Note 304 — Chapter IV · THE MINSTREL REPERTORY

Paris, § 109; Bédier, 31. A fabliau is properly a ‘conte à rire en vers’; the term dit is applied more generally to a number of short poems which deal, ‘souvent avec agrément, des sujets empruntés à la vie quotidienne.’ Some dits are satirical, others eulogistic of a class or profession, others descriptive. But the distinction is not very well defined, and the fabliaux are often called dits in the MSS.