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GOLIARD

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 225 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GOLIARD , a name applied to those wandering students (vagantes) and clerks in See also:

England, See also:France and See also:Germany, during the 12th and 13th centuries, who were better known for their rioting, gambling and intemperance than for their scholarship. The derivation of the word is uncertain. It may come from the See also:Lat. See also:gula, gluttony (See also:Wright), but was connected by them with a mythical " See also:Bishop Golias," also called " archipoeta " and " primas "—especially in Germany—in whose name their satirical poems were mostly written. Many scholars have accepted Btidinger's See also:suggestion (Uber einige Reste der Vagantenpoesie in Osterreich, See also:Vienna, 1854) that the See also:title of Golias goes back to the See also:letter of St See also:Bernard to See also:Innocent II., in which he referred to See also:Abelard as See also:Goliath, thus connecting the goliards with the keen-witted student adherents of that See also:great See also:medieval critic. See also:Giesebrecht and others, however, support the derivation of goliard from gailliard, a See also:gay See also:fellow, leaving " Golias " as the imaginary " See also:patron " of their fraternity. Spiegel has ingeniously disentangled something of a See also:biography of an archipoeta who flourished mainly in See also:Burgundy and at See also:Salzburg from 116o to beyond the See also:middle of the 13th See also:century; but the See also:proof of the reality of this individual is not convincing. It is doubtful, too, if the jocular references to the rules of the "gild" of goliards should be taken too seriously, though their aping of the " orders " of the See also:church, especially their contrasting them with the mendicants, was too bold for church synods. Their satires were almost uniformly directed against the church, attacking even the See also:pope. In 1227 the See also:council of Troves forbade priests to permit the goliards to take See also:part in chanting the service. In 1229 they played a conspicuous part in the disturbances at the university of See also:Paris, in connexion with the intrigues of the papal See also:legate. During the century which followed they formed a subject for the deliberations of several church See also:councils, notably in 1289 when it was ordered that " no clerks shall be jongleurs, goliards or buffoons," and in 1300 (at See also:Cologne) when they were forbidden to preach or engage in the See also:indulgence See also:traffic. This legislation was only effective when the " privileges of See also:clergy " were withdrawn from the goliards.

Those historians who regard the middle ages as completely dominated by ascetic ideals, regard the goliard See also:

movement as a protest against the spirit of the See also:time. But it is rather indicative of the wide diversity in temperament among those who crowded to the See also:universities in the 13th century, and who found in the privileges of the clerk some See also:advantage and attraction in the student See also:life. The goliard poems are as truly " medieval " as the monastic life which they despised; they merely See also:voice another See also:section of humanity. Yet their See also:criticism was most keenly pointed, and marks a distinct step in the criticism of abuses in the church. Along with these satires went many poems in praise of See also:wine and riotous living. Aremarkable collection of them, now at See also:Munich, from the monastery at Benedictbeuren in See also:Bavaria, was published by Schmeller (3rd ed., 1895) under the title Carmina Burana. Many of these, which See also:form the See also:main part of See also:song-books of See also:German students to-See also:day, have been delicately translated by See also:John Addington See also:Symonds in a small See also:volume, Wine, See also:Women and Song (1884). As Symonds has said, they form a prelude to the See also:Renaissance. The poems of " Bishop Golias " were later attributed to See also:Walter Mapes, and have been published by See also:Thomas Wright in The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes (See also:London, 1841). The word "goliard " itself outlived these turbulent bands which had given it See also:birth, and passed over into See also:French and See also:English literature of the 14th century in the See also:general meaning of jongleur or See also:minstrel, quite apart from any clerical association. It is thus used in Piers Plowman, where, however, the goliard still rhymes in Latin, and in See also:Chaucer. See, besides the See also:works quoted above, M.

Haezner, Goliardendichtung and See also:

die See also:Satire See also:im 13ten Jahrhundert in England (See also:Leipzig, 1905) ; Spiegel, Die Vaganten and ihr " Orden" (See also:Spires, 1892) ; Hubatsch, Die lateinischen Vagantenlieder See also:des Mittelalters (See also:Gorlitz, 187o) ; and the See also:article in La grande Encyclopedie. All of these have See also:bibliographical apparatus. (J. T.

End of Article: GOLIARD

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