The Undeservedly Obscure Dead

Today on The Undeservedly Obscure Dead: The Archpoet. The Archpoet is the anonymous author of ten medieval Latin poems in the Goliardic tradition. The Archpoet worked for Rainald the Archbishop of Cologne. (Hence, the clever pseudonym). He was a cleric of some kind and composed boastful, irreverant verse in the 12th century. His lines are found in the Carmina Burana codex (the source of Carl Orff's opera). In an era we often associate with dour conformism, the Archpoet and a number of his fellow clerics were satirizing Church hypocrisy and proclaiming their love of the carnal pleasures of creation as well as the spiritual pleasures of contemplation. Whether this is because the Archpoet was very contrary and subversive or whether this is because out popular interpretations of medieval Europe are blinkered is left as an exercise for the reader.
A sample from the Goliardic confession of the Archpoet:

Meum est propositum in taberna mori,

Ut sint vina proxima morientis ori.

Tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:

"Deus sit propitius huic potatori."

I mean to die in a tavern

So that wine will be close by my dying mouth.

Then the choirs of angels will sing more happily,

"May God have mercy on this drunkard."

May he have mercy indeed, Archpoet, and for your lively and wine-soaked sentiments, we salute you.