The fables of Ulrich Bonerius (ca. 1350): masterwork of late Medieval didactic literature.

Abstract

Serendipitously, at around the same time as Boccaccio published his famous Decameron (1350), the Swiss-German Dominican Ulrich Bonerius published his highly popular collection of fables, The Gemstone. Both authors pursued very similar goals, instructing their audiences about vices and virtues, Boccaccio by telling entertaining, often erotic tales, Bonerius by relating didactic tales, mostly based on animals as the active characters. This book provides the first English translation of all one hundred fables authored by Bonerius. Bonerius drew mostly from the classical Aesopian tradition, and hi.