1883, ] 5 5 (Crane, 
foundation in the XIII century of the two great orders of Dominicans and 
Franciscans, the former, par excellence the ordo pradicatorum, gave an enor- 
mous impulse to preaching and quite changed its character.* The monks 
of these orders obeyed literally the words of the Founder of Christianity, 
and went into all the world and preached the Word to every creature. 
The popular character of the audiences modified essentially the style of the 
preaching. It was necessary to interest and even amuse the common 
people, who, as we have incidentally shown, were becoming accustomed 
to an entertaining literature more and more secular, and who possessed. 
moreover an innate love for tales. It is chiefly to this fondness for stories 
and to the preachers’ desire to gratify it that we owe the great collections 
of which we are about to speak. In the composition of the medieval ser- 
mon, which had, moreover, a certain fixed form, the stories, or, to give 
them the name they then bore, and which we shall use hereafter, exempla, 
were reserved for the end, when the attention of the audience began to 
diminish.| The value of these ewempla for awakening the attention and 
instructing the people is everywhere conceded.{ These stories are some- 
times as long as the rest of the sermon, sometimes, when they refer to a 
well-known recital, they merely quote the title or a few words of the be- 
ginning, The use of exempla, properly speaking, is rare before the XTIT 
century (L. de la Marche, p. 276), and was apparently first introduced as a 
principle by Jacques de Vitry. This eminent prelate and scholar was born 
in the early part of the last half of the XII century, and took his name 
either from the village of Vitry on the Seine near Paris, or from a town of 
the same name on the Marne in Champagne. He studied in Paris from 
1180-90, and became a presbyter parochialis at Argenteuil near Paris. In 
1210 he went to Brabant and became a canon at Villebrouck and after- 
wards at Oignies, where he was the intimate friend of the enthusiast, 
Mary of Oignies, whose life he wrote after her death in 1213. From 1210- 
1217 he preached the crusade against the Albigenses, and took part in the 
*The relative importance of these orders may be inferred from the fact that 
of two hundred and sixty-one French preachers of the XIIL century ninety- 
‘One were Dominicans and forty-five Franciscans ; see Aubertin, ii, p. 308, n, 3. 
tIn fine vero, debet uti exemplis, ad probandum quod intendit, quia familia- 
ris est doctrina exemplaris, Alanus de Insulis, Summa de arte predicatoria, cap. 
I, ed. Migne, p. 113. 
{ Herolt in the Prologue to his Promptuarium Hxemplorum says: “ Utile et ex- 
pediens est viros predicationis officio preditos proximorum salutem per terras 
diseurrendo querentes exemplis abundare, Hee exempla facile intellectu capi- 
antur et firmiter memoriw imprimuntur et a multis libenter audiuntur. Le- 
gimus enim principem nostrum Dominicum ordinis preedicatorum fundato- 
rem hoe fecisse, De eo quidem seribitur quod ubicumque conversabatur edifi- 
catoriis effluebat sermonibus, abundabat exemplis quibus ad amorem Christi 
Sxeculi ve contemptum audientium animos provocabat.” Ktienne de Bourbon 
in the Prologue to his treatise, says: ‘ Quia autem ad hee suggerenda et inge- 
renda et irmprimenda in humanis cordibus maxime valent exempla, que maxi- 
me erudiunt simplicium hominum ruditatem, et faciliorem et longiorem 
‘ngerunt et imprimunt in memoria tenacitatem.” 
