Tales of a similar character to this will be found in the following
works written prior to Margaret’s time:--
Legrand d’Aussy’s collection of _Fabliaux ou Contes du XIIème et XIIIème
siècles_ (vol. iii.).
Boccaccio’s _Decameron_ (day viii., story iv.).
Enguerrand d’Oisy’s _Le Meunier d’Aleu_.
Poggio’s _Facetio ( Vir sibi cornua promovens)_.
Sacchetti’s _Novelle_ (vol. ii., No. ccvi.).
Morlini’s _Novelle_ (No. lxxix.).
_Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ (story ix.).
Malespini’s _Ducento Novelle_ (part ii., No. xcvi.).
Of the foregoing, says M. de Montaiglon, Margaret could only have been
acquainted with the _Decameron_, the _Cent Nouvelles_, and Poggio’s
_Facetio_, which had been translated into French by Tardix (see Nos. cv.
and ex. of that translation).
A similar story in Latin verse is also contained in a fourteenth century
MS. at Monte Cassino. See _I codici e le arti a Monte Cassino_, by D.
Andrea Caravita (vol. ii. p. 289).
Since Margaret’s time stories of the same character have appeared in the
following works:--
Melander’s _Jocondia_ (p. 298).
Phil. Béroalde’s _Contes Latins_ (see _Poggii Imitationes_, Noel’s éd.,
vol. ii. p. 245).
Guicciardini’s _Hore di Recreazione_ (p. 103).
J. Bouchet’s _Serées_ (No. 8; Roybet’s éd., vol. ii. p. 115).
Gabrielle Chapuys’ _Facétieuses Journées_ (p. 213).
La Fontaine’s _Contes_ (book v., No. viii.:_ Les Quiproquo_). _Le
Passe-Temps Agréable_ (p. 27).
Moreover, a song written on the same subject will be found, says M.
de Lincy, on folio 44 of the _Premier Recueil de toutes les chansons
nouvelles_ (Troyes, Nicholas du Ruau, 1590). It is there called “The
facetious and recreative story of a certain labourer of a village near
Paris, who, thinking that he was enjoying his servant, lay with his
wife.” This song was reprinted in various other collections of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.