Of course manuscripts of the longer secular poems were made and used,—mean, stunted copies from which the travelling entertainer could refresh his memory or add to his stock of tales; fair closet copies that would enable well-to-do admirers to renew their pleasure when no skilled minstrel was by; and, occasionally, compact libraries of romance, like the Auchinleck manuscript, which must have been the treasure of some great household that enjoyed 'romanz-reding _on þe bok_'—the pastime that encouraged the rise of prose romances in the late Middle Ages. But as a means of circulation for popular verse, as distinct from learned verse and from prose, the book was of secondary importance in its own time, and was always subject to exceptional risks. The fates of three stories in different kinds, all demonstrably favourites in the fourteenth century, will be sufficient illustration: of _Floris and Blauncheflour_, one of the best of the early romances in the courtly style, several manuscripts survive, but when all are assembled the beginning of the story is still wanting; of _Havelok_, typical of the homely style, one imperfect copy and a few charred fragments of another are extant; of the _Tale of Wade_, that was dear to 'olde wydwes',[21] and yet considered worthy to entertain the noble Criseyde,[22] no text has come down. Evidently, to determine the relative popularity of the longer tales in verse we need not so much a catalogue of extant manuscripts, as a census, that cannot now be taken, of the repertories of the entertainers. [Foot-note 21: Chaucer, _Merchant's Tale_, ll. 211 ff.] [Foot-note 22: Chaucer, _Troilus and Criseyde_, Bk. iii, l. 614.] If the manuscript life of the longer secular poems was precarious, the chances of the short pieces—songs, ballads, jests, comic dialogues, lampoons—were still worse. Since they were composed for the day without thought of the future, and were no great charge on the ordinary memory, the chief motives for writing them down were absent; and no doubt the professional minstrel found that to secure his proprietary rights against competitors, he must be chary of giving copies of his best things. Many would never be put into writing; some were jotted down on perishable wax; but parchment, always too expensive for ephemeral verse, was reserved for special occasions. In France, in the thirteenth century, Henri d'Andeli adds a touch of dignity to his poem celebrating the memory of a distinguished patron by inscribing it on parchment instead of the wax tablets he used for lighter verses.[23] In England in 1305, a West-Country swashbuckler, whom fear of the statute against _Trailebastouns_ kept in the greenwood, relieves his offended dignity by composing a poem half apologetic, half minatory, and chooses as the safest way of publication to write it on parchment and throw it in the high road:—