CRANE— MEDIEVAL SERMON-BOOKS AND STORIES. 373 



light they throw on the private Hfe and domestic manners of " our 

 forefathers." Thirty-six of Wright's stories are from the Harley 

 MS. 463 (fourteenth century), the source of which is not indicated, 

 but which really is an extensive collection of the exempla of Jacques 

 de Vitry. Wright was unaware of the source of these stories and 

 mentions the name of the famous preacher but once, in a note to 

 story Ixxxiii, " Promptuarium Exemplorum (quoted from Jacobus 

 de Vitriaco)." 



A few^ years later Wright returned to the subject in an essay 

 " On the History and Transmission of Popular Stories" in " Essays 

 on Subjects Connected with the Literature, Popular Superstitions, 

 and History of England in the IMiddle Ages," London, 1846, Vol. 

 n., pp. 51-81, Essay xii. The writer dwells on the introduction 

 into Europe of eastern stories by the jongleurs (citing as illustra- 

 tions the stories of the "Hunchback," "Weeping Dog," etc.). He 

 mentions the great Oriental story-books and says, p. 61, "Their 

 popularity was increased by another circumstance which has tended, 

 more than anything else, to preserve a class of the mediaeval stories, 

 which were less popular as fabliaux, down to the present time. In 

 the twelfth century there arose in the church a school of theologians, 

 who discovered in everything a meaning symbolical of the moral 

 duties of man, or of the deeper mysteries of religion. ... In the 

 thirteenth century these stories with moralizations were already 

 used extensively by the monks in their sermons, and each preacher 

 made collections in writing for his own private use. . . . The mass 

 of these stories are of the kind we have described above, and are 

 evidently of Eastern origin ; but there are also some which are mere 

 mediaeval applications of classic stories and abridged romances, while 

 others are anecdotes taken from history, and stories founded on the 

 superstitions and manners of the people of western Europe. Not 

 only were these private collections of tales with moralizations, as 

 we have just observed, very common in the fourteenth century, but 

 several industrious writers undertook to compile and publish larger 

 and more carefully arranged works for the use of preachers, who 

 might not be so capable of making selections for themselves. 

 Among these the most remarkable are the ' Promptuarium Exem- 



