Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Hooper.djvu/22

xiv recapitulate the results of Herr Oesterley's labours, which have been set forth in the pages of this preface. The Gesta was originally composed in England, whence it rapidly passed to the Continent, at the end of the thirteenth century. By the middle of the fourteenth century there were three distinct families of MSS. of the Gesta. When printing was invented, one of these groups (C) was, so to speak, crystallized and hardened into the Vulgate, after which no further change took place. The Vulgate became known as Gesta Romanorum, and was probably supposed by each person to be identical with the work he had always heard called by that title, but which was, as we have seen, differently given by every MS.

Returning to the present edition, it is necessary to explain why the moralizations have been shortened. Mr. Swan omitted the greater part of all but a few at the commencement. As the moralizations are of no interest, except from the light they throw on the nature and origin of the Gesta, and as a mere translation of them is of no use for this purpose, I have left them in the abbreviated state. The reader can easily judge of their nature from the few given in full.

I have revised the translation chiefly by reference to the readings in Oesterley's edition, which is a reprint of the two first editions. I have also frequently referred to an edition printed in folio, at Hagenau, by Henry Gran, in 1517, which is a reprint of his edition of 1508, from which Mr. Swan made his translation. The colophon of the edition of 1517 (in the British Museum) is the same, with the exception of the date, as that of Gran's edition of 1508, of which the colophon will be found at the end of the volume. The differences between the Hagenau edition and the Vulgate are very small, and would only be appreciable to the public if a literal translation were made of each.