Gesta Romanorum ('the deeds of the Romans'), the title of a collection of short stories and legends, in the Latin tongue, widely spread during the middle ages, but of the authorship of which little is known save that it took its present form most likely in England about the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century. The stories are invariably moralised, and indeed the edifying purpose throughout is the sole unifying element of the collection. The title is only so far descriptive as the nucleus of the collection consists of stories from Roman history, or rather pieces from Roman writers, not necessarily of any greater historical value than that of Androcles and the lion from Aulus Gellius. Moralised mystical and religious tales, as well as other pieces, many of ultimate oriental origin, were afterwards added, and upon them edifying conclusions hung but awkwardly, bringing the whole up to about 180 chapters. Oesterley supposes its origin to have been English: the claims to its authorship of the Benedictine prior at Paris, Petrus Berchorius (died 1362), or of a certain Helinandus, may safely be set aside. The style and narrative faculty displayed deserve but little commendation, but the book has a unique interest as at least the immediate source of many stories that have filled a large place in literature. It is enough to mention the stories 'Of Feminine Subtlety' (120), retold in verse by Hoccleve; 'Of the Coming of the Devil, and of the Secret Judgments of God' (80), the story of Parnell's Hermit; 'Of Women who not only betray secrets, but lie fearfully' (125), the story of the sixty black crows, the foundation of Dr Byrom's clever poem, The Three Black Crows; 'Of too much Pride, and how the Proud are frequently compelled to endure some notable humiliation' (59), a story of the Emperor Jovinian, the same as that of King Robert of Sicily as versified by Longfellow; 'Of the Transgressions and Wounds of the Soul' (102), the same as 'The Leech of Folkstone' in the Ingoldsby Legends; 'Of Mental Constancy' (172), a version of the romance of Guy of Warwick; and 'Of Ingratitude' (25), and 'Of Constancy' (66), together supplying the groundwork of Rossetti's poem, The Staff and Scrip. Here also may be found what are substantially the same stories as Chaucer's Man of Lawes Tale, and Shakespeare's King Lear and Merchant of Venice. One tale, 'Of the Game of Schaci' (166), is a somewhat obscure description of the game of chess. The longest story, 'Of Temporal Tribulation' (153), is that of the adventures of Apollonius of Tyre, his wife and daughter, as in Gower's Confessio Amantis, and in Pericles. Gower, however, took it from the Pantheon (end of the 13th century) of Godfrey of Viterbo. Enough has been said to show that great part of the stories belong alike in form and substance to the ancient story-stock of Europe, and hence the book must be studied side by side with the romance of Barlaam and Josaphat, the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus, the Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury, Voragine's Golden Legend, the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, and the medieval fables connected with the name of Æsop, no less than with such works of literary elaboration as the Arabian Nights, the Talmud, the Fabliaux, the Decameron, and the Canterbury Tales.
The stories in the Gesta Romanorum are mostly bald and inartistic, seldom if ever relieved by a touch of pathos or a gleam of humour, and never by any chance reaching the region of the really dramatic; yet they have a rare literary charm of their own in their utter naïveté and artlessness, as well as in the beautiful simplicity of their moralisations, based on a piety that questions nothing or finds relief in an unfathomed mysticism. Some of the best stories are those that gird at the weaknesses or faults of women—a direction in which monkish wit was ever prone to turn.
The modern form of the Gesta Romanorum is, as has been said, a collection of 181 stories, first printed about 1473, but no MS. corresponding exactly to which now exists. The first printed edition was issued at Utrecht in 150 chapters; the second, forming the standard text, within 181 chapters, at Cologne. Although both of these are undated, Oesterley proves that their publication falls between 1472 and 1475. An edition in English was printed by Wynkyn de Worde (1510-15), from MSS. differing widely from those reproduced in the early printed Latin versions. Oesterley divides the numerous MSS. into three groups or families: (1) the English group, written in Latin, the best representative of which has 102 chapters, of which 72 are found in the standard text; (2) the group of German and Latin MSS., represented by an edition printed in German at Augsburg in 1489; and (3) a group of MSS. represented by the standard text, influenced by distinct collections of stories, as Robert Holkot's Moralisationes Pulchre in Usum Prædicatorum and the like. The striking diversity between the MSS. in England and the printed collections led Douce to believe that there were two distinct collections of stories, one of German, the other of English origin. Oesterley's conclusion is that this Gesta was originally compiled in England, that it passed quickly to the Continent, was there altered considerably before being printed, and that both the two first printed editions were compiled from several MSS. The second (the standard) form was the largest, and, reaching England before any of the native MSS. had been printed, became accepted as the standard form for the printed text, spite of its many divergences from the MSS. that still existed.
An English version by the Rev. C. Swan was printed in two volumes in 1824; in a revised form, by Wynnard Hooper, in Bohn's 'Antiquarian Library,' in 1877. Sir F. Madden edited The Early English Versions of the Gesta Romanorum for the Roxburghe Club in 1838, Mr Sidney J. H. Hertrage for the Early English Text Society in 1879. Critical editions of the Latin text have been edited by A. Keller (Stuttgart, 1842), and H. Oesterley (Berlin, 1872), the last with a masterly introduction. See also the Dissertation in Warton's History of English Poetry, and in vol. ii. of Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare; but these must not now be followed implicitly.