Funny, witty and biting medieval Latin satire, flourishing in the 12th and 13th centuries, is not as famous as its Roman predecessor. The first part of this book therefore examines and evaluates four almost unknown satirical poems of considerable length, which dealt with the vices of the clergy in this period.
The second part of this book presents one of these entertaining texts for the first time in a critical edition. The "Speculum prelatorum" demonstrates in an exemplary way the sophistication, erudition and the literary skills, which are typical of Latin satirical writers.

Contributions by: Maurice Bloch, Jennifer Cole, Sandra Evers, David Graeber, Michael Lambek, Pier Larson, Françoise Raison-Jourde, Karina Hestad Skeie, Lesley Sharp, Andrew Walsh