This latest addition to Brill’s Companions to Medieval Literatures and Cultures gathers sixteen essays that reexamine mester de clerecía, the learned poetic tradition that flourished in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Spain. Originating from a 2015 conference at the University of Texas-El Paso titled “The Cleric’s Craft: Crossroads of Medieval Spanish Literature and Modern Critique,” the volume is not, however, a mere collection of proceedings. Through considerable dedication and labor—including their own translation of four essays into English—the editors have transformed the material into a coherent and genuinely interdisciplinary volume that brings together philology, manuscript studies, cultural theory, and transnational perspectives. The diversity of the volume’s approaches and methods reflects the expanding interdisciplinarity of contemporary medieval Iberian studies, situating the mester de clerecía within wider discussions of authorship, textuality, and cross-cultural exchange.
In the general introduction, Bower and Desing describe the aim of the volume as offering “a faceted introduction to a transformative passage in the literary and cultural history of the Iberian Peninsula” (1)—namely, the emergence of an intellectual class of poets writing in Castilian, and the corpus that ensued. The first of the introduction’s four sections revisits the central debates over what constitutes mester de clerecía: a narrow definition limited to explicitly clerical and didactic works composed in cuaderna vía, and a broader one that expands the canon to as many as thirty-five surviving texts. This discussion traces the tradition from the thirteenth-century Libro de Alexandre through the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The editors also provide a survey of early mester de clerecía scholarship, beginning with George Ticknor and Manuel Milá y Fontanals—who first coined the term—and following its development through twentieth-century debates. Although the introduction at times places undue emphasis on Anglo-American perspectives, it nonetheless offers a valuable genealogy of the field. The final section of the introduction, “Accompanying Clerecía: Opening New Chapters in Mester Scholarship,” underscores the collaborative nature of the project, bringing together contributions from European, North American, and Argentinian scholars. The editors conclude with an overview of the volume’s four main parts.
Part One, “Contexts of Production and Reception,” explores the origins, literary environments, and early reception of mester de clerecía poetry, with particular attention to meter, authority, and classical influence. Together, the four essays in this section situate the mester de clerecía within classical, religious, and intellectual frameworks, underscoring its formal discipline and cosmopolitan foundations. Clara Pascual-Argente’s essay, “The Matter of Meter: Cuaderna Vía and the Castilian Romance of Antiquity,” exemplifies this approach by positioning the Libro de Alexandre and the Libro de Apolonio within a broader European revival of classical learning. She argues that these works should be understood not as isolated Castilian phenomena but as part of a pan-European conversation with antiquity and its poetic traditions. In “The Work of the Word: The Authority of Writing in Mester de Clerecía Poetry,” Olivier Biaggini examines how clerical poets established authorial legitimacy through appeals to textual authority and intertextual practice. Through close readings of Berceo’s Vida de santo Domingo de Silos and the Libro de buen amor, Biaggini shows how references to written precedent both consolidate and complicate clerical authority. Fernando Baños Vallejo’s “Beyond the Letter: Rhythm in theMester de Clerecía” challenges modern editorial attempts to reconstruct an “original” version of these poems, instead emphasizing the poets’ metrical precision and rhythmic design as essential markers of authorship and clerical artistry. Finally, María Cristina Balestrini’s “The Libro de Alexandre and the Limits of Modernitas” places the Alexandre within the intellectual currents of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century renaissance, linking it to the roman antique tradition and to shifting conceptions of clerical modernity.
Part Two, “Matters of Formal Transmission,” turns to the philological foundations of mester de clerecía studies, illustrating how textual criticism, material philology, and manuscript studies have reshaped our understanding of clerical poetics. In their prefatory note (which precedes each of the four main sections), the editors trace the evolution of philology from nineteenth-century positivism to contemporary approaches that treat manuscripts not as flawed copies but as cultural artifacts in their own right. Accordingly, this section demonstrates how material form and historical context are inseparable from literary meaning. In “Fire and False Prophets: Ecdotica and the Audiences of Early Thirteenth-Century Poetry,” Anthony Lappin combines textual criticism and reception studies to examine how early mester poets negotiated authorial authority and audience response. His readings of Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora and the Libro de Alexandre model a fruitful synthesis of textual and interpretive analysis. Similarly, Pablo Ancos, in “The Last Line of the Monorhyme Quatrain and the Artistry of the Cleric’s Craft,” explores the structural and thematic resonance of the final line in cuaderna vía stanzas. Through meticulous metrical study, he shows how the stanza’s closure becomes a site of reflection and synthesis, uniting form and intellectual design. Carina Zubillaga’s “Reading Epiphany in the Libro de Apolonio and Its Codicological Context” examines Escorial manuscript K-III-4, which transmits the Libro de Apolonio, the Vida de santa María Egipciaca, and the Libro de los tres reyes de Oriente. Zubillaga argues that the compilation centers on the theme of divine manifestation, revealing how material context shapes theological interpretation. Finally, Matthew Desing’s “Reorienting Mester de Clerecía Transmission: Escorial Manuscript K-III-4 as Travel Literature in Late Medieval Aragon” revisits the same codex from a different perspective, interpreting it as evidence of late medieval Aragonese engagement with the eastern Mediterranean and as a reflection of broader patterns of cultural mobility and exchange.
