Goliard

The goliards were a group of clergy who wrote bibulous, satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries. They were mainly clerics at or from the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England who protested the growing contradictions within the church through song, poetry and performance, often within a structured carnivalesque setting such as the Feast of Fools.

Etymology

The derivation of the word is uncertain. It may simply come from the Latin gula, gluttony. It may also originate from a mythical "Bishop Golias", a medieval Latin form of the name Goliath, the giant who fought King David in the Bible - thus suggestive of the monstrous nature of the goliard - or from gailliard, a "gay fellow". Many scholars believe it goes back to a letter between St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Innocent II, in which he referred to Pierre Abélard as Goliath, thus creating a connection between Goliath and the student adherents of Abélard. By the 14th century, the word goliard became synonymous with minstrel, no longer referring to this group of clergy