View source for Goliards

{{Short description|Clerics who performed satirical poetry}}
[[File:CarminaBurana wheel.jpg|right|thumb|An image from the 11th-13th century. ''[[Carmina Burana]]'', [[Benediktbeuern Abbey]], a collection of goliard love and vagabond songs]]The '''goliards''' were a group of generally young [[clergy]] in Europe who wrote [[satire|satirical]] [[Latin]] [[poetry]] in the 12th and 13th centuries of the [[Middle Ages]]. They were chiefly clerics who served at or had studied at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England, who protested against the growing contradictions within the church through song, poetry and performance. Disaffected and not called to the religious life, they often presented such protests within a structured setting associated with carnival, such as the [[Feast of Fools]], or church [[liturgy]].<ref>P. Brown ed., ''A Companion to Chaucer'' (2008), p. 94.<!--Author's name, title of essay in this collection, editor's first name, inclusive page numbers of the contribution, place of publication, name of publisher, ISBN are needed.--></ref>{{Medieval music sidebar}}
==Etymology==
Many scholars believe the term ''goliard'' is derived from a letter between [[Bernard of Clairvaux]] and Pope [[Innocent II]] in which Bernard referred to [[Pierre Abélard]] as Goliath, thus creating a connection between Goliath and the student adherents of Abélard. By the 14th century, the word goliard became synonymous with [[minstrel]], and no longer referred to a particular group of clergy.<ref name=eb-g>"Goliard." ''Encyclopædia Britannica.'' Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 3 Oct. 2014 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/238063/goliard>.</ref>
==Origins of the goliardic tradition==
The goliardic class is believed to have arisen from the need of younger sons to develop means of support. The medieval social convention of [[primogeniture]] meant that the eldest son inherited title and estate.{{sfn|Goodrum|1995|p=9}} This practice of bestowing the rights of inheritance upon the eldest son forced younger sons to seek other means by which to support themselves. Often, these younger sons went, or were sent, to the universities and monasteries of the day, where theology and preparation for clergy careers were a major focus.{{sfn|Goodrum|1995|p=9}} Many felt no particular affinity for religious office,{{sfn|Goodrum|1995|p=9}} and often could not secure an office even if they desired one because of an overabundance of those educated in theology.{{sfn|Zeydel|1966|p=15}} Consequently, over-educated, under-motivated clerics often adopted not the life of an ordered monk, but one mainly intent on the pursuit of carnal pleasures.
==Goliardic poetry==
The goliards, as scholars, often wrote their poetry in Latin.<ref name=eb-gs>"Goliard Songs." ''Encyclopædia Britannica.'' Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 3 Oct. 2014 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1557536/goliard-songs>.</ref> As a kind of traveling entertainer, the goliards composed many of their poems to be sung.{{sfn|Zeydel|1966|p=14}}<ref name=eb-gs/> These poems, or lyrics, focus on two overarching themes: depictions of the lusty lifestyle of the vagrant and satirical criticisms of society and the church.<ref>John Addington Symonds, ''Wine, Women, and Song: Students' Songs of the Middle Ages'' (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002), p.&nbsp;28.</ref>
Expressing their lusty lifestyle, the goliards wrote about the physicality of love, in contrast to the chivalric focus of the [[troubadour]]s.{{sfn|Goodrum|1995|p=10}} They wrote [[drinking song]]s and reveled in riotous living.<ref name=eb-g/> Their satirical poems directed at the church were inspired by their daily worlds, including mounting corruption in monasteries and escalating tensions among religious leaders.{{sfn|Zeydel|1966|p=16}} As a result of their rebellious writings against the church, the goliards were eventually denied the privileges of the clergy.<ref name=eb-g/> Their strained relationship with the church, along with their vagabond lifestyle, also contributed to many poems describing the complaints of such a lifestyle.<ref name=eb-g/> One of the largest and most famous collections of goliardic poetry is the ''[[Carmina Burana]],'' translated as "Songs from Beuern".  It includes about 300 poems written mostly in Latin; "few are in Old French, Provencal and Middle German."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Goliards: Marvelous and Terrible Vagabond Poets {{!}} Faena|url=https://www.faena.com/aleph/goliards-marvelous-and-terrible-vagabond-poets|access-date=2021-01-29|website=www.faena.com|language=en}}</ref>
==Satirical poets==
The satires were meant to mock and lampoon the church. For example, at [[Saint Rémy de Provence|St. Remy]], the goliards went to mass in procession, with each trailing a herring on a string along the ground. The game was to step on the herring in front and keep your own herring from being trod upon. In some districts, goliards staged a [[Feast of the Ass|celebration of the ass]], in which a donkey dressed in a silly costume was led to the [[chancel]] rail where a [[Cantor (church)|cantor]] chanted a song of praise. When he paused, the audience would respond: "He Haw, Sire Ass, He haw!". The University of Paris complained:
<blockquote>Priests and clerks... dance in the choir dressed as women... they sing wanton songs. They eat black pudding at the altar itself, while the celebrant is saying Mass. They play dice on the altar. They cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes.  They run and leap throughout the church, without a blush of their own shame. Finally they drive about the town and its theatres in shabby carriages and carts, and rouse the laughter of their fellows and the bystanders in infamous performances, with indecent gestures and with scurrilous and unchaste words.<ref>{{cite book |author=G. G. Coulton |author-link1=G. G. Coulton |year=1949 |title=Medieval Panorama |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-aRYk3mRD3wC&dq=%22cense+with+stinking+smoke%22&pg=PA607 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=606–607 |isbn=9781108010535 |access-date=25 September 2016 }}</ref></blockquote>
The goliards used sacred sources such as texts from the [[Mass (liturgy)|Roman Catholic Mass]] and Latin [[hymn]]s and played upon them to secular and satirical purposes in their poems (such as in the [[Drinkers Mass]]). The [[jargon]] of [[scholasticism|scholastic]] [[philosophy]] also is frequently featured in their poems, either for satirical purposes, or because these concepts were familiar parts of the writers' working vocabulary. Their satires were almost uniformly directed against the church, attacking even the pope.
