variety would have been logically more perspicu- ous, he tells an elaborate tale which in spite of its moral is distinctly entertaining and has a beginning, middle and end. Robert of Brunne advances the type toward Gower in whose hands it becomes detached from its ecclesiastical moorings. The next work which we shall consider, the Agenbite of Imvyt, though it did not appear till 1340, is distinctly inferior to the Handlyng Synne. The A^enbite, as is well known, is a translation by the Augustinian monk, Dan Michel, of Frere Lorenz's Le Somme des Vices et des Vertues, composed in 1279. Dan Michel, instead of popularizing his original, trans- lated literally, and the result is almost if not quite as heavy as the contemporary Pricke of Conscience. Barring a few exempla, 30 the only relief from its dry explanation of com- mandments, articles of belief, sins and virtues, is its curious system of allegorical nomenclature. As may be remembered, the seven deadly sins are here represented as seven heads of the "beste of helle;" each head has a number of "boughs" which in some cases have " twigs." The virtues are divided into " boughs " and " steps." Among all this forest of vices and virtues, there are seven comparatively bright places, the exempla. 28 A typical opening and closing may be cited : " And pat may wel preved be Wyb a tale of auctoryte. By pys ensample may ge see pat god ys ever ful of pyte.'' Hand. Syn., 7, 12. 20 It will be remembered that at about this time the Gesta Romanorum did something similar for example-books. 30 The exempla had appeared in the original; cf. Petit de Julleville, op. cit., II, 182. 123 But the exempla take us back from the spirited tales of Robert to the example-book style. For instance, to illustrate how severely blasphemy is liable to be punished, Dan Michel says : " There was a knight that swore by God's eyes. Quickly one of his eyes leaped upon the chess-board. An archer, be- cause he had lost at gaming, took his arrow and shot upwards toward God. That morning when he sat gaming, his arrow fell upon the chess-board all bloody." 31 Another illustration is that of the ass which in emulation of the dog fawned upon his master and was belabored for his pains. 32 To show how mercy multiplies riches the writer gives consecutively four short con- ventional exempla wherein mercy and charity are rewarded a hundred fold. They all tend to prove, as the holy man either intentionally or accidentally puts it, " J?et merci is guod chapuare." 33 Besides these half-dozen unelaborated exempla and some negligible Biblical references there is only one other, somewhat longer than the rest. It is distinguished by the caption, " Hyer \y)> a tale." The illustration is a typical monkish legend of a hermit's fall from grace. A holy man once chanced to be in a temple of Mahomet. Here, surrounded by his cohorts, sat a chief devil. One after another the sub- ordinates reported to their superior the diabolic havoc they had wrought in the way of wrecks, strife, discord, bloodshed, and murder, but one by one they were ordered to be flogged for sloth. At last spoke up one who after forty years of persistent effort had caused a holy man to commit fornication. Praise, kisses, embraces and a crown were awarded this devil by the ecstatic prince of darkness. 34 All these tales are told in 1340 substantially as they appeared some centuries previous. This emphasizes once more the fact that while the exemplum extended its scope, appeared in new combinations, and in some 01 A%enbite i 45-6. "Ibid., 155-S6. 83 Ibid., 191. ™ Ibid., 239-40. This tale with slight variations in detail and a vast difference in the manner of telling appears in the Handlyng Synne (pp. 246 seq.). Gaston Paris has pointed out that the tale is a composite from Gregory's Dialogues and the Vitae Patrum. Cf. Hist. litt. de la France, XXVIII, 201. 124 hands developed toward the short story, still in the main it retained its original form to the end of its flourishing period. Probably Gower, who comes next in chronological order, made the most noteworthy attempt to turn the exemplum into secular channels, or better, to bring the secular tale into the ocean of exempla. But though the tales of the Confessio Amantis are given the semblance of moral illustrations, they far exceed the bounds of our type. Gower's comprehensive vice and virtue treatise of thirty-one thousand lines, the Miroir de I'Omme, 35 prepared him for the Confessio Amantis. The tales in the former are comparatively few and brief, but of much significance when compared with those of the Confessio. Aside from the Biblical illustrations, we may note in the following list the marked tendency to exemplify observations by narratives of a secular tone: The envious man who would lose one eye in order that his comrade might lose two (Miroir, 1. 3234) Socrates and his scolding wife (1. 4168) The robbery from the statue of Apollo (1. 7093) Lazarus and Dives (1. 7972) Ulysses and the sirens (1. 10909) Of the Emperor Valentinian (1. 17089) Of Sara, the daughter of Raguel (1. 17417) Of Phirinus who defaced his beauty (L. 18301) Of Codrus, King of Athens (1. 19981) Nebuchadnezzar's pride and fall (1. 21979) Of the king and his chamberlains (1. 22765) St. Macarius and the devil (two stories, 11. 12565, 20905) The undeserver relieved by St. Nicholas (1. 15757) The dishonest man who built a church (1. 15553) 'All of these except the last four are found in expanded form in the Confessio. In writing the Confessio Amantis, " Moral Gower " adapted the vice and virtue idea and even its terminology to the realm of love. 39 The exemplum had been successfully exploited in 38 The Complete Works of Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay. The Miroir and the Speculum Meditantis are identical. 80 As Macaulay points out, this adaptation leads at times to amusing consequences; for example, "the moralist is found justifying unlawful love or the servant of Venus singing the praises of virginity." 125 these "miroir " treatises; it had been used with an increase of the secular tendency by Gower himself in the Miroir de rOmme. With suggestions, perhaps, from the Romance of the Rose and other mediaeval productions he adopted this very convenient idea for bringing out his stories. Whereas medi- aeval clerics had furnished a body of narratives fitted to moral and ecclesiastical rules and regulations, the poets and scholars had provided a fund of tales which were not badly adapted to illustrate an erotic structure. The latter form the body of the Confessio, while monkish stories are almost wholly absent. The melancholy king, how Boniface secured the papacy by deceit, Emperor Julius and the poor knight, the Pagan and the Jew, and a few historical and Biblical tales are all that in subject-matter resemble the exemplum. In form, however, there is much to recall the type. The tales are uniformly introduced by a statement that Confessor is to tell a tale, or " ensample," of envy, pride, humility, or whatever vice or virtue of love is under discussion. The fol- lowing passage dealing with the misuse of the eyes is typical : " Mi sone, herkne now forthi A tale, to be war iherby Thin yhe forto kepe and warde, So that it passe noght his worde. Ovide telleth in his bok Ensample touchende of mislok." This introduces the tale of Acteon, which is followed by the familiar restatement of the point involved: " Lo now, my sone what it is A man to caste his yhe amis, Which Acteon hath dere aboht ; Be war forthi and do it noght." 