These vagabond clerks made for themselves an imaginary chieftain, or president of their order, to whom they gave the name of Golias, probably as a pun on the name of the giant who combated against David, and, to show further their defiance of the existing church government, they made him a bishop—Golias episcopus. Bishop Golias was the burlesque representative of the clerical order, the general satirist, the reformer of eclesiastical and all other corruptions. If he was not a doctor of divinity, he was a master of arts, for he is spoken of as Magister Golias. But above all he was the father of the Goliards, the “ribald clerks,” as they are called, who all belonged to his household,[46] and they are spoken of as his children.
Summa salus omnium, filius Mariæ,
Pascat, potat, vestiat pueros Golyæ![47]
“May the Saviour of all, the Son of Mary, give food, drink, and clothes to the children of Golias!” Still the name was clothed in so much mystery, that Giraldus Cambrensis, who flourished towards the latter end of the twelfth century, believed Golias to be a real personage, and his contemporary. It may be added that Golias not only boasts of the dignity of bishop, but he appears sometimes under the title of archipoeta, the archpoet or poet-in-chief.
Cæsarius of Heisterbach, who completed his book of the miracles of his time in the year 1222, tells us a curious anecdote of the character of the wandering clerk. In the year before he wrote, he tells us, “It happened at Bonn, in the diocese of Cologne, that a certain wandering clerk, named Nicholas, of the class they call archpoet, was grievously ill, and when he supposed that he was dying, he obtained from our abbot, through his own pleading, and the intercession of the canons of the same church, admission into the order. What more? He put on the tunic, as it appeared to us, with much contrition, but, when the danger was past, he took it off immediately, and, throwing it down with derision, took to flight.” We learn best the character of the goliards from their own poetry, a considerable quantity of which is preserved. They wandered about from mansion to mansion, probably from monastery to monastery, just like the jougleurs, but they seem to have been especially welcome at the tables of the prelates of the church, and, like the jougleurs, besides being well feasted, they received gifts of clothing and other articles. In few instances only were they otherwise than welcome, as described in the rhyming epigram printed in my “Latin Poems attributed to Walter Mapes.” “I come uninvited,” says the goliard to the bishop, “ready for dinner; such is my fate, never to dine invited.” The bishop replies, “I care not for vagabonds, who wander among the fields, and cottages, and villages; such guests are not for my table. I do not invite you, for I avoid such as you; yet without my will you may eat the bread you ask. Wash, wipe, sit, dine, drink, wipe, and depart.”
Goliardus.
Non invitatus venio prandere paratus;
Sic sum fatatus, nunquam prandere vocatus.
Episcopus.
Non ego curo vagos, qui rura, mapalia, pagos