Goliard

Etymology

The origin of the word is dubious. It could simply come from Latin gula , gloutonnery. The goliards claimed it resulting from a mythical bishop " Golias" , medieval Latin form of Goliath, the giant who fought the King David in the Bible, to put forward their position of cultivated students and heavy drinkers by parodying the political authorities and ecclesiastics. Several specialists think that the expression goes up with a letter of Saint Bernard to Innocent II, in whom it compared Pierre Abélard with Goliath, creating a bond between Goliath and partisans of Abélard. Others still support that the word comes from gailliard , a " merry luron".

Satirical poets

The purpose of the satires were to scoff and parody the Church. To the Rémy Saint for example, Goliards went to the mass, in procession, each one trailing on the ground a herring at the end of a cord, the play being to go on herring of front and to prevent that its own herring is not trampled. In certain areas, one celebrated the festival of the ass, at the time which an ass vêtu of a costume mild nutter was carried out until the chorus of the church where a cantor psalmodiait a song praises some with the ass. When it marked a pause, the public was to answer " Hi Han, Lord Ane, Hi Han". The University of Paris carried felt sorry for:

" Priests and Clerks… dance in the chorus equipped as of the women… they sing light songs. They eat black roll on the furnace bridge itself whereas celebrating it known as the mass. They play dice on the furnace bridge. They encensent with smoke puante coming from soles of old shoes. They run and jump through the church without reddening of their own shame. Lastly, they lead worn carriages and carrioles through the city and its theaters and raise the bursts of laughter their assistants and passers by thanks to their infamous stage performances filled of impudic epic and vulgar and canted words. "

Goliards diverted crowned works, in particular of the texts of the Mass Roman catholic Latin and canticles, transforming them into profane and satirical subjects. The jargon of philosophy Scolastique also frequently appeared in their poems, that is to say with fine satirists, or because these concepts belonged to the vocabulary usually used by the writers of the time. Their satires were almost uniformly directed against the Church, going until attacking the Pape itself. Goliards were a protest movement and marked an undeniable step in the increasing phenomenon of criticism of the abuses the Church, inside even of its own rows.

Goliards had to face the lightnings of the Church. In 1227, the Concile of Trier prohibits to them to take share with the offices. In 1229, Goliards took part in the agitation which shook the University of Paris following the schemes of the papal legate. They were the object of many councils, in particular in 1289, where was issued that " the clerks should be neither of the jugglers, neither of the goliards, nor of the bouffons" ; and in 1300, with the council of Cologne, it was to them interdict to preach or to engage in the trade of indulgences. Goliards were often completely private " privileges of the clergé".

Many Latin poems of the whole of the Carmina Burana belong to this school. The name of Archipoète was given to an anonymous author goliardic. Huon of Orleans, Pierre of Blois, Gautier de Châtillon and Philippe the Chancellor, belong to Goliards whose name reached us.

Influence literary

Goliards had a real influence in the literature. Indeed, they wrote Latin worms according to a more natural Prosodie based on the tonic accents, and contributed to release the Latin poetry of the yoke of the Greek prosody. This literary movement allowed the emergence of the new shape of versification crowned in Latin, like the Dies Irae of Thomas de Celano or the Pange Lingua of Thomas d' Aquin which adopts the poetic Latin forms that Goliards had contributed to develop.

The word " goliard" lost its clerical connotations while passing in the French and English literature of the 14th century with the direction of itinerant juggler or ménestrel. Thus it should be heard in Piers Plowman and at Chaucer.

See too

Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars , 1927

This article is a translation of the English article

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