Fabliaux, a group of over a hundred compositions peculiar to the literature of France, consisting of metrical tales, usually satirical in quality, written in octosyllabic couplets, the epoch of the production of which covers about a century and a half. The oldest preserved appears to be Richeut (about 1156); the greater number belong to the end of the 12th and the commencement of the 13th century; the most modern are those of Jean de Condé and of Watriquet, at the beginning of the 14th century. Society and literature then underwent a considerable change, and henceforward fabliaux proper disappear, being represented during the 15th century on one side by the prose tale, on the other by the farce, whence sprung in the fullness of time the modern novel and the comedy. Many of the French rhymed stories of the 12th and 13th centuries reappear later in the literature of other peoples, chiefly in Italy and England. It is certain that Boccaccio and Chaucer, for example, have sometimes imitated the French fabliaux, but this need not have been necessarily the case, as these stories circulated freely orally over all Europe, not to speak of their admission into sermons and books of edification.
Undoubtedly most of the stories were of oriental and especially Indian origin, many bearing distinctly the imprint of Buddhism, which has ever favoured the method of teaching by parable. These stories reached Europe by two main channels: from Byzantium, which received them from Syria or from Persia, whence they had been carried direct from India; and secondly, from the Arabs. The Arab importation took place at two widely different points: in Spain, largely by the mediation of the Jews; and in Syria, at the time of the Crusades. In Spain the transmission was mainly literary (through such media as the Disciplina Clericalis); in the East, on the contrary, the Crusaders, who lived in intimate contact with the Mussulman population, received many stories orally. Some of these being of Buddhistic origin were already moral and ascetic in character, and therefore easily Christianised; others, under cover of the final moral, related adventures that were dubious enough, but which were remembered while the tedious and not always relevant moral was forgotten; while others again were retained and transmitted simply for their wit. The fabliaux were, however, without exception, strangers to those great collections transmitted entire from one language to another; they spring from oral transmission and not from books. A few even are due to the native invention of their authors.
Their most general characteristic is their humorous and comic quality, too often involved in obscenity, and not infrequently falling into the most rapid platitude. Many of them are satirical, girding especially at certain classes, as villeins and clerics, who are made the heroes of amorous adventures, now happy, now unhappy. A few are concerned with religion, and these are incongruous and irreverent enough. The fabliaux were not written for women, no doubt being usually recited by the jongleurs when the women had left the room; hence women are usually presented in the most unfavourable colours, whether as abandoned in character, or merely as peevish and jealous. They abound in gross sallies, the aim of which was but a moment's laugh; yet many are sweet little stories, very well told, and usually very moral or very sentimental. All have the great merit of painting the real life of their time; not at all of set purpose, but without effort they enable us to penetrate into the hearths of nobles, clergy, citizens, or peasants, and they speak to us in the familiar tongue of diverse classes of society in France about seven centuries ago. Their authors are seldom known. One or two names are Huon le Roi, author of Vair Palefroi; Jean Bedel, author of Barat et Haimet; Gautier le
Long; Jacques de Baisieu; Henri d'Andeli; Rustebuf; Garin; Jean le Galois d'Aubepierre, author of La Bourse pleine de sens; and Jean de Condé.
All the fabliaux are printed by A. de Montaiglon and G. Raynaud in their great Recueil général et complet des Fabliaux des XIIIe et XIVe Siècles (Paris, 6 vols. 1872-90). See also Gaston Paris, Les Contes orientaux dans la Littérature Française du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1877), and pp. 110-116 of La Littérature Française au Moyen Âge (Paris, 1888); also Landau, Die Quellen des Dekameron (2d ed. Stutt. 1884).