Auctores octo morales

The "Auctores octo morales" (Eight Moral Authors) was a collection of Latin textbooks, of an elementary standard, that was used for pedagogy in the Middle Ages in Europe. It was printed in many editions, from the end of the fifteenth century. At that time it became standardised as:

#Distichs of Cato
#Eclogue of Theodulus
#"Facetus: Liber Faceti docens mores iuvenum
#"De contemptu mundi" [Then typically attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, in fact by Bernard of Cluny. Wikisource _la. De contemptu mundi|De contemptu mundi]
#"Liber Floretus" [Also Bernard of Cluny]
#Matthew of Vendôme, "Tobias"
#Alan of Lille, "Doctrinale altum parabolarum"
#Aesop, version attributed to Gualterus Anglicus ( [http://bestlatin.net/sources/walter.htm online text] ). ["A selection of some eighty fables was turned into indifferent prose in the ninth century, probably at the Schools of Charles the Great. This was attributed to a fictitious Romulus. Another prose collection by Ademar of Chabannes was made before 1030, and still preserves some of the lines of the lost Fables of Phaedrus. The Fables became especially popular among the Normans. A number of them occur on the Bayeux Tapestry, and in the twelfth century England, the head of the Angevin empire became the home of the Fable, all the important adaptations and versions of Aesop being made in this country. One of these done into Latin verse by Walter the Englishman became the standard Aesop of medieval Christendom." [http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aesop/a3j/a3j_hist.html] ]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.querinistampalia.it/biblioteca/cataloghi/cataloghi_incunaboliA.html Catalogue entry for "Auctores Octo cum Commentario" of 1494]