Identity and nickname

His existence has been elaborated upon the authorial superscription "Archipoeta" appearing with the poems now ascribed to him in a small number of manuscripts as well as the consistencies in usage and style among certain of the otherwise anonymous poems in the Carmina Burana collection. While some recent—and so far inconclusive—attempts have been made to identify the Archpoet as either one of two Rodulfus from the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa's entourage, his real identity has never been found and is most likely lost for good.

It has been suggested by W. H. T. Jackson that his nickname could be an play on Rainald's title of Archancellor (Archicancellarius in Latin), even if its exact origins are ultimately left open to speculation. Moreover, it is not known how he came to earn the nickname or who bestowed it to him: whether as a mark of esteem from the audiences, other poets, Rainald himself; as a satirical jest on his patron's title; as an ironical mock self-attribution; etc.. There has been report of two clerics as bearers of the "Archipoeta" pseudonym around that time: one Nicolaus in Bonn around 1219, and Henry of Avranches around 1230, yet both clearly distinct from the "Archipoeta" of Barbarossa's reigning period (1155—1190).

Conjectured life

The Archpoet's living circumstances has been surmised from the indicative content of his poems and, mostly, the life of his patron, Rainald of Dassel. Because he designates Rainald of Dassel as Archbishop of Cologne, it shows that he must have been alive and active for at least some time between 1159, when Rainald became archbishop, and 1167, when he died; furthermore, all of his datable poems fall within 1162 and 1164. With the passing of his patron in 1167, no more is heard from the Archpoet. Also, in poem X, Peter Dronke writes, "he counts himself among the iuvenes: while technically a iuvinis can be any age between twenty-one and fifty, it would seem plausible to imagine the Archpoet as thirty or thirty-five at the time of this composition, and to set his birth not too far from 1130."

Several indications concur as to establish that the Archpoet came from a place north of the Alps, although no solid claim can be made as to which country, even though Germany has repeatedly and traditionally being taken as his birthplace. He refers to himself as "ortus a militibus", of knightly birth, and, coming from such a high class, was most certainly well-educated in the liberal arts, theology and the classics. In poem IV, he states that he chose the pursuit of poetry (as symbolized by the Roman poet Virgil) over a career in the military (as symbolized by the Trojan warrior Paris) like his birth allowed him. It has been deduced from the same poem that he first traveled to Salerno in order to pursue medical studies but that due to ill health, he had to abandon this project.

It was probably then that he began working in the court of Rainald of Dassel, the bishop elector of Cologne and Archchancellor to Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor, on which he wrote, according to Ernst Robert Curtius, "[t]he most brilliant stanzas" among the many written about and/or for him during the period of his reign. His references to Salerno, Vienna, and Cologne in his poems, as well as several details gleaned from the Archchancellor's court displacements, suggest that he did travel around northern Italy, Provence, Burgundy, Austria and Germany during his life. It is known that the Archpoet lived for some time—possibly the last years of his life—at the monastery of St. Martin in Cologne, which could explain why he is sometimes referred to as the "Archpoet of Cologne". As is the case with many medieval and/or anonymous authors, very little else can be said with certainty about his life.

Modern critical reassessment

While it is still commonly assumed that the Archpoet was a follower of the Goliardic tradition, writing student drinking songs, critical parodies of the Church and satires on the life of itinerant clergy in the Middle Ages, the noted scholar Peter Dronke proposed a very different portrait in his 1968 book The Medieval Lyric:

This admittedly "un-Romantic" view of the Archpoet and his milieu, severely contrasting with that of the previous generations of researchers and writers such as J. A. Symonds and Helen Waddell, created a break in modern High Middle Ages scholarship about the Goliards and, in spite of not creating consensus within the academic community, has since been approved and picked up by many scholars. Summarizing Dronke's view by using English writer Geoffrey Chaucer as an example of differentiation between actual (historical) self and poetic (fictional) persona, Jan Ziolkowski wrote that the Archpoet's shenanigans "may be little more than a stance struck by the poet to entertain his audience; the persona could be as far from the reality as that of Chaucer the character was from Chaucer the poet or man." Also, Dronke further stipulated that the Archpoet could very well have been Hugh Primas's student in Orléans, getting acquainted through him with various rare Classical poets and also with his personal style (themes and techniques).

