Abstract
Medieval culture adapted theexemplum– Latin for “example” – from classical rhetoric. In addition to widespread rhetorical uses of the form, the Middle Ages also developed three distinct narrative genres: the sermon exemplum; the public exemplum; and the literary exemplum. All three of these genres played an important role in the writing and culture of later medieval Britain. The most important medieval collection of public exempla, thePolicraticusof John of Salisbury, was produced in England. The exemplum figures in the work of nearly every major Middle English poet, including the Gawain‐poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Lydgate.
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