MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 409 nary daily life the fabliaux often depict, although some of them are stock stories of all times. As might be expected, the fabliaux are liable to be coarse ; they are full of satire, especially at the expense of women and priests; and they picture the life of the people vividly and humorously. Of those extant the oldest was written in the middle of the twelfth century, while the latest, like the last true chansons de geste, were produced in the early fourteenth century. In the mysteries and miracle plays, which represented Bible stories and the lives of saints and which were at first presented by the clergy in Latin, there came to M sterieg be the same popular element that we have seen and miracle in the fabliaux. Laymen, especially of the gilds, p ays were by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries giving such plays in the vernaculars of France, Germany, and England. The medieval audience enjoyed the introduction of scenes from daily life, as when the three Maries stop on their way to the sepulcher to purchase the spices of a merchant, or of comic relief and horse-play, as when Noah is knocked down by his angry wife. Even less literary in character than the mystery and miracle plays were the mummeries and other folk-festivals of a dramatic character. In the thirteenth century there began to be French prose literature, especially historical writing. The first important I work was a contemporary account of the Fourth Medieva i Crusade by Villehardouin. Some of the Arthur- French 1 ian romances were written in prose, and Aucassin prc et Nicolette, one of the most charming of all love-stories, is part prose and part verse. Such were some of the chief varieties and masterpieces of that literature, great both in < quantity and quality, produced from the eleventh to the
- early fourteenth century within the limits of modern
France and in Romance languages, "exhibiting finish of structure when all the rest were merely barbarian novices, exploring every literary form from history to drama, and
- epic to song, while others were stammering their exercises,
mostly learnt from her." There were three groups of Romance tongues in medieval
