Followers of "Golias". Wandering students and clerks, in Europe, during the 12th and 13th centuries, who demanded hospitality in monasteries and castles, and paid with songs, jugglery, and buffoonery. Proud of their scholarly achievements, they used a vulgar Latin in their compositions; thus producing a special literature or Goliardic poetry which in outward form resembled ecclesiastical sequences. Two collections exist: the Carmina Burana from the monastery of Benedictbeuren, and another among the so-called Harleian manuscripts, both containing songs on wine, women, nature, pious hymns of enthusiasm for the Crusades, or coarse lampoons on the clergy. Later they allied themselves with strolling players and were subject to the censure of synods and councils. Their influence on German poetry was stimulating and permanent. Among the songs attributed to them, and still popular, are "Gaudeamus Igitur" and "Lauriger Horatius."
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