Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases : Harvard University Press : 9780674437357 : 0674437357 : 24 Apr 2014 : This book is a collection of English proverbs, sentences, and proverbial phrases from the Middle Ages. The material is drawn from an exhaustive examination of the surviving texts, mainly printed ones but some still in manuscript. Certain books written later than 1500, usually by authors who were born twenty years or so before the turn of the century, are included, and John Heywood, the first great assembler of English proverbs, is represented by the sayings he compiled. , "No matter how popular a saying may appear," Mr. Whiting points out in his Preface, "it comes to us at one remove or more from popular usage. The medieval proverbs which survive do so only because they were written down by educated men, none of them collectors from the field. In most cases the sayings were incorporated in literary works by authors who did not hesitate to make changes suggested by con