Excerpt from A Selection Latin Stories, From Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: A Contribution to the History of Fiction During the Middle Ages This latter circumstance has determined the Editor, also, to preface these tales by only a brief introduction; and he may perhaps be induced! To give in another form, a sketch of the history of the transmission of stories and fables from one people to another in the middle ages. A very large portion of our medieval stories are derived from the East, of which many examples will befound in the present volume. Some are derived from classic writers, though often disguised by the Gothic garb in which they have been clothed during the transmission. The two most remark able instances of direct transmission from the East are the Collection by Peter Alfonsi, compiled in Latin under the title of Disciplina Clericalis, and that which was so long and widely popular under the title of the Seven Sages. N o manuscripts are of more frequent occurrence than collections of Tales like those printed in the present volume; and we owe their preservation in this form to a custom which drew upon the monks the ridicule of the early reformers. The preachers of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fif teenth centuries, attempted to illustrate their texts, and to inculcate their doctrines, by fables and stories, which they moralized generally by attaching to them mystical significations. These illustrations they collected from every source which presented itself, the more popular the better, be cause they more easily attracted the attention of people accustomed to hear them. Sometimes they moralized the jests and satirical anecdotes current among the people - sometimes they adopted the fabliaux and metrical pieces of the jongleurs, or minstrels - and not unfrequently they abridged the plots of more extensive romances. Each preacher made collections for his own use - heset down in Latin the stories which he gathered from the mouths of his acquaintance, selected from the collections which had already been made by others, or turned into Latin, tales which he found in a different dress. Hence it happens that we seldom find two manuscript collections which agree with each other, and that in different manuscripts we find the same tale told in a variety of shapes. I am inclined to think that the period at which these collections began to be made was the earlier part of the thirteenth century, and that to that century we owe the compilation in Latin of most of these tales, though the greater number of manuscripts may be ascribed to the fourteenth. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.