The fifteenth century was the period during which mediæval forms generally were changing into forms adapted to another state of society, and in which much of the popular literature which has been in vogue during modern times took its rise. In the fourteenth century, the fabliaux of the jougleurs were already taking what we may perhaps term a more literary form, and were reduced into prose narratives. This took place especially in Italy, where these prose tales were called _novelle_, implying some novelty in their character, a word which was transferred into the French language under the form of _nouvelles_, and was the origin of our modern English _novel_, applied to a work of fiction. The Italian novelists adopted the Eastern plan of stringing these stories together on the slight framework of one general plot, in which are introduced causes for telling them and persons who tell them. Thus the Decameron of Boccaccio holds towards the fabliaux exactly the same position as that of the "Arabian Nights" to the older Arabian tales. The Italian novelists became numerous and celebrated throughout Europe, from the time of Boccaccio to that of Straparola, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and later. The taste for this class of literature appears to have been introduced into France at the court of Burgundy, where, under duke Philippe le Bon, a well-known courtier and man of letters named Antoine de La Sale, who had, during a sojourn in Italy, become acquainted with one of the most celebrated of the earlier Italian collections, the "Cento Novello," or the Hundred Novels, compiled a collection in French in imitation of them, under the title of "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," or the Hundred new Novels, one of the purest examples of the French language in the fifteenth century.[76] The later French story-books, such as the Heptameron of the queen of Navarre, and others, belong chiefly to the sixteenth century. These collections of stories can hardly be said to have ever taken root in this island as a part of English literature. [76] I am obliged to pass over this part of the subject very rapidly. For the history of that remarkable book, the "Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," I would refer the reader to the preface to my own edition, "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, publiées d'après le seul manuscrit connu, avec Introduction et Notes, par M. Thomas Wright." 2 vols, 12mo., Paris, 1858.