CRANE— MEDIEVAL SERMON-BOOKS AND STORIES. 375 



kanale, durch welche die Sagen des Orients nach Europa flossen, hat 

 die Forschung bisher fast unbeachtet gelassen. Es sind die kirch- 

 lichen Schriftsteller des Mittelalters, zum Theil auch die alteren 

 Patres, die fiir die Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte nicht vorzugs- 

 weise von Wichtigkeit erschienen." He does not have occasion to 

 mention Jacques de Vitry, but cites a large number of mediaeval 

 writers containing exempla, and displays a wide knowledge of indi- 

 vidual authors, but nowhere gives any general view of the subject. 



In 1868 appeared A. Lecoy de la Marche's " La chaire frangaise 

 au moyen age" (second edition corrected and enlarged, Paris, 

 1886), in which was given for the first time an adequate account of 

 the use of exempla in French sermons of the thirteenth century, 

 and of the importance of Jacques de Vitry's " Sermones vulgares " 

 for this field of study. A similar work deahng with the twelfth 

 century, " La chaire f rangaise au Xlle siecle d'apres les manuscrits," 

 was published by the Abbe L. Bourgoin in 1879. This period is not 

 so interesting for the study of exempla as the succeeding century, 

 when the systematic use of exempla in sermons began to prevail. 

 In the same year appeared R. Cruel's " Geschichte der deutschen 

 Predigt im Mittelalter," Detmold, 1879. This admirable work, to 

 which I w'as greatly indebted in my paper on " Mediaeval Sermon- 

 Books and Stories," is especially full in its treatment of homiletic 

 treatises.- 



Although the use of illustrative stories in sermons was treated 

 at some length in the three works just mentioned, the first collection 

 of such stories to be published was not taken from sermons, but 

 from a homiletic treatise for the use of preachers, the " Tractatus 

 de diversis materiis predicabilibus ordinatis et distinctis in septem 

 partes, secundum septem dona Spiritus sancti," by fitienne de Bour- 

 bon, a Dominican who died at Lyons about 1261.^ The extracts 



- A few years earlier than Cruel's work appeared Wilhelm Wackernagel's 

 " Altdeutsche Predigten und Gebete aus Handschriften," Basel, 1876. He 

 mentions Honorius of Autun's " Speculum Ecclesise," but not the exempla 

 contained in it. He alludes also to symbolism and " Predigtmarlein," although 

 very briefly, and names Herolt and Bromj-ard alone in their class of writings. 

 Another German work in this field appeared in the same year as my paper : 

 " Kulturgeschichtliches aus deutschen Predigten des Mittelalters," by Dr. H. 

 Rinn, Hamburg, 1883. He mentions " Predigtmarlein " very briefly. 



3 This statement that Lecoy de la Marche's edition of fitienne de Bourbon 



