exemplum

1. An example.
2. A brief story used to make a point in an argument or to illustrate a moral truth.

[Latin. See example.]

exemplum (plural ‐pla), a short tale used as an example to illustrate a moral point, usually in a sermon or other didactic work. The form was cultivated in the late Middle Ages, for instance in Robert Mannyng of Brunne's Handlyng Synne (early 14th century) and in Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale and Nun's Priest's Tale, as well as in many prose collections for the use of preachers. See also allegory, fable, parable.

Exemplum (plural exempla). A story (true or fictional) which provides concrete illustration of an abstract ethical point. Mentioned as a device in the Rhetorica ad Herennium (Ist c. bc), the exemplum had an important role in medieval textbooks of poetics. In his Poetria nova Geoffrey of Vinsauf discusses the use of exempla both to begin and to end a narrative. Manuals of preaching placed even greater stress on the use of these illustrative stories, and a number of collections of exempla were made for the use of homilists. Many vernacular genres acknowledge their kinship with exempla, with apparent seriousness in historiography, with varying degrees of good faith in romances, and seemingly parodically in the fabliaux.

[John Marenbon]