古老的《布兰诗歌》

古老的《布兰诗歌》

　　Carmina Burana is Latin for "Songs of Beuern", the Benedictine monastery in Bavaria where the original manuscript was discovered in 1803. Its poems and dramas date mainly from the 12th century with a little leeway either side. And a Latin title is appropriate, because the majority of the lyrics are in Latin which was the public and literary language of educated men in the Middle Ages. Some are in old German and a few in French or Provencal with a number of the saucier poems in that mixture of tongues now called macaronic.

　　The manuscript may have been preserved in Bavaria, but the individual poems come from all over Europe it seems. Who wrote them? Mainly itinerant students and monks with a taste for satirising the church, although there're a few named poets dotted about like Peter of Blois, Walter of Chtillon and the anonymous writer referred to as the Archpoet who may or may not have been a member of the unofficial brotherhood of wandering scholars or goliards. And if this song is anything to go by, the goliards debated major issues as they wandered. Right and wrong almost keep in step, and a virtuous man must always consider the merits of compromise.