ABSTRACT
In late-thirteenth-century England, a decidedly curious collection of stories known as the Gesta Romanorum was compiled in Latin and then widely translated—into English, German, French, Dutch, Polish, Russian, and a host of other languages—as it circulated throughout England and Europe. Though none of the English manuscripts was ever printed, and no manuscript corresponding to the printed Latin editions exists, some 200 manuscripts and scores of printed editions do survive, housing a total of 283 tales. Around 1473 (within about twenty years of Gutenberg's invention of movable type), the first printed edition of the Gesta, a folio of 152 stories, came out. In fact, the Gesta remained popular well into the nineteenth century, by which time people embraced it not so much as a means of edifying Christian laity, but of instructing and entertaining children.
