GESTA ROITANORIIM is the title of the oldest legendary work of the middle ages. The stories are written in Latin, and for the most part are either taken from the hits tories of the Roman emperors,-or at least are the period in which these flour ished. At a later period, moralizing expositions were added, whence the work obtained the name of Historia Moralists. The Gesta Romanorum belongs to that class of works with which the monks were wont to beguile their leisure and which were appointed to be read in the refectory. The stories are short, and destitute of rhetorical ornament; neither have they any dialogues or tragic incidents. Their attractiveness lies in the charm of their naiveté and childlike simplicity, althouah their artless piety often passes into a deep mysticism. Down to the 16 c., the was one of the most widely read books among the learned, as the number of manuscripts and of printed impressions shortly after the invention of printing (the first was issued at Cologne in 1472) prove. At an early period, it was translated into French, English, • German, and Dutch. The oldest Dutch translation was published at Gouda by Gerard Leeu in 1481; the oldest German translation at Augsburg, by flans Schobser, in 1489. Among the older English translations may be mentioned that by R. Robinson (Loud.
1577). Recently (1824), the Rev. C. Swan published Gesta Romanorum. translated from the Latin, with Preliminary Observations, and Copious .Notes. The later German fabulists and novelists, such as Hans Sachs, Burkard Waldis, and others, made abundant use of this great storehouse. But soon after the reformation it was thrown into the background, and even in the monasteries, where for a long time it maintained its footing, it was at length forgotten. Recently, however, amid the general revival of interest in the literature of the past, it has receivedspeeial attention. Its author haa been upped by some to have j been Petrus Berchorius or Bercheur of Poitou, who died prior of the Benedictine abbey of St. Eloi in Paris in 1362, but it is now believed that he only added the moralizings; and Grasse, In an appendix to his German translations (2 vols., Dresd. and Leip.
has shown that a certain Elinandus is the author or compiler of the work. This Elinan dus \-as undoubtedly a monk, and was either an Englishman or German. According to Oesterley, to whom we owe the first critical edition of the work (1872), the Gesta Romanorum took shape in England about the beginning of the 14th century.