The anonymous summa entitled Speculum iuniorum deserves pride of place among the masterpieces of Latin pastoral literature written for the education of priests and pastors of souls in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This ambitious work, written around 1250 possibly by a Dominican friar, and extending to more than 100 folios in many of the twelve known manuscript copies, is a unique amalgam of the latest teachings of the schools and the practical literature of pastoral care. It provides us, among other things, with a clear view of the syllabus of studies in theology and law that was thought appropriate for a shepherd of souls in the middle years of the thirteenth century and well beyond.

The author of the Speculum remains stubbornly anonymous, despite Leonard Boyle’s ingenious attempt, published in 1967, to identify him as an otherwise unknown ‘Master Galienus’. In a PhD dissertation written under Fr Boyle’s supervision I argued that this identification could not be maintained. This is not the place to rehearse the details of the arguments. Suffice it to say that Fr Boyle eventually gave his imprimatur to my argument. Whether he added his wholehearted placet remains to be learned in another place.

But, if the text of the Speculum remains anonymous, nevertheless a little light can be shed on the place, time and context of its composition. All of the extant manuscript copies (see above note 1) are preserved in English libraries and are apparently of English provenance. The author shows himself to be quite familiar with the series of English pastoral manuals written in the early thirteenth century, including Robert of Flamborough’s Liber penitentialis (c. 1213), Thomas of Chobham’s Summa cum miserationes (c. 1215), Richard of Wetheringsett’s Qui bene presunt (c. 1220) and Robert Grosseteste’s Templum Dei (c. 1225). This evidence would suggest that the author is an Englishman, and that his text circulated largely, if not exclusively, in England.

The author was also, almost certainly, a student in the schools. He quotes extensively and often explicitly from the Parisian theological masters of the first half of the thirteenth century, William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, Alexander of Hales (OFM), John of la Rochelle (OFM), and from the early writings of Albert the Great (OP). He also cites the two earliest Oxford Dominican masters, Robert Bacon (OP) and Richard Fishacre (OP), both of whom died in 1248.