tudents' Order, the Archpoet of these
lettered minstrels. The rare excellence of the compositions ascribed
to him caused them to be spread abroad, multiplied, and imitated in
such fashion that it is now impossible to feel any certainty about the
personality which underlay these titles.

Though we seem frequently upon the point of touching the real man, he
constantly eludes our grasp. Who he was, whether he was one or many,
remains a mystery. Whether the poems which bear one or other of his
changing titles were really the work of a single writer, is also a
matter for fruitless conjecture. We may take it for granted that he
was not Walter Map; for Map was not a Canon of Cologne, not a follower
of Reinald von Dassel, not a mark for the severe scorn of Giraldus.
Similar reasoning renders it more than improbable that the Golias of
Giraldus, the Primas of Salimbene, and the petitioner to Reinald
should have been Walter of Lille.[48]

At the same time it is singular that the name of Walter should twice
occur in Goliardic poems of a good period. One of these is the famous
and beautiful lament:--

"Versa est in luctum--eithara Waltheri."

This exists in the MS. of the _Carmina Burana_, but not in the Paris
MS. of Walter's poems edited by Mueldner.

It contains allusions to the poet's ejection from his place in the
Church--a misfortune which actually befell Walter of Lille. Grimm has
printed another poem, _Saepe de miseria,_ in which the name of Walter
occurs.[49] It is introduced thus:

"Hoc Gualtherus sub-prior
Jubet in decretis."

Are we to infer from the designation _Sub-prior_ that the Walter of
this poem held a post in the Order inferior to that of the Primas?

It is of importance in this connection to bear in mind that five of
the poems attributed in English MSS. to Golias and Walter Map, namely,
_Missus sum in vineam_, _Multiformis hominum_, _Fallax est et
mobilis_, _A tauro torrida_, _Heliconis rivulo_, _Tanto viro
locuturi_, among which is the famous Apocalypse ascribed by Salimbene
to Primas, are given to Walter of Lille in the Paris MS. edited by
Mueldner.[50] They are distinguished by a marked unity of style; and
what is also significant, a lyric in this Paris MS., _Dum Gualterus
aegrotaret_, introduces the poet's name in the same way as the _Versa
est in luctum_ of the _Carmina Burana_. Therefore, without identifying
Walter of Lille with the Primas, Archipoeta, and Golias, we must allow
that