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  GESTA ROMANORUM:

  OR,

  ENTERTAINING MORAL STORIES;

  INVENTED BY THE MONKS AS A FIRESIDE RECREATION, AND COMMONLY APPLIED IN THEIR DISCOURSES FROM THE PULPIT: WHENCE THE MOST CELEBRATED OF OUR OWN POETS AND OTHERS, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES, HAVE EXTRACTED THEIR PLOTS.

  TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN, WITH

  PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS AND COPIOUS NOTES,

  BY THE REV. CHARLES SWAN,

  Late of Catharine Hall, Cambridge.

  REVISED AND CORRECTED BY

  WYNNARD HOOPEK, B.A.,

  Clare College, Cambridge.

  “They” [the Monks] “might be disposed occasionally to recreate their minds with subjects of a light and amusing nature; and what could be more innocent or delightful than the stories of the GESTA ROMANORUM ?”

  DOUCE’S Illustrations of Shakespeare.

  DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

  Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario.

  Published in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company, Ltd., 10 Orange Street, London WC 2.

  This Dover edition, first published in 1959, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the Bohn Library Edition of 1876.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-4176

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Dover Publications, Inc.

  180 Varick Street

  New York, N. Y. 10014

  PREFACE.

  IT is somewhat remarkable that, in spite of the great interest attaching to the Gesta Romanorum, as the most popular story book of the Middle Ages, and as the source of much literature in that and later times, no English version of it should have appeared until 1824, when a translation was published in two volumes by the Rev. C. Swan. Mr. Swan, though his translation was in many respects faulty, kept to the original with tolerable fidelity, and only deliberately tampered with the text once; namely, in altering the termination of Tale XXVIII., because he considered that the story, as it stood, did not afford a good “moral.” He very often paraphrased; and where the Latin contained too bald a statement of facts, he considered himself justified in amplifying the narrative. But this can hardly be objected to. The stories are often told so carelessly that a translator is bound to add something in his rendering to make them express what they were intended to convey to the reader. An English version of a work like the Gesta Romanorum should certainly not be a literal translation.

  The present edition is a reprint of Mr. Swan’s, with considerable corrections and alterations. Whenever Mr. Swan only expanded the Latin in his translation so as to express what was really implied in the original, I have left his rendering untouched. But I have expunged whatever was an unnecessary departure from the text. On the other hand, Mr. Swan had occasionally omitted sentences of importance; these have been restored to the text in the present edition. Mistakes in translation, of which there are more than might have been expected, have, of course, been corrected.

  Mr. Swan’s notes are sometimes erroneous and occasionally pointless. With regard to the former class, I have generally allowed them to stand, and added a correction of the mistakes. Notes of the latter class I have sometimes omitted, and those so treated will not, I think, be missed by the reader. The most valuable part of Mr. Swan’s notes are his quotations from other authors illustrative of the text, in selecting which he showed more judgment than in the actual work of translation; but it is throughout evident that his knowledge of English literature, or, at all events, of writers about English literature, was greater than his acquaintance with either Latin or Greek.

  A great deal has been done, since Mr. Swan wrote, towards settling the vexed questions relative to the genesis of the Gesta. Sir Frederick Madden, in his work on the old English versions of the Gesta, did a good deal towards solving the problem. But the book which has dealt with the subject in the most thorough and satisfactory manner is the work of a painstaking German, Herr Hermann Oesterley.* It is little known in England. The British Museum only possesses the first part; the authorities apparently not thinking it worth while to obtain the remainder, when it was not spontaneously offered them by the bookseller, perhaps because no one ever asked for the work. The leaves of the first part were not even cut till recently. Considering the value of Herr Oesterley’s book, its absence, except in an incomplete state, from the shelves of our great national library is strange. There is a complete copy in the University Library, Cambridge.

  It is impossible to do more here than to give a brief résumé of Herr Oesterley’s conclusions regarding the Gesta. To go into his proofs, except in the merest outline, would be to reproduce his book, for it contains nothing whatever but what is strictly relevant to the matter in hand. Those who are acquainted with the subject will be aware how obscure and perplexing it is. Mr. Swan’s Introduction, though rather vague and rambling, is worth studying. It contains some valuable conjectures, which subsequent inquiry has shown to be sound. Warton’s “Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum” (Hist. of English Poetry,* vol. i. p. cxxxix.), as being the earliest attempt to arrive at definite conclusions as to the origin of this collection of stories, is worth reading, apart from the deservedly high authority of its author. But its inadequacy was obvious even to Warton’s contemporaries. Douce’s “Dissertation” (Illustrations of Shakespeare, p. 516) is a really useful piece of work. Although mistaken in several points, his remarks are always acute and valuable ; and he called attention to the importance of a thorough examination of the MSS. contained in the libraries of the Continent, with a view to discovering, if possible, the origin of the Gesta. “It is a fact,” he says, “as remarkable as the obscurity which exists concerning the author of the Gesta, that no manuscript of this work, that can with certainty be pronounced as such, has hitherto been described. If the vast stores of manuscripts that are contained in the monastic and other libraries of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, were examined, there is scarcely a doubt that some original of a work so often printed would be discovered,” Douce’s expectations have been falsified by the result of Herr Oesterley’s investigations in this very field. It is now clearly ascertained that no MS. corresponding to the printed collection of stories known as the Gesta Romanorum exists.

