Exemplum

Collections of exempla[1] helped medieval preachers to adorn their sermons, to emphasize moral conclusions or illustrate a point of doctrine.

Jacques de Vitry's book of exempla, c. 1200, Nicholas Bozon's Les contes moralisés (after 1320), and Odo of Cheriton's Parabolae (after 1225) were famous medieval collections aimed particularly at preachers.

Examples dealing with historical figures include: The Norton Anthology of Western Literature includes three exempla (singular, exemplum), stories that illustrate a general principle or underscore a moral lesson: "The Two City Dwellers and the Country Man" and "The King's Tailor's Apprentice" (both from The Scholar's Guide) and "The Cursed Dancers of Colbeck."

In "The Two City Dwellers and the Country Man," told by the father, the three traveling companions of the tale's title are on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

As the city dwellers sleep, the country man, alert to their intended deception, eats the half-baked bread before retiring.

Upon learning that he has been left out, Nedui avenges himself upon his master by telling the eunuch whom the king has set over the apprentices as their supervisor that the tailor is subject to seizures of madness, during which he becomes violent and dangerous.

The father tells the son the moral of the story: "The tailor deserved his punishment because if he had kept the precept of Moses, to love his brother as himself, this would not have happened to him."

A prose version of it appears in the early 12th century Gesta Regum Anglorum by William of Malmesbury, which in turn was probably taken from the Translatio Sanctae Edithae by Goscelin under the literary influence of the nunnery at Wilton Abbey.

When "twelve fools" in Colbeck (or, as the editors' note explains, "Kolbigk, in Saxony, an area in eastern Germany, just north of the present-day Czech border") decided, one Christmas Eve, to make "a carol—madly, as a kind of challenge," and persisted in singing and dancing in the churchyard while the priest was trying to conduct Mass, despite his entreaties to them to stop, the priest calls upon God to curse them.

The priest, too late, sends his son, Ayone, to rescue his daughter, Ave, who is one of the "twelve fools" involved in the dancing.

Everyone, including the emperor, comes to see the cursed dancers, who, despite no rest, food, drink, or sleep, dance non-stop, night and day, regardless of the temperature or the weather.

The emperor installs the container in the church as a receptacle for the dead girl's arm, and it becomes a holy relic commemorating the miracle of the curse.

Nor did they ever have relief..." Although some believe and others doubt the authenticity of the tale he's told, the narrator says he recounted the story so that his listeners, taking heed, may be "afraid to carol in a church or churchyard, especially against the priest's will," as "jangling is a form of sacrilege."