As its title suggests, Part Three, “Cultural Studies Approaches,” brings methodologies from Cultural Studies—gender, affect, corporeality, and related fields—into conversation with mester de clerecía texts. The editors frame this section as a continuation of twentieth-century theoretical developments that have reshaped literary interpretation. Connie Scarborough’s “Gonzalo de Berceo: The Authority to Write and the Dictates of Humility” examines the tension between self-assertion and modesty in Berceo’s construction of clerical authorship. ReadingMilagros de Nuestra Señora alongside Los signos del juicio final, she shows how Berceo negotiates authority through humility and self-consciousness. Similarly, Martha Daas, in “The Sacred Re-Imagined: Ekphrasis and Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora,” explores Berceo’s visual poetics, linking his descriptive strategies to medieval visual culture and to the affective dimensions of devotion, particularly in his portrayals of sacred art. Andrew Beresford’s “The Ascetic Body of St. Dominic of Silos” turns to corporeality and asceticism in Berceo’s Vida de santo Domingo de Silos, juxtaposing it with the Vida de santa María Egipciaca to analyze bodily suffering as both a theme and a metaphor for spiritual authorship. Finally, Emily Francomano’s “Feeling Like a King: The Libro de Apolonio and the History of the Emotions” applies affect theory to questions of kingship and emotion, demonstrating how the poem’s treatment of feeling and embodiment articulates medieval conceptions of virtue and governance. Although the approaches represented in this section are diverse, together they expand the interpretive horizons of the field, revealing the mester de clerecía not merely as a formal poetic school but as a site of ethical, emotional, and cultural inquiry.
Part Four, “Mester de Clerecía in a Broader Context,” extends the discussion beyond Christian Castile, incorporating Jewish, Muslim, and cross-Mediterranean perspectives that redefine themester de clerecía as a transcultural phenomenon. The essays collected here emphasize how its forms and themes circulated among Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. In “‘Sweet Tweets and Cries’: The Wonders of Poro’s Palace in the Libro de Alexandre,” Michelle Hamilton traces Eastern motifs derived from Arabic and Middle Eastern traditions, showing how Muslim intermediaries transmitted both classical and Oriental materials to Christian poets. Ryan Giles’s “The Thornbush and the Tattered Garment: Shared Metaphors in the Libro de buen amor and Proverbios morales” brings Juan Ruiz and Shem Tov de Carrión into dialogue, highlighting their shared metaphors and ethical frameworks that transcend confessional boundaries. Finally, Donald Wood’s “The Coplas de Yosef: A Medieval Hebrew-Aljamiado Poem of Heroism and Courtly Composure” examines a fourteenth-century Jewish adaptation of mester de clerecía poetry, written in Castilian but transcribed in Hebrew script. He shows how the poem fuses Biblical narrative with cuaderna vía metrics and courtly ethos, exemplifying Jewish participation in the intellectual and literary culture of medieval Iberia.
The volume concludes with an epilogue by Robin Bower, “Prequels and Afterlives: The Exemplarity of Fernán González,” in which the editor reflects on the enduring legacy of themester de clerecía. Although the inclusion of an epilogue may at first appear somewhat awkward—especially since Part Four contains one fewer essay than the other sections—it soon becomes clear that Bower’s choice is deliberate. By analyzing how the Poema de Fernán González continues to inspire new readings through its moral ambition and intellectual rigor, she effectively uses the poem to underscore the volume’s broader goal: to present the mester de clerecía as a dynamic mode of literary production central to ongoing debates about text, authority, and culture.
Taken as a whole, the volume functions both as a reference work—a true “companion”—and as a platform for new directions in mester de clerecía scholarship. Its principal strength lies in its methodological diversity, ranging from metrical and manuscript studies to affect theory and comparative religion. At times, the emphasis on Anglo-American scholarship and theoretical framing risks overshadowing Iberian philological traditions, yet the overall balance of approaches remains highly productive.
Still, several critical observations are in order. Early in the introduction, the editors assert thatmester de clerecía “has received neither the recognition, nor, consequently, the deep exploration that it deserves” (1). This claim seems somewhat overstated given the considerable body of existing scholarship—well summarized, if only broadly, in the introduction itself. Moreover, the decision to summarize the volume’s contents twice—first in the general introduction and again in each section’s preface—creates a measure of redundancy. Some of the editors’ claims of “bridge-building” between different scholarly traditions also feel more aspirational than fully realized. As they note, the volume “represents a major step forward in bridging the gaps that separate...strands of scholarship” (2); yet in practice, certain essays remain firmly rooted in traditional philological methods, while others are more overtly theoretical, and the integration between these approaches is not always seamless. In this respect, the “bridging” occurs more at the level of compilation than through sustained methodological dialogue.
There are also a few inconsistencies in presentation and production. While publishing all contributions in English lends the collection coherence, it also limits its audience and reinforces the predominance of Anglo-American perspectives. More than half of the contributors (nine) are based at U.S. institutions, with the remaining seven working in Argentina or Europe (including the United Kingdom). The spine misprints the title as A New Companion to Mester de Clerecía Poetry, and the series numbering appears irregular: this is volume 3, following volume 2 (A New Companion to the Libro de buen amor), while volume 1 seems never to have appeared in print. Finally, and perhaps predictably for a North American publication, there is no uniform standard for citing or presenting medieval Spanish texts.
In conclusion, A Companion to Mester de Clerecía Poetry represents a milestone in medieval Iberian literary studies. It consolidates decades of philological research while incorporating new cultural and comparative perspectives. More importantly, it redefines the mester de clerecía not as a static or arcane poetic form, but as a dynamic field of inquiry that engages questions of authority, devotion, textuality, and intercultural exchange. The volume’s particular strength lies in its balance between rigorous textual scholarship and innovative cultural analysis. As with many Brill publications, its high price may limit accessibility, and some chapters are notably technical; nevertheless, for graduate students and scholars, it will be an essential reference. Comprehensive yet forward-looking, rigorous yet imaginative, Bower and Desing’s volume both consolidates recent advances and opens new directions for research. It will undoubtedly become a touchstone for future work on one of the Iberian Middle Ages’ most distinctive literary traditions.