ian
codex from which Grimm drew some of his texts[42] attributes the
_Dispute of Thetis and Lyaeus_ and the _Advice against Matrimony_,
both of which passed in England under the name of Golias and
afterwards of Walter Map, to _Primas Presbyter_.

With regard to this Primas, it is important to mention that Fra
Salimbene in his Chronicle[43] gives a succinct account of him under
the date 1233. It runs as follows: _Fuit his temporibus Primas
canonicus eoloniensis, magnus trutannus et magnus trufator, et maximus
versificator et velox, qui, si dedisset cor suum ad diligendum Deum,
magnus in litteratura divina fuisset, et utilis valde_ _Ecclesiae
Dei. Cujus Apocalypsim, quam fecerat, vidi, et alia scripta plura_.
After this passage follow some anecdotes, with quotations of verses
extemporised by Primas, and lastly the whole of the Confession,
translated by me at p. 55 above. Thus Salimbene, who was almost a
contemporary author, attributes to Primas two of the most important
poems which passed in England under the name of Golias, while the
Venetian MS. ascribes two others of the same class to Primas
Presbyter. It is also very noteworthy that Salimbene expressly calls
this Primas a Canon of Cologne.

That this poet, whoever he was, had attained to celebrity in Italy (as
well as in Germany) under the title of Primas, appears also from the
following passage of a treatise by Thomas of Capua[44] on the Art of
Writing: _Dictaminum vero tria sunt genera auctoribus diffinita,
prosaicum scilicet, metricum et rithmicum; prosaicum ut Cassiodori,
metricum ut Virgilii, rithmicum ut Primatis_. Boccaccio was in all
probability referring to the same Primas in the tale he told about
_Primasso_,[45] who is described as a man of European reputation, and
a great and rapid versifier. It is curious that just as Giraldus seems
to have accepted _Golias_ as the real name of this poet,[46] so Fra
Salimbene, Thomas of Capua, and Boccaccio appear to use _Primas_ as a
Christian name.

The matter becomes still more complicated when we find, as we do, some
of the same poems attributed in France to Walter of Lille, in England
to Walter Map, and further current under yet another title of dignity,
that of _Archipoeta_.[47]

We can hardly avoid the conclusion that by Golias Episcopus, Primas,
and Archipoeta one and the same person, occupying a prominent post in
the Order, was denoted. He was the head of the Goliardic family, the
Primate of the Wandering S