300 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
The employment of anecdote to illuminate or enforce is as old, 
presumably, as moral instruction. As the tried handmaid of ex- 
position it has held in even serious literature a place by no means 
so inconspicuous or unessential as its nature would seem to allow. 
How effective such narrative may be when it dispenses almost 
entirely with its didactic foundation, the parables of the New 
Testament beautifully demonstrate. Hence it is not surprising that 
the early preachers resorted at least occasionally to its use. In 
twelve of the forty homilies on the Gospels, Gregory the Great 
introduced, most often toward the close, apposite stories, while in 
his dialogues he added many more that were widely circulated. 
Not, however, till the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries did 
this means of exposition gain its wide vogue. Then, as the preaching 
friars carried the church’s teaching to even the commonest men, 
they learned the efficacy of the illustrative anecdote. Saint Dominic 
himself resorted to its use;? Jacques de Vitry believed that many 
are moved by examples who are not reached by precept;* Alain de 
Lille advised preachers to introduce them at the end of their dis- 
courses, where interest ordinarily flags, to prove their doctrine.* 
Even a little of such encouragement would have sufficed to establish 
a practice that gratified so thoroughly the passion of the age for all 
kinds of narrative. The numerous collections of exempla prove their 
success, but possibly give a wrong impression regarding their use ; 
for their compilers only rarely indicate a story’s application, as did 
Stephen of Besancon in adding to one tale the conclusion: ‘“ This 
tale is gude to tell agayns baim pat er slaw in penance doyng, or 
at will not lefe syn or it lefe paim.”® Notwithstanding the fact 
that the compilers usually left the responsibility of interpretation 
with the preacher, they all insisted, as did Pierre de Limoges,® 
that the exemplum should have a direct bearing upon the thought 
of the sermon; for, after all, the anecdote was intended but as 
a means to a serious end. 
In form, the several collections of exemp/a varied considerably. 
The contents of The Alphabet of Tales, like so many others, were 
arranged alphabetically under topics such as Abbas, Consciencia, and 
Oratio, with an abundance of cross-references. Stephen of Bourbon 
grouped his material topically under the seven gifts of the Holy 
Spirit, connecting his tales by a thin thread of exposition. Other 


' Crane, xviii. 2 Etienne de Bourbon, 12 ff. 
wiCrane, <x. 4 Bozon, xi. 5 Alphabet of Tales, No. 30. 
® Lecoy de la Marche, 299. 
