Note 251 — Chapter III · THE MINSTREL LIFE
Reading edition
Hubatsch, 15. The origin, precise meaning, and mutual relations of the terms Golias, goliardi are uncertain. Probably the goliardic literature arose in France, rather than in England with Walter Mapes, the attribution to whom of many of the poems is perhaps due to a confusion of G[olias] with G[ualterus] in the MSS. Giraldus Cambrensis (ob. 1217), Speculum Ecclesiae, says ‘Parasitus quidam Golias nomine nostris diebus gulositate pariter et leccacitate famosissimus ... in papam et curiam Romanam carmina famosa ... evomuit’: but the following note points to a much earlier origin for Golias and his pueri, and this is upheld by W. Scherer, Gesch. d. deutsch. Dichtung im 11. und 12. Jahrh. 16.