Archpoet


The Archpoet, or Archipoeta, is the name given to an anonymous 12th-century author of ten medieval Latin poems, the most famous being his "Confession" found in the Carmina Burana manuscript. Along with Hugh Primas of Orléans, he is cited as the best exemplar of Goliardic poetry and one of the stellar poets of the Latin Middle Ages.
Knowledge about him comes essentially from his poems found in manuscripts: his noble birth in an unspecified region of Western Europe, his respectable and classical education, his association with Archchancellor Rainald of Dassel's court, and his poetic activity linked to it in both content and purpose. As such, it has been speculated that the, extravagant personality emanating from his work could be only serving as a despite its apparent autobiographical trend.

Biography

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. While some recent—and so far inconclusive—attempts have been made to identify the Archpoet as either one of two Rodulfuses 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 and others that his nickname could be a play on his patron Rainald of Dassel's title of Archchancellor, 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; or as an ironical mock self-attribution. There has been report of at least two other "clericus vagus", itinerant clerics, bearing the "Archipoeta" pseudonym or title around that time: one Nicholas who briefly resided with the Cistercians at their abbey, and Henry of Avranches ; yet both are distinct from the "Archipoeta" of Barbarossa's reigning period.

Conjectured life

The Archpoet's living circumstances have been surmised from the indicative content of his poems but mostly from the life of Rainald of Dassel. Because he designates Rainald as Archbishop of Cologne, it shows that he must have been alive and active for at least some time between 1159 and 1167 ; 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 over a career in the military like his birth permitted and disposed him to. 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—possibly as a "Ars dictaminis", a "master of the art of writing letters"—at the court of Rainald of Dassel, the bishop elector of Cologne and Archchancellor to Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor, about which he wrote, according to Ernst Robert Curtius, "he most brilliant stanzas" among the many written about and/or for him during the 35 years 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. 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 Goliard tradition—writing student drinking songs, parodies critical 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 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 embraced by many scholars. Summarizing Dronke's view by using English writer Geoffrey Chaucer as an example of differentiation between actual self and poetic 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." Dronke further argued that the Archpoet could well have been Hugh Primas's student in Orléans, getting acquainted through him with various rare Classical poets and also with his personal style.

Works

Overview

The Archpoet is known to us today through ten Latin poems or carmina found in various manuscripts dating back to the 12th and 13th centuries. Listed here are the poems, identified, as is customary, by their incipit:
The works of the Archpoet have been found and preserved in the following manuscripts, among others:
The Carmina Burana thus contains the 25-stanza "Estuans intrinsecus" under the reference number CB 191 as well as 4 stanzas from "Archicancellarie, vir discrete mentis" under CB 220, starting with "Sepe de miseria" in the collection.

Presentation

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 respond to a request; in the Archpoet's case, concerning the court of his patron: eight of them are directed to Rainald of Dassel, while the two others are addressed to Frederick Barbarossa himself. 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 within one week an epic recounting the Emperor's campaign in Italy.
The Archpoet's poems are known for appearing "intensely personal": he features in almost all of them, and deals in an outspoken manner with intimate subjects such as his material and spiritual condition, his flawed and sinful nature, his wishes and aspirations. Many of his poems, whether panegyric or not, amount to very elaborate pleas to obtain food, drink, clothing, and money from his powerful patron. Yet far from falling into mere lyricism or honest confidence, they are often undermined by subtle sarcasm and disguised, fitting with the persona the Archpoet seems to have created for himself as a free-spirited, vagabond hedonist, unrepentant in his propensity to overindulge and unblushing in the judgment of his self-worth. Aside from their recognized 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"

Described as "the prototype of the goliardic songs" as well as "the masterpiece of the school", the best known poem of the Archpoet is his tenth, "Estuans intrinsecus", commonly called the Goliardic "Confession", a 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 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:
Latin originalEnglish literal translationEnglish metrical translation

Meum est propositum in taberna mori,
ut sint vina proxima morientis ori.
tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:
"Sit Deus propitius huic potatori."

My purpose is to die in a tavern,
so that wine might be close to my dying mouth.
Then a choir of angels will happily sing,
"May God be merciful toward this drinker."

I am resolved to die in a tavern,
so wine will be close to my dying mouth.
Will sing gaily the angels' choir then:
"May God be merciful to this drunkard."

The parodic and satirical effect is mainly produced by the replacement of peccatori by potatori, a reference to the Scripture: "Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori." The poem relies heavily on ambiguity for its overall effect: on one hand, the narrator poses as a penitent dissolute, while on the other he is not being apologetic at all.
The "Confession" was very famous in the Archpoet's time: compared to his other poems, which are mostly found in only one manuscript, "Estuans intrinsecus" has been copied in more than thirty, and it almost single-handedly accounts for his enduring appeal as the writer of one of the most popular medieval Latin poems.

Interpretation and appraisal

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