3T Moreover, the frequent use of the term " ensample " in the text and " exemplum " in the margin, together with frequent moral observations on the tales, serve as continual reminders of the type. The exemplum, nevertheless, as I have intimated, loses its identity with Gower. The subject-matter of his tales is too 87 Conf. Amant., Bk. I, 44-6. 126 familiar to need recalling ; they embrace a wide range of classic and mediaeval themes which were treated by such men as Boccaccio and Chaucer with little if any thought of the exem- plum. To hold his tales together Gower used the exemplum idea instead of such a framework as that used in the Deca- meron, let us say. Such a notion was not altogether new, inasmuch as the Dialogues of Gregory follows much the same plan. Nor was the use of classic tales for illustrative purpose new, for Alfred, following Boethius, did the same thing in the Consolation of Philosophy. Still, a certain amount of credit must be allowed to Gower for bringing together the form of the exemplum with the matter of poetic narratives, and unit- ing them in a thorough-going fashion to the vices and virtues of love. But after all is said, the real exemplum remains as before. Gower's stories of Apollonius, of Constance, and the others, are impressed soldiers in the army of erotic morality. They do battle much more bravely as free lances with Chaucer and Shakspere. The exemplum had acquired during its growth and spread a distinct character and a distinct setting. Gower may with the most laudable intentions tell long literary stories to illustrate his " miroir " of love, and may call them " exempla," but we who know Gregory, Valerius, Caesarius, and Jacques de Vitry, will term them merely " examples." They are at best exempla only by analogy. Jacob's Well, 58 a comparatively little known treatise of the early part of the fifteenth century, brings us back to the real exemplum. The plan of the work combines in a consistent manner the free use of illustrative stories noted in the Hand- lyng Synne and the allegorical scheme of Sawle Warde or the Abbey of the Holy Ghost. A Biblical figure 39 is expanded into a truly marvelous allegory of the elaborate penitential scheme. A pit of oozy water and mire, representing man's body beset with sins, is to be made into a wholesome well wherein may flow the clear water of Divine Grace. The dirty water, or 38 The date is probably the first quarter of the fifteenth century ; see Jacob's Well, preface, xi. 89 Cf. John, IV, 6. 127 Great Curse, must first be removed; then the mire, i. e., the seven deadly sins. Next the five water gates, the five senses, must be stopped up. After this the digging must continue until the seven pure springs, the gifts of the Holy Ghost, are reached. Then follows the walling process in which stones, sand, mortar, even the windlass, rope and bucket, are, needless to say, the customary virtues. The work is based on a Latin original, but the Englishman, in adapting it for the farmers, merchants and artisans whom he addressed, 40 appears to have treated his source with something like the spirit of Robert of Brunne. These men, like Nicole de Bozon and others, were close to the people, knew their labors and amusements, their possibilities for good and their propensities to weakness, and discussed them in a simple, forcible, often broad manner. 41 It was this class of men who made most effective use of exempla. At regular and frequent intervals Jacob's Well has a pair of exempla taken mainly from the Vitae Patrum, Jacques de Vitry, Caesarius, Legenda Aurea, and legends of the Virgin. The tales are therefore hackneyed, but they are frequently forged into a new glow by the striking diction of the zealous redactor. 42 To illustrate this point a few expressions from his typical narrative of the wicked clerk Odo may suffice, "pe feend dede hym be bathyd, & boyled, & sodyn, in pycche & oyle all sethyng over )?e fyir." " He made hym be leyd on a bren- nyng grydell " and " rostyd wy]? brennyng bremston, wyj? blowyng under of belwes." "Whanne he was al for-rostyd, fryed, & scaldyd, & jms for-brent, he roryd as a devyl for peyne." Then the devil made him " drynke reed brennyng metal moltyn, til it ran out of his nose, eygin, & erys." 43 The writer customarily follows up such tales with dire threats of 40 As Dr. Brandes points out, the ninety-five sections or chapters seem to have been delivered day by day as sermons, within the space of " bis hool tweyne monthys and more." Cf. Jacob's Well, preface, viii. 41 Like Robert and Nicole, the writer of Jacob's Well does not shrink from the most indelicate terms or tales. 42 This orthodox gentleman classes together " wycches, & heretykes, & Lollardys." 43 Jacob's Well, g seq. 128 a similar fate to offending listeners. At the close of the tale just cited he says, " perfore, J?ou man & womman j?at heryst J?e word of god ... be ware ... for gif ]?ou dyest wyth-oute repentauns, J?ou schalt be bathyd, as Ode was, in brennyng pycche & oyle! J?ou schalt be rostyd and fryed in ]?e fyir of helle ! J?ou schalt drynken reed boylyng metal ! " Of course the stories are uneven ; some vivid, others dull ; some brief, others elaborate. Though not so numerous, they are generally slightly longer than those in Mirk's Festial. Aside from the points noted, the previous discussion of Mirk's sermon collection applies to the present treatise. 44 With Jacob's Well the exemplum appears to have reached its maximum employment in the religious treatise, just as it did in sermon literature with the contemporary Festial of Mirk. Before concluding this section on religious treatises I wish to speak of the Myroure of Onre Ladye, composed between 1408-50. 45 This work was evidently written by a scholar and was intended as an explanation of the divine service, the " hours " and " masses," not for a popular audience which needed to be entertained, but for the Sisters of Sion, a religious community near Isleworth on the Thames. The treatise is divided into three parts treating respectively of divine service in general, of the services for each day, of feasts and masses. The second and third parts, being rather technical expositions, did not lend themselves to illustration, but in the first part, which consists largely of general explanation and exhortation, encouragement of zeal and deprecation of neglect, exempla are freely used. 40 The use of tales in this treatise differs somewhat from that in the popular ones. In the first place, a very restricted range of themes is represented. The benefits to be derived from praising Jesus and Mary, the evil of neglecting services, the wickedness of personal vanity in service, cover all of the nar- rative themes. Second, no suggestion of a new exemplum is 44 See above, pp. 107 seq. 45 The Myroure of Oure Ladye, preface, viii-ix. The editor, J. H. Blunt, with some probability inclines to the belief that the author was Dr. Thomas Gascoign of Merton College, Oxford. 48 A few had appeared in the similar Ancren Riwle ; see above, p. 88. 