tles. 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 Provencal
_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 manieres 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 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, Wal