Chapter 5

The eventual re-introduction, however, of these Fables of Æsop to their high place in the general literature of Christendom, is to be looked for in the West rather than in the East. The calamities gradually thickening round the Eastern Empire, and the fall of Constantinople, 1453 A.D. combined with other events to promote the rapid restoration of learning in Italy; and with that recovery of learning the revival of an interest in the Fables of Æsop is closely identified. These fables, indeed, were among the first wr…