129 to be found; Cesarius and Gregory reign supreme. Third, the sixteen tales employed are not distributed with reference to points of weakening attention, but are used wherever occasion warranted and one or more apt illustrations were at hand. Finally, although even here the same absurdities still persist, 47 there is a notable absence of the personal, vivid quality which we noted in the more popular and sensational Handlyng Synne and Jacob's Well. Aside from these differences, the Myronre is noteworthy in showing that a scholar's dignified treatise for a more or less refined audience was not above the influence of the exemplum at the opening of the fifteenth century. We may now review briefly the religious treatise before pass- ing to the instruction-books. The exemplum was not uni- versally employed in vernacular treatises ; frequently, however, the allegorical structure was present where tales were lacking. In some cases both features were used. The exempla tended to expand in the works under discussion, but side by side with cases of expansion, the old example-book versions persisted. In the hands of Robert of Brunne the type approached in vivacity and originality of treatment the Chaucerian tale. Gower, in his Miroir de I'Omme, used, by the side of Biblical and monkish tales, a number of secular stories which, con- sidering their brevity and their direct bearing upon moral issues, may be regarded as exempla in the technical sense. In the Confessio Amantis long secular narratives of a thoroughly literary character are given the office and concomitant features of exempla. In addition to this radical departure from tradi- tion, the love setting, though couched in religious terminology, is foreign to the type; the exemplum therefore, loses its real identity in this work. Jacob's Well at the opening of the fifteenth century falls below Handlyng Synne in point of fresh- ness of illustrative matter, but it has noteworthy vividness of expression and presents the most elaborate collection of favorite exempla of any treatise in this class. Finally, the 4T The following themes are indicative : a monk saw a fiend gathering a sack full of high notes as they were sung {Myroure, 59) ; a holy man saw a fiend in the likeness of a. little black boy leading a monk out of ser- vice (p. 31) ; the soul of a vain singer was snatched from his body by fiends (pp. 57-8). 10 130 Myroure of Oure Ladye with its conventional exempla indi- cates that the scholarly writer, even when addressing refined audiences, found the type useful and not altogether beneath his dignity. The remaining class of writing with which exempla are organically connected is the book of instruction. It must be stated at the outset that illustrative tales play a relatively small part in such treatises taken as a whole ; nor is it to be wondered at, since the exemplum was built up exclusively for moral and religious purposes. One reads through treatise after treatise of the usual courtesy-book type, 48 such as A Book of Prece- dence, Stans Paer ad Mensam, The ABC of Aristotill, The Babecs' Book, Hugh Rhodes' Boke of Nurture, John Russell's Boke of Nurture without finding appreciable evidence of tales. Naturally, exhortations not to pick the teeth at table nor scratch the head in company did not give scope for illustrative tales. But a class of instruction-books developed which combined features of the courtesy-book with those of the vice and virtue treatise. Here the exemplum found a place. The original of this class of works appears to be the Secreta Secretorum 49 a work supposed during the Middle Ages to have been written by Aristotle at the request of Alexander. There are no Greek texts extant but the work was transmitted through Syriac to Arabic. From Arabic it was translated into Latin by Johannes Hispalensis about the middle of the twelfth cen- tury. During the next century a second and enlarged Latin translation was made by a Frenchman, Philip Tripolitanus. From then on, the book spread widely over Europe, 60 and 48 It does not seem advisable to enter upon a discussion of this type, but the reader may be referred to the following essays : Italian Courtesy Books, by W. M. Rossetti, printed in E. E. T. S. Ext. Ser., No. 8 ; Early German Courtesy Books, by Eugene Oswald, printed in the same volume ; Edith Rickert's edition of the Babees' Book has a popular but suggestive introduction. 49 See Lydgate and Burgh's Secrees of Old Philisoffres, a Version of the Secreta Secretorum, edited by Robert Steele for the E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 66. Cf. WartOn, op. cit., II, 312 seq. 60 Steele has examined thirty MSS. in the British Museum alone and suggests that there are doubtless others there. Spanish, Italian, and French versions are extant. 131 served as the basis of a large number of treatises. 51 The Seer eta was obviously intended for the instruction of noble persons, but in the explanations of the nature and effects of precious stones, planets, fruits, wines, waters, physiognomy, the care of the body and the development of character, there were many things of more general application. The work developed with little use of illustrative tales, but two Englishmen in their rehandling of the treatise omitted much of the encyclopaedic matter, which did not invite nar- ratives, and made exempla a notable feature. The first of these was Thomas Hoccleve, whose poem, the Regement of Princes, written in 141 2, was based mainly on Egidio Colonna's De Regimine Principurn, some other version of the Secreta Secretorum, the Libellus de Ludo Scachorum of Jacobus de Cessolis, and an imposing list of other contributions to ancient and mediaeval learning. 52 Hoccleve's work consists of two parts : ( 1 ) a dialogue between Hoccleve and a beggar, in which the social condition of contemporary England is depicted some- what after the manner of Piers Plowman; (2) the " regement " proper, in which are set forth for Prince Henry (later Henry V) fifteen qualities befitting a man in high station. 53 The first part has only a half dozen exempla, 5 * but the second with its discussion of noble qualities is copiously illustrated by tales. The exempla, with the exception of a few Biblical nar- 61 Prominent among these is Egidio Colonna's De Regimine Principurn; others are ascribed to Innocent III, Thomas Aquinas, Guillelmus Paraldus, Simon Islip. Whether Giraldus Cambrensis' De Principis Instructione is based upon the Secreta is doubtful ; see Steele's forewords. 52 Furnivall lists the sources cited by Hoccleve ; see Regement, introd., xv-xvi. 63 Such as justice, pity, mercy, patience, chastity, magnanimity. 54 Regement, 41-2, 42-3, 46-7, 62-3. Near the close of the first section Hoccleve says, " Of swiche stories cowde I telle an heepe, But I suppose J?ise schol suffice." 65 Religious legends, such as that of the rich man who suddenly sank into the earth with all his possessions (Regement, 46-7), are very rare. Local anecdotes, such as that of the English king who pardoned a mur- derer (ibid., 113), are equally scarce. 132 ratives, are practically all 55 drawn from ancient history, par- ticularly Roman, real or fabulous. A few typical themes may be cited : the return of Regulus to Carthage, the crucifiction of Theodorus for speaking the truth to a king, Camillus' refusal to deal with a traitor, the story of Phalaris' bull, Alexander's courtesy to a fallen knight. 