Two "English fabliaux":: Chaucer's 'Merchant's Tale' and 'Shipman's Tale' and Italian 'Novelle'

Two of Chaucer's comic tales, assumed to have French fabliaux sources, the "Shipman's Tale" and the "Merchant's Tale," indicate the influence of the Italian novella, most especially the trecento novellas of Boccaccio's "Decameron." The novellas should be given the same status, as sources or close analogues, as the French fabliaux.