The humorous tale known as Le Vilain Asnier has long been identified as a fabliau despite the fact that it shares several narrative elements in common with the Merlot exemplum from the Vie des pères and, more significantly perhaps, it stands in an even closer textual relationship to a number of exempla. In the course of the argument, the article takes a preliminary look at rubrics (tituli) as a way to approach medieval reader reception.