Not surprisingly, the members of the Celtic Revival had difficulties reconciling the directness of the older Irish literature in bodily matters with the literary and moral code of their own time. In this they were no exception, although in their case the problem was aggravated by Ireland's colonial status. Everywhere in that world that we have somewhat incorrectly labelled as Victorian – a world shaped by nationalism, puritanism and triumphalist churches of various denominations –, the newly discovered medieval literatures confronted scholar and educated reader alike with this problem. As an example from outside Ireland may serve the great medievalist Joseph Bédier. In his monumental study of the French fabliaux, he distinguished the fabliaux obscènes as one of the categories. Yet, although he admitted that the laws of just proportion demanded that they be treated as thoroughly as the other categories, not only because of their number, but also because of the interest they had received throughout the Middle Ages, he relegated them to a simple list of titles in one of the numerous footnotes in the work. As he explained, he emphatically refused to descend that shameful spiral where deep down one could see the obscene tales stirring like unclean beasts. All he was prepared to say on the subject was that these histoires grasses had addressed themselves no less to the aristocracy, including the ladies, than to the bourgeois.