Definition of "Goliard"

The Goliard, indeed, can be regarded as a sub-species of the jongleur, and evidence exists that the personnel of the two classes was to some extent interchangeable. […] The anonymous Goliard known as the Archpoet(118) was of higher social standing than most of his confreres and, as a poet, one of the greatest of his class.

1951, F. Brittain, The Mediaeval Latin and Romance Lyric to A.D. 1300, 2nd Edition, Reprinted 2009, page 16

A few lucky Goliards gained a more secure life by being adopted by some rich patron, just as the Archpoet, the most famous Goliard, had himself been taken up by the Archbishop of Cologne. Most Goliards roved from town to town, begging food and lodging, earning some coins by pleasing their audience with their songs.

1996, Judith Lynn Sebesta (editor and translator), Jeffrey M. Duban (translator), Carl Orff: Carmina Burana: Cantiones Profange, page 5

Well-known texts such as those of the Roman Catholic Mass and certain Latin hymns were all warped to encompass the secular and satirical purposes of the Goliards. In the hands of the Goliards strict Latin verse fell into a more natural stress-based prosody that better expressed the bawdy themes of drinking, fighting, and love that populated their writing in equal measure.

2008, G. A. R. Hamilton, editor, Introductory: The Ingoldsby Legends and Emopire: The Ingoldsby Legends, page xiii