_Electe Coloniæ, parce pœnitenti,_ "O elect of Cologne, spare me penitent." From a comparison of what remains of this poetry in manuscripts written in different countries, it appears probable that the names Golias and goliard originated in the university of Paris, but were more especially popular in England, while the term _archipoeta_ was more commonly used in Germany. In 1841 I collected all the goliardic poetry which I could then find in English manuscripts, and edited it, under the name of Walter Mapes, as one of the publications of the Camden Society.[48] At a rather later date I gave a chapter of additional matter of the same description in my "Anecdota Literaria."[49] All the poems I have printed in these two volumes are found in manuscripts written in England, and some of them are certainly the compositions of English writers. They are distinguished by remarkable facility and ease in versification and rhyme, and by great pungency of satire. The latter is directed especially against the clerical order, and none are spared, from the pope at the summit of the scale down to the lowest of the clergy. In the "Apocalypsis Goliæ," or Golias's Revelations, which appears to have been the most popular of all these poems,[50] the poet describes himself as carried up in a vision to heaven, where the vices and disorders of the various classes of the popish clergy are successively revealed to him. The pope is a devouring lion; in his eagerness for pounds, he pawns books; at the sight of a mark of money, he treats Mark the Evangelist with disdain; while he sails aloft, money alone is his anchoring-place. The original lines will serve as a specimen of the style of these curious compositions, and of the love of punning which was so characteristic of the literature of that age:-- _Est leo pontifex summus, qui devorat, Qui libras sitiens, libros impignorat; Marcam respiciet, Marcum dedecorat; In summis navigans, in nummis anchorat._ [48] The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, collected and edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 4to., London, 1841. [49] "Anecdota Literaria; a Collection of Short Poems in English, Latin, and French, illustrative of the Literature and History of England in the Thirteenth Century." Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo., London, 1844. [50] In my edition I have collated no less than sixteen copies which occur among the MSS. in the British Museum, and in the libraries at Oxford and Cambridge, and there are, no doubt, many more.