Wine, Women, and Song | Page 6

curiosity or love of knowledge, for the bettering of trade in handicrafts or for self-improvement in the sciences, has only of late years been estimated at a just calculation. "The scholars," wrote a monk of Froidmont in the twelfth century, "are wont to roam around the world and visit all its cities, till much learning makes them mad; for in Paris they seek liberal arts, in Orleans authors, at Salerno gallipots, at Toledo demons, and in no place decent manners."
These pilgrims to the shrines of knowledge formed a class apart. They were distinguished from the secular and religious clergy, inasmuch as they had taken no orders, or only minor orders, held no benefice or cure, and had entered into no conventual community. They were still more sharply distinguished from the laity, whom they scorned as brutes, and with whom they seem to have lived on terms of mutual hostility. One of these vagabond gownsmen would scarcely condescend to drink with a townsman:[6]--
"In aeterno igni?Cruciantur rustici, qui non sunt tam digni?Quod bibisse noverint bonum vinum vini."
"Aestimetur laicus ut brutus,?Nam ad artem surdus est et mutus."
"Litteratos convocat decus virginale,?Laicorum execrat pectus bestiale."
In a parody of the Mass, which is called Officium Lusorum, and in which the prayers are offered to Bacchus, we find this devout collect:[7]--"Omnipotens sempiterne deus, qui inter rusticos et clericos magnam discordiam seminasti, praesta quaesumus de laboribus eorum vivere, de mulieribus ipsorum vero et de morte deciorum semper gaudere."
The English version of this ribald prayer is even more explicit. It runs thus:--"Deus qui multitudinem rusticorum ad servitium clericorum venire fecisti et militum et inter nos et ipsos discordiam seminasti."
It is open to doubt whether the milites or soldiers were included with the rustics in that laity, for which the students felt so bitter a contempt. But the tenor of some poems on love, especially the Dispute of Phyllis and Flora, shows that the student claimed a certain superiority over the soldier. This antagonism between clerk and rustic was heartily reciprocated. In a song on taverns the student is warned that he may meet with rough treatment from the?clodhopper:[8]--
"O clerici dilecti,?Discite vitare?Tabernam horribilem,?Qui cupitis regnare;?Nec audeant vos rustici?Plagis verberare!
"Rusticus dum se?Sentit ebriatum,?Clericum non reputat?Militem armatum.?Vere plane consulo?Ut abstineatis,?Nec unquam cum rusticis?Tabernam ineatis."
The affinities of the Wandering Students were rather with the Church than with laymen of any degree. They piqued themselves upon their title of Clerici_, and added the epithet of _Vagi. We shall see in the sequel that they stood in a peculiar relation of dependence upon ecclesiastical society.
According to tendencies prevalent in the Middle Ages, they became a sort of guild, and proclaimed themselves with pride an Order. Nothing is more clearly marked in their poetry than the esprit de corps, which animates them with a cordial sense of brotherhood.[9] The same tendencies which prompted their association required that they should have a patron saint. But as the confraternity was anything but religious, this saint, or rather this eponymous hero, had to be a Rabelaisian character. He was called Golias, and his flock received the generic name of Goliardi. Golias was father and master; the Goliardi were his family, his sons, and pupils. Familia Goliae, 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 Proven?al 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 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 mani��res 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