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The first chapter establishes three distinct types of reversal in the fabliaux: rhetorical; narrative (or sociogenic); and structural (called inversion). Examples of each type demonstrate that reversal is a characteristic of the genre and that it serves to open the fabliaux to interpretation. Le Fablel de la Grue is taken as a model text in that it incorporates all three types of reversal. An analysis of the fabliau shows that they can combine different genres, such as exempla and lais, through reversal. A study of the manuscript contexts of La Grue shows how the fabliau interacts with contemporary texts and how each manuscript has its own characteristics.

In chapter 2, the relationships of fabliaux to other types of works, particularly fables, reveal the generic specificity of the fabliau form as well as the interwoven structure of the system of genres in medieval literature. MS BNF 2173 offers an exemplary case, it is argued, of the manuscript compiler's deliberate mixing of genres. The analyses of various individual fabliaux demonstrate that rhetorical reversal in the fabliaux serves to undermine the genre's ostensible didactic aims, whereas similar techniques in fables reinforce the didacticism of that genre. The manuscript as a whole presents a progression of texts from the divine to the mundane.

Chapter 3 argues that Eastern frame narrative collections such as the Seven Sages of Rome were being combined with Western stories in medieval manuscripts before Boccaccio wrote the Decameron. The fabliaux anthologies were often repositories of other short narrative collections, such as vernacular versions of the Seven Sages of Rome and the Disciplina Clericalis. More than other types of Western story collections, the fabliaux codices can be seen as prefiguring the combination of different narrative traditions in the Decameron. The levels of organization in the Decameron reflect Boccaccio's combining of the Eastern frame narrative with the Old French manuscript tradition, which also offers a structural archetype for the organization of the novellas and the arrangement of the ten days of storytelling.

Chapter 4 consists of close readings of fabliaux and novellas in the Decameron. These show how Boccaccio's manipulation of fabliaux and other narratives result in the creation of a new genre. The first texts, La Nonete and novella IX:2, show that Boccaccio used reversal both within individual narratives as well as among different narratives--novella IV:1 is a gendered reversal of novella IX:2--in order to underscore the openness of interpretation. The second example shows that novella III:10, through reversals, combines opposites genres: fabliaux and hagiographic texts. This combination of diverse genres reveals their inherent analogies. The final example shows that Boccaccio used one fabliau, Le Vilain de Bailleul, in two different novellas, III:8 and IX:3, revealing that stories can be endlessly adapted as well as interpreted.

The third chapter is devoted to the depiction of the saintly characters and the uses and functions of their direct discourse, which is a defining feature of the Scottish Legendary. The chapter consists of four case studies, each of which spotlights another aspect of how the saintly characters are construed in the compilation. In the first part, female and male martyrs’ dialogues with their pagan tormentors are scrutinised, with special emphasis on questions of gender and the violation of gender norms and ‘proper’ speech behaviour. The following three analyses – on Mary of Egypt, Theodora, and Andrew – accentuate the importance of speech in the process of becoming a saint. At the same time, the poet’s strategy of transgressing genre is underscored. Romance and fabliau patterns of narration enrich the hagiographic plots. The case studies are placed within more general discussions of how medieval hagiography conceives of ‘character’ and how one could usefully theorise their indebtedness to types.

This chapter addresses two very important categories of tale. It includes a discussion of medieval comedy, which is sometimes close to moral tales, but more usually is amoral and sometimes ‘cheerfilly indecent’. The variety is remarkable, from light-hearted evocations of ‘the world upside down’ to darkly satiric stories and examples of parody, burlesque, and fantasy. Diverse examples from The Wright’s Chaste Wife to Rauf Coilyear are discussed. Animal tales and fables are equally widespread and ancient. There was a fascination with animals, which could provide entertainment as well as instruction. Attitudes to them, the result of a mixture of ancient scientific doctrine, popular lore, religious teaching, and some actual observation, produced a body of lively tales which sometimes taught a cautious pattern of behaviour, but sometimes celebrated intelligence and the tricks of Reynard, the great anti-hero of medieval literature. Behind a long literary tradition lies an oral tradition now almost totally lost, but obviously influential. Literary examples from Chaucer and Henryson illustrate this.

This chapter discusses Churchyard’s first miscellany, Churchyardes Chippes, and its relation to other single-authored collections published in the 1560s and 1570s by Barnabe Googe, George Gascoigne, and George Turbervile. It proposes that Chippes uses a range of different devices to establish and advance the Churchyard literary ‘brand’ and shows how the volume is preoccupied with advancing Churchyard’s identity as an author. Demonstrating how the volume was carefully assembled to directly evoke texts and traditions used in his previous publications, this chapter speaks to (and of) his experiences as a soldier, courtier, and author. It surveys the different genres that Churchyard employs (tragedy, fabliau, dream vision, reportage), and concludes that the volume explores the sorts of roles that might be played by an articulate, literate fighting man.