The Archpoet is known to us today through ten Latin poems or carmina (plural form of carmen, Latin equivalent of "song" or "chant") found in various manuscripts dating back from the 12th century. These are the poems, identified, as is customary, by their incipit:

• I: Lingua balbus, hebes ingenio
• II: Fama tuba dante sonum
• III: Omnia tempus habent
• IV: Archicancellarie, vir discrete mentis
• V: Nocte quadam sabbati somno iam refectus

• VI: En habeo versus te precipiente reversus
• VII: Archicancellarie, viris maior ceteris
• VIII: Presul urbis Agripine
• IX: Salve, mundi domine, Cesar noster, ave!
• X: Estuans intrinsecus ira vehementi ("Confession")

The Carmina Burana contains the 25-stanza "Estuans intrinsecus" (X) under the reference number CB 191 as well 4 stanzas from "Archicancellarie, vir discrete mentis" (IV) under CB 220, starting with "Sepe de miseria" in the collection.

Despite being quite dissimilar from one another in terms of tone and intent, the ten poems are all "occasional" in the sense that they have been written for a specific purpose under precise circumstances, whether to celebrate an event or to respond to a request—in the Archpoet's case, concerning the court of his patron: eight of them are directed to Rainald of Dussel, while the two others are addressed to Frederick Barbarossa. For example, the fourth poem, "Archicancellarie, vir discrete mentis", was most probably written as a plaintive answer to what he felt was the unreasonable demand from Rainald that he write an epic recounting the Emperor's campaign in Italy within one week.

The Archpoet's poems are known for being intensely personal: he features in almost all of them and deals in an outspoken manner with intimate subjects such as his material (e.g. poverty, wandering) and spiritual (e.g. distress, anger, love) condition, his flawed and sinful nature, his wishes. Many of his poems, panegyric in nature or not, amount to very elaborate pleas to obtain food, drink, clothing and money from his powerful patron, but far from falling into mere lyricism or honest confidence, they are often undermined by subtle sarcasm and disguised mockery, quite fitting with the persona the Archpoet seems to have created for himself as a free-spirited, vagabond epicurean, unrepentant in his propensity to overindulge and unblushing in the judgment of his self-worth. Aside from their technical merits, the poems are imbued with a strong and pervading sense of humor manifested in the consummate use and manipulation of classical and biblical sources for parodic, sarcastic and ironic purposes.

"Confession"

The best known poem of the Archpoet is his tenth, "Estuans intrinsecus", but commonly called the Goliardic "Confession" (sometimes "Confessio", "Confessio Goliae" or "Confession of Golias"), a Latin metrical composition of ironical tone wherein he confesses his love of women, gambling, and drinking. It is purported to have been written in Pavia around the year 1163 for his patron, Rainald of Dussel, as a confession and defense of his sins after a rival of the Archpoet witnessed and subsequently reported his reprobate behavior. For example, the oft-cited twelfth stanza goes:The parodic and satirical effect is mainly produced by the replacement of peccatori (sinner) by potatori (drunkard), a reference to the Scripture: "Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori." (Luke 18:13) The poem relies heavily on ambiguity for its overall effect: on one hand, he poses as a penitent dissolute, while on the other, in fact, he isn't being apologetic at all.

The "Confession" was very famous in the Archpoet's time: compared to his other poems, found mostly in only one manuscript, "Estuans intrinsecus" has been copied in more than thirty and almost single-handedly accounts for the Archpoet's enduring appeal to this day as one of the most popular medieval Latin poem.

In her influential study The Wandering Scholars of the Middle Ages, Helen Waddell laudingly writes of the poem, stating that:

Primary sources

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Secondary sources

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Manuscripts

The works of the Archpoet have been found and preserved in the following manuscripts:

• Univ. Bibl. Göttingen Codex philol. 170 (12th century): I-VII; first stanza of VIII.
• Brussels Bibliothèque Royale 2071 (13th century): IX and X; stanzas 1-5 of VII.
• Codex Buranus: München Bayer. Staatsbibl. Clm 4660/4660a (13th century): X; four stanzas of IV.