370 CRANE— MEDIEVAL SERMON-BOOKS AND STORIES. 



The history of the study of this field is an interesting one and 

 goes back a httle over a century. In 1812, Jacob and Wilhehu 

 Grimm, then obscure ofificials of the royal library at Cassel, p\ib- 

 lished the first volume of their immortal " Kinder- und Haus- 

 marchen," which was completed three years later. Fairy tales had 

 been collected much earlier in Italy and France, but the Grimms' 

 collection was the first one made by scholars for a scientific pur- 

 pose. The editors were especially interested in finding that their 

 stories contained features in common with the Northern mythology. 

 As their investigations broadened, however, they discovered that 



of Popular Stories" in the second volume, pp. 51-81, of "Essays on Subjects 

 connected with the Literature, Popular Superstitions, and History of England 

 in the Middle Ages," London, 1846. The use of illustrative stories in ser- 

 mons, and collections of these stories for the use of preachers, are mentioned 

 at some length. The " Promptuarium Exemplorum," and John of Bromyard 

 are named among others. It was not until recently that my attention was 

 called to what is probably the earliest mention of Jacques de Vitry and the 

 use of exempla. It occurs in F. W. V. Schmidt's edition of the " Disciplina 

 clericalis," Berlin, 1827. In speaking of the story of Aristotle and Alexander's 

 wife, Schmidt says, p. 106, " Zuerst aber brachte ihn Jacobus de Vitriaco zu 

 Anfange des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts aus dem Morgenlande. Als Bischof 

 von Ptolemais war er besonders geeignet zum Vermittler des Orients und 

 Occidents, indem er seine letzten Tage in Rome verlebte." The story in ques- 

 tion Schmidt quotes from Discipulus (Herolt), "Promptuarium Exemplorum," 

 " ut dicit magister Jacobus de Vitriaco." This story is not in the " Sermones 

 vulgares," but is in the " Sermones communes " recently edited by Frenken 

 and Greven. Schmidt cites the " Speculum Exemplorum " several times and 

 frequently mentions Herolt, saying of his " Promptuarium," " Eine uner- 

 schopfliche Schatzkammer von geistlichen und moralischen Historien und 

 Marchen. Wahrscheinlich bestimmt als Anweisung fiir Kindererzieher zu 

 einer belehrenden Unterhaltung." After Wright and Goedeke there was no 

 general reference to the subject until the histories of French and German 

 preaching by Lecoy de la Marche, 1868, and Cruel (1879). The latter was 

 especially useful on account of its detailed description of the materials em- 

 ployed by German preachers. No conspectus of the entire field appeared 

 until 1890, when the writer's " Jacques de Vitry " was published at London 

 for the Folk-Lore Society. The introduction to this work may be considered 

 an enlargement of the paper presented to the American Philosophical Society. 

 My own library had grown extensively in the seven years which had elapsed 

 between 1883 and 1890, and I had been able to consult European libraries on 

 several occasions. Subsequent works in tliis field have modified slightly 

 some of my statement's in the introduction to " Jacques de Vitry," but I am 

 not aware that I overlooked any important materials accessible before 1890, 

 with the exception of a few works which I shall examine in the course of this 

 supplementary paper. 



