An Exemplum (latin for "example", pl. exempla, exempli gratia = "for example", abbr.: e.g.) is a moral anecdote, brief or extended, real or fictitious, used to illustrate a point. Look up Example in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... An anecdote is a short tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident. ...

Collections of Exempla helped medieval preachers to adorn their sermons, to emphasize moral conclusions or illustrate a point of doctrine. The subject matter could be taken from fables, folktales, legends or real history. Jacques de Vitry's book of exempla, c. 1200, was one of the most famous collections. Geoffrey Chaucer's The Miller's Prologue and Tale became a vivid satire on these collections and the abuse they found wherever they were just brought into monotonous litanies. The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. ... In its strict sense a fable is a short story or folk tale embodying a moral, which may be expressed explicitly at the end as a maxim. ... Folklore is the ethnographic concept of the tales, legends, or superstitions current among a particular ethnic population, a part of the oral history of a particular culture. ... A legend (Latin, legenda, things to be read) is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. ... Jacques de Vitry (c. ... Geoffrey Chaucer (c. ... The Millers Prologue and Tale is the second of Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales, told by a drunken miller to quite The Knights Tale. ... A litany, in Christian worship, is a form of prayer used in church services and processions, and consisting of a number of petitions. ...

Exemplary literature

This was a genre sprung from the above, in classical, medieval and Renaissance literature, consisting of lives of famous figures, and using these (by emphasizing good or bad character traits) to make a moral point. Examples include Look up genre in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

• Suetonius's De vita Caesarum or Lives of the Twelve Caesars
• Plutarch's Parallel Lives
• Jerome's De viris illustribus
• Petrarch's De viris illustribus
• Chaucer's The Monk's Prologue and Tale, The Pardoner's Tale and The Legend of Good Women
• Boccacio's On Famous Women and Concerning the Falls of Illustrious Men
• Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies.
• Mirror for Magistrates by various Tudor authors