The significance of a division of ancient and early mediæval tales into anecdote and scenario or summary romance becomes at once clearer by reference to the greatest mediæval collection, the _Decameron_ (1353) of Boccaccio. More than half the tales of the _Decameron_ may readily be grouped as anecdote--all of the sixth day, for instance, most of the first and eighth, half of the ninth. Of these some approach consistency of form. Having long introductions, unnecessary lapse of time, or other looseness of structure, they still work out a main situation in one day or one night; they sometimes show dramatic ingenuity of incident; less frequently they reach distinct climax. Where the climax, as in the majority of cases, is merely an ingenious escape or a triumphant retort, of course the tale remains simple anecdote; but in some few the climax is the result of the action, is more nearly a culmination. This is the character of the seventh day. Another class in the _Decameron_ rapidly summarises a large plot, the action ranging widely in time and place. A narrative sketch, usually of a romance, it corresponds essentially to the _Aucassin and Nicolette_ type,[29] and includes nearly one half. Here was an open mine for the romantic drama of later centuries. The _Decameron_, then, is almost all either anecdote or scenario. But not quite all. Besides those tales which seem to show a working for consistency, there are a few that definitely achieve it. The fourth of the first day (The Monk, the Woman, and the Abbot) is compact within one place and a few hours. All it lacks for short story is definite climax. Very like in compactness is the first of the second day (The Three Florentines and the Body of the New Saint). Firmer still is the eighth of the eighth day (Two Husbands and Two Wives). Here the climax is not only definite, but is a solution, and includes all four characters. If it is not convincing, that is because the _Decameron_ is hardly concerned with characterisation. The action covers two days. It might almost as easily have been kept within one. Finally there are two tales that cannot, without hair-splitting, be distinguished from modern short story. The second tale of the second day (Rinaldo, for his prayer to St. Julian, well lodged in spite of mishap) is compressed within a single afternoon and night and a few miles of a single road. The climax is definitely a solution. The movement is largely by dialogue. In a word, the tale is a self-consistent whole. Equally self-consistent, and quite similar in method, is that farce comedy of errors, the sixth tale of the ninth day (Two Travellers in a Room of Three Beds), which Chaucer has among his Canterbury Tales. Both these are short stories. If the other three be counted with them, we have five out of a hundred.[30] [Sidenote: Les Cent Nouvelles, Bandello, The Heptameron.]