This study was initially undertaken with the single objective of devising a structural definition of fabliaux sufficiently general to embrace all extant examples of the genre, and sufficiently precise to permit a reasoned discrimination between narratives with a legitimate claim to inclusion in the canon and others that ought by definition to be excluded. This purpose has remained central, although in the course of its development the study has diverged into related areas such as fabliau origins and evolution. The system proposed, whereby fabliaux are conceived as combining a logically derived episteme with a Greimasian-model narreme, adequately accounts for the vast majority of texts that have featured in complete editions or in the fabliau inventories of critics concerned to identify all the relevant texts.

Other proposals for establishing generic boundaries are open to objection on a variety of bases. Bédier's definition of the fabliaux as ‘des contes à rire en vers’ has proved remarkably durable, and is still acceptable as the most valid general description of the core group of narratives that constitute the fabliau canon. But at the periphery of this group every element in the definition proves problematical. The verse form almost universally employed by fabliau authors is the octosyllabic couplet, but uniquely in the case of Le Prestre au Lardier even the concept vers is disputable.