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Updated: May 5, 2025
The groundwork of the Decameron has been traced to an old Hindu romance, which, after passing through all the languages of the East, was translated into Latin as early as the twelfth century; the originals of several of these tales have been found in the ancient French Fabliaux, while others are believed to have been borrowed from popular recitation or from real occurrences.
His originals were not the chivalrous romances, but the comic Fabliaux, and the allegorical poetry cultivated by the Trouveres and Troubadours.
The stories told by the reeve, miller, friar, sompnour, shipman, and merchant belong to the class of fabliaux, a few of which existed in English, such as Dame Siriz, the Lay of the Ash, and the Land of Cokaygne, already mentioned.
What is, then, the characteristic quality or note of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales? It is not, as some absurd persons think, to be discovered in the licentiousness or grossness of some of these tales, this only represents one aspect of their realism, and indeed in this they do little more than continue the characteristics of what we know as the 'Fabliaux' of the Middle Ages.
One other work has come down to us from this early epoch, which presents a complete contrast, both with the rough, bold spirit of the Chansons de Geste and the literal realism of the Fabliaux. Here all is delicacy and exquisiteness the beauty, at once fragile and imperishable, of an enchanting work of art.
Several of them have been introduced upon the stage, and others formed the originals of Parnell's "Hermit," of the "Zaire" of Voltaire, and of the "Renard," which Goethe has converted into a long poem. But perhaps the most interesting and celebrated of all the fabliaux is that of "Aucassin and Nicolette," which has furnished the subject for a well-known opera.
Two circumstances contributed to this change, a change which could not have been anticipated; for the Trouvère fabliaux and romans promised only epics, and the Troubadour chansons and tensons promised only lyrics and dramas.
The story is known in various forms all over Europe; it was a special favourite in mediæval times. See Le Grand's Fabliaux, tome iii., 376: "La Vache du Curé," by the trouvère Jean de Boves; Wright's Latin Stories; Icelandic Legends, etc. Dasent's Popular Tales from the Norse. "See note, p. 49" in original.
The dining-room is hung with tapestries of the fourteenth century; the style and the orthography of the inscription on the banderols beneath each figure prove their age, but being, as they are, in the naive language of the fabliaux, it is impossible to transcribe them here.
I.e. when you were so emaciated that your bones made music like a skeleton in the wind. Evidently some version of the tragical conte "de la Chastelaine de Vergi, qui mori por laialment amer son ami." See "Fabliaux et Contes," ed. Barbazan, iv. 296: and cf. Bandello, Pt. iv. Nov. v, and Heptameron, Journee vii. Nouvelle lxx.
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