Fabliaux are cheerful, rhymed short stories that were very popular in France from the 12th to the 14th century. Their stated goal was to dispel everyday worries and entertain the audience. To this end, the authors drew on a rich thematic spectrum of pure humanity: love and hate, bribery and honor, foolishness and wisdom, self-satisfaction and disrespect, superstition and self-deception. In form, they can be placed between Boccaccio's Decameron and today's blonde jokes: not quite as elaborate as the former and not quite as one-dimensional as the latter. In the spirit of the "Europa Erlesen" series, these texts reveal a very stimulating aspect of the French Middle Ages for German-speaking readers.