WINE, WOMEN, AND SONG. - The Language Realm

Magister Golias, Pueri Goliae, Discipulus Goliae, are phrases to be culled from the rubrics of
their literature.
Much has been conjectured regarding these names and titles. Was Golias a real person? Did he
give his own name to the Goliardi; or was he invented after the Goliardi had already acquired
their designation? In either case, ought we to connect both words with the Latin gula, and so
regard the Goliardi as notable gluttons; or with the Provençal goliar, gualiar, gualiardor, which
carry a significance of deceit? Had Golias anything to do with Goliath of the Bible, the great
Philistine, who in the present day would more properly be chosen as the hero of those classes
which the students held in horror?
It is not easy to answer these questions. All we know for certain is, that the term Goliardus was
in common medieval use, and was employed as a synonym for [21]Wandering Scholar in
ecclesiastical documents. Vagi scholares aut Goliardi—joculatores, goliardi seu bufones—
goliardia vel histrionatus—vagi scholares qui goliardi vel histriones alio nomine appellantur—
clerici ribaudi, maxime qui dicuntur de familia Goliae: so run the acts of several Church
Councils.[10] The word passed into modern languages. The Grandes Chroniques de S. Denis
speak of jugleor, enchanteor, goliardois, et autres manières de menestrieux. Chaucer, in his
description of the Miller, calls this merry narrator of fabliaux a jangler and a goliardeis. In Piers
Ploughman the goliardeis is further explained to be a glutton of words, and talks in Latin
rhyme.[11]
Giraldus Cambrensis, during whose lifetime the name Golias first came into vogue, thought that
this father of the Goliardic family was a real person.[12] He writes of him thus:—"A certain
parasite called Golias, who in our time obtained wide notoriety for his gluttony and lechery, and
by addiction to gulosity and debauchery deserved his surname, being of excellent culture but of
bad manners, and of no moral discipline, uttered oftentimes and in many forms, both of rhythm
and metre, infamous libels against the Pope and Curia of Rome, with no less impudence than
imprudence." This is perhaps the most outspoken utterance with regard to the eponymous hero of
the Goliardic class which we possess, and it deserves a close inspection.
In the first place, Giraldus attributes the satiric poems [22]which passed under the name of
Golias to a single author famous in his days, and says of this poet that he used both modern
rhythms and classical metres. The description would apply to Gualtherus de Insula, Walter of
Lille, or, as he is also called, Walter of Chatillon; for some of this Walter's satires are composed
in a curious mixture of the rhyming measures of the medieval hymns with classical
hexameters.[13] Yet had Giraldus been pointing at Walter of Lille, a notable personage in his
times, there is no good reason to suppose that he would have suppressed his real name, or have
taken for granted that Golias was a bona fide surname. On the theory that he knew Golias to be a
mere nickname, and was aware that Walter of Lille was the actual satirist, we should have to
explain his paragraph by the hypothesis that he chose to sneer at him under his nom de guerre
instead of stigmatising him openly in person.
His remarks, at any rate, go far toward disposing of the old belief that the Goliardic satires were
the work of Thomas Mapes. Giraldus was an intimate friend of that worthy, who deserves well of