  Before laying before the reader a succinct account of the facts relative to the Gesta with which Herr Oesterley’s work supplies us, it is necessary to say that what is known par excellence as the Gesta Romanorum is a collection of 181 stories, first printed about 1473, and that this is the collection of which the present edition is a translation. But before the appearance of this collection there existed a great number of MSS. all over Western Europe, no two of which exactly resembled each other. I shall now give some details, chiefly obtained from Herr Oesterley, concerning both printed editions and MSS.

  I. Printed editions.

  A. The editio princeps, printed in folio by Ketelaer and De Leempt, at Utrecht. Date uncertain. It contains 150 (not 152, as Douce erroneously says*) chapters.†

  (a) A second edition of the editio princeps, printed by Arnold Ter Hoenen, at Cologne. Date uncertain. It contains 151 chapters.

  B. The Vulgate (vulgärtext), or second editio princeps, printed by Ulrich Zell, at Cologne. Date uncertain. It contains 181 chapters.

  Subsequent to the Vulgate numerous editions were printed resembling it in all essentials.

  There is no doubt, according to Herr Oesterley, that all three editions [A, (a), & B] appeared between 1472 and 1475‡ He has adopted A and B as his text; A for the first 150 chapters (except chapter 18, which is found only in B), and B for the remainder.* His text therefore reproduces the two editiones principes, if such an expression is not a so
lecism.

  C. Various editions in English, based on the Latin MSS. of English origin. They contain usually 44 chapters, but sometimes 43, and once 58. A few examples will suffice.

  (a) Printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in small 4to., at London, date uncertain. It contains 43 chapters, and is a translation of MS. Harl. 5369.† In the library of St. John’s College, Cambridge.

  (b) Printed in London, 1648. Contains 44 chapters.

  (c) London, 1689. 44 chapters.

  (d) London [1722?]. 58 chapters (British Museum, 1456A).

  These editions all have some stories in common with the Vulgate, together with many which are peculiar to themselves. I may remark that Wynkyn de Worde’s edition (a) is the only instance we have of a printed copy exactly corresponding to a MS. of the Gesta.

  II. Manuscripts.

  The MSS. of the Gesta fall naturally into three groups, or families, as Herr Oesterley calls them.‡

  A. The English group; written in Latin. Of this the best representative is MS. Harl 2270; date, fifteenth century. It contains 102 chapters, of which 72 are found in the Vulgate.§ This is the group which Mr. Douce|| calls the “English Gesta,” and which he and others have maintained to have been compiled in imitation of the “Original Gesta,” i.e. the Gesta represented by the set of manuscripts (C) which supplied the Vulgate.

  B. Group of Latin and German MSS. This family is best represented by an edition in German, printed by John Schopser, at Augsburg, in 1489.*

  C. A group represented by the Vulgate. The MSS. Of this group have been greatly influenced by one another, and by entirely distinct collections of stories;† particularly by Robert Holkot’s Moralitates. Stories from Gervase of Tilbury appear in some of the younger MSS. of this group.‡ This group constitutes what Douce calls the “Original Gesta.”

  I have here given as concise a statement as possible of a great multiplicity of facts. The diversity existing among the MSS. known in England, and their apparent want of connection with the printed editions, gave rise to the theory, upheld by Mr. Douce and combated by Mr. Swan and others, that there were two distinct collections of stories called Gesta Romanorum, one of German, the other of English origin. The early appearance of the Gesta in England, the fact that the Vulgate was only printed on the Continent, as well as the local colouring of certain of the stories, were held to prove that shortly after the compilation of the “Original Gesta” in Germany, a similar set of stories was composed in imitation of it in England. That no copy of the “English Gesta” was printed appeared as strange as the fact that no MS. of the Vulgate had ever been found. As remarked above, Mr. Douce fully expected that a careful search in the libraries of the Continent would reveal the missing MS.

  Herr Oesterley’s investigations appear to show conclusively that, though there were not two Gestas, in the sense intended by Douce, yet there is a considerable differ ence between the MSS. of England and of the Continent, and between each of these and the printed Vulgate. He is of opinion that the Gesta was originally compiled in England; that it rapidly passed to the Continent; was then considerably altered, by additions and corruptions; and that, on the invention of printing, an edition (A) containing 150 stories, selected by the editors, as they thought best, was issued. Shortly after, an enlarged edition (B) was issued. This last is the Vulgate. Neither A nor B was a reproduction of any one MS.; and they were both compiled from MSS. belonging to group C. It is easy to understand why the “English Gesta” was never printed. The Vulgate appeared in England before there was time to commence printing an edition of the Gesta from the MSS. of the English group, and being much larger than even the best of these (Harl. 2270, above referred to), speedily got possession of the field, and rendered it superfluous to produce another Gesta. Probably not one man in ten thousand would know of the existence of MSS. containing stories not in the Vulgate. And when Wynkyn de Worde printed his edition (1510–1515) a need for an English version had arisen, which he met by printing a complete translation of one of the MSS. of the English group (see p. ix.).

