1. In addition to the Paulician and other movements of religious rationalism above noted, the Languedoc region was a centre of semi-popular literary culture, which was to no small extent anti-clerical, and by consequence somewhat anti-religious. The Latin-speaking jongleurs or minstrels, known as Goliards, [1312] possessing as they did a clerical culture, were by their way of life committed to a joyous rather than an ascetic philosophy; and though given to blending the language of devotion with that of the drinking-table, very much after the fashion of Hafiz, they were capable of burlesquing the mass, the creed, hymns to the Virgin, the Lord's Prayer, confessions, and parts of the gospels, as well as of keenly satirizing the endless abuses of the Church. [1313] "One is astonished to meet, in the Middle Ages, in a time always represented as crushed under the yoke of authority, such incredible audacities on the papacy, the episcopacy, chivalry, on the most revered dogmas of religion, such as paradise, hell, etc." [1314] The rhymers escaped simply because there was no police that could catch them. Denounced by some of the stricter clergy, they were protected by others. They were, in fact, the minstrels of the free-living churchmen. [1315] Of this type is Guiot of Provence, a Black Friar, the author of La Bible Guiot, written between 1187 and 1206. He is a lover of good living, a champion of aristocrats, a foe of popular movements, [1316] and withal a little of a buffoon. But it is to be counted to him for righteousness that he thought the wealth devoured by the clergy might be more usefully spent on roads, bridges, and hospitals. [1317] He has also a good word for the old pagans who lived "according to reason"; and as to his own time, he is sharply censorious alike of princes, pope, and prelates. The princes are rascals who "do not believe in God," and depress their nobility; and the breed of the latter has sadly degenerated. The pope is to be prayed for; but he is ill counselled by his cardinals, who conform to the ancient tendency of Rome to everything evil; many of the archbishops and bishops are no better; and the clergy in general are eaten up by greed and simony. [1318] This is in fact the common note. [1319]