¹ The Gesta is often mentioned as one of Shakespeare’s sources but rarely analyzed in detail. For a discussion of exemplum materials including the Gesta in relation to Shakespeare’s plays see Beatrice Daw Brown’s treatment of Macbeth: ’Exemplum Materials Underlying Macbeth,’ PMLA 50 (1935), 700–714. On Shakespeare’s sources for the casket and bond plots (both at least in part Gesta stories) in the Merchant see Milton A. Levy, ‘Did Shakespeare Join the Casket and Bond Plots in The Merchant of Venice?’ Shakespeare Quarterly 11 (1960), 388–391.

² Recently, many critics have become interested in discussing continuities between the medieval and early modern periods. See, for example, James Simpson, Reform and Cultural Revolution (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002).