382 CRANE— MEDIEVAL SERMON-BOOKS AND STORIES. 



enormous field. I shall have occasion to refer frequently to this in- 

 valuable work in the remainder of this paper. 



The use of exempla or illustrative stories is as old as religious 

 instruction itself ; but the systematic use of such stories in sermons 

 (to which their great vogue is due) is of comparatively recent date. 

 The influence of Gregory the Great was profound in this direction. 

 In his homilies (before 604), and especially in his dialogues, he em- 

 ployed a large number of legends, and the popularity of the latter 

 work, translated into the various languages of Europe, exercised a 

 powerful influence on later collectors of legends. It was not, how- 

 ever, until the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth 

 century that the use of exempla in sermons became common, owing 

 to the rise of the preaching orders. In my paper of 1883 and in my 

 introduction to " Jacques de Vitry " I ascribed to that distinguished 

 prelate the first systematic use of exempla in sermons. I should 

 have modified somewhat this statement if I had seen some works 

 which appeared after my articles, still, even in the light of recent 

 researches I was not far from the truth. ^^ In giving the priority to 



11 My statement, p. xix of my introduction to "Jacques de Vitry," that it 

 was not until the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century 

 that the practice of using exempla became common, owing to the rise of the 

 preaching orders, was questioned by the late Anton Schonbach in his " Studien 

 zur Erzahlungshteratur des Mittelalters," Erster Theil, p. 2. He contents 

 himself by stating that my conclusion so far as French preaching in the 

 twelfth century is concerned is in contradiction with the facts, and refers to 

 Bourgain's " La chaire f rangaise au XIP siecle," pp. 258 et seq. Bourgain 

 nowhere mentions the systematic use of exempla; indeed, he never, I believe, 

 uses the word in its technical meaning. He does cite Guibert de Nogent, 

 without place, as to the use of illustrative material. I said in my introduc- 

 tion, p. xix, note, that I could find no reference to exempla in Guibert de 

 Nogent's " Liber quo ordine sermo fieri debeat " ; here is the passage quoted 

 by Bourgain ; and another I may add. The first is Migne, CLVL, col. 25 : 

 " Placere etiam nonnullis comperimus simplices historias, et veterum gesta 

 sermoni inducere, et his omnibus quasi ex diversis picturam coloribus ador- 

 nare." The second passage is in col. 29: " et per considerationem naturae 

 ilHus rei de qua agitur, aliquid allegorije vel moralitati conveniens invenitur, 

 sicut de lapidibus gemmariis, de avibus, de bestiis, de quibus quidquid figurate 

 dicitur, non nisi propter significantiam profertur." 



Schonbach also cites Honorius of Autun, Werner von Ellerbach, and the 

 collections of German sermons edited by himself and Hoffmann. In Schon- 

 bach's collection, Graz, 1886-1891, there are sixteen stories in the first volume, 

 most of them from the " Vitse Patrum " and Gregory's "Homilies"; in the 



