Crane.] 54 [March 16, 
translation of the Dial. Oreat. was published about 1517 and reprinted in 
a limited edition in 1816. é 
The third work to be mentioned in this connection is the well known 
Gesta Romanorum. We do not propose in this limited space to approach 
the still vexed question of the date and nationality of this famous work.* 
Its importance is not great in the abstract, the number of stories valuable 
for the Oulturgeschichte of the middle ages is small, but the part the work 
has played in the transmission of a vast body of classical and Oriental tales 
is enormous. Already the morality has been swallowed up in the story, 
and the aim is to amuse under the pretext of instruction. Other similar 
collections will be noticed, later out-growths of the homiletic compilations, 
but the Gesta Romanorwn stands alone, an independent and original col- 
lection, the earliest. Occidental effort to throw off the shackles of purely 
ecclesiastical entertaining literature, The three collections which we have 
just briefly considered are the only ones intended for the edification of the 
general reader, and it is only the third which reveals a growing taste that 
before long was satisfied by Boccaccio and the French fabliaua, or by 
such purely secular collections as the Italian Cento Novelle antiche. The 
mass of material at the disposal of the collector in the XIII and XTV cen- 
turies was enormous, besides the vast compilations of legends in the Vitae 
Patrum and Legenda Aurea, there were the relics of classical lore, and the 
new flood of Oriental fiction, both written and oral. In addition to all 
this, a tendency now shows itself to collect anecdotes, etc., of famous 
contemporaries. Much of the above material would have perished, and 
certainly the circle of its influence would have been comparatively nar- 
row, had not a new need made itself felt, and a new market, so to speak, 
been opened for these wares. 
The duty of public preaching, which, at first was reserved for the 
bishops, was extended later to the priests, but it was for a long time a 
privilege jealously guarded and restricted to comparatively few. The 
be XLVI) La Fontaine, vii, 16, is alone correct; to LXX XIX add Gesta Rom., 29; 
to XCIII, Schluss, add Gesta Rom., 103; the references to C are to three different 
stories: I “Birdin the hand,” Gesta Rom., 467; Kirehhof, iv, 34; If “Dog let- 
ting go meat for reflection in water,” Pauli, 426; LIL “La Laitiere et le Pot au 
Lait,” La Fontaine, vii, 10, Kirchhof, i, 171; the reference to Cl. Glesta Rom,, 108, 
is incorrect; both references to CVI are incorrect; of those to OCVIII, Gesta 
Rom., 140, is incorrect, as is also La Fontaine, v, 21; to CX (cp, xliv), La Fon- 
taine, iii, 9,is incorrect; CXII contains two fables: 1 ‘ Colombe et Milvi,” and 
IL ‘Town and Country Mice,” tol belongs Kirehhof, 7, 146, to If Kirchhof, 1, 
62, and La Fontaine, i, 9, erroneously reterred to CXIIL; to CX VIL add La Fon- 
taine, iii,9; to OX VIII, Gesta Rom., 63, instead of 52, other references are incor- 
rect; finally to OXX11 add Petrus Alfonsi, p. 83, ed. Schmidt, and Glesta Rom.,, 31, 
*Jt should seem that little remained to be done after Hermann Oesterley’s 
masterly edition (Berlin, 1872), but the results of his painstaking investigations 
are chiefly negative. It may be impossible to determine its nationality, but it 
seems as if more light might be thrown on its age and mode of compilation. 
The results of Oesterley’s studies are given to the English reader in the Intro- 
duction to the Karly English Versions of the Gesta Romunorum (Karly Kng- 
lish Text Soc. Extra Series, xxxili, 1879). 
