Stella clericorum

One of the forgotten works of the Middle Ages is the Stella clericorum, edited here for the first time since the sixteenth century. Though short, often derivative in content, and generally rather unassuming, the Stella clericorum was nonetheless one of the most popular traetises of the later Middle Ages. More perhaps than any other work of the period, the Stella clericorum pulls together into a brief and usefull treatise the characteristic twelfth-century themes of dignity of the priesthood and the dangers of spiritual negligence, which helps to explain its continuing medieval popularity.