Late medieval literature was deeply determined by the global interest in entertaining and didactic storytelling. Some of the most famous authors who produced large collections of stories either in prose or in verse were Giovanni Boccaccio with his Decameron (ca. 1350), Geoffrey Chaucer with his Canterbury Tales (ca. 1400), Heinrich Kaufringer with his mæren (ca. 1400), Franco Sacchetti with his Il trecentonovelle (1399), Poggio Bracciolini with his Facetiae (ca. 1450), Johannes Pauli with his Schimpf und Ernst (1522), and Marguerite de Navarre with her Heptaméron (1558/1559). To what extent Indian, Persian, Arabic, or Hebrew literature might have influenced these European collections cannot be easily confirmed, but we can be certain that this genre lent itself well for cross-cultural exchanges throughout time. We also must not forget earlier Latin, Anglo-Norman, and Spanish sources (see, for instance,...
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Citation: Classen, Albrecht. "Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 June 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41299, accessed 13 December 2025.]