56 Narratives of this kind were well adapted to illustrate such qualities as loyalty to one's oath, nobility of character, clemency, and similar social and civic virtues. The stories are told concisely, and in addition to their direct application to the points under discussion, they have unusual weight owing to the celebrity of the persons involved. Although the exempla are not as numerous as in Mirk's Festial or Jacob's Well, they are a prominent feature, and were used to excellent advantage in making the work interesting 57 and convincing to contemporary readers. About 1420, James Young addressed to the Earl of Or- mond, 58 Lord Deputy of Ireland, another English version of the Secreta Secretorum, in which he likewise introduced exempla. In his dedication of the work, which he called the Governaunce of Prynces, 59 he says, touching his additions, " I writte to your Excellence this boke, entremedelid wyth many good ensamplis of olde stories, and wyth the foure cardynale vertues, and dyvers othyr good matturis and olde ensamplis and new." 60 It is largely in connection with these "vertues 86 Regement, 82, 93, 94-5-6, 109, 117-18, resp. 67 The beggar says to Hoccleve just before the second section opens, " Writte to hym [Prince Henry] a goodly tale or two, On which he may desporten hym by nyghte, And his fre grace schal up-on pe lighte." 68 In his dedication, Young states that the Earl of Ormond had requested that there be translated " some good boke of governaunce of prynces out of latun othyr frenche in-to youre modyr tonge." Regement, 122. 09 Steele, the editor, calls attention to a few later translations of the Secreta into English. Two of these, one from a French and one from a Latin source, are printed with Young's Governaunce. They are consider- ably abbreviated and contain no exempla worthy of note except two tales, the poison-maiden, and the Jew and the Mohammedan, both of which appear to be present in many early versions of the Secreta Secretorum. Cf. Lydgate and Burgh's Secrees of Old Philisoffres, introd., xiii. 60 Governaunce, 123. 133 and dyvers othyr good matturis " that the exempla are used. The writer usually groups his tales instead of spreading them out as was the usual custom. After some discussion of a virtue he breaks off with a general heading under which he proceeds to narrate a number of tales. The following head- ings are typical: "Here folwyth ensamplis of olde stories to prow the forsayde lasson sothe," "Now here begynnyth olde stories to prowe the forsayde techynge of prudencia trowthe." 61 Under these captions are placed from four to six short nar- ratives, frequently without paragraph division. In form and arrangement, therefore, the exempla present a considerable amount of irregularity. In themes the illustrations in the Governaunce show two notable characteristics : the prominence of historical incidents, as was the case in the Regement, and the appearance of new narratives. To be sure, many of the historical exempla are taken from "the wyse clerke Valery" (Valerius), the Bible and the Gesta Romanorum, but historical works and modern events, 62 especially in Ireland, are also drawn upon. Young's confidence in new as well as old exempla is expressed as follows : " To prow that prayere hugely a-walyth agaynes the malice of enemys, dyvers good olde ensamplis abow in this boke y han writte ; but f or-als-moche as good newe ensamples sholde not ben unremembrid for lerynge of tho that arne to come, oone of tham now her y write." 63 He goes on in a' page of his crude English to tell how the Dublin clergy, grieved by the Irish rebels, went twice a week in procession praying, with the result that Earl Butler overcame the enemy. Modern nar- ratives of this sort, together with brief episodes from the wars of Alexander and Cyrus, the Trojan war, the life of Nero, Roman and Greek history, and a great number of mere his- torical references, are used to illustrate and confirm the writer's observations. 01 Governaunce, 128, 149. 62 Ibid., 129, 133, 136, 182, 203-4. It will be remembered that in the example-books of Holkot, historical and classical narratives were especially prominent. 63 Ibid., 203. 134 The scarcity of the more strictly religious exempla is due to the character and purpose of the work. It was designed principally for the cultivation of persons of high rank, and in so far as it has more general application, 64 the tone is social rather than religious. The virtues, such as wisdom, prudence, fortitude and the like, which as I suggested above gave scope for illustrative tales, are not advocated as a means of escaping the " everlasting bonfire,' 7 but as making for uprightness, tem- poral felicity and success. In these treatises of Hoccleve and Young we have secular narratives in greater prominence as exempla than we have hitherto noted. But though the tendency was to employ in instruction-books secular rather than religious tales, the latter were by no means excluded. This was due to the fact that a discussion of the ecclesiastical vices and virtues in some cases formed a part of the class under discussion. In that event the religious tale maintained a place beside the secular, as is exemplified in the Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry. This work was completed in France in 1372 by Geoffrey de la Tour Landry 65 for his daughters. 66 " Je vouloye," he says, " faire un livre et un exemplaire pour mes filles aprandre a roumancier et etendre comment elles se doyvent gouverner et de bien du mal dessevrer." 67 During the reign of Henry VI the treatise was anonymously translated into English and found such favor, that it was again translated by Caxton, who pub- lished it in 1484. The author's statement concerning the compilation of the work is worthy of note. Realizing that " ancient stories " were excellent teachers, he engaged two priests and two clerks to extract for him " exempla from the Bible and other books that I had, as the acts of kings, the chronicles of France, 64 Both Hoccleve and Young omitted most of the scientific and pseudo- scientific matter. 63 On Geoffrey, see Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry, edited by Anatole de Montaiglon, preface, vi-xxvii. See also Wright's introduction to the Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry. 00 Montaiglon points out that Geoffrey's book was not only for young girls but for the whole life of women. Op. cit., preface, xxxiv. OT He says shortly after {Le Livre, 4) that he has made a similar book for his sons. This book has not been found. 135 Greece, England, and of many other strange lands." 68 The resulting book is, in effect, a collection of classified tales. The writer sets forth briefly the vices to be eschewed, interspersed with the virtues to be emulated. These practically exhaust the ecclesiastical list and include many other topics, such as the desirability of women obeying their husbands, the evils which result from over-familiarity with men, or excessive pride in dress, and many similar points on the proper conduct of women. The work is divided into one hundred and forty- four chapters, each comprising a brief comment on some vice or virtue and one or more entertaining tales in confirmation or illustration. Above one hundred and fifty stories are used in this way and constitute by far the greater part of the book. It is the aim of the author to use only " profitable examples " and not to speak as do some unworthy books "of love fables and other worldly vanities." 