Medieval Comic Tales

by Derek S. Brewer (Editor)

Medieval humour revealed in an anthology of 80 tales from England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

During the middle ages, a common fund of comic tales circulated throughout Europe. Writers such as Boccaccio, Chaucer, Rabelais and Cervantes drew on this material, and used it for their own purposes, but the brilliant medieval versions also deserve to be known in their own right. They are of great cultural interest and considerable entertainment value, varying from humour to farce, from sophisticated literary parody to blunt crudeness. Piety jostles blasphemy, and sex and death are everywhere good for a joke. The tales presented here, translated into clear modern English by experts in their fields, are from French, Spanish, Dutch, German, medieval Latin, Italian and English.
.Scholars and students and the general reader alike will find the book accessible, useful and enjoyable.

The late DEREK BREWER was Professor Emeritus of English Literature, University of Cambridge.

Genres: Medieval, Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Mark McTague · Rating 1 out of 5]

I almost feel like filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau against the Folio Society for false advertising. "Comic"? They are only that as they are not tragic. "Medieval Tedious Tales" is far more apt. Whether they are from France, Italy, England, or Spain, they were simply dull. I never got to the German, Dutch or Latin tales. In 136 pages (I quit just after halfway), I smiled perhaps twice. The period is not the problem. Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" have some hilarious episodes (many on the bawdy side), and I have read some rather funny Korean folktales and the often quite funny Nasreddin Hodja tales from Arab literature, so culture or historical period is not to be blamed. Perhaps this was just a poor choice of material as many were moralistic tales - "See how that's not how you should behave?" Yawn. One would need an exceedingly strong interest in medieval life to slog through these. Eminently forgettable.

[Catherine Mason · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not a book to be read for entertainment unless you are a vile human being who finds racism and misogyny humorous. There were a few tales in this volume that I liked, particularly those pointing out the foolishness of superstition and belief in devils and such like e.g. the one where an actor is mistaken for the devil. Mostly, however, the tales are obsessed with the fidelity of women, and there is also a lot of repetition. The volume is mostly of academic interest to medieval, literature and folklore scholars, or if you just what to know how to write in medieval style.

[Einar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very good short stories to be found in this book from different countries. Most of the stories (that I have read so far) have rather clever female characters in them be they sometime a 'bit' less than honest.

[Lulu]

12th-16th (contains the scholars guide)

[Deborah Pickstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to read the sorts of things considered funny at the time - though I was not particularly amused! Not my kind of humour - and of course it would have been told, as performance, by a storyteller rather than read from a book, so would have thus been far more entertaining. It seems the people of the middle ages had a penchant for the morality tale. The funniest part of the book for me was the rather stiff introduction; typically British Historian in language and affect - rather pompous and precious, to be blunt. Now that ALWAYS raises a giggle from me!

It would have been more interesting to watch and listen to a practiced professional storyteller using some of these tales. A particular point worth praise is that stories from all over Europe of the period were compiled; this, of course, raises the further distancing from the reader by them having been read in translation, which may have affected the impact of those stories. Also, it is worth remembering that nations DO have a national sense of humour as anyone who has travelled much will be well aware of.

[Kate Snow · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, although humour has obviously changed since medieval times as the tales did not provoke me to laughter.

[Graham Lee]

A good collection of tales though don't come here expecting a laugh a minute. Nor indeed any laughs.