Magister, auctor, prince des poètes: such are the illustrious titles accorded to Ovid during the Middle Ages. From the eleventh and twelfth centuries, recognized as the ætas ovidiana, to the sacred sixteenth-century renaming of his Metamorphoses as the Bible des poètes, the period testifies to Ovid's prominent role in both scholastic and vernacular realms. His early dominance was assured by the frequent usage of both the Ars amatoria and the Remedia to teach Latin and rhetoric. The addition to these works of glosses on topics ranging from grammar to ethics only enhanced Ovid's aura of authority. His status expanded to the vernacular realm, where so-called fin'amors depended on him for guidance in appropriate behaviors and practices. And yet, behind this grand narrative of Ovid's medieval dominance, so often reiterated by scholars, hides another account of the master's reception.

As Peter Allen argues, by the mid-thirteenth century, a growing ecclesiastic concern for Ovid's negative influence led to the reassessment of the master's role in society. Consequently the Ars amatoria eventually disappeared from classroom instruction and even from library shelves, as the 1338 Sorbonne catalogue indicates. So insidious was Ovid believed to be that by the fifteenth century he was purged from school handbooks, which now promoted the auctores octo morales from which Ovid was excluded. Nevertheless, Ovid's rejection by the institution was countered by a fervent and sustained following in the vernacular. The best-known example of this appropriation concerns the Ovide moralisé, where an ethical rereading assured the master a renewed position of respect. Preceding this work, however, came a flurry of translations of the Ars amatoria that proposed a more aggressive engagement with the master. These mediated versions of Ovid often document a critical gaze cast not only on the precepts expressed in the work but on the authority commonly afforded the master.

The impact of these translations on Ovid's later reception can be detected well into the fifteenth century, where simple reference to the Ars amatoria had the effect of placing Ovid in a particularly vulnerable situation. Take for instance Christine de Pizan's reflections on Ovid as recorded in the Livre de la Cité des dames, where the narrator expresses her astonishment that Ovid should be given the title of ‘entre les poetes le plus souverain [the most sovereign of poets]’ when his Ars amatoria as well as the Remedia did such a great disservice to women.