CRAXE— AIEDL^VAL SERMOX-BOOKS AXD STORIES. 377 



consider briefly the works produced since tliat date and to estimate 

 the results of study in this field.*' I shall divide my materials into 

 treatises on exempla in particular localities, collections of exempla. 

 and works containing selections of exempla (anthologies). All 

 these I shall consider so far as possible in chronological order." 



The unity of the Church and its official language produced 

 throughout the Middle Ages a cosmopolitanism which has never pre- 

 vailed again since the Reformation. The preachers in all the coun- 

 tries of Europe used the same homiletic treatises and drew their 

 illustrative stories from the same sources. It is true that the sys- 

 tematic use of exempla arose in France and that the influence of 

 Jacques de Vitry and fitienne de Bourbon was very great ; but 



^ I have already indicated some of the material which I overlooked in my 

 paper of 1883 and my introduction to " Jacques de Vitry's " exempla, 1890. 

 It may be well to recapitulate here these omissions and to correct some errors. 

 Of collections of exempla accessible before 1883, I overlooked the German 

 " Selentrost " (in "Die deutschen Mundarten," 1854, and Gefifcken's " Bilder- 

 catechismus des funfzehnten Jahrhunderts," 1855), as well as the Old-Swedish 

 version edited by G. E. Klemming and printed at Stockholm, 1871-73. I was 

 wrong in supposing that the work of Arnoldus cited by Herolt referred to 

 the " Gnotosolitos sive Speculum conscientiae " by Arnoldus Geilhoven of 

 Rotterdam. Mr. Herbert in his " Catalogue of Romances," p. 437, points out 

 my mistake and shows that the work in question was a treatise on canon law, 

 and that the Arnoldus cited by Herolt was probably the author of the " Alpha- 

 betum narrationum," long ascribed to fitienne de BesanQon. 



Frenken in his "Jacques de Vitry," to be mentioned further on, mentions 

 my omission of two famous German preachers, Geiler von Kaisersberg and 

 Abraham a Sancta Clara, who by their extensive use of exempla contributed 

 greatly to the diffusion of these stories. Some of the statements in my intro- 

 duction require modification in view of materials discovered and printed sub- 

 sequently, and I shall consider these in the course of this paper. 



■'' As I must necessarily be brief in this paper, I would refer for more 

 lengthy reviews of certain of the works about to be mentioned to articles by 

 me in the following journals: .T/offrrn P/nVo/o^ry, Vol. IX., X'o. 2, 1911, pp. 225- 

 237, "Aiediasval Story-Books," review of Herbert's "Catalogue of Romances," 

 ibid.. Vol. X., Xo. 3, 1913, pp. 301-316, " Xew Analogues of Old Tales," review 

 of J. Klapper's " Exempla aus Handschriften des Mittelalters," Romanic 

 Review, Vol. VI., Xo. 2, 1915, pp. 219-236, " Recent Collections of Exempla," 

 review of A. Hilka's " Neue Beitrage zur Erzahlungsliteratur des Alittelal- 

 ters," J. Th. Welter's " Speculum Laicorum," and J. Greven's and G. Frenken's 

 "Die Exempla des Jakob von Vitry"; and Vol. XXXII., N^o. i, 1917, pp. 

 26-40, review of J. Klapper's " Erzahlungen des Mittelalters," ibid., Modern 

 Language Notes, Vol. XXVII. , X^o. 7, 1912, pp. 213-216, " The Exemplum in 

 England," review of J. A. Mosher's book. 



