Three Oxford Exemplum Books

The most ubiquitous medieval instruction was oral and came from the pulpit. Sermons not only addressed basic Christian responsibilities, but also a great deal more. Following contemporary homiletic practice, preachers were expected to illustrate their points, and a variety of tools had been developed to aid them in this rhetorical amplification. Among these, exemplum books, collections of illustrative stories, had a primary place and were particularly effective in addressing lay audiences. As part of a drive for innovative and arresting anecdotes of this type, Oxford preaching materials are particularly renowned for their use of classical materials for this purpose.

This volume, following a lengthy introduction that addresses the cultural importance of exempla, presents editions and translations of three outstanding examples of the genre, all assembled by Oxford mendicants: John of Wales’s Breviloquium (1260s), Thomas Waleys’s Moralitates in Isaiam (c. 1320), and Robert Holcot’s Moralitates (1330s?). While there is a century’s worth of discussion of sermon exempla, this volume is the first collection devoted exclusively to insular materials.