SOURCE: Weld, John. Introduction to ”Gesta Romanorum”: A Record of Auncient Histories Newly Perused by Richard Robinson (1595). Delmar, N. Y.: Scholars's Facsimiles & Reprints, 1973.

In the following excerpt, Weld accounts for the disjunction between the written tales in the Gesta Romanorum and their oral versions.

The Gesta Romanorum, a collection of allegorized stories compiled in the early fourteenth century, was one of the greatest—and longest enduring—popular successes of all time. “No other production of the middle ages, the Golden Legend excepted,” wrote Professor J-.Th. Welter, “enjoyed a parallel success” (L'Exemplum, Paris, 1927, pp. 373-74). In its various versions, Latin, English, German, French, Dutch, Polish, and Russian, it is extant in nearly two hundred manuscripts—the exact number is unknown—and in scores—again uncounted—of printed editions. It began as a preacher's manual in Latin, became a vernacular best-seller among the laity, a source-book for playwrights and...