69 Although the Knight has em- ployed more Biblical tales than we have hitherto noted in any treatise or set of sermons, his " profitable examples " include an unusually large number of indelicate exempla. The pre- vailing themes are those of the monkish legend, and the fabliau so turned as to point a moral lesson. The tales about Caesar, Alexander, and Camillus, which were employed in books of princely culture, give way in this more popular treatise to anecdotes of a more familiar nature, involving the indiscretions and virtuous actions of ladies and knights in all lands. Stories involving hermits, monks, saints, and miracu- lous happenings, are sufficiently numerous to preserve the monastic flavor; these exempla employed by the Frenchman differ in no respect from those with which we are already familiar. Considering the tales of the Book of the Knight as a body, they are strikingly similar in matter and form to those of the Gesta Romanorum from which many are drawn, with the same tendency to extend beyond the limits of exempla to the scope and spirit of entertaining Boccaccian tales. The foregoing works indicate the place and nature of exempla in instruction treatises. Other books of a similar kind show the same features, now favoring religious narratives and 68 Le Livre, 4. 69 77k? Book of the Knight, 118. 136 again those of secular tone. The Liber Consolationis et Con- silii or Instructions to his Son by Idle Peter of Kent expands the Stans Piter theme and runs off into Biblical stories and tales from saints' lives. 70 The Book of Cato, after a long and varied career, takes unto itself monkish illustrations and a con- siderable number having more secular leanings, such as "An ensample of a cautele that a woman dyd to her husband," " An ensample of a bawde and of her catte named Pasquette," " Of a quene that had a child by her cook." 71 The list of works might be extended but, as heretofore, to be exhaustive would be as impossible as valueless for our purpose. We may re- view briefly. Since such topics as table manners, cookery, and cures for diseases did not permit illustration, the majority of instruction- books contain no narratives. But those treatises which aimed to inculcate civic and moral rectitude employed exempla con- stantly. Very frequently these works were adaptations of earlier productions and as was often the case in sermons and religious treatises, the tales were added to the originals. The vogue of exempla was so great by the end of the fourteenth century that they were interpolated with impunity into the most revered monuments of former days ; wherever morals were dis- cussed, our type was almost sure to be present. In books of princely instruction, historical themes are dominant; in the more popular treatises, monkish legends and fabliau themes morally turned are most prominent. The secular tone of the tales in the instruction-books is more marked than ever before, 72 and while the exempla as a class not only preserve their illustrative force but often appear in example-book form, their distinctness of character tends more and more to break down, as they merge with the great host of tales which were being told after the manner of Chaucer, Boccaccio, and the French raconteurs? 2, 70 See A Book of Precedence, forewords, xxiii. 71 See Dr. Max Otto Goldberg, Die Catonischen Distichen w'dhrend des Mittelalters in der engl. u. franz. Litteratur. 53—6. 72 The fable seems to have fallen largely into disuse as exemplum. 73 Attention may be called to Professor H. V. Routh's suggestive remarks on the relation of exempla to jest-books, collections of facetiae and " mery tales.'' See Camb. Hist, of Eng. Lit., Ill, 102 seq. CHAPTER VI Conclusion Looking over the whole field we observe that while the exemplum played a considerable part in the early religious and didactic literature of England, it was distinctly an exotic feature, emanating largely from the Continental Church. Even the early traces of the type, before it became a factor in ecclesiastical literature, appeared as translations from Boethius and Gregory the Great. To the influence of these translations, together with their originals and the Vitae Patrum, may be ascribed almost wholly the use of exempla during the Old English period. Under such influence, legendary and Biblical illustrations attained considerable prominence in the discourses of Aelfric, but decreased in the Wulfstan Homilies and prac- tically ceased in Old English sermons as the early influence died out. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when vernacular preaching was at a low ebb, the scholars and clerics of England were circulating, collecting and employing in Latin composi- tions the monkish legends and fables then spreading among Continental churchmen. By the opening of the thirteenth century, therefore, Latin exempla were plentiful in England. Even then it remained for the immigrant Dominicans and Franciscans to popularize the illustrative tale. Owing to the success which immediately resulted from their narrative method of preaching, collections began to appear in great numbers. England, as we have seen, made some compilations, but her monuments of this kind were few compared with those of Germany, France, or Italy; and in her greatest col- lections, the Gesta Romanorum, the Speculum Laicorum, Hol- kot's Moralitates and the Liber Sapientiae, and Bromyard's Summa Praedicantium, native tales are conspicuously few. But by the opening of the fourteenth century these foreign 137 138 narratives had come to exert a powerful influence on religious composition. From then on into the fifteenth century the majority of popular preachers employed fables, anecdotes, and saints' legends in increasing numbers. Throughout the period, however, so far as may be judged by the extant literature, English preachers were fairly conservative in their use of tales. Undoubtedly there were numerous unrecorded cases of an extempore nature which go beyond John Mirk's tendency to abuse the narrative method. WyclifTe's outcries were probably based on abundant provocation. But in spite of opposition the exemplum thrived until the Reformation had aroused a more effective spirit of protest. Following the use of exempla in sermons came their appear- ance in religious and didactic treatises. The religious treatises were composed of the same ecclesiastical instructions on righteous conduct which had formed a considerable part of the sermons. The fund of exempla was, therefore, equally adapted to the former. Here, the obvious limitations of the sermon were absent and exempla tended to expand and to assume the tone of literary narratives. Local color then became occa- sionally noticeable, though distinctive English characteristics were here, as elsewhere among the floating body of universal tales, sparse. In style, a marked advance beyond the exempla of the sermons appeared in the Handlyng Synne; and with Gower, entertaining secular tales in the guise of moral agents cannot be considered as exempla. But there was no general evolution; the religious treatise still preserved the old themes, excepting the fable, and in many cases the old manner. Departures from the traditional exemplum were, in general, only tendencies toward a merging with the great body of heterogeneous narratives. Another step in the same direction characterized works of moral instruction after the opening of the fifteenth century. In those treatises which emphasize civic virtues, historical narratives appear in greater proportion than hitherto. When the instruction-book included the ecclesiastical vices and virtues, elaborated monastic legends were once more in evi- dence but, following the lead of France, fabliau themes with a 139 moral denouement appeared side by side with saints' legends and religious anecdotes. So by the middle of the fifteenth century, while in