Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/20

xii of Tale CXLIV., on which so much stress has been laid by the believers in the German origin of the Gesta, is an addition made by the editors of the printed copies, as is clear from an inspection of the MSS.

Herr Oesterley's conclusions as to the author of the Gesta are purely negative. The theory which assigns the authorship to Berchorius, the prior of St. Eloi (Pierre Bercheur), he treats as quite unproved. The only other claimant put forward is Helinand; Herr Oesterley decides against him also, and the matter is left as incapable of settlement.

Herr Oesterley is of opinion that the Gesta was compiled towards the end of the thirteenth century. It has been urged that the collection cannot have appeared before the death of Robert Holkot (1349), since a series of stories found in the Gesta are taken from his Moralitates. But even supposing these stories were first made known by Holkot, this can only be used to prove that the MSS. of the Gesta which contain them were written since 1349, not that the Gesta was not originally compiled much earlier. Herr Oesterley also urges the fact that the MSS. had, as early as the middle of the fourteenth century, become sufficiently diversified, by a natural process of differentiation, as to group themselves into the three families mentioned above, as a proof that the first or primitive MS. cannot have appeared later than the early part of the fourteenth century. For some time must have elapsed before so great a diversity could have arisen. Moreover, Herr Oesterley mentions a MS. written in 1326, which is obviously, from the corruptions of words, and especially of proper names, a copy of some earlier edition.

Herr Oesterley's views as to the origin of the Gesta are