Popular Tales

Fifteenth-century English preserves a number of comic narratives in verse. These texts constitute a significant strand of demotic literature in the period. Many of these works remained staples of popular reading for several centuries. But in spite of their enduring appeal such texts have attracted only limited critical attention. This chapter examines these verse forms as a distinct corpus, one that articulates a common set of meanings and functions. It further explores what social and cultural needs particular texts might have fulfilled, before going on to consider their special appeal to a middle-class, urban readership, by looking to the manuscript records and other traces of ownership.