sermons, religious and didactic treatises, the traditional monkish tale still appeared, an enormous variety of narratives had come into the class of exempla, which tended more and more to become entertaining stories rather than subordinate religious or moral agents. At this point a new problem presents itself, — a more inten- sive study of the literary relations of the exemplum. The constant echoes of the type in the works of such men as Boccaccio and Chaucer, the specific abridgments of extended narratives for illustrative purposes, the corresponding expan- sion of exempla into independent literary productions, the exemplary poems, such as The Wright's Chaste Wife, The Tale of the Incestuous Daughter, Dame Siriz, The Penny- worth of Wit or How a Merchant did his Wife Betray, — all these matters invite a closer examination than was necessary or desirable in the foregoing pages. As far as was consistent with the work in hand I have attempted to show how exempla, narrated in the pulpit and at wayside gatherings, or brought together in collections, sermons, and treatises, originated or caught up and helped to popularize and perpetuate anecdotes, fables, apologues, fabliaux, contes divots, saints' legends, and oriental tales. More particularly, the aim has been to examine the nature and development of exempla and to indicate the important part which they played in the religious and moral instruction of our credulous and story-loving ancestors. LIST OF BOOKS CITED No attempt is made in the following list to exhaust the sources consulted in the preparation of this study. For the convenience of the reader, the title and edition of the books cited in the foot-notes are given. All references to journals and periodical publications are sufficiently particularized in the notes. Aelfric, Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, Aelfric Soc. Pub., 2 vols., London, 1844-46. Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, E. E. T. S., 2 vols., Nos. 76-82, 94-i 14. Alanus de Insulis, Summa de Arte Praedicatoria, ed. Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. CCX. Aldhelm, De Laudibus Virginitatis, ed. Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. LXXXIX. Alfred, King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius, ed. Sedgefield, Oxford, 1899. King Alfred's Version of the Consolation of Boethius, trans- lated into modern English by Sedgefield, Oxford, 1900. King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, ed. with an English translation, Sweet, E. E. T. S., No. 45-50. Alphabet of Tales, ed. Banks, E. E. T. S., Nos. 126, 127. Altenglische Legenden, ed. Horstmann, Heilbronn, 1878. Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge, ed. Horstmann, Heilbronn, 1881. Ancona, Alessandro d', Studi di Critica e storia letteraria, Bologna, 1880. Ancren Riwle, ed. Morton, Camden Soc. Pub., London, 1853. Anecdotes historiques, Legendes et Apologues tirees du Recueil inedit de Etienne de Bourbon, ed. Lecoy de la Marche, Paris, 1887. Aubertin, C, Histoire de la Langue et de la Litter ature A. frangaises au Moyen Age, 2 vols., Paris, 1883. 140 141 Babees' Book: Mediaeval Manners for the Young, ed. Rickert, New York and London, 1908. Barlaam and Josaphat, ed. Jacobs, London, 1896. Beda, The Historical Works of Venerable Bede, translated by Giles, 2 vols., 1843-45. Bernard of Clairvaux, Homiliae, ed. Migne, Patr. Lat, vol. CLXXXIII. Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, E. E. T. S., No. 58-63-73. Boethius, Philosophiae Consolationis, ed. Peiper, Leipzig, 1871. The Consolation of Philosophy, translated by James, London, 1897. Book of Precedence, ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 8. Bourgain, F. A., La Chaire frangaise au XII e Siecle, Paris, 1879. Bromyard, John, Summa Praedicantium, 2 vols., Basel (un- dated). Caesar of Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. Strange, 1851. Cambridge History of English Literature, ed. Ward and Waller. Canby, H. S., The Short Story in English, New York, 1909. Catalogi Veteres Librorum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Dunelm, pub. for the Surtees Society, London, 1838. Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Library of Emanuel College, compiled by James, Cambridge, 1904. Caxton, Golden Legend, ed. Ellis, Temple Classics, 7 vols., 1900. Courthope, W. J., A History of English Poetry, 6 vols., London, 1895-1910. Cruel, R., Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter, Detmold, 1879. Cursor Mundi, ed. Morris, E. E. T. S., Nos. 57, 59, 62, 66-68-69. Cuthbert, Father, The Friars and how they came to England, London, 1903. Dan Michel, A%enbite of Inwyt, ed. Morris, E. E. T. S., No. 23. Dante, The Divine Comedy, trans., Cary. Deutsche Predigten der XIII und XIV Jahrhunderten, ed. Leyser, Bibl. der gesammt. deutsch. nat. Lit., 142 Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Stephen and Lee, 62 vols., New York and London, 1885-1900. Douce, Francis, Illustrations of Shakspere and of Ancient Manners, 2 vols., London, 1807. Dunlop, John, The History of Fiction, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1842, Earle, John, Anglo-Saxon Literature, London, 1884. English Metrical Homilies, ed. Small, Edinburg, 1862. Erasmus, Stultitiae Laus, Basel, 1780. Ecclesiastae sive de Ratione Concionandi, ed. Klein, Leipzig, 1820. Forster, Max, Uber die Quellen von Aelfric's Homiliae Catho- licae, Berlin, 1892. Freeman, E. A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England, 5 vols., Oxford, 1869-71. Garnett, Richard, A History of Italian Literature, New York, 1898. Gasquet, Abbot, Parish Life in Mediaeval England, London, 1907. Gerould, G. H., The North-English Homily Collection, a Study of the Manuscript Relations and the Sources of the Tales, Lancaster, Pa., 1902. Gervase of Tilbury, Des Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Imperialia, in einer Auswahl neu herausgegeben, Felix Liebrecht, Hannover, 1856. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Madden, Roxburghe Club, 1838. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Herrtage, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 33. Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, Berlin, 1872. Gesta Romanorum, translated by Swan, New York, 1906. Giraldus Cambrensis, Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. Brewer, Dimock and Warner, Rolls Series, 8 vols., London, 1861-91. Goldberg, Max Otto, Catonischen Distichen zvahrend des Mit- t el alters in der engl. u. franz. Litteratur, Leipzig, 1883. Gower, Works, ed. Macaulay, 4 vols., Oxford, 1899-1902. Green, J. R., History of the English People, 4 vols., New York, 187&-80. Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, ed, Migne, Patr. Lat, vol. LXXVI. 143 Dialogues, ed. Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. LXXVII. Grein-Wiilker, Bibliothek der angelsdchsischen Poesie, 4 vols, in 3, Leipzig, 1883-98. Bibliothek der angelsachsischen Prosa, 6 vols., Cassel, Ham- burg, 1 872-1907. Hain, L., Repertorium Bibliographicum, 4 vols., Stuttgart, Paris and Tubingen, 1826^38. Harnack, Adolph, The History of Dogma, trans., Buchanan, 7 vols., Boston, 1898-1903. Harry, Philip, A Comparative Study of the Aesopic Fable in Nicole Boson, Cincinnati University Studies, 1905. Hervieux, Leopold, Les Fabulistes Latins, 5 vols., Paris, 1893^99. Histoire litteraire de la France, 32 vols., Paris, 1832^98. Hoccleve, Thomas, The Regement of Princes, ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 72. Holkot, Robert, Super Libros Sapientiae, Hagenau, 1494. Jacob's Well, ed. Brandeis, E. E. T. S., No. 115. Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea, ed. Graesse, Breslau, 1890. Jacques de Vitry, Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane, Folk Lore Society Pub., vol. 26, London, 1890. Jessop, Augustus, The Coming of the Friars, New York and London, 1889. John of Salisbury, Polycraticus, ed. Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. CXCIX. Julleville, L. Petit de, Histoire de la Langue et de la Littera- ture frangaise des Origines a 1900, 8 vols., Paris, 1896-99. Jusserand, J. J., A Literary History of the English People, 3 vols., London, 1895-1909. English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, trans., L. T. Smith, London, 1889. Ker, W. P., Essays on Mediaeval Literature, London, 1905. Kinard, J. P., A Study of Wulfstan's Homilies, Baltimore, 1897. Korting, Gustav, Grundriss der engl. Litteratur, Minister, 1905. Latimer, Sermons by Hugh Latimer, ed. Corrie, Parker Society Pub., vols. 16, 20. 144 Latin Stories, ed. Wright, Percy Society Pub., vol. VIII. La Tour Landry, Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry, ed. Montaiglon, Paris, 1854. La Tour Landry, The Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry, ed. Wright, E. E. T. S., No. 33. Liber Exemplorum ad Usum Praedicantium, ed. Little, Society for Franciscan Studies, Aberdeen, 1908. Lydgate and Burgh, Secrees of Old Philisoffres, a Version of the Secreta Secretorum, ed. Steele, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 66. Map, Walter, Gualteri Mapes De Nugis Curialium, ed. Wright, Camden Society Pub., London, 1850. Marche, Lecoy de la, La Chaire frangaise an Moyen Age, Paris, 1886. Meray, Antony, La Vie du Temps des libres Precheurs, 2 vols., Paris, 1878. Migne, J. P., Patrologia Cursus Completus Latina. Miracles de la Saint e Vierge, traduit et mis en vers par Gautier de Coincy, ed. Pouquet, Paris, 1857. Mirk, John, Instructions for Parish Priests, ed. Peacock, E. E. T. S., No. 31. Festial, ed. Erbe, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 96. Monument a Franciscana, ed. Brewer and Howlett, Rolls Series, 2 vols., London, 1858-82. Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. Blunt, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 19. Napier, A. S., Uber die Werke des altenglischen Erzbischofs Wulfstan, Weimar, 1882. Neckam, Alexander, Be Naturis Rerum, ed. Wright, Rolls Series, London, 1863. Nicole de Bozon, Les Contes Moralizes, ed. Paul Meyer and L. T. Smith, Societe des Anciens Textes franchises, Paris, 1889. Old English Homilies, ed. Morris, E. E. T. S., 2 vols., Nos. 2 9-34, 53- Old English Miscellany, ed. Morris, E. E. T. S., No. 49. Oliphant, T. L. Kington, Old and Middle English, London and New York, 1891. Ormulum, ed. White, 2 vols., London, 1852. 145 Oswald, Eugene, An Essay on Early German Courtesy Books, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 8. Ott, J. H., Ober die Quellen der Heiligenleben in A elf He's Lives of Saints, Halle, 1892. Paris, Gaston, La Litterature frangaise au Moyen Age, Paris, 1905. Paul, Hermann, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 3 vols., Strassburg, 1891-1900. Religious Pieces in Prose and Verse, ed. Perry, E. E. T. S., No. 26. Robert of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, with the French treatise on which it was founded, Le Manuel des Pechiez by William of Wadington, ed. Furnivall, Roxburghe Club, 1862; re-ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S., No. 119-23. Robinson, J. H., Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters, New York, 1898. Rolle, Richard, English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle de Hampole, ed. Perry, E. E. T. S., No. 20. Prick e of Conscience, ed. Morris, Philological Society, Ber- lin, 1863. Richard Rolle of Hampole and his Followers, ed. Horst- mann, 2 vols., London, 1895-96. Rossetti, W. M., An Essay on Italian Courtesy Books, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 8. Saint Dunstan, Memorials of Saint Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series, vol. 63. Saint Juliana, Life of, ed. Cockayne, E. E. T. S., No. 51. Saint Katherine, Life of, ed. Einenkel, E. E. T. S., No. 81. Saint Margaret, Life of, ed. Cockayne, E. E. T. S., No. 13. Sarrazin, Gregor, Uber die Quellen des Orrmulum, Altenburg, 1882. Scherer, W., A History of German Literature, trans., Cony- beare, 2 vols., New York, 1906. Schofield, W. H., English Literature from the Norman Con- quest to Chaucer, New York, 1906. Secreta Secretorum, Three Prose Versions of the Secreta Secretorum, ed. Steele, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 74. Snell, F. J., The Age of Transition, 2 vols., London, 1905. 11 146 South English Legendary, ed. Horstmann, E. E. T. S., No. 87. Stevenson, F. S., Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Lon- don, 1899. Taylor, H. O., The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages, New York, 1901. Ten Brink, Bernard, History of English Literature, trans., Kennedy, Robinson and Schmitz, 3 vols., New York, 1889-96. Traill, H. D., Social England, 6 vols., New York and London, 1893-97. Tupper, J. W., Tropes and Figures in Anglo-Saxon Prose, Baltimore, 1897. Vices and Virtues, ed. Holthausen, E. E. T. S., No. 89. Vitae Patrum, ed. Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. LXXIII. Vollhardt, W., Einfluss der lateinischen geistlichen Litteratur auf einige kleinere Schbpfungen der englischen Ubergang- speriode, Leipzig, 1888. Ward, H. L. D., Catalogue of the Romances in the Depart- ment of Manuscripts of the British Museum, 2 vols., Lon- don, 1883-93. Warton, Thomas, The History of English Poetry, 4 vols., London, 1824. Werferth, Dialoge Gregors, ed. Grein-Wulker, Bibliothek der angelsdcltsischen Prosa, vol. V. White, C. L., Aelfric. A New Study of his Life and Writings, Yale Studies in English, 1898. William of Wadington, Manuel des Pechiez. (See Robert of Brunne.) Wordsworth, C, and H. Littlehales, The Old Service Books of the English Church, London, 1904. Wright, Thomas, Biographia Britannica Literaria, 2 vols., London, 1846. Wulfstan; Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen itber ihre Echtheit, ed. Napier, Berlin, 1883. WyclifTe, The English Works of Wycliffe, ed. Matthew, E. E. T. S., No. 74. Young, James, The Governaunce of Prynces, ed. Steele, E. E. T. S., Ext. Ser., No. 74. INDEX Abbey of the Holy Ghost, 118, 126. Acta Sanctorum, 120. Aelfric, homilies of, 4, 25, 29, 30, 35, 37, 39, 40, A3, 5i, 93, I37J as a preacher, 30 ; use of exempla, 32 seq., 41, 43. Aethelred, 38. Aethelwold, 29, 90. A%enbite of Inwyt, 122. Alanus de Insulis, on exempla, 14. Alfred, King, apology for exempla, 22. Allegory, in religious treatises, 117; in instruction-books, 129. Alphabetum Narrationum, 7, 14, 75, 98. Ambrose, St., 46. Ancren Riwle, 5, 87 seq. Andreas, 90. Apologues, 9. Ardens, Radulfus, 45. Aubertin, C, on exempla, 12. Augustine, St., homilies of, 25, 29, 76. Barbour, legendary, 92. Barlaam and Josaphat, 9, 76, 103, 106. Becket, Thomas a, legend about, in. Beda, homilies of, 25, 29, 76 ; Eccle- siastical History, 34, 40, 51, 76, 103, 120. Bercheur, Pierre, 79. Bernard of Clairvaux, 46. Bestiaries, 6, 47. Bhagavan Bodhisattvascha, 9. Bible, 34, 41, 67, 76, 106, 120, 133. Blickling Homilies, 25 seq., 31, 35, 5i, 93- Boccaccio, 80, 126, 139. Boethius, 22, 137. Bonaventura, 105. Book of Cato, 136. Book of Sindibad. 