The Church of Drunkards: Tavern in Goliardic Poetry

Abstract

Goliardic poetry is an extraordinary phenomenon of medieval literature. These texts were treated in many different ways, i. e. as a historical source of social and class relationships of medieval society, or as a part of the church, university, or marginal culture history. However, few scholars are inclined to perceive them as literature. This work is focused on the section of drinking and gambling songs from Carmina Burana, most famous goliardic manuscript. It traces a common trend in the descriptions of the tavern and its inhabitants to outline some specific system applicable for those descriptions. Goliardic songs are analyzed not only in connection with each other, but also in the context of official church literature and Holy Scripture. The study revealed that the tavern in goliardic poems is presented both as a parodic analogue of the Church and as its opposite: almost every phenomenon of church life in goliardic texts is rethought and replaced by a parody doublet (prayers — toasts, Bacchus — Christ, liturgical wine — profane wine). The results of this work is applicable to better understanding of the medieval people’s mentality and reconstruction of daily life in Western Europe of the Middle Ages.