Mester de Clerecía ("Ministry of Clergy") is a Spanish literature genre that can be understood as an opposition and surpassing of Mester de Juglaría. It was cultivated in the 13th century by Spanish learned poets, usually clerics (hence the name 'clerecía'). Unlike Mester de Juglaría, Mester de Clerecía was written on paper, not anonymous, with regular metre (the cuaderna vía) and done by educated authors. Also the topics are more serious: religious, historical and novelesque. The stanzas in them are composed of 4 alexandrine lines which contain 14 syllables each. * v * t * e