MAGIC AND WONDER
actually seen. We are sometimes told that in those unlucky centuries the Church imposed miracles and legends on secular ignorance. Whether or not those centuries were unlucky, a reading of these secular stories suggests wonder that more miracles and legends were not imposed on the Church.
But however the twelfth century may have understood its literature, there is little doubt that the fourteenth century liked a certain class of stories which must have been recognized as false to experience. I refer to those tales of reckless or scandalous love—merry tales, as the Elizabethan translators would call them—such as Boccaccio included in a part of his famous collection. Their real immorality is not often observed, nor is it obvious in any single story; but when one reflects on all such stories as a class, whether in the Decameron or in other
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