[2] In Western Europe, the medieval fabliau[3] and the Arab/Italian novella[4] built up a large body of humorous tales; but it was only with the Facetiae of Poggio (1451) that the anecdote first appears rendered down into joke form (with prominent punchline) in an early modern collection.
[9] Some, however (following a German model), did attempt to link their jokes into a picaresque sort of narrative around one, often roguish hero, as with Richard Tarlton.
[10] Jest books took a generally mocking tone,[11] with civility, and social superiors like the 'stupid scholar' as favourite targets.
[14] Playbooks and jestbooks were treated as forms of light entertainment, with jokes from the one being recycled in the other, and vice versa.
[16] Bowdlerisation in the 19th century completed the fall of the English-language jest book from Elizabethan vitality to subsequent triviality.