==Significance==
The word "goliard" outlived the original meaning. It was absorbed into the French and English literature of the 14th century, generally meaning ''jongleur'' or wandering minstrel, and no longer related to the original clerical association. It is thus used in ''[[Piers Plowman]]'',<ref>{{cite book | last=Rudd | first=Gillian | title=Managing Language in Piers Plowman | publisher=[[Boydell & Brewer]] | series=Piers Plowman studies | year=1994 | isbn=978-0-85991-392-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vvDp-89z9xQC | access-date=2023-02-21 | page=90}}</ref> and by [[Chaucer]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
==Revisionist view==
This belief that the goliards were the authors of vast parts of this satirical and worldly poetry that originated in the twelfth and early thirteenth century has been criticized in recent revisionist work on the grounds that most traceable goliardic poets were an integral part of church hierarchy and often worked as teachers in the secular clergy. It also claims that they had no communality nor a single provable point of contact with the historical goliards. Instead, the revisionist thesis posits that the cathedral schools of northern France were the decisive historical context of goliardic poetry. Thus, it argues that "goliardic poets" on the one hand and "goliards" on the other hand need to be strictly distinguished.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://geb.uni-giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2018/13626/|title=Die mittellateinische Goliardendichtung und ihr historischer Kontext : Komik im Kosmos der Kathedralschulen Nordfrankreichs. (With an English Summary)|last=Weiß|first=Marian|year=2018|pages=197–215, 387–388|access-date=2018-07-16}}</ref> This fringe view runs contrary to the conclusions drawn from established and widely accepted historical and philological research.
== See also ==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=30em|
* [[Apocalypse of Golias]]
* {{lang|la|[[Clerici vagantes]]}}
* {{lang|it|[[Goliardia]]}}
* [[Serlo of Wilton]]
* [[Tuna (music)]]
}}
==Notes==
{{Reflist|25em}}
==References==
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |publisher=University of Michigan Press |last=Bayless |first=Martha |title=Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition |series=Recentiores: Later Latin Texts and Contexts |year=1996 |location=Ann Arbor |isbn=978-0-472-10649-3}}
*{{cite book |last=Gillingham |first=Bryan |title=The Social Background to Secular Medieval Latin Song |year=1998 |series=Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen 60/3 |location=Ottawa |publisher=The Institute of Mediæval Music |isbn=978-1-896926-11-7}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |title=Goliard |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |edition=Online Academic |year=2014 |access-date=October 3, 2014 |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/238063/goliard}}
* {{cite journal |issn=0009-5028 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=9–12 |last=Goodrum |first=R. Gordon |title="Carmina Burana": The Poetry of Wandering Scholars and Wayward Clerics |journal=The Choral Journal |date=September 1995 |jstor=23550442 }}
* {{cite book |last=Weiß |first=Marian |title=Die mittellateinische Goliardendichtung und ihr historischer Kontext : Komik im Kosmos der Kathedralschulen Nordfrankreichs. With an English Summary|location=Gießen |year=2018 |access-date=July 16, 2018 |url=http://geb.uni-giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2018/13626/}}
* {{cite book |publisher=Wayne State University Press |editor-last=Zeydel |editor-first=Edwin H |title=Vagabond Verse: Secular Latin Poems of the Middle Ages |url=https://archive.org/details/vagabondversesec00zeyd |url-access=registration |location=Detroit |date=1966 }}
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Goliard|volume=12|page=224}}
{{Refend}}
==Further reading==
*[[Helen Waddell|Waddell, Helen]], ''[[The Wandering Scholars]]'', 1927.
*[[John Addington Symonds|Symonds, John Addington]], ''Wine, Women, and Song'', 1966 [1884].
{{Middle Ages}}
{{Schools of poetry}}
{{Medieval music}}
{{Carmina Burana}}
{{authority control}}
[[Category:12th-century Christian clergy]]
[[Category:13th-century Christian clergy]]
[[Category:12th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:13th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:12th-century French poets]]
[[Category:13th-century French poets]]
[[Category:Critics of the Catholic Church]]
[[Category:Goliardic poetry| ]]
[[Category:Poetry movements]]