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How did frame stories allow medieval storytellers to combine several separate tales?

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Analyze short fiction elements evidenced in “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Necklace,” and “The Magic Shop” — short story American editor and anthologist Clifton Fadiman discusses the elements of a short story, 1980. The video features clips from Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation's dramatizations of O. Henry's “The Gift of the Magi,” Guy de Maupassant's “The Necklace,” and H.G. Wells's “The Magic Shop.”

Medieval storytellers utilized frame stories to create a flexible structure that allowed for the juxtaposition of multiple, relatively autonomous tales. Because medieval literature often lacked an emphasis on organic unity, this format provided a convenient way to collect diverse narratives without requiring them to be tightly integrated.1

The frame acted as a unifying device—either externally imposed or integral to the tales—that permitted stories to be added or removed at random with minimal impact on the overall effect. Common framing circumstances included:21

Situational Delay: In collections like The Seven Sages of Rome or The Thousand and One Nights, characters tell stories to postpone a specific outcome, such as an execution.21
Social Gatherings: In works like Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron or Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the frame brings together characters who share stories as a form of amusement or during a shared journey, allowing for the development of dramatic relationships between the tellers and their tales.2

This technique effectively transformed a collection of individual narratives into a cohesive literary experience.2