Abstract: This essay begins by focusing on Bede's De schematibus et tropis, which adds considerably to its two principal sources, Donatus and Cassiodorus. Bede's work in turn was a major source for the fourteenth-century Occitan work known as the Leys d'Amors,whose author in turn amplified what he found in Bede, especially in his treatment of the tropes in Book IV. The essay concludes by explaining the choice of Bede as a source for the Leys in terms of the political and religious history of the period.