Short comic tales in verse flourished in late medieval Germany, providing bawdy entertainment for larger audiences of public recitals as well as for smaller numbers of individual readers. In a sustained close analysis Sebastian Coxon explores both the narrative design and fundamental thematic preoccupations of these short texts. A distinctively performative tradition of pre-modern narrative literature emerges which invites its recipients to think, learn and above all to laugh in a number of different ways. Sebastian Coxon is a Lecturer in German at University College London. Book jacket.