Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/20

xvi It is difficult to say exactly when the employment of the popular tales in this manner began among the European clergy. It certainly existed in the twelfth century, and was well known in the thirteenth century, but appears to have reached its highest degree of popularity during the fourteenth and fifteenth. In the middle of the former century there lived in France a learned writer named Pierre Bercheure, who was prior of the Benedictine House of St. Eloi in Paris, and died in 1362. In his time more than one collection of stories with their commentaries in this style were compiled, and are found in the manuscripts, under the title of moralitates. One of these, the work of a Dominican friar, named Robert Holkot, was entitled Moralitates pulchræ in usum Prædicatorum, "beautiful moralities for the use of preachers." This book was printed at a later period. Pierre Bercheure, who seems to have