"Goliard, any of the wandering students and clerics in medieval England, France, and Germany, remembered for their satirical verses and poems in praise of drinking and debauchery. The goliards described themselves as followers of the legendary Bishop Golias: renegade clerics of no fixed abode who had more interest in rioting and gambling than in the life of a responsible citizen. It is difficult to be sure how many of them were in fact social rebels or whether this was merely a guise adopted for literary purposes. Of the identifiable poets, Huoh Primas of Orleans, Pierre de Blois, Gautier de Châtillon, and Phillipe the Chancellor all became important establishment figures and to some extent outgrew their student high spirits. Only the one known as the Archpoet seems to have lived what he preached to the end of his life.
The goliards were noted more as rioters, gamblers, and tipplers than as poets and scholars. Their satires were almost uniformly directed against the church, attacking even the pope. In 1227 the Council of Trier forbade priests to permit goliards to take part in chanting the service. In 1229 they played a conspicuous part in disturbances at the University of Paris in connection with the intrigues of the papal legate; in 1289 it was ordered that no cleric should be a goliard, and in 1300 (at Cologne) they were forbidden to preach or to grant indulgences. Finally the privileges of clergy were withdrawn from the goliards."