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"Phyllis and Flora" is the name of a medieval Latin song known from about a dozen sources. None of those sources has the complete poem; the version from the Carmina Burana, for example, only contains the first sixty one and a half stanzas, with the rest being lost prior to binding. It tells the story of a debate between two young women as to which type of man makes a better lover: clerics or knights. Unable to resolve the dispute, the two travel to the court of Cupid, where it is decided that clerics are superior. Translators and commentators have wryly noted that this is unsurprising, as the piece was almost certainly written by a Goliardic cleric.
The title of the poem is not given in the original Latin. Translators and commentators have variously titled the piece "Phyllis and Flora", "All About Phyllis and Flora", and so on. The earliest known English translation was published in 1595 under the title "The Amorous Contention of Phillis and Flora", in George Chapman's Ovid's Banquet of Sence. A 1598 version was published as simply "Phyllis and Flora", with the subtitle of "The Sweete and Ciuill Contention of Two Amorous Ladyes". That version was translated under the byline of "R.S. Esquire" who, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, was most likely Richard Stapleton, a friend of Chapman.