CRANE— MEDL^VAL SERMON-BOOKS AND STORIES. 389 



The new excmpla (three only are found in the scrmones vulgar es, 

 Crane, Nos. 30, 31, 160) are 107 in number (Frenken has 104, clas- 

 sifying two as anecdotes, and omitting one as not properly an 

 exemplum) . Three are from the " VitJe Patrum " and two from 

 Petrus Alfonsus. The great majority are apparently original with 

 Jacques de Vitry, and did not subsequently enter into wide circu- 

 lation. The new collection is, therefore, of little interest for the 

 question of the diffusion of popular tales, and its value depends on 

 the light it throws on the manners and customs of the times. 

 Among the exempla which are found in subsequent collections are 

 some of the most famous of mediaeval stories, e. g., Frenken, No. 15, 

 "Aristotle and Alexander's wife;" No. 195, "Monk in Paradise;" 

 No. 68, man unhappily married wants shoot of tree on which an- 

 other man's two wives have hanged themselves ; No. 99, ape on 

 shipboard throws into the sea the ill-gotten gains of a passenger who 

 had cheated pilgrims with false measures and frothy wine ; etc. A 

 certain number of stories are taken from natural history, and a few 

 are fables, the best known of the latter being the one of the treaty 

 between the wolf and the sheep, by which the sheep give up their 

 dogs as hostages (also in the scrmones vulgares, Crane, No. 45). 



Of the stories peculiar to Jacques de Vitry some are connected 

 with his experiences in the East, as Frenken, No. 71, a certain Count 

 Josselin married the daughter of an Armenian on condition of let- 

 ting his beard grow in accordance with the custom of the country. 

 The Count contracts debts which he does not know how to pay. At 

 last he tells his father-in-law that he has pledged his beard for a 

 thousand marks, and if the debt is not paid his beard will have to 

 be cut oflf. His father-in-law gives him the money rather than have 

 the Count incur the shame of losing his beard ; No. ^2, Jacques de 

 Vitry knew a certain knight in Acre that had offended a minstrel, 

 who took his revenge by passing off on the knight an ointment 

 which removes the beard instead of preserving the face in good con- 

 dition ; No. 75, Jacques de Vitry heard that a certain Saracen, over 

 sixty years of age, had never been outside of Damascus. The Sul- 



but most valuable dissertations on the history of exempla, the sources of 

 " Jacques de Vitry's " exempla, and their penetration into later secular litera- 

 ture. I cannot praise too highly Frenken's admirable editorial work. 



