Invisible-cloth scam — the naked king
About the work
Imported from the workbook's Full reassessment sheet, revised 7 October 2026 (record ID 70). The assessment below is the workbook's comparative judgment under its stated criteria; source links and limits are retained.
Workbook assessment: Spread only
Date or witness: Conde Lucanor composed c.1331–1335; major surviving copy BNE MSS/6376 second half of 15th century
Region: Castile, Spain
Workbook date-sort bounds: 1331 CE to 1335 CE; these bounds are not automatically invention or disappearance dates.
Description
Fraudulent weavers claim their cloth is invisible to people whose supposed fathers are not their real fathers. The court pretends to see it until a servant calls out the naked king.
Evidence of adoption or transmission
The invisible-cloth story has a medieval literary witness and later adaptations.
What remains uncertain
Conde Lucanor was aristocratic instruction; a servant exposing the fraud within the story does not prove that servants circulated it. Modern Andersen transmission must not be back-projected into medieval popular culture.
Workbook revision note: Reassessed using grassroots criteria