Albrecht Classen 
Translation of Johannes Pauli’s Didactic Tales 
Lessons from the Past for Our Future

The Franciscan preacher and author Johannes Pauli published a highly influential collection of sermon narratives, Schimpf und Ernst, in 1522. This was a major bestseller well into the 17th and 18th centuries. These short prose narratives (the original work consisted of 693 texts) set the stage for many subsequent anthologies of jest narratives by sixteenth-century writers such as Georg Wickram and Hans-Wilhelm Kirchhof. The two title terms derive from Horace’s "prodesse et delectare" (to profit and to delight), used here to reference entertaining teachings about human shortcomings, foolishness, virtues and vices. Pauli offered valuable insights into matters such as truth, greed, lust, anger, war and peace, violence and love, gender issues, and communication. The present translation makes the majority of these tales available for the first time in the English language.