9. Brewer, J. S., on Giraldus Cambren- sis, 64; on religious conditions, 84 ; on sermons of the friars, 86. Bromyard, John, 82. Buddhist Birth Stories, 9. Caxton, 134. Chaucer, 80, 126, 139. Christ, 9. Chronicle of Turpin, 57. Church, The, resists invasion, 39 ; under Norman prelates, 49. Church Councils, attitude toward ex- empla, 18, 114. Cnut, 39. Comestor, Peter, 76. Concionator, 17. Confessio Amantis, 124 seq., 129. Consolation of Philosophy, 3, 21 seq., 35, 40, 51, 126. Contes devots, 92, 103, no. Contes Moralises, 3, 79, 80, 94, 100 seq., 113. Courtesy-books, 130. Crane, T. F., on exempla, 2 ; on Bromyard's Summa, 82. Crusades, The, 73. Cursor, Mundi, 92. Cuthbert, Father, on religious con- ditions, 84. Cuthbert, St., use of exempla, 31. Danes, The, invasion of, 38. Dante, objection to exempla, 16. Decameron, 126. De Dilatione Sermonum, 15. 147 148 De Eruditione Praedicantium, 15. De Laudibus Virginitatis, 40, 87. De Naturis Rerum, 54, 58 seq., 73. De Nugis Curialium, 54, 55 seq. De Proprietatibus Rerum, 103. De Regimine Principum, 131. Dialogues of Gregory, 3, 7, 10, 11, 15, 3i, 34, 40, 41, 46, 62, 67, 72, 75, 80, 106, 120, 126; Werferth's translation, 24, 51 ; verse transla- tion, 91. Dialogus Miraculorum, 3, 7, 15, 75, 98, 106. Directorium Vitae Humanae, 75. Disciplina Clericalis, 3, 7, 9, 103, 127. Divine Comedy, 16. Dominic, St., Life of, 14. Dominicans, 13, 84 seq., 113, 137. Douce, Francis, 17. Dunstan, 29, 90. Durham Cathedral, exempla collec- tions in, 74. Eadric, 39. Elene, 90. Emma, 38. English Metrical Homilies, 5, 115, 120, 122. Erasmus, objection to exempla, 17. £tienne de Besancon, on exempla, 14. fitienne de Bourbon, on exempla, 13. Example-books, classification of, 7 ; in England, 75 seq. Exempla, circulation of, 2 (note) ; sources of, 6 ; purposes of, 8 ; in early French and German ser- mons, 12 ; characteristic features of, 33 ', typical themes of, 70 ; early collections of, 73 ; caution in use of, 77) destruction of, 87 (note). Exempla Deodati, 76. Exempla Deodati, 76. Exempla virtutum et vitiorum of John Herold, 18. Exempla virtutum et vitiorum of Giovanni Rossi, 19. Exemplum, The, defined, 1 seq. Eustace, Abbot, 50. Fables, as exempla, 6. Fables of Bidpai, 9. Fabliaux, 135, 138. Factorum et Dictorum memora- bilium, 3, 7, 15, 133. Felton, John, 87. Festial, 33, 36, 92, 94, 107 seq., 113, 128, 132. Figures of Speech, 6, 47. Forster, Max, on Aelfric, 29. Franciscans, 13, 84 seq., 113, 137. Freeman, E. A., on Danish invasion, 38 (note). Gatryke, Jon, 118. Gautier de Chateau-Thierry, objec- tion to exempla, 17. Gemma Ecclesiastica, 54, 60 seq., 73. Gervase of Tilbury, 73. Gesta Romanorum, 7, 66, 75, 79 seq., 83, 99, 104, 133, 135, 137. Giraldus Cambrensis, 60 seq., 72, 85. Goedke, Carl, on Bromyard's Sum- ma, 82. Govemaunce of Prynces, 132 seq. Gower, 80, 120, 124, 138. Green, J. R., on Danish invasion, 38. Gregory IX, 85. Gregory the Great, homilies of, 10, 25, 29, 46, 76 ; on exempla, 10-11 ; influence on exempla, 20, 37, 137. Grosseteste, 84, 85 ; legends about, 112, 121. Guthlac, 90. Handlyng Synne, 120 seq., 126, 129, 138. Haymo, 29. Hermit, The, 71. Herold, John, 18. 149 Herrtage, S. J. H., on Gesta Ro- manorum, 79. Hervieux, L., on Odo de Ceritona, 72. Holkot, John, 81. Horstmann, Carl, on symbolism, 10 (note). Hoveden, John, 78. Humbert de Romans, on exempla, 15. Innocent III, 61. Instruction-books, 130 seq., 136, 138. Instructions for Parish Priests, 107, 113* Isidor, 50. Jacobs, Joseph, on Eastern tales, 9. Jacob's Well, 5, 7, 126 seq., 129, 132. Jacques de Vitry, exempla of, 7, 75, 80, 98, 103, 127; 13, 74- Jatakas, 9. Jerome, homilies of, 29. Jessop, Rev. Augustus, on religious observance in Norman England, 49. John of Alexandria, Life of, 75. John of Brompton, Chronicle, 58. John of Salisbury, 73. Josephus, 50. Juliana, 90. Juliana, St., Life of, 91. Kalilah and Dimnah, 9. Katherine, St., Life of, 91. Kinard, J. P., on Wulfstan's homi- lies, 38. Langton, Archbishop, 84. Lapidaries, 6. Latimer, 114. La Tour Landry, Book of the Knight of, 37, 134. La Tour Landry, Geoffrey of, on exempla, 14, 134- Legenda Aurea, 7, 91, 98, no, 127. Legends of the Virgin, 34, 51, 74, 127. Le Somme des Vices et des Vertues, 122. Libellus de Ludo Scachorum, 131. Liber Consolationis, 136. Liber de Moralisationibus, 81, 83, 137. Liber Exemplorum, 75 seq., 81. Liber Sapientiae, 3, 81, 83, 102, 137. Lincoln Cathedral, exempla collec- tions in, 73 (note). Lives of Saints, Aelfric's, 32, 90, 93. Lives of Saints, Bokenham's, 92. Manuale Sacerdotum, 107. Manuel des Pechies, 119 seq. Map, Walter, 73. Marche, Lecoy de la, on exempla, 2, 12; on the friars, 86 (note). Margaret, St., Life of, 91. Marie de France, 103. Meyer, Paul, on exempla, 1, 12 ; on the Contes Moralizes, 101. Mirk, John, 107, 138. Miroir de I'Omme, 124, 129. Monument a Franciscana, 84. Morris, Richard, on the Old Eng- lish Homilies, 44. Myroure of Oure Ladye, 128, 130. Mystics, The, 105, 113. Neckam, Alexander, 58 ; fables of, 104. Nicole de Bozon, 102, no, 127. North English Homily Collection, 33, 93, 94 seq., 99, 101, 109, 113. Northmen, invasion of, 38. 1 Odo, Bishop, 29. Odo de Ceritona, on exempla, 13; sermons of, 54 J fables and tales of, 66 seq., 79, 103, 104. Oesterley, H., on the Gesta Ro- manorum, 79. 150 Old English Homilies, 4, 44 seq., 47, 49, 5i, 52, 93- Orm, 50, 51. Ormulum, 49 seq., 52, 95. Otia Imperialia, 54, 58. Parables, 9. Parabolae of Odo de Ceritona, 13, 67. Paris, Gaston, on the exemplum, 1, 12 ; on Oriental tales, 9 (note). Pastoral Care, 20, 35, 51. Piaget, Arthur, on the exemplum, 1. Piers Plowman, 131. Polycraticus, 54. Preaching, in England, 25, 58, 87, 93, 101, 106, no, 138. Pricke of Conscience, 106, 122. Promptuarium Exemplorum, 18. Reformation, The, effect on ex- empla, 19, 76, 138. Regement of Princes, 131, 133. Religious treatises, 115 seq., 138. Robert of Brunne, 120, 127, 129. Rolle, Richard, prose treatises of, 5, 94; 105, 113. Romance of the Rose, 125. Saints' lives, 62, 72, 74, 76, 87, 89 seq., no, 113, 120, 139. Sandys, J. A., on the Otia Imperialia, 58. Sawle Warde, 117, 126. Scala Celi, 7, 16. Schofield, W. H., on exempla, 16. Secreta Secretorum, 130, 132. Sentences of Peter Lombard, 85. Sept Dormants, 91. Sermones Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry, 13. Seven Sages, 9. Shakspere, 126. Smaragdus, 29. South English Legendary, 92, 93. Speculum Exemplorum, 19. Speculum Historiale, 75. Speculum Laicorum, 78, 83, 137. Speculum Morale, 98. Speculum of Saint Edmund, 117. Stultitia Laus, 17. Summa de Arte Praedicatoria, 14. Summa Praedicantium, 81, 82, 83, 137. Summa virtutum et vitiorum, 75, 98. Swegen, 38, 39. Symbolism, defined, 10 (note) ; used in sermons, 25, 47, 50, 95. Ten Brink, B., on the Ancren Riwle, 87. Thorpe, B., on Aelfric's homilies, 29. Topographia Hibernica, 64. Tractatus de diversis materiis prae- dicabilibus, 3, 13, 75. Traill, H. D., on religious decline, 39 (note). Vices and Virtues, 5, 87, 116. Vitae Patrum, 7, 11, 15, 32, 34, 40, 51, 62, 67, 72, 75, 90, 103, 106, 120, 127, 137. Vollhardt, W., on the Old English Homilies, 45. Wanley, 38. Ward, H. L. D., Catalogue, 74. Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, 24. William of Wadington, 119. Wright, Tho?., on exempla, 2, 12, 73, Wulfstan, homilies of, 4, 38, 39, 40 seq., 47, 52, 137. Wycliffe, objection to exempla, 17, 106, 113, 138. 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