SOURCE: Webb, Clement C. J. “The Policraticus of John of Salisbury.” Church Quarterly Review 71, no. 142 (January 1911): 312-45.

In the following essay, Webb presents an overview of each of the books of the Policraticus.

The appearance of a new edition of the Policraticus of John of Salisbury [Ioannis Saresberiensis Episcopi Carnotensis Policratici sive de Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum Libri VIII., edited by Clemens C. I. Webb, 1909] may serve as the occasion of putting before readers of the Church Quarterly Review some account of the principal work of a great Englishman, ‘the central figure of English learning’ in his time, as Bishop Stubbs has called him. Though the principal, the Policraticus is not in itself the most interesting of its author's writings. It has not the importance for the history of European culture of its sequel the Metalogicon, whence we may learn what were the methods and results of...