  Herr Oesterley admits* that it is possible that the Gesta was originally compiled in Germany, and thence carried to England, and enlarged by the addition of specially English stories, while in Germany a process of growth was also going on. But he thinks that the balance of probability is in favour of the view which places the home of the Gesta in England. He considers that the names of the dogs in Tale CXLTI. are distinctly English;† and that the German proverb in the moralization of Tale CXLIV., on which so much stress has been laid by the believers in the German origin of the Gesta, is an addition made by the editors of the printed copies, as is clear from an inspection of the MSS.*

  Herr Oesterley’s conclusions as to the author of the Gesta are purely negative. The theory which assigns the authorship to Berchorius, the prior of St. Eloi (Pierre Bercheur), he treats as quite unproved. The only other claimant put forward is Helinand; Herr Oesterley decides against him also, and the matter is left as incapable of settlements.†

  Herr Oesterley is of opinion that the Gesta was compiled towards the end of the thirteenth century. It has been urged that the collection cannot have appeared before the death of Robert Holkot (1349), since a series of stories found in the Gesta are taken from his Moralitates. But even supposing these stories were first made known by Holkot, this can only be used to prove that the MSS. of the Gesta which contain them were written since 1349, not that the Gesta was not originally compiled much earlier.‡ Herr Oesterley also urges the fact that the MSS. had, as early as the middle of the fourteenth century, become sufficiently diversified, by a natural process of differentiation, as to group themselves into the three families mentioned above,§ as a proof that the first or primitive MS. cannot have appeared later than the early part of the fourteenth century. For some time must have elapsed before so great a diversity could have arisen. Moreover, Herr Oesterley mentions a MS. written in 1326, which is obviously, from the corruptions of words, and especially of proper names, a copy of some earlier edition.||

  Herr Oesterley’s views as to the origin of the Gesta are necessarily only conjectures, but as such they are of considerable value. He thinks that at some early period there were collections of stories taken from Roman history in actual use as texts for sermons;* and that these stories were then put together for the express purpose of being moralized, and finally appeared under the title of Gesta Romanorum Moralizata, or something similar.† Whether this first compilation was entirely composed of classical stories, or contained some of more modem date as well, it is impossible to say.‡ What we now know as the Gesta Romanorum arose from the moralizing of this, or some similar work, after it had been enlarged by the addition of a considerable number of stories relating to later times. It would be easy to circulate a collection of stories under the name of the “Gests of the Romans” among a people whose ideas of history were as limited as those of our forefathers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, even though it had not contained a single word about Rome. The intention of the original authors of the Gesta was to provide texts for moralizations. The stories themselves were of secondary importance. Very often in the MSS. the first words of some well-known story appear at the commencement of a chapter, and then the moralization follows immediately. In many of the older copies some of the stories have spaces left after them for the moralization, the writer presumably intending to add it subsequently.§ It is not till a very late period that the stories become the more important part, and the moralization recedes into the background.|| Herr Oesterley is very severe on Grässe’s rash statement that the English MSS., which are mostly early ones, have, as a rule, no moralizations.¶

  At the risk of being accused of undue repetition, I shall recapitulate the results of Herr Oesterley’s labours, which have been set forth in the pages of this preface. The Gesta was originally composed in England, whence it rapidly passed to the Continent, at the end of the thirteenth century. By the middle of the fourteenth century there were three distinct families of MSS.
of the Gesta. When printing was invented, one of these groups (C) was, so to speak, crystallized and hardened into the Vulgate, after which no further change took place. The Vulgate became known as Gesta Romanorum, and was probably supposed by each person to be identical with the work he had always heard called by that title, but which was, as we have seen, differently given by every MS.

  Returning to the present edition, it is necessary to explain why the moralizations have been shortened. Mr. Swan omitted the greater part of all but a few at the commencement. As the moralizations are of no interest, except from the light they throw on the nature and origin of the Gesta, and as a mere translation of them is of no use for this purpose, I have left them in the abbreviated state. The reader can easily judge of their nature from the few given in full.

  I have revised the translation chiefly by reference to the readings in Oesterley’s edition, which is a reprint of the two first editions.* I have also frequently referred to an edition printed in folio, at Hagenau, by Henry Gran, in 1517, which is a reprint of his edition of 1508, from which Mr. Swan made his translation. The colophon of the edition of 1517 (in the British Museum) is the same, with the exception of the date, as that of Gran’s edition of 1508, of which the colophon will be found at the end of the volume. The differences between the Hagenau edition and the Vulgate are very small, and would only be appreciable to the public if a literal translation were made of each. Whenever the reading of the Hagenau copy is more intelligible than that of the older edition, I have adopted it. It is quite possible that Gran may have had access to MSS. which the editors of the Vulgate did not know of; and thus he may have obtained a warrant for introducing the few slight improvements he made on his predecessors’ text.

  I would call the reader’s attention to the fact that one or two very good stories are contained in Mr. Swan’s Introduction.