_goliardeys_, a ribald jester, one who gained his living by following rich
men's tables, and telling tales and making sport for the guests. Tyrwhitt
says, 'This jovial sect seems to have been so called from _Golias_, the
real or assumed name of a man of wit, towards the end of the twelfth
century, who wrote the Apocalypsis Goliæ, and other pieces in burlesque
Latin rhymes, some which have been falsely [?] attributed to Walter Map.'
But it would appear that _Golias_ is the sole invention of Walter Map, the
probable author of the 'Golias' poems. See Morley's Eng. Writers, 1888,
iii. 167, where we read that the Apocalypse of Golias and the confession of
Golias 'have by constant tradition been ascribed to him [Walter Map]; never
to any other writer.' Golias is a medieval spelling of the Goliath of
scripture, and occurs in Chaucer, Man of Lawes Tale, B. 934. In several
authors of the thirteenth century, quoted by Du Cange, the _goliardi_ are
classed with the _joculatores et buffones_, and it is very likely that the
word _goliardus_ was, originally, quite independent of _Golias_, which was
only connected with it by way of jest. The word _goliardus_ seems rather to
have meant, originally, 'glutton,' and to be connected with _gula_, the
throat; but it was quite a common term, in the thirteenth century, for
certain men of some education but of bad repute, who composed or recited
satirical [49] parodies and coarse verses and epigrams for the amusement of
the rich. See T. Wright's Introduction to the poems of Walter Map (Camden
Soc.); P. Plowman, ed. Skeat, note to B. prol. 139; Wright's History of
Caricature, ch. X; and the account in Godefroy's O. French Dict., s. v.
_Goliard_.