extended circulation by the agency of the printing press. Bonus
Accursius, as early as 1475-1480, printed the collection of these
fables, made by Planudes, which, within five years afterwards,
Caxton translated into English, and printed at his press in West-
minster Abbey, 1485.[10] It must be mentioned also that the
learning of this age has left permanent traces of its influence
on these fables,[11] by causing the interpolation with them of
some of those amusing stories which were so frequently introduced
into the public discourses of the great preachers of those days,
and of which specimens are yet to be found in the extant sermons
of Jean Raulin, Meffreth, and Gabriel Barlette.[12] The
publication of this era which most probably has influenced these
fables, is the "Liber Facetiarum,"[13] a book consisting of a
hundred jests and stories, by the celebrated Poggio Bracciolini,
published A.D. 1471, from which the two fables of the "Miller,
his Son, and the Ass," and the "Fox and the Woodcutter," are
undoubtedly selected.

The knowledge of these fables rapidly spread from Italy into
Germany, and their popularity was increased by the favor and
sanction given to them by the great fathers of the Reformation,
who frequently used them as vehicles for satire and protest
against the tricks and abuses of the Romish ecclesiastics. The
zealous and renowned Camerarius, who took an active part in the
preparation of the Confession of Augsburgh, found time, amidst
his numerous avocations, to prepare a version for the students in
the university of Tubingen, in which he was a professor. Martin
Luther translated twenty of these fables, and was urged by
Melancthon to complete the whole; while Gottfried Arnold, the
celebrated Lutheran theologian, and